Wednesday, December 23, 2009

It's beginning to look a lot like Sunday...

Hey, is it just me or is it almost Christmas?

Presents – they are purchased. And also they are wrapped.

Stuffers for stockings are found and sorted and ready to stuff

Food is figured out and ready to be cooked and such. By me! I’ll cook food!

House is clean, tree is trimmed, stockings are hung by no chimney with care, and yet I will confess (with much chagrin for being so sappy) that all I’m really caring about is Sunday. Because on Sunday returns the Englishman.

(oh, by the way? That’s his nickname. The Englishman. T.E. for short, but you guys don’t know him well enough for that yet, so we’re sticking with The Englishman.)

I’ve told him before, and its ever so true, that he’s ruined Christmas for me. Because normally all I’d be able to THINK about right now is the impending arrival of a fat guy in a red suit with bags of cool stuff. But even though I’m still super-happy about Christmasness right around the corner I’m down right GIDDY about the impending arrival of a gorgeous guy in whatever the hell he wants to wear with bags of his stuff, the better to stay and spend weeks with me.

Oh, and Christmas is cool too.

Of course once I’m sitting amidst my family and food and presents and Nat King Cole on the stereo I’ll be all focused on the holiday. Well, mostly all. But it really does amaze me how much his arrival has trumped everything else, becoming the pinnacle thing to anticipate. What are we doing while he’s here? Nothing much, really. Just hanging out. Just spending time; enjoying each other. But that is the very best thing I can think of to do, and everything else is “nice too.”

So everyone please have a very nice Christmas. But have an AWESOME Sunday!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Returns from the (not) Dead

OK, so first thing’s first: I am NOT dead. Repeat: NOT DEAD.

However I do very much suck, the chief evidence of which is my whole having abandoned my blog for the last 6 months. For the one or two people who still read (and what the heck are you thinking???) I owe you such the explanation.

Let me start by cataloging everything that has changed in the last 6 months:
  • I moved to another state
  • I got a super-cool new job
  • I lost a bunch of weight and got myself into really good shape again
  • I took a martial arts class for a month (the start of many such things I hope?)
  • I’m making real money for the first time in my life!
However in all honesty none of those things can really be held responsible for my lack of blogging. I hate to admit it, but it all comes down to one thing: a guy.

If you were reading before (or have the ability to scroll down) you’ll remember my last post was all about how I’d found this English dude to chat with online. Nothing serious or long-term or anything. Just good fun. And CERTAINLY nothing that ever could or would become love. Remember that? Remember how I was so very sure I could never love Mr. English flirty guy? Yeah, well…

Last Monday was the 6 month anniversary of our connecting.

Oh my good and true internets, I cannot believe that I can say this, but the total truth of the matter is this: I am in love.

Now this isn’t even the most amazing part of it to me. This is actually the first time in my entire life that I’ve ever actually BEEN in love. There was this other guy over a dozen years ago that I kind of thought might be serious emotions, but now that I have this to compare it to it’s more than obvious that the douchebag from Jersey was crap and more crap. This. This is TRUE love.

Lest you think that this is the end of the big love hunt I should clarify all the many and asundry challenges in this relationship. We start with the distance – a continent and an ocean. Accompanying that is the 8-hour time difference. Next there is a pretty damned substantial age difference. There are other things that could also be pointed out, although those mentioned are really the biggies and are CERTAINLY big enough! And yet amazingly we just keep going and going.

About 2-3 months after he and I met (ooh, he needs a nickname, doesn’t he? I’ll think of it…) I got offered an incredibly good job opportunity in another city. In another state. This was kind of the answer to all sorts of “first star I see tonight” wishes that I could change my job situation, as the job I had in Hippyville was completely making me nuts. In the bad way. This new opportunity is in a leadership position for a start-up company. As opposed to my previous job I finally have a little control of my destiny at work, as well as really being challenged and pushed. I would be lying if I said I didn’t wish it could calm down JUST A LITTLE, but between being bored out of my skull or being really challenged I’d take challenged any time.

And as my sweety would say, I kick ass at this job.

The change of job and change of city in which I’m living have coincided with a paycheck that I could actually enjoy. And that paycheck lead to me being able to subsidize English Guy and I actually meeting for the Labor Day weekend! We’d been spending hours talking online (I love Skype with every fiber of my being and should totally buy stock in it!!!) every single day and yet we worried that we’d have no face-to-face chemistry when in the same space. This turned out to be a ridiculous fear and the four days spent together were the most passionate and exciting of my life. Believe it or not, the great stone heart actually shed tears when I had to put him back on a plane.

Therefore it’s great thrills and chills that I face his return a week from Sunday.

I could go on and on and I will over the coming weeks and months I hope, but I’ll wrap this up with the following incredibly unlike me gushing:

He’s amazing. He’s brilliant and so damned mature (especially for his age but even without that caveat) and he gets me like nobody ever does. He makes me laugh, and even more important he lets me make HIM laugh! We have a ton in common – so much so that it shifted somewhere along the line from quaint and cute to almost creepy – and his voice can melt me like butter on popcorn every. Single. Time…

Just wait. There WILL be more.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Irony, thy name is the Internet

Remember a few months ago when I said that I was dropping the online matchmaking thing because there was no way I was going to meet someone online worth a damn? And that I was just wasting time and money and who cares anyway, nobody loves me, blah, blah, blah…

Am I right, then to find it pretty danged ironic that I’m currently flirting with some dude online?

Now before any of you who might be prone to getting excited about something get excited about this I will tell you that it’s nothing big, I know practically nothing about this guy, he lives on a whole other continent and I’m sure it’s not going to lead anywhere except more entertaining emails and chatting. So chill.

Chiiiiiiiil.

(You there – you’re not chilling. I can see you’re already doodling “Femtastic + Online Dude = Love 4Ever!” on your awesome 80’s peachy folder. Drop the glitter pen and step away from the peachy.)

However, it has been a lot of fun (and a boost to my ego and my morale) to have interesting interactions with someone of the not-girl persuasion. Mostly we’ve been debating (but with a healthy dose of other assorted chit-chat) about stories we’re reading on a random website. I know only the following: he’s extremely intelligent, well-read, funny and lives in England. (Yes, England the country. As in “Mind The Gap”, Doctor Who, home of the Beatles and Fish and Chips w/ the head still on it. Shudder…) Oh, and he stays up even later than I do – recently we were chatting online and I suddenly realized it was almost 3am his time! (I would have made the realization earlier, but you know me and math, and how we super-duper hate each other.)

Now, you know me. And you know how I’m always thinking. Especially when the last thing I should be doing is thinking. So I’ve determined all of the ways I could totally ruin this:
  • Make it more than it is.
  • Think too much about the things I don’t know (age, job, looks)
  • Over-think it
  • Invest too much time or energy into it
That last one is probably my biggest concern. Due to the time difference between here and a completely different danged continent (8 hours, people! Like right now, as I post this, he's probably somewhere getting a warm beer in a pub or buying boxer shorts with the union jack on them!) we’ve chatted during work a time or two and frankly that’s just stupidity on my part. I eventually told him that we need to cut that out and he was cool with my drawing such a line. But I’ll admit that it’s been quite a distraction! Basically it’s much more entertaining “talking” to him than doing my job, so how is my poor little job to compete? (answer: by paying me the money that allows me the internet connection at home so I can chat NOT at my work! And add to that the bonus answer: Big Dummy!) As of right now I’m being both smart and good, which is very not me. I normally dive right into the “stupid and bad” end of the pool. Doing the smart/good way feels weird – kind of like wearing your shoes on the wrong feet. Or on my hands. Can you wear shoes on your face? Because it’s weird like shoes on my face.

It’s because I don't want to over-think this that I’m only just now even sharing it with you guys, my anonymous fan club. This isn’t love about to bud or anything, but it IS fun and flattering and that’s more than enough for me. (It’s a LOT of fun, by the way – smart guys are awesome.) It also provides the important "flirting practice time" which I need as well. Soon I will be the best flirterer ever!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Battle of the Bulge - Get on my Bike and Ride!

Just in case anyone is unsure, I’m not yet a size 2. I know. I KNOW! I don’t get it either, but there you have it. Not a 2. (not even a 4! Unbelievable!!!) So it seems like I need to continue to wage the battle of the danged bulge.

Then again, a lucky thing seems to have happened. All the rain and damp and general lack of sun and warmth and loveliness seems to have gone away. Plus also YAY! Apparently there’s this thing every year, lasts a few months, generally brings sun and nice-type weather and they call it “Some Ur” I’m intrigued. But with all this extra sun each day I’ve got the time to add something to my days.

So I added 15 extra miles of biking.

There’s this bike path that starts pretty dang close to my house and runs out west of town. No, further than that. Further. Past there and keep going… and going… (no, don’t stop at the Target. I know, I love Target too. LOVE Target. But you don’t stop there.) When you reach the end of the path you’re overlooking some lovely wetlands with all sorts of birds and other wildlife. Also you’re 7+ miles away from my house, and generally about 30 minutes too.

And even though it’s a lovely ride ending in a lovely view of great and abundant loveliness you still gotta ride 7+ miles BACK into town to get back. Into town. (But still a lovely ride. But like the lovely ride in reverse.) And both ways there are tons of excellent things of which to take a picture. In fact, the hard part is to set picture-taking standards. If I stop and take snaps of every single thing that seems picturesque these trips will take 2-3 hours each day. Which is too many hours. So I only take the awesome pictures. The "holy crap!" pictures. Of which I've taken... well, none. But I'm ready for it!

At this point, with the biking, I’m doing pretty well. Last week I made my 15-mile trek 4 times. 60 miles total, roughly. As fast as I could without ruining the lovely view at the lovely overlook with my lovely lunch sprayed technicolorly thither and yon.

So far, with the 60 miles and the 4 hours and the sweating, sweating, SO MUCH SWEATING, I’ve lost a total of I haven’t lost anything. Sigh. But supposedly these things take time. Which I’m opposed to, but the loop hole around this rule is eluding me. While I keep looking for this loop hole I’m also gonna keep riding. This week won’t work so well because there’s stuff, stuff and even more stuff to be doing for the end of the school year. But come the weekend I’m RIGHT BACK in the saddle, baby!

Next: I must to upwardly sit, and also upwardly push. Even though I hate the ups, both sitting and pushing. Wish me luck-ups.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Basket Full of Uber-Cuddly Kittens Would Do It Too...

OK, so I’ve got a piece of information that will probably cause some “Awwwww”s. If you’re someone who does that, and you know who you are. (Then again, maybe you don’t? Maybe you just don’t pay that much attention to your reaction to things cute? OK, quick check: picture a puppy licking a bunny. THERE! RIGHT THERE! That noise that you made? That was an “Awwwwww.” You’re definitely one of those people. And you’re welcome…) ANYway, get ready because here comes the info. The 411. Those guys that used to hang with Huey Lewis. Here it comes:

I think the boy in my tap class has a wee crush on me.

AND there it is… Yup, yup – get it over with… Yup… Get it out of your system… Puppy licking a bunny… Oh, the giggle was a nice addition… Ok, but no baby talk. We don’t do that stuff here. Stop it. Use your R’s. Seriously, stop it. It’s “little”, not “widdle”.

You finished?

Yeah, I finally decided that the boy in my tap class was crushing on me last night. And sure, it’s nice to have someone crush on me. I’m not someone upon whom people get crushes, mostly because one rarely crushes on someone generally scary. But important detail here folks: he’s the BOY in my tap class.

(No, the “BOY” part isn’t significant because I don’t like boys. I like boys guys just fine.) I’m talking honest to goodness boy, with such attributes as “can’t drive yet” and “his voice may still get deeper” and “probably not much hair in THOSE places”. So obviously this is only noteworthy because “oh gosh and golly, someone finds me crush-worthy.”

Either that, or he might be gay. (It’s actually tough to tell those two things apart. I’ve run into this before.)


6/10/09, roughly 3:20pm

Edited to add:



...go ahead and TRY not to Awwwww...

Friday, June 05, 2009

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

The heart wants things that go boom please

It’s a funny thing about life – no matter how long you’re doing it you just keep learning things. For instance, I am definitely not a teenage girl. I’m not actually sure I ever was one.

I was the last person on the entire planet to read the Harry Potter books. No particular reason, and once I finally read them I liked them, but it just took me forever. Similarly I’m the only person on the planet with a Y chromosome who has not yet read the Twilight books. But I’m on it! Thanks to my lady mentors, The Queen and Risky, I’ve got the first book and I’m making my way through it. But honestly I’m finding it a lot of work.

The reading’s not difficult – it’s simple and quick, as most books for this age group tend to be. It’s just that I have to stop every few pages and groan, or clutch my head in my hand, or look to the sky in dismay. These things take time. Slow the reading WAY down. Also it makes me tired so I have to read in short bursts. Short, aggravated bursts.

I’m sorry, but I just have no threshold at all for the agonized pining for the beautiful boy. The “Oh, will ne notice me? Will he? WILL HE?” or the “He’s ever so dreamy, I hope he looks this way or I might DIEEEEEEEE!” And I wish I could say I only feel this way since becoming an old, jaded spinster lady. But honestly this crap made me want to chew glass even when I was, myself, a foolish high school girl. (It’s also possible that I was an old, jaded spinster lady by the age of 16. Frankly my high school social life would actually make way more sense if that were true…)

I just can’t stomach the “my heart stopped as I looked into his eyes, I felt him look straight through me, our hearts beat as one” CRAAAAAAAAAAP. Love is great and all, but it’s not a good enough excuse to be a moron. And still this book seems to be scattered throughout with these moments where our hero does dumb stuff because the boy hero is pretty, pretty, oh so pretty. (or maybe because he sees into her soul. Same thing really.)

So I’m gonna keep trying to work my way through this very popular, very saccarine, very frustrating book. But when I’m done I’m probably going to have to read something with a lot of shooting. Shooting and maybe some explosions. Big, macho explosions.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Hope Springs Eternal

Those of you who are still reading (and bless you and your lack of standards! Or a life! Keep up that not having a life! Lives are totally overrated!) may remember that a little over a month ago I wrangled a super-awesome deal on a car. A new car. (well, ok, a USED car, but not even a little bit as used as my car, and also shiny! So shiny!) I totally negotiated like a pro and got it for a steal! Remember how pleased I was with myself? Remember how annoying that was? Remember? Right.

The only teeny, tiny, itty-bitty, hardly-worth-mentioning hang-up on my awesome car deal was that the dealer didn’t have a title for it. And I’m sure some of you just pricked up your “Danger, Will Robinson!” ears and are asking me “WHY didn’t he have a title?” And then I mention that he also didn’t have keys for the car, and also that it was a car abandoned on the side of the road. Oh, and also that the tires and wheels had been stolen. And your ears stop pricking, and instead you just start waving your arms and shouting “Run! Run away from the stolen car! Stolen, oh so stolen! Fleeeee!”

I did the same thing when I first met my car. I checked the VIN and investigated everything I could, coming up clean every time, but I was still convinced this car had been stolen from someplace else and abandoned here in Hippyville. Finally I told my very good friend Ali about my suspicions, to which he responded (and please remember to hear his voice in a thick, almost comedic Persian accent) “Oh no, no, no. We just recently got the story about the car and its previous owner.” And then he told me this story:

The car had been purchased in Iowa (which is true – that much I already knew) by a photojournalist who was working the Obama Presidential campaign. He drove this little blue wonder hither and yon, over hill and dale, clickity-clicking pictures of the future president of the united states everywhere he went. (this part is corroborated by the super-high miles on the car. 130,000 miles in less than 4 years? Either he was following Obama everywhere or he was a member of the Grateful Dead!) The last state where he worked the campaign was here, where Hippyville resides. When he finished the gig he apparently just left the car here. On the side of the road. For me.

Is that not a great story? A GREAT STORY?? I love that story. I loved the car already, but this story about my car being a helpful part of one of the biggest events in US politics? And owned by a photojournalist, no less? LOVE IT! This story just made me even more sure that I was meant to have this car. And yes, I totally know that this story could be complete crap. But it SOUNDS good, right? Plus the facts that I do have totally support the story. And such an awesome story!!!

I told my clever, clever sister the story, and quick like bunny she said “you should name the car Hope.” And Hope she did become. My new car Hope.

Except that my bank, also known as “the wonderful people who agreed to give me a pile of money so that I could even start to negotiate for my shiny, shiny car”, have this one rule: no title = no money.

So I was like “hey, no sweat. I just have to wait a little bit until the title shows up. No problem. I’ll be back at the end of the week for Hope, my super-awesome new car. I can wait a week!”

And then at the end of the week Ali, my car-selling friend, told me that the DMV had told him “next Wednesday for sure!” So Wednesday. Still good. Still well worth the wait. I’ll see you Wednesday, my Persian auto-selling captain of industry!

Except that Wednesday was a lie, and Friday was an additional lie. So then I waited longer than that. I waited, and waited, and waited.

My Dad used to tell me that everything in the world will either cost you MONEY or TIME. If you save money you’ll probably have to spend more time, either to fix it up or go get it or something. So I’d saved money, and if it was gonna cost a little more time so be it. Time I could afford a bit more of. And so I waited.

I waited for three weeks. Three weeks! Three weeks telling people “oh yes, I did buy a car! No, you can’t see it. Because I don’t actually own it yet…” Three weeks of wondering if it was the DMV or Ali who was hand-delivering a fresh batch of BS every few days to keep me on the hook. Three weeks of watching other people’s Mazdas drive by looking all zoomy. Three. Weeks.

The day I finally got the call that the title had arrived I was giddy! Yahoo! It took me four hours of driving from place to place to get the title, get the check, get the old broken Ford, try to drive the ford to the dealership, have the Ford die no place close to the dealership, get a ride w/ someone else to the dealership, but now I get to spend my days zooming around in my super-sporty, belled and whistled blue beauty. My new baby. My shiny baby. My Hope.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The Ladies who Pedi.

I know this will be a huge shock, but most of my life I’ve had more guy friends than girl friends. Many things about girls bug me. I will be honest and say that I shake my head in great confusion over the antics of my gender far too often. (someone explain to me about $40 lipsticks please? And also dogs in purses? And girls gone wild – why do they go wild? What makes them go wild like this? Does this wild-going seem like a good idea to anybody? Any girl body, I mean? But I digress) I often shake my head at guy stuff too (tell me again why it makes sense to call your friend a fag? And pee on their shoe?) but the stupid things that guys do are both funny (yes they are) and also don’t reflect poorly on me beyond my choosing to be around them when they’re doing it.

And as a result I’ve always had more guy friends than girl friends. I’m kind of like the Jane Goodall of dudes. I speak their language and they accept me as one of their own. (and all sorts of female readers are adding another item to their personal “why Femtastic is lucky to have had a boyfriend ever in her whole life!!” list)

But there are a few exceptions to this list, and top-most of those exceptions are two of my oldest friends, my three amigas, my fellow musketeers, my… another thing that’s famous and three… The Queen and Risky. I’ve known Risky since I was too young to remember what age I was when I met her (so like 5 or 6?) and though I’ve known The Queen for less actual year-times we’ve made up for lost time like gangbusters and I find it kind of amazing that I ever didn’t know her either.

I get to see the Queen all the time (I get to. She has to) but Risky lives a good 90 minutes away, so the three of us try to get together for some serious girl bonding time every few months at the least; we call these our Ladies Days. They are an estrogen feeding frenzy of epic proportions where the uterus of strangers around us are enflamed with envy and we cause entire shopping malls of women to synch their periods up instantaneously. It’s days of shopping or ladies’ lunches or whatnot. In April?

It was Femtastic’s first pedicure.

It’s true! Just last month I allowed someone, NAY, PAID someone, to put their hands on my feet. MY FEET! And not only did I not kill them with the smells and other noxious things that are associated with feet I also did not kill them with spontaneous face kicking in response to them doing their feet touching. Which was actually my chief concern. The idea of letting someone touch my feet just kind of wigged me out. Also I was afraid that my feet would be some new benchmark of serious grossness, or that I’d have to pretend I didn’t see the poor pedicurist squelching her gag reflex.

But no! Not only did she tell me that my feet were really pretty good (and nothing like the troll she had the day before) but I also TOTALLY LOVED the feet touching!

Important to note: I’ve always been hugely enamored of foot massages. HUUUUGELY. I tried and tried to make my one exmanfriend understand that he could skip foreplay and even sex and all the pesky worrying about whether I got my special reward in bed if only he would rub my feet, but this is something he never, ever got. But such foot massages have generally been given by people with whom I’ve already crossed familiarity boundaries. Not strangers in fashion-colored aprons with 80’s rock playing in the background who’s names I only know because it’s embroidered on their front. I could make an analogy of how strange a boundary cross that seemed like it would be, but they’d all give you the heebie-jeebies. Let’s just say I thought it would be weird.

And it was totally not weird.

Also when we were done we had the prettiest toes ever! SO PRETTY! Who knew toes could even BE pretty? Not me, I had no idea, and yet there I was. Admiring my very own painted piggies. There was Chinese food and book shopping and coffee (for people who drink coffee, and coffee mocking for those of us who don’t.) and it was a very excellent day.

And now I love me the pedicure. I would have another please.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Where Was I...?

It’s not my fault.

I swear, it’s not! I was totally gonna post two weeks ago to tell you about any number of things (there are actually numbers of things. As in more than one thing. I think maybe even more than TWO! It’s entirely possible that I could legitimately use the words ‘a few’ to quantify the things I planned to write about!) but I ran out of time before the annual Mother’s Day at the Coast (also called “Hey, let’s hang out and eat for a solid two days and oh look, water!”). But no problem, I’d just write one of my number of things when I got back on Sunday.

But then instead of spending the whole weekend at the coast and coming home on Sunday my house broke. It sprung a leak. One of those leaks that results in water coming to live in your carpeting which, as I understand it, is a bad thing.

Here’s the other crazy part, by the way: this is the SECOND time this house has flooded since I’ve lived here. Most people go their whole lives without ever having to walk across a room to the dulcet tones of “Squelch. Squish. Other sounds of water inside the floor-stuff” and yet I’ve done it now twice! Oh yes, there’s no doubt about it: I’m special. (I’m just now realizing I should probably have included that in my online dating profiles: “has magical ability to fill homes with an over-abundance of water.” Drat.)

Last time it was much worse and it was an insurance claim and I spent a couple of weeks living on concrete flooring with all of my belongings either boxed up by strangers or up on these little foam blocks. The foam blocks were actually really cool – I kept as many of them as I could and still use them for stuff. For about 6 of those days I felt like I was living inside the jet engine of a 747 preparing for take-off – there were fans, fans, fans running all the time. ALL. THE. TIME.

This time around it was only about 1/2 as bad – we kept the laminate flooring and the carpet, just replacing one pad and drying it all out for a week. Baseboards were removed and dime-sized holes punched in the sheetrock to make sure the air could circulate behind there and dry out the wall because hey, did you know that sheetrock is basically made out of paper? PAPER. All of our homes are essentially 2X4s covered up with thick paper and paint. Go ahead and try not to think of that tonight while you’re going to sleep. One solid sneeze and I’m pretty sure the whole thing comes down.

Where was I? Oh right, not my fault.

So I spent all of last week living at my parent’s house while mine was filled with a dozen mini-tornadoes. (I’ll admit that it was pretty amusing to drive past the place and see the front curtains in a constant state of mini-twister.) My parents do have a computer, but frankly it was three days of falling down sleepy every time I stopped moving for more than five minutes (I would so suck as a shark) followed by another three days of catching up on my life and then I had to move everything all back IN—

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I had to box up about 75% of my entire house, along with all the furniture, and store it in my carport. And I had to do all of the packing and schlepping and storing in about 6 hours. And that I’m awesome, because I did it in 5 hours. And then I spent a week saying “I need to get my {whatever} – oh, that’s right. It’s somewhere in my carport. Somewhere.” Followed by a healthy shaking of my fist to the skies. Good times.

Now where was I? NOT MY FAULT! RIGHT!

So now I’m back in and the boxes are about 2/3rd unpacked and somethings are actually improved by the whole exercise – why does anyone need two copies of Orson Scott Card’s Children of the Mind (the least accessible of all the Ender books if you ask me) or the second of the Griffin and Sabine trilogy? Hmmm? Why? Exactly. Still it’s taken me this long to get over the non-stop tired and finally be reflective contemplative narrative tell-you-guys-stuff-ive enough to get this out on the interwebs. Now that you’re caught up there will be a whole bunch of catch-up posts about the few (see? I told you I could l legitimately use it!) things I was going to post before. Think of it like the “Next on Unlikely In Love…” flash-forward thing.

Oh, one other thing: I saw the new Star Trek movie and LOVE, LOVE, LOVED IT! And I promise I won’t tell you anything from the whole movie if you guys all promise NOT to tell me anything about the last few episodes of Lost because I’m VERY, VERY BEHIND.

Even though it's totally NOT my fault.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Staycation = Yaycation!

I have a very hard and fast rule, and it is hard and fast this: I don’t work on my birthday.

I. Don’t. Work. On. My. Birthday.

With only a few sad exceptions I always take my birthday off from work. I do this both because I DON’T WORK ON MY BIRTHDAY (you may have heard rumors to this effect) and also I really hate having to do the birthday celebration thing at work. It just always feels forced and awkward and also in my family really the rule is that you get to decide how your birthday goes. You get to decide. You get to pick the theme for the party and You get to buy the cake and You get to invite the guests and all these good things.

And yet? When they celebrate a birthday at work it pretty much never gets to be YOU who decides on the method of celebration. Like you should be spared that chore, which usually means that you get to stand around with people you’re not really friendly with (um, who is that guy over there? The one eating the entire slice of cake in one bite? Is it just me, or is he maybe a homeless guy? Anyone? Hellooo?), eating cake you don’t really like (Oh gosh, German Chocolate Carrot Cake with coconut frosting! Was there no vomit-flavored cake with turd frosting left in the bakery section?), having an inane conversation you’d just a soon avoid (no, I have never heard the story of how you got that scar there. Oh, I don’t know, how do you define “easily freaked out by stories about spurting blood”?). And if you don’t grin and bare it you’re considered ungrateful because here your co-workers went and did all of this FOR YOU. HAPPY F*CKING BIRTHDAY, JERK.

So me, I stay AWAY from work on my birthday.

This year was the best of all the stay-away-from-work-birthday years. Because this year the birthday? It fell on a Wednesday. You just don’t take a day off to celebrate how you didn’t die, even once, for another whole year and then go back to the job the very next day. YOU JUST DON’T! And if you’re gonna take two days off to celebrate the annual not dying does it really make sense to go back to the office for one day, just to head right back into a weekend? IT DOES NOT! Therefore, my peoples, the Wednesday birthday is just another way of saying FIVE-DAY-WEEKEND, BABY!!!

All hail the five-day-weekend. I’ll wait while you all hail it… (you. Behind Debuke. I don’t see you all-hailing. What, are you too GOOD to all hail the five-day-weekend? I thought not!)

Now, the epic five-day-weekend of not-dying goodness would have been 100% perfect if I’d had a shiny new (used, but whatever) car to drive around, which I did not (and more on that in the next post.). But even without that, the following things spiced up the great and powerful five-day-weekend:
  • Baby’s first pedicure. SO SHINY! (there will also be more on THAT in a future post)
  • naps on three different days!
  • shopping, which netted me CDs, Books AND Clothing!
  • All-You-Can-Eat Mongolian BBQ, which I like to call “Mongolia is trying to kill me with their non-stop food wonders. Make Mongolia stop.” And then I like to ‘splode with Mongolian food excellence.
  • A bonus ladies day with the Queen and Risky where we remembered how awesome we are and made people around us wish they were us (especially with the beautiful feet!)
  • Sleep
As you also probably noticed I took pretty much the whole week off from the blog too. Sorry about that, but whenever I started to think about writing a blog post a new book called me or I fell into a sneaky nap trap (that’s where the nap lies somewhere stealthy and you don’t even see that it’s there until it’s too late and you’re in a coma on the couch.) or I remembered that it was my birthday and I should only do things I SUPER-DUPER wanted to do.

Right now? I SUPER-DUPER wanted to write to you guys.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Plan… C? D? #11?

The online matchmaking thing is a bust, and I officially wash my hands of it. (yes, again. And shut up.) I just couldn’t face spending another pile of money given the crap that has crossed my radar. Also I didn’t like the way it had me wondering if the reason that I kept getting matches of crap was because that’s my type: crap. Wouldn’t be the first time I wondered that, (and if you’d ever met my one long-time relationship you’d be thinking the VERY SAME THING.) but it’s still a bummer thought.

So moving on! Moving on to… ummmmm… yeah….

Ok, so this is the part of the plan that I’ve not really worked out in detail. Specifically the “plan” part. I guess to call this a “plan” is overly optimistic. It’s more of a general hope, or specifically-focused level of enthusiasm. Know what I mean? I’m not so much following a plan now as I am not following the OLD plan and, instead, hoping that the universe is done messing with me and will pony up the awesome match all on its own.

You can see why I’m so very optimistic. Really, how could this fail? Totally. Fool. Proof.

I have opened up my radar to a wider sweep (check me and my cool military references, courtesy of months of watching NCIS reruns. My GOD I am a catch!) by informing a few more folks that should they stumble upon that most rare and fictional of creatures (the single, decent, employed and washed single man my age) they should feel free to let me know. Or send him my way. Or hog-tie him and keep him in the trunk of their car until I get there. (I don’t want to limit their problem-solving skills, so I leave a lot to their imagination.) I sort of hate admitting to folks that I’m even remotely giving a crap, but I also hate irony. And the “not telling people” option increases the odds of me meeting Mr. Right at his wedding after another friend of mine fixed him up. To not me. Nobody needs that much irony in their life.

This change of strategy partially came around when I had not one, but two friends (one of which was the Queen, thank you very much!) tell me that they secretly never expected the online thing to work and that they think the only way I’ll find a partner is by making a connection with someone in a 1-on-1 interaction. I totally think they’re right. As one friend put it, “you’re gonna be somewhere and make one of your jokes and some guy’s going to get that joke and you’ll know HE’S the guy! Because HE got YOUR joke!”

My E-Melody profile should apparently have always said “Wanted: someone who will get my jokes.” Wakka, wakka, wakka.

So now, with this new plan, the only problem I have to worry about is being places where there are people with whom I could have that magical 1:1 interaction. And the good news THERE is that I have an active social life, doing stuff all the dang time with crowds of people! Huzzah! Never mind that every single gathering that I go to is full of married guys. Or that most of the parties I attend are all members of my family. Basically the only way this is gonna work is if I can get my entire family to move to the South and loosen their moral boundaries a whole bunch.

Man, what a girl will go through for wove. Wish me luck on the new plan goal hope general optimistic direction!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

A different kind of bad influence

OK, so despite the dozens of polar bears who no doubt drowned to death last week with all the driving that I did to work I NORMALLY am a bicycle commuter. Even with my new wheels I’ll bike my ass to work every day. I hop on my super-cool bike (and it is officially super-cool. I’ve had totally random strangers compliment me on my bike. So it’s official. Super-cool. Go ahead and envy me – you’re allowed.) and peddle to and from work twice a day.

My bike-commuting gear in inclement weather normally includes big broccoli rubber bands around my pant legs, a big, shapeless, bread-pudding of a coat (but warm), a muffler so long that even if I wrap it around my neck 6 times it will still poke out the bottom of my shapeless dessert coat, earmuffs and clear work goggles with a mirror hanging off one stem.

But no helmet.

Before I have a record number of comments ever for one post (which I want, but not on this post) let me state for the record:

1) I have no doubts that helmets are safer than no helmets
2) I would never, in a million years, encourage someone else to not wear one
3) I totally get that my arguments sound absurd
4) If I DO smash my brains I’ll blame nobody but me.

The reason I have had no helmet so far starts with “my god, how is it possible that we have made it possible for golf, the lamest of all the sports, to be played on the moon and yet still bike helmets are both dorky looking AND uncomfortable???” and then rolls over into “it costs HOW MUCH???” territory before landing gracefully at “I have to work all day with whatever hair I have when I get to the other end. If that hair is lame I get to look lame. At work. Every day.” I understand that none of these things are as important as not splashing my shiny, shiny brains all over the ground, but so far (knock on wood) I’ve not had (knock on a bunch of wood) any brain-splashing problems (seriously, where do they keep the wood on this danged internet???) and the other problems happen 100% of the helmet-wearing time. In other words: I MIGHT get hurt, but I’ll DEFINITELY look dorky on the road, be uncomfortable, spend a bunch of money and have lame helmet hair at work.

So for these reasons I’ve been helmetless. And by the way? I’m totally not alone. Here in Hippyville, which is a danged bike-riding mecca, there are people all around me sporting caps and hoods and other head-gear designed to keep heads warm or dry (or super-snazzy!) but not so much smash-free. And we are all in our own little club. When someone on a bike without a helmet passes someone else without a helmet we nod like “Yeah, you understand. Your hair will look super when you get where you’re going, and how much do you really use those brains anyway, right?”

Sigh.

Anyway, here’s the deal: yesterday I was biking to work and there’s this one place where I go flying down an inclined road as fast as I can, letting inertia be my jetpack, and when I get to the bottom of this little hill I zoom through this little open space next to a big hinged car-gate-thing. I do this every day, twice a day, just like clockwork. And let me add that I am FLYING when I get down to this part. And also I go over this little hillock thing as I go through the space, so I’m generally not touching the ground for that moment. (it is AWESOME.) And this morning was like all other mornings.

EXCEPT!

Except that someone had opened the car-gate-thing (which never happens!) over the weekend and left it standing open. Standing open in such a way that you can’t really see that it’s open until you’re right on top of it. Standing open also in such a way that it was now completely blocking the space through which I usually fly. So this morning it was more like this: “Zoom, zoom, zoom… what the-?... HOLY CRAP, I IS DEAD!!!!!”

At the last possible section I turned slightly to the left and went through the open gate instead of the usually-open space. And I was fine! Huzzah! Oh sure, I peed myself and vomited up my heart from the racing of it. But 100% of my death was avoided!

But I’ll admit that it occurred to me that had I NOT noticed the blocked space when I did I would have most likely mashed my something, and brains was a fair guess. And so I guess this was the universe’s way of saying “Seriously, how long do you expect us to let you keep tempting irony this way?” to which I say “Fair enough.” I’m going to go ahead and get a helmet. (Actually I’m going to put it on my birthday list so that my sister can get it for me, which I know she will do because whenever she hears that I’m still not wearing a helmet she wails that I’m a terrible influence on her three kids, at which point I have to remind her that I’ve already schooled them on properly flipping the bird, not to mention offering to take them to get their first tattoos. The helmet thing is the least of her worries.)

Friday, April 17, 2009

I’m That Good

I.


Own.


A car.


(OK, so technically I already owned a car, but it was a broken car. And now I also own a car that is NOT broken. But it sounded way cooler to say “I own a car” then it would have to say “I own two cars, and the new one is also very not broken.”)


I waged battle in the car-buying wars today and I emerged MIGHTY AND VICTORIOUS! Not only did I successfully hunt down the prey of my choice (more on her in a second) but I did it for a SONG!* I went to my cartoonish car dealer friend Ali and said to him “I will have your car sir.” And he was all “Good! How much will you give me? I want $6000” and I was all “I will give you a kick in the shins and a rude hand gesture! And you will like it!” and he bowed down before me and thanked me for the experience!


OK, so some of that is kind of… lies.


I did go to my cartoonish car dealer friend to talk dollars. I already knew that there would be negotiating, because that’s how this car buying stuff goes. And I was feeling pretty good about my chances of making a good deal. My confidence was based on three things:


1. The car had been on craigs list for a few weeks

2. I’m a pretty good negotiator most of the time

3. yesterday I had this conversation with Ali:


Him: “How much did I list this car for again?” (and of course you should hear these words in a fabulous Persian accent)


Me: “$6,000.”


Him: (thinking about it.) “Hmmm, yah… I think we might have to go-“


Now at this point I’m thinking “Here we go, this is when it all goes to crap because he’s totally going to bait-and-switch the listed price and so now I gotta be ready to counter and I better get on my game face and BRING IT ON, CAR SALESMAN GUY!!!!”.


Him: “…lower…”


(I’m sorry, what?)


Him: “It would be really good to sell the car. I could really use the money.”


WORST NEGOTIATOR EVER!


So when I came to him today ready to talk details I was… oh, let’s say “confident.” (the right word would be at least “cocky” and probably even more accurately would be “ballsy as all get out!” but I’m classy, so we’ll go with “confident.”) He talked his numbers, and I talked mine, and when all the dust settled (and his office was a dusty place, my friends!) I walked away with my fancy, schmancy car for $4750 PLUS he’s taking away my old, broken car too!


There is not a humble bone in my entire body right now. I’m overflowing with hubris and ego and all kinds of “I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD!!!” Later, when I’m done being ridiculously pleased with myself, I’ll tell you the fabulousness of my new (used) car. It’s ever so fabulous. (like me)

*Note: no actual songs were exchanged for this fabulous car.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

My Bad Boy...

So once again I’m totally in love with a new (used) car. And once again I know better than to let myself fall in love, but I’m still doing it.

I suspect this one is a bad boy. (oooh. Bad boys. So tempting!) It’s hot and has many features that I’d been dreaming about but never thought I’d actually find. It’s an automatic, but it’s ALSO a manual!

“Wait, how could that be?”

“I’ll tell you.”

“Tell me, tell me! I think you may be feverish with autolove!”

“But NO, it’s TRUE!”

“(liar…)”

“You are.”

“No, YOU are!”

…sorry, what were we talking about? Oh, right! The fancy transmission! This car, a sexy 6 cylinder beast with bedroom eyes, is a 5-speed Automatic, but there’s this swanky little slot at the end of the gearshift that you can pop the shifter into, and in this mode you control the ups and downs of the transmission. Just like a real car!!! (sorry, should have warned you that there was transmission snobbery comin’ up. There could be more)

Also it’s NOT RED! And it’s NOT WHITE! Every car that I’ve taken for a test drive so far (1/2 dozen at least) have been either WHITE or RED. I don’t really want a WHITE car, nor do I want a RED car, although I won’t say no to a good car deal due to the color. Except yellow! I’m not driving a yellow car! I draw the line at Y-E-L-L-O-W! But this little honey of a vehicle is a lovely blooooooo. I heart it.

In the category of “stupid things that I shouldn’t care about, and should even shun as being silly and frivolous, but that I really actually do want and in fact makes me go all giggly school girl” this car has a sunroof, a digital compass incorporated in the rear view mirror and a woofer built into the space-saver spare in the back. SWOON!!!

And it’s CHEAP! CHEEEEEEEEAP!

So now you should be asking the same thing I was asking: why the heck has this car been on Craig’s List for almost a month?

It’s a bad boy.

This car is being sold from this funky “lot” in a remote, farmy area north of our actual town by a guy who probably makes extra scratch playing “random Persian terrorist number 3” on the show 24. We’ll call him “Ali” (and we’ll only be exchanging one classic Mideast name for another because his real name is just like that.). Ali tells me that this car was “abandoned”, that it came to him with no wheels or tires. (uh oh.) Also no keys. (Yeesh!) And no title. (Danger, Will Robinson! Abort, abort!) From some other state entirely. (and now I fall over dead from too much bad news)

Now this could all be totally true! This could be a car that was abandoned and then had it’s fancy wheels pinched and whatever. But most folks will tell you that this car was probably STOLEN from the owner in the other state, its fancy wheels pinched and then the rest of the car transported to a whole other state to be… “disposed of” Still, because it is SO sexy and SO exactly what I want, for the actual dollars I can spend, I’m totally gonna keep wooing this car.

But fear not – I’m not STUPID.

I’ve been checking the VIN on every website that will check VINs and so far she’s all clean, cap’n. Tomorrow we schlep the car to my mechanic to give it a good going over, as well as to verify that the VIN from the other places on the car are the same number as the one on the block itself. The dealer had it registered over the weekend, which means the good people at our DMV are doing a title search right this dang second. All of these are good things. I’m focusing right now on the good things.

I wish I could honestly say that I’m being careful not to let myself fall for this car. I could totally say that, but it would be very much NOT honest. I’m absolutely smitten. I’ve taken to calling it “My Car.” As in “wanna see a picture of my car?” Or “Know what I love the most about my car?” Or “Everybody shut up, I love my car! He’s the only one who understand me!!! Daddy, I LOVE HIM!” That kind of stuff. When I find out for sure that it’s hotter than a three-way between Nathan Fillion, Mal Reynolds and Captain Hammer I’m going to cry. And cry. And CRY.

I think this search for love may be more difficult than the one that should end up with a man.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Synecdoche, New York – a film review

(Note: I am not someone who normally reads, or writes, or enjoys, or supports the right of others to be involved with, film reviews. But a movie I recently… ‘experienced’… was profound enough an occurrence that I could not resist.)

I watched the first hour of Charlie Kaufman’s latest filmatic endeavor Synecdoche, New York, but only because I, like most responsible gun owners, keep the bullets separate from my firearm and I did that classic thing where I forgot where I put them. I checked the closet for rattley shoeboxes, looked in the drawer of my bedside table, the junk drawer in the kitchen, gas tank on the car… And I thought to myself “Isn’t this exactly what the ‘right to arms’ activists are always warning you against? That you’ll finally have an urgent need for your weapon, like to put you out of the misery of watching another painful second of a terrible movie, and you won’t be prepared for the moment?”

Let me say, by the way, that I have very much enjoyed previous Charlie Kaufman movies. Like Adaptation? And also that Spotless Mind one, that was cool, as well as Being John Malkovich. And what was that one… Stranger Than Fiction! I loved that movie! The part where the narrator says “he cursed the heavens” and Harold Crick is all “No, I’m cursing YOU!, you stupid voice!!” Awesome. Anyway, my point is it’s not just that I don’t get from where Charlie Kaufman’s brain comes (or that my not getting it automatically makes me not like the attempt). Sometimes it’s the not getting it that I like the best because it’s like he’s filming a regular story but with the camera turned around like you’re looking through the “out” part of a pair of binoculars! (I checked and he didn’t do Stranger Than Fiction. Someone named Zach Helm did. Who was previously known for nothing I’ve ever heard of. So whatever. That movie was still awesome.)

It’s just that with THIS Charlie Kaufman movie I realized fairly early on (I’m gonna say the 3rd scene?) that there was nobody but NOBODY to like. Or cheer on or even not hate. And yet there was this natural desire to find someone I could cheer on. And if you’re watching Synecdoche, New York (pronounced “Help, I’m trapped in a box of pain and evil and can’t get out!!!”) and you’re trying to find someone to like I will warn you now: don’t do it. You will try and try and it won’t work and in the end you’ll just end up chewing off your face or the face of a friend or loved one in the vicinity. In fact, for the health and welfare of faces everywhere just don’t even watch this movie. Consider this one of those PSA's, and right about now that flying rainbow star-thing will arc across this blog and it will say “The More You Know” or “Now You Know” or “I Know, Right?” or something like that.

After the first hour of Synecdoche, New York (which, by the way, took 13 hours, 27 minutes and 4 seconds to live through) my soul collapsed under its own sad weight and I fell into a deep coma of sorrow and self-loathing. And I also started fast-forwarding through the movie. I’d been told that it was longer than average, but it turned out to be just about 2 hours. It just FEELS much longer than average, by a power of about 12. But having watched the second half at 4-times the normal running speed I realize NOW that it’s actually a short feature, about 30 minutes long (still too long, but better) about a sad, pathetic man who lives a long, painful, life amongst equally terrible and pathetic people and then dies. Or thinks he dies, or he pretends to die, or someone else dies and he really empathizes with them, or something. It was really fast.

Fresh M.E.A.T. anyone?

Just a reminder that the second chapter of Most Excellent Adventure Time (or M.E.A.T. to it's friends) posts today. dying to find out what Steve! and Gladiola will do next? ME TOO! The only way to find out is to jump the link!

Most Excellent Adventure Time this way...

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

I believe that children are our future...

Being an aunt is not easy, my friends. Oh sure, I didn’t push any watermelon-sized people out my cootch, nor did I have the hemorrhoids or the swollen ankles. (Actually to be fair I DID have both of those things, but I had to keep them to myself because I didn’t have the “I’m making life here! Lay off me!!!” excuse to fall on.)

Still, with all the things that are the responsibility of parents I don’t know that people give the proper due to the jobs that are solely the purvue of the cool aunts and uncles of the world. I take these responsibilities very seriously! Why just the other night my sister was foolish enough to leave town, for MULTIPLE DAYS, and leave her pesky kids behind in the care of myself. Oh sure, there were grandparents there who were really supposed to be keeping an eye on things. But in the end it was all about cool aunt Femtastic and the sharing of the super-awesome knowledge.

We started with high-fives. My sister’s kids (who are very awesome in their own right let me assure you) were rocking some terribly lame high-fives. They didn’t snap, they used flibbidy fingers and NOBODY BUT NOBODY was feeling actual pain at the five’s conclusion. Disappointing. And so I stepped in, because this is just the kind of thing that cool aunts should be in charge of. I schooled them on the need for firm fingers. That a quality high-five should flow THROUGH the air. That a truly GREAT high-five should end with a profound “Yowtch!!!” of pain.

I told them of the greatest single high-five of my life, which was more than 15 years ago. I was living on the whole other side of the nation, and I was attempting to build a waterbed frame using directions printed only in Spanish. One of my favorite relatives, my cousin (we’ll call him Chico de-Coolio), was helping me with this project. When at last we assembled the frame and it actually looked frame-like we cheered and I threw up my silly, girly high-five hand in triumph. And Chico, who had been high-fiving for years with other manly men in manly endeavors, slapped my palm so flat and hard that the sound was heard in dark jungles of Africa, a layer of skin disintegrated on contact and I lost all feeling in my palm for eleven days. I have aspired to such high-fiving skills ever since…

Once the kids were high-fiving with style and grace the conversation shifted, as it would normally due, to the topic of flipping the bird. These kids, ages 11, 13 and 15, had all flipped their own birds, to be sure. But it was a clumsy, difficult-to-watch display. I feared for their very futures.

I explained to them that a quality “disgusting hand gesture” needs to come fast and freely, with confidence and aplomb. You gotta be able to shoot that guy off instantly and it’s gotta look easy. It’s gotta look casual. Your bird has got to say to it’s intended victim “Hey, I show you disrespect, and maybe even actual venom, but I don’t even break a sweat.”

We ran drills, did some spontaneous flip-offs, worked out some crucial finger muscles that don’t really get action any other time. By the time I headed home I felt that these kids were ready for important next milestones: learning how to drive (one handed, of course, to leave the other hand free for… whatever) and sex.

Of course they’re on their own for that one.

Monday, April 06, 2009

Battle of the Bulge – OK, seriously this time

Look, I know I’ve talked a lot about this bulge battling. And I’ve had moments of great intensity – remember those one or two times where I was winning? (And of course you understand that we’re defining “winning” as “the Queen lost 2 lbs and I lost 2 lbs, 1 ounce. And then I did the classy thing, by dancing around all jiggly and pompous and yelling “in your FACE, your heiny!!!” Good times…) But in all honesty I mostly spent all previous attempts at bulge battles resenting that I could only have 2 fudgicles instead of four. (Because really, what kind of communist world have we come to when a serving of fudgicles is only TWO???)

However, something has happened. Something that I swore. SWORE! Would never happen. Something so wrong, so vile and unspeakable and not at all right, that I shudder to give voice to it here. If any of you reading have children in the room please get them elsewhere. Send them to a neighbor’s house or ask your out-of-town relatives to take them far, FAR AWAY! I want no innocents soiled by this.

Are they gone?

My internets, the worst of the worst has happened: my underwear has started to roll down on me. ROLL DOWN. Rolled not by gravity or some unnatural panty-rolling voodoo curse. OH NO! No, my sad, defenseless underwear have been rolling down under the rolling movement of my very own belly.

Oh the horror! THE HORROR!!

All kidding aside… well ok, SOME kidding aside (because really? Who believes I could even DO that?) this for me is a last-straw kind of thing. It freaked me out the first time I was standing next to someone at work and just felt my waistband surrender to the tummy-pressure and just roll down… I felt like everyone who could see me could TELL what had just happened. Like as it was happening they could hear that slide-whistle noise that clowns make? Like my panties rolled down and went “Peeeeuooop!” as they went. And oh, for any of you who have not experienced this yet let me go ahead and give you the benefit of my sad, SAD experience: there is absolutely NO WAY to roll panties back up to your waistline in public. None that a human being should attempt anyway. (and please, for me: don’t be that guy.)

So this weekend I had a serious talk with my mouth and tummy and the kitchen and explained to them that for the benefit of my work reputation we were going to have to stop eating good things for a while, and we will also be fairly hungry pretty much all the time for the next few months. (with the exception of birthday cake this month. Nobody stands between me and birthday cake, ESPECIALLY when it’s my birthday! They’d be safer putting Baby in the Corner.)

I’m also setting a goal. It’s not a pounds goal (because that would require weighing myself, which we just do not do in this house. I’m not putting “bathroom scale” on my birthday list thank you very much!!) or a size goal or a “feeling less tired and with more energy goal” (because that is all LIES AND FALSEHOODS!!!). My goal is simple: to go a whole week without having to reach down my own pants and return my panties waistband to the waist area of my ample girth.

One.

Whole.

Week.

PS: Does anyone want a 1/2-eaten box of Cap’n Crunch? Cheap? It’s got CRUNCH BERRIES!!

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Something very foolish on April Fools Day!

OK, so you know how I'm rockin' the classic nerd awesomeness that is D&D, right? Well, the only frustration that the King and I have had with our nerd-tivity is that our DM (Dungeon Master, for those of you with lives who sometimes feel the soft touch of a woman, etc.) often drops off the face of the earth for a day or more, leaving us behind wallowing in self-doubt and panic because "Hello? Did my Twin Strike smite the damned hobgoblin or NOT??? Should we send the fighter in for another attack even though he's on death's decorative holiday doormat or is the Ogre at last defeated? HELLO???" He explains it with some nonsense about having a job or a family or a life. Whatever, dude...

Faced with the helplessness of a DM that is AWOL WAY too often his Highness was struck by inspiration, and from the fertile soil of his mushy man brain came Most Excellent Adventure Time, or M.E.A.T.!

The way it works is this: he started an adventure, allowed me to set up a couple of adventurers and produce an introductory scenario. From there it's been a literary, improvisational free-for-all! He writes about 1/2 and I write the other (slightly less funny, but every bit as epic) half. Generally I'm in charge of making the decisions for our 2 heroes and he for all the badguys, soldiers, monsters and other assorted danger-thingies; everything else we try to share equitably. It's fun, and I've been told it's also pretty funny.

So I figured why shouldn't you guys enjoy it too?

Starting this week I'll be posting a chapter a week, probably on Wednesdays. This way I get blogging credit for all the crazy boondoggles that suck up the time I really should be using here. (Femtastic = super-genius!) And with this I present to you, both here and over at M.E.A.T., our epilogue:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You will find this similar to D&D only more excellent and with shorter delay times between actions. {for you readers there will be NO delay times between actions. You're welcome} One writer is controlling a pair of adventurers. Please designate their names, genders, and races.
Adventurer #1: Steve! (exclamation point is included please), male half-elf (with 1/4 irish)
Adventurer #2: Gladiola Dangersword the 2nd, female dragonborne

Rulings and other direction from the M.E.A.T. Master will always be red, italic and underlined. Responses and other comments from Femtastic are blue and italic.

Currently they are both level zero. They have no skills. They are nothing. They have no items. There is nothing special about them. (there is always something special about Steve!.) No, there is nothing special about Steve!.
Steve! and Gladiola awaken to find themselves in a very dark room. Neither can see much farther than the hand in front of their face. What would you like to do?

CONTINUED FRIDAY ON M.E.A.T. IN CHAPTER ONE

Monday, March 30, 2009

Why I hate Mondays...

(which I’m writing because I didn’t do ANYTHING on my spring break because I’m a grown-up and I have a stupid job and no kids and whatever, I super hate Mondays.)

I know the idea of hating Mondays is not new. Heck, there are scores and scores of lame bumper stickers and screen savers dedicated just to this idea. But I, too, happen to hate Mondays and here, because I know you’re super-duper with parmesan cheese and garlic crunchy crispy things on top DYING to know, are my reasons:

1. I cannot go to sleep at a reasonable time on Sunday nights. (which I should actually be calling “Monday morning” because even if I went to bed on TIME I’d be crashing at 1am. Because that’s how I roll) There’s this cascading bad time management thing that happens to me on weekends: I stay up pretty dang late (let’s say 2am?) on Fridays. So then I sleep in some on Saturdays (I’d say when, but my friends with kids would mail me fish heads and horse turds, so I’m sticking with “some”), which then means I stay up even LATER on Saturdays (probably safe to assume a 3am bed arrival), thereby leading to sleeping in even more on Sunday (“What time does the NASCAR race start tomorrow? OK, I’ll get up 20 min. before that…”) and so by the time Sunday night (Monday morning) rolls around I’m AWAKE. If I hit the sack by 1:30am I’m so impressed with myself I promise actual breakfast foods for the next day. I rarely get to see actual breakfast foods on Monday morning. What I DO get to see is me all sleepy and tired and not awake. All Monday.

2. My Dungeon Master always seems super-busy at his workplace on Mondays, and so my D&D addiction gets little to no satisfaction. Add to that the fact that the King doesn’t work on Mondays (seriously, don’t get me started on his killer 4/10s work schedule! I’ll swear! And curse! There will be photographs of rude hand gestures! Ugly, I say!) and so I have NOBODY to satisfy my nerd addiction! I sit here, refreshing and re-refreshing (freshing and refreshing?) my google docs and nothing is ever there. I am alone in a sea of nerd sorrow, only my Star Wars lunchbox and my “Mind Flayers do it with imagination!” t-shirt to console me.

3. My boss comes in and does work over the weekend. I understand she feels like there’s too much to do otherwise, and I count my lucky stars (heck, I count the lucky ones and the slightly less lucky ones, and even the plain old, run-of-the-mill stars and even black holes and stuff) that she never asks me to come in to help her get stuff done. HOWEVER it means that most Mondays I come in to this bloody streak of emails from her, sent the day before, asking me to do stuff. Lots of stuff. In other words, by the time I walk into the office at 7:55am on a Monday morning I’m already hideously behind in my work. Already. (and rumor has it you shouldn’t flip your boss the bird. At least not first thing Monday morning. You do that so soon you got nowhere to go later in the week but two-finger eye-jabs and tire slashing!)

4. Saturday is never so far away as on a Monday morning.

…the good news? As of right now it’s almost Tuesday. (which is a whole day closer to Saturday with the sleeping in and the naps and the glorious “doing whatever I want to do” time! Huzzah!)

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Be Vewy Kwiet, I'm Hunting Wagons...

So the car hunt continues apace. Last week I talked to people who have piles of money and they have agreed that I can have a bit of a section of a part of a chunk of one of their many, many, many piles of cash, but I have to give it back to them. And in fact I have to start giving it back to them right away, AND they get extra. Whatever. But at least that means that I can now get to shopping with gusto.

I’ve already done some narrowing down the field. I took some test drives last weekend just to figure out what would and wouldn’t make me happy. I took my test drives in cars at dealerships, even though I know I can’t afford dealership prices, because dealerships are very used to test drives. And you don’t have to call ahead and make an appointment to drive a dealership car. But an added bonus benefit? Car salesmen like to flirt.

So I’ve looked at it this way: I check out the cars and, while I’m there, I polish the flirting. I’ll know that I’ve perfected the art when one of them will actually sell me a car for the amount of money that I actually have. (Ka-ching!)

I know two things about what I’m wanting (and now I’m back to talking about cars. And you’re a dirty, dirty girl. You know who you are.): stick shift and station wagon. The station wagon is for continued independence, in that I don’t have to borrow someone else’s car if I need to schlep big stuff. Or go to Costco.

The stick shift is because I love to really DRIVE. Not just steer and brake, but actually be engaged in all parts of motoring around. Call me a snob, because in this I SO AM, but I find driving an automatic to be less driving and more riding, now with extra steering. Both of the cars that I test drove last weekend were 5-speeds, and it was on that day that I realized I’d really, REALLY missed driving a manual transmission.

Now I’ll leave so that you can make all those naughty “stick shift” jokes I know you’ve been stifling. Dirty Girl.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.

I miss sex.

(Oops, forgot this part: WARNING! The following blog post could be a little FRANK for some folks. If talk of sex and sex-like-thing-deals makes you squeamish please ABORT! AVERT YOUR EYES! Look AWAY!
AWAY!)
Now, where was I? Oh, right.

I miss sex.

Please to understand first and foremost that my sex experiences are both tiny and remote. Like if you wanted to look at my sex life it would be as standing on the moon and saying “Hey, I can see my house from here!” I’ve only ever had the one partner and that ended (counting. Re-counting, because that CAN’T be right. Shaking head sadly…) 12 years ago last October. I have not had sex in over a dozen years.

I HAVE NOT HAD ANY SEX, NOR KISSING, NOR HEAVY PETTING NOR NOTHING IN OVER 12 YEARS.

Now to my credit most of the time I don’t even think about it. Months can go by without me even thinking a truly dirty thought. I scoff, SCOFF, at those tv sitcoms where people lament the WHOLE 3 MONTHS since the last time they “got some” and say to them that they are pussuahhh*. This is the normal me and my normal thoughts (or lack of same) about “doin’ it.”

But every couple of years I’ll hit a change in season, normally spring or fall, and suddenly it’s all I can danged well think about. Everything is dirty, there’s innuendo (look at that, right there – does that word look dirty to anybody else? No? Just me? I rest my case!) behind every sentence, I blush at the drop of a hat… Ugh. That’s been this spring for me so far.

This time around my stupid, hot and bothered psyche has a new trick: last night I had a sex dream, but not about me. My sex dream was about OTHER people having sex. Apparently my mind has such a hard time imagining me having sex it can’t even picture it in my dreams anymore. Instead my dreams feature my FRIENDS having sex. Smack dab in the middle of a dream that was already turbo-bizarre and vivid, thanks to some kind of vicious food-induced gas, I walk into my friends’ house and there they were in flagrante delicto! And did I step out? Oh no, for I had very not-important things to discuss, so I just stood there, chatting up friend one while friend two stayed on-task. (see, even “on task” sounds dirty to me.)

Also awesome was the fact that I didn’t remember this detail right away when I woke up. No, my evil, EVIL brain held that little detail until I was standing, only half-awake, in the shower. And then suddenly I’m standing there with a brain full of friend-nooky! Gah! Gah!

Needless to say I was very awake then.

I’m very much hoping that this wave of dirty-brain will pass soon. Otherwise I’m going to have to just stop dreaming for fear of what might pop up next. (and that sounds dirty too.)

*pussuahhh: my version of "pussy", akin to the "beotch"ing of "bitch" to make it more usable in common company. Should be pronounced like this: PUS-OOOO-AAAAAAH. Really stretch out the "aaaah" part. Tell your friends.