back it up, baby

I've had a few problems with my sink backing up since I've been in this apartment. It's actually a pretty gross problem because twice I've looked into my sink and realized that the food backing up wasn't anything I'd ever eaten. But it was a small problem that seemed to fix itself, and I didn't want to be a whiny tenant. Until last night. Gabs was ironing his clothes and noticed water backing up, water that soon turned into something a lot like turkey soup. But I didn't worry all that much because it had always drained away again. So I put a little drano into the sink and then we went out to dinner and to get a drink. We get home and I turn the corner of my hallway to find my little "kitchen" flooded with funky turkey soup water. GROSS! Of course it's midnight at this point, I lost the manager's number during the great phone crisis of October, and I'm really hoping that Iniki wasn't lapping at the turkey-drano cocktail on the floor. I go to the manager's apartment, who not surprisingly doesn't answer her door...though probably for the best since every time I see her, she threatens to tow my car. Luckily, nobody in Seattle sleeps before four a.m., so I'm able to get the main manager's phone number and call him. He says he'll be out here first thing to snake the drain...then doesn't show up til after 10. And that leaves Gabs, my visitor from Kentucky, driving my car down to the airport to pick up our friend since I've got to hang around for my sink to be fixed. Lesson learned from this experience: complain your ass off when things start going wrong with your apartment, cause they will just invariably get worse.

I think I just walked past a person I went to basic training with (in the airport parking lot). Weird.


UPDATE: I saw him again in the parking lot, so I stopped him and asked him. As it turns out, I did go to basic training with him. He was our platoon guideon carrier. Weird indeed.

anticipation

In about nine hours, the ultra-glam Mr. Gabs H. will be gracing Seattle with his presence. I'm so excited, I could barely sleep and I'm up at 8 am... which, if I were Catholic, would count as a miracle and put me on the road to sainthood. It'll be nice to have somebody around that REALLY knows me. Talking yesterday on the phone, Gabs says, "I'm bringing some jeans and shirts and my travel iron, because I know you still don't have one." Damn skippy, domestics and Masil do not a happy couple make.
At any rate, if I don't get around to blogging much, it's because I'll be out and about. Thank god I rested up for the week. There are going to be a lot of rockstar days.

dance, dance i say

Christmas isn't REALLY about giving. No, it's pretty much about buying the presents you wish you had been given. If they're for kids, the gifts are basically the things that you as an adult want to play with. And that explains why my brother's three kids didn't get nearly as much play-time with the Dance Dance Revolution Extreme game and foot pad thingie as my sister, brother, and myself. Mostly because it's not nearly as funny watching kids trying to play the game as it is watching three adults with limited coordination skills. It's something akin to drunken cockroach stomping followed by a grand mal seizure. And seriously, my knees are killing me today.

eyes wide shut

My head is HUGE! No doubt about it. I can't wear women's hats because they often don't fit my massive cranium. I also have trouble finding glasses that flatter my ginormous head. But I never realized that, in addition to my monstrous noggin, my eyes are incredibly far apart, until I noticed that I have to adjust the microscope lenses after EVERYBODY...even the men. And everybody has to adjust them after me, several centimeters in fact. I guess that makes me some kind of opticular FREAK! But I think I remember reading something about people with wide-spaced eyes appearing more trustworthy, as opposed to beady-eyed people...so maybe that's why I get all the boob talk. Hmmmm.

taking into account

I put myself on a pretty strict budget a few weeks back. Basically, because I figured out that I was spending about four times more than I should be and my nest egg was dwindling very quickly. The first couple of weeks, staying within the budget was easy. The last couple of weeks were not so great. But this weekend I decided to get back on the ball, even though I have to spend money because of the stupid holidays that I'm not even remotely interested in celebrating (can I get a bah-humbug?). So I was good all week: only one song bought on iTunes, only one visit to the coffee shop, eating the crap in my fridge... I managed to hold onto my last ten bucks for four days, that is until today. Today I went and got a coffee...trust me though, I TOTALLY deserved it. I had a little over five left, which would have lasted through Saturday. But then I guess I dropped the money and now I only have thirty-five cents left. My punishment for getting the coffee I guess, now some random street-person can better afford his meth habit and I won't be able to buy my prawn taco come Saturday.

tee and aye

There's some strange phenomenon afoot that I've just really started to recognize. I give off some major boob-vibe. It seems like whenever I go out, women feel compelled to talk to me about their breasts. Friday night, standing outside, a complete stranger just started telling me about the smallness of her boobs and then told me the oddest story about marathon running and moleskin. And this kind of thing happens a lot. Then every once in a while, I get to see boobs too. I've probably seen more boobs than a lot of men out there, and I'm not even counting all of the shower time from the Army days. I wish I could figure out exactly what gets these ladies going on about their boobs...I would SO write a self-help book and cash in.

revisiting

"I can totally relate here. I've always hated my moniker and while in DC I did something about it. I made everybody call me the pseudonym I thought of some random drunken night while chatting on AOL. Those months as that person were the best of my life. But somehow I know I can't go back, so now I have to figure out who the new me is as I approach my third decade."
Jen emailed me that. It was a comment I left on her blog. I remember writing that though I don't know exactly when I did. But it got me thinking about my life here in Seattle. I moved here to Washington in May and up to Seattle in October...both really short spans of time. And my life is so profoundly different than it used to be. If I think back to a year ago, it would be almost impossible to imagine my life as it is now. Sometimes I feel like this life, in this time and space, is all a dream that I'll wake up from and think to myself how strange it all was. Other times I can't decide if my life is surreal or superreal. It's not just that I look different, though that fact alone contributes quite a bit to the world treating me differently, I feel completely different. Parts of me that had laid dormant for years are just starting to awaken. Frankly it feels a bit like your foot waking up after being completely numb and asleep, all of those tingling electric shocks that are a little painful. It's a curious thing, this journey and evolution. But I'm not working on the new me, I'm just working on me.

chameleon

Sometimes I feel like I'm completely invisible.

itchy and scratchy show

My dog has fleas. And since I'm one of those dog owners who lets her dog sleep with her and climb all over the furniture and pretty much own my space...well I guess that means that I have fleas too. Why all the bites have managed to be concentrated in my groin area is beyond me...

working at a dump

Definitely have to be vague here as I don't want to end up one of those unemployed bloggers. As it turns out, not only does the place I work serve crappy Christmas dinners...but they're destroying the planet. The public relations department is already serving up big bowls of ignorance with big heaping spoonfuls of denial of any wrongdoing. Typical. And the irony of the whole thing is more than I can stand. My neck is getting sore from all of the incredulous head-shaking I've been doing tonight.

six stories of story

Just saw Harry Potter on Imax. Maybe I'm a sucker for a blockbuster because I have to say...I really liked it! It could have been the crystal digital sound, it might have been the forty feet of boys that it is completely illegal of me to have lustful thoughts about, or quite possibly the fact that I had a couple o' few drinks at a happy hour before I got to the movie...who knows? All I can say is that I enjoyed my three hours with The Goblet of Fire. I agree with some of the things people have pointed out as drawbacks, but it didn't ruin it for me even the slightest. And I shed the biggest crocodile tears when Cedric's dad started howling. I am a sucker for melodrama...I grew up watching Korean soap operas, how could I not be? But really, I think I need to step outside of the children's movie box because it's getting a little weird that I'm whispering to my friends that I think high school boys from HP:GOF and fauns from Narnia are hot. Next on my list of movies to watch...King Kong by Peter Jackson. And it has nothing to do with my weird fascination with Adrien Brody... REALLY!

deceptacon

Okay, massive rant coming on...just warning you.
Why are deception and lying such easy things for people to do? How is it possible that a person can actually convince themselves that deceiving somebody is the correct fucking course of action? Do people really think that somehow the withholding of important information is somehow any different than an outright bold-faced lie? SERIOUSLY!!! Is it any different? When somebody purposely withholds an important piece of information, a little tidbit that could change the course of somebody's actions, do they REALLY REALLY think that it's any different than out-and-out lying to that person? I have to believe that people must really believe that, because it happens with an amazing consistency. If a person has the chance to tell the entire story, has several opportunities to do so, and then doesn't...it makes them a LIAR, that's all there is to it, no negotiating levels of truth here!!! And that makes that person incapable of any true connection with a person on any level, despite all of their pretenses. ARGH, I try so hard not to lie or deceive, I've spent years trying to escape the pathological lying that came so easy to me before. But what's the point, the reciprocation of honesty is so pathetic that it makes it hardly worth the effort. I just want to fucking scream, rip my hair out and leave shiny bald patches on my scalp. I'm ready to GIVE UP on my journey to try and better connect with people because I keep getting sucked into other people's deceptions. I should be smarter than this, I should have enough experience to realize this, I should have kept my fortress solid to protect against these things because so far it hasn't been worth it to try and tear them down. Poor me, my control drama rearing its monstrous head. My choices are my follies, and I don't even have my youthful naivete to blame it on any more.

weekend update

I had a really great weekend. It was one of those weekends that you wish you could relive again and again. I went to a great party on Saturday night, my first Consolidated Works and first large scale Burning Man party. I left that party thinking how much I love being in Seattle. I saw a lot of really cool people I've met since I've been here, I met some really cool new people, and frankly Seattle is CRAWLING with totally hot people and I think most of them came to this party...meow, seriously something about people in rubber and fur (well fake fur at any rate)... Great, great, great night. Which is good because for some reason I got a little freaked out about it Saturday afternoon and almost didn't go. But I have to say, I'm REALLY glad I did.
Then yesterday we saw Narnia. It was a really good movie. Granted it was a packed movie theater and we had to sit in the second row, so my neck is totally killing me, but otherwise I have no complaints. I heart Tilda Swinton. She made an amazing White Witch and her costumes were gorgeous, I'm thinking that I know what I want to do for Halloween next year. It says a lot about the quality of movies being released lately that the only movies I ever go to see anymore are basically what amounts children's stuff. Wednesday I'm going to see Harry Potter on Imax. YAY.

you get what you pay for

Oh, why don't I learn to stay away from free meals? The hospital I work at (not for) was generous enough to give us a free holiday meal. There was a salad, a piece of bread, carrots, potatoes, big massive slabs of animal flesh dripping with greasy bloody juices and then covered in a sludgy gravy, a savory vegetarian selection, and the most SINFUL piece of chocolate cake. Most of it was boring and bland. OH BUT THE CAKE! Worth every little piece of cellulite currently attaching themselves to my thighs. Everything else though...not really worth the gassy stomach-ache. Seriously, if that's the best they can offer me for the short months of barely dedicated service I've grudgingly given...then I'm glad I spend most of the day slacking off.

top dog

Who knew my dog was a top? I took him for his long walk, otherwise known as the poo-poo walk, and there at the park were three other dogs about the same size as he is. Generally I've found that the city-folk don't like a lot of pet-to-pet interaction, maybe just some mild butt sniffing. But these ladies were letting the dogs frolick and romp and they were gracious enough to let pups join in on the fun. The dogs were wrestling and nipping at one other, it was fun to watch. But it wasn't enough for him to just join in the reindeer games, no he had to show the other pups who was boss. I know it's perfectly natural for dogs to show dominance, "playing horsie" as my little five-year old neighbor used to call it, but my god my pups does it a lot! A LOT! It's like a switch goes off in his little top brain and then he's ony capable of doing the one thing. Pretty soon nobody will let him play anymore...well except for that little chihuahua that the owners dress in a leather vest.

outburst

So I kind of went off on this girl at work last night. Not a full-blown temper tantrum, but definitely a snarky showing that wasn't really necessary. Now I feel a little bad. Overall, this person is really nice, but something she was doing started to bother me. Mostly because her actions reminded me of someone else. So I reacted. And then created tension just to relieve some of my own internal tension. Not that I'm discounting my feelings, she was doing what I called her on. The pacifier in me says I should apologize. However, the stubborn bitch devil's advocate in me says that I shouldn't say I'm sorry. I'm torn.

dreaming

I said a while back that I would take nightmares if that would bring the dreams back. Who knew I was a psychic? I have had terrible dreams lately...and the same one has been replaying the last few nights. In these dreams, it's always the nice people who turn out to be the monsters. And for some reason, they're always trying to take my puppy. And nobody will lend me their horse so I can try to escape. But there's always time to wash my hair. And the people I feared most actually turned out to be more helpful than others. I'd like to see somebody interpret the meaning of that.

quandries

Here's some of the questions we debated at work last night, definitely the kind of stuff that will keep you up at night.

How does Superman get a haircut?
Would you need kryptonite shoes to kick Superman in the groin?
Who would be better in bed, Superman or Spiderman?
Is Spiderman into s&m?I
s Wonder Woman a lesbian?
Oops, forgot one...Would Wonder Woman and Xena make a good match?

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It's snowing!