serenity now

If I ever end up in a comaor lose my mental faculties with ageor go completely bonkersor if my glorious mane thins and my strands become limp and stringyPLEASE for the love of all things good in the world, NEVER EVER let me believe for one moment that a perm is a good idea.

second guessing

Have I mentioned that I'm planning on moving back to Washington (state not DC, although I wouldn't mind living in DC again)? Yep, after this semester ends, the family is trucking on over to Kentucky to watch me graduate and then help me move. I really don't know how to feel about all this, I definitely have mixed emotions. On the one hand, it will be nice to be near the family again and it'll be cool to reconnect with the few people I still know. And it'll be nice to live somewhere a little more accepting and diverse...not that Louisville is all that bad, but I hope never to hear phrases like "that neighborhood is getting dark" again. And Louisville is known for NOT having a "scene" for younger people, particularly single people in my age bracket...it's all about the family unit here. But on the other hand I'm reluctant to go back because I have a certain sense of security here, I have a decent job and I can mostly afford to live on my own here, unlike in Washington where I am doomed to either live with my mother or live with roommates, neither of which is a prospect I look forward to. I can most likely get into the graduate program of my choice here. Honestly though, I think worst part of this moving thing is the idea that in ten years, my life has gone in a big circle. In ten years I'll have ended up exactly where I started...the only difference being that I'm older, fatter, even more cynical, and incredibly jaded...not really the way to start buildling a "new" life I suspect. And I know my fear/reluctance/second-guessing is nothing unique, I know that everybody asks the same questions. But if everybody has asked...shouldn't somebody know the answer?

question?

How do people manage to finish school in four years and then go on to grad school and finish that before age 28? I realize now that I never should have put off going to school. I am seriously questioning my ability to make it through this last semester. Not because the classes are even remotely difficult, but simply because my motivation level decreases exponentially the closer I get to graduation. What ever happened to the second wind? That last minute burst of energy that propels you across the finish line where you collapse into a pool of your own sweat and bile? And then there's the whole matter of what to do post graduation. I know I need to go on to grad school because my degree is even less useful than a solitary square of one-ply toilet paper, but just thinking about it gives me a huge brain-ache (not the same ache that get from my requisite skull abuse mind you). Plus I haven't taken any steps to get into grad school. I'm fooling myself into thinking that I'll just take a year off...which incidentally I told myself at eighteen and that turned into ten years off. It's inevitable that I'll end up either (A.) testing vials of blood, piss, and shit for the rest of my life or (B.) working as a barista at some corporate coffee wasteland.PS-I heart I Heart Huckabees

hard headed

Crap, I have a HUGE headache. Yesterday I helped Bobby move. As we were putting stuff into the trunk of my car, SOMEHOW the trunk managed to slam down on my poor unsuspecting head. And the best part, the latch almost created some kind of brain shish-kebab since it practically impaled my cranium. I don't know what it is about my head but shit like this happens all the time and always when somebody else is around to witness my klutzy humiliation. I am convinced that it isn't the brain-cell mass murder I commit with the drinking et. al. that has left me with no memory and poor motor skills...no it is constant shaken-brain syndrome. I am two headbutts away from needing a bib to catch my drool.

fright night

Last weekend I saw the movie Constantine. I'm pretty sure I've seen it before, it was called The Devil's Advocate or was it The Prophecy? At any rate, this movie was a total supermodel movie...visually pleasing but mostly it was best when everybody just stood around looking moody and brooding because the talkie portion, not the highlight of the film. Anyway, back to the topic at hand, that night I made Katie sleep over because I am a wuss-baby with a hyperactive imagination, and anything even resembling a scary movie or even a psychological thriller makes me stay up late at night watching shadows in the corners and avoiding looking into anything that produces a reflection. So this is definitely a downside to living alone because though I creep myself out way too much, I LOVE to watch scary movies. I've bought two or three scary movies, most of them Asian originals to Hollywood copycats, and I've yet to watch them. Well I guess I can always just sleep with the lights on, but I don't think Iniki will like that very much.

fingers crossed

Katie and I decided that it was IMPERATIVE that we get the hell out of dodge for a little vacation before school ended. So hopefully if everything works out, we're heading down to Nehowrlins for spring break. Color me excited, I've never been there and though I don't plan on indulging in the Girls Gone Wild version of spring break, I think it'll still be a lot of fun. Plus, my dad's ladyfriend is hooking us up with an awesome deal so it'll be pretty cheap (relatively speaking of course) and that just means more drinkin' money. Wow, I haven't been on a real vacation in about ten years. Mostly it's been more like taking time off work and visiting the family and wondering why I'm not on a real vacation. Not that I don't like spending time with my family but who has ever had to mow lawns and vacuum to earn spa treatments while on vacation? Seriously? Nobody! Unless you're "vacationing" at your mother's house.

cah-ray-zee

So many weird goings-on today, I don't even know where to start.
o I had such a shit day at work today. I'm pretty sure it's because some people have a different sense of urgency than I do. Some people like to work at the pace of a Wal-mart greeter and other people (like myself) would like to fucking kill them.
o Anybody who believes that women cannot make it in the business world because they aren't cutthroat enough just needs to come work with me. The machinations of the female-type supervisors and managers are extraordinary. I'm often torn as to whether I should hate them for being a bunch of calculating back-stabbers or be impressed by it.
o I have some bad mojo with southern Louisville. Today on my way to school I'm driving down the street and stop at a red light and then I hear a horn blaring. So I look over and there is a car in front of an SUV and then another SUV behind it. The car in front and the SUV in back are crooked and really close to the middle car so I knew something was weird. THEN cops rush out of the first and third vehicles with their guns drawn and start shouting at the driver of the middle car. OH it was TENSE and even though there was a strong possibility for a shoot-out, I couldn't tear myself away. I totally rubbernecked, and for quite a while because for some reason the lights wouldn't change.
o I read some really bad news at work today, terrible news even. Apparently drinking and smoking marijuana can increase your risk of stroke, even at a young age. So I've learned my lesson, gotta cut out the drinking. Teehee.

uninspired

For some reason I have nothing to say lately. And I think this disease has infected a ton of the sites I view regularly. So I'll just leave you with these words of wisdom, courtesy of the Museum of Bourbon in Bardstown, Kentucky.

oh so mysterious

Last night Katie and I were at a dinner party. We're sitting around talking about movies that we find hilarious and naturally Napoleon Dynamite comes up because it's just so stupid that it's funny. So one of the guys starts talking about how there REALLY REALLY are ligers in real life. He SWORE he saw it on CNN. We teased him mercilessly, we mocked him, we questioned his sanity and his sobriety, we just refused to believe something so ridiculous. Naturally, my curiosity got the better of me and I checked it out. Whoops, guess they really do exist along with their smaller siblings the tigon. So does this mean I have to build a cake or somesing to apologize or pretend I never found out about any of this?

quitter

I haven't mentioned this before because I didn't want to be the boy who cried wolf since I've said I was quitting like two-three other times and quitting didn't last more than like three days. BUT, today is like the third or fourth week since I've smoked. AND if I manage to not jinx myself by bragging about it...I might actually have officially quit smoking cigarettes.
PS-if you're thinking about quitting, these nicotrol puffer things....GEEERRROOOOSSSSS! I'd rather smoke a turd

moving on up

One of the recurring themes here is how much I hate getting older. From what all the middle-aged folk at work tell me, turning thirty is the hardest birthday milestone and the imminence of my 30th year is haunting me. I mean before thirty, life seems great and full of new adventures. Up until thirty you have all these great things to look forward to:
o Turn sixteen-YAY you can drive. The first sign of independence.
o Turn eighteen-YAY you're an adult AND if you're so inclined (which shamefully most people aren't) you can vote. You can also buy cigarettes and get into NC-17 movies.
o Turn twenty-one-YAY you can do a lot of things now and most of them involve vices. You can drink, you can gamble, you can go to strip-clubs AND drink, the possibilities at twenty-one seem endless.
o Turn twenty-five-YAY your insurance premiums go down and somehow people start acting as if you're more mature even though you know that you still drink too much and still suffer through some horrifying displays of drunkenness. There's also the extremely exciting possibility that you'll still get carded, maybe even for cigarettes, and each and every time you think to yourself that you're just as youthful as you were four years ago.

But after twenty-five, birthday milestones are nothing to look forward to.
o Turn thirty-BOO, your youth has slowly slipped away, like some pathetic cliche of holding sand in the palm of your hand. Do you still pretend to be the young stallion of yesteryear or do you fully immerse yourself in responsible adult life, throwing dinner parties and going to cocktail hours while still longing for the all-consuming fun you had when you were twenty-one...when you truly didn't give a rat's ass about the impression you were giving total strangers, when you didn't start playing the what-if game because the truth of your mortality became evident somewhere around twenty-six when you threw out your back playing a pick-up game and all of the sudden words like good fiber, bad cholesterol, retirement accounts start to have meaning.
o Turn forty-BOO, you have been slapped square in the face with middle age. Now you get to say things like "Forty is the new thirty" and at some point start thinking of the very real possibilities of hot flashes and hormone replacement therapy. Not only that but forty is the turning point for tortuous medical procedures. Women get to look forward to boob-squishing mammograms, men get to look forward to prostate exams. The fun just doesn't stop.
o Turn fifty-BOO, fuck you're FIFTY. Now the panic sets in, you're paying for the kids college and debt is positively seeping out of each and every pore, you've realized that you didn't start saving for retirement soon enough, there's always the very real possibility you'll be laid off at work and you'll never be able to compete with those twenty- something whippersnappers. Maybe, just maybe, you'll become a grandparent and even though you act excited around your friends and co-workers, you secretly cry in the shower because you never thought your life would end up like this and now you're too old to fix it.
o Turn sixty-BOO, you're sixty. Well at this point you're so old you HAVE to start looking at the up-side to everything. You can retire soon and now you qualify for the senior special at Denny's and you get to say pretty much whatever the fuck you want to say because for some reason people love sassy geriatrics.
Of course this is just how it looks like from twenty-nine. I'm sure at thirty-nine I'll have a whole new perspective.

v-d

Happy Greeting Card and Confectionary Corporation Marketing Genius Day. Happy "I get to take you for granted every other day of the year but TODAY you're special" Day. Happy "Thanks for making me bitter and more lonely than usual" Day. Happy "Great, another way of making me feel inept, guess I'll just get another toaster" Day. Happy "Like we need another excuse to gorge ourselves on chocolate" Day. Happy Valentine's Day.

mystery machine

Hey, did I tell you that I figured out which neighbor has the CB? I figured it out because I am a GENIUS. I mean it would take an astounding level of geniosity to realize that the house with the fifty foot high antenna is probably the house with the CB radio. You probably think I'm exagerrating about the fifty feet, but alas I'm not...in fact it very well could be like 75 feet, I don't have a very good perception for lengths/distances. So let's see...hmmmmmm...big long antenna attached to the side of your house = radio antenna = CB radio antenna...gawd I'm smarter than Velma from Scooby Doo. Of course, it should have been a dead giveaway from the start...what with the fact that they have no living grass on their lawn because they usually have five cars parked out front, only two of which run at any given point in time. That and they have this wood paneling on the outside of their house...in my Sims game they refer to it as ramshackle clapboard or something of that ilk. Plus, considering the one-sided conversations I've picked up through my speakers...I really should have known it would be THAT house. I guess that actually makes me pretty fucking dumb for taking this long to figure it out.

no dumping

Am I the only person that finds the fact that my dog pooed right by this sign incredibly funny?

things i have been wrong about

o The dreaded poli-sci class...the Professor does know who I am. He called me by name yesterday evening. I was dumbfounded and lost my train of thought and then ended up looking really stupid (not a terribly difficult task I realize, but it happened nonetheless).
o The idea that when you pass gas around somebody, they will consider it a sign that you are comfortable around them and appreciate the gesture.
o The notion that things will improve when I move to a new place and "start fresh" somewhere.
o That if I really put my mind to it, I can accomplish just about anything.
o If I wear enough glittery make-up, people will think I'm younger than I actually am.
o Honestly really is the best policy.
o I'm not domineering, controlling, and anal-retentive with indications of a mild obsessive-compulsive disorder, it REALLY is just natural leadership skills.
o The order of "old sayings"...apparently you're not ever supposed to be a dollar short and a day late. I blame my mother for this because she says them wrong and that's how I learned them. Her favorite expression..."Hold your horse puckey."
o If you blow into your cupped hand and then move your hand quickly to your nose, you can smell your own breath.

mousecapades

I got this in the mail yesterday. It's a card from B., just his way of making sure I don't forget about my fine rodent roommates and neighbors. Too funny. But this card made me have the WEIRDEST dreams last night. I dreamt that my kitchen was again riddled with mice, except this time they weren't sneaky, fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand rodents. NOOOO, they were the size of chihuahuas. And apparently the girl mice wore red aprons, too much Leave It to Beaver I guess. So I tried to knock them unconscious by hitting them with a box of Corn Pops, but they weren't ordinary mice, not only did they wear clothes and were obviously the result of nuclear testing, but they were like Mighty Mouse and would fly on top of the refrigerator and elude me. Finally, I just opened the front door and they walked out and ran into the Gollum neighbor's yard. They'd like it better there anyway, in real life she tries to create a kind of Vermin Wild Kingdom in her house. She's even let possums come in out of the cold, ewwwwwwwwwww.

paranoid android

Once upon a time I went to a therapist. He made me fill out this questionnaire that somehow deduced what kind of crazy you suffer from. Part of it involved questions that pretty much asked whether or not you were paranoid. As it turns out, I am a little paranoid. Not like super crazy paranoid where I think that the CIA/FBI/NSA are tracing my every move because my mother is a super secret-spy who put a microchip with the plans for the world's deadliest weapon in my skull when I was a baby and the real reason we moved a lot was because the KGB was always plotting to kidnap me and steal my precious secret by cutting open my head and sucking the chip out with a red and yellow striped straw they kept from a McDonalds strawberry milkshake when they were sent to Kansas to train to be the ultimate midwesterner and somehow all of this is why my life sucks. No, instead I'm just mildly paranoid, and mostly in a self-serving way to make myself feel important. For example (thas right...all in bullets):
o I'm not doing very well in my poli-sci class. In fact, I am doing worse in this class than I have done in my entire college career. Today we got back an assignment and my grade totally sucked some stinky ass. But then I noticed that the girl who sits next to me, well her original grade sucked way worse than mine. BUT the professor bumped her grade up to a perfect score (because the original grade is from his grad-student TA). I got no bump, I got just my plain old shitty grade. Immediately I assumed it was because he must not like me. But then I remembered that he doesn't even know who I am, he can't put name and face together. So then I figured out that he doesn't hate ME, he hates my NAME. Something about the way the four-letters are strung together to make my first name, and the fact that my last name is NOT spelled the way people think it should be....I'm convinced, he's lowering my scores because he hates my name...damn you moniker. (and yes I know that this is like a scene in The Jerk)
o I'm also convinced that I am being baited by somebody. And because I'm being baited, I assume it's because this person looks down on me. AND even worse is talking shit about me. Definitely a "K" moment.
o I think my computer is haunted by some paranormal entity that changes my poli-sci assignments and makes them total shite. I've been trying to put my computer in standby at night and when I leave for work or school. I know I put it in standby because I watch the screen go black and I hear the fan shut off. BUT when I get home, or even worse in the middle of the night, the computer comes back on BY ITSELF. Sure, some computer person would chalk it up to some computer glitch, some malfunction on some card or some such computer-talk nonsense. BUT I KNOW that it is a ghost, who chose to haunt me and my laptop because the guy with the CB-radio was probably too dumb to figure out he was being haunted.

not just for children

Cupcakes are like little serving sized portions of youthful joy and sunshine. When have you ever eaten a cupcake and not immediately felt better? Well maybe right before you went into a diabetic coma...but that's just different. Last night Katie and I made and decorated cupcakes. It was more fun than either of us probably expected. The top three rows are my cupcakes, the bottom row is the work of Katie's creative genius...LOVING the poodle cupcake. When I eat my cupcakes, I like to lick off all the frosting and then eat the cake...sometimes if I'm so inclined I'll stick the cupcake paper thing in my mouth and chew on it for a while. Some people like to carefully remove the paper then eat the cupcake so that they get a bite of frosting with each and every bite of cake. How do you eat your cupcake (and I do mean cupcake, not some euphamism for body parts)?

now you're on the trolley

I use a lot of "street" vernacular, I could lie and say that I just do it because it keeps me in touch with 'mah rootz' but really I just have a shitty vocabulary. But I'm starting to realize that as I'm getting older, I just don't know what the slang means and I don't learn the new words. So rather than face the fact that I'm too old and boring to be one of the cool kids any longer, I've decided to use 20's slang. I'm not going to try to be 'pimp' anymore, I'm going to be the cat's meow. I don't want to get 'fucked up at da club', I'm gonna get splifficated at the juice joint. And I don't want cool stuff to be 'tits', I want it to be jake. I want to put on my glad-rags, go to swanky parties, drink a bunch of giggle water and get an edge, meet some big six and hopefully get some cash rather than a check. It'll be great because a) nobody will know what the fuck I'm talking about and b) my nostalgic use of the language from another era will totally keep me from turning into one of those old people that tries so hard to keep up with "youth culture," you know the person you laughed at when you were younger.

dongseng

I love my sister. Of course, this wasn't always the case. Apparently when she was a baby, I would wait until my parents left us alone together and then I would take her bottle and dump the contents all over her. Afterwards I would hide the bottle underneath the couch and go into another room. I've envied her from the moment my parents brought her home, not necessarily everything about her but a lot. First of all, she's beautiful and gets more exceptional by the day. She has an different kind of beauty too, a "can't quite place my finger on what it is about her" kind of thing. Plus she's extremely quick witted, it's best not to argue with her because she'll just shoot you down. I usually end up saying something evil and trying to make her cry just so I don't "lose" our verbal battles. She's also really confrontational (and yes that isn't ALWAYS a good thing), but I'm sure that most people secretly wish they could be the kind of person that would tell somebody off rather than just seething inwardly, I know I wish I could. One thing I don't envy about her is her time-keeping. This is my Christmas present from her, only about what...six weeks late? Although I did actually get it before spring for a change. I don't mind though, I love SANRIO (as I let out a high-pitched squeal and twirl around in circles with the bag on my arm). I am an eleven year old girl trapped in an adult body...either that or the soul of a young transvestite lives inside of me.

random thoughts to mask the fact that i am not all that creative

Although chances are most of you have already figured that out. By the by-I love bullets.
o I'm pretty sure the guy driving behind me today had Tourette's syndrome. He kept twitching and talking to himself. At first I thought he was singing to the radio, but there wasn't any rhythm to it. I'm ashamed to admit that it made me laugh.
o While walking my dog two of the people on my street waved to me. I've never seen either of them before. I wonder if they were thinking the same thing when they were waving.
o On my drive home, one of my neighbors was also behind me. I realized that she looks a lot like Gollum, except with hair...and glasses.
o I went to the doctor today. We agreed that I might be having small anxiety attacks. But apparently the only way to treat that is with anti-depressants and I'll never take those again. I didn't like being a zombie, crazy just works better for me.
o Sometimes I think men in tight/skinny pants are sexy, unless they are Wranglers and then I just think it's gross.
o I hate intellectual masturbation.
o I'm going to find out which person around here has the CB radio and then break in and steal it. I'm not sure how or why, but whenever he uses it, my mouse doesn't work and I hate using the keypad.

funny in hindsight

To lighten the mood, I've decided to share some embarrassing and occasionally horrifying incidences from my past and yes it is completely okay to laugh.

o In the fourth grade I raised my hand to ask my teacher a question, instead of calling her by name I called her mommy. The whole class laughed and called me mommy for the rest of the day.
o In junior high, we girls decided it was funny to depants one other. Finally my time came, except it wasn't just my pants that came down. At that exact moment, Charlie B. (resident school hottie) was standing outside of the gymnasium and saw the whole thing. He later drew a picture of the whole event on a phone booth just so I wouldn't forget what it all looked like to him.
o In the sixth grade, on a dare, I french-kissed this boy named Martin. He was a white guy who got a perm so he would look like he had a jerry-curl. I threw up immediately after. I didn't kiss anybody again for another six years.
o In my senior year of high school I had hair down to my butt. I also took wood shop. One day, Amy and Susie and I stayed after school to make up for missing school the day before. I was making a beautiful koa bowl on a lathe (you can probably guess where this is going). Susie was working at the lathe behind me and asked me a question. I turned around to answer her and my hair flung out behind me. It got caught in the lathe and the machine literally ripped the hair right out of my scalp. I had a bald spot the size of a golf ball. Luckily I could arrange the rest of my hair so you couldn't see it. I really don't know if anybody in school knew about that other than my small group of friends and my sister. The teacher asked if he could keep the fistful of hair to display, so all the girls would know why he insisted they put their hair up...I said no.
o My very first day of officially being in the Army we were standing in line for breakfast. The guy in front of me smelled something awful and the whole world starting spinning, and then the lights started to dim. I passed out. I later found out that I passed out at the exact moment that they were explaining to us that you shouldn't lock your knees when you stand at attention or at-ease as it most assuredly will make you pass out. Months after that, at a completely new duty station, people would come up to me to ask me if I was that girl that fainted in the chow line. I never once thought to deny it.
o Once in a sleazy bar in DC these totally skeevy guys were trying to hit on me and Stephanie. I played the bitch role and made them leave us alone. I also got way too drunk that night. Later, after the place closed they found me outside puking in an alleyway. It turned out I lived in the same building as one of those guys. He reminded me of this incident every time I saw him.
o Some of you might remember that last semester I dropped a large and still full cup of coffee during a class. Then trying to escape the coffee before it ended up in my lap, I pulled over a desk and ended up falling down. Not the most gracious thing I've ever done...although not the least either.
o In the 9th grade, we all thought it would be fun to cut class and go to Burger King for lunch. While standing in line I felt a big whomp on my shoulder and turned around. There was my dad standing in line behind me. I was horrified and started to cry, a really blubbery ugly cry, in front of all of my friends. Luckily he didn't tell my mom.

heavy

Have you ever had that feeling in the pit of your stomach, you know where it simultaneously feels hollow and yet still feels like the weight of the world in being held in there? I've had this feeling for the last few days, eh who am I kidding, more like the last few months, and I can't seem to shake it. I don't know if it's a reaction to shit gone wrong or a predictor of shit still waiting to happen. In the big scheme of things, the big picture that my dad tells me to look at while he's packing his suitcase for an all expenses paid vacation to Belize, I know things aren't that bad, not really. But I can't let go of this feeling that good things are happening for other people while my life remains relatively stagnant, as if I'm wading in some festering cesspool of my own making. My apathy has become almost debilitating and I've let myself feel shitty for way too long. But I can't figure out where to go from here, all I can think is "okay...so now what?"PS-I did fail those quizzes last week...and not fail as in perform at a lower level than normal...I seriously FLUNKED. The professor literally flung the papers into my hand, probably so as not to hold onto the flaming piles of dung for too long.

worth it?

I'm back from the exciting Volunteer State, woohooo Tennessee. The vet visit went exactly as I expected...fifteen quick minutes of "Oh, he looks fine...keep up with the medications and remember, you can never use too much eye gel." So let's break that fifteen minutes down shall we:
o The visit itself cost $60.00...so that becomes $4.00 per minute of the vet's time.
o The whole trip took 7.5 hours...so for every minute the vet spent with Iniki, I lost 30 minutes of my ever diminishing young life.
o I had to fill up my gas tank twice...so $20.00 a pop and god knows how many pollutants, well I don't know how to break it down but it still seems like the doc is coming out on top.
o I had to drug-up my dog...and considering I don't know exactly how much to give him, it's a pretty damn good chance that my dog is overdosing from too much benedryl...so the cost of another vet visit for the toxic drug reaction plus the pulmonary problems I've created by funneling drugs into his mouth...god only knows.
But there is a bright side to this situation. I got to go to Jack in the Box, they don't have Jack here in Kentucky. I had some yummy yummy curly fries and my fave...Jack in the Box egg rolls. YAY! I don't know what they put in those rolls to make them so delicious, probably something really evil like ground up bones of bengali tigers and the flesh from baby seals. But man, they were good. It doesn't even matter that I burned the roof of my mouth and tomorrow it will be a bunch of tender, blistered mouth meat. It was worth it.

headin' south for the winter

Well damn-it-all, the day has finally come. I have to drive to Nashville to see the super-special veterinary opthamalogist today. I am very much NOT looking forward to three hours of constant whining and the possibility of cleaning vomit out of my drink holder...and god knows what the dog is capable of. Ugh.

a piece of advice, direct from me to you

When a recipe calls for a 10x10 in. square pan, it REALLY isn't a good idea to use a 9 in. round cake pan in its place. This, at least according to the box, is SUPPOSED to be lemon bars. What it actually looks like is yellow lava.

winky and twins

Katie and I went to the movies last night. We had wanted to see Closer but it isn't playing in any of the theaters around here any longer. It was playing yesterday and had been playing since it opened, but I don't just use my amazing procrastination skills for studying alone. So instead we went to see Sideways. It was HIY-LAY-REE-USSSS!!! I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm a little wary of movies that are critic favorites because frankly I like my movies Oscar-worthy (and not this Oscar, this Oscar). This one though, its got enough low-brow humor to keep me happy. AND it has gratuitous nudity, but not of women...no this movie shows the man-junk. This got me thinking. Independent flicks (well movies made on a non-Hollywood massive blockbuster scale) love to show penises, unlike the Hollywood movies which are all about the women's bits. Why is that? Does showing a penis somehow give legitimacy to a movie as a NOT-Hollywood movie? Are smaller producers giving Hollywood the finger by showing the crank? Or is it because we're so unaccustomed to seeing old winky and the twins that it can be used incredibly effectively for shock value and laughs?

stewing in it

My friend B. is coming over on Sunday and I am making stew, so tonight I went out and bought the ingredients. Seriously, I go to the grocery store once every two to three weeks and always at different times of the day...so what are the chances that Sam the Meat-man will be there, ready as ever to stalk me??? Pretty good, let me tell you. I saw him long before he saw me. Frankly, he's not hard to spot since he looks like a beer-drinking, hirsute Poppin Fresh. So being the stealth former commando that I am, I went down two aisles and snuck back into the flesh-peddling section. But the meat-man...he got mad stalker skillz yo! There I am, making my selections and out of the corner of my eye, with my uncorrected peripheral vision, I see him ambling over with a goofy little grin (pause for gagging). Man, I have never pushed a cart so fast in my life. I was down the kool-aid aisle before they could call a clean-up on aisle four. I need a new grocery store, this one is going to cause nightmares.

didn't your mother teach you not to believe everything you read

So after blowing the other quiz in my poli-sci class, we started talking about standing to sue and finding fault. So we start talking about the infamous McDonalds coffee case, then we move on to litigation against tobacco companies, which leads us to trying to sue McDonalds for making people fat, which brings us to suing gun manufacturers. So there are different opinions and eventually we end up talking about tort reform, just a cursory conversation. This one guy starts on about how lawsuits are getting frivolous and people are winning large sums of money for their own stupidity. He tells everybody about this ONE CASE where some guy buys a new RV and takes it on a trip. The guy sets the cruise control and leaves the driver's seat to go in the back of the RV. Of course the RV crashes and the guy sues the RV company for not properly explaining cruise control and wins a large sum of cash. Ironically, while not studying for my quiz....I read this today. What are the chances that some random dude would talk about some random lawsuit/urban legend that I randomly read about on a random webpage?

sick

I think these little flash animations pretty much sum up what I feel like at work most days.

season of discontent

I HATE winter. Specifically I hate dry winters. I had a bloody nose this morning, in BOTH nostrils...at the SAME time. So I'm walking around with tissue shoved up both sides of my nose, very much not fun, though if it were somebody else it would be pretty funny. Also, I haven't quite figured out the whole science of how my hair manages to be dry, static-y, and full of winter snowflakes and yet still manage to look greasy and unwashed all at the same time. It is mystifying. Besides that I got my electricity bill and those corporate fascists at LG&E raised their rates like they do EVERY winter (this time by something like thirty-forty percent), I guess they didn't want to leave all the energy corruption to California, why let those hippies out west have all the fun right? Anyway, I can't believe how much it is and the thing is my house is COLD, the kind of bone-chilling cold you usually only experience in hospitals and museums. God I hate winter...every year during this time I constantly ask myself...what was it that I didn't like about living in Hawaii?
Now I must study for a Chinese quiz, hopefully I won't mess it up like the one I took yesterday.

beauty and the beast

There is a girl on campus who looks remarkably like one of my favorite young & quirky actresses. The actress in question plays my favorite cutting, punishment loving, admin. assistant. So this girl is totally cute, down to her wavy chestnut hair, button nose and double-sided dimples. Well, her boyfriend looks to be a mix of Grizzly Adams and a young Charles Manson. Yeah I know, he might be a great person, blah blah blah, although my thoughts on the matter are usually something along the lines of "Man, he must be hung like laundry on a Sunday afternoon." Not that it matters, it really doesn't. I'm just saying...you see a lot of really cute girls with some really not so cute guys BUT you rarely if ever see the situation reversed. I can't think of the last time I saw some hot guy with some average or subpar girl.

blast from the past

I woke up at the ass-crack of dawn this morning because I have to study for a vocabulary quiz. Not for my Chinese class however, because that would totally make sense; I'm studying for a vocab quiz in my political science class. God, I haven't taken one of these since like the sixth grade. In my long, drawn out college history I can't remember ever having taken a vocabulary quiz. I hope spelling, punctuation, and neatness of handwriting doesn't count too, 'cause then I'll be screwed.

Update: Dear lawdie, did I ever fuck that one up. I ASSumed the quiz would be multiple choice, but that professor...he's a sneaky one. It wasn't multiple choice, it wasn't even fill in the _____, it was the word and then some empty space to put the definition. Needless to say I wasn't prepared. Man, I haven't failed a quiz or test since...actually I don't think I've ever failed one. I have two more quizzes this week, maybe I can start a quiz failing streak or something.

silver mining

You know, I am a person of little sympathy and that includes towards myself. I'm tired of being depressed and sad, I don't see the point of it. And if I'm half as annoying as I find other depressed people, well then more the reason to try and snap out of it (ahhhh, if only it were that simple, but denial ain't just a river in Egypt). So, I'm going to try and find the proverbial silver lining in being alone and living alone:
1. You never have to close the bathroom door
2. Nobody ever complains about your conspicous overuse of toilet-paper
3. You don't have to brush your teeth within five minutes of waking up because the dog's morning breath...even worse than yours.
4. Nobody else eats the last scoop of Ben & Jerry's chubby hubby ice cream.
5. You can make up stupid rules like no fish stick eating while washing whites on Tuesday and the rules don't get broken
6. You can walk around the house completely naked, even on an ugly/fat day
7. Shaving your armpits and legs...only for special occassions
8. Sole proprietership of the remote control
9. You can play the soundtrack of Miss Saigon at dangerously high decibel levels and nobody complains
10. Nobody steals the covers on the coldest night of the year
11. In re #10, dutch ovens only exist in the kitchen

so where do i rsvp for this pity party?

I found this at work today...I think they were off by about two days:

If a British psychologist's assessment is correct, next Monday (January 24th) will be the most depressing day of 2005 for man.
Dr. Cliff Arnall, who specializes in seasonal disorders at the University of Cardiff in Wales, has devised a form for such factors as weather, time since Christmas, monetary debt and motivation levels, reports MSNBC.
"Following the initial thrill of New Year's celebrations and changing over a new leaf, reality starts to sink in...The realization coincides with the dark [winter] clouds rolling in and the obligation to pay off Christmas bills."

UPDATE (1/24/05)-Hmm, I don't feel particularly depressed but I did wake up this morning with a fever blister on my lip. Right now, it's just a minor irritation, like a burning zit. By tonight, it will have taken over my face. My fever blisters are like the British Empire, they colonize every scrap of space available to them.

bitter fruit

So I just found out that my ex is getting a fat-ass disability payment from the VA. First let me say that he totally deserves it because the Army screwed him every which way that they could. But you know I can't deny being a little bitter about this turn of events. Now that he's his own separate entity, not obliged to have anything to do with me (though I will say that we have maintained a good relationship), all sorts of good things are happening for him. He has a good job and now he'll be getting a nice little tax-free monthly stipend. So why the bitterness? Now that my life is slowly vortexing into a big pile of poo, everybody else's life seems to be percolating nicely. Sonuvabitch, where is the balance in life? HUH?!?! Where the hell is it??? And yes I realize this probably makes me sound like a vengeful, heartless, selfish bitch but since I know it's far more complicated than what this post can express, I can live with people thinking that.

debate

Okay, I've had this discussion before and had it again today. For some reason I always end up on the losing side of the argument but I stand firm in my opinion. You know the haircolor strawberry blonde? Do you consider it more red or more blonde? I say it is more red than yellow, therefore I consider people with strawberry blonde hair to be redheads. Everybody else I know says that they are blonde. What say you?

on the down-low

I'm feeling blue lately, at not a pretty sparkly iridescent shade that I prefer in my eye make-up, definitely more of a navy. I don't know if this self-pity (the most worthless emotion ever) has become part of my body's hormonal square dance or if I'm just starting to fully realize some things about my life, some bitter truths that I've managed to keep at bay. All I know is that I feel shitty, like at any moment if somebody looks at me too long I'll either start crying uncontrollably or smack 'em in the mouth. Lucky for me, I don't just bring overwhelming sadness with me on my journey through mild-depression, I bring unrestrained anger too.

achilles heel

I swear, if I were a superhero my kryptonite would be directions. I am so bad at directions. I could get lost going in a straight line between point A and point B. I'm smart in so many other ways, I don't know why getting from one place to another is so difficult for me. I guess it's a good thing I can always tell people that I like to take the "scenic route."

princess sophia v. krull the warrior king

We all have euphemisms for sex. It is inevitable that we come up with cute little ways to discuss something prurient in nature, particularly in a society that glorifies and yet at the same time is afraid of sex and all things sex related. For example, some of my old army friends and I devised the cheesecake methodology to talk about the ess-word. There was of course plain cheesecake, the most vanilla of all cheesecakes, cherry-cheesecake, and the epitome blueberry cheesecake. So going on with my previous post about BUSINESS, I give you my new euphamism-ratings system (a work in progress).
At the bottom: small business (tsk, tsk to the people that fall into this category)
At the top: Fortune 500 business or maybe publically-traded business though that sounds kind of slutty
Now my creative, funny friends, I need help with the mid-level euphemisms. Be creative, do it in the form of tax-codes or something interesting.

getting down to the meat of it

There are a lot of compelling reasons to go vegetarian or vegan, tonight I may have been exposed to the most compelling reason yet. I was at the grocery meat counter and immediately the guy behind the counter recognizes me, which is pretty unusual because people tend not to remember me. Then he starts getting my order together and says, "Nice BCGs." To those out of the military acronym loop, BCGs are birth control glasses and it basically refers to the ugly freebie glasses the military gives you...so ugly in fact that they are considered a form of birth control in their own right cause nobody wants to have sex with somebody wearing those glasses. Oookkkaaaayyyy, so first of all he's saying my hyper-fashionable, vaguely emo but mostly Wonder Woman's human alter-ego Diana's hip black-rimmed glasses were ugly. Mmmhhhmmm , the fastest way to win a woman's heart...insult her.
Then he says "Them glasses sure are purdy on you" (with no exaggeration on the twanginess of the compliment which immediately makes me think of "your mouth sure is purdy"). "Wow, your eyes are almost black, I never saw eyes that dark...I prefer brunettes myself, them other guys can have them blondes." Yeah right, Sam the meat-man, this brunette, NUH UH! Let's put it this way, ever heard the expression "A face only a mother could love"? Well I'm pretty sure he might be the mother-loving exception.
After that, as I stand there uncomfortably, wondering how long exactly it takes to wrap up a half a pound of ground round, it became the start of my favorite game. "Contestants, are you ready to play LisaM.'s favorite game...'What's your nationality?' You have five, that's right five, chances to correctly guess Lisa's nationality."
First let it be known that I was too tired to correct the meat-man about the difference between nationality and ethnicity/racial make-up so I let him guess. "German (uh no and a first for me), Italian (again no but one I've heard a million times), Irish (well half-right but still kinda no)." So I tell him, "You're not even on the right continent." "Not Indian? (well also part-right if he was referring to Native American, which he wasn't and let's face it, who DOESN'T claim one billionth part Cherokee or Sioux)...okay then habla espanol (nope not Latina either and frankly he was SHOCKED to hear that)."
So finally I was like, "Dude, I'm half Korean and half white." And then we moved on to the next part of the program..."REALLY?!?! You don't look half Korean (yeah, like I haven't heard THAT my ENTIRE life)...my cousin's brother's girlfriend's brother's friend is married to a Koh-ree-inn and her kids eyes are slantier than yours."
This is where I gave my faker than fake smile, grabbed my purchase and ran for the hills, just before my anger runneth over in a big old tirade. So...vegetarian...I did it once for a year or so, it's starting to sound pretty damn good right about now.

a funny thing happened on the way to the forum

As is my usual lunch-time custom, I sat with the old people at work and heard tons of stories about kids and grandkids and blah blah blah. But today they were actually kind of amusing. This one lady, who talks about her daughter ad-nauseum actually made a funny today, and I thought I would share because a. friends don't let friends suffer alone...or is that drive drunk, after four or five beers I have trouble remembering and b. it actually IS kind of funny, a nice little anecdote to wrap up the evening. So apparently my co-worker has a daughter who's like 2 years old or 20 years old...I don't really listen to the details. Her daughter has apparently started to call her nether regions her "business." So she says stuff like "mommy i forgot to wipe my business" or "mommy my business hurts." Now phrases like "stay out of my business" or "that's none of your business" have a whole new meaning. So if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go "mind my own business."

eye of the tiger

My dog/child has congenital eye problems. He can't make tears. Because of this I have to give him multiple daily doses of a ton of really expensive medication and I have to take him to the vet a lot. You would think, considering the fact that my dog is like 1/10th the size of a person, that the bills would therefore be 1/10th of a doctor's bill. But no, it is outrageously expensive. I regularly spend upwards of $150.00 every time I see the vet and that doesn't include the special medicine I have to have shipped from New Mexico of all places. So now because the eye has gotten worse lately I have to go back to see a veterinarian opthamologist...and yes there is such an animal (excuse the pun). What this doctor should really be called is dog-lover's proctologist because I really end up taking it up the ass everytime I see this guy. Overlooking the fact that I have to drive to Nashville for the visit, which is the entire state of Kentucky away, this guy charges me a bundle for five minutes of "Oh he's doing fine, just keep doing what you've been doing." Yeah thanks, do I bend over now or would you rather I did it up by the credit card machine? So considering the amount of cash I have to drop to see this guy, you might assume that customer service would be included. OH BUT NO NO NO that is definitely not the case. Those office people can eat my ass. They were positively dramatic about making my appointment, all but blaming me for being too poor to see the doctor for the last two years. Oh I'm sorry mizzz nasally-borderline-hysterical receptionist, I forgot that you were doing a vital organ--doctor's visit exchange program. Didn't I leave my liver with you last time? Oh that only covered the visit, not the medication? Sorry, I guess this time you can have my bladder, I'll just have to start pissing out of my navel.

that's what friends are for

I was just commenting in my drinking post about Katie's lush-ful habits. See, Katie's family has a major hook-up. Her mom is friends with a liquor vendor so they have oodles of those little airplane liquor bottles in all sorts of fruity flavors like apple & raspberry vodka. So I started thinking about what other friends it would be good to have on tap:
1. Obviously a liquor vendor or a bartender. I'd prefer the vendor because with the bartender you would end up becoming a barfly at some seedy joint and once that happens, you'll never get laid.
2. A mechanic friend so you don't get hosed everytime your car makes a weird nose.
3. A manager at a really good restaraunt so you can get free food.
4. Somebody who works as a supply specialist for the government. You will never have to pay for office supplies again and unlike civilian businesses, nobody notices a ream of missing paper.
5. A doctor. At first I thought it would be good to have a gynecologist friend because the comfort level might make it easier on you, but then I starting thinking that I wouldn't want my friend to see my powderbox because then s/he would start telling all your other friends about your dirty bits and that wouldn't be good, especially if you ended up with a horrific case of the clap.
So what kind of friends would you like?

time to make the doughnuts

So I'm back in school, nose to the grindstone and all that. As is my usual custom I made a noisy little entrance into my Chinese class. I walked in the door and somehow ended up knocking over a podium thing. Clang, bam, boom, it toppled to the floor and everybody looked up at me like I had just developed a third eye in the middle of my forehead, then the giggling started. Luckily I didn't have any coffee to drop and spill all over the ground. Even luckier, I didn't fall on my ass. I swear, klutziness is now becoming part of my schtick and I can't even blame it on public drunkenness or some weird physiological disorder.

aging

Do you remember how, when you were younger, all you could think was "I am never going to turn into those old people." Well lately I've come to the stunning realization that I am getting way too old. First it was television, who can watch all of those stupid reality shows? Then it was music, I can't recognize two-thirds of Top 40. Now liquor has turned its back on me. I remember when a bottle of cheap wine coupled with a few swigs from a forty was just a precursor to a night of heavy drinking, dancing on speakers, and vomitting in alleyways. Now three measley drinks is all it takes for me to have to choose between telling strangers I love them and telling them to meet me outside for a colon examination courtesy of my black leather doc marten, mary jane encased foot. All the while Katie, the young doe, is drinking just as much as me and even has to finish my beer in addition to her own. Oh well I guess if you had to put a positive spin on getting older...it's a lot cheaper to get drunk.

let's get physical

So Men's Fitness Magazine, not to be confused with Men's Health Magazine, which is often mistaken for the International Male Catalog, did their annual rating of the fittest and fattest cities in the United States. The top three fittest cities are Seattle, Honolulu, and Colorado Springs. Ironically, I've lived in all three. Trust me it's definitely ironic because at this very moment I AM the poster-child for at least two of the seven deadlies. I'm sitting here couch potatoeing it up at my computer, alternating between shoveling big spoonfuls of Cocoa Krispies into my gullet and drinking copious amounts of Red Bull to keep me going for the rest of the night.

another one bites the dust

So the smarty-pants mice turned out to be not so smart. Last night in the wee hours of the morning I heard the traps go off which lead to numerous dreams about rats. When I woke up this morning at first I had decided that I would deal with it when I got home from work, but then my curiosity got the better of me and I went to check out the traps. The traps my landlady bought that we put in the pantry had been released but there wasn't anything in them. So I picked one up and looked at it, it was COVERED in blood, it was like watching Terror Firmer again. Then I looked under my sink and there were mice in both of the traps I put out, teeny dead little mice with their big black eyes and pointy noses. So I had to pick them up and throw them away. I felt guilty about it all day. Yuck.

of mice and men

The mice in my house are straight out of The Secrets of Nimh. On the left you will see what the mouse trap looks like right out of the package, and on the right you can see what the mouse (mice?...shudder) did to the trap. Monk ate all of the peanut butter off of the plastic and then ate some of the plastic too. YAY for mice that are smarter than me because though Monk et. al. managed to elude capture, my thumb somehow managed to get mangled and let me tell you, it hurt. I'm so creeped out right now.

creepy

I've been working in various aspects of the medical field for about ten years now, so you'd think I wouldn't be shocked by much. But today I was walking into work and I saw these two empty gurneys pushed up against a wall. It was clear that they were gurneys from a mortuary, although the black and charcoal gray clad workers that usually accompany the gurneys were nowhere in sight. So after ten years you would think I would be accustomed to the idea of death, particularly death in a hospital, but I can say without a doubt that I am NOT. I am still shocked to see those gurneys in the halls. Just as I'm shocked when I open the pathology refrigerator and see a sawed off leg just sitting there like a leg of lamb waiting to be cooked for Sunday supper. It doesn't gross me out like it used to, like when I threw up when I saw a breast from a mastectomy in a jar of brown liquid. But I'm definitely not jaded. And you know, I hope I never will be. I never want to go into work and see body parts or hear about somebody who died and think to myself, "No kidding? (pause) What's on the menu for lunch?"

nah-may-stay

I have a belly full of Indian food and beer and just had an eyeful of a mostly Indian movie although the movie part wasn't planned. It was pure serendipty that we would find it on the television after watching Garden State, a really good movie that almost made me cry. I'm almost afraid that I'm turning into one of those pretentious people who "loves everything about __________ culture." But I can't help it, masala is delicious and even better when you have a healthy buzz.

revenge

I think I have a subconscious passive-aggressive thing going on. For the last week I have forgotten to put deodorant on before I leave for work. I wonder if anybody else has noticed.

happy facking new year

So New Year's Eve is upon us and I am ashamed to say that not only do I have zero plans but I probably won't even be up to watch the end of an era and the beginnings of an even more annoying one, Regis Philbin hosting the big ball drop with Colin Powell pulling the lever and dropping the bomb...oops I mean ball on a year so shitty that it isn't really worth reminiscing. So what did I learn this year...not much but I'll summarize anyway.
1. For every three friends you make, only one is worth keeping. The other two, barely even worth the metaphorical toilet paper it took to wipe the memories of them away.
2. It is impossible to start anew. I carry too much baggage to ever start with a clean slate.
3. Dogs are still way better than kids. Not only do they annoy me less, but I can leave them alone in the house and in the car and nobody calls the police.
4. Achieving a goal is bittersweet. It feels good to do it but then I'm left wondering...Now what?
5. Magic 8 balls' predictions...don't trust 'em...those little fuckers have been lying to me for years.
6. Trying to save money is pointless...mostly because of iTunes. They sucker you in with their deceptively cheap 99 cent songs and before you know it...BAM thirty dollar charge on your credit card.
7. Single and child-free people of my general age range are impossible to meet. They must all live in another town, far far from the town posing as a thriving metropolis known as Louisville. Of course, that really isn't THAT surprising if you think about it.
8. There are a lot of really decent and interesting people on the internet, blogging away. Corny as it sounds, thanks for filling my otherwise mundane life and slightly obsessive internet viewing habits with good stuff. Happy Near Year and all that jazz...I'm off to get drunk by myself in the middle of the afternoon with the sole intention of getting bombed, clear indications of my alcoholism.

mementos

Lately I've been starting to feel like I am a slave to my stuff. I am consumed with the thought of moving all my crap by myself. My brain hurts from deciding what I should keep and what I should sell, what I should give away and what I should throw out altogether. And I'm not moving for another six months so I can't imagine what I'll be like by May. Today I started to throw out some Christmas things and I went through this box of old Christmas cards I've saved because I am one of those sentimental pack-rats. If you ever want to partake in an excercise of sheer torture then I would suggest trying to throw out old Christmas cards. It's pretty easy to throw out the average "Merry Christmas, Your Friend X________" but it is damn impossible to throw out a card from your aunt who died less than a year ago, knowing that you will never ever get another card from her. Or even cards from grandparents, who are getting so old that you know it won't be long before you won't be getting cards from them either. It is also hard to throw out cards where people send pictures instead of the usual trite Hallmark Christmas tree, it just feels like some bad mojo to toss out pictures of people. I ended up saving cards from a friend long lost to the black hole of memories. These cards were particularly painful because this person had been a friend for ages, we went through young adulthood and some really bad shit together. But as she so brutally put it in one of the letters, "I miss hanging out, but I guess we had to grow up sometime." If letting go of really good friends is a measure of growing-up then I plan to remain ungrown forever. But all in all I did okay I guess, I weeded down an entire box to about ten cards. I don't really feel that great about it though.

perspective

I complain a lot, it is part of my complete lack of charm. But lately I'm starting to feel incredibly shallow whenever I complain about somebody at work or having to shovel snow because frankly I don't know what real tragedy is. Once the dust settles, the thousands upon thousands suffering through this will rebuild the homes that could probably fit inside my kitchen, they'll go back to slaving away for less scraps than I throw in my garbage, they'll go about their lives and complain less about a life that I'm far too spoiled and complacent to manage to survive a month of, much less a lifetime. But even knowing this, I'll still complain about old people on the road and complain when gas gets up to $2.00/gallon, I'll waste precious resources and only feel the tiniest smidge of guilt, I'll wish I earned more money or were impossibly thin with a huge but still perky rack. And I know I'm not the only one. I wonder, when did we let ourselves get like this...so full of our own sense of entitlement that we've lost our perspective?

some good news, some bad news

The good, my messed up tooth isn't abscessed. The bad, it is inflamed which means they won't do anything and I just have to live with it until it gets better or worse, whichever comes first.
The good, I went to this dentist for the first time and he was super nice. The bad, my waiting room magazine snatching has turned into full blown kleptomania. I snagged a Vanity Fair this time, with Johnny Depp on the cover of course.
The good, I got my remote start & keyless entry installed. The bad, it took nine hours.
The good (well good news if you are a glass half-full kind of person, which I'm definitely not), I got to wait around in Circuit City for about 1/3 of that time and managed to watch almost two complete movies. The bad, it was Zoolander and Spiderman 2 and I had to stand and watch them at the display of dvd players for your car.
The good, I got to hang out with my friend B. for the whole afternoon and we had a great time even though we were running errands. The bad, I'm still incredibly immature and laugh at completely inappropriate butt and anus jokes...A LOT.

my body is staging a coup

And it is against me. I don't know when my minor organs decided to get together and use their powers for evil rather than good, but it was sometime Christmas day, I guess they wanted to give the gift that keeps on giving. Something is happening to my nose, I'm not sure what but it is painful. I'm thinking maybe it's a sinus infection but if that's the case, then my nose is playing it really subtely...not trying to give away too much too soon I suppose. That and my face has broken out, I haven't had acne like this since junior high. Plus add on the "women's" pains (which might have something to do with the acne, but I doubt it) and not only am I a physical mess but I'm even bitchier than usual. And to top it all off I have to go to the dentist today. The crack-head dentist that did my crown and root canal totally fucked it up and now I think I have an abscess. So that'll be good news if that's the case, "Well your tooth is bad, we'll have to remove it and then bend over cause the cost of the bridge/dental implant will only be affordable if you decide to sell your eggs on the internet." YAY!

second guessing

Sometimes, do you ever think that a decision you made that you thought was for the best is in fact not? I wonder that a lot, I guess I spend too much time living in the past.
On a side note, I received some awesome Christmas presents. The best one by far was the cool new digital camera. You know what that means? I'll be posting all sorts of crap-ass pictures while I play with my new toy, expect to see tons of new puppy-pics.

winter wonderland

Remember when I complained about the snow the other day. Well compare that picture to this one. The first snowfall was just a tease. Now we have about six-seven inches half of which is actually frozen rain

The view from one of my windows

Another winter shot. Notice the big truck in the background? The people in the truck got stuck in the snow. They were out there for about thirty minutes before they could move again.

Four hours of work and I managed to move my car about fifteen or so feet, talk about waste of productivity. Actually I wouldn't have gotten that far if two of the people that live on my street hadn't come over and helped push my car. You can see by where I shoveled out a walking path how much snow fell. You can also see my family wagon, it took me about half an hour to scrape off all of the ice and snow. FUN!!! I love winter!!!

pick-up artist

I got my car back from the body shop today. I had a vaguely paranoid fantasy that I would get rear-ended on my way home because that is the sick twisted irony that I call my life. Luckily I didn't, although I did have to pay ten bucks for my rental since it was apparently not considered an economy car. I've decided that another one of my world domination rules will be this: anybody who wants to own and drive an SUV must take an IQ test before purchasing it because from what I can tell from driving the twenty miles to the car place and back, intelligence is inversely proportional to the size of your automobile. It boggles my mind that the people who own the vehicles best suited for driving in inclement weather are the worst at it.

willard

I was planning on sleeping in until noon but I just woke up from the worst frikkin dream. In it I was walking through my house and walking into the kitchen and there was shredded paper and rice EVERYWHERE. Then I walk over to the bag that held the rice and there were like twelve rats in it, writhing around in rice eating exctasy. Just writing that is shooting a chill straight up my spine. So once they were caught they ran off into the walls and they had chewed holes everywhere, huge gaping holes where there was barely any wall left and wires were exposed. In the dream I remember thinking "Well that's what Mary gets for not bringing me those mousetraps, thank god its not my house, I hope she doesn't try to keep my deposit." Well no more sleep for me, creepy dreams are not my idea of a good time. And the weather is crap, they say freezing rain all day, which turns the people on the road into complete drooling imbeciles so I don't think I'll head out unless I absolutely have to.

strangers with candy

I keep getting the weirdest people IM-ing me and writing to me via Friendster. The other day some girl wrote to me and invited me to partake in a threesome with her boyfriend (for his birthday apparently), which is by far and away stranger than the guy who wrote to me and asked me to be his dominatrix. Then I get a message on Frienster from a guy and though I would never write back, I did check out his profile. He's some random guy in Florida who had a bunch of pictures with attractive girls who look a lot like strippers. I decided that he is probably one of those people who asks cute girls to take pictures with him. One picture even had a girl showing her boobs with him cradling them. I think I vomited in my mouth a little when I saw that one. I only wish I could see the profile of the person (probably another guy) taking the pictures. He probably has the same pictures with the same girls, maybe even cupping the same boobs. I think I should change my profile, it attracts far too many uncomfortably strange people, although frankly I get to laugh at other people a lot so that's a plus. Also, I think I've figured out what is so attractive about blogging. It's like online voyeurism. I have about twenty blogs that I visit regularly, probably too regularly as I have nothing better to do with my time, and there is something incredibly appealing about reading other people's thoughts, especially when in "real life" they probably wouldn't be as forthcoming.

my solution for world peace

Okay stick with me here. When I rule the world, which is coming soon right after my nap, I am going to implement a policy that will bring peace. Basically my plan is to give every living person two knock-down, bare-knuckle, fisticuff credits per calendar year without fear of punishment other than a 50-50 chance at a beating. Now you might be thinking, "How would violence beget peace?" To which I would say, how dare you question me, week long toilet cleaning duty following our mandatory day long chili-eating marathon as your punishment! Unless I'm feeling generous and then I would explain, in an extremely condescending tone, the plan is simple really. First, if a person knew they had only two legally sanctioned fights per year, they would seriously consider which actions are fight-worthy. The old person cutting you off in their huge monte-carlo...probably not fight worthy, the evil secretary at the doctor's office who makes personal calls while you wait forty minutes past your appointment time...probably not fight worthy. When you realize how most everyday situations are not fight-worthy, you would be more apt to just let the stupid stuff go. Second, you might reconsider pissing other people off with your snarky comments and rude stares. Sure, you wouldn't think twice about leaving the 300 pound linebacker alone but you just never know about the quiet, skinny ones so you would go about your day being a kinder, gentler person. Its a plan of subtle genius, although I don't have all the kinks worked out yet.

ugh

I took my car in to be fixed from the rear-ending it sustained a month ago. I thought for sure I would get a pimp rental car because I could have sworn that somebody once told me that your rental car should be about the same level as your regular car (not that my car is pimp, it is a total family wagon). However, it turns out that person that told me that totally lied. My rental is so ghetto, and NOT as in ghetto fabulous. I'm driving a Pontiac Sunfire and it is a piece-o-crap. It has no amenities, no power anything. I actually had to roll down my window, something I haven't had to do since my dad made the tortuous decision of getting a Yugo as my first car. But the lack of power-anything isn't even the worst part. The radio doesn't cut off when you turn off the engine, you actually have to turn it off yourself. For god's sake, is this 1965? I know at some point I'll forget to turn off the radio and the battery will be dead and then I'll be late for work, which is a BAD BAD thing because I only have a few more tardies before I get canned.

snow days

This is what I woke up to this morning. What is amazing about all this is how nice it was yesterday. You can almost make out the snow flurries if you look hard enough. You can also see Iniki (sans sweater) peeing by the shed

oh yes i did

insert catchy title here

I'm not a big follower of local news, that is until I leave one particular place for another. So I don't really follow what is going on in Louisville, but I do read the headlines for the Honolulu Advertiser and the Seattle Times. The whole governor race in Washington State has really held my attention, mostly because I would like at least ONE person I voted for to frikkin win. There was as article in the Times today that discussed the vote recount. Mostly a blah article, but THIS was my favorite part:
Republicans are now "absolutely convinced that King County is trying to steal this election," said Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance.
"There are Republicans urging us to organize mass protests, to take to the streets," Vance said. "At some point people's patience just runs out."
Am I the only one that finds it just a little ironic that we're now having to take our cues for democracy from the Ukraine? Check your soup Christine, check your soup.

cheese with that whine?

I had a not so good day at work today. I think (in fact I'm 97.4% sure) this one person I work with complained to our supervisor about getting bogged down while doing maintenance and such on one of our analyzers. So then we all got this crotchety message about all the things the rest of us, which basically means me, need to do to make his life easier. For instance, the person on workbench X, which basically means me, now has to answer all of the stupid phone calls, do all of the mundane chores that nobody else wants to do, and at some point start wiping workbench Y- worker's ass. Seriously, when did I become the designated lab asshole? Maybe answering the work-related calls wouldn't be so strenuous if people weren't spending the entire morning on personal calls discussing the relative importance of whether or not they should have mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese with their chicken fried steak. Maybe if they took the stick shoved way up their ass out, they could work a little faster than a three-toed sloth in a footrace. That's the thing about this whole concept of teamwork...when they say teamwork what they really mean is I'll do this important stuff and you can do whatever it is I don't want to do. I definitely need to repeat my new mantra to myself more often, "Six more months, six more months."

brainwashed

Walking through campus today and watching other people go about their business, I realized something. Almost everything I learned during my brief stint as a GI Jane (and trust me it wasn't much, I'm pretty sure I spent most of that time in a drunken haze), I summarily forgot the day I took my uniform off permanently. But one thing I can't let go of, no matter how hard I try, is NOT walking on grass. I just can't do it, no matter how brown or how weed-infested I cannot walk across a field of grass. Even if traipsing across a lawn would shorten my walk by half, some random siren in my head goes off and I end up staying on the sidewalk. It's not that I haven't ever walked on grass since Uncle Sam and I decided it was best that we went our separate ways, I have. But I feel a little guilty about it, an emotion I don't often pay much attention to, and the guilt makes the walk completely unenjoyable. I think I need some hypnotherapy. Not walking on grass makes going to the park pretty pointless, and picnics...fuggetaboutit.

satisfied in the end?

I got my copy of Return of the King Extended DVD yesterday in the mail and watched it last night. It had a lot of extra scenes, although none of them so important to the storyline that you felt like you were watching something new (not like The Two Towers where storylines were way better explained by the extra scenes). Is it just me or was anybody else extremely disappointed that Aragorn ended up with Arwen? I remember being not to happy with that turn of events the first time I saw the movie and last night was no different. I don't mind the predictable "the good guys always win" storyline but I cannot stand the predictable "meant to be together" love-story bullshit. I guess I'm too jaded. I prefer my love-stories to be like Romeo & Juliet, somebody had better die. If you ask me, love stories where one of the protaganists die are better because you (the viewer) knows that the living person will always remember the other person as beautiful and lovely, perfect even. But when they get together in the end I always think, "Yeah that lovey-dovey stuff isn't going to last. She'll get tired of his farting in bed and start spending money to fill the emotional void. He'll get mad when her ass gets bigger and her sex drive slows down and go find a twenty-four year old stripper." Yeah, cynical, definitely the word-du-jour.

ecstatic

I just got my Chinese grade and I am very very pleased. Clearly Zu Laoshi is more than a little generous because somehow I managed to pull an A out of my ass (and yes Katie I can already hear the "I told you so"). I can only imagine the curve required to give me that A because I know without a doubt that I blew the final.
I also got my evaluation at work. My supervisor must be feeling the holiday love because I got the highest rating I've ever gotten and that means I get the highest raise that my company will allow. Although it'll only amount to a couple-o-few cents an hour, it is still more money in my ever-emptying pocket.
The one thing I am not so ecstatic about is my new roommate. Don't know when he decided to move in, but this morning he let his presence be known. I opened my pantry door to find a mouse. And embarassingly enough, I screamed like a five year old girl. He's a tiny thing, maybe three inches at the most, but still big enough to turn me into a charicature of the pearl and high heel wearing housewive that jumps onto the counter and screeches in mortal fear.
Seeing Monk (the name I've given the little guy) made me think of a short story I read a while back about a woman, recently separated, who finds a tick on her back. The tick is in a spot she can't reach on her own and though she tries and tries, she can't find a way to remove the tick by herself. During the whole process of the attempted delousing, she realizes how truly alone she is. I feel a little bit this way because of the mouse. I would totally have left the finding and exterminating of Stuart Little up to W., but now I have to do it myself. All I have to say about that is EEEEK!

the death of imagination

Okay, admittedly I am waiting for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to come out with baited breath. But come on, it has Johnny Depp starring and Tim Burton directing, it just screams cult-following (not that the first one doesn't have and deserve its own LSD dropping, joint toking, lost in the bluest of blue eyes, Gene Wilder loving cult of disciples). Aside from this super-special remake, I am sick and tired of remakes. Its bad enough that they are making a Dukes of Hazzard movie (although they do have Jay Chandrasekhar directing), but when I was watching the preview for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory I noticed that they are remaking Assault on Precinct 13. What the hell? How can you possibly remake what is one of the coolest movies ever (a movie I have been watching since I was like seven and NEVER tire of) and have Ja Rule a part of it? ARGH!!! Damn you Hollywood, isn't it enough that you twist the world's perceptions of beauty and make completely undeserving people wealthy? Now you have to fucking RUIN movies with your remakes? Are there no imaginative and creative people left in Hollywood? Is everybody's head so far up corporate ass that they can't come up with new shit??? Seriously, HOW DARE YOU HOLLYWOOD, HOW DARE YOU!!! It better at least have the same soundtrack!!!

torn

There are definitely two sides of me. The first side loves nothing more than coming home from work, putting on my pjs and taking a long long nap. The other side of me, the responsible side that I try and try to squash, insists that I do the last bit of yard work to get rid of the great number of leaves on my lawn. Well today the responsible side won out and I just spent the better part of this cold afternoon doing yard work. It was a race between me and Mother Nature as there is definitely a storm a-brewin'. Well take that you vindictive beatch, I won cause I finished the yard work before a single drop of rain/sleet fell. I hope this is the last of the tedium of suburbian existence because I dread the thought of going out there again. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of the evening. Unfortunately there are no good shows on HBO or Showtime playing right now and Desperate Housewives seems to be in hiatus already. Already truth be told, if I had the choice I'd watch Footballers' Wives over Desperate Housewives any day.

Update: I guess there WILL be a new episode of Desp.Housewives tonight. Yippee, another reason to put off revising my paper!!!

my poor little guy

I don't know what's more pathetic, watching my poor dog run around with a funnel on his head, bumping into walls and barely able to walk OR the phenomenal amount of money I just had to shell out for the vet visit tonight. Dear lord, how do they justify charging so much when I spent 90% of the time waiting to see the vet, 8% of the time sitting there while they told me how cute Iniki was, and only about 2% of the time getting actual medical care. Oh well, I stole a magazine with Johnny Depp on the cover from the waiting room just to make it a little more worthwhile.

skunked

Man am I feeling LOW right now. I just totally and utterly bombed my Chinese final. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one because as soon as people started to look at the exam you could see the panicked look on their faces morph into a visage of miserable resignation. I can't remember the last time I did so poorly on an exam. I guess I should have sprechened sie Deutsch because Chinese is one hundred percent kicking my ass. Of course it doesn't help that I have a minute level of four different languages swimming around in my brain so when I try to say something in Zhong-wen, I end up throwing in some Deutsche, Hangul, and Espanol. Oh well, at least I've gotten good grades in two other classes. Now I just have one paper revision left and I dread revising that paper more than I dreaded writing the damn thing. One more week...one more week until I can read for the sheer pleasure of it, until I can have a drunken 21 Jumpstreet marathon in my pajamas, until I can stop staying up late at night considering the ramifications of deconstructionism and globalism on gender dynamics. UGH!
Well, I have to take Iniki to the vet. He'll probably think I'm taking him for a walk and get all excited.

they're after me lucky charms

For some reason I had a lot of luck today. I got a bunch of free crap. It all started with a phone call this morning. It was about the scholarship I thought I would have to give up because I opted to go less than full time. Well my department decided that they would give me the scholarship anyway, they're going to pay for my tuition. I won't get the leftover money but I don't care about that because now I won't have to shell out the money myself. Then on to Starbucks where we were supposed to meet some people from Chinese class for a study group. Two of the four people were not in attendance (I guess it was a great idea when I was driving to where they were, but not such a great idea when I decided they should meet us closer to where I was). But Katie and I stayed anyway and did some studying. While we were sitting there, a new person was training and learning to make drinks and she came by and said we could have the drinks for free. We got a mocha and a hot caramel cider. By the way, the cider drink...total shite! It made me gag, it tasted like heated apple juice. BLECH!!! Thank god it was a freebie because I would have been pissed if I paid for it. So after studying we decided to go shopping at this place called The Summit. We walked into a make-up place called Ulta (which by the way I mentioned previously because they had an online code for free make-up). When I was paying, I mentioned the online giveaway and the girl at the counter said they didn't' have that but since I mentioned it she up and decided that I deserved something free. So I got a free bag, it's a cool Swiss Army bag that looks like an Army map bag that I coveted while in the service. The total for my freebies today...about $1800.00. How's that for a good haul???

today's million dollar questio

TODAY'S MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION.

I only need two more classes to graduate. I had originally planned on taking four classes next semester because (a.) I'm on scholarship and have to be full time to get the money and (b.) I get quite a bit of money from the government when I go full time (because of the GI Bill). But now I've pretty much decided to take just the two classes because (a.) I've hit a financial snag since the marital dissolution and need to work a LOT more than the two measly days I've been working and (b.) I can't stand the thought of taking four classes when I only need two. So I am going to take Chinese because I need 3 more hours of a language and a political science class that I have wanted to take since I transferred to UofL. I had signed up to do an internship but now with the work situation, that is not looking like a possibility. I'm pretty bummed about that because I was looking forward to it, but I know I won't have the time to devote to it. In the end it probably would have been better to tough it out and have my tuition paid for and my tax-free GI Bill payments coming in, but I can't even think in the long-term right now. I actually thought I would finish my stupid degree without any snafus, but life obviously had different ideas about that. Oh to be right out of high school again, full of youthful vigor and naivete. Would I have done it any differently? Eh, probably not.

gender genie

Perusing blogexplosion (instead of studying, shame on me) I found a link to the Gender Genie. Basically you paste some text into the square and based on some mysterious algorithms it will predict whether the writer is of the female or male persuasion. And when you see which words they use to calculate the gender, well its not as obvious as you would think...they aren't looking for stuff like "oh my god...so totally cute" or "dude, what the hell, she was smoking hot" or whatever.
Speaking of blogexplosion, I got my first rating. It was a 2 (out of ten). Now I am the "ugly girl at the junior high dance, standing in the corner with my cup of punch" of blogs. I actually don't mind the low rating, but it does kind of bother me that I don't know WHY I got the low rating. Is it because my layout sucks? Is it because somebody thought the content sucked? Is it because I don't write about kids or politics or debate religious philosophies? Or maybe because I'm not a paid-escort with a drug problem? Who knows? Ratings are useless without feedback. If I went into work for my evaluation and they said "You suck, you need to improve" but didn't tell me what I needed to improve on...well that would be pointless. So to sum up...if somebody actually takes the time to rate this waste of cyberspace (assuming you aren't just waiting your 30 seconds to go on to the next page), let me know why I suck, not just that I suck. Thanks. And if you are a regular non-blogexplosion reader, well then you probably already know I suck but keep coming back anyway...so CHEERS!!!

decisions decisions

I need to buy a semi-nice outfit for the holidays since my wardrobe generally consists of jeans and an occasional pair of khakis. Being a big woman who still wants to have a wee-bit of a sense of style, there are some fashion decisions that must be made on every shopping trip. One of them involves pants. Since most large gals are not in perfect proportion, we usually end up getting pants that fit one area of the body only to find that they don't fit another area. For instance, a woman with a big butt often finds pants to fit her ample derriere but the pants end up gapping at the waist. My problem is that I'm thick-waisted and a weird in between size so my problems are double that of most robust gals. I can get pants that fit the waist, but somehow end up looking like I suffer from THE major fashion faux-paux, the camel toe. Or I can get pants a little baggier in the waist and end up with pants that are saggy in the rear, making me look like I have no ass. I generally opt for the saggy-butt but am always saddened to notice the heightened perception of ass-flatness. The disease noassatall is rampant in my family, we have no extra junk in the trunk, in fact I think we are mostly a family of hatch-backs. Maybe I should just get a skirt.

jung-myeres-briggs

I found this free Jung-Myers-Briggs test via Adventures of Pierce Ranger.
Turns out I am a INTJ (Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging)
Here is one explanantion.
Here is another.
Personally I have to go with the second definition because there is no way that I want to be in the same category as Donald Rumsfeld and Maria Shriver, Rummy because let's face it ideologoically he is my antithesis and Maria Shriver because that means my love-match is somebody like Ahnuld. Although on the plus side Susan B. Anthony and JFK were INTJs, and Chevy Chase...can't forget Chevy Chase.
But the second definition makes me a Mastermind. How great does that sound? I might have to break out my world domination plans again. I am Ayn Rand with elements of Clint Eastwood, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Elizabeth I.

daddy dearest

My dad left this morning. It was a great visit because he didn't stay for long so I only had to come up with a day's worth of diversions and restaraunt choices (which is nearly impossible since my dad only eats like three things and two of them are not in season) and the first thing he said to me was "You look like you're losing weight" which just makes me love that man. We ended up going to this family farm called Huber's. Since the weather was so nice a lot of people had the same idea cause it was crowded and full of people that had to scrape the bottom of the genetic barrel. Huber's is pretty neat because during the summer they have strawberry picking, during the fall they have pumpkin picking, and during the winter you get to go out and cut down your own Christmas tree. They also have a winery, which is where we spent most of our time, and a restaraunt where they make the best fried chicken EVER and these things called fried biscuits which just turn out to be donuts that feel like they are made out of lead pellets (but so good with apple butter...YUM). After that we went to the casino and my dad blew a big wad of cash, which I feel bad about and wish I had taken him putt-putt instead. Oh well, live and learn. I posted some pics from Huber's below.

indiana

daddy's girl

I'm off to pick up my dad up from the airport. I'm pretty stoked because I didn't actually think he was going to make it out here. He won't get to stay for long but thanks to my sister's buddy-passes it was a free trip anyway. I feel like I haven't seen my family in ages so I'm excited and full of warm fuzzies thanks to my dad's visit. Now I just have to figure out what to do tonight for entertainment and grub. Certainly there will no cooking in my kitchen, I love my daddy too much to do that to him. Although my sad attempts at cooking would definitely provide the entertainment factor.

torture

Is there such a thing as auto/self-masochism? If so, I think I may have just committed it. Yesterday was my puppy's birthday, the big 4 (which mathematically makes me and Iniki about the same age). So since I didn't do anything special for him yesterday, today I made sure he had a good day. I took him for a long walk and then came home and made him a doggie cheeseburger Happy Meal. He loved it, ate every bite. But now the torture is commencing. Who knew that such a foul smell could emanate from such a little dog??? And I know this is going to continue for the rest of the night. I have only myself to blame.

quiz whore

Here is the latest quiz that has caught my fancy (courtesy of [subject to change without notice]). This kind of stuff always reminds me of a time long ago when a bunch of us would get our tarot read or our numbers done. They always would tell us really vague stuff like "You're going to move and it'll be near water." Well yeah, we're in the freakin' military and even if you're landlocked, chances are you will live by a lake or river or something. But when you hear it, you just convince yourself that it was completely legit (especially since you just shelled out fifty bucks) and if you wait long enough you REALLY will find love and live through a lot of hardships along the way and move near water.

who do i have to kill for an ambien?

My sleep schedule is totally screwed up. I can't sleep when I need to sleep, when I know that in less than four hours my alarm clock will be screeching at me like some high-pitched harpy on meth. I don't know why its so hard for me to fall asleep because I truly love sleep. I love sleep like rock stars love heroine, like chickified porn-stars love saline, like Mormons love the short-sleeved dress-shirt sale at Sears. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that my mom would force us to stay in bed when we were little. Most parents let their kids get up to watch cartoons in the morning, not my mom, she made me and Sofie stay in bed until the Today show was over. I'm feeling pretty desperate right now, where can I get some sheep (to count man, to count)?

things to ponder

**First, if Halloween is only once a year, and judging by my calendar OVER, why do people feel the need to continually wear a costume? Why must people about as deep as a well masquerade themselves as somebody knowledgeable? Seriously, just because somebody can say words like "ephemeral" and almost vaguely put it into context doesn't mean they will be any perceived as any smarter.
**Second, how is it that you can give two people the exact same gift and they will interpret that gift and the act of giving that gift completely differently? One person will think it is something nefarious and completely full of bad intentions, and another person will take the gift for what it was meant to be and just be cool with it, maybe even be glad to get it.
**Third, why do people take what little power they have in any situation and make it out to be more than what it is? Does it give them a boner to have some mediocre display of power?
**Fourth, why oh why do people think that getting in the last word or putting in their completely useless two cents somehow makes them right? No amount of revisionist rethinking and retelling of a story will change the fact that everybody but those particular people think they are oh so wrong.
**Fifth, why do I keep continuing this charade of getting a complete worthless degree and acting like it has some value?
Contrary to the tone of this post, I'm not in a bad mood. I'm actually in a pretty good mood. I just watched Chocolat and ate pizza with a true-blue friend. The pizza was surprisingly tasty, Johnny Depp was totally yummy (as only he can be) and frankly today turned out to be a much better day than I ever would have thought when I walked out the door this morning. Now if I could only get my car and cell-phone situation worked out, it might all be a-okay.

frustration

Okay, so it has been about 72 hours since my last cigarette. This was probably not the time to quit either, end of school stuff, work stuff, drama because of certain people...I really should have put off quitting until after the 15th