The Chrismakwanzikuh Bounty. Or Booty, If You Will

*Things I have received since Monday, the official start of The Season:

3 candy canes
15 Hershey's kisses, assorted flavors
3 blocks of fudge
1 bag homemade chexmix
2 homemade Rice Krispy Treats
1 large santa head w/ gooey caramel center
1 plastic whistle straw with 3-dimensional santa heads on the stem
1 bag "Santa's Coal" gum
1 medium size milk chocolate santa

*Things I have given since Monday, the official start of The Season:

er. yes.

*Hours until my 13-day vacation begins:

1 hour, 55 minutes

*Number, on a scale of one-to-ten, indicating how stoked I am to get in a car with my family in which we will drive what SHOULD TAKE A NORMAL PERSON 2.2 hours but will really take 4.7 hours:

NEGATIVE FIFTY

*Number of things I will do on my vacation besides eating, sleeping and watching pointless television:

zero.

*How I feel about returning to work in 13 days:

apathetic

*How I plan to rectify this:

FIND A NEW JOB DUMBASS

*Number of friends and family members tired of listening to me bitch:

NONE BECAUSE THEY KNOW HOW FUCKING COOL I REALLY AM.

*And just in cased you missed the fact that my THIRTEEN DAY VACATION STARTS IN ONE HOUR AND FIFTY-FIVE MINUTES--- Number, on a scale of one-to-ten indicating how stoked I am to be GOING ON A FUCKING THIRTEEN DAY VACATION:

10+infinity

PEACE OUT.

Oh, and Happy Religious Season Celebrating!

I Almost Considered Performing A Nosectomy

At 12:47 am Sunday morning I was awakened by a scent most foul.

And just in case you're thinking, "Why, Robin, what scent could have been foul enough to wake you from the deepest and most pleasantest of slumbers?" LET ME TELL YOU WHAT THAT SCENT COULD BE.

Cat Shit.

And not just any Cat Shit. FOUL Cat Shit. Cat Shit SO FOUL it'll make you scramble for the gas mask before you even have a second to ponder where the Foul Cat Shit might be hiding.

So I turned on the bedside lamp whilst covering my nose with the top sheet. I glanced around the room. No outright evidence of the Cat Shit. Must make an under-the-bed inspection.

Under-the-bed inspection: COMPLETE. No sign of Foul Cat Shit.

I plod down the hallway, flicking the light switch as I go. Again, no physical evidence found to indicate WHERE OH WHERE the gag-inducing smell was emanating. So I walk into the kitchen. I check inside cabinets, on top of the refrigerator, under the table, in the sink. I open the door to the back porch, checking for dead animals covered in Cat Shit.

Back in the house, I wander through the living room, checking behind the couch, the chair, the bookcases. I open the doors to the armoire. I lift up corners of the rug.

NOTHING.

I head back to my room, lavender room spray in hand. I spray continuously through the hallway, giving a good squirt into the kitchen. I spray my bedcovers, my sheets, the floor, the closet, the dresser, the ceiling, ANYTHING THAT LOOKS LIKE IT COULD BE HARBORING THE FOUL CAT SHIT SMELL.

Minutes go by. The smell is gone, I think. Perhaps it was just a weird paranormal phenomenon. One that floats through the world leaving the smell of viciously offensive poo in it's wake.

So I cuddle back under the covers, gagging a bit on the heavy lavender smell I've managed to spray on every available surface. My eyes start to close, the lamp is flicked off. Dreams of sugarplums dance in my head. Pretty pretty sugarplums. Sugarplums covered in crystallized sugar. Tasty. Oh so tasty. Oh, NOOOO. The abominable Brown Snowman is coming towards the sugarplums! He's covering them up! Covering them up with his smelly brown snow! OH GOD THE SMELL.

I sit straight up in bed and stare directly into the glowing green eyes of The Fat One. I grab for the cell phone- I've only been asleep for 30 minutes! And the smell OH MY GOD THE SMELL IS BACK. Again, I flick on the bedside lamp, illuminating my seemingly pristine bedroom. The Fat One continues sitting on the end of the bed. He is unnaturally still. He starts walking towards me. Only, only- he's not really walking, per se. His front paws are the only paws moving. The back paws are tucked firmly beneath his belly, his kitty booty planted snugly against my comforter.

This is weird, I think. Why is my cat walking like that? We make eye contact. He continues walking towards me with his half-gait.

It's then that I realize THE SMELL IS GETTING STRONGER OH MY GOD THE SMELL IS COMING FROM THE CAT, THE CAT IS HARBORING THE FOUL CAT SHIT SMELL WHAT AM I TO DO I'M THROWING UP IN MY MOUTH.

I immediately grab the cat by the scruff of his neck, lifting him up to expose his furry belly. A belly which is matted, YES, MATTED, with brown foul-ness. I lift him completely off the bed, where I notice that he's left a trail of brown substance on my comforter. I can feel myself starting to shake. The smell is unbelievable, my pretty comforter COVERED in Foul Cat Shit and my cat is somehow managed to get smearable, projectile-like diarrhea ALL OVER HIMSELF.

I continue holding him by the scruff and carry him into the bathroom. I strip the shower curtain aside, yank up the bath mat and slam the door shut. I turn on the faucet full-force, fill the tub with warm water and shove him ASS FIRST into the tub. I pour rose-scented soap all over his furry body and use my loofah to scrub the poo-covered areas. He scrambles to get away but I WILL BE DAMNED if I let him go before every last trace of skank is gone from his body.

I drain and refill the tub three more times, the water is that rank. I hold up The Fat One's tail and push his booty directly into the stream of water, hoping the running water will shake off any last residual pieces. I finally deem The Fat One to be poo-free and grab a towel from under the sink, wrapping his squirmy, furry, rat-looking body in the blue terrycloth.

I throw the loofah away.

After towel-drying The Fat One I lay down six or seven towels in the foyer so he can (hopefully) use them to dry off instead of utilizing my rug/chair/bed.

It's 2:30am.

I head back to my bed and am quickly reminded that my cat has left a trail of smeared presents on my comforter. I decide it's too late to do anything but wad it up and seal it in a garbage bag. I grab an extra blanket from the linen closet and spread it on the bed, my eyes drooping from tiredness and over-exhaustion of the olfactory glands. I climb in bed for the THIRD TIME that evening and hit the lamp switch.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up at 7:30 am Sunday morning (yes, that would be a total of five hours of sleep) to get ready for work, intent on beating my cat's ass into next week for smearing foul poo all over my comforter and for forcing me to soil my one good loofah on his crap-encrusted ass.

HERE'S WHERE I GOT REALLY PISSED OFF.

When I woke up I found Llama (The Fat One) curled by my hip, his furry head resting on his paws. Just as I opened my mouth to lay into his ass, informing him of JUST HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO DRY CLEAN COMFORTERS and HOW MUCH I HATE HAVING MY SLEEP DISTURBED BY CATS WHO ARE COVERED IN FOUL CAT SHIT he raised his sleepy kitten eyes and gave me a look of such profound pitifulness I stopped in mid-yell. He gingerly got up and crawled towards my face, where he gave me a little kitten-nose nudge, and then delicately lowered himself back down on the blanket. He looked so sad and sickly and sorry and cute and furry that I JUST COULD NOT BE MAD.

And that totally pissed me off.

I Still Stutter Around Boys

The phone only rang twice before his mother picked up. In my nervousness I launched myself across the floor to tackle the phone, punching the hang-up button as quickly as any gangly eleven-year-old could possibly move. There was no way I was going to let Lacy do this. NO WAY IN HELL. But then, almost immediately, I was overcome with the need to KNOW, know RIGHT THEN, what the answer was. Did he? Did he not? Like vultures they could sense my indecision.

So this time Lacy picked up the phone while Tiffany and Ella held my arms down on the floor. All in an effort to prevent a repeat of my earlier launching performance. The phone rang three times, his mother answered. I started to giggle. An inexplicable reaction, but I giggled nonetheless. Even at the time I knew how juvenile it was but I was POWERLESS to stop it. And so Lacy began the dance.

How are you?
How's your weekend?
Have you finished your science homework?
Are you going to church tomorrow?
Isn't school totally lame?
Are you going to the Tiffany concert in Jackson? My mom is taking me and my sister.
Did you see what Erica wore on Friday? It was so ugly.
Do you ever talk to my friend [redacted]? The one that sits behind you? She told me you guys go to the same country club. Really? Don't you think she's, like, really pretty and stuff? I heard from Sam that you might like her. Oh? Really? Well, yeah, she is. But she's still really pretty, in her own way. Yeah, I know Melanie. She lives two doors down from me. Yeah, I talk to her all the time. Oh. Sure, I'll tell her you said hi. Hey, I gotta go. My mom is here to pick me up. 'K. Bye.

Lacy hung up the phone and told it to me straight. Not in the interest of sparing my feelings- but because she was actually foaming at the mouth to tell us, and everyone within a 30 mile radius, what the Grudzien boy had said.

"He says you never talk and that you're really tall."

______________________

The Grudzien boy moved away that Christmas, much to my relief and sadness. I never admitted to a single person, even my friends, that I had ever liked the Grudzien boy. I maintained FOR YEARS that Lacy had been trying to fix me up and I'd been held against my will by Tiffany and Ella. The next year I developed a crush on another Unattainable, Thomas Hutto. THAT crush, through lack of other available candidates and total boredom, lasted from seventh grade until junior year in high school. It lasted through Thomas' chubby faze, his growth spurt and subsequent bony skeletor faze. I supported his ridiculous attempts at facial hair and baggy-pant-addiction. I adored his black Chevy truck with the sticker on the back window proclaiming "We Don't Give a Damn How You Did It Up North." I became ridiculously smitten when he developed a nickname for me our sophomore year, BTH. Neither he nor any of his Popular Smart Kid friends would tell me what BTH stood for until the day before I was set to move to Texas. That afternoon he finally caved and whispered in my ear-- Big Titty Holmes. And you know what? My mild feminist values flew right out the window and I was FLATTERED that he'd noticed something, ANYTHING, about me.

I had no real crushes once I moved back to Texas. Though I did briefly date a guy named Adam who had possibly the least amount of game of any teenage male who has EVER LIVED. The first time he kissed me came after a three hour marathon viewing of South Park. He got up to turn off the VCR, sat back down on the couch and PROMPTLY launched himself, mouth open and tongue out, at my face. I actually had to ask him to take his tongue out for JUST A WEE SECOND so I could get a breath. I was too shell-shocked to give the boy any pointers, concentrating as I was on taking regular breaths and convincing him to take me home ASAP, so I hope some girl took pity on the guy later in life. Though I heard he became a huge pothead in college.

Let's hope that relaxed his tongue muscles a bit.

Damn it, More Glass Raising

School started that next Monday morning. I arrived wearing my best back-to-school outfit with my shiny new green backpack slung over my shoulder. I felt very old, very mature. I was a SIXTH GRADER. I knew all the teachers, the principals, the secretaries and the janitors. I knew which teachers would let a little hall-pass-free wandering go unnoticed and which would whisk you off to detention. And I knew that chili day in the cafeteria was a day that Mom most DEFINITELY had to fix my lunch. I was a total eleven-year-old badass.

That morning I found out I had been placed in the class with the COOL kids. Until that moment in the gym, waiting in unairconditioned heat for my room assignment, I was sure the cool kids were paying off the administration so they could sit in classes together, trading purple pens with cool feathers on the top and sneaking bubble gum between the aisles. In fact, I had already resigned myself to being in the totally UNcool and UNrad Smart Kid Class.

Oh, you didn't know there were cool Smart Kids? WELL YES THERE ARE. Smart Kids have just as much of a hierarchy as anybody else. In fact, sometimes the Smart Kids totally take over the Popular Kids group and form a new, totally BITCHING Cool Smart Kids group. For as long as I had been living in Mississippi (2.5 years) I had seen the distinct separation amongst the Smart Kids. I'm not sure if words were exchanged or if the better looking kids were just genetically predisposed to form a Smart Kids Group of their own but there were DEFINITE lines drawn. Lines you JUST DID NOT CROSS.

Guess which group I was in.

So much to my surprise I was placed in the classroom with the Cool Smart Kids, something that even my SUPER EXTRAORDINARILY smart self saw as a very strange and possibly VERY BAD twist of fate. You see, even though the Grudzien boy had been sporting the too-tight t-shirts and crooked teeth, he had somehow, SOMEHOW, infiltrated the Cool Smart Kid group. I often wondered how he did this as he was a transplant, much like myself. Though, of course, the Grudzien boy did not start his period in front of 27 other nine-year-olds. THIS PROBABLY HAD A LOT TO DO WITH IT.

After the assignments were given, the students dutifully marched in single file to their assigned classrooms. BUT OF COURSE I LIE. We ran helter skelter through the hallways, looking for room 102 or 204 or the nearest janitor closet to hide in. And so it came to pass that I met Mrs. Auqouin (pronounced oo-qwen, emphasis on second syllable), who would become my all-time favorite teacher. Though on that first day I cursed her with every vile curse word known to any sheltered eleven-year-old. Why?

She was seating us alphabetically.

This means nothing to you, obviously. So here's where I sidetrack a bit and explain why this is bad. His name was [redacted]. Mine? [redacted]. SEE HOW I JUST GAVE UP TOTAL ANONYMITY? DO YOU SEE? I figured it was going to happen sometime and really, who cares. Prospective employers, relatives, friends and small woodland creatures be damned. If you google me you'll find that I'm mentioned, briefly, in an article that was actually written about a friend of mine - [redacted]. I think it mentions that we were co-anchors at the University of Central Arkansas television station. Other than that I am a completely innocuous human being.

So back to the ACTUAL story. As we were seated alphabetically, the Grudzien boy was placed DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME. I almost passed out I was so nervous. What if it turned out the he was smarter than me? What if I PRETENDED that he was smarter than me and I could casually ask for his help on an algebraic equation, scrunching my face into an adorable mask of confusion until BING! with his calm and patient help I was able to break through the algebra barrier! And what if I tripped on the way to the pencil sharpener? He would think I was a total spaz. But what if I stumbled delicately, right by his desk? I could grab his arm for balance and he would take my hand, look deep into my eyes and ask with genuine concern if I was okay. I'd laugh gaily and make self deprecating jokes about my clumsiness. He'd be impressed with my self confidence and IMMEDIATELY ask me to go the football game with him on Friday.

Thankfully I never put any of my plans into action. I just sat in petrified silence for the first weeks of school, afraid I would commit some mortally embarrassing act of heinousness and be forever banned from his presence. But at the same time, I would have given my right arm to sit someplace else, a seat where the [redacted] boy couldn't see, hear or LOOK at me.

Now during this time of petrification due to boy exposure I was actually making some new friends of my own. Not BOY friends, naturally. I couldn't come within spitting distance of a boy without freezing into an immobile non-speech-having block of wood. But, and here was where I was truly floored, I had started to make friends with a popular girl! A real live popular girl! Her name was [redacted] and she was the epitome of eleven-year-old perfection. Her blonde hair was smooth and straight-- never frizzy or curly-- and her bangs HER BANGS were always perfectly curled into a delicate and beautiful poof.

This was 1991. Give us a break.

I was terribly jealous of Lacy's wardrobe (she always wore Guess or Gibaud jeans, normally with a matching shirt to coordinate) her hair and her ability to speak freely, AND IN WHOLE SENTENCES, with the boys in our class. We had come to be friends ofasort through a semi-dork friend of my own, who happened to be friends with a girl who rode the popular fence who was definitely friends with Lacy, who was so far in the popular field most of us had to squint our eyes to see her. But in the way of eleven-year-olds, sleep overs were always more fun when extra girls were present. So when Tiffany (the fence rider) invited Ella (my friend) who invited me (the true dork) to join her and Lacy (the popular queen) for an evening of fun at her house (with a pool! and a cute older brother!) I would drop anything I was doing to beg my poor mother to drive 30 minutes to Tiffany's house and leave me with her chain-smoking hack of a mother. (My mother was unaware Tiffany's mom was a chain-smoking hack and remained so until well into my late teens and after we had moved two states over.)

After six or seven sleepovers I felt confident enough to share with my friends my ridiculous crush on the Grudzien boy. It was a Saturday afternoon in mid-November and we were sitting in the floor of Tiffany's bedroom. Now this girl's room was decorated in every conceivable item deemed marketable by the handlers of New Kids on the Block. This was WAY before they became NKOTB and tried to pretend like they couldn't remember the time when eleven-year-old girls put posters on their walls, bought Jordan sleeping bags and cuddled up to their super fuzzy blankets adorned with their floating heads. But back in the day, Tiffany's room was the SHIT. My mom would NEVER have let me decorate with boy band crap, much less put their posters on my wall. I had a white bedspread with primary colored hearts on it. And I had four heart shaped pillows in red, green, purple and orange that I arranged across the back of my white metal daybed on those times when my mother convinced (forced) me to make my bed. Buy Tiffany's room... I remember it fondly to this day. Though not 10 months later she was begging her mother to let her redecorate it (ah, the fickle pre-teenage mind). Denied, we spent one of our sleep-over nights attempting to turn her New Kids on the Block bedspread into something socially acceptable by coloring it in with red markers. Obviously this was a bad idea. But again, I digress.

When I told my friends of my secret crush they were supportive and excited in that way that only pre-pubescent girls can be. Don't let them fool you. THEY KNOW you have no chance. But they'll do everything in their power to help your crush along. And then bad-mouth you behind your back, of course. But Lacy was the first one to step up that afternoon, telling me that we should CALL the Grudzien boy and find out if he liked me back.

So we stole the phone book from under Tiffany's mom's bed (a strange place for a phone book) and looked up the Grudziens. Only one listing. And Lacy, in her pert, blonde and perfect way, picked up the phone and began to dial.

More Glass Raising. My Arm is Tired.

Those times I saw [redacted] at the pool I made every effort possible to pretend I was completely and utterly unaware of his existence. I told heinous, horrible stories to my younger brother, intimating that the new boy at the pool was infected with lice, had boils on his ass and had a booger collection under his desk that could reach out and touch someone.

But it wasn't long until my brother caved, anxious as I'm sure he was for someone, ANYONE to play with besides his cootie-filled sister. And while my brother frolicked in the shallow end with his newfound friend, I spent my days at the pool floating in the deep end, sure that my cool aloofness was enough to pull that [redacted] boy inexorably towards my side of the pool where after hours, nay, DAYS of trying to win my favor I would gradually thaw my icy exterior so he could see the delicate, intelligent feminine creature I most surely was. A delicate feminine creature that wasn't shaving her legs yet, but who cares about a little leg hair, right?

And so the muggy summer weeks passed by. I no longer participated in vicious tothedeath struggles regarding the best floaty or the front seat of my mother's van. Such a display would have shown the [redacted] boy that my cool, icy exterior was just a ruse. That I was just a mere CHILD, one who would actually CARE who got to ride in the front seat or spend six hours on the lone leak-proof floaty. I was more than content to float languorously in the deep end with the occasional hour spent under a moldy blue and white umbrella, sipping my Coke and reading my very mature Nancy Drew books.

Two weeks before school started I decided that he was SO obviously in love with me. Why else would he have asked my brother why I was always so quiet? He was CONCERNED about me. Afraid that my quietness was a sign of my soon-to-come terminal illness where he would naturally visit me every day in my private hospital room. I would languish in silence, my terminal-illness pain bottled inside until he came rushing to my bedside. My aloof demeanor would crack, just for an instant, and a lonely tear would trail down my perfectly tan cheek as I stared out of the window. He would instantly realize the significance of my tear, knowing it was a declaration of love I would never be able to voice aloud. And so he would hold my hand, content that our love would last through the centuries.

All this, and he had made NO advances toward me. Perhaps I was TOO aloof, I decided.

And so the last day of pool season came the Friday before the start of sixth grade. After my mother's van had crunched away on the gravel drive I sauntered my way through the pull gate, my towel casually thrown over my shoulders and my beach bag swinging from my hand. I was going to have FUN today, I decided. I would play with my brother and the [redacted] boy ALL DAY. I would be SO FUN that the Grudzien boy would SURELY realize how infinitely awesome I was and he would want to play with ME, only ME forever and ever. He would have SO MUCH FUN that he would call me that evening and ask me to a movie. We would laugh and laugh and laugh and talk about everything from dinosaur bones to cheesy little brothers (where he would sheepishly admit that he had only befriended my brother to gain my attention, and I would giggle and shyly tell him that I had always thought he was cute, even before the retainer had begun to straighten his tangled mass of teeth).

But alas, the [redacted] boy was not at the pool that morning. I spent all day being carefree and flipping my wet hair over my shoulder while smiling endearingly at my brother, hoping he would walk in just as I was saying something ridiculously funny where he would become so immediately enamored of me that he would cannonball into the pool and spend the rest of the day flirting atrociously with me.

But four o'clock came and I could hear my mother's van meandering down the long gravel driveway. I had spent all day being cute and funny and witty and he'd NEVER SHOWN UP.

How rude.

I Raise My Glass At Thee, But Definitely Not TO Thee

I was eleven when I first recognized that fluttery, stomach dropping sensation as an actually crush on a boy. Though I'm sure I'd felt it previously, in a weird kid kind of way, I'd never actually put my foot on PRECISELY what it was. Whenever my dad asked me about boys, I stuck diligently to my rehearsed line of "No thanks, Daddy. Boys are gro-TESQUE." Wherein he would ask me to spell 'grotesque,' and I would, correctly of course, and I'd get to take a sip out of my dad's glass of Coke. Now, don't ask me why my dad's glass of Coke always tasted so much better than mine. Probably because he put oodles of ice in the glass. And even more likely because it was spiked with just a wee bit of Crown.

But I digress.

My first real crush on an actual real boy that I knew in real life was a boy named [redacted]. (As opposed to the GINORMOUS crush I had on Joey from New Kids on the Block, a boy whom I would never meet and knew nothing more about than what my girlfriends could recite, almost verbatim, from their collection of TeenThisorThat magazines which TOTALLY EXPLOIT THE MINDS OF DEVELOPING CHILDREN. I, of course, was not allowed to read that "trash.")

Matthew had moved to Natchez, Mississippi in the middle of fifth grade. Naturally, I wanted nothing to do with him. He was scrawny and wore too-tight t-shirts and his TEETH... let's just say Condeleeza Rice has NOTHING on this kid. And so school let out for the year and I spent the summer before sixth grade doing exactly what I had done the summer before fifth grade and the summer before fourth grade. It went something like this:

7am: Arise and greet the new day! With much child-like cynicism! Look, cartoons are on, even though I pretend I only watch them because my brother is in the room!

9am: Chores, grudgingly completed, CHECK.

10am: Brother and I pile into van after vicious, tothedeath struggle over who gets the front seat.

10:30am: Arrive at country club swimming pool, pile out of van after vicious tothedeath struggle over who gets to use the good floaty for the day

12pm: Charge various snack items to my parents bill, usually consisting of twix, cheetos, funyuns (oh the FUNYUNS! how we LOVED the FUNYUNS!) and a hamburger or two.

2pm: Plot our escape from the evil lifeguards and practice holding our breath underwater for minutes at a time. Our plan was to swim out of the drain hole at the bottom of the pool- but we'd have to be able to hold our breath for AT LEAST seven minutes. Which would totally give us enough time to burrow through the water drainage system -- which does NOT mix with the sewage system, of course -- where we would dig our way up from the depths of the underground water sanitizer area and scare the ever loving shit out of the golfers on the 9th green.

4pm: Mother arrives in van to pick us up. Camredie forgotten, vicious tothedeath struggle over the front seat.

But that summer my normal routine was forever broken. You see, the country club swimming pool was not a happening place. In all honesty, my brother and I were normally the only other humans within shouting distance- save the VERY BORED lifeguards who spent most of their time figuring out how to blow each other without the two of us noticing. And so it happened that one morning, after another vicious tothedeath struggle over something very important, I'm sure, my brother and I loped into what we had come to think of as "our pool" only to find, gasp!, another kid there. And lo and behold, it was Matthew [redacted].

It was then that my fascination began.

Peppermint Patty Wasn't Ugly, She Was Just A Tranny. Though Later In Life She Became Friends With RuPaul And Turned Into A Hot Babe.

Interesting tid-bits (is this a hyphenated word? so confused) from this week which are actually not interesting at all but which I do DISTINCTLY feel the need to share with you, the internet, the reader extraordinaire and you too Mr. Dandanthecancanman. And no, I am not actually acquainted with a Mr. Dandanthecancanman but WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF I WAS.

#5 I got shanghaied into participating in the office bake-off, a scary event in which the office women go home the night before and whip up something truly tantalizing in their super-sanitized kitchens so that we may pay two dollars the next day to sample their foodalicious delights and hopefully, CROSS YOUR FINGERS NOW, MADGE, actually get the yearly trophy for the best darn tootin baked goods ever made in these here parts. There are two categories: Appetizer and Dessert. Because everyone always wants to show what they can do with the sugar and the flour, I got shoved in the appetizer group. Which is fine with me as I'd prefer to eat the appetizer foods anyway. One can only sample so many pieces of cake before keeling over in a sugar coma. But appetizers? Well shit Billy Bob, you can eat them there 'tizers till yer gut done poked over your elastic waist khakis. NO SUGAR COMA NEEDED.

So I went straight to the grocery from work and spent $45 on cream cheese, spinach, artichokes, dill, green onions, tomatoes and crescent rolls. I BOUGHT 80 CRESCENT ROLLS. 10 packages x 8 in each package = 80 FUCKING CRESCENT ROLLS THAT I THEN HAD TO *STUFF* YES, *STUFF* WITH THE CHEESY SPINACH ARTICHOKE GOOP.

I jest, of course. I totally enjoyed most of every minute it. Why, you ask? Because while every other woman is quite pleased to tell you how you can't tell the difference between the normal kind of cake and the kind of cake SHE made, the one with the fat-free cholesterol-free eggsinacarton, reduced fat Crisco, low sugar icing and dried fruit- I, without shame, bought the full-fat cream cheese, mozzarella cheese (I even had to scour the cheese aisle for the WHOLE MILK version of the mozzarella cheese) and the non-reduced-fat crescent rolls. The kind that taste like flaky butter. So I'm pleased to say that while you WON'T go into a sugar coma after eating my tasty appetizer YOU WILL die of an immediate heart attack. Because I had a brief but VERY influential convo with my ingredients wherein I explained the battle plan: ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK! Go for the arteries! Find new warm homes in corner valves! Clog them I say, CLOG THEM!

#4 My Christmas tree is now a broken stem of a tree. The Demon Spawn have successfully completed their mission to destroy my first-ever attempt at Decorating for the Holidays -not to be confused with DRESSING for the Holidays. As previously discussed, it is not appropriate to celebrate the seasons with one's CLOTHING. Merely decorative objects in the home, i.e. Christmas trees, wreaths with bows, jingle bells, etc. This decorating is not to extend to the front grilles of vehicles as it only draws attention to your dumb ass. And I work very, very hard at ignoring you fuckwads out there so I respectfully request that you NOT DELIBERATELY DRAW ATTENTION TO YOURSELF. But back to the Christmas tree. There is a nagging feeling at the back of my skull that indicates I should be slightly concerned that my Demon Spawn Cats ate, yes ATE, approximately 30 glass Christmas balls. But as they are Demon Spawn I'm sure they have regenerative stomachs.

#3 I used my power of positive thinking to wish for two days off work due to inclement weather. It did not work out for me. But we did get off work an hour early because it was "sleeting."

#2 I finally dragged my winter coat out of the closet after staunchly refusing to wear it for a month straight. When the overnight temperature hit 15 degrees, my poor defenseless body went on revolt and DEMANDED that I bring out the coat. So I acquiesced and pulled the wool heaviness from between the velvet pants, the polar fleece sweater and the collection of really ugly winter hats where it had been wedged for over 10 months-- only to find last year's lighter. I had a moment of reverie when I did, I admit, think quite fondly of The Smoking Days. And then I knocked on my neighbor's door and bequeathed her my favorite lighter. With much pomp and circumstance, naturally.

#1 While driving home from my SECOND trip to Wal-Mart in a 4 hour period (at 12:30 am, nonetheless- I'd run out of crescent rolls for today's bake-off and GOD FORBID I waste my spinach goop) there was a very special song that came on the radio. You see, it really spoke to me. Tugged on my heart strings, if you will. And so I leave you today with the lyrics to this deep and moving musical masterpiece:

I'm In Love With A Stripper, as sung by T-Pain:

[Intro]
Goddamn Lil Mama
U know u thick as hell u know what im sayin
Matter fact
After the club u know what im talkin bout
Me and my niggas gone be together u know what im sayin
I aint gon worry bout them really though
Im just lookin at u
Yea u know
U got them big ass hips god damn!

[Verse 1]
Got the body of a goddess
Got eyes with a peak of brown eyes see you girl
Droppin Low
She Comin Down from the ceiling
To tha floo
Yea She Know what she doin
Yea yea yea
She doin that right thang
Yea yea yea yea ea
I Need to get her over to my crib and do that night thang
Cause I'm in love with a stripper

[Chorus x2]
She poppin she rollin she rollin
She climbin that pole and
I'm in love with a stripper
She trippin she playin she playin
Im not goin nowhere girl im stayin
I'm in love with a stripper

[Verse 2]
Out of all the girls she be the hottest
Like n the way she break it down i see u girl
Spinnin wide
And She lookin at me
Right in my eyes
Yea She got my attention
yea yea yea
Enough to get me to mention
I Need to get her over to my crib and do that night thang
Cause I'm in love with a stripper

[Chorus x2]

[Verse 3]
She can pop it she can lock it
Take the pinderas down im bout to see this sexy girl
In My bed
She don't know what she is doin
To my head
Yea She turnin tricks on me
Yea Yea Yea
She dont even know me
Yea yea yea ea
I'd have got her over to my crib to do that night thing
Cause I'm in love with a stripper

[Chorus x4]

Because I Can't Stop Running My Mouth Today

In reference to Janestarr's question-
hmmm festive places in NY? Well, the best advice I could ever give you is to hop on the 1,9 line at the Staten Island ferry terminal (after riding the ferry round trip, of course-- it's free and it's the best way to see the statue of liberty rather than PAY the circle line) and ride the line up to Houston (pronounced how-stun) st. Exit the station and head towards 6th ave (also called avenue of the americas) and just start walking uptown. You'll pass all kinds of piercing parlors and festive restaurants and fun apartment buildings. It's less touristy around that area, so you'll be able to see more fun things. Anyway, head towards Washington Square Park (you should be able to see it on any subway map you pick up- available at your friendly subway station ticket booth) and check out the giant chess board and the homeless people and all the super classy (seriously) drug dealers. I totally recommend going on all the side streets and checking out the neighborhood- it's super pretty. Very Sex and the City-esque. So once you're done with Washington Square Park, look on your subway map and head towards the bottom left corner of Central park-- I think it's like 56th St? Can't remember. Anyway, wonder about the edge of the park, check out the Shakespeare Castle (very nice views of the park from the top) and continue to wonder up the island towards the Museum of Natural History. I LOVE THIS PLACE. You can check out the minerals section and the egyptian section and the dinosaur section and IT JUST KEEPS GETTING COOLER. I used to go there every weekend to get away from my roommates. So once you're done with the musuem, head straight across the park to The Metropolitan Museum of Art- I never liked this as much as seeing all the dinosaurs and gemstones and rock formations (OHMIGOD I totally forgot- you have to check out the space center exhibit- it's UNREAL- it's kind of off to the side of the natural history museum and it was BY FAR my favorite). So anyway, The Met. I like it a lot but not as much as most people. What can I say, I'm a nerd.

I also have to recommend going to the botanical gardens in brooklyn- I don't know when you'll be there but I know they have a winter exhibit, though they do sometimes close during particular times of the year. Check them out at bbg.org. :)

Oh, and if you get a chance to see something by the NYC Ballet-- TAKE IT. It's worth EVERY PENNY. You can get pretty cheap tickets if you show up when the show starts, though you take a chance on actually getting a seat.

OOOOOOH and I almost forgot- head downtown to the Financial center area-- Ask the cabbie to take you to South End Ave- get out of the cab and head straight towards the river (can't miss it). The cab will have to cross traffic on the Westside Hwy and will pull into this random short street. There will be a bank area with an indoor ATM, a parking garage and a Gristedes (common grocery store) directly in front of you. Once you hit the river, look to your right and you'll see the GINORMOUS financial buildings/snazzy apartments that face the river and if you look to the left you'll see gateway plaza WHERE I USED TO LIVE!! You can take a nice breezy stroll up the river walk and see New Jersey right across the way. Also, if you go in the main entrance to the Financial building that's at the dead end of South End Ave, you'll see escalators directly in front of you. Take the escalators up and follow the signs to THE GODIVA STORE. YES, A STORE THAT SELLS NOTHING BUT DELICIOUS GODIVA. It's heaven.

And don't forget to stop by Pearl River on Broadway in Chinatown- it is HANDS DOWN the best place to buy ANYTHING you could ever want. And it's super cheap. I couldn't even begin to tell you what's in there, just trust me and go. And don't feel bad if you stop at one of those shady vendors and buy a knock-off Coach bag. :) Everyone does it.

Ok, all this reminicing is making me hungry.
*kisses

They Pay Me to Work But Instead I Do This:

As faux-tagged by Meghan, this ridiculously addictive list that I naturally could not resist:

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Let's see. 10 years ago would be December 1995, so I was still living in Natchez, Mississippi and I was a very typical cynical fifteen-year-old. I had just found out that my dad was being transferred back to Texarkana, TX and I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. I probably threw up every day for 2 months I was so nervous. AND PEOPLE WONDER WHY I HAVE ULCERS. School was winding down for the semester and I was finishing last minute papers and studying for finals. Actually, I lie. Any papers that needed writing and tests that needed studying were done exactly 24 hours before they were due. What I CAN remember is taking the yearbook camera everywhere I went, snapping pictures of everyone I knew, every hallway, every classroom and every teacher. I was determined to remember every detail and make my parents feel as guilty as possible in the process (which I'm sure they already did, I just magnified it to the highest possible level). I was also sulking mightily in dance class, the one place that I'd previously felt it was inappropriate to sulk. My friends had started training for the yearly pageant ball, which contrary to it's name is NOT an actual pageant full of skimpily clad chickas promoting their feminine wiles but a production of sorts that tour buses from around the nation (full of elderly retired folk and people with too much time on their hands. WHO TRAVELS AROUND THE COUNTRY ON A TOUR BUS, ANYWAY?) careened into the auditorium parking lot to see, intent on witnessing the WASP'ish displays of yore. Basically, we dressed up in era-appropriate costumes and pretended to have a "ball" in honor of something or other that was historically important. My particular group dressed in hoop skirts with faux ringletted hair and danced a 13 minute intricate waltz full of partner-changing and twirling and really, really pretty music. It sounds cheesy but it was actually quite lovely. The highlight was actually the training for the pageant; boys from the cotilion school in town traipsed over to my dance school on Tuesday and Thursday nights to practice with us doe-eyed and fluttery girls. This afforded us many an opportunity to flirt attrociously with the cute boys whilst being twirled about the floor. But because I was moving, there was no point in me starting the training classes for the spring ball. And so every Tuesday and Thursday night after my normal ballet class, instead of changing into my cutest warm-up outfit like all the other girls, I got in my car and headed home. Where I stood in my closet and gazed at my beautiful dress with all it's ruffles and silk, the dress I wasn't going to get to wear again that spring.

What were you doing 1 year ago ?
One year ago I was 24-years-old. On December 2nd I was sitting in my apartment that I shared with my brother, avoiding getting dressed and especially avoiding doing the dishes. I was periodically checking my email, random blogs and various internet-worth thingamabogs. Why do I know this? Because I checked my email inbox for December 2nd, 2004. This was, of course, back when my mother was paying for my brother's internet. Because he's a student and needs it, of course.
I had been working at Dillards since September but had failed to return since the day before Thanksgiving. After sitting in the parking lot for days on end, head against steering wheel, convincing myself that I HAD to go to work, I HAD to have a paycheck and then ultimately clocking in thirty minutes late-- I finally just stopped going. The thought of having to smell the inside of that store made my stomach physically turn sour. The only thing that had kept me moderately sane were three work-friendships- J., Li., and La. But La. had quit the week before, J. had found a better job and Li. had gone mysteriously MIA from work, though we still met once a week for Mehican food. I had received a job offer that would (THANK GOD) put me on my ass in front of a computer for 9 hours a day and I was blissfully without care that I had not shown up for work after giving my boss the customary 2 weeks notice. So I was sitting at home and enjoying my unpaid vacation while waiting for my start date of December 6th.
This makes me sound very blase' about the whole thing- you know, failing to show up for work and all. This is SO not like me, you should know. The Dillards job was just a hold-over until I found something that would pay me to NOT stand on my feet for hours on end each day, waiting on people and their smelly ass feet.
5 snacks you enjoy :
1) pretzels
2) flour tortillas with pepperjack cheese and pecans, rolled up and nuked
3) apples (I am currently addicted to the weird phenomenon of Grapples, dear god they taste delicious)
4) Cheetos
5) Rice Krispy Treats

5 songs to which you know all the lyrics :

1) Sweet Home Alabama- Lynard Skynard
2) Sweet Dreams- The Eurythmics
3) Take it Off- The Donnas
4) Ain't Goin Down Till The Sun Comes Up- Garth Brooks
5) Pussy Control- Prince
5 things you would do if you were a millionaire :
1) Pay off my parents house and buy them a new one or fix up the one they've got (their choice), buy my mother an art studio wherever she wanted, let my dad retire and play golf wherever he wanted and make sure they never want for anything, including super duper life-long vacations.
2) After paying for whatever schooling my brother wants, set up a trust fund that doles out a set amount of money each month until he learns not to blow it on liqour and then help him start his business.
3) Pay off all my friends student loans, car loans, house notes, etc and set them up financially to do whatever it is that will help them be happy.
4) Set up a giant fund to a) build animal shelters all over the world, b) give yearly donations to fund Heifer Profect c) fund research that gives us a viable and cheap solution to using nasty ass fossil fuels d) a yearly donation to whatever charity I decide to give to
5) a house for ME! ME! ME! where I can be close to my friends and family, where my cats can have their very own special room that I pay someone to clean up- I will even give them an endless supply of Christmas trees to demolish-, where I have a helicopter pad on the roof so my pilot can whisk me to the airport so I can take my private (and newly fuel efficient) jet anywhere I want to go and buy pretty shoes and where I have a live-in personal trainer, chef and housekeeper and I can live comfortably and without financial worry with the person who makes me happiest in all the world and who also happens to be quite the virile man. IN BED.
5 bad habits :
1) Not answering my phone
2) Not drinking enough water, exercising enough, eating enough good things
3) Tuning things out I don't want to hear
4) Not thinking before speaking
5) Biting my nails and chipping off the nail polish

5 things you like doing :
1) reading in bed
2) kissing boys
3) making up stories in my head
4) making lists and then completing the things on the lists
5) dancing
5 things you would never wear again :
1) acid washed denin
2) hyper-color t-shirts
3) scrunchies
4) banana clips
5) poofy marshmallow jackets

5 favorite toys :
1) staplers- I like the noise they make. And I like making the papers perfectly aligned and then permanently stapling them together
2) online word translators- I like seeing what certain sentences would look like in French, Spanish and German
3) cell-phone tetris- it's addictive
4) wine corkscrews- dur
5) post-its- apparently office supplies do it for me. what can I say? Though it's probably more that all of my lists that I so like to complete always end up on lined post-its.

Notice:

An important reminder:

Sweaters or other articles of clothing (excluding festive socks worn under slacks or while in the privacy of your own home) that celebrate the seasons with their gaudy glitter, embroidery, puff paint or aplique' are NOT TO BE WORN under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. This rule applies especially to YOU, Miss Coworker, who has for two straight days worn a holiday sweater with a white turtleneck underneath.

Thank you for heading this public service announcement.

Channeling Elvis

Last night I meticulously marked off the to-do items on my checklist so that I could arrive at my interview this morning with the following list completed:

--Steam iron green jacket
--Lint roll black pants
--Iron black pants
--paint nails neutral color
--wash & dry hair into pleasing style
--make copies of resume at kinko's
--find black leather interview folder in trunk of car
--wash car
--find acceptable business-like purse
--wash and dry black trouser socks

Needless to say, the hours between 8pm (when I got off work) and midnight (when I finally collapsed into bed) were filled with all kinds activities; most of which were accomplished with cringe-inducing nervous energy. After the resume, the folder, the purse and the car washing was done but before the lint-rolling, trouser sock washing and black pant ironing had commenced I decided I would model the interview outfit for my neighbor Lilleeeee. And even though Lilleeee had a Male Guest for the evening, she graciously obliged to weigh in her approval of the interview duds.

So I slipped on my black heels, my un-ironed black pants and my steamed green jacket. I located the ridiculously expensive pearl earrings that my aunt gave me as part of my college graduation gift, feeling guilty for only wearing them to the one-two interviews a year in which I participate. I pulled my hair back in a semblance of the style I hoped The Hair would agree to do the next morning. And then I walked out of my door to walk exactly 2 feet to the left and climb the stairs to Lilleeee's apartment, where I'm sure she and her Male Guest waited with bated breath to view my proposed interview garb.

Where I promptly commenced to run my mouth for 30 minutes. About absolutely nothing. And Lilleeee's Male Guest, sensing my female distress much as a deer senses the hunter that's about to shoot a raging hot bullet through it's chest, quickly retreated into the kitchen to get me a beer.

Bless him.

After beer two, the nervous energy that had been threatening to manifest itself by way of vomiting had subsided to a dull roar. I decided it was best for me to leave Lilleeee and Male Guest to whatever it is we girls do with our Male Guests (and if you REALLY have to think about what we females are planning when we invite you over for a movie then you are TRULY SPECIAL) and make my way back down to my apartment and my super-duper list that I'm sure was hopping about the room waiting for me to finish it. I tell Lilleee good night and head down the stairs where Male Guest is already at the bottom of the landing pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, intent on returning a phone call from earlier in the evening. Before I go into my apartment, we make the customary "it was good to see you again" comments and start up idle chit chat about the next day's interview, my nervousness, my general weirdness, etc. I even show him my Christmas tree visible in the foyer where The Demon Cats have managed to tear off EVERY SINGLE ORNAMENT from the very bottom branch to roughly 4 feet off the ground. On a six foot Christmas tree, THAT'S A LOT OF ORNAMENT-LESS SPACE. So we laugh about The Demon Cats, who are trying to escape out of the open door, when he asks me:

"Why don't you have a boyfriend?"

Now, before I proceed, this question was not asked in the manner that one would ask because they're interested in becoming your boyfriend. Just a general, almost naive, curiosity.

Me: "Well, I sent out a memo but I haven't gotten any responses yet."

He stared quizzically at me, my random humor throwing him for a loop.

Me: "Just out of curiosity, why do you ask?"

Male Guest: "Well, it just seems like you'd have one."

Again, he didn't say this in a cruel manner, a joking manner, a leering manner or any other inappropriate manner. It was like being asked by a kid why you don't wear a diaper, too. They genuinely just want to know why. Though I will say I have no idea how he knew that I don't have a Consistent Male Friend of my own or even why he'd bring it up. We'd spent the past 30 minutes talking about nail polish colors, the attributes of wearing hair up or down and why Sonic breakfast burritos are ever so fucking tasty. But nothing about boyfriends.

So I answered as honestly as I could:

"It appears that most people find me weird, which is not something that endears me to men, which would be why no one has responded to the boyfriend memo."

Male Guest: "Oh. I think you just stress too much. Everything will work out, don't you worry 'bout it. And good luck on your interview tomorrow. You'll find something that'll make you happy."

Which is, of course, exactly what I needed to hear.

Turkey Makes You Sleepy and Some People Stupid

Saturday night was a bust.

I didn't go to the party, I didn't see my Old Friend and in the process, I got called CHILDISH.

So lemme esplain:

I went home for Thanksgiving expecting, at the very least, a good handful of drama. My aunt was to be in town, my dad was threatening to retire, my brother was going to be working at the hospital wiping dirty asses and inserting a plethora of catheters and my grandmother, MY GRANDMOTHER, had scheduled a surprise! surgery in which she was having her knee joint replaced. Now, the woman is 81 years old, has severe diabetes and a myriad other problems. NONE OF WHICH are conducive to an easy surgery or speedy recovery.

So I arrive in town on Thanksgiving morning, my offering of deviled eggs firmly ensconced within my ice chest. My mother is the only one in the house and she's standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking forlornly at the smoked turkey and dressing. My aunt, I am informed, is taking Thanksgiving dinner to their mother. My dad is taking Thanksgiving dinner to his mother. My cousin and his wife are 30 minutes away from town. Everything is ready and no one is here to eat it.

We sit at the beautifully decorated dining room table and sip coffee while we wait for the rest of the family to arrive. At which point my mother decides to brutally update me on the goings-on of the family.*

*My mother has a very bad habit of keeping things "quiet" so as not to disturb other family members. Which basically means someone could be dead in the hospital and she'll tell you over the phone that everything is fine, waiting until you show up in person to break the news. (This has actually happened.)

During the family run-down I learn that my grandmother, my mother's mother, THE ONE HAVING THE STUPID SURGERY, is having a rough time.

"A rough time?" I say.

Oh yes, I'm informed. A very rough time. She had just come out of ICU last night at 11pm.

"Why was she in ICU?" I ask.

Because when her breathing tube came out her goiter constricted her throat and she lost her airway.

"She LOST her airway??"

Yes, she lost her airway. So they kept her in ICU until last night.

"But she had her surgery LAST TUESDAY, mother. THAT'S OVER A WEEK IN ICU."

Yes, but we thought she'd come out of it faster than she did.

"So how is she NOW??"

Well, she had a bad reaction to the medication. Older people can do that, you know. They think some of her dementia may be permanent. We won't know until Saturday when the drugs are supposed to be out of her system.

"She has DEMENTIA??? Are you SERIOUS??"

She just screams and yells at the top of her lungs. They say that their hallucinations are often nightmarish and they can't discern the hallucinations from reality.

"I am aware of what dementia is. Why the HELL didn't you tell me she was having all these problems? You told me she was FINE."

I didn't want to worry you while you were at work and all.

ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So after a relatively uneventful Thanksgiving meal, the lot of us traipse up to the after-care facilty to see my grandmother. She's in pain, she's making no sense and she is STILL screaming at the top of her lungs. And just if you're wondering YES it will break your heart to hear someone you love screaming at the top of their lungs. Screaming like something is eating them alive, piece by piece.

Friday comes along. The drugs in her system are supposedly at half potency and she should be showing signs of coming out of the dementia. Thankfully, late Friday night she does. My aunt claims she came to in roughly five minutes. She was screaming and babbling and then, THEN- nothing. She looks over at my aunt and asks for some lemonade, her throat is awfully parched. No memory of the 8 days that have passed since she went under the knife. Not a one.

Saturday morning dawns and it's like the screaming, the ICU, the dementia NEVER HAPPENED. She's moved in to the rehab facility and immediately starts therapy. After all, the longer the time between her surgery and when her therapy starts means the longer it will take to give her a fully functioning knee. So we wave her off as the transporter comes to wheel her into the therapy gym, crossing our fingers it won't be as bad as we all know it's going to be. They've taken her off every pain medication, afraid it will trigger another dementia attack. So all she's taking is a regular strength Tylenol every couple of hours. Which does JACK SHIT for the 27 staples that extend from the middle of her thigh to the middle of her calf, holding in the artificial knee joint she's now sporting like a champ.

And so at 3pm she's wheeled back into her room, tears streaming down her face. She's exhausted and tired and she hurts and she's hungry all she wants is to lie down and cry. But she has to keep her knee moving for another two hours, hooked up to a machine that mechanically lifts and moves and stretches her leg in the most ridiculous positions for an 81-year-old woman.

By the end of the two-hour machine festivities, she's still tired but some of the soreness has been worked out and she actually feels marginally better. She's able to have her first fully lucid conversation with the family and I make the decision to stay a while longer. So instead of leaving at 4:30, as I originally planned, I don't leave until after 6pm. Which means I have a nearly three hour drive in Thanksgiving traffic back to Little Rock where I'm supposed to drive an extra 40 minutes to the boondocks of Conway to attend this party where I'm supposed to make nice with Old Friend?

Um, NO.

I have to be at work at 8am on Sunday and I have no intention, THAT WOULD BE ZERO, of staying in the car any longer. I am going home, I decide. I will sleep, I decide. I will curl up on my bed with my cats by my side and sleep in my beautiful and feathery bed.

So I call Meghan and inform her I just can't make it, I'm too tired, I left too late and I'm just physically NOT ABLE to be full of merriment and cheer. She understands and hands the phone to Ruby, the host of the party. She understands, says she's sorry I can't make it and tells me I can make it up to her at their annual Christmas party. I finish my drive home and collapse on my living room chair upon entering my apartment. The kitties are so excited to see me and it's all I can do to lean my head against the back of the chair while they head-butt each other for my attentions. I then check on my neighbor's cat, give her love and attention, returning home to dissolve into my bed and sleep like the wicked for a full nine hours.

After which I hear that Old Friend decided to call me CHILDISH. Because I was obviously AVOIDING her.

Yep, that's exactly what it was. It's all about you, sugar.

Overheard:

1: "With all this restructuring going on I guess this is a good time for me to put in a transfer for a department I could actually do some good in, ya know, actually use my degree and all."

2: "What's your degree in?"

1: "Business Management"

2: Silence. "I'm not sure if I'd even put you as manager of toilet paper disbersement."

There's A Hole In The Bucket Dear Liza, Dear Liza

All week long I look forward to two television shows:

Nip/Tuck and Gray's Anatomy.

That's it. I don't mix in any Seinfield reruns, I don't watch the news, I don't check out whatever new and special television pilot has managed to make it's way past the idiots that decide what I should be watching and who, therefore, plant it directly in front of me for my viewing pleasure. In fact, the only other time the tv normally comes on for a dose of random television viewing is Saturday night when I try to catch a rerun of CSI. That is, if I'm not partying it up like a total rockstar.

Oh, and that sound you hear? That would be The Powers That Be TOTALLY laughing their asses off. As IF I've got enough rockstar dust saved up to party like a rockstar, get laid like a rockstar, throw down drinks like a rockstar or even (shocker) sport fashionable duds like a rockstar.

So last night I head directly to my friend Amanda's house where the ritual viewing of the Nip/Tuck-ness commences at promptly nine o'clock. There is no talking, no interruptions, no phone calls. Which is why when my phone rang at twenty till nine that I almost left it ringing in my purse. What if it was someone that wanted to chit chat? What if I couldn't get them off the phone fast enough? WHAT IF THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND MY OBSESSION WITH CHRISTIAN TROY, THE HOTTEST FAUX PLASTIC SURGEON EVER TO LIVE.

But I answered it. Only because the area code was jacked up and my curiosity over the random area code won out over my instinctive desire to not talk on the phone.

And who would it be, you ask? Well, it would be Old Friend. The one I wrote about earlier this week. The one who tried to initiate reconciliation and the one which I thought I had effectively shot down. The old Old Friend wouldn't have lived through the honesty of my email. But apparently the new Old Friend not only withstood it-- she had to make a PHONE CALL to express her sincerity.

Apparently she responded to my email "immediately" but found out through a mutual friend that I had never received her response. This mutual friend instigated a phone call that would surely "prove" how sincere she was.

And you know what? It kind of sounded like she was. And so I talked to her for a few minutes, agreed that this coming Saturday I would see her at a friend's bonfire party and then hung up the phone. Where I promptly over-analyzed every. single. detail. She made no effort in our phone conversation to explain WHY she wanted to be friends again, only that she MISSED me, missed all of us, and wanted that back again. And the thing is, I'm just not sure if that's good enough. But I'll be there on Saturday and I suppose we'll go from there.

And hopefully my drama-free friends know how much I love them for remaining STAUNCHLY DRAMA-FREE.

Today's Quote:

Right now, this is a job.

If I advance any higher, this would be my career.

And if this were my career, I'd have to throw myself in front of a train.

Further Proof of My Complete Tardness

Earlier today my boss walked by my cubicle, my actual For Real boss, the boss that could with ONE SMALL BLINK OF AN EYE put me out on the street and into the hands of the freakishly cracked out homeless people who are just waiting, WAITING for me to join their ranks-- and this boss CALLED ME BY NAME.

I spent 20 minutes contemplating a) how he knew my name b) why he knew my name and c) if there was cause for alarm because my Big and Totally For Real Boss knew my name.

And then I realized:

My name is on the cheesy plastic tag at the top of my cubicle. RIGHT AT THE TOP, people.

Damn I'm special.

Can Over-Analyzation Lead To Brain Tumors? Because My Head Hurts.

The thing is, I'm really not that good about letting people back in. Once you're out, you stay out.

This is probably why my cats are Indoor Cats. I fear the diseases, the broken glass and the crack-ho kitties that roam the neighborhood. More importantly, what if the crack-ho kitties were a bad influence on my precious felines? What if my kitties come back home and they don't love me as much as they did, having seen the big wide world with cool trees to climb and birds to chase? What if they come back and love me just the same but I can't bring myself to look at them after they've cavorted with crack-ho kitties and chased poor defenseless birds? The scenarios are ENDLESS. And so I keep them inside, safe from attack birds and syphilis-infested kitty-cat hookers.

So weigh your options carefully. Once you go out, you might have to stay out.

Prompting clarification of my stay-out policy was an email in my inbox this morning, one from a friend that I had effectively written off. Phone number? Deleted. Email address? Erased. She had made a decision to stay out and at the time, I can't say I was even upset. Relieved, actually.

Because friendships are a lot like music. You've got the Milli Vanilli's of the world: very intense, but full of fallacy and short-lived. The New Kids on The Bock friends: Also very intense, slightly longer lived and something you can look back on a few years down the road with a twinge of amusement (though the years in between fascination and amusement are spent denying the fact that you ever really liked them). The Blue Oyster Cult friends: you really only like one or two of their songs and pull them out on long car trips or during tequila-induced table top dances. The Three Doors Down friends: Ones you really, really liked and hoped would develop into True Greatness but came just shy of the mark. And finally, The Cure friends: They integrate seamlessly into every facet of daily life, be it table top dances, road trips, midnight trips for ice cream or sorrow-drowning glass-clinking alcohol-induced pity parties.

And the worst part? Sometimes you have no idea if you've got a Milli Vanilli friend or a Cure friend.

So the email this morning was a mild surprise, to say the least. I haven't responded, not really knowing what to say. She initiated a reconciliation of sorts and I'm not entirely sure I want to participate. There was a reason things happened as they did. I hadn't really liked the person she'd grown into and she may very well say the same about me. I hated the fact that I had to remind myself to call her each week. But not everything was bad about the friendship; I felt comfortable with her presence the majority of the time. I appreciate people with whom I can just sit, no pressure to make idle conversation or chit chat. And there was the advantage of shared history- nothing comes close to being able to reminisce that time when that guy did that thing.

But as time wore on, I became more cognizant of one very simple fact: If I had met her today, I wouldn't be friends with her. She was so ingrained in my circle of friends, however, that deciding to NOT be friends with her wasn't really an option. I didn't hate her and I didn't dislike her. But I did dislike some of her actions. I found them hypocritical and contradictory to everything she preached to me, to friends and to teenagers with whom she worked. And every time I asked myself that question - would I be friends with her if I met her on the street - the answer was no. I wouldn't be able to get past the preachy and judgmental exterior and into the true heart, the good heart, the one that pulled us into friendship in the first place.

And now, two hours after first reading her email, I still don't know what to do. To not respond would be unnecessarily cruel to a person I once considered not only a good person but a good friend. And I still think she's a good person-- just maybe a good person who hasn't managed to reconcile what she WANTS to be with what SHE IS. And what SHE IS is strong-willed, quick-witted, loving and compassionate. These things don't necessarily have to interfere with the life she's chosen and yet somehow they do.

And before you think I was the wronged party in all of this, rest assured I am just as guilty of letting the friendship die as anyone. I changed, just like we all do, and no one can ever guarantee that their changes are going to mesh with those around us. And I deliberately goaded her, trying to force her to realize that the part of herself I thought she was trying to hide was nothing, absolutely NOTHING, of which to be ashamed. But I had no right to do that. I thought I was acting with her best interests in mind and all I really did was embarrass her. I felt like she had to squash the real me when I was around her other friends for fear of me offending them and their delicate sensibilities. I could tell my very presence made her tense when we were around certain people and after a time I began to exploit that. Again, I had no right to do things that way. I should have tried to talk to her first but I was terrified of how that would turn out. Afraid it would escalate into something I couldn't control, putting us exactly where we ended up anyway.

So what now? I don't want the fact that we've had months to cool off, wearing down the edges of our dislike and anger to fool us into thinking it's time to hug and be friends. I do miss her, in a strange way. I miss the friends we were before that indefinable moment blew in and we became obligations. And though I'm no longer annoyed at her behavior and she's indicated she's "no longer mad, only sad", I'm scared my thoughts have turned more to apathy than sadness.

And what I'm truly afraid of is seeing her again and feeling nothing more than that. Just apathy. Indifference. And having to force a smile and a hug for the sake of public observance. What if she's still the person whose actions I'd come to dislike? What if I'm still the person whose actions she'd come to dislike?

What if to infinity.

Thinking

Do you ever feel like something was so close, so very very close, and some small word, some small action pulled The Fates in the other direction?

Who You Calling A Ho.

I'm wearing purple velvet shoes today and I am inordinately excited about them. They have now been added into the rotation of the pink shoes, the blue shoes and the red shoes.

Tomorrow I may have to break out a coat and though I may be experiencing residual excitement bleed-through from the purple velvet shoes, I'm also super excited about the first wearing of the coat. And a scarf! It may be cold enough to wear a scarf! Oh, the things one can do with a scarf!

For the first time in five years I am near giddy about Christmas. I even purchased A TREE. I've been a bit of a bahhumbug as of past years but I can truly say that the MERE THOUGHT of putting up some garland and twinkly lights makes my toes tingle.

Addendum to the previous addendum:

And THIS is the smartest man in the world. And if I knew how to make links then you would be able to click on "this" and go to his website: lookingformeandfoundyou.blogspot.com. I was totally pissed off FOR DAYS that my screen was all askew. And he's super powers of deduction TOTALLY FIXED IT.

Though Os's suggestion was just as smart, too. You can read him at thesocialalchemist.blogspot.com.

Yay for smart boys! Yay!

Addendum:

And why, WHY is my profile crap on the VERY BOTTOM of the screen?? Why can't I fix it?? WHY??

I thought changing the template might help but NOOOOOOOO.

*I am possibly still suffering from my two weeks of utter crankiness resulting from the Death Virus.

Oh My Darling... Oh My Darling... Oh My DAAAARLING Clementine.

So this whole not having the internet thing is really starting to piss me off.

I cannot read several blogs at work because a) f'ing websense doesn't like them, b) sometimes there are festive pictures and I can't take that chance in my Big Brother-esque environment and c) everyone in their dog reads over my shoulder and it drives me crazy.

So what am I to do? All of the normal people I used to read- carl from la, oswald, yoj, murrye, adam, chairborne, meghan, etc -- well, I NORMALLY CAN'T READ THEM. Do you know what this does to a person of limited intelligence such as myself? IT DRIVES ME CRAZY.

So here's what I'm thinking. I take some money out of my savings account and buy a desktop. I've got a laptop but it might as well be a paperweight as much as I use it. When I bought it, the salesman told me it had a CD-RW/DVD drive. I, of course, took him at his word. Well, for three months I had no need to transfer information from my macketymacmac and so therefore had no need to burn a CD or even play a DVD, having a DVD player attached to my TV which is MUCH more enjoyable than watching a movie on a 14 inch screen. So when I go to burn a CD, well, I discover that THERE'S NO SUCH THING ON MY COMPUTER.

This made me slightly more than mildly cranky.

The computer store wouldn't take it back and so I'm left with a dummass computer with NO WAY of transferring information, barring emailing documents to myself to retrieve later on someone else's computer on someone else's internet, NOT HAVING INTERNET OF MY OWN TO USE.

But back to the desktop buying. I'll buy a cheap desktop, which all come with CD-RW's and DVD players now, and set it up in my foyer. I will then pay the fucking exorbitant prices to set up a fucking phone line for my nonexistent fucking house phone so I can pay more money to have fucking DSL.*

*This situation does not make me happy.

BUT, I am never going to finish my book if I don't have easy access to research information and easy access to SOMETHING, ANYTHING on the computer which can transfer information. And the macketymacmac just isn't covering it.

And yes, I know everyone and their dog is writing a fucking book. Bite me.

Soooo.... anyone willing to sell me a super cheap desktop? With a flat screen, of course :) Because I can't afford a computer desk so it has to fit on a table that's about one foot wide. HA HA HA HA HA HA.

I DO love being poor.

***By the way, I JUST LAST WEEK, after a year and a half of blogging and 2 websites (this being the second, the first one deleted because it made me physically nauseous), figured out that I could EMAIL my posts and NOT HAVE TO OPEN UP THE DREADED WORK INTERNET. I am SUCH a douche.

I feel slightly out of place today.

Mildly out of sync.

Because there are certain rules in the world of the 8-5er's of which I was totally not aware.

1) The alarm going off at 7am is doubly annoying than the alarm going off at 10am.

2) You feel very obtrusive that early in the morning. As in, "I can't bang that cabinet door because it may wake someone up." Or, "I shouldn't turn my stereo on because it might wake my neighbors up." Even the coffee pot dribble echoes strangely through the apartment.

3) The downtown street I live on is SUPER BUSY at 7:40 am. I mean, those people FLY. Not that I'm complaining. Because I'd rather see people intent on getting to a destination than putzing around and holding up traffic. But I did almost get my door knocked off by a passing Jeep. THANKS DOUCHE.

4) Apparently once you get to the interstate, however, THERE'S NOT A SINGLE PERSON THAT HAS ANYWHERE TO BE. NOPE. LET'S JUST CRUISE AND LOOK AT THE PRETTY CONCRETE BRIDGES AND TALK ON OUR CELL PHONES AND HOLD UP EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. BEHIND. YOU. Most mornings I rumble down the fast lane at a brisk 85-95 mph. I have to jigsaw around the occasional nutbag who wants to hang out in the fast lane, but I now realize that IT'S NOT THAT BAD. In comparison to the fuckwads that chicken neck the THREE LANES of interstate at a NOT SO BRISK 55 mph, of course.

5) I almost ran over a dude in the parking lot.

6) Do people take some special medication I don't know about? Because everyone had to make some super chipper comment about me coming to work early today. And they were chipper EVEN WHEN TALKING TO EACH OTHER. By the time I normally get here, everyone is all grumpy and worky and stuff. Upon asking my boss about this, he replied that in the morning you're so grateful to be away from your kids it's like happy hour on a Friday night where the bartender gives you free drinks and you're guar-an-teed a piece of the pie. But by noon you realize you've only got a few more precious hours of blessed separation before you have to go back home again, where you ARE NOT guar-an-teed free drinks OR a piece of the pie.

6) The cafeteria downstairs serves bacon-n-biscuits. THEY ARE DELICIOUS.

7) You have to use the work, er, facilities WAY more than normal because while you would have typically ingested your three cups of coffee BEFORE coming to work, you have to drink your three cups of coffee AT work. So instead of peeing 40 times before you leave the house, in the comfort of your own private and santized bathroom, you have to pee 40 times in the non-comfort and probably-not-santized bathroom in the office.

8) It's 2pm, I'm about to take lunch, and then I'll only have TWO HOURS TO GO.

TODAY'S QUESTION:

What starts with 't', is full of 't' and ends with 't'?

So I feel slightly better today. Not because my mutant mucus ball has subsided. Nor because my coughing spasms have decreased. No, no. It would be because in the span of 3.2 seconds last night, I had the EVER LOVING BEJESUS SCARED OUT OF ME which COMPLETELY CLEARED MY COBWEBBED AND BEFUDDLED BRAIN and has left me with the added benefit of a less feverish outlook on the world.

What could have scared me, you ask? I mean, I'm a grownasswoman. Grownasswomen don't jump out of their skin at a moments notice. No sir. We keep that skin firmly attached under penalty of death or extreme maiming to the person or persons responsible for making us jump out of it. And so here is a relation of last night's events which forced me OUT of my skin:

At ten o'clock last night I snuggled down under my covers and flicked on my bedside lamp, intent on finishing the last 100 pages of my book. My face had been scrubbed, my teeth brushed and my hair pulled back in it's customary bedtime ponytail. I'd spritzed my sheets with lavender spray and taken a fairly large swallow of my codeine-laced cough medicine. My cats, normally wont to parade around the house chasing imaginary monsters, had snuggled up by my feet, the Fat One stretching to his full length with front paws resting on my duvet covered knee and the Deceptively Cute One curled between my feet in a tight round ball with neither face nor paw nor tail visible.

I read steadily until slightly before eleven when both cats simultaneously roused themselves from slumber, ears twitching and alert. After several minutes of what I figured was normal Unexplainable Cat Behavior, they both took flying leaps off the edge of the bed and raced into the living room, where I heard them stop at the front of the room where the hardwood ends and the rug begins. I half expected them to start their usual war over who gets the One Super Important Cat Toy, even though there exists a whole plethora from which to choose. That day's special toy had been a tattered black faux-rat, eyes long chewed off and tail a ragged mess of clumped fur and bare faux-rat-skin.
I read on, having long become accustomed to the strange nightly forays the cats make without regard to my need for sleep or quiet. It was then that I heard a strange sound emanating from the living room area.
At first I discounted the noise, assuming the cats were scratching against the window or that they'd found something amusing to bat across the skiddable hardwood floors. But the noise continued, growing louder with each passing second.

When I heard the window screen start to rattle in earnest I immediately slipped off the side of my bed, sliding my feet into my shoes. Crouched beside the bed, hidden from all windows, I grabbed the knife I keep between my box spring and mattress. Though I know I'm more likely to be injured while brandishing the knife in front of an intruder, it gives me some measure of peace that I have a weapon within reach. The knife has been in my family for over 50 years, it's handle wooden and smooth with a strong steel blade imbedded in the base. The blade has little give and is long enough to do damage but short enough for me to easily maneuver.

I duck into the hallway and crouch again, peering around the opening into the kitchen and listening for the persistent rattling that grows louder with each step I take. It isn't coming from the kitchen window I decide and creep further down the hallway and into the foyer, pressing myself against the wall, arm by my side and the knife gripped in my hand. The apartment is deceptively silent, the cats stationed on either side of the living room entrance with eyes glowing green in their motionless bodies.

The screen continues to rattle and I can feel my hearing becoming more acute, my eyes adjusting to the dark. I can just make out a shape on the other side of the curtains, can hear his breath as he continues to struggle with the screen. He manages to free a corner and the breath leaves my body in a near silent exhalation. I had so desperately wanted my fears to remain unconfirmed, for the rattle to be just another gust of wind, just another creaky sound old buildings are so prone to emit. In the span of two seconds I presented to myself every foreseeable option. I could remain motionless against the wall and become paralyzed by my own fear. I could take the emergency key I have hidden by the door and race out the front door, letting the intruder continue his struggle with the window. These will not work.

And so I opened my mouth and screamed as loud as I could, my voice breaking over my abused throat, sounding ragged and wild. I flicked on the living room light, keeping the majority of my body hidden behind the foyer wall while still peering cautiously around the corner, ready for the breaking of glass and my sprint through the front door.

Instead, I heard the rapid staccato of dried leaves yielding under heavy footsteps.

I moved back into the hallway, knife still in hand, listening for any further disturbance. I quietly moved into each room, turning on the overhead lights. I became conscious of weight in my pocket. My cell phone, I thought.

I debated what I should do. I'd scared the intruder away but I wasn't comfortable that he wouldn't come back. I'm a girl. I'm alone. And all I've got to protect me are two cats and a bloody knife.

So back pressed against the wall I called Lilleeeee, hoping she was home, home being the apartment directly above mine. She answered, but she was 30 minutes away from town, visiting a friend. So I hung up and called the police, actually looking forward to sturdy men in uniforms, equipped with guns and flashlights and cars with flashing blue lights.

And you know what?

I HAD FIVE POLICE MEN SHOW UP AT MY DOOR IN UNDER FIVE MINUTES.

I noticed the first three cops while peering out of the blinds of my front window. The next two showed up less than a minute later, walking the perimeter of the building no less than four times before retiring to sit in their patrol car for an entire hour, giving me the strength to finally make my way back to bed. They found only a half-torn screen pulled from my window and a collection of beer bottles. The group of three had all shaken my hand before leaving, wishing me a good night.

And so I slipped my wood-handled knife back into it's spot between the mattresses, picked both cats up and sat down on the bed with their warm furry bodies pressed against my chest. I sat them down, grabbing the codeine cough syrup that I had left sitting on the night stand. I took my second dose of the night, less than an hour from my first. And for the second- and what I hoped was the last- time that evening, I snuggled under the covers while my newly dubbed Attack Cats resumed their pre-disturbance poses, the Fat One rubbing his head against my knee before drifting off into kitty cat slumber.

so. tired.

From Thursday afternoon until Monday morning I did AB SO FUCKING LUTE LY NOTHING but languish in my bed, occasionally venturing into the kitchen to eat a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. Sometimes I even worked up the energy to stare at the bathtub longingly, knowing that the energy required to strip and stand for 10 minutes under the water, raising my hands above my head to wash my 47 pounds of hair WOULD JUST PLAIN KILL ME. (Though I did breakdown and shower on Saturday night once I rationalized that though I could not smell myself, my NEIGHBORS could probably smell me and that, my friend, is no good.) I dutifully took my antibiotics, sipped my codeine-laden cough syrup and drank cup after cup of water. And you know what?

I STILL FEEL LIKE SHIT.

I've decided I have some mutant strain of sinusitis/bronchitis that has taken up residence in my nasal/chest cavity and has found it RIGHT NICE and plans to raise little mutant babies and host little mutant baby showers and then, years from now, GIANT MUTUANT CELEBRATIONS announcing the baby mutants success at Mutantville High where he studied long and hard at mutant-ology, mutant history and, most importantly, THE THROWING OF FUCKING MUTANT PARTIES WITHIN THE CONFINES OF STUPID AND DELICATE HUMAN BODIES, DESTROYING THE ABILITY FOR COGNITIVE THOUGHT AND INNER PEACE.
I won't even pretend to be an adult. I AM MISERABLE. My head hurts, my chest hurts, my eyes burn, my brain has been knocked loose from my coughing, my eyes are carrying around jumbo-size YOU MOST CERTAINLY CAN'T CHECK THAT-size luggage and my whole body, MY WHOLE BODY, is so tired and exhausted you'd think I'd done something truly productive, something truly worthwile, something like building a 4,000 sq. ft. house with my BARE HANDS for poor starving children in the heat of Zimbabwe.

BUT NO.

It's seven o'clock and the thought of having to drive home just seems obnoxious and terribly silly. I'll be back here (work) in such a short time. Might I just stay here? I have some mini-mouthwash stashed in my desk. And a brush. I could just wear my big jacket all day tomorrow and NO ONE WOULD EVER KNOW.

Stupid Thoughts From Today, Mostly Influenced By Heavy Sedation Due To Over-Medicating Myself With Total Crap Cold Medicine THAT IS SO NOT WORKING.

1) Ok. So I understand the placing of signs in the elevator informing THE ENTIRE COMPANY that LORDY LORDY *some chick's name here*'s FORTY!! Super. Whatever. You're excited because your friend turned forty. But placing these same sheets inside BOTH THE MALE AND FEMALE RESTROOMS?? ON THE INSIDE OF THE STALLS??? SERIOUSLY???
2) It might be beneficial to read the backs of medicine boxes before actually ingesting said medicine. For instance, do not use the nifty vapo inhaler 15 times in a row and then follow it with 3 shots of nose spray because THAT SHIT BURNS, AND BURNS HARD. I suppose this is how people who snort coke feel. I'd bet my leftover candy that I've got a hole in my septum the size of a lemon.
3) Why do people in my office grow bamboo at their desks? Does this look like a fucking jungle? Does it? NO. When the bamboo grows 3 feet ABOVE your cubicle, perhaps it is time to start thinking about CUTTING BACK THE BAMBOO.
4) No one is fooled by that faux bun on the back of your head. We all know you don't have hair down to your ass and that there's NO WAY in THIS LIFETIME that you'll have luxurious locks. Only black ladies can do that and get away with it. WHITE GIRLS CAN'T DO FAUX HAIR. Unless your name is Britney Spears, of course. Then by all means, have at it.
5) I just sneezed and used a total of four, count 'em FOUR tissues. And I even bought the non-ghetto kind with the lotion.

THERE IS A GIANT MUCUS BALL INSIDE MY CRANIAL CAVITY AND IT'S MAKING ME VERY CRANKY.

Want. To. Shove. Q. Tip. In. Ear. Oh, THE PRESSURE.

I realize today's lil story is going to sound, er, slightly odd-- but bear with me because I'm nothing if not slightly OFF MY ROCKER. I'm also full of cheer and goodwill.

** One of the above statements is true. One of them is not. YOU GUESS.

My 'slightly odd' statement revolves around some recurring dreams I've had. Recurring for the past three nights. In a row.

It goes something like this:

I'm in a car, then a plane. The transition is very smooth in the way that only dreams could be. Because you and I and Corndog Bullwinkle know it's near impossible for any plane-train-automobile adventure to be referred to as "smooth." "Bearable" - maybe. "Horrific"- more likely. But smooth... how I could only dream. <--- Very bad pun.

This whole time, I'm looking at what I think is a man (faces very blurry, but he/she looks tall and I'm making a generic assumption due to the nature of what I can see in his head) and though the face is super blurry, I can see quite clearly INTO HIS HEAD. Not with super-man like powers, but with the ability that one has to see what cartoon characters are thinking because there are giant white bubbles above their head spilling every single one of their stupid thoughts into the cold uncaring universe. Only there's no stupid white bubble. It's like the bubble is INSIDE his head. Like I took an MRI printout and said "Oh, look, there's a picture of a horse. He must be thinking about horses." But in THIS CASE the man is thinking about a RING.
A sparkly till death do us part RING. After seeing the sparkly ring in his head, I see him flash through mental thought pictures. I see him and another blurry-faced person on a couch together, watching movies. I see them holding a baby above their heads together. I see them sitting on a rocker looking old and decrepit together. Only, ONLY, he's sad about something. At this point in the dream I'm curious about why he's sad so I make myself into a fairy and I fly in his ear.

CUT ME SOME SLACK IT'S A DREAM.

Once I'm a fairy and I've flown in his ear we have some thought-picture conversations. I wish I could tell you what these thought-picture conversations were about, but I can't. It's like I read that part of my dream in a book. "They had thought-picture conversations." But the book doesn't tell you what they were about, only that they had them. Very annoying if you ask me. No idea how THAT author got published. Gah. <---making very Napoleon type sound.
So the next thing I know, I'm looking at some weird body of water. It's very calm, so I'm thinking lake. Though there's a very big beach, so it could be an ocean. Not that lakes don't have beaches, too. But here in Arkie-saw, lakes substitute pretty sandy beaches for mossy, swampy areas that are inhabited by the nation's largest icky amphibians. So them I'm in a house and there's all kinds of people around. Blurry faces, natch. GOD FORBID I GET A DIRECT CLUE. And then I see the airplane blurry guy and he's standing in the middle of a room next to blurry girl and then WHAM! He falls in a big deep pit. A big deep pit that not THREE SECONDS BEFORE was nowhere to be seen. Just swallowed whole. The blurry face people look around and seem to shrug, then go on about their merriment.

Uh. Yeah. Then I wake up.

Ahh. Super.

Saturday morning I awoke to the very loud and uber-annoying moto ring of my only communication link to the outside word. The Cell. I groggily flipped open the phone and tried to modulate my voice into one not so closely associated with a 50-year-old smoker. A smoker who happens to have a penis.
"Hello?"
"Good Morning Miss Birdsnest! I'm Captain McDouchey-Pants and my partner Lt. McDouchey-Pants and I are calling to confirm our 9am appointment to install your Comcast wireless internet and basic cable!"
"Ok."
"Will you be availabe to have your high-speed wireless internet and basic cable installed today at your previously scheduled time of 9am?"
"Uh, yeah."
I'm still moderately groggy and trying desperately to appear fresh and rested as opposed to tore down from my night of marathon "Friends" viewing and screwdrivers. The drinky kind, not the metally kind. Because normal adult females do not drink screwdrivers in the privacy of their own home, alone, while watching a third season marathon. They awake early, eager to start their day being fresh and cute and, if still single, begin The Prowl at coffee houses, newstands and cute breakfast shops.
Me? I'M A FUCKING REBEL.
So I click shut the phone and fall back onto my super delicious and comfortable bed. It's talking to me.* Telling me to go back to sleep. One does not have to put on clothes for the Comcast dweebs, it says. Just stay in bed until you hear them pull up. It will be fiiiine.
*Never listen when inanimate objects talk to you.
Five minutes later I convince myself that I do indeed have to get up because I would sooner cut off my arm than let strange people see my unmade bed. Forget reigning in the boobies, BED MAKING IS A PRIORITY, PEOPLE.
So I make the bed, pull back the hair, put on a bra (thank god, my knees were starting to chafe) and pull on yesterday's pants. Just as I'm swishing the oral fungi from my mouth, the Comcast truck pulls up. Then, as I'm unlocking the door, I see a second Comcast truck pull up.
I think, "Hnh. Weird."
I don't dwell on this thought long because Lilleeeee, my upstairs neighbor, is barrelling down the stairs so she can chill in the apartment with me while Comcast goes about its business installing shit. You know. To protect me. Because I'm a weenie.
The two McDouchey-Pants manage to carry themselves into the apartment while carrying wires, boxes and wearing tool belts with giant walkie-talkies that I assume are suppose to convey a sense of authority. A sense of "I TOTALLY know what I'm doing. I've got a TOOLBELT, duh."
I show them where the cable outlet is. It's in the bedroom closet. A completely ridiculous place for a cable outlet but I'm not the one who made that decision, now am I? So after showing them where the outlet IS and where it NEES TO BE they stare blankly at me, informing me that they just can't do that. I'll have to have written permission from my landlord.
"To install A CABLE OUTLET?" I ask.
Yes, I am informed. To install a cable outlet.
"Ok. Super. So why wasn't I told this ON THE PHONE when I made my appointment and every single ridiculous detail was examined and typed into some soul-less Comcast database??"
More blank stares.
"So what you're telling me is, I can't have cable unless I a) get written permission from my fuckwad landlord or b) decide to turn my bedroom closet into my very own entertainment center, complete with NO ELECTRICAL OUTLETS??"
"Er, yes."
SUPER.
So I think, screw the cable, I'll just get internet. I NEED the internet. I MUST HAVE the internet. So I tell Douche 1 and Douche 2 to install the wireless internet. I retreive my laptop and place it on the coffee table. Wherein Douche 2 looks at my pretty white macketymacmac and goes:
"Oh. They didn't cover those in training."
"What exactly do you mean 'they didn't cover those in training'?" I say.
"Well, um, I don't think our stuff works on those Apple computers."
"Uh huh. And again I ask, WHY WASN'T I TOLD THIS DURING MY TWENTY MINUTE PHONE CONVERSATION WITH YOUR SHORT BUS COMCAST REPRESENTATIVE?"
"Well, uh, maybe they didn't know?"
"Yes. I suppose it would be confusing for the rep to ask what type of computer I have and for me to answer 'Apple ibook'."
Douche 1 then decides to make his presence known. I mean, I'd been concentrating all my efforts on Douche 2. He was being ignored. How dare I.
So Douche 1 takes my laptop and tries to mess with settings, mess with buttons, MESS WITH ALL OF IT and then finally makes his Word of God Announcement:
"It's too old."
"My ass it's too old. I bought it in April of last year. That makes it less than two years old. I. Don't. Think. So."
"Nope, it's definitely too old."
So I fume and bite the inside of my mouth while Douche 1 gets on his beep beep walkie talkie to confer with Corndog Bullwinkle on the other end. Corndog Bullwinkle expresses his confusion over someone owning a Mac. He asks what operating system I have. I tell him. His conclusion? It's too old.
"IT'S NOT TOO OLD YOU DICKWEED. IT WAS UPDATED NOT SIX MONTHS AGO. TELL ME ONE MORE TIME IT'S TOO OLD. TELL ME."
So then Douche 2 has the brilliant idea that they can go ahead and install the cable and set up the wireless explaining that maybe I can find someone who knows how to set up a mac on Comcast internet. I stre incredulously at him, TOTALLY AMAZED THAT THOSE WORDS HAVE COME OUT OF HIS MOUTH.
"Maybe I misunderstood, but- AREN'T YOU THE ONE THAT'S SUPPOSED TO KNOW HOW TO INSTALL THE FUCKING INTERNET??"
"Well. Um."
Yeah. This is how my morning started. And let's not even TALK ABOUT the incident involving how my fuckwad landlord moved the rusted out water heater from her upstairs back porch to the 2-foot wide "alley" behind my apartment, placing it DIRECTLY UNDER MY WINDOW. Don't you worry. I called their answering service and made sure that Cody the Super Duper Answering Service Operator took down every. single. word. of my message. A message in which I used the phrase "fucking cunt" a total of four times. Why? Because I was SUPER EXCITED to see how I am now a Burger King drive-through. Please, give the fucking homeless rejects in my neighborhood a STEP STOOL into my WINDOW you FUCKING CUNT.
So anyway. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.