Jew In The Room

Thirty One, It's A Whole Lot Weirder Than Thirty For Some Reason

2011-03-23T08:45:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow another year passed and I'm 31 today.

WHAT?!

When I was a kid 31 seemed soooooooo oooooooold. Now I know that all those mothers and adults and teachers I though were ancient, were really just sitting around thinking, "How am I old enough to be that kid's mom? I mean, I got drunk last night and made out with a sailor. I might still be a little drunk right now. Thirty something year olds don't do that, do they? Ok, fine. So it wasn't really a sailor, it was just the father of my kid, but I was pretending he was a sailor in my head so that counts right?"

Anyway, I decided I need a list of life goals to complete now that I'm in my thirties. So I made a list, a lofty list of goals, not for my life, but for the next year. A list to be completed before I'm 32. Making a list? That just got checked off my list. One down, tons more to go!

BIRTHDAY LIST OF GOALS SPECTACULAR! :

A list of lofty goals. To be completed before I turn 32.

1. Finish writing a book. I’ve got like seven started, just pick one and finish it. Worse comes to worse I’ve got a book I hate. But at least I can say I finished one.

2. Try not to get nails done for an entire year. Every time I get them done I rip them off three days later. (already I want to cross this one off my list because I love having my nails done, even if it is for a few days damnit.)

3. Run a third marathon.

4. Win third marathon.

5. Or at least, pretend to win when I cross the finish line at 4 hours and 55 minutes by holding hands up in the air and shouting, “CHAMPION OF SLOW MARATHONS!”, and get Becky and Math Teacher to suspend me over their heads like an actual champion.

6. Can up the drama by pushing baby in a stroller during entire marathon thus, when cross the finish line can say, “CHAMPION OF BABY PUSHING!” Or can use puppy if baby is uncooperative.

7. Actually finish Anna Karenina. Or War and Peace. Or Moby Dick. Something that is long and foreign. Not sure if Moby Dick is foreign, but it’s about a whale and the sea or something, and since I’ve never been a captain of a ship, it’s foreign to me.

8. Make a weekly comic.

9. First decide what comic should focus on.

10. Decide on own! Do not spend seven hundred hours re-reading online comics. That doesn’t make you productive it just makes you a dork. A thirty-one year old dork.

11. Do more yoga.

12. Train James to not scream his ass off at 3am, but rather to be a calm sleepy kitty that does not walk across chest in the middle of the night and stop to get nose to nose, scaring the living daylights out of me, before meow-yelling and jumping onto stomach then off bed.

13. Find out what “scaring the living daylights out of me” actually means. Living daylights? Are there un-living daylights? Like zombie daylights? Vampire daylights that go around inside of people just waiting to be scared out. Is very strange saying.

14. Swim to the bouy in Catalina. Or at least, watch people swim there as just remembered water is not actual water – is ice that has recently been melted into fooling you it’s water, but is actually just an illusion. Is giant ice cube bodysuit.

15. Eat lots of (un-massacred) donuts in Catalina.

16. Fall asleep tanning (with sunscreen on) on beach in Catalina while reading same book as Gabi. Try not to get the hiv. (Becky and I get blisters on our hands and feet every year [which we call the hiv, because it sounds better than what it actually is] in Catalina because it’s the first time our paper-like skin has been exposed to so much sun in a year and every year it hurts, and sucks, and is ugly. This year I will NOT get the hiv!) (But if I do I will not have a donut the next day as punishment.)

17. Have donut anyway, because am thirty one! Can eat donuts whenever I please!

18. Make out a lot. Just because am in thirties does not mean making out goes out the window. Making out should be re-upped and re-awesome because can think in head, “I’m making out with someone in their thirties! Sixteen year old me is sooooooooooooooo jealous right now!”

19. Write a letter to unborn baby apologizing in advance for all the embarrassing things I may or may not say or do to it. Like talking about making out. Be very sincere, as am sure will have a lot to apologize for, as sometimes cannot control mouth/body when it needs to talk/dance. Try to focus on fact that I will try very hard not to talk about my boobs or other people’s boobs if child does not like it. However, will continue to talk about boobs when child is not in ear shot, because I mean, c’mon . . . what’s not to talk about.

20. Spend more time singing on the phone to my brother.

21. Spend more time singing on the phone to my sister, even though she hates it. (Do not want either of the twins to feel left out)

22. Tell my friends and family how much I love them.

23. I love you guys!

Well, at least I can check one off the list already! I’ll get started on all the others after my birthday nap. Or two.

Killer Of All Things, Living Or Not

2011-03-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

So, James has a new thing. Since we moved, he's trapped in the house again and thus has to hunt things he normally wouldn't have to hunt. Instead of bringing live animals into the house and then slaughtering them before my very eyes, he has to resort to other, less bloody (sometimes) options.

ie; hunting and then killing the exposed area of my back through the open slats of my chair. I'm not sure why this is a fun chase for him, except that he loves to be able to attack through things, and reaching through the chair to my now scratched-to-hell-back skin is like reaching his paws through jail bars and scratching the eyes out of a nearby inmate.

Or sometimes he'll stalk, carefully circle, then strike my hairbrush DEAD. Like, d. e. a. d., dead. I have about fifteen things out on my little bathroom stand, but he always goes for the hairbrush, as if it said something mean about his mother once and he's gonna keep killing it and walking around with it in his mouth like a gay tiger until he feels his mother has been revenged.

And then, there's the newest attack - the cereal stalk.

This is the worst because I can't eat breakfast in peace anymore. Now I have to deal with this.

First the hunter eyes his prey. Slowly, without the Raisin Bran noticing, he creeps up on it.

Then once he sees the Raisin Bran doesn't notice him, he'll get even closer. Just waiting for the right moment to pounce.

Then - I couldn't get a picture of it, because I was too busy being drenched in milk and soggy cereal - James gets both of his paws up in the cereal bowl and splashes around in it until he feels it has been sufficiently clawed to death. Thus ruining my breakfast time once again.

Of course after he's done with all that, he gets a little thirsty and drinks the rest of my water.

Sometimes it takes me three tries before I can actually eat an entire breakfast.

I do not wanna know what he's going to do when I have waffles tomorrow.

Still Thirty

2011-03-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

My mom called this morning to remind me I'm getting older. Which is always nice.

Because I still feel sixteen I don't ever feel guilty for not finishing writing a book, or not finishing nursing school, or not finishing Anna Karenina - because I'm sixteen. Who's got time for that? I've got making out to do yo, I can't waste precious time reading a classic. Plus I've got years and years to do all that other stuff, I mean I'm only mother f-ing sixteen!

"You're in your thirties."

"No, I'm thirty."

"That doesn't make you in your twenties sweetie, I hate to break it to you."

"I hate to break it to you, but yeah it does."

So, I don't feel guilty for not finishing things until my mom, who is supposed to support my delusions as a loving mother, insists on ruining my lifelong daydreams and snaps me back into reality with her "logic" and "facts" and "those aren't sixteen year old thighs though, are they honey?".

(Just kidding, she wouldn't say that to me. My sister and I could weigh seven hundred pounds and she would still be all, "Oh please, you're too skinny. Eat a damn cookie.")

When I tried to point out that she was also getting older her response was:

"Oh no, I talked about it with Becky and she's going to stay 29 and I'm going to stay 59! Isn't that great?"

"What about me?"

"What about you?"

"You guys stay young but I don't?"

"Well, one of us has got to get older honey."

"Why does it have to be me?!"

"Because Becky and I already talked about it."

"I don't like your logic here."

And I don't. I really don't.

So, now I'm feeling guilty for not finishing things because I (temporarily) remember how old I actually am. Thus I will be trying to write two hundred pages today, while practicing giving shots to oranges, and taking breaks only to read four hundred pages of a Russian novel.

If my hands, ears, and various body parts are bleeding tomorrow, you'll know why.

It's because I'm in my thirties.

Warning: Overly Melancholy Post That Doesn't Even Mention The Fact I Made An Entire Oreo Cheesecake For Myself Today Not Because I Was Sad Just Hungry

2011-03-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

I'm so in love with Patty Griffin right now that I'm having a hard time focusing on Glee - even though I loooooved it - it's just that I recently put her back on my "baking" playlist which has sort of turned making brownies into more of a gut wrenching/crying-my-eyes-out-in-the-kitchen-in-the-middle-of-the-day-with-my-pants-unbuttoned sort of thing, than it is a let's-bake-a-tasty-treat sort of a thing.

I mean, just listen to this. Just listen and tell me you don't feel a stirring in your soul you haven't felt since you were in High School and everything was emotional to a fault, and then once you got older things started to dry up, and close off, and put itself into a complete emotional coma so you could actually get through life instead of just feeling heartbroken and devastatingly gloriously happy all at the same time for tiny little things like when Angela held hands with Jordan Catalano for the first time. Or when the guy you were (secretly) in love with laughed at something you said in class and you thought you were going to melt through the floor into a puddle of something that resembled mercury - all silver and moving like waves on the carpet and if touched cut into a million pieces. Or when your brother moves out of the house and into a group home, and then one day you walk past his room expecting to see him in there laughing at one of his secret little jokes with himself and it's takes you a good ten seconds to remember he moved out two years ago, and is so happy where he is - but still it makes you curl up onto his race car bed and fall asleep there until dinner.

Listen and tell me this doesn't make you feel like that. Or however you felt when you were in High School. (And if you were one of those kids who made it through teenager-hood without some sort of misplaced passion for everything, then I can not ever relate to you. Sorry.) (Just kidding, you're probably much better off.)

(The video is lame, so you can just stare at a picture of a rainy landscape if it helps. Like this one.)

And now I've run out of time to explain why I loved Glee (boy kisses!), but I will tomorrow (kissing of boys!) when I've had time to re-watch it (the scene where the boys are cute and they kiss!) and can pinpoint exactly what made this episode so good (not a tiny kiss but a full on sweet, romantic kiss!).

Licking Things

2011-03-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

I haven't written in a while because I cut my hair and got really sick.

Not in that order, I got sick, and somewhere in the fever-induced delirium I cut my hair off, and didn't cry. Because I'm growing. Or because I was too sick to do anything but fall asleep as she hacked off my pony tail, but still - Progress!

I'm still sick (mono?) but I'm well enough now to leave bed and do things like, brush my teeth, and smile, so that's fun. James is not the biggest fan of me spending all day in bed, I think it's kind of freaked him out because he'll coming screaming through the house to my room, at the top of his little kitty lungs, like he's lost me - every single day - and has to go shouting for me through the corridors until he finds I've been hiding away in the North wing with the Duchess.

I hear it starting sort of softly, like a distant siren, and then it gets louder and louder as he approaches the bedroom, stops - looks up at me - and continues yelling. As if the louder, and the longer he does it the more likely it is I'll be able to understand him. Once he finds me he's thrilled for a second, and then rolls around and immediately falls asleep - presumably because the effort of locating me several times a day for weeks on end is just too exhausting for him.

Anyway, he's being a little weird. And then today after his screaming routine he found me at my desk, dusting off my laptop, and fell asleep on top of my toast. I made some new toast and then came back and got to work, and I must have been really into it because I didn't pay attention to when he woke up or what he was doing, because when I looked up the little sucker was carefully, and very sneakily licking my colored pencils.

Licking them like they were kitten lollipops I left out as a special treat for him. He was purring, he was so happy with his tasty find, and when I looked at him with disgust and a split second "Hmm, I wonder if that is good," he looked at me from the corner of his eye and was like:

"What?"

"They're pencils, and they're wood-y."

"James, what are you doing?"

"What?"

"What are you doing?"

"Licking pencils."

"Why? What are you doing?"

"I don't think that's good for you."

"Are you sure?"

And that went on for a while, where he'd lick, I'd ask him something, he'd stop to yell, lick, yell, lick - until that wore him out and he started the weirdest stretching routine directed right at me, and done right on top of my laptop so I would extra notice him.

After the last lick he shut his eyes really slowly at me, and then opened them, like he was trying to be sexy, then started what I can only describe as yoga.

Some sort of weird sun salute.

Then directly into....

Downward dog.

Then he flipped over and, hanging off the desk like a bat, he fell asleep because he apparently just got way too tired after his four seconds of stretching to make it anywhere else but dangling precariously off a ledge for his nap time.

I'm afraid he might have narcolepsy.

(**James is not a calico cat, he's black and white, but my black and white drawings weren't as cute as the eye patch-y one so, there you go.**)

Portlandia

2011-02-21T13:46:00.000-08:00

I was having a really plain day last week that was threatening to become cry-worthy (due to a combo of being ridiculously hormonal - combined with the fact that it's tax season - combined with the fact that I have been watching Oprah, and all that lady does is try to make me sob myself to sleep at 4pm.) (Seriously, don't switch from Ellen to Oprah unless you want to have your soul ripped apart.) (Oh, but it's ripped apart so good.)

Anyway, it was a weird day, and then out of the blue one of my bff's Kevin sent me this (because he sensed my tears?) and it made me so happy I can't even tell you! I keep watching it over and over again, and it never gets old.

Just when you think it's funny, you keep watching and it gets even better.

I used to spend every Sunday with Kev, going to brunch and then the movies, and then spending the rest of the day at Barnes and Noble and Cold Stone. It was like a religion. It was the Church of Kevin.

And now I get joy on Sundays through funny clips he sends me, or Britney Spears mash-ups. It's a poor man's second. (Yeah, not even a poor man's Sunday - it's like second best, but a poor man's second best.) My sappy point is that I miss me some of him. And his dance moves.

But at least for now, we have Portlandia to get us through. And oh man, does it ever.

Pepe Le James

2011-02-17T10:24:00.000-08:00

I don't even know where to begin.

I'll start at the end:

I've just washed every single thing that is washable in my house, and I'm about to wash it all again. Sheets, clothes, couch cushions, James, my hair, even the little things that keep a door closed - you know, those lipstick-top-shaped latches that pop into a hole when you close a door (sexual) so that it stays shut? Washed, and washed again.

Why?

Well, I'll have to go back to the beginning I guess:

Once upon a time I had a cat. Now I don't. Now I just have a little guy with dyed pink hair like he was trying to join a punk band or something but forgot it wasn't the 1980's anymore.

Opps, I'm at the end again. Sorry.

Once upon a time I had a cat. And a dog. And the dog woke me up barking his head off in the middle of the night. But not like a warning bark that he was about to kill an intruder, it was a sad, distressed bark like he needed to save someone from a burning building but we wouldn't let him out of the house.

So, I get up and see him at the window, and it smells vaguely like skunk, and I'm like, "Ok, we don't need to kill skunks at 3:30 in the morning, you're fine." Then a few minutes later James scratches at the window wanting to come in, presumably because he doesn't want to be where the skunk is either. So I open the window and let him in, and the smell comes wafting in, so I shut the thing as quickly as possible and try to fall back asleep.

But about two minutes later, the skunk smell has shifted, and it has turned into something way worse. It's like burning rubber, or dying bear set on fire, or a warning sign that the house is about to blow up. That's actually my fear, that the house is going to blow up. Because I'm very rational at 3 in the morning.

So, I go to check and make sure James hasn't blown up, when I discover it.

The little kitten is sitting by his food bowl, trying to stare up at me, with his ENTIRE HEAD plastered with skunk oil.

PLASTERED.

Like, I'm not kidding, it looks like he pulled up the skunk's tail himself, got about two centimeters from the spary zone and then pissed the dude off. He couldn't even open his poor little eyes because there was stuff EVERYWHERE. And he tried to meow his concern to me, but he couldn't open his mouth either because then the stuff would get all in there. It was soooooo sad and heart breaking, I felt like my child just came home from preschool covered in poo.

I don't know if you've ever smelled skunk up close and personal, but let me tell you it is one thousand times worse than that smell you get driving past an area where a skunk has just sprayed. That smell - that smell we all hate - is nothing, compared to something that has actually been sprayed. That smell is like a bed of fresh roses - I prayed for that smell all night.

Instead, the direct hit smell is like if someone took some teeny tiny rubber tires off of a truck, shoved them up into your nostrils and then lit them on fire with the body of your dead great uncle.

It was SO BAD.

I quickly googled skunk removal and it said tomato juice bath, or soda bath, or dish soap bath - so I decided I better go with all three, because I was in a complete panic that if I didn't try to get some of this stuff off of him we were all going to die and no one would want to come and claim the bodies because it would be too stinky and we'd just lay there rotting away, until a year from now when the officials decided to just burn the place down via satellite bombing.

We didn't have any tomato juice, but did have some brand new spicy bloody mary mix, so I grabbed that and heated it up in the microwave so it wouldn't be too cold on his little tiny head, and then grabbed some 7 Up (which I later found out you weren't supposed to use at all, by 'soda bath' they meant baking soda, but whatever), and some dish soap and proceeded to make the grossest concoction ever. It was like a bubbling witches brew. I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to mix them, but it was in the middle of the night, and I was about to pass out and three separate baths seemed like a horrible idea.

So, I grabbed James and locked the two of us in the bathroom, fairly certain that I was going to be leaving bloody, because cats do not like baths. Especially not spicy bloody mary, 7 Up, soap baths.

But I think he was just so distraught and defeated, and probably in pain, that my poor little sucker just sat there and let me douse him with my mix-drink-gone-wrong, until the whole bowl was empty. Then I shampooed him with some Herbal Essences.

Finally he could kind of open his eyes, and he looked up at me like, "Mom, that was so scary. I think I just saw Jesus."

And I was like, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry! Don't try to kill things that are your size anymore."

And he was like, "I'm going to lick myself now even though I really don't want to."

And he sort of paused and looked at his paw like, do I have to do this? Like, he was so sad he couldn't stop himself. He took a lick, and then looked up at me like, Oh my god what the hell is that!? That's what death tastes like.

By about 5:30 am I finally decided to try to get some sleep, and hoped to God sleeping with all the windows open would at least help me not to suffocate and it did. But it did not get rid of the smell a single ounce. So, I spent the entire day yesterday doing laundry and scrubbing, and lighting candles, all with the windows open so the 38 degree wind could maybe freeze out some of the stink.

I felt like I was on Little House on the Prairie meets Apocalypse Now, but with less fun.

And now James is walking around with all of his white hair dyed a beautiful spicy bloody mary pink - and I think he kinda likes it. He walks around with a little strut, and then will suddenly fall to his back to show me his pink belly, like, "Hey mom, check this out. I'm hard core. Like Avril."

And then he'll get up and strut to the bed, where he curls up and gets his skunky-ness all over my comforter. Which I will now have to wash for a fifth time.

Awesome.

Babies And Gangstas

2011-02-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

So remember when I was telling you one of my best friends was pregnant?

Doesn't that seem like it was about two years ago? It does to me. She was the most pregnant woman in the world FOREVER. I think she was actually showing the day she conceived. That's how pregnant she was.

Anyway, from the time she told me she was pregnant, until the time she actually gave birth (vaginally AND C -Section) (because she just haaaaad to do it all. Show off) - I felt like it was the amount of time it took me to get through Jr. High. I grew some boobs. My hair got a little longer. I had like seventeen crushes on boys that were inappropriately aged for me, and I avoided joining a latina girl gang even though a huge part of me really wanted to get jumped in.

Thank god I was too scared of my mom, and life in general to actually do anything like join a gang that back then. Can you imagine what I would have looked like at six foot, fourteen years old, trying to look like a tough Mexican?

I can.

And of course, in case you can't figure out what's going on here:

What was I saying?

Oh yeah! So it took a long nine months but she had her baby!!!! All those funnel cakes paid off, because Eleanor Judith Jane was so chubby and cute and ridiculously adorable when she was born! At nine pounds and seven hundred ounces she couldn't manage to fit her little self all the way through her mom's . . . canal. She was like, "I'm just so cozy and squishy. Why don't you get another ice cream cone and we'll discuss it?"

And Jess was like, "Uh, I don't think so missy. You're coming out."

And then she did!

Hi HONEY!

Look at all that hair! I'm not sure why no one is chewing on her little cheeks right now, but god damn is she cute. And I am so happy and excited for her parents, because they are amazing, and I know they're just going to rock the shit out of parenting.

Ok, So I Fell Asleep Before The End, But I ALMOST Made It

2011-02-14T15:30:00.000-08:00

Oh my gosh, I don't usually sit through awards shows at all. Like, I'll tape them and fast forward until Justin Beiber comes on, and then fall asleep eating mini Snickers and apples (the apples cancel out the Snickers) (also if you eat a lot of pizza at 4am it cancels out the whiskey) because I just get really bored with them.

But for some reason I watched all of the Grammy's last night, and I'm so glad I did because did you see that Cee Lo Green song!? Where Gwenyth Paltrow fucking rocked that shit, and those muppets killed harder than any other back up singers?!

It was the best performance of the night - some muppets and the actress who was in Shallow Hal. Go figure.

Maybe next year Angie Harmon and a the space between Tori Spelling's boobs will be the big hit. Who knows.

Ok, so yes, it could be that I loved the Cee Lo/Gwen combo so much because it was like Glee coming to life and jumping off the tv screen and sitting down with me in the bathtub and scrubbing my back while I tell them how much I love them and they tell me they're not only responsible for happiness, they also are the reason for that warm feeling you get when the sun shines, and then I tell them I'm so in love them I'm willing to break out the fancy bath salts and let the salts work their magic on Glee's private parts.

I got so excited when the piano started for that song I jumped off the couch and knocked a glass of wine over and didn't even care. Yeah. That's how excited I was. I didn't even care about wine.

It wasn't my wine, but still.

In case you missed it, here it is. ENJOY

We Also Quote Commercials From The Early 80s

2011-02-09T09:33:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned that my sister and I do something horribly embarrassing?

Not like, weird-embarrassing stuff that other sisters do like brushing each other's hair in public with their fingers, or holding hands, or making out with each other's boyfriends, just normal-embarrassing. (I'm not sure if that's what sisters do, but that's what I imagine other sisters are like probably because I read too much V.C. Andrews when I was in sixth grade, and also because I don't really know many sisters. Most of my friends just have brothers, or if they have sisters they live in different states from them hence the public grooming is kept to a minimum.)

Anyway, the other day someone bonked their knee on something and Becky immediately screamed in a very droning way, "Geeeeeet an ice pack!" to which I responded, "Geeeeeeet an iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice pack!" and then we burst into uncontrollable laughter. And the knee bonker said, "What's that from?" Because it was clear we were quoting something. So Becky and I just stared at each other like, "Uh oh. What the fuck do we do now. Make something up, quick! Quick!"

"Bonanza."

"That's not from Bonanza."

"How do you know?"

"Well, a) because you guys were talking in some weird sort of accent that was not Southern. And b) you just told me the other day you've never seen an episode of Bonanza."

"Way to go Becky."

"Oh like I was supposed to know she would remember that."

"So, what is it from?"

**We sort of stare at the floor and shift back and forth hoping the shifting with be sway-y enough to hypnotize her into forgetting what she'd just asked.**

"Guys?"

**Shifting didn't work. I shift harder.**

"Hello?"

**Becky looks over and sort of hold her arms out like she's going to have to catch me because now I'm rocking like a crazy person**

"Ok, fine. You tell her."

"Fine," Becky says. "It's from 1991."

"What?"

"It's from a home video from 1991, ok. We're quoting ourselves. We're quoting a home movie."

"Oh my god."

Oh yeah, that's right. It's totally unavoidable. We try reeeeeeeally hard not to do it in front of people because it's horribly stupid to quote a video you made one day after school before your parents came home - but it burned itself into our memory so hard I can't not quote it.

I'm not sure why, but we went through this phase where after school time, became lets-video-tape-ourselves-being-totally-stupid time. If I had the balls I'd post a clip of it sometime, but I don't yet. It's too embarrassing. Becky was still growing out her mullet, and I was like eleven years old, six feet tall, about a hundred pounds, and had Sally Jesse Raphel glasses that wouldn't quit. (somehow I grew so fast and awkwardly, but Becky took her slow time, and flew by unnoticed, even though she hit six feet she did it by the end of High School, so by that time most of the boys had sprouted and she didn't look odd at all. Bitch.)

Instead of the video, here's a drawing of what I looked like when I was eleven and why I'm so glad I made it through to semi-adulthood without too much psychological damage or therapy.

It might not seem that bad but that's only because I can't draw acne or the fact that my chest looked like a little boy's.

Here's some descriptions of what was going on here.

And this still doesn't do what my life was like justice because you can't tell how tall I really am. So I drew a to-scale drawing of me versus some of my friends in fifth grade.

I am not exaggerating. This is the height difference between us for years and years. I frequently was knocking my friends in the head with my elbows because my hands were always on my hips - they were so long and lanky I didn't know where else to put them. Dangling by my side they just looked like hairy gorilla arms that I was about to trip on.

In sixth grade I tried to go trick-or-treating with my friends but a handful of houses refused to give me candy because they thought I was the teenage older sister taking her kid sisters out. I cried every time they said no, and luckily that pulled on their (almost non-existent) heartstrings enough for them to chuck a mini snickers into my bag.

Looking back I should have taken advantage of my tallness to . . . I don't know . . . reach things. And play basketball. But I was too busy being a kid, and making home videos with legos and our hamsters. See where having fun gets you? Unable to dunk a ball. That's where! And quoting yourself.

So embarrassing.

Not Insomnia, But It's Starting To Feel Like It

2011-02-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it's so hard not to walk into Bed Bath and Beyond and say:

"Excuse me, can you direct me to the Beyond?"

I mean, seriously - Beyond? What the hell does that mean. "Over here we've got bath mats, soap pumps, and then blankets, different sorts of pillows, and then right back there we've got Space jets, moon rocks, and your grandma who died in 1989."

How awesome would a store be that had all your favorite dead people in it?

"Where you going?"

"Bed Bath and Beyond in Boise. I hear that's where Chris Farley is."

"Really? My Aunt Millie said she saw him at the one in Tacoma."

"Seriously? Shit. You just can't trust the dead anymore."

"They're stuck in a home goods store. What else are they supposed to do but fuck with us?"

Ok, so maybe it wouldn't be so awesome. Maybe it would just be scary and a little sad.

Anyway, I didn't sleep well last night. Not sure if you can tell. James has taken to walking across my face ten times a night, which for some reason triggers my bladder, and so I end up peeing all night like a 73 year old man with prostate problems. I'm not even sure how my bladder refills itself so fast - but when I go at 2am, 3am, 4am, etc, it's always like I'm going for the first time in two days.

Well, I'm either going to go take a nap (even though it's only nine thirty in the morning) or drive by some stores and see if I can't harass the personnel. I'll be honest, both sound equally as fun right now. Apparently sleep deprivation turns me into a High Schooler.

At Least It Wasn't A Stranger's Pair

2011-01-27T09:19:00.000-08:00

You know what's not cool? Waking up to find the Math Teacher's teeny tiny dog has pulled my underwear out of the laundry and is chewing on the crotch like it's going to give her everlasting life and happiness.

Seriously puppy, what the h!?

After I scolded her and told her that sort of behavior is just a step before ending up on Dateline's To Catch a Predator - "Why do you have condoms in your car little tiny dog?" - "Uhh, those aren't mine." - "Why do they have your initials on them, and why are they numbered?" - "Oh I like to know how many I use - I mean . . . shoot! I'm outta here!" - After that I jumped in the shower, and completely forgot about the whole underwear incident.

Until I got out AND SHE HAD THEM AGAIN.

I'm not sure how she got them, because I put them on top of my sister's bookshelf (you're welcome Becky) and this puppy is seriously like three pounds and as long as a football. But somehow that little sucker had managed to get them again and was now wearing them over her head like some sort of creepy, perv babushka.

I don't know what's going on, but I locked all my underwear in the bedroom, so if I come home and that puppy has my underwear again I will be a) impressed; and b) will have to ultimately come to the conclusion that my underwear tastes like Skittles.

THAT'S THE ONLY POSSIBLE EXPLANATION.

I Also Love The Dancing

2011-01-26T12:57:00.001-08:00

I don't know if it's because it hasn't been on in like seven months (it's not summer FOX, stop pussyfooting around), or if it's because I need to rethink my sexuality, but I keep dreaming about Santana.

Not the Mexican rocker Santana, the Mexican girl from Glee Santana.

Maybe it means I want to be Mexican (Oh my god I wish) (Do you know how awesome I would be as a Mexican? TOTALLY awesome.) (And I would time travel back to 1991 when being a Mexican girl meant I could wear lip liner the color of chocolate, and pale nothingness as the fill in lipstick, and I would hair spray my hair so crispy if you got near it you could snag your sweater on it and end up trapped in my curls like a burr patch, and I would talk with a thick ghetto accent even though my parents and I speak Castilian Spanish at home, and I would wouldn't have had to wear pants that stopped about mid-thigh because I out grew everything at a lightning pace back then because I wouldn't wear pants, I would wear leggings under jean shorts and an over-sized Raiders jersey that I borrowed from my boyfriend Jose! I don't even care which Jose, and of the ones I knew would work!)

(To be fair that's actually what I looked like back then because I desperately wanted to be Mexican except I'm not, so I just looked like a ridiculous, white, gangly, Jewish girl with too much mousse in her hair and not enough boob to make the Raiders jersey look remotely attractive. It just looked like I was wearing a nightgown to school. And that I'd accidentally lined my lips with a sharpie.)

Anyway, the holidays are over and it's time for mah stories to start coming back on. Raising Hope, Glee . . . lets do this mother!

Here's a magic little gem because it's the song I dreamed about last night. Santana was singing it to me at the hospital while I got my teeth capped with gold and diamond caps. And then I shaved my head.

Maybe I don't wanna be Mexican, maybe I want to be a rapper.

I'm not sure I would fair as well.

Jack In My Heart

2011-01-25T11:11:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you a little something about breakfast croissants from Jack in the Box. . .

I'm fairly certain they're made in the heavens by chubby little angels that went to Hogwarts and died in some sort of epic battle against the Dark Arts teacher and now have a place in magical Heaven, not normal human Heaven, and for some reason they work on a line system, like the elves in Santa's Village, even though they're in Heaven and they shouldn't have to work, but these are the kids that really wanted to go to culinary school but couldn't because they got a letter form Dumbledore and had to go just to make their parents happy, all of whom said, "Just finish your seventh year and then you can do whatever you want, go to pole dancing school if you want, I don't care, but you're gonna finish Hogwarts and you're gonna finish good." And then they ended up dying, which just made their parents devestated and crying in the corner, "Why didn't I just let little Bathildaione go to pastry school like she wanted?! Bwaaaaa!", but it's ok because now they get to spend eternity spreading love and joy and magic through cooking those tasty little breakfast croissants.

BEHOLD:

And they're two for three dollars! SHUT YOUR MOUTH!

I'll take twenty!

Anyway, I'm not sure why I'm going on and on about this, but when I lived in Chicago the closest Jack was and hour and a half away, and don't think that I didn't consider taking four trains to get there once, because I totally did. But now my sister lives like a block away from one, and it's pretty much going to be the death of my arteries, and I don't even care.

There goes my "Eating Healthy in 2011" resolution, I think I've officially changed it so now it's, "Eating ~~Healthy~~ More and More in 2011 and Loving Every Single Ham and Cheese Filled Second"

(P.S. I really wanted to label this post: "You Can Put Some Jack In My Box" just to show how much I love it - but then I remembered my Mom reads this so decided against it. Family friendly people.) (Sometimes.)

James Dahmer

2011-01-21T16:29:00.000-08:00

Well, my murdering little psycho is back in action. You can all breath a sigh of relief - much like the way I hold my breath waiting and hoping Dexter will kill someone soon, because damnit if that Julia Stiles isn't putting a crimp in my stories with all of her feelings and blah, blah, blah - James has started murdering again.

Because of the winter, my little sucker doesn't spend much time outside if it's too cold, but we've had a weird warm patch which not only brought out the cat, it also apparently set all the mice in the world free, making it like a pedophile set loose in an un-teachered elementary school.

I'll be honest, I liked kill-free life. No blood to clean up, no praising him for bringing dead things into the house even though all I really want to do is cry/throw up a little. Plus when he comes into bed at night to snuggle in my knee nook, I don't worry that my lower legs are about to get some sort of SARS from one of the wild birds he has just eaten while still alive, and then my legs will be the resurgence of SARS back into the world, and I'll be quarantined in some government manned hospital where eventually they erase me from all world data banks, cut off my legs, and make me hobble around on my nubs, occasionally strapping wheels to them like some horrible version of human roller skates except way less fun.

But apparently I can't have life my way all the time. Because this morning. . . . this morning James caught a mouse the size of a football then let it go, caught it again, let it go, caught it again, threw it up in the air for a little bit in some sort of horrible juggling show of death, let it go, caught it again, juggled it, I think laughed a little bit, and then continued on with this cycle for a good forty five minutes, until he got bored, the poor thing died, and James decided the party was over and it was time to eat.

But I swear to God he's so super cute and teeny you could never imagine him doing such a thing! Which I imagine is the trick of all the great serial killers, it's how they get through life - making everyone believe they're innocent and tender and cute and cuddly, and then when you're not looking - *BAM* - there's a slaughterhouse in your front yard.

I hope it snows.

Kitten Pancakes

2011-01-17T11:05:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure I used to do normal things. A while ago. Like, maybe back in High School. I know I at least made it out of my pjs everyday, because I went to school and trust me I would remember if I showed up in my green paisley silk pajama bottoms (that stopped just above my ankle bones) and my sister's t-shirt from kindergarten that said 'Class of 2000' on it. ( Why they gave a 5 year old a t-shirt that would fit a sixteen year old the size of a anorexic Luke Walton I'll never know.)

So, definitely back then I did important things like learn how to drive a car, and memorize the entire periodic table of elements, and discover that not all boys made out with their entire faces, some actually didn't leave a string of saliva between us like some weird sort of I'm-dating-you-umbilical-cord-of-gross. From there I somehow made it to college and graduated (twice)(how?)(I mean, I pretty much drank my weight in whiskey, which leads me to believe I am simply much smarter when drunk)(maybe alcoholics aren't alcoholics, they're really just cancer-solving, world-hunger-ending, space-robot-physicists trapped in a sober body?)(Please do not spread this around as fact though, as is just a theory. And probably a really bad one. Maybe. I can't tell, I'm sober.)

But then everything after that is sort of a reverse blur where I end up back in my pjs, watching waaaaay too many episodes of Two and a Half Men (awful), and making pancakes for my cat.

Oh yeah. That's right. I woke up the other day and made. pancakes. for. my. cat.

Ok, but here's the thing . . .

I've never made pancakes before. Like not even from a Bisquik mix. I don't even ever order pancakes. Once, Gige's husband and I were really hungover and we all went out to breakfast and he and I noticed the couple sitting next to us left almost an entire stack of uneaten pancakes. And by 'almost' I mean ok, fine, they had eaten a quarter of them, but the other quarter was untouched and golden and I think even glowing a little with sunshine sparkles, and we looked at each other, shrugged, and much to Gige's absolute horror, dug in and ate those suckers. But even then I didn't order them, I just ate them off of some strangers plate.

Anyway, so I don't normally have anything to do with pancakes. But I woke up and was like, "I think I want pancakes today. On a Wednesday. Even though it's 10am and I should be working." And just at that exact moment James jumped onto my chest, squished my boob as hard as he possibly could, and said, "Fuck yeah let's have pancakes."

So that's what we did.

Since I don't actually know if he used the F-word or not, I had to go by his actions, and the little sucker got up and followed me to the kitchen and watched every single thing I did to make the batter, like a crazy little Gordon Ramsey. But one that can fit in the mixing bowl. Which was where he sat after I'd made all the pancakes. Because he liked the feel of the leftover batter on his paws? I'm not sure. That little guy is weird with his textures. But he sat in that bowl as if I was supposed to rub the excess all over him like a whole body facial, or some sort of disguise he could use around the neighborhood to fool all the unsuspecting birds into coming to him.

Unfortunately I didn't act fast enough to get a picture of it, because I was too busy falling in love with him all over again for being RIDICULOUS, but I did manage to get a picture of our pancakes.

I ate like seven, and he only sort of licked this one, but it was totally worth it. Next week I might try waffles, that way maybe I can pour little tiny square pools of milk in them and make a fun little checker board of drink for him to relish! He's so lucky!

And yes, I'm going to shower and leave the house now. I do hear myself.

Just Creeping On The Down Low

2011-01-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

So I - like the total creep I am - read a lot of Mommy blogs. Like, they're the first thing I check in the morning. So I - like a creep - totally know all about these strangers' kids, how old they are, what their names are, when they started walking, and so on. So much so that a year or so ago, I somehow brought it up with a girl I went to school with and she was all, "Oh my god I read them too! Did you hear blah blah had her baby?!" and I was all, "YES. She's soooo cute! Almost as cute as her son." and we chatted on like this for a while, talking about these women as if they were our friends, dodging weird looks from the guy we went to school with because he had noticed we were talking about people that were almost fictional to us. But worse. Because they're not fictional - it's not like I have some weird fan obsession with Bella and Edward and their world - it's an obsession about real people.

Cue police escort out of the building.

Anyway, I checked one this morning I haven't seen in a while and was shocked to find the baby is not really a baby anymore. She's walking and has hair and I was stunned. Like, I assume people freeze in time when I'm not reading about their personal life? Actually, yes. That is what I assume. The fact that life keeps happening when I'm not checking up on it is almost mind-boggling. And completely self-absorbed, I know, but still - shocking. Like, there's this kid I knew in first grade who broke his leg, and I haven't seen him since, and for some reason when I picture running into him I picture me as a thirty year old, talking to Casey Waters the six year old - asking him what's going on with his life, how's recess, did he get chocolate or plain milk for snack, you know, the ushe.

And I feel even more like a creep because I know if I ever ran into one of these women I read, or their kids, I would be all, "Oh my gosh! Hi Heather! Leta and Marlo are so cute! Hi Marlo, I know you love cheerios, why don't you come into my van and I'll give you all the cereal you want. Start the van Donny, START THE VAN, I'VE GOT THE KID!"

Just kidding. I don't know anyone named Donny.

Anyway, the whole point is, I should probably leave my house more and talk to real people so that one day I don't stumble out of the yard looking around me like - Where did all these flying cars come from? What's this facebook thing the kids are all talking about? Michael Jackson died when???

And I will. I will leave the house.

Right after I check up on some blogs. Like a creep.

Wolf-Bears, Swamp Orchestra, and Frogs With British Accents

2010-12-29T09:31:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if I mentioned Christmas (aside from the X-rated dinner talk) - but it was very easy, and probably one of the best Christmases I've had. And not because I got a pony (thirty years of asking and still - nothing), and not because my sister and I stayed in our super ugly, all-gray sweats all day, even when we went to the grocery store, which just exacerbated the ugly because with the gray clothes and the fluorescent grocery store lighting we looked so washed-out and sickly that I'm pretty sure the staff thought we were just let out of the hospital as some sort of diseased-twin-Christmas miracle, because no one would help us, probably totally afraid they'd catch whatever it was we had that made us look like that/made it totally impossible for me to tuck my t-shirt in so that it just hung out of the back of my sweatshirt and down to almost my knees like it was hiding my tail.

"They want to know what aisle the graham crackers are in."

"I'm not gonna show them. That one looks like she might be a leper and the other one has a tail. I don't want a tail."

"You can't catch a tail."

"How do you know?"

"Good point. Let's go on break."

Anyway, we did shower eventually. But the thing that made Christmas so good was the fact that Becky and I picked Michael up and brought him over for presents and he was so happy all day it was infectious.

This picture is right after we picked him up and I was singing Do You Know The Muffin Man to him as Christmas-y as I could. (Sidenote: there's not way to make the muffin man Christmas-y. Same goes for Mickey Mouse Club. Which was what I was told to alternate with the Muffin Man. Muffin Man. Mickey Mouse. Muffin Man. Mickey Mouse. It was a very alliterative Christmas morning.)

Look how pleased he is with my singing! I felt like Celine Dion!

The past few years he's had so much bad shit going on, that he's been just miserable. Imagine for a second that ALL of your sinuses are completely blocked/infected, so you can't even chew without ripping pain, and you've had tubes in your ears since you were three that are still there that the doctors forgot about, and you get migraines, your sister still calls your Sugarbutt, and you get generally depressed like anyone but you can't talk through your sadness because you don't have the skills so you just suffer in silence, occasionally stripping naked in public, or biting, or bruising or whatever it is you do because you can't communicate the pain you're in.

(You probably don't get naked when you're mad, but whatever. He doesn't know - that's the beauty of his Autism. He could be naked all day long in a Church full of nuns and baby birds and wouldn't care a bit so long as he got some peanut butter and jelly and the nuns and their weird little birds left him alone for God's sake.)

So, my mom has taken him to various doctors and therapists and specialists for the last few years trying to find a combo of stuff that will make him not so miserable and I don't want to jinx it, but holy crap! Look at that smile!

He even sat at Christmas dinner and had a good time, and then I put Rupert and the Frog Song on for him and he retired to his room to watch the movie which I can only describe as his way of trying to tell me he used to be really, really stoned in his previous life.

A little bear, that looks more like a wolf-bear, spies on some frogs that do a synchronized song and dance number and there's an old grandpa frog that smokes a pipe and yells at his son in a British accent while ogling a lady frog who has just had a baby. Just like any other normal family.

Anyway, the holiday was fun. Next year I just hope Michael will let me work some more songs into my repertoire, because if I have to sing Mickey Mouse Club one more time it'll be through gritted teeth, and will have a lot more curse words than Walt originally intended.

I'm just saying.

I Want Him To Move In And Sing Like This While I Shower, Clean, And Just Generally Do Things

2010-12-27T15:25:00.000-08:00

I love this so much! At first I was like, "I didn't know that's what Taio Cruz looked like. I thought that was some Pacific Islander way of saying Tom Cruise."

And then I realized the magic that was happening!

And this is a bonus for one of my favorite people, because they inexplicably love this song more is considered normal. As do I.

Christmas Porn

2010-12-27T11:01:00.000-08:00

I went into work on Christmas Eve because my boss said it was urgent. It didn't occur to me that it was Christmas Eve and we're a tax office, nothing is important unless it's in April or October. But my boss has mind control voodoo so I ran over there like a surgeon about to preform emergency open-heart surgery on a child the Jews are calling the real Jesus.

Here's what happened:

"Amy?"

"Yes?"

"We need to talk about the porno."

" . . . "

And that's when I went into a coma-like state and simultaneously tried to remember if I've ever looked at porn at work, and if I had why would I be stupid enough to leave a trail on my work computer of all places, I must have gotten distracted by a meeting or something and left some site running that magically spread itself through the office network and onto everyone else's computer so that suddenly my romantic-porn (I wish!) was thrusting itself on everybody's screen, ruining their spreadsheets, but hopefully brightening their day a little because if I was looking at porn at work it would be more like soft porn, with a good storyline and romantic kissing, and would not have as much spitting (spitting! really?) as normal porn, and at the end it would have like a half an hour of cuddling (if I felt like it) and the production of a positive pregnancy test.

And because of all this I had to come in on Christmas Eve, because she found my porn and was going to fire me before Christmas so that she wouldn't have to do it on Christmas in front of the whole family, which I thought was very generous of her. Never mind the fact that I'm well aware that I have never actually looked at porn at work, nor would I, I'm not even sure what to do if someone asked me to find porn, I'd probably just Google 'Megan Fox' and see what came up. Once when I was staying at Gige's house I googled "gay male porn" and left it up on her husband's laptop hoping to stir up some shit, but they didn't even blink. I'm apparently becoming predictable.

And also never mind the fact that no one wants to hear their Grandma say "porno" on Christmas Eve. (She also said it at Christmas dinner by the way) (And she's not crazy, that's just how she tells stories - with an 'o' at the end of words, to make them sound even more creepy than they already are) (and 'the porno' because it's so severe it needs to be addressed the same way she addresses 'The AIDS' or 'The Chinese' - like they can all be grouped into one.)

So anyway, as I sat there for what seemed to be yeeeeeeears trying to get myself out of something I hadn't even done she said:

"We need to do better bookkeeping."

". . . Yes?"

"Because one of my clients had a porno charged to them every month and they didn't know and I don't want that to happen."

"Ok-"

"Ok, now are you coming in tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow is Christmas."

**Big heavy eye-roll-y sigh**

"So I guess that means you're taking the day off?"

You bet your ass I'm taking the day off. Like my porno is gonna watch itself?! I don't think so.

Eyebrows, Glee, Dawson's Creek And My Brand New Home

2010-12-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a show comes along and saves lives. And that show is Glee.

Just the other day Glee cured cancer.

Ok, fine, maybe it didn't, and maybe it doesn't exactly "save lives" but I'm pretty sure if they had a time machine, ninety-nine percent of the population would use it to transfer into Ohio Glee World, where they get to do rain choreography with Gwyneth Paltrow, and sing with Finn, and make out with Finn, and sing while making out with Finn. (And yes, time machines can be used to transfer to fictional lands, otherwise what are they good for?!)

So anyway, somehow I was way behind on my tv watching and had to watch the last four Glee episodes in a row yesterday. ("had to" - my life is so hard)

Anyway there seems to be a lot of talking and not a lot of singing going on in some of these episodes. If I wanted to see a lot of kids jabbering on about themselves I'd re-watch some Dawson's Creek.

But oh my gosh - that new kid - the school boy who's so super cute he makes my underwear practically shine with the heavenly light of a thousand stars, beaming out of my pants and into the eyes of my soul?

I love him.

I'm taking my time machine to break up with Finn and just stare dreamily at . . . whatever his name is. I can't date him because I'm fairly certain he's gay in this show. Oh, how a huge part of me wishes I was a gay teenage boy so that I could fantasize properly.

I'm gonna be honest and say that I probably wouldn't like him so much, save for the fact he did this little number right here. And not so much the song even, but the fact that the school boys all start side-stepping in time. Moving! At the same time! To a beat! I'm so easy really, but there's something magical about boys doing the same moves. It's why the military and school bands are so hot - because they march in time.

Look at his eyebrows. They're so thick and bushy I just wanna curl up inside of them and roll around in my little eyebrow teepee. You could stay warm for a year with just his eyebrow hair.

I bet they are. I bet they are the most comfortable eyebrows ever.

I haven't seen the Christmas episode yet, but I'm about to get in bed and watch the crap out of it. Right after I re-watch some Dawson's Creek.

You're Welcome In Advance

2010-12-06T15:39:00.001-08:00

I love movies. I love them to the point that I probably like some more than I should just because it's a movie. Old School? I wanna marry it. Citizen Cane? Awesome. E.T.? My heart just swelled a little. Goodfellas? Yes please. Bride Wars? Kate Hudson is freakin' funny in that, I don't care what you say.

And I will forever stand by the fact that Grease 2 is my favorite movie and that Casablanca is a piece of shit.

(Just kidding, I've never seen Casablanca. I'm sure I'd love it.) (As long as it has people singing while straddling a guy wearing a leather jacket exposing his chest hair.)

Hmmm, maybe it's not exposing any chest hair, maybe I just like to imagine that part. Oh, Michelle Pfiffer - I wanted to be you so bad when I was a kid. I don't even care that Stephanie Zinone and Michael Carrington probably ended up pregnant and married by 18, still working at the gas station, and living upstairs from it in a studio apartment they share with a renter named Len and his pet snake Tito, surviving off of Corn Nuts and food stamps, and the sheer power of love.

But I may have found something to battle my heart for Grease 2.

Everyone, I present to you - The Room. The sleeper hit of 2003.

It only took 6 million dollars to make this movie people. That's it. Six measly million.

It's sort of like Christmas in video form!

Sometimes I Really Miss Dial Tones

2010-11-30T07:04:00.000-08:00

So I'm not sure why, but for some reason no one has a key to my sister's house except the maid. (And before you start to judge, my sister isn't some crazy rich lady who has a maid.) (I mean, she has a maid, but only because the whole town rallied around and demanded she get one lest they condemn the house for too many unmade beds in a house that only houses two people. She's not dirty, my sister, she just doesn't like to clean.)

Anyway, so I've been using the spare key everyday to get into the house because no one seems to remember that there is such a thing as making more keys, so instead we just sort of live life on a whisper and a prayer that someone will have remembered to put the spare key back in it's hiding spot so we can get into the house. You never know if you'll be able to get in when you want to, which sort of makes me feel dangerous.

"Can I get in the house today for lunch? No one knows."

But yesterday I was at work at 6am and left at 6pm, and by the time I got home, I was so thrilled with myself for remembering to put the spare key back I hugged myself a little in the car. Then I practically ran to the key, then shoved it in with all the enthusiasm of a teenage boy about to do it for the first time, before it stopped cold and sort of bent against nature. Wrong hole. I tried the top lock - nothing.

This isn't funny.

I tried again, and again because I'm not a quitter, before I realized it . . . my rich, crazy sister's maid locked me out of the house.

Naturally I grabbed my cell phone to call my sister and find out when someone would be home, but I had been using the GPS app thing all day to walk around the block to see if it would work correctly (it did!) and my m.f.ing battery was dead!

I just stood there for like five minutes because I had no idea what to do. How do I call people without a cell phone? Pay phones? Do they even have those anymore? I know they have them in Baltimore in the projects, because that's how they catch drug dealers - but I haven't seen a pay phone in years!

Finally, I got in my time machine and took it to 1998, where there's a pay phone on every corner and hair spraying my bangs was still sort of passable as a look.

Actually, I took it to the gas station and there was a pay phone there! I was so shocked I jumped up and down a little then ran over to it and kissed it. Then I got AIDS.

No, I didn't. But it was sticky and weird, and I left my sister like seven voicemails screaming at the top of my voice like a lunatic, because I was worried she wouldn't be able to hear me through the tin-can-like pay phone, that was all crackly and had that background radio noise that landlines have, so I was all, "BECKY! THIS IS AMY! I DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN HEAR ME. I'M IN A PAYPHONE. (I wasn't in one, but I was scared of the phone and not thinking right) CALL ME BACK HERE. I'M LOCKED OUT OF THE HOUSE. I'M! TALKING! TO! YOU! FROM! A! PAYPHONE! WHAT THE F*&K!"

Anyway, I got a hold of my mom, she called my sister and discovered no one would be home for a long time. So I was back to plan B. Break-in time.

Now, I've climbed through the window once before, but it was after my ten year High School reunion and I was hammered, and Gige was hammered, but she was there to help push my butt through the window, uncaring that I was about five seconds away from breaking my pelvis because for some reason all the windows in Becky's house only open to about six inches high. Like a prison.

It took like forty minutes, and a break to eat some Taco Bell after my reunion, so I was not looking forward to it. This is what it looked like the first time I did it:

It was uncomfortable, and I'm not even sure how my six foot one frame made it through an opening the size of a loaf of bread, except that the alcohol must have made my bones sort of Gumby-ish.

But somehow, magically, last night - after I'd braced myself for a broken bone or two - I made it in with absolutely no problem at all. It was like I'd Alice in Wonderlanded myself through the opening.

I almost wanted to go back out and do it again, just to prove I could, but I didn't want to risk it.

And then two seconds after I slid into the house the Math Teacher came home with the key.

Of course she did.

It was kind of nice though, having to use a pay phone, it was like when you were a kid and it was so fun to pretend to use those old fashioned phones you have to talk into one part that looks like a tulip and hold the other part to your ear while wearing a monocle.

I might just try it again. Get all hair-sprayed up and head to the gas station to make some phone calls. Only this time, I'm bringing some hand sanitizer with me. Because I love nostalgia, but just with less stranger goo.

Willow Smith, Hairography, and How I'm Going To Make Thanksgiving More Weird Than It Should Be

2010-11-19T09:27:00.000-08:00

So I texted Gabi the other day and was like:

"I kinda love that song - I Whip My Hair Back And Forth"

and she was like:

"Yeah! It's catchy!"

and I was like:

"I know right!"

and then she was like:

"It's Willow Smith. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith's kid."

and I was like:

"What? That's a kid!"

That was as shocking as when I found out Justin Beiber was white.

and she was like:

"Yeah, she's got a good voice."

and I was like:

"She??"

and she was like:

"Boys whip their hair back and forth?"

and I was like:

"If they grow it out. I'm not prejudice."

and she ignored me and was like:

"I can't wait to shake my booty to it in front of your family!"

and I was like:

"Me too! Get ready for some weird girl-on-girl dancing to a thirteen year old singing what I thought was a sexy hip hop song!"

and she was like:

"LMAO!!!"

and I was like:

"Your mom LMAO!"

and then we exploded into a SoCal, valley girl time bubble of giggles and hairspray because for some reason I can't talk to/about her without saying 'like' every five seconds as if I'm a thirteen year old trying to get out every emotion she can before third period bio class because she's just so teeming with hormones and bursting with love for Christian Slater she can't control it and if she doesn't say 'like' SHE'LL PROBABLY EXPLODE ALL OVER THE HALLWAY and be late for class because how can you keep stuff in when you're a thirteen year old girl? You can't. You have to get it out or you'll die, so as a place holder for actual words you say 'like', or your heart will stop beating.

Anyway, so I was feeling some sort of weird thirteen year old kinship with this Willow, when my sister sent me this, the video:

OK. Hold. Up.

That is one young looking thirteen year old. Where's her padded bra? Where's her. . . adult face? Why does she look like someone from my third grade class dressed up in her mom's makeup and grandma's clothes???

And what up with the lip bedazzling? What sort of high-class dancer dazzles their lips with fake little diamonds, and where the heck can I get some of those!

And then I figured it out:

She's nine.

NINE.

Years old.

Not, nine years and four as they say in the olden days, when they added things in a really weird way instead of just saying the number outright. And not nine as in some sort of age code all the kids are using so that when you say nine what you really mean is 117 divided by 13 is 9, because they all talk in crazy computer algorithms now - but nine as in, she should be watching the Ninja Turtles, and asking her mom to leave the hallway light on when she goes to bed because she's afraid of the dark because she's nine.

Now I feel weird. If I'm gonna be grinding up on my sister or friends at a family function I want to be able to do it to a song that's not added an extra level of uncomfortable to the whole mess. Do you know what I mean? I mean, I'm a thirty year old who just used the word 'grinding', if that doesn't creep everyone out already, you . . . well, you might really enjoy the Willow/Jonbenet Ramsey type video.

To be fair, there are no real sexy lyrics, and she's not dressed that inappropriately, but I still feel weird dancing to it.

Is that gonna stop me once I get a half a glass of wine in me?

I doubt it. I highly, highly doubt it.

Why Do You Live - Because I Have Something Worth Living For

2010-11-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

Ahhhhh! Stop talking all low and whispery to each other like that! MY NERVES CAN'T HANDLE IT.

Screw Bella and Edward (you too Jake, but not in that way) - you know what I just remembered is coming out in a week?!

Harry Motherfucking Potter!

(if I could make that font glitter I'd totally do it)

Harry Hogwarts Hermione Ron Snape Snape Severus Snape Potter! HP7 as they're calling it. I don't even care that they're whittling it down to a weird little acronym, I'd get that creepy, steely looking acronym tattooed on my bicep because the movie looks soooooo good!

Yeah, on the inside of my bicep, because I don't want to show it off all the time.

(Sometimes it's amazing I can lift a coffee cup to my lips. I've got to get back to the gym. At one point in my life I could bench press the barbell. Just the bar. With no weight on it. Don't be jealous. That sucker weighs like 8 . . . 10 pounds. Just kidding, I think it's 45 pounds. Forty five pounds of pure steel I could life over my head like some sort of Greek goddess! . . . Er, at least that's what I used to yell every time I made it more than one rep.)

The best thing about not having any sort of memory is that I don't have any sort of memory, so everything seems new to me. I've read all the books, most of them more than once, and I know for sure I loved the last one with all of my heart, but I cannot for the life of me remember what happens.

I was watching the trailer, and I started to get all excited and nervous, and I was like, "Oh my God! WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN!"

I mean, I know what the end-end is going to be, but I forget all of the middle section, so I just started shouting at my laptop, "Why is Harry with Voldemort so much? Oh my gosh Run! RUN FASTER! Hermione what are you doing? Who are you being so brave against, and why is Ron topless in a field of leaves?! Who just kissed? MORE Voldemort?! Where's Dumbledore? OH MY GOSH THAT'S RIGHT (*slight sobbing starts here*) Why does the panning across the landscape sort of look like the opening of the Twilights? This better not have a crossover or I'm gonna be pissed. (*now the sweating with nervousness starts*) And how come Harry looks like someone out of Lord of the Rings for a while? AND WHEN WAS THERE A LIGHT SABER STANDOFF AT THE END!?! Oh my god I'm so excited!"

Two parts my ass. Someone better leak that shit or I don't know what I'm going to do with myself.

I mean, just look at this.

J.K. Rowling, sometimes I wish you were my mom.

(just kidding mom, i love you)

Snow Running

2010-11-08T09:40:00.002-08:00

I was just told this was an unattractive look:

Oh but I beg to differ sir! I'm about to run in the snow, I need to be warm. And also, right before I was told that I was looking at myself in the mirror thinking, "Oooh, this is kinda cute. Like sporty cute."

"No."

"No?"

"No, it's not."

"Are you sure?"

" . . ."

And because I know myself and my sexual prowess, I stood strong and maintained it was not an unattractive look. Not at all. I know unattractive! And I knew that I wasn't done dressing.

Because then - then came this:

I'm not sure why I look drunk so early in the morning, nor why my hoodie/warm headband combo makes look like I'm about to go scuba dive, but it always does. For some reason, this particular hoodie is so fit, and tight around the head, it's less hood and more skull cap. Like something you put on to flatten your hair down before you put a wig on.

Needless to say, I was still thrilled with my look and the new snow when I got back from my run that I decided it was time to get James out into the cold. Time to let him get giddy with happiness at the pretty weather, and possibly up his cuteness level by a million by sticking his little kitty tongue out to gather snow flakes on it! HOW MUCH FUN WE WILL HAVE! I shouted as I picked him up and dragged him out into the snow with me.

He was not a fan.

He pretty much saw me heading for the door, looked up at me and said, "You've got to be shitting me."

"OH AM I?"

"You don't want to do this."

"OH DON'T I?!"

"I'm not kidding."

"OH AREN'T YOU!"

"Have you seen the way I can kill with my bare teeth and then devour a bird twice my size in a matter of seconds?"

"OH HAVE I?"

". . . "

"I mean, I have. Yes. I have seen you do that. But c'mon! This will be fun!!! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

And then, giddy with anticipation, and dressed for sexy I dragged my little sucker out into the first snowfall! Because I knew once he got out there he'd love it. He'd look up at me and be thrilled. He'd probably thank me; with a little kitty card he made by himself at his little kitty desk, signed: **pawprint** your James. (And then I'd cry).

Anyway, he didn't love it so much as he hated it. Hated it a lot. But that doesn't mean I didn't stay out long enough to take many, many pictures!!! (My kids are so gonna be the ones at the mall dressed in matching cowboy outfits, complete with fake guns, for their fake posed shootout at sundown, and they'll be all, "Mom this sucks." and I'll be all, "Just do it, you know you'll love it once that life size photo comes back and I hang it on your wall. Think of how cool your friends will think it is!" and they'll be all, "I don't want it on my wall. I'm eighteen. And I don't have friends anymore. Not after you jumped out of my birthday cake at school and sang Happy Birthday to me like Marilyn Monroe." and I'll be all, "But that was so fun for me!" and they'll be all, "Marilyn Monroe, Mom! For fuck's sake!" and I'll be all, "Ok that's it mister, for cussing at me you now have to wear that bandanna as a handkerchief around your mouth. You just got demoted to robber.")

(Click to enlarge/read)

300th Blog Post!

2010-11-05T08:59:00.000-07:00

And here's my sister celebrating! (this is why I love her)

Glee, Sex and the City, Rocky Horror, Topless Magic

2010-11-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

I'm apparently waaaaay behind the times (with my movie and tv watching), because I just was scrolling through my Netflix and I was like, "Oh what's this. . . Damages? Glenn Close is in a tv show?" *An hour later* "Oh my god this show is amazing! I must tell everyone!" *Calls Becky*

"So there's this show. . . " *Becky lets me go on and on and then says* "Yeah, I think it came out in 2007."

Interesting.

Then I was wandering around Target the other day and I saw a display for Sex and the City II out on DVD and I was like, "Oh man. . . I thought I could still see it in theaters!" So, I went ahead and bought it. Not rented - but bought it - because I loved the first one so much, and thought, "What could go wrong?!"

Oh god. So much. So so much could go wrong.

I'm not gonna get into it, because you all saw it a year ago when you should have (or you didn't because you are smart), but I was so uncomfortable and slightly bored, and then - AND THEN - they got up and sang I Am Woman, at some underground karaoke thing, and I was so embarrassed for them I hid under my sweater and started sweating a little. Like I was mortified for them, looking around to make sure no one was suddenly in my house watching me/them sing so inappropriately. I haven't been that embarrassed for a character since Baby was learning to dance, and carried a watermelon.

I just got sweaty again.

Anyway, so then I recovered and remembered I STILL HAD GLEE TO WATCH! ROCKY HORROR GLEE! ALL MOTHERF*&KING CAPS ROCKY M*F*ING HORROR GLEE!

I know that people who haven't seen Rocky Horror/weren't a total nerd in High School probably didn't appreciate that episode very much, but oh my shit it made me so happy I can't even stand it!

The only thing that was a little questionable was the word changes in Touch Me, to make it a little more FOX friendly - it pretty much undid every sexual fantasy I had between 1994-1998.

But then made up for it!!! Finn as Brad! Can you make me wish I was a transvestite any more? (Brad sleeps with Dr. Frank N. Furter in the movie. I think. Maybe I'm just wishing.) (No, he totally does. Tim Curry - Hot.) Meatloaf and Barry Bostwick guest starring! Uncle Jesse singing and motorcycle riding all over the place gaflaghaliuewrpjsldkfka! AHHHHHH! It's like they took all forms of happiness, shook them up in a snow globe and let it explode it's joy all over the world!

The only problem I have with this, is that I'm behind the times so I had to watch it on Hulu and sometimes my internet is slow and takes time to load like right in the middle of my heart spasming out of my brain with pure, weird bliss, so I get all antsy and, again, sweaty with joy. (Medical condition I should get looked at?) I get sweaty when I'm embarrassed and excited - it's a curse. I blame my mom. I also get sweaty more when I'm cold than when I'm hot. Don't ask me why, just know that it's making me rethink my refusal to move directly onto the equator.

Anyway, so as I was waiting for Hulu to load my Glee (which I have figured out how to hook up to my tv so I can pretend it's on in the middle of the day) (am technical genius!), I whipped off my shirt and ran to the kitchen to wash my armpits. (I have a system. It involves washing and reapplying. Don't judge me.) I'm not about to run to the bathroom because then I might miss some of the episode so I stand at the kitchen sink wetting my underarms and squirting some Dawn up on there, stealthily keeping an eye on the tv, and then I realize I don't keep my deodorant in the kitchen! So I start to panic, because this means I'll have to go in the bathroom, but panicking means more sweating, so I calm down and look from the TV to the bathroom. TV to the bathroom. Bathroom. TV. Bathroom. TV.

And then I run.

And I get back just in time, because the show has started again, and I'm singing, and thrilled, and multitasking by applying my deodorant, and singing some more, and then . . . out of the blue. . . I'm not kidding. . . The goddamn UPS guy shows up. AGAIN!

And the worst part is the TV is right next to these two, huge, sliding glass doors, so it's not even like I can duck down below the windowsill, because there is not windowsill! It's just huge glass panes of embarrassment, there to show off my glowing white goodies to all of the yard, and the UPS delivery guys who don't use the side door like they should.

I never order stuff from UPS. I'm not sure why suddenly he's coming to deliver stuff to me EVERYDAY at the worst possible time!!!

So, I'm standing there, topless, in pajama pants (again) in the middle of the day, the only thing making me feel better is the fact that I do not have a wine glass out.

And he just stands there.

As do I.

Uh....

Hey . . .

Uhm. . . This looks weird.

Uh. . .

I was just . . . Glee is on.

And it makes me sweaty.

Oh . . . ok?

So . . . uh. . .

. . .

. . .

Ok, I'm just gonna leave this here.

Needless to say, he just dropped the package right there, didn't even have me sign for it, just sort of waved and backed up without turning around until we couldn't see each other anymore. I'm not sure why I just froze there, except that I think I kind of thought if I didn't move maybe he wouldn't think I was real.

If you look you can see James in the background, watching and judging. He stayed away until the guy left as if he was embarrassed, and didn't want strangers to know that this is where he gets his food. And the front shot of me - those bangs - that's what happens when I don't put on the headband. I look like I have a botched mullet. Too short in the front. Too much party in the back.

I don't know why my leg was up either, it's not like I was going to deodorize down there next, I think I was just too excited to be standing still, and I didn't even notice my leg was up until after the UPS guy had left and I had to forcibly put it down. Maybe I always do that? Like when girls put on mascara and they open their mouths? I'm gonna have to pay attention next time I use it. Which could be soon. Glee is on again tonight.

Thanks A Latte (It never, ever gets old does it?)

2010-10-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

So, I'm turning into my mother, but not in the normal ways. In the really weird ways. Like in the way every time I talk to her on the phone she gets lost. She's lived in Southern California her entire life, but for some reason when we get on the phone she gets sucked into a weird vortex and I can time my watch to twenty minutes into the conversation when she'll suddenly stop and say, "Dammit! I'm lost. Get some sort of map up on your computer." and then I help her find her way home. - The other day I got lost in Target while I was on the phone. TARGET. Not like lost where I was afraid I'd never find the exit, but lost in the way where I didn't know where the clothes section was, or how to find the housewares. In Target. That's like my hometown, I should be arrested for getting lost in there.

Or like how she has worn her eyeliner the same way since 1973. The other day someone suggested I try smudging, or smoking, or something weird with my eyeliner, and I had a total meltdown inside, and scream-whispered, "But that's not how I learned to do it in 6th grade?!"

Then yesterday I went out and bought an espresso machine.

Oh yeah. That's right. I'm my mother.

Now, this may not seem that crazy - lots of people have espresso makers you think. And they do. But do lots of people pack a suitcase specifically for bringing along their espresso maker on vacations? Let me repeat: A whole extra suitcase. For her latte machine. Because sometimes coffee shops run out of soy and she doesn't want to be left in a place where she can't have her soy latte because for the love of God, how's she supposed to control her menopause if she can't have her soy?!?!

So, here I am getting lost in Target, looking for the coffee maker section when a staff member kindly directs me over to them. Then stands and helps me decide which one I want (which is weird, because it's Target, not a car dealership, I don't usually get such attention, nor do I want it. Target is for throwing hundreds of dollars of things in my cart, then slowly as I make my way around the store, deciding I don't need this thing, or that, then dumping said item in the wrong spot of the store because I'm not about to go find out where it is really supposed to go, I still have ten thousand different kinds of loofahs to look at, and winding up at the register with a sweater and a spatula I hand to the checker and say, "I'll just have this gum, I don't want these things.")

Anyway, I'm standing there trying to decide which machine to get and the teenage guy is like, "Well, what do you need it for?"

I'm opening my own coffee shop, and this way if I buy one here I can make about two lattes an hour. What do you mean what do I need it for?

"Uh. . . for making lattes?"

"For just you?"

What is he, some sort of latte expert?

"Well, probably just me. But someday I might make them for someone else if you know what I mean *wink*" Why I feel the need to talk to teenage boys like I'm some pervy mom out of an after-school special, I have no idea.

"I do." He's totally un-phased. And because he's so calm I proceed to get less calm, and more talk-y.

"I drink coffee too."

"So you don't really need this?"

"No, I do."

"Ok."

"I need it for the soy milk. Well, and I like lattes, and how fun because I can make like pumpkin ones in fall and stuff, but soy pumpkin."

"That sounds-"

"-Not because I'm like allergic to milk or anti-animal products or anything, I love meat. And cheese. Well, I love cheese more than meat, but you know what I mean. I'm not against them. I'll eat bacon like a motherf*&er."

"What?"

"It's just the soy is the key, because it's good for you. For women. For me, mainly. See, you probably don't want to know this. . . " But of course I don't stop myself from telling him. "But I haven't had my period in a long time. I went off the pill because I don't want to be all dependent on chemicals, but my period has decided to go on a permanent vacation, and so I'm starting to get a little freaked out, because it's been like 9 months, and I'm clearly not delivering a child right now, so it didn't stop because I was pregnant, it just stopped, I don't know, to fuck with me? Anyway, I've been reading that soy is good at balancing your estrogen levels and whatever, so I've been getting soy lattes every morning, but that shit is expensive, so I figure I'd just make my own, and help my hormones check themselves before they wreck themselves, and so I need this machine really for my womb. This machine is for my womb."

**stunned silence**

**equally stunned silence from myself** Sometimes a time machine would help me out in life soooooo much.

"Well," the kid said reaching for a box. "This one might be womb-worthy."

Awwwwww! I LOVE HIM.

So I bought it, and told him I'd make him one anytime. But of course he was already running into the back room where I'm not allowed to go, before I could get the whole offer out.

So, here I am. Latte machine in hand. Slowly, but surely morphing into my mother.

There are worse things to be. That's for sure. I just wish I could have gotten her less crazy traits, but oh well. Maybe those will come when I get more of this soy into my system.

My Mom Is A Tween

2010-10-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

My mom came up to me at work yesterday and asked me if she could borrow my car keys, which is weird because she has her own car - and she didn't ask if she could borrow my car, just the keys, like she was gonna go shank someone and didn't want to get blood on her set.

"You want the keys?"

"I got a ride into work today so I don't have a car."

"What are you going to do in the car?"

"Uh. . . "

**searching my brain for reasons my mom needs to just be in a car that don't include hot-boxing, or changing her clothes**

"Do you need to change your clothes?" I went with the most possible, though not any less weird.

"What?"

"Why do you need my car?"

"To drive it." Well you didn't mention that before weirdo.

"Drive it where?"

"Uh. . . drive it to . . . the uh. . . " and then she looked searchingly up to the left so I knew she was trying to think of some sort of lie to tell me, like a teenager asking to borrow the car so they can go hot-box with their boyfriend behind the cemetery. Or change clothes in the car with their boyfriend behind the cemetery. Or something weird she was going to lie about. And maybe she looked up to the right, I can't remember which way is supposed to mean you're lying, all I know is she looked very about-to-lie-to-me-y, and I know that look well. I don't need a right brain/left brain signal to show me that, I memorized that face after the time she sat me down and told me waiting for marriage was fun. Mostly because she started laughing about two seconds before the whole sentence was even out of her mouth.

"Honey, waiting for marriage is good."

"Why are you laughing?"

"I'm not. But I know if you're related to me this talk is going in one ear and out the other so I'm just gonna stop now before I dig this hole even bigger."

"Huh?"

"Don't get pregnant."

"I'm twelve."

"So we have a deal then?"

So, anyway, as I was trying to figure out what to do with my mom leaving to be sneaky with my car my sister interrupted by sending me a picture of something so weird looking my mind could only comprehend it to look like exploded golf balls all over the kitchen.

"What happened?"

"I exploded eggs all over the kitchen."

"That makes more sense."

"I tried to hard boil some eggs and then I forgot about them and they all exploded. I didn't even know eggs could do that. What should I do?"

"Clean it up?"

"But I want hard boiled eggs."

Then I imagined her trying to scrape egg off the ceiling to eat it in a sandwich, but that got interrupted with thoughts of my mom doing a drug deal in my car (that's another thing you can do in a car I just remembered!) (and no 'just doing errands' does not enter into my thoughts because she wouldn't have been being sneaky about errands), and then that got interrupted with a text message from my mom that said: Be back in a few hours.

Be back in a few hours? What the heck!

Then my sister said something about how, oh by the way the Math Teacher fell down some stairs and could I go to Watts to get her car, and something about collecting stray egg bits from the dog food and my insides melted down a little bit.

It's the Busiest Time In The World at my work right now! I don't have time to handle my newly teenaged Mom, and my culinarily weird sister, and her leaving-car-in-the-middle-of-The-Hood girlfriend! I'm afraid of PEANUT BUTTER for God's sake!

*sigh*

I've started drinking wine again.

I think we all know why.

Not Drunk Enough For Most Things Apparently

2010-10-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

When Gige got married I was not nearly drunk enough. Not drunk enough to give a speech, I mean. I was more than drunk enough to (accidentally) flash the bike riders in Santa Barbara while we were bored waiting for pictures to be over, as I tried to show the others that my dress was about a foot and a half too short for me by lifting it up over my head, to demonstrate the fact that my dress was so short it didn't even cover my chin. I'm sure I could have gotten the point across with less - look-I'm-not-only-wearing-a-dress-that's-awkwardly-short-I'm-also-wearing-my-Mom's-underwear, and more - look-my-knees-are-showing, but alas, that's the only time I was drunk.

I wasn't drunk because too sick to keep drinking, but after an entire box of Sudafed and some Tylenol PM (bad move right before a wedding p.s.) I was just sick enough, and just hopped up enough on over that counter drugs that I got dizzy standing up, so that sort of replicated being drunk.

Sort of.

But I had to give a toast, so I got up and gave a speech that I think was short? That talked about love and stuff? I'm not really sure, but I do know that I cried during most of it, and that I warned Gige's husband about what he had just gotten into. And then I naturally quoted a play about AIDS.

Because that's what everyone wants at their wedding - a maid of honor who brings up AIDS.

They're so lucky!

The AIDS was just a bonus, the real key of the speech was the warning to her husband, Mr. Gige. I made some statement about how when he married her he got me too and that means everything. Everyone sort of laughed, like - oh, ha ha she's gonna be around a lot, isn't that funny, ha ha she's crying again, that's weird, she said something about him having two wives. . . did she just make a joke about a threesome at a wedding. . . who the hell invited her?? But the jokes on them because I wasn't joking. (I mean, I was about the threesome, but not the rest of it) (Maybe)

Luckily, Mr. Gige knew that marrying her included lots of things like me calling in the middle of their date night to ask Gige something like, "Who's that guy in that movie with my husband where he's shirtless?"

"Gary Oldman?"

"No, my other husband."

"Kevin Spacey?"

"Yeah."

"Oh it's. . . hold on . . . American Beauty. That guy is Chris Cooper."

"Yes! Thanks!" *click*

But it also includes fun things like, me taking over his bathroom and office every time I come to visit; me allegedly saying things like "dirty vagina sweat" (at dinner with his parents), or "Auntie Gabi will teach you about oral" (to their new baby), or "Motherfucking Cold Stone" (different dinner, this time with both their parents) (because apparently I CANNOT keep my mouth shut and recognize when there's adults in the room, and then end up so mortified I'm fairly certain Mr. Gige's parents secretly refer to me as That Tall Girl With Turrets Whose Face Is So Red She's Either Constantly Blushing Or She's Sunburned). Or, like right after they got married it somehow became my job to call and leave fake dirty messages for him on their answering machine, where I would talk about what sort of lingerie I would be wearing for him, where we would meet, what I wanted to do that night. . . you know, normal stuff you say to your best friend's husband. (Don't you want me for your best friend??)

The best part about it is that at that time they had a roommate and said roommate did not know me, or of my existence really (not sure why they'd want to hide me, but whatever). And the Gige's still had one of those old-fashioned answering machines where you can hear the message someone is leaving as they're leaving it, blasting out into the living room like some sort of pornographic intercom system. So this roommate was hearing me leave messages asking Mr. Gige whether he wanted me to wear the leather or the nothing at all under my trench coat, and she was all, "Uh. . . I don't know what's going on here, but I feel like I should say something."

Way to have a brother's back Roommate! Narc.

And then along with the dirty messages (which I have stopped now that they have a kid) (I have some standards people) I also like to send Mr. Gige pictures of ailments I have and ask him to diagnose me and stop my freaking out. And, because he loves his wife, he always answers me. Like the time I had a rash On My Eye and was fairly certain I was going to die. And more recently, the time I sent him this picture of my knuckle and started crying while I was typing - because again, I was fairly certain my knuckle problem was going to cause death.

Let it be known that Mr. Gige has an actual job that does not include dealing with my mild-hypochondria, but does include dealing with holding people's lives in his hands all day long, and making sure they live through surgeries - so the fact that he takes time to text me back during a procedure is comforting. To me. To the patient it probably wouldn't be as comforting.

He joked that he thought it was probably something sex related (because he's mean and doesn't understand when I'm freaked out enough to send him a photo of my most-likely cancerous knuckle it's no time for joking! Joking is for weddings and children, not for illness!), and then asked me to try washing it off.

Washing it off? Are you kidding, this is a weird knuckle disorder! You can't wash it off Doctor.

So then I sent it to Gige and asked her the same thing (sleeping with someone medical makes you medical - that's a fact). She responded with: I can't see the picture it's too small/blurry. Did you burn yourself?

Did I burn myself? Are you kidding, this is a weird knuckle disorder that will lead to death of my lungs! You can't just chalk it up to a burn Doctor's Wife! I mean of all the. . .

Wait a minute.

Hold up.

**totally about to be embarrassed**

As a matter of fact I may have burnt myself. But more importantly. . . why does my knuckle disease smell like peanut butter. WAIT. Why does my knuckle death TASTE like peanut butter.

I tasted it again to try and figure it out, literally licking my wounds, and sure enough it tasted like peanut butter. Mostly because it was peanut butter. Not an infectious rare form of hand syphilis, but just part of my breakfast. And I guess I wasn't 'literally' licking my wounds, I was just licking peanut butter off my knuckle, but it felt as if I had just cured myself with magic kisses. Kisses I'll try to sell from here on out - because my saliva heals! Or just eats foodstuffs! WHATEVER!

I guess you'll just have to judge for yourself.

Sofia Vergara, Britney Spears, and Damon Salvatore - It's Like A Trifecta Of Happiness All Balled Up Into A Tortilla And Dipped In The Salsa Of Good

2010-10-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Will Toward Men

I love fall so much. And here's a list of reasons why:

1. Pumpkin lattes.

2. Leaves turning.

3. Big sweaters.

4. Fall lineup.

Ok, and that list is really just to disguise the fact that the main reason I love fall is that all my shows are back! Thank God, 'cause I was getting a little sick of all the reading and filling-my-time-with-healthy-activities that was going on. How'm I supposed to learn how to knit socks when there's a new episode of Parenthood on?? Or Modern Family?! I mean, seriously, who can concentrate when whatshername's boobs are on the screen?

I just forgot what I was writing about.

Oh yeah! AND THEN THERE WAS GLEE.

I love Glee so much it hurts. Like physically hurts. It's how I imagine having sex with Stefan and Damon at the same time would feel like - painful, but sooooooo good. (Because they're vampires, and everyone knows vampires hurt you sexually when you're having sexual stuff, cause they're supernatural and they have to try not to kill you even though they're in love with you. . . it's all very scientific.)(And for some reason in this daydream there's no awkward boy on boy on girl stuff going on where you're like, 'Oh yeah I totally want to do it with both of them,' and then it starts turning south in a way you hadn't been prepared for, not that you're opposed to that sort of thing - to each his own - so to speak - but you had a little more of a - by sleep with both of them at the same time I just meant we'd be gazing at each other and they'd give each other she's-mine-back-off looks and I'd be all, "Oh boys, no need to fight." and then I'd lead them into the bedroom where . . . well I hadn't really though this through but there was lots of kissing going on. Lots of kissing. Not that I'm in junior high and all I can think of is kissing, I know how to do other stuff ok. I mean, I would be thinking of other stuff, but they're brothers, and that's not ok, no matter how hot they are. So maybe I have to separate this dream and make it individual vampire-hook-up times, so there's no awkwardness in my fantasies - because believe me, I already have that with my Adam Lambert daydream.)

So awkward.

Anyway. . . when I was watching the Britney episode of Glee I had to pause it for a second to run to the bathroom, and as I did I actually ran from the room like a crazy person screaming, "I LOVE IT SO MUCH! IT FILLS ME WITH A SORT OF TINGLING JOY I CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN!"

And then I tripped over a pillow I had thrown in the midst of my overwhelming excitement, because I had too much good energy and if I didn't throw something I was going to have to tear something.

I'm not even sure why it makes me so happy, but it totally does. Like, my cheeks hurt when it's over from smiling so much, and my heart is all full of gooey sugary love. It's just a magic combo of teenage boys dancing and singing in full football gear, and girls crying while they're singing, and teenagers trying to getting stoned and hook up with their dentist. *sigh* It just makes me nostalgic.

This was the only episode Gabi agreed to watch, because she has a weird obsession with Britney, and I feel like someone who just talked someone else into going to Church for donut day. Like they don't really want to be there, but they want the donut so they'll sit through mass - that's what she's like. She'll watch but only because Britney is in it, and then she's never coming back and she'll go straight to hell where she belongs, but at least I tried.

Ok, maybe not that bad, but she'll be stared at in an uncomfortable way whenever she's over. Trust me, sometimes that's bad enough.

Teenage boys! Singing Britney! In full on football uniforms, doing weird hip pelvic-y movements, and being totally serious about it! In wheelchairs!

TV doesn't get better than that.

NFL Tickets

2010-09-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

B: That famous football player I work for that you can't mention by name on your blog bought me tickets to the Patriots - Chargers game!

A: He did?!

B: Yeah you want to go?

A: Are you kidding?

B: No. I mean, ok, honestly I asked a few people first, but you were like third on my list.

A: What?

B: Third behind five other people I asked before those three.

A: That's not what I mean - although thanks for boosting my self-esteem - I mean, he gave you tickets? Himself?

B: Yeah. And then he said I could make out with his hot wife.

A: No he didn't.

B: No, dang it, he didn't. But he did give me tickets to the NFL.

A: Well, not the whole NFL.

B: You can't say it like that?

A: No, I think you're just supposed to say, "He gave me tickets to the game." Tickets to the NFL, is like saying, "He gave me tickets to the NBA."

B: Well, that's stupid.

A: I know. So he just gave you tickets? Does he know your name even?

B: Uh, he totally knows my name! Maybe.

A: You should make out with his cleft chin for that!

B: Well, maybe someone has to remind him what my name is, but he got our whole project team tickets, and there's only a handful of us, so I like to pretend he knows my name.

A: And doodles it in his playbook during pep talks.

B: Gross.

A: Seriously, you need to make out with that chin.

B: So anyway, do you want to go? Because my offer expires soon.

A: Of course I want to go!

B: Oh . . .

A: Oh?

B: I thought you were going to say no.

A: BECKY!

B: What! I already asked Beth and so now I have to take her!

A: Well, lucky for you I can't go.

B: What! You just said you wanted to go!

A: Well, I want to but I can't.

B: I knew it.

A: Thanks for thinking of me though.

B: You're welcome.

A: How many people did you really ask before you asked me?

B: I can't even remember.

A: I love you too.

Starbucks and Tony Soprano

2010-09-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

One of my really good friends, Starbucks, is pregnant. (That's not her real name, that's her code name. It was between that and Ice Man, but then I remembered I'm saving that one for when I date Stefan from Vampire Diaries - because he looks like a weird cross between Val Kilmer and Willem Dafoe to me.)

Anyway, Starbucks is pregnant, and the other night she wanted to go to the Lomita Fair, and since she's pregnant I pretty much do whatever she says because I'm slightly afraid of pregnant women - like they hold this weird supernatural power because they're growing humans inside of them like some sort of alien-witchy woman who can do spells and CREATE LIFE.

(The angle of this picture sort of looks like she had an affair with a Lego man, doesn't it?)

Optional wedding photo:

Have you ever told a pregnant woman no? I once thought about telling Gige I didn't want ice cream one night when she was pregnant, and she glared at me so hard right after I thought it, that I'm fairly certain she used her pregnant voodoo to climb into my dreams and see every bad thought I've ever had. I didn't even say anything out loud, I just let the thought drift into my head and I'm pretty sure if I didn't throw some Double Stuf Oreos at her right at that moment she would have used her pregnant mind-power to make the steak knives lift out of the drawers and come flying at my head.

She said she was just having some indigestion when I asked her why she was looking at me like that, but I know better.

So, when Starbucks asked me to go to the fair I said yes. Despite the fact you have to walk through a metal detector just to get into the fair, and then be patted down before you go into any of the haunted houses. The fish toss didn't even have fish (or water for that matter) in the little bowls. It was just empty bowls lined up by angry carnie.

Starbucks tried to convince me she wanted us to ride this roller coaster:

And then it got stuck there. Which didn't dissuade her at all, because Starbucks loves danger. Pregnant danger. But luckily I was able to distract her with funnel cake and art.

I've been looking for an oil painting of fictional mob bosses from six different stories all in one!

I mean, who hasn't?

My favorite part is that Tony Soprano is in there twice. Once just wasn't enough.

My other favorite part of this is that this is the second time we went to the fair in one day. When a pregnant lady tells you she wants to go back and get more funnel cake, you turn the m.f.ing car around and prepare yourself to be wanded again, because they have little humans growing inside of them, feeding off their blood and nutrients and stuff. I don't even have a virus right now, so I have no say.

But that's not all! Once they birth them - they feed them with their boobs!

Sometimes talking about the cycle of human life is sort of like describing an 80's movie starring Anthony Michael Hall.

Which is why when Starbucks's kid asks me where babies come from I'm going to pop in Weird Science and let John Hughes do aaaaallll the explaining.

And if that doesn't work I'll just point to the oil painting of mob bosses above the fireplace. It might not explain anything, but at least it'll confuse the kid for a while.

Feathers Are Not So Pretty When You Know Where They Came From

2010-09-23T08:36:00.001-07:00

So, normally I would be just horrified by the fact that James brought a bird into my bedroom at 6am this morning, let it go so that it could fly into the wall, crash, and then be TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY EATEN by James right in front of me like some sort of crunching, horrible, early-morning soul torture.

But not today. Today I just sighed, poured myself some coffee and leaned against the counter to wait and let the caffeine kick in before I got into bird-feather-clean-up mode.

(Oh, and a slight beak-clean-up, because he could eat the talons, but not the beak. Of course.)

This laid back attitude toward my murderous cat is only because the last two days of work have been so rough and long, that I could pretty much handle it if James brought a baby deer into the house and rode it around from room to room, before mud wrestling with it in my bathtub.

They've been so stressful in fact that at about 3pm on the first day I glanced at the wine bottle on the counter and realized it was going to be my only savior. Just a few calming sips - and you can all stop with your intervention plans - I don't even have a glass a night anymore, so back up off - if you worked for family You'd Be Sipping On Something Alcoholic On Your Lunch Break Too.

So of course, the one time I do this the Fed Ex guy shows up. The last thing you want when you're sneaking wine in the middle of the day is to be caught by someone bringing you a gift you bought for yourself.

The next last thing you want is for it to happen again the next day.

And the third last thing you want is for all of this to happen when you're dressed like either a) a homeless hippie who somehow spilled ranch dressing all down her chest a week ago and hasn't washed her sweatshirt yet; or b) some sort of slutty P.E. coach gone terribly wrong, and still in a ranch stained sweatshirt.

Since I didn't have the foresight to photograph myself because I was too busy trying to convince a stranger I wasn't as off as I looked, I recreated it for you here. Enjoy.

First day. Homeless-hippie-looking me, tries to hide day-drinking, and talk about Jersey Shore in an effort to distract Fed Ex guy:

Second day. P.E. coach gone wrong me is now so over pretending to be something she's not, that she is flaunting wine glass. Sometimes it's better to just be honest with the Fed Ex guy.

And now I have to go finish vacuuming up feathers.

And put some actual clothes on. Just in case UPS comes by. I don't need another round of this.

In Love With

2010-09-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Have I ever mentioned that when I tell people what I do for a living it stops the conversation in it's tracks, kills it, and leaves it for dead on the side of the road? It's really the weirdest thing I've ever seen. I know I don't have an exciting job, but I've never in my life seen three more powerful words in the world.

I'm an accountant.

Cut to the person I'm talking to immediately glaze over and all people within a five mile radius die inside a little of boredom, and have no idea why. Like they're just minding their business, walking down the street all relaxed-like and suddenly they can't feel part of their soul because I sucked it out when I started talking about taxes, and they don't know why, but they go home that night and yell at their wife for making brownies too gooey, confused about why they're doing it, but powerless to stop the creeping soul-death that has entered them all because they happened to be in the vicinity of my job-talk.

"They're too gooey bitch!"

Blank stare. "What? Since when are brownies too gooey?"

"I don't know?"

"Fine. Stop being weird, and eat them."

"Fuck you!"

"What?"

"I don't know what's happening to me!"

I'm like a dementor.

So, anyway, that's why I'm going to spare you all my work stories right now and just show you how I cope:

(Well, I just discovered I can't show you, because my Dad reads this and no one wants to see me in a bathtub full of red wine less than he does.)

When the bath gets cold I turn this up on repeat and try to figure out how to marry it.

In love.

They Don't Sharpen Themselves

2010-09-15T06:05:00.000-07:00

So, I just shoved a huge Hershey's Pure Dark Chocolate bar into my mouth and actually moaned out loud it tasted so heavenly.

In other news: I'm working 12 hour days again, and my co-workers couldn't care less about the moaning. Just so long as it's not stabbing.

Other side effects of working so much:

1. Horrible right eye twitch is back, making me look like I have winking turrets.

2. Sparkletts guy enjoys eye twitch.

3. Falling asleep at a red light, only to be awoken by an angry driver honking his A off.

4. I screamed, "Stop honking your A off!" and continued to sit at green light much to the amusement of the driver next to me.

5. "A. off?" overly friendly driver next to me said.

6. "WHAT." (aka, Bring it.)

7. Eye twitch is of course no where to be found at time like this when it would come in handy.

8. "Jeeze. Sorry."

9. Totally feel bad for yelling at stranger.

10. "If it makes you feel better I threw a pencil away today."

11. Not sure why I told him this.

12. "I'm not sure why you just told me that."

13. Is very bright stranger.

14. Before I can explain his light is green and he's gone. I am still sitting at my light which has, of course, turned red for a hundred years.

So, I'm so out of it I threw a pencil away today because it was out of lead. Where - out of lead - means it was an old fashioned sharpening pencil, the lead broke and I couldn't figure out what to do with it in two seconds, so I threw it away and opened a box of new ones only to discover They're All, All Out Of Lead!

What in the devil!

Just as I marched up to the front to tell them they had spent hard earned money on broken pencils, my brain joined me and I slowly started walking backwards out of the room, hoping no one had seen me mutter to myself, "Why don't any of these pencils have lead??"

"They do have lead you know?" the new girl said to me. She's 18, and very cheery.

"What? Oh, I know. I didn't mean lead, I meant sticking out lead." Ok, apparently my brain hasn't totally joined me yet.

"Do you mean, sharpened?"

"Sharpened?" Of course I mean sharpened! I'M TIRED.

"Want my pencil?" she said handing me her pencil because this was as far as she was going to take me in the learning process.

"No, I figured out how these work."

"Good honey," she said patting me on the arm and leaving to spread her cheer and knowledge elsewhere.

"Honey? You're 18. I'm old enough to be your mother!"

Her twelve year old mother but still. In some cultures that's normal. Don't honey me, honey. If anyone can call anyone honey it's me to you - older to younger - or same age to same age - or girlfriend to boyfriend - and you're sure as hell not my girlfriend, honey. That spot is reserved for Adam Lambert.

Or Halle Berry. (Because of course if I turn gay it will totally happen that Halle will turn too and we will obviously fall in love.)

They Don't Have Enough Pills In The World To Stop This Kind Of Love

2010-09-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

Once one of my High School teachers called my mom in for a private meeting so he could ~~bang her~~ talk about some issues he was concerned about.

Those being mainly that he was concerned about my attention span, and thought perhaps I should get tested for ADD (that's back before they added the H) and should maybe go on drugs.

(Am totally kidding about the bang-her-line-thru thing, I just learned how to do that. Am computer genius! Can Html like a third grader!)

Her response?

"Amy, Mr. Cannon thinks you can't concentrate."

"Why?"

"Because it took you a week to fill out the months on his desk calendar."

(pause)

"How long is it supposed to take?"

"I'm guessing five, six minutes."

"Well. . .huh. He might have a point."

"Do you want to be tested for ADD?"

"No, I don't have ADD, I just hate office work."

"What were you doing instead?"

"Imagining what life would be like if My Little Pony were actual live moving ponies. And then choosing which one I would get."

"We don't have a big enough yard for a horse."

"No, it's a My Little Pony. They're little."

"Amy . . . "

"But wait - see I would make this sign in wood shop that says "Dream Valley", because that's where the ponies live, and I would hang it up over the garage where we'd keep our real life My Little Pony. And I would get somebody to sculpt little goblins and other magical creatures to get all up in Dream Valley because the ponies didn't live alone if you remember. They had magic buddies."

"You cannot nail a sign up on the garage that says Dream Valley."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"Do I have to be a Teacher's Assistant again next semester?"

"Not if we ever have to have a conversation like this one again."

"Deal."

Anyway, my point is - there's been a lot of talk about how I get can't focus for a long time on one specific thing. But maybe it's not attention deficient people, maybe it's just the fact that I like lots of different things. Some people call it worldly.

And I ask you - if you could love both of these men at the same time, wouldn't you also be impressed with yourself?

Brett Dennen.

Ian Somerhaljdfalsdhf.

(yes it's the same picture as yesterday. I don't care.)

(ooh just looked it up - it's Ian Somerhalder. Same thing.)

I mean - look at those two. Gorgeous.

Before you judge you need to listen to these two things. Preferably while crying. Alone. In a bathtub. With a picture of your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend just out of reach. (even if it doesn't make you sad, it might just make you mad, but it's just out of reach, and that makes you sad.) And a bottle of wine opened and floating in the new little float-y thing you bought for the bathtub. (go out and get one right now.) Ok, maybe you just need a picture of your old dog that died just out of reach. - Turn on the song. Let the beauty wash over you. Thank me with ~~oral~~ your smile.

The Vampire Diaries: Filling the Twilight-Sized Hole in my Heart And Then Slapping Me In The Face And Reminding Me I Never Liked Twilight In The First

2010-09-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

Place, But Still Love Vampires Due To A Weird Obsession With Anne Rice When I Was 12, So This Magical Little Piece of Television Programming Is Actually Filling The Lestat-Sized Hole That Was Left In My Heart When Anne Rice Decided To Focus On Religion Instead Of Fictional Blood-Sucking Creatures - Not That There's Anything Wrong With That, It's Just Not What I Would Have Done

I haven't blogged in a long time because I went ahead and did something really stupid.

Heroin.

Ok, not really, but it felt just as wonderful and bad as I imagine heavy IV drug use must. I really didn't want to try it. I held off, said no as politely yet firmly as I could, and changed the subject, or just said, "No, that's ok. I don't want to. But please, you go ahead. I don't mind if you do it. I just don't want to be a part of it," and then I'd catch a glimpse of something awesome as I walked past the room and I could feel myself start to give in. Or I'd hear the gasps and the ohmygods, and I'd peer over my shoulder to see what they were gasping about. Finally they just all looked so satisfied and happy in ways I didn't know because I wasn't doing it with them - ways that I decided I needed to know about, even if it went against everything I stand for.*

(*who am I kidding? Everything I stand for blah blah blah. I love pappy crap more than my own mother.)

(that's totally not true Mom, I'm just trying to make a point.)

So, because I love giving into peer pressure even though I'm thirty now and have a cat of my own, I downloaded Season 1 of The Vampire Diaries and lost two weeks of my life.

Seriously . . . SERIOUSLY. . . It's soooooooo bad and good! Like I could not stop watching. I went to bed at night with my computer running on all cylinders, downloading the four episodes I allowed myself to watch a day (to show my computer I have restraint)(he judges) because God forbid I have to wake up and eat my Cheerios without an episode of the Vampires to watch. One day my internet shut down for about two hours and I almost cried I was so desperate to find out what was going to happen with Elena and Stephan and Damon.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention why I love it?

Vampire brothers. In love with the same girl. They're both totally sexy and murderous. LOVE TRIANGLE. One has to resist feeding on human blood to remain human-ish in demeanor because he loves her so, and the other just doesn't give a shit because he's all, "I'm a Vampire yo. I'm not here to be nice, I'm here to be sexy. Now step back while I take off my shirt and bite into this reporter dude." (Why the abs have to come out for eating and fights? I don't know. Maybe it ups their power. Mama doesn't care. You can be shirtless at my wedding for all I care.)

I wouldn't even answer my phone last week because I had three episodes left, and I wanted to do all my crying in private.

Here's the thing - it's a totally teenager show. It's on the CW for goodness sake. But it's by the same guy who did Dawson's Creek, so it's sort of like he realized all of us who were 14 when that show was on, are now 30 and need something a little heavier so he gave us Vampire Diaries.

Then passed me my Otter Pop, and told me if I didn't get asked to prom he'd take me; but just as friends.

Oh, and did I mention Boone is in it. Oh yeah. I'm pretty sure he didn't die on the island, he just was converted by the smoke monster into a Vampire, and then left to reside in a less confusing place, far, far away from Jack.

Hi.

What Am I Supposed To Do Without Mah Cell Phone

2010-08-24T15:38:00.001-07:00

I find people on their cell phones checking their email every five minutes to be TOTALLY ANNOYING. Being all, "Oh hey guys, look at my new app." and then they spend forty minutes showing you how they can ask their phone questions like a Magic 8 ball, and fog it up like a steamy window then draw things in the steam. Because seriously, I'm right here. Can't we just talk face to face instead of app-ing each other things like we're in some sort of annoying Sci-Fi movie where nothing scary happens, just really boring clicking? ("Hey dude, did you see the new Sigourney Weaver movie?" "Oh yeah the one about the future?" "Yeah where the computers send stuff **blahblahblah-boring-stuff-I-don't-get-because-it's-all-programming-computer-speak-and-nothing-explodes-or-catches-on-fire-when-internet-stuff-happens-you-just-have-to-BELIEVE-it'll-work-because-seriously-ones-and-zeros-is-doing-all-this-shit. . . I DON'T GET IT-ones-and-zeros-and-electrical-currents-my-ass-as-far-as-I'm-concerned-the-internet-is-pure-fucking-magic-and-if-this-were-the-1600s-Steve-Jobs-and-all-those-dudes-would-be-burned-alive-in-the-town-square-by-a-bunch-of-rabid-men-in-skirts** and then the screen shifted direction so you can read it the long way?" "Yeah I love that movie." "Me too.")

Correction:

I found them to be totally annoying. Then I got a Droid X (or Incredible. I can't remember. All I know is it's shiny, and new, and I had to be on a waiting list) Now, I just want to join them and be the best checker of my email on my cell phone ever!

Do you know what all those apps can do?? ME EITHER but I'm totally gonna waste years finding out! That Magic 8 Ball app? I've used it to figure out my life for the last 8 hours. Should I take a shower? Answer: Not likely. SO BE IT.

I'm gonna join all the people with the fancy phones and then work my way up in the ranks at lightening speed, and ultimately lead them as . . . their leader. . . to all kinds of glory, and world domination, and . . . glory. . . and I'm not even worried that I can't think of new words right now because I bet there's an app on my new phone that will think of words for me!

And I got this "Retro Camera" app that I've been using all day to photograph piles of laundry and my cat because it all looks like a Fiona Apple video and if that isn't the most thrilling thing you've ever seen it's probably because you don't spend 10 hours a day by yourself in front of a computer accounting for people! Sure I could pick up a real retro camera, but that's not fun. That's work.

And when my kids lose their phone down the toilet (because they'll be mine, and that's what we do in my family) I'll just go, "Come here my lovelies. Watch Mommy." And then I'll steam up the mirror with my own breath and wipe it away and they will be so amazed they'll think I'm some sort of wizard-y genius! "Mommy! How did you learn to work like my Droid 9000?" "Oh honey, Mommy is part cell phone." Cut to screaming and nightmares for the rest of their lives.

Look at how cool this Retro Camera app thing is though:

Well, it looks cool. I kinda look like there's a dinosaur behind me and I'm totally freaked out but don't want it to know I'm freaked out, so I'm sort of grinning because I think if I smile the dinosaur won't know I'm freaked out.

But then I remember that I actually love dinosaurs!

And we fall madly in love.

The end.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go program Family Guy sound clips as my ringer for all of my friends, and then see if I can get my phone to tell me where I am, because I'm pretty sure it can do that! I could just look around but I don't want to waste time.

Saving Money

2010-08-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

So I went to Target today with the understanding that I was NOT going to be spending my money frivolously on things like t-shirts with shiny gold tigers on them, or wicker baskets in four different sizes that I don't know what to do with and so they'll just sit on my bedroom floor for half a year until one day when I accidentally trip on the arm hole of my shiny gold tiger t-shirt laying on the floor and direct my fall into the wicker baskets for cushion, thus crushing them into oblivion, and actually making the fall a whole lot more painful than if I had just fallen into the carpet like a normal person.

And I was doing so good, "Cat food. You're only here for cat food." I'd say to myself after stopping in the kitchen section, which is far away from the wicker baskets, but unfortunately contains things I want to buy like cupcake shaped cupcake pans (which is so amazingly ridiculous - cupcakes don't need to have the tops resemble a 2-D cupcakes - that's like pickles having an imprint of a pickle on them)(oh my god I would totally buy pickles with a pickle stamp on them!), and I kept saying no to things like this, which I always add up in my head like:

"Ok, that cupcake pan was $17.99 so added to the other things I haven't bought, that's like $156.99 - Ooooh but that purple spatula is so rubbery. . . no! I don't want that either! Ok, so cupcake pan $17.99, purple awesomely rubbery spatula $9.99, that's $166.98 that I'VE SAVED TODAY! I am such an amazing saver."

And that's how I ended up with $30 worth of lip gloss.

Because in my head-logic not buying things means I've saved hundreds of dollars which means, hey, I can spend $10 on lip gloss. I deserve lip gloss after all that frugal shopping I just did, even though all I really needed to do was come in and spend $7 on cat food in the first place.

Plus buying lip gloss is so confusing and enthralling at the same time because they all look so pretty and shiny, but you have no idea what they're going to actually look like on your lips, and nine times out of ten I end up buying the one that makes me look like I just caught the flu during a bout of hypothermia. Unless you're one of those people that tries lip glosses on in the store in which case, you probably just got AIDS. Enjoy.

So, I only picked up on lip gloss and was going to leave but then I saw it had tingling, plumping action in it. I'm sorry, what? Tingling plumping? If I wanted my lips to tingle I'd be handing out blow jobs at the Pier to toothless men with the prefix 'Little' or 'Big' followed by just an initial or an adjective as their name. Seriously, the thought of something I purposely put on my lips that has an action it preforms while it's there that's not prescribed by a doctor freaks me out.

So, I threw the tingling one back and grabbed three others, and walked out of the store spending only 37 dollars more than I thought I would, which is awesome, because that means I really saved like 130 dollars.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to spend all that extra money on.

Hannah Montana

2010-08-14T10:05:00.001-07:00

(Just as a quick reinforcement - that is not me in the post below with the stripper. Am I that unrecognizable people?! In that case, here's another picture of me:

my new haircut makes me look way more latina.)

So, I'm in Fresno right now because Gige's baby is one year old and so smart she's doing my homework for me. Seriously, this baby is like scary smart. If you sing If You're Happy And You Know It - and she's not happy, she doesn't clap her hands. I mean, if that's not genius staring you in the face I don't know what is.

Here she is testing the stability of the table:

And then she danced up on it.

So, I'll be in the pool all day trying to convince the Gige's to have seven more babies because look how chubby!!!

It's Not Just Pink, It's Shiny Pink

2010-08-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

So, it's true - there was a time in my life when I wasn't always this smooth:

. . . but that was a long time ago and I don't like to think about it. I just like to think about how well-poised I am now, and how well it comes off on camera.

(Ok that's not actually me. It's just some girl who looks like me when she's upside down and paying someone to give her a lap dance. Me? I get my lap dances for FREE damnit. And repetitively! "Keep that shit on repeat" I yell when I like what I'm seeing. And then I turn up the Dion real loud. Because when I get danced on I want it to be to Celine Dion making love to my ears while a half naked Jake Gyllenhaal licks whip cream off his own nipples.)

Anyway. . .

I just came across that picture of a stranger being very suave (I honestly have no idea who she is - but I know for sure it's not me, a) because she's wearing a silk top and a skirt and I only wear jeans at the strip club, and b) because I took the picture.) and seeing that picture reminded me of this picture down here:

Wherein I confront the waiter about the horror that is Gabi's hideous, shiny pink purse. I think I shouted something like, "EXHIBIT A!"

(shouting "exhibit a" is suave. lawyers do it aaaaall the time.)

Then proceeded to ask if he approved, and would he want to be seen with this glinting off of anything that has even the dimmest of a glow, because I'm pretty sure it melted a piece of the carpet when I winked at it.

He shook his head no, and spilled that water on me. He was so terrified of that purse his hands shook when he was trying to wipe up the spill because it was staring at him.

Making the waiter spill and feel totally uncomfortable while doing his job?

Not so suave.

But now I'm older, and smoother, and I can control myself around servers and just strangers in general. I don't take pictures of them in strip clubs (anymore) and I don't make embarrassing conversation to all those involved.

Unless I go to the local Subway by myself and there's no one to stop me.

Subway: You want lettuce?

Me: 'Course.

Subway: (talking to her co-worker) You see Mad Men?

Me: Ooh I love that show.

Subway: (ignoring me) That show about the mens from the 40's.

Me: I think it's the 50s.

Subway2: Yeah I saw it. I like that main guy.

Subway: Oh hell yeah, what's his name? You want olives?

Me: I love olives.

Subway: Mia Hamm or something.

Subway2: Mia Hamm is a girl.

Subway: Hamm something.

Subway2: Jon?

Subway: Yeah. Mayo?

Me: No thanks. He's so sexy.

Subway: . . .

Subway2:. . .

Me: I wanna get him pregnant.

Subway: . . .

Subway2: . . . .

Me: I can't do that. I don't know why I said that. He's a boy. I didn't mean, I meant I want to make out with him.

Subway: . . .

Subway2:. . .

Me: Not him-him, but his character-him.

Subway: . . .

Subway2: . . . .

Me: I'll get the meal please.

Why's it so hard to make friends when you're an adult?

So I need a co-eater when I go out to avoid things like this. For the sake of my friend's embarrassment levels at the very least.

Haircut

2010-08-10T09:04:00.000-07:00

You know how sometimes having an overactive imagination is a bad thing?

Like when you decide you can make your own pogo stick with a two branches and a mattress coil? Or when you're sixteen (thirty) and still afraid of the dark? (God made street lamps for a reason people) Or when you see a cute haircut on a famous person and your imagination fires off like a gernade in a swimming pool, drenching you and everyone around you with your horrible, blow-up-y idea to get the same haircut because you have somehow convinced yourself that yes, you do look just like Halle Berry, you certainly are looking blacker these days, and by God yes you have her boobs, your imagination just told you so!

Well. . . luckily I'm well-versed enough with my terrible imagination to know that I don't actually look like Halle Berry, but that I would probably look really great with bangs like Jennifer Garner/Aniston! No, I don't look like them either but clearly they look good in bangs so I must too! Because we all have longish, brownish hair and so I SHOULD HAVE BANGS TOO! Yay lots and lots of bangs! And then I'll look like Halle Berry! (my logic takes a dip into crazy-town when I get on a haircut-roll)

Do you know anyone with curly hair who has bangs? No. Because curly haired people don't have bangs. They have short hair in the front, but they're not bangs. Bangs are straight and lovely. People with curly hair don't do straight and lovely, so they get sticky up-y short forehead hair.

But do I remember this when I march into the salon on Saturday? No sir. I tell her to bang me and then I sit back and wait for the magic to happen.

It turned out ok until she chopped off about five inches more of my hair than I wanted, and then when I said "Oh thanks that's perfect", she feathered my bangs.

Like I'm a guy in a hair band from the 80's that never made it.

It wasn't that bad when she styled it:

But then of course when I tried to style it myself I made it four hundred times worse than she did because it's totally impossible to ever, in the history of man, style your hair the same way the hairdresser does it because before you leave they curse you with black magic and the plague.

Here it is the next day:

You'll note I drew a face over mine (complete with an eye patch so people won't know it's me) because for some reason I'm smiling with joy in the picture.

I look like my cousins from the 80's.

(they're still my cousins, it's not like I got rid of them in the 80's, I just mean - these are what they looked like back then. Now they look. . . well, pretty much the same just with less hairspray.)

How AWESOME are they????

I wanted to be them soooooooooooo bad when I was 8 and they looked like this. And now I'm starting to look like them. Which is totally going to be awesome because the 80's are back right? This is what they meant? Skinny jeans and bangs?

Right?

Please.

(If not I can always straighten my hair and play the Hi-My-Name-Is-Becky game, because apparently the hair was the only thing setting us apart, because at the wedding I got called Becky so many times I just started going along with it. Becky - if someone named Jeff calls and says he's willing to donate his stuff so you can have children, just go with it.)

Snakes On My Face

2010-08-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be on an episode of House.

Once the medical crew treating me realizes I don't just have a fever - but instead have a serious life-threatening medical condition brought on by something mysterious yet household-y that can only be solved by a guy with a limp, a sassy attitude, and a crew of misfits.

No, I'm not sick with something jungle-y but I expect to be within the week due to an alarming number of animals and insects and possibly fish that have taken up residence in my house.

How did they all get there you ask? I'll give you the same answer I got this morning while I screamed in terror, "WHY ARE THERE SEVEN MOTHS FLYING AROUND ME WHILE I'M TRYING TO SHOWER?!"

"Five letters!"

"What?"

"Five letters!"

"I can't hear you!"

"Forget it."

"What? Gah! One just flew INTO MY HAIR! Is it still in my hair??? GET IT OUT OF MY HAIR!"

Several minutes and re-washing of hair later just to make sure there were no moths in there:

"Why is the bathroom a moth sanctuary?"

"Five letters."

"James."

"Bingo."

"Bingo?"

"No, it's James, I just meant - Bingo you're right, it's James."

"Bongo."

"No - bingo."

"Yeah I know, Bongo is what you say after Bingo. I was just finishing it."

"Bingo Bongo?"

"Bingo."

". . . "

"Do it."

"No."

"Say it."

"No."

"Bongo."

"There you said it."

"Yeah but you were supposed to, and now I just feel dirty."

Anyway, I leave the window open for James so he can climb in and out at will thus making him the happiest cat alive, and me the happiest cat owner alive. Because if you've ever heard a cat wail in boredom and agony of said boredom you know that it's just as powerful as a new mom hearing a baby cry in the grocery store and then leaking through her new tank top. It's HEART-WRENCHING.

Buuuuuut, because I leave the window open the neighborhood militia has taken it upon themselves to move on in and dominate.

I kill at least four spiders before breakfast, several more before I go to the bathroom - which, as I mentioned before is the new moth habitat - and on top of that dead, and/or half mutilated birds and mice are often wriggling around my living room floor, office floor, computer desk, kitchen counter, and my recent favorite - the couch.

And then I went to throw the trash away and this was trying to slither into the house:

Not on my watch!

No, instead of freaking out girlish-ly and screaming 'Snaaaaake!', I stood my ground, kicked out at the air above it and screamed:

"Shaaaaaaark!"

Much better.

Shark? That's just confusing and disorienting. There is clearly not a shark on my patio, and maybe I was thinking that I would throw it off by calling out the wrong thing and the snake would look around and say, "What? A shark? WHERE!" and then flee for his life into the bushes and someone else's yard where he belongs.

But it didn't work. And really I just could not figure out what the word for snake was and I just kept repeating 'Shark' over and over in my head, complete with fin-images even though I knew I wasn't looking at a shark. Is this a sign of some sort of degenerative illness? Mixing up scary animal names? Because if so then the spiders already got me and Dr. House will need to know this.

I snapped out of it and caught my breath and instead of calling out the right thing I said:

"Is the dog in the house?"

"What?"

"Is the dog in the house?" (Because clearly I think the dog will die if it sees a snake.)

"Can you stop shouting at me from the other room?"

And because this is an insane request due to the amount of life-threatening things I'm trying to deal with right now I just open my eyes real wide, connect big-eyed-serious-eye-contact and point to the dreaded shark-snake.

"Oh."

"He's not inside." (I like to point out the obvious in scary situations so that no one else freaks out)

"Ok."

"Look how he's right next to the doormat." (See, there's nothing to fear.)

"Uh huh."

"And wrapped around the chair." (This is normal. Sometimes I wrap around the chair. Do not be frightened.)

"Great."

"Do you think he'll kill me?"

"Probably not."

"Do you think he'll crawl on my face? I do not want a snake on my face."

"No, I don't think he'll crawl on your face."

"WHERE'S HE GOING?" I scream because he's suddenly slithering toward the corner of the house and disappearing into the wall like some sort of weird disappearing-into-brick-walls-Harry-Potter-platform-train-catching snake. Also I scream this as if I'm going to get an actual answer: Oh don't worry Amy, he's just going to check on his pound cake and make sure it hasn't fallen yet. To which I would reply: Pound cake doesn't fall. WHERE'S HE REALLY GOING?

Again, I love my cat. I have to keep telling myself that because for now it's worth the wild animal/insect infestation, but pretty soon it won't be. Pretty soon the window is getting shut and James is just going to have to learn to take a set of keys with him. Because I will not stand for this shit.

A Conversation I Have A Few Times A Year With My Sister

2010-08-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

B: You know how I have issues. . .

A: Oh my gosh yes.

B:. . . about rapists?

A: Oh yeah, that too. (she didn't really say rapists, but I don't want to divulge her issues all out in the open and I figure rapists is a good substitute. Everyone can have an issue with a rapist.)

B: Wait, what?

A: Nothing. Tell me about rape.

B: You were just agreeing wildly that I have issues? In general?

A: As a joke.

B: Very funny Mrs. OCD Touches Her Knuckles Every Time She Has A Bad Thought And Can't Find Wood To Knock On.

A: I do not do that.

B: The other day when we were driving in the car you all of a sudden started fake cracking your knuckles. And I know you hate cracking your knuckles, so what you were really doing was some sort of weird prayer-knock-on-wood-crazy combo because I'm assuming your mind drifted off to something sad.

A: Whatever.

B: What were you thinking?

A: Nothing! I didn't do that!

B: Amy. . .

A: I was thinking about my kid getting kidnapped.

B: See. . . what?

A: And then buried in the woods.

B: You don't have a kid.

A: Not yet.

B: . . .

A: . . .

B: Are you knocking on wood again?

A: What, you think I should just let them get kidnapped and buried in the woods???

B: Knocking on wood doesn't actually stop things you know that ri- ALSO you don't have a kid!

A: You'll thank me later when I do the same thing for your kids.

B: *sigh*

A: You're welcome.

B: You're crazy pants.

They're Actually Shrinking

2010-08-02T13:09:00.001-07:00

(Blurry photo of me showing how big my boobs used to be)

Well, it's official. Everything they ever told me was a lie.

#1 "Adults can do whatever they want."

Uh, not with my student loan payments, no they can't. Unless doing whatever I want involves writing a check for more than my rent money every month to someone named Sallie, and her evil little friend Mae.

Or maybe they weren't lying, maybe they were just leaving out the footnotes:

"Adults can do whatever they want.*

*provided they don't get a degree in something art-y. Jesus God don't do that."

(Ok, well this one sort of backfires on me because writing checks for school is sort of exactly what I want to be doing because I love/d school so I'll pay for it until I bleed tears.)

(Also, I think a fellow child told me this so, it's totally stricken from the record, but the rest are valid!)

#2 "Put some soda water on that it'll come right out."

Never. Never in the world has a stain come out because of soda water.

#3 "We'll never get divorced."

Thanks for ruining my life Brad and Jennifer!

#4 "You'll get boobs, don't worry about it."

Wait, seriously . . . didn't you think Brad and Jen were going to make it, and then that crazy ass Angelina Jolie got in the way and all the fairy tales in the world got re-written and suddenly Rapunzel can't get out of the tower because turns out she has lice and has to get her hair chopped off and Sleeping Beauty O.D.s on Ambien?

No?

Just me?

I swear to God if Katie and Tom don't make it I'll never believe in love again.

#4 Sorry, back to number four. "Boobs. They're coming"

Oh, really? When I'm seventy? Because I have news for you, that's gonna be TOO LATE. You know who has their boobs out when they're seventy? Grandmas who wear their hair in a beehive, and chain smoke menthol Virginia Slims, and apply blue eyeshadow like it's gonna help them see better, while talking with their mouths full of cottage cheese they have to eat to help keep their girlish figure for the lads at the Indian Casino she visits twice a week and plays the penny slots while sipping on her Diet Tab and Malibu because it's the only place in the world that still serves DIET TAB.

They're actually getting smaller I think. My boobs that is. Because I bought this dress for a wedding I have to go to this weekend, and when I bought it, it fit, and I just tried it on and it now fits everywhere but in the chestal region. What up with that?

I took another non-blurry photo so you wouldn't think I was exaggerating.

That's me grabbing a handful of dress fabric that should be hugging something someone told me I would get when I grew up. Well, I'm grown up. I have bills to pay. I have a family to take care of (James). Where mah boobs at??

Mom, a word please?

How come Bub looks like this?

And I look like this?

Just wondering.

Anyway, now that I've thoroughly embarrassed anyone related to me, I have to go to Target and return a dress.

Or seven.

It's Like I'm A Pilgrim From The Friggin 20's

2010-07-30T07:10:00.000-07:00

Oh Snooki, I missed you!

Rinsing clothes off in a sink that has running water, in a penthouse apartment in Miami built and styled for a group of people who use gangster tagging equipment to paint on tans, and drink something called Ron-Ron juice IS just like being a Pilgrim from the 20's!

What sort of f*&ked up Back to The Future is that?

"Hey John Locke?"

"Yes Jedidiah?"

"I thought we just landed in Massachusetts looking for religious freedom. What is this place???"

"This is the 20's Jed. My flux capacitator must have calculated wrong. I told that nosy little Pocahontas to stay away from the men's work."

"How come those guys have tattoos of Italy on them?"

"Sex appeal?"

"Well, sure."

"Dang. I did not want to end up here. The 20's blew. Roaring my ass."

"There's no roaring?"

"Not for us my friend."

"Oh."

"Well, I guess we better rinse these clothes off in the mettacular sink."

"Thank God we still have some comforts of home."

"You said it Jedidiah."

And then they fist pumped their way through the Depression just like everyone else. The End.

I'm so excited Jersey Shore is back on, I can't stand it! I actually clapped with happiness at my TV last night because IT'S JUST SO AMAZING. It's the only time in my life I get to use words like, JWOW, Snicks, blow-out, and smush and feel totally serious about it.

Why wasn't this show on when I was in college? I would have transferred to New Jersey Community College faster than you can say "I'm putting Vaseline on my face, taking my earrings out, putting my hair up and I'm beating the crap out of her."

(Vaseline? So if she gets a hit in it just slides right off? Seriously. How can you not love that?)

CSI My Bathroom

2010-07-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

You know that feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and something is just wrong?

You check the clock and no, you're not late for work, it's Saturday. You check under the covers and you still have your legs. In fact you've still had your legs everyday since the early 80s when you started waking up and freaking out that they'd been amputated in the night - maybe it's time you calm down about that. You check your phone to see if you missed a death phone call (one where someone calls you to let you know someone is not. . . you know if you can't figure it out, I'm not gonna explain it for you), but no. Everyone is still alive. The dog is fine and breathing, the sun is up like it's supposed to be but. . .

And then it hits you.

Where is the cat?

And who set the alarm to play Ace of Base EVERY MORNING?

(I mean seriously. Every morning? I love them, but a girl can only hear The Sign a certain number of times before she wants to claw her own eyes out. I'd take a little Wilson Phillips now and again. Hold on to One More Day?

I know that there is change.

Butcha.

Hold on for one more day.

Breakfree from the chaaaaaange.

(and then I skip straight to the breakdown part of the song because it's just too damn good, and I love it so much I can't waste my love on the boring parts of the song) ).

(the amazing starts at 2:33 and ends at 3:20)

However these guys kinda make the whole song bearably amazing. Especially the ending.

Anyway, I woke up feeling weird and then realized I couldn't find James. And THEN realized there was blood all over my bathroom floor. Not the hall, or the bedroom, or anywhere but the bathroom. It was like someone knew they were going to murder, and so they covered themselves up in saran wrap and surgeon booties and then Dexter-ed the shit out of my bathroom but ran out of time to clean up.

Now that James is an outdoor cat he is out and about in the elements all night, and occasionally returns home muddy, and scraped up, and soaked even though it hasn't rained (sprinklers set off while he was robbing a bank?) but he usually checks in and sleeps at my feet still (proving he loves me even though he's free to run away, which just makes me more insanely in love with him/9,000 times more likely to be a crazy cat lady sooner than I thought) but not last night. Last night he didn't check in.

Or did he?

Now, let my backtrack by saying the blood on the floor was not startling to me. At first. Because he's left blood on the floor before, but never this much. I did a fair amount of panicking/expecting to see his head in the bathtub staring out at me, but just as I was about to call the police (logic not abundant when I'm tired and scared - the police would probably have arrested me for calling them) guess who came sauntering into the house all sleepy and cute?

Anyway, long story short: James is alive. But several mice are not.

Turns out, James was just a serial killer trapped in a Chicago apartment for too long with nothing to kill. He probably would have turned on me if we'd stayed a little longer, because clearly that little sucker has a taste for blood, and it wouldn't have been easy to overpower me and carry me around the place with his tiny little jaws, but he would have figured out a way because he's obviously a sociopath.

A sociopath who is the cutest little sociopath around!

I tried to take a picture buy my camera died, and my cell phone now refuses to take pictures, so instead I drew this diagram of what I saw so you too can know the horror I felt at 6am Monday morning.

(I'm considering applying for a job as a sketch artist for the FBI)

Catalina, Part 2 of 2, Picture Edition

2010-07-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

My grandma invites people to Catalina the way someone blows on a dandelion and suddenly there's a million dandelions in your front yard, on your porch, sleeping four on the fold-out couch, and you're fighting them to use the bathroom in the morning and then once you finally get in there there's no more toilet paper.

She judges occupancy not by the number of beds, but by the lengths of floor open that will hold a body. Most years in a room that sleeps 5 we've had to squeeze in at least 9 - and that's just that room, once you step out of it you'll have to dodge bodies strewn about the living room, kitchen, and onto the porch. It's like she's running her own hostel in Bratislava that doubles as a commune.

So this year, Gabi, Gige and I decided we would get our own house so that we could control the amount of people sleeping in it, and Oh My God - It was so worth it. The only people waking me up in the morning were these two, and it's totally ok because look how cute she is:

Oh, and Hailey is pretty cute too.

Seriously, she looked like that almost every moment of every day. She's the happiest baby in the world. I'm fairly certain Gige has some sort of racy drug in her breast milk and that's why Hailey is so happy. You better believe the next time I'm feeling down I'll be calling her over for a little cream in my coffee.

My feelings about this trip were pretty boring, because I had fun. (Aside from missing the P's, and SA like I'd miss a limb) There were no crazy meltdowns, or enormous family drama, or making out with underage boys - and at one point I looked around and was like, "Wait. . . Hold up. . . Is this what growing up feels like. Ew. Weird. Why aren't I hungover? How come the dishes are done? Why doesn't Gabi have a new STD?"

So here's some pictures from the trip. I'm going to try very hard to not post seven hundred of me holding Hailey.

Oops. Bad start. Ok, no more of me and Hailey I promise.

Just kidding! Here's another! I'm probably yelling about how much I love that couch. Look at it. It's the most pastel couch in the world.

The Math Teacher and Marc are trying to get their iPhones to tell them where the fun is.

Gabi also checks her iPhone for fun. Gige checks her invisible phone.

Me: "And then the bear said. . ."

Hail: "Yeah, whatever. The ending blows my mind, let's skip past all this bear bulls$%t and get to the ducks."

You can't tell from this picture, but Bub's boobs are actually way bigger than Gige's. I put one of her bra cups over my entire face the other day. It's huge.

(As a joke. Not just 'cause I go around putting bras on my face.)

We took fourteen of these types of pictures before the waiter finally asked if he could do it for us. You can tell from the following, Hailey was not pleased with how long we spent taking pictures of ourselves.

We made her sit alone. Also, doesn't it look like Gabi is doing something sneaky to me under the table, and like she is whispering through clenched teeth, "No one's ever gonna know."

Oh yeah, and like dorks we read the same book every year in a weird book race. This year is was Eat Pray Love. Last year it was Tori Spelling's STORI Telling. We're only getting smarter people. Only getting smarter. Next year it'll probably be War and Peace. In Russian. (Not a hundred percent sure that's by a Russian author. Not going to look it up either because I already have wikipedia open to dandelions, and Usher Raymond and I don't need any more tabs cluttering up my task bar.)

Look at Gabi, sunbathing in the nude like a floozy.

(She's not really naked, but somehow Gige managed to capture this in a totally awesome way.)

And I apparently grabbed a hand towel instead of a beach blanket to lay on.

Next year:

Less pictures of me with babies. More pictures of my friends looking naked.

You're welcome in advance.

This Post Is Not For People Who Like Seeing Things Alive

2010-07-20T17:08:00.000-07:00

The good news:

James is officially an outdoor cat! No leash, no escaping, no running away to live with another family for six months - just pure, unadulterated, outdoor cat-y stuff. He loves it, and I love it. Need to go get the mail? James will follow you. Need to run outside to the car to check and see if that's the thing that's been running for almost seven hours in front of your garage? James will trot along beside you. Missing a little kitty love? Just stand at the door and call "Hi honeys. Where's my little kitten power?" and watch James run from a nearby tree into your open arms.

Seriously, it's like I had this grumpy, moody cat who like to shred furniture and human arms, and then all of a sudden I have a cat made of fairy sparkles and tickles.

Outdoor cat = way better than indoor cat. I don't care that his lifespan has been cut in half, and it's much more likely now for him to be carried away by something with talons than it was before, he's happy. And that's worth more than his life.

(You know what I mean.)

When James became an outdoor cat, flowers just started blooming spontaneously.

The bad news:

James is officially an outdoor cat.

My feelings on this can only be expressed via visual aids.

Feeling 1:

Nooooooooooooooo.

Feeling 2:

Noooooooooooooooo. GAH!!!! Why are you scooting CLOSER to it????

Of course no one was home to help me rid the house of the prize James brought in (and then shook a little for good measure sending feathers flying all the which way, coating the house like I just had a slumber party from an 80's movie), so I had two decisions: 1. Leave it there until someone more appropriate could take care of it. Or 2. Gear up like I was going in for a HVAC procedure and try to get the thing from the ground to the outside trash without causing any more damage to my psyche.

Yes, I'm a wimp when it comes to animals. Dead humans? I'll hold the hands of those suckers until the cows come home, but dead animals? No. I'm fairly certain they're just faking it/have become evil in their death and by the power of some sort of Freddy Krueger-poisonous spider they will come back to life and start moving around, and I will NOT KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THAT SHIT.

So, the clean-up process took about a half an hour and went like this:

Ok, ok, it's ok. . . just don't look, just don't AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH IS IT IN THE BAG?????? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH JAMES HELP ME GET IT IN THE BAG!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! OK, OK, It's ok. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. It's dead. It's not gonna do anything, it's just lying there like AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH I THINK IT JUST MOVED! FUUUUUUUUUUDGE (apparently I don't curse when scared because I said 'fudge' like seven different times) Ok, Ok, Please don't come back to life, please don't come back to life, please don't AAAHHHHHHHHHH JAMES DON'T EAT HIM! OH GOD PLEASE DON'T EAT HIM WHILE I'M TRYING TO GET HIM OUT OF HERE! Ok, Just for the love of fudge please if you do come back to life, just let it be for a little bit so you can roll yourself into this bag so I don't actually have to feel your dead little body because then I'm gonna start crying on top of all this and I don't JAMES STOP TRYING TO EAT HIM!!!!!

Yeah.

Anyway, after all that I'm still thrilled with James being an outdoor cat. I'll put up with the trauma because of his happiness.

I just hope he remembers me in his will.

Catalina, Part 1 of 2, Wherein Joy Is Regained, And Freakishly Large Goldfish Cause Sheer Terror With Their Venomous Stares And Human-like Lips

2010-07-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

My brother came to Catalina for a few days, and for the first time in YEARS he had a good time. The last few years? Not so fun. Mainly disoriented, confused, angry, depressed, hating anything fun, ripping clothes off in public - and I don't know about you, but all of those things (save for that last one) do not spell vacation to me.

Life is apparently really hard when you can't talk, and your family loses the ability to read your mind accurately. I mean, the nerve of us. He looks and looks, and points and points but there were(are) a few years in there where we just Could Not figure out what he wants to tell us. Mainly it's something as simple as:

"Hey, people - this sandal is cutting into my foot and I'm freaking starving. Where's my sandwich? Seriously, my blood sugar is dangerously low. Sandwich? Sandal? Cutting into my foot? Sandwich? Blood sugar? Anyone? ANYONE?"

And there we sit chit chatting about Taylor Lautner and planning out our naps.

None of those things is a sandwich.

(but, mmmmmmm . . .Taylor Lautner.)

But sometimes (and this is where my heart breaks into a million pieces) it's not that simple. Sometimes he's upset because he's in pain from the enormous sinus infection/blockage that's been plaguing him for so many years, and has become so enormous it takes bleeding from the ears (mygod) before he'll actually be able to let us know he's in pain because this - this is what finally gets him to cry. My brother? He doesn't cry. He bites things. He yells. He points his fingers off at words that do not convey what he's trying to say, but (I guess) is hoping will distract him. But cry - no. So, when he does it, I pretty much want to find the nearest set of train tracks and lay down on them because honestly I cannot handle it when either one of the twins are so upset they cry.

(I once broke down in tears when I was at a doctor's visit with Becky and she had to get a shot. Not me. Her. But we were little and she seemed scared, and I didn't want her to be scared so I did the right thing and started crying. This at least confused things. I couldn't assure her everything was going to be alright, but I sure as hell could make her freak out about something different. It's a wonder she chose to go solo to her first gyno visit, despite my willingness to be there to support her. "Are you sure?" "Yes. You're just gonna cry." "No, I'm not." "Amy." "Ok, maybe. But it's just because I care.")

ANYWAY, he had a good time. Which was awesome. Lots of smiles and trolley rides, and my mom didn't lose her clothes anywhere (later story for those who haven't heard it)(though if you haven't it's probably because my mom was around and I'm pretty sure she's not at the "Well, it's funny now. . . " stage yet.)

This is when he first got off the boat. I have a better picture of us, but I love this one because it looks like I have something magical in my (gigantic) hand (why does it look so large?) and Michael is captivated by it.

Lucky for us the island library had Dumbo in stock. God forbid we go a whole day without watching it and ruin his life.

We went swimming which is Michael's favorite thing to do.

Oh yeah, except that he didn't really get in because it was too cold. It deceptively looks like it's sunny and warm here. It's not. It's freezing, and this picture isn't cropped to show just the three of us. We were the only three brave enough to get in. And then the fish started charging us like hungry little zombies. I'm not sure who that guy is with the snorkel, but I'm fairly certain he was bending over to see if he could find his finger that had just been bitten off.

They're cold blooded those Garibaldis. Look:

If that isn't the look of blood lust I don't know what is.

Vacation, It's Good For You - Mostly

2010-07-12T13:49:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Catalina so my mind is still in double-stuf-oreo-beach-napping-not-afraid-to-use-men's-deodorant-instead-of-stupid-girl-non-working-deodorant-that-just-makes-me-smell-like-pear-scented-high-school-me-which-is-awful-because-it-brings-back-a-flood-of-make-out-memories-I'd-rather-not-remember-(I'm talking to you Tony)-(and you boy who's name I don't remember but I took you to Sadie Hawkins one year even though you didn't go to our school. I had mouth herp that day and never told you. Sorry.)-sunscreen-and-soft-serve-and-buffalo-hiking mode, so this is going to be a short post, lest I do something retarded (I can say that because my brother is retarded, suckers) like what just happened in my work bathroom:

Me: (bursting into the bathroom nearly running someone over before I stop with crazy sharp reflexes, sort of waving my arms to get balance, like someone about to fall off a building, but am not about to fall off a building, am just standing unsteadily in a public bathroom) Oh, sorry, were you waiting?

Stranger: Yeah but. . . you look like you need to go. You first.

Me: No, that's ok. Go ahead.

Stranger: Uh. . . (looking scared) no, you.

Me: No, I insist. (I don't usually spend so much time trying to convince someone to use the bathroom before me, but my horoscope told me to be generous today.)

Stranger: You sure, you seem. . . you sure?

Me: Yeah (what the h?) I'm sure, you were here first. Go for it!

Stranger: . . . Are you su-

Me: -Yes, I'm sure! My horoscope told me you should go first. (holds out hand which has been clutching horoscope even though I didn't realize it til that second. reflexes are working in mysterious ways.)

Stranger: First of all, (it's totally ok she's first-of-all-ing me because I am thrusting things in her face all crazy-like) that's not a horoscope.

Me: (looking down at hand)

Stranger: It's a candy wrapper.

Me: (totally true)

Stranger: Second of all, it doesn't really matter what your candy wrapper is telling you to do, if you're just gonna be unbuttoning your pants in the hallway anyway.

Me: (slowly, looks from hand to pants. pants are indeed unbuttoned and unzipped already.) Oh, when did that happen?

Stranger: Before you got in here.

Me: Jeeze. I'm sorry. I just got back from vacation.

Stranger: Naked vacation?

Me: (suddenly I love her) No, just vacation. My brain isn't working, and things are frantic, and I work in that first office right there.

Stranger: Oooooooh, say no more. I've been in there.

Me: And this candy wrapper has a saying on it ok. So it's sort of like a horoscope.

Stranger: . . .

Me: . . . but not really. It's more of like. . . a saying.

Stranger: . . . .

Me: Please use the bathroom.

Once in elementary school I tried to force my friend Amber Hume to use the bathroom because our 3rd grade teacher told us at lunch time we should eat, play, and use the bathroom and I had noticed that Amber Hume had only completed 2 out of the requisite 3. I was a stickler for rules. Apparently it stuck with me.

Amy Stern : pressuring people to use the bathroom since 1987.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be a little more coherent. And full of pictures the island! Pants intact.

With Diagrams!

2010-06-28T11:22:00.001-07:00

You know what's more embarrassing than puking all weekend?

Throwing your back out from puking all weekend.

And even worse than that?

Further having to explain that no, of course you didn't actually hurt your back from bending over the toilet, but you did hurt it a few days earlier golfing, and the rapid, spas-y jerking of your body to the bathroom floor just exacerbated your golf injury so that after you're done seeing what a burrito looks like after it's been marinating in white wine for a few hours, you try to get up and realize you can't because suddenly you're lower back is seizing up like you just picked up a house and forgot to lift with your knees.

And then you have to walk around all day with an ice pack or a heating pad strapped to your lower back with this look on your face:

That look by the way is a) how I get all the boys, and b) a mix of fear and pain. I need the ice so that I don't crumple into a ball on the floor, but the strap that's holding it on is digging into my stomach, and totally not helping with the waves of nausea. I can't give up the ice but I don't want to puke anymore. It's a vicious cycle people! Vicious.

Here's a front picture, with notes so that you know exactly what's going on here (you can click to enlarge)(You're welcome). And no, I don't usually look like this. Usually I look better. Less just-got-out-of-homeless-ness-but-still-am-not-sure-of-the-ways-of-the-masses-so-I-wear-half-boys-clothes-and-half-womens-to-the-mall, and a little more . . . showered.

(That's a lie, I usually look like this. But I usually FEEL better so that's a huge difference. It's all about your attitude, you know? Like sure, nine times out of ten I'll be in this exact outfit for four days straight, but I rock the shit out of it. I wear those pjs like I'm on a runway dang it. Just ask the guys at 7 - 11. They know. They see it every day.)

Sunscreen Mistake

2010-06-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant? The show about women who give birth and didn't even know they were pregnant?

Let me break it down for you:

They have a baby, typically someplace weird, and had no idea they were pregnant.

There's no weight gain, no morning sickness, no kicking, no NOTHING. Well, nothing until suddenly they start to have cramps and a BABY comes out of their vagina and lands on a strangers shoe, or the bathroom floor, or wherever it is these women find a place to squat and die, because that's what most of them think is happening. They're dying, and their insides are coming out as a finale.

So, of course I'm adding that to my list of my totally irrational fears and will be taking a pregnancy test once a week even if I never have sex again. Even if I go in for a routine test, and the doctors notice I have some abnormal hormone levels, and discover that I'm actually a man, and that my lady parts were just for show, the good stuff is up inside, and I'll never be able to birth a child because what I'd always thought was my ovaries and uterus showing up on the scan at the gyno's was really just a videotape of someone else's playing over and over again that the stupid, stoned tech forgot to take out because he was too busy eating all the Cheese Its from the vending machine, and instead I just have an empty space (or whatever it is guys have up there in place of what we have - vas deferens and perhaps a prostate), and I end up on the news, and I feel confused, and John Krasinski wins accolades from the public for standing by me. . . EVEN THEN I will be checking myself. So that I don't have a baby on a strangers shoe.

In other news, my sister just threw up in her mouth a little bit.

The thing is, I wouldn't have even been watching that show because it's like 80 degrees and gorgeous, which means I was planning on spending the day outside working on my tan (severe sunburn) and playing with James in the sun (chase after him every time he escapes from his little kitty leash and runs out into traffic).

So, I run inside because I forgot sunscreen, and I grab one of the seventeen tubes we have and start lathering my face up with that stuff, but for some reason it's not really rubbing in. Which isn't that uncommon, a lot of the sport sunscreens are super thick and gooey, but this one is slippery and goopy and just will not rub in. And I'm really rubbing, and I'm doing little circles, and I'm like, "This shit better be some amazing sun deterrent", and then I look down at the counter and I'm like:

"That's weird." Nope. Not getting it. "Why in the world. . . " Sort of getting it. But not really wanting to. "Why is that tube of. . . " Ignore. Ignore. Please no. Please no. "Why is that tube of KY Jelly sitting right there?" Look at face in mirror. Back to the tube. Back to the face. Tube. Face. Tube. FACE.

"There's personal lubricant all over my face!!" I screamed to James who sort of looked up at me like, why in the world is that sitting out all footloose and fancy free in your sunscreen cupboard?

"Because I don't use it, it just came with my diaphragm kit thing. . . never mind! Just pass the soap."

And that's how learned bar soap works way better at getting a squeaky clean feeling that girly loofah soap!

From now on sunscreen stays in a totally different room from any other sort of tube-like thing. And if my friends ever ask to borrow some sunscreen and I tell them its in the attic in a box labeled SPF only, inside another box that says, Seriously: SPF only! - you tell them this is why.

Because they just want some UV protection, they don't want to walk out into the sun feeling like the naughty end of some lucky guys prom night.

Lost And Found

2010-06-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

So, I lost Crystal the other day. But not like, I left the door open and she wandered out and I lost her; more like, I set her down in a safe place so I wouldn't forget where she was and then instantly forgot where the safe place was and couldn't find her.

Which is weird since she's the size of a seven year-old. How many spots does a life-size poodle actually fit in a house that's 800sq ft on a good day?

I came home for lunch and looked around for her, and thought, "That's weird. I could have sworn I left her right there in the living room, sleeping on Bub's fancy sweater." But when I came in she was gone.

And so was the sweater.

So, I checked the bathroom - nothing. The bedroom - nothing. The kitchen - nope. Under the table - uh uh. I even checked the bathtub, pulling the drape open slowly (because almost anytime I have to open a shower curtain I'm suddenly terrified I'm going to find either a) a sniper in there ready to either snipe or stab me (because also in this fear snipers work at a super close range with a silencer on their gun, and also they stab, and for some reason I've done something that makes someone spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an ex-government sniper for me, which is simultaneously terrifying and flattering if I sit down and think about it, because really what have I done? I'm not in politics, I don't have some huge fortune someone is going to stand to inherit, I'm not a famous soap star, I didn't marry any of the royal family, and I never wronged anyone's father in or out of the service causing them to die and receive a dishonorable discharge much to the disgrace and fury of the rest of the family who were just itching for something to avenge. And that's kind of nice, it's like the counter balance I think, it makes it bearable for me to take a shower in the mornings - the fact that if there's a sniper in there I must have done something huge, and since I haven't, the chances of a sniper being in there are much, much more minimal.), and b) that when I open the curtain I'm going to find whomever I'm looking for, murdered, eyes open, soaking in a pool of their own blood.

Eyes open! That's the worst part. I can handle the soaking in a pool of your own blood, but if you're looking at me - forget it. That's freak out central.

Clearly, I should not have EVER been allowed to watch TV when I was younger.

Anyway, she wasn't in the bathtub either, and this is when I commenced what my mom later called, 'Freaking the F*&k Out'. I didn't know what to do, but I checked all the doors, none had been left open, they were still locked, which could only mean that whoever broke in to steal Crystal, got greedy, took Bub's sweater too, and locked the door behind them to throw me off.

"Nice try," I shouted hysterically to no one. "I KNOW YOU WERE HERE!" I yelled grabbing my phone and shouting/shaking as I dialed my mom. "AAAAAAAHHHHHH 3-1-0 I CAN'T REMEMBER WHEN I'M PANICKED. Just call MOM'S CELL."

"Calling Baja Fresh" my phone said.

"No! Call MOM'S CELL."

"Calling Coldstone in Chicago" my phone said after my screams.

"NO! CALL MOOOOOOM'S CELLLLLLLLL"

"Calling Baja Fresh."

"FUCK graslhfalskdjfk YOU!" I growled, fake slamming my phone into the table, because I really wanted to smash it to pieces but I still needed it to track down the kidnappers.

Finally I took a deep breath and realized I should actually being calling my sister first. But she didn't answer because she was out gallivanting with a Victoria Secret Model and her Football baby daddy, so then I tried my mom.

"Do you only have food places stored in your phone?"

"That's not the point."

"You don't even live in Chicago anymore."

"I know, but what if I go back and want to see how late the Coldstone is op- Mom! That's not the point! Where's Crystal?"

"How should I know? Try your sister."

"I did she didn't answer. WHERE COULD SHE GO?!"

"I don't know, did you check the-"

"I CHECKED EVERYWHERE. SOMEONE TOOK HER!!!"

"The 15 year-old, deaf, arthritic, cataract-ridden dog?"

"Yes!"

"Someone stole that dog?"

"YES GLAKFLSDJLIJDILJ!"

"I don't think so. I have to get back to work, call me when you find her."

I tried Bub again but clearly supermodels are more important than the love-of-her-life dog so I tried the Math Teacher who gloriously answered even though she was in the middle of teaching Jr. High Schoolers, because she is a good person.

After a few minutes of hysterical screaming, which sent her into a mild panic - because as much as we love Crystal, we know how much Bub loves Crystal and fear her wrath more than that of the possible kidnapper's - we finally stopped screaming and she talked me through the entire house until we came to my old bedroom.

"No, the door is totally shut, and it was shut when I left. She's not in there."

"Did you check?"

"No."

"You didn't check every room in the house?"

"Yes I did. Every room that wasn't shut when I left this morning!"

"Ok, Amy," she said very calmly because, as I said before, she teaches hoodlum Jr. High and therefore dealing with me is just a walk in the park. "Maybe you should just check?" without even a trace of sarcasm, or mocking, just pure I'm-on-your-side support.

"Ok, I'll check but she can't be in here she doesn't open doors and it was totally lock- OH MY GOD CRYSTAL HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?!?!?!?!"

Because there that little sucker was. Just chillin on the blow up mattress, her head resting on the pillow, the curtains drawn, looking up at me like, "What? This is where I come to think. You made me watch that teenage girl doing all that singing to other teenage girls this morning and I'm trying to figure out why*."

I'm not sure how she got in there, or why, or what was going on, but I think it's really weird that someone broke into our house to trap Crystal in the spare room and steal Bub's fancy sweater.

"Uh, Amy?"

"Yes, Math Teacher?"

"Have you checked out what you're wearing today?"

I looked down.

"Son of a bitch."

"It's her sweater isn't it?"

"Yes. Maybe."

"Ok, well then if you're ok I have to go break up a knife fight."

"Yeah go for it. We're safe."

For now. But sooner or later I'm going to have to take another shower. And that's always risky.

(*The video Crystal was contemplating)

Withdrawls

2010-06-17T10:02:00.001-07:00

A: I hate summer.

B: Well, sure. Summer? Blagh.

A: It sucks so bad.

B: Yeah. And so do kittens and smiles.

A: No, that's not what I mean. . .

B: And newborn babies. God, they're the worst. All cute and stuff. Gross. Don't even get me started on fun . . . man, I hate fun.

A: I mean summer tv, not summer in general.

B: Oh I know!

A: Where's all mah stories?!? Glee is gone, Lost is over forever, Modern Family is on break, Nurse Jackie ended, I only got half of Princess Diaries 2 recorded before the Tivo changed the channel to tape ANOTHER episode of Teen Mom, Cougar Town is done, and I'm this close to actually watching one of those Jonas Brothers episodes you're taping.

B: Wait. . . what?

A: What? Oh, Cougar Town? It's actually kinda funny.

B: No, Amy.

A: Yeah, I like the kid who plays her son. He's sassy.

B: Nope.

A: I'd like to give him something to be sassy about.

B: No, I mean I wasn't stopping you about Cougar Town. You taped Princess Diaries 2? You know how we feel about Anne Hathaway!

A: What? No I didn't.

B: You just said you did.

A: When?

B: You just said you only taped half of it before Teen Mom came on.

A: I love Teen Mom.

B: Stop avoiding.

A: I'm so sad I'm too old to be on that show.

B: Me too.

A: Why weren't we getting pregnant in High School? We could have been on that show!

B: Two reasons: Band. Camp.

A: Stupid band boys not knocking any one of us up.

B: I know. Way to be safe drum line.

A: The whole drum line?? Really?

B: Ew! Not me. I mean Gabi, you, and Gige combined.

A: Please. . . We only dated one guy on drum line.

B: All three of you?

A: Well, no, just me and Gige - Gabi dated trumpet players.

B: Oh right.

A: I did branch off and date the saxophone guy for a little bit.

B: That was after High School.

A: Oh yeah. . .

B: This is turning into the geekiest conversation we've ever had.

A: I think we passed that point back when we started having a serious talk about Summer TV.

B: Good point.

A: . . .

B: . . .

A: But seriously-

B: I know! Where are all our shows at?!

Summer Break

2010-06-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Catalina is overpriced, congested, smoggy, the water is freezing, the scuba diving sucks, if you want a spot on the beach you pretty much have to get there at 6am, there's a distinct smell of sewer and seaweed every other block, the fish bite so hard they draw blood, there's constant landslides/the threat of getting killed by a falling boulder, the tiny engine-powered golf carts are louder than God, everything closes before 10pm, the locals are surly, the one donut shop sells out of everything good by about 5:01am so if you want a goddamn long john you're pretty much going to have to camp out for it overnight like you would Justin Timberlake/Bieber tickets, and my whole family gathers there all at once, one time a year, which somehow always manages to be the exact same moon-alignment that makes all the women in my family (which outnumber the guys 7:1) go into their special womanly time ALL AT ONCE, which means utter, and complete hormonal horror for at least half the trip.

That being said. . .

I CANNOT WAIT TO GO!!!

Yes, it's not perfect, but there's something time-travel-y magical about it and there isn't a single place on earth I'd rather be come summer. Maybe it's because I've been there every year of my life, or maybe it's because there's no work to be done, just beaching and eating and hiking up and down to places we've see seven hundred times but seem just as gorgeous every time you get up above the golf-car-smog-layer. Or maybe it's because even though all together my family and friends resemble a grounded flock of geese (not a flying flock where they're all pretty and making v-formations, but like a flock of geese when they're all sitting by a pond and flapping about, and honking, and squawking, and running into each other, and all trying to be the leader of the group until one just gets pissed off and flies away and then all the others see it and go noisily chasing after it . . . ok, so maybe its not the best analogy now, but you wait until I get the first barbecue on videotape), they're still so fun to be around, and it's so nice to see everyone in the same place all at once.

(Oh jesus, now I'm tearing up again. I better not be getting my period for the third time this month or someone is gonna have to pay! And it'll probably be James!) (Because he's a cat and doesn't care a wink if I yell at him, he'll wait til I'm done and then roll onto his back so that I'll rub his belly while he bites me.)

Hello lover.

If it were possible for me to make sweet love to this island you better believe I'd do it. And then I'd "forget" I'm supposed to keep my diaphragm in for at least six hours after takeoff and wind up with little expensive, crowded island babies. But they'd be cutest little island babies you've ever seen!

(**it may seem like I just gave Catalina a really bad rap, but I'm leaving out a whole lotta shit. Like how it has the inexplicable draw of making my brother strip naked in a public lunch place, how the friends I bring sometimes end up contracting VD two nights in, how at some point in the journey over someone is going to throw up, and how every single year, without fail, both my sister and I will spend so much time in the sun (read: anything over 5 minutes) we contract the HIV on our feet and hands.)(And yes - I still am SO EXCITED about going! The HIV is a small price to pay for relaxation.)

Lunch Time

2010-06-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

So, I've been working remotely a little bit which is fun a) because it allows me to stay in my pjs until 4pm, or whenever I have to see another human, and b) because never, not ever, at my office has this escaped and come charging down the road at me, braying like it just popped out of the Shrek movie and into real life and LIKED IT.

This is after it was corralled back into it's proper home, hence the death/vaguely suicidal glare he's giving me - but let me tell you something, donkeys may seem slow and depressed because they're always losing their tails (because I can't remember anything from any History class I've ever taken, but I remember everything I've ever learned from cartoons), but this little sucker can haul ass.

No pun intended.

He was running so fast and happily, it seemed wrong to stop him. Have you ever seen a donkey in person? It's exactly like this:

Ok no it's not like that at all, but OH MY GOD look at this picture I found!

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THAT POOR DONKEY!?!

And they say love is blind. I don't think so. I think that giraffe saw something he liked, something he really liked, chugged the last of his vodka-coke and sauntered up to the cute little donkey at the end of the bar and then made things happen.

"Hey."

"Oh. . . hey."

"I'm Gene the Giraffe."

"Hi Gene. I'm Dawn the Donkey."

"Oh, Don. Nice to meet you buddy, just. . .uh. . .this is awkward."

"No, Dawn. I'm a girl."

"I thought so. Ha, ha. It's hard to smell you from the other end of the bar."

"You too."

**they giggle and gaze**

"You want another drink Dawn the girl Donkey?"

"Oh, I shouldn't. I've already had two."

"Well you can **clears his throat** sip it slowly."

"Oh, uh. . . "

"Oh jeeze, I didn't mean. . . I actually had something stuck in my throat, I wasn't trying to suggest something weird, I had a handful of pistachios and the coating just sort of stuck right here. . . Shoot. I really didn't mean to insinuate you should sip slowly for me, I-"

"No, that's ok, I understand. I clear my throat all the time."

"You do?"

"Yeah. Plus that doesn't really make sense does it? That's some terrible innuendo if that's what you were going for."

"I know. I only do really awesome innuendo. I mean. . ."

"Ha, ha, ha."

"Man, I can't talk around you Dawn the Donkey."

"You're doing just fine Gene the Giraffe."

**hooves touch gently under the bar, and the rest is photographic history**

Anyway, nothing like that happened to the runaway donkey I saw, but he was really cute, and looked a lot like this in real life:

Fat body + stubby legs + goofy mouth = So super cute I can't stand it!!!

See also:

Oh my gosh I'm getting so off track.

So, I felt so bad when he was roped back to his home because he looked just so happy to be free! And I know we can't just have donkey's roaming the streets all free and loosey goosey, but c'mon! All he wanted was one afternoon of galloping in the sunshine down a busy street! I'm sure he would have wandered back home when it was dinner time, like a barnyard cat, or my Uncle Steve.

And that's why I'm never allowed to have farm animals, or be left alone in a zoo. Because the first thing I'd probably do is cry because the monkeys look sad, and then b)open all the cages and send all the zoo/farm animals to their freedoms (read: eventual death by freeway), and then later will cry myself to sleep for setting wild animals loose and probably doing them more harm than if they had just stayed in their farm/zoo.

So when my kids ask you why they never had a petting zoo at their birthday parties refer them to this post. And then remind them that's also how mommy ended up in prison. Again.

Oh Sure, And You Handle Stress Soooooo Much Better Than Me

2010-06-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

So I just sat in the weird corner in the parking lot of my office building, squished behind the dumpsters, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a brown Trader Joe's bag for a top, eating peanut butter from a jar with my fingers because I needed a break and this was the only place they couldn't find me.

What? I couldn't find a spoon.

Anyway, this is totally going to make me rethink my quick sizing-people-up reflex, because clearly sometimes when you think people are homeless, eating stolen peanut butter, literally wearing a brown paper bag, they're not.

They're actually just taking their mandatory ten minute break, and the peanut butter was the closest thing they could grab on the way out after spilling their entire bowl of cereal all over their shirt, which is now hanging over the side of the desk, dripping into the salad they bought from Trader Joe's because it's no longer in the protective brown paper bag, because the protective brown paper bag just had the bottom ripped out, and the handles bitten off, so that it could be shimmied over my head and around me to cover the fact that I'm wearing a bra that is so cute* it is literally the biggest teeny bopper bra they sell at Forever 21 (what? It says forever 21 right in the title. I can still shop there), while I ran out of the office and into the parking lot because the cereal spill was the LAST STRAW and if I didn't get out of there I was going to either a) start crying, or b) yell 'fuck' like I had turrets and someone just made me really socially uncomfortable.

And that's how I discovered Valium!

It wasn't like anything really horrible was happening at work, it was just four thousand things at once, and I was actually feeling pretty good, and sort of giggly as I ran out of the office half clothed, half ready for the beginning of a really low budget porno - but this is apparently what happens when you suddenly get your period every other week. I could feel myself starting to get stressed out, and I'm trying to nip things like that in the bud and be calm, and apparently this is how I don't let stress seep into me - I wear shopping bags and eat peanut butter like I'm Hurley and the Island just got a shipment of food dropped on them from some weird faction of the Dharma Initiative.

Hormones ablaze people. Let the fun for my co-workers ensue!

Just so you're not worried, I have (reluctantly) changed back into my still milky wet shirt, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna stay this way. I've got the peanut butter standing by just in case.

(*tween bras are for girls who are like 14 and don't want to wear training bras anymore, but can't really fit into big girl bras so they have these like mini bras that are SO CUTE and have sizes you thought you'd only see on batteries, and I made the unfortunate mistake of trying one on the other day because was so pretty it looked like a Dia De Los Muertos wedding cake, and I was spilling out of it, and bursting with totally false self-boob-confidence (which happens when you're wearing something designed for someone who hasn't gone through puberty yet) and so then I had to buy it, don't tell anyone.)

On Repeat

2010-06-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

You know when you were little and you made your mom play Man in the Mirror seven hundred times on the way to ballet practice because it was so good that you were fairly certain if you weren't singing along to it, and internalizing that you were gonna make a difference, gonna make a chaaaaaaaaaange, at all times your brain would explode? Like some sort of mild Autism, because somewhere in there you knew it wasn't good that all you could do was listen to that song on repeat, but you just COULDN'T STOP because it felt so good?

I did that with Man in the Mirror, and then later with Cherish when I was in the fourth grade and I liked Jamie Miller, my best friend's brother who was a mature fifth grader, because I believed if I could sing it passionately enough into my mirror, he would want me. Not that he could see me, or knew what I was doing - probably that would have had the opposite effect - but somehow the essence of my womanliness would transverse the invisible magnetic waves in the air and land into his general area, which would make him suddenly look up from his game of Sorry! and know that I wasn't just his little sister's freakishly tall 10 year old friend, I was also the love of his life.

Oh yeah. It worked. Maybe not because of my singing to myself, but you couldn't have convinced me of that then (or now), but for some other unknown reason Jamie Miller wanted to date me.

And we did.

For eleven whole days.

And they were magical.

Until he tried to hold my hand in the mall and I got so freaked out I made my dad come pick me up and I cried all the way home, thus essentially ending my friendship with his sister.

Anyway, my point is - I sometimes get stuck on songs to an OCD level, and I'm not sure why, except now thinking back on the Jamie Miller extravaganza I think it might be some weird unconscious chant to get something.

Which is why I'm seriously questioning my new constantly-on-repeat song choice.

It's Kid Cudi, Kanye West, Common and a little bit of Lady Gaga thrown in just for fun. I don't know what it means, but I do know after just looking up the lyrics Kanye might possibly be my new favorite lyricist.

"I Got Seniority, With The Sorority
So, That Explains Why I Love College
Getting Brain In The Library Cuz I Love Knowledge"

Oh, Kanye. . . I was wondering why you loved college.

"When You Used Your Medulla Oblongata
And Give Me Scoliosis Until I Comatose'st
And Do While I'm Sleep, Yeah A Lil Osmosis"

Comatose'st? The most comatose? From scoliosis? I'm no doctor, but that's some crazy science. I'm not sure if a crooked spine has ever put anyone in a coma.

"And That's My Commandment, You Ain't Gotta Ask Moses
More Champagne, More Toasts'st
More Damn Planes, More Coasts'st"

That's poetry my friends.

POETRY.

I can't help it. I love it so much! Try and just listen to it once. I dare you. It's too catchy. It's too appealing on a million levels.

It's the most'st.

Drinking Habits

2010-06-07T08:20:00.001-07:00

James drinks out of the toilet now. I'm not sure how or why he learned that, but it's suddenly his new favorite thing. He gets so deep up in there that it's pretty much just his haunches and tail sticking out of the bowl, because apparently when he drinks he likes to submerge up to his shoulders. So, now if I'm even slightly distracted, or if it's dark and I decide I need to pee, there's a one in three chance I'm going to sit on my cat, causing him to do some amazing gymnastic move, wherein he flips his body around, slow motion-y, without getting the rest of him in the water, and uses my butt as some sort of gripping device so that he doesn't end up on the wrong side of my Capri Sun, which hurts so bad I vaguely consider going outside for the rest of his life, or until they come up with some solution other than a toilet.

"Can't you just teach him not to drink out of the toilet?" a co-worker said after I told her the situation.

"Have you met my cat?"

"No."

"I can't teach him that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's so cute when he does it! He gets his little kitty paws all up in there and then laps the water - like I can actually hear him lapping."

"Dude. . . "

"You'd be way cuter if you lapped too."

"No, I'd be single."

"Whatever."

"And most likely childless."

"And?"

"Do you see what I'm getting at here?"

"I'm going to pretend very hard that I don't."

"Please don't do this to your mother."

"Ok, I have to get back to work."

"I'll write her a memo."

"You wouldn't."

"Oh, wouldn't I?"

"Fine! I'll teach him not to drink out of the bowl."

"Good."

"But I'm not stopping him from showering with me."

"Baby steps."

Eating Habits

2010-06-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm not a prude when it comes to food. I eat almost anything that falls on the ground, almost anywhere (including the bathroom a few times), as long as I blow on it, because somewhere along the line I became convinced that blowing on things was equivalent to an extreme sanitation process involving boiling away microbes and then burning up their ashen remnants so they don't regenerate and form an even stronger, mutant strain of microbe - but this time, pissed off. Like vampires. Because I also picked up the belief that microbes are like little monsters.

Anyway, I eat most things. Hair in my food at a restaurant? Fine. It was probably mine anyway. And even if it wasn't, what's the big deal? Is the hair going to give me AIDS? Probably not. Drop your apple on the sidewalk? Brush it off on your jeans and keep chomping. The health that comes from an apple a day is going to outdo any invisible sidewalk spit that's on there anyway.

Isn't it?

Or if I was eating some spaghetti in the bathroom and it fell onto the sink? Well, that only happened once and I don't usually eat in the bathroom, but when I lived alone I never shut my doors and would often get really distracted with long drawn out, totally imaginary conversations in my head with how Dexter could murder someone and get away with it in the best possible way that was also funny because he doesn't do enough comedy-killing. (Active imagination by myself? Yes. Healthy? Probably not.)

On top of that I, for some reason, got in the habit of darting quickly from room to room (as opposed to when I dart slowly) so if I was standing in my bedroom and needed to get some water I'd almost run there, and then if I was in the kitchen eating some pasta and decided I needed to pee, I'd sprint over, bowl in hand, and undo my pants with my free hand as I was running because heaven forbid I waste the three extra seconds it would take me to undo them once I actually got into the bathroom. (When I moved back in with my sister I actually had to actively remind myself to pull my underwear down after I was out of the hallway.) I'm not sure why I was always in such a hurry by myself, it wasn't like I was rushing to get out of the house or something, but for unexplained rational to myself, I had the urge to be very quick at all times. Like I was racing myself to make sure I didn't get slovenly. Staying home all day is fine, as long as you do it fast.

No good can come from me living alone.

Anyway, I ate that spaghetti that fell onto the sink, even though James had just walked his kitty litter paws all over that sucker, because it wasn't the first time I'd had kitty litter in my mouth.

That being said - today I caught someone eating a moldy bagel, and after I removed said bagel from his mouth and began to pick the mold off, before realizing it was too late, the mold was everywhere, and tried to find a window to throw it out (because the inside trash was too close), he ripped the bagel from my hands, said "Eh", and continued to EAT THE ENTIRE THING WITHOUT A CARE IN THE WORLD.

I'll let the wave of horror wash over you for a moment.

Yeah. Moldy bagel. All up in his stomach.

Boys are so gross.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go see if that popcorn I dropped behind the couch yesterday is still there. Like I'm gonna let that go to waste.

Not For Everyone

2010-06-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

So I haven't written in a while because I was busy dealing with getting my lady visitor for the first time in six months and apparently it took CONSTANT ATTENTION.

Did you know you actually have to tend to such things and not just ride around in the car with your brand new jeans on all footloose and fancy-free, just thrilled to still be a woman, just thrilled to be alive, not really caring that things hurt, and there's weird cramping, and for some reason your fingers have swollen into the size of little breakfast sausages; and then when you arrive at your destination, beaming as if you'd just had sex for the first time with Ricky Gervais (yes he is sexy I don't care what you say), flipping your hair over your shoulder like you're hoping people will notice how feminine you are today, because today you got something 99% of women absolutely hate getting, but they are fools, FOOLS, because now you know when Ricky Gervais actually does notice you, and you can trick him into bed with you there's a very, VERY good chance you can have his bastard child.

And if that doesn't make a girl happy I DON'T KNOW WHAT DOES.

But then you realize you haven't actually thought about taking care of the situation, because for six months you didn't have to take care of anything, and suddenly there's the horrible realization that you're standing in the middle of Target glowing in your new jeans, which are now like a bright, flashing beacon to your complete lack of preparedness for womanhood, because even though you don't want to look, you're fairly certain it's all over you and possibly on the sweater rack you had to lean up against when a very unfeminine woman pushed her way past you.

Sorry boys.

Anyway, it turned out fine, nothing awful happened, and it wasn't anywhere near that scene from Superbad - I have just spent the last week and a half trying to get over the fact that I announced to the checker at Target that I was getting these tampons because I'm not barren and did she want a hug?

For the record, she did not.

Also for the record, I will no longer be shopping at that Target.

Hopefully.

We Can Dance If We Want To

2010-05-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

Remember that one time Finn told me his pecs were getting to be about the size of my boobs, but like sort of hesitated halfway through his sentence because he realized the look that was forming on my face was one that is just before the one I give when I want to stab? He was in the middle of working out (shirtless, because that's how I like him) and he said, "This right here," grabs his chest. "It's getting close to . . . the size of. . . " he knows he's going to probably not get made out with after this but can't stop himself because that would be even more acknowledgement that he meant - Hey! I'm a boy but could wear a bigger bra size! And not in a man-boob way, but in a muscle-y sort of a way.

Ok, so it was a dream, but it felt real.

I'm not the only person in the world to wake up pissed at someone because of a dream that had absolutely no truth in reality. One of my ex-boyfriend's wouldn't talk to me for an entire day because I called him fat in his dream and then made out with Albert Einstein right in front of him. Didn't matter that Albert Einstein had been dead for about fifty years - it seemed real in the dream, thus, I must secretly want to make out with Albert Einstein instead of him. (I did, but how would he know that?!)

Anyway, since I was dream-pissed at Finn, it didn't really bother me that he only had one line in this week's Glee, and no songs. Serves him right for having gigantic, muscular chest muscles, that do a little dance to Wanna Be Starting Something when he's trying to show off. Plus it left room for two of the greatest things on TV.

1. Jane Lynch and Neil Patrick Harris discussing how they're going to have Anger Sex.

and

2. The little lesson that love can cure paralysis. (Well, duh.)

(ok, again, this turns out to just be a dream, but that doesn't mean it didn't feel real to Artie.)

Coffee Drinking

2010-05-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

I'm fairly familiar with the rules of the coffee pot and coffee drinking in general. You can put certain things in your coffee depending on how you like it - cream, milk, soy milk, Bailey's, that fake powder stuff that's not milk or cream, but is just a chemical concoction made to be cream-like that I loooooooove but is probably giving me cheek cancer or something - but that's about it. Thems the rules of coffee drinking.

However, James decided to say f*&k the rules. "I don't need rules, I'm a cat. You ever see me wash my hands after I go to the bathroom? No. Because I'm a cat who hates rules. I just do my business and then walk all over your pillow. You got a problem with that?"

"Well, a little bit."

"What? I couldn't hear you I was too busy licking the spot where one of my nipples shows through my fur."

"Yeah I sorta wish you would wipe your feet or something before you walked all over a place where I put my face."

"Maybe you should put your face somewhere else."

"I . . . what?"

"You heard me."

"Ok, whatever, it's coffee time."

"Oh good. Now, allow me to show you how cats spice up their coffee:"

And then he proceeded to dip his right paw into my coffee cup and hold it there for a good three seconds. Then calmly took it out and shook it off while I stared at him like a mother staring at her baby who just lit up a cigarette. But he wasn't done. He took his left paw, dipped it in, held it there for a good amount of time, took it out and shook it off while I stared at him even harder. Like a mother looking at her baby who just lit a fresh cigarette with the butt of her old one. (chain smoking baby would be the creepiest thing since they invented those dolls whose eyes open and close when you tilt them. like a demon.)

He just kinda sat there and stared at me after that, watching to see if I would drink his cat-paw coffee and I almost felt threatened. Like - if I don't take a sip of this, is he gonna beat me up?

So, I pretended to take a sip while he watched me, and then I promptly dumped it out and poured myself a new cup. Because I'm all for breaking rules when you need to, but not with coffee. Coffee is too good for change.

Dear Tuesday, Will You Marry Me? (*editor's note: this was written for last Tuesday, not this Tuesday. Stupid flash back episode.)

2010-05-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

And have a long happy life with me? No kids, we'll just be like one of those couples who says, "Our dogs are our kids." And we'll say things to each other like, "Have the kids eaten today?"

"I forgot to feed them."

"Honey!"

"I'm just joshin' you. Of course I didn't forget to feed our sons. I love them more than I love these fancy velcro shoes."

"You can get them on and off in a hurry!"

"Did you update our sons' facebook pages?"

"I did! They posted a photo journal of their bath time! Complete with a modesty bar!"

"A modesty bar! That's rich honey. Real rich."

"Mosey even photo shopped a shower cap on Goober's head."

"A shower cap?! STOP."

"We're so lucky to have each other Tuesday."

"We sure are honey. Us and the boys."

"We should take our Christmas photo with all of us in the tub! What do you say?"

"All of us? In the tub?!"

"Yeah!"

"Hot dog that's a good idea!"

"I'll get the modesty bars ready."

And then we'll get punched in the face by total strangers for being RIDICULOUS(ly in love), but seriously Tuesday? You're rocking my world.

Lost is back - check.

Glee steps it up and resumes kicking tv ass - check.

Lakers win - check.

And there you have it, the tv trifecta of PERFECT.

I know not everyone watches Glee or Lost, and you don't have to - Lost is almost over and I still have no f*cking clue - but Glee? Stop thinking it's gonna turn you into a Nancy boy and start watching! I guarantee you tell a girl you watched Glee last night and sang along to the library version of Can't Touch This, and you're gonna get so much geeky, innocent, you-wanna-put-it-where ass you won't even know what to do with it!!!

(Not sure why I'm directing this one at the fellas, but I am. And you're welcome.)

Not since Old School has Total Eclipse of the Heart been so good. I actually can't hear the song without singing it like the Dan Band does, which is still so funny to me, even after the four millionth time I've seen it (Turn around, bright eyes! F*ucking every now and then I fall apart!)(I'm crying from laughing as I type this)

But oh my gosh I love this! Oh, Finn, in your flannel you look so forlorn and heartbroken I just want to make you pie, and eat it while you sing to me. And new dude - I can't remember your name because I'm trying not to get attached to you because I know you're bad. You're from the rival school - but that last line at the end - yeah I want to make you pie too, and then make you spoon me.

Bonus. Because it rocks.

Mother's Day

2010-05-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

Sunday was my one day to sleep in and I was so excited about it I purposely stayed up way past my normal 10 o'clock bedtime just so I could sleep in extra long and make it feel TOTALLY awesome!

Ok, fine, I stayed up past my normal 9 o'clock bedtime. I get sleepy early! I'm thirty now! (My sister gets ready to go out to bars at like 9pm and she hasn't even left before I'm all sleepy on the couch, my head bobbing up and down, until my nose dips into my wine glass and I snort myself awake and shake it off, because I want to stay awake to see if the girl says yes to the dress, and James needs to be walked on his kitty leash before bed because otherwise he'll be standing on my butt at 2am meow-ing his head off so that I'll wake up and throw the ball with him (might be a dog), and I'll have to get up in the middle of the night and throw things for him to fetch until I pass out at the edge of my bed clutching my blanket over my head so I can't hear him yell at me anymore, at which point he takes to digging like no one has ever dug before in his litter box, as if he buried some sort of treasure in there and if he doesn't find it, his bookie is gonna be piiiiiiiiissed.)

Anyway, I was sleeping in. And what's the last thing you want to hear at six am on a Sunday when you had planned to sleep in until at least 10am?

Your phone ringing.

And your grandma's voice on the other end asking you to go to Marie Callendar's to get whip cream, and then the Mexican restaurant to get a bag of ice, and the donut shop for coffee filters.

Most people do their shopping at a grocery store but my family shops for their refrigerator goods at various restaurants.

I'm not really even sure why. I think she's sort of convinced things taste better if it's horribly embarrassing to get them. No one refuses an old lady her berries, it doesn't matter that they're a McDonalds, if she wants berries, the woman is getting berries. Also, she things things taste better if they come from a restaurant's kitchen, as if they have some super secret connection to the food world that grocery stores don't have.

"I'm not buying peanut butter from Vons. Anyone can just go to Vons and get peanut butter. I want the good peanut butter."

"You know that when Polly's Diner is giving you peanut butter it's just Skippy? It's actually the same as the ones in the store."

"No it's not."

"It's not?"

"Do you even have taste buds?"

Clearly - no. No I don't.

And really, how can you argue with that? How can you tell your grandma on mother's day that you won't go get her the good ice at the Mexican Restaurant?

You don't. You just wake your sister up and drag her along with you. And when you tell her where you're going and what the plan is, she just shrugs and says fine. Because it's mother's day. And you don't question it, because you want to make all the mother's in the world happy.

Shoot, you'll even stop at Olive Garden to buy some of their flowers on the way over. You know why? Because they're worth it.

Irrational Fears

2010-05-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

...that my mom refuses to acknowledge, which I believe she thinks will make it seem as if my fears are irrational and ridiculous, and because she's ignoring them, then I'll decide they're not that important and ignore them myself.

(This is 100% not the case. Instead, I typically think she's ignoring and/or blowing them off because she knows they're true, and cannot stand the thought of various things happening to her favorite daughter. It would crush her. Thus, she ignores and soldiers on. And while she remains brave, so very brave, I continue into an even further freak out.)

Irrational fear #1

The fear that my eye will pop out.

"Mom, I have this horrible sharp pain behind my right eye. It's really bad. It's not like a normal headache, it's like a sharp pointing pain." **demonstrates sharp pointy pain by poking finger by the side of the head** **sees reflection and notices demonstration looks more like a tentacle coming out of my brow than it does sharp eye pain** **switches to pointing at eye very curtly**

"Do you need Advil?"

"Yes please. What if my eye pops out? Or explodes in the socket or something?"

"I don't think that's going to happen."

"What if it does and that's why the pain is so sharp, and stationary?"

"The chances aren't very likely."

"It feels like - remember that movie with Meg Ryan's husband?"

"..."

"Dennis Quaid! And he gets shrunken down til he's super little and he floats around inside Martin Short, and to see he has to plug into Martin's eye." **resumes demonstration of sharp eye poke**

"I don't know that movie."

"Yes you do. I had nightmares for like four years. And Dennis Quaid needs to get inside his ex-girlfriend and in order to do that Martin Short has to make out with her, and Dennis is transferred through the saliva into her, and while he's floating around he makes it to the womb and sees she's pregnant (with his baby!) because there's this huge fetus floating around trying to catch his little space craft he uses to hover around inside people?!"

". . . "

"What the heck is that movie called?"

"I have definitely NEVER seen that movie."

Irrational fear #2

That when I accidentally point the remote control the wrong way and push the buttons, the signal is going to be sent straight at my brain/uterus where it will inevitably cause a brain tumor, or a mutant baby to be grown. Even if I'm not with child, I still think somehow magically there is a phantom baby in there, like an energy wave baby, and the remote control waves will somehow heat it to start growing, and it will form, and then I will birth it, and it will have wings, and talons, and a set of teeth to rival all teeth. Sharp and jagged, and snaggley.

"You are not going to have a microwave baby for God's sake."

"What about a brain tumor."

"We might already be too late for that."

Irrational Fear #3

Andie MacDowell getting overrun with ticks. In her hair.

"I thought you were afraid of ticks in your hair."

"I am, but she actually had one in her head once, and she didn't seem concerned, and so now I'm afraid she'll just go about getting ticks, and not caring, and then she'll be like a crazy tick-head lady and I will never allow myself to be in the same state as her! No! The same hemisphere!"

"That's gonna be hard to do."

"I know! HENCE, the fear!"

So Similar Yet So Different

2010-05-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

The other day I came home from work and the Math Teacher greeted me at the door with a moony gaze, and a smokey, "Hi there baby."

"Oh, hi honey," I said. "I'm so glad you got here before Becky. This way she'll never know about our love."

And then her eyes actually made that camera zooming in and zooming out sound while she refocused, and allowed her brain to process that even though she thought I was her girlfriend, I was in fact, not her girlfriend. Worse. I was her girlfriend's sister.

Dun dun dun.

Next on General Hospital, the Buchannan family realizes Crystal isn't only the dog - she's the dog with their dead grandpa's brain! She's - grandpa dog! And only she knows where the family fortune is buried. . . and who's been sleeping with it.

After about five solid seconds of both of us frozen into place, the Math Teacher burst out into gravely, slightly embarrassed laughter, and I checked myself to make sure I didn't look as gay as she thought I did, and then started laughing so hard at her laughing so hard she fell over the back of the couch and made a slow roll to the floor, where she continued laughing on the floor, curled up into a fetal position, and somehow I ended up cry-laughing, and sitting on top of the kitchen table. Like, we needed to share the moment, but we needed to do it on completely different surfaces, because if we had both been standing on the carpet, it would be dirty.

Also, Becky and I:

We're not twins!

(To each other!)

But for some reason even our lovers can't tell us apart. The other day I saw John Krasinski walk into Becky's room "accidentally" while she was "changing" and now she's pregnant.

Anyway, the Math Teacher was watching TV when I walked in so she claims she was distracted and the way the shadow from the tree fell on my chest it gave the illusion of cleavage when I walked up the walk so that's why she thought I was Becky.

It's an honest mistake.

But if she thinks this is going to make climb into bed with her while she sings Glee songs and I try to pull my ninety five pound, adult-sized poodle into bed with us only to have the dog freak out and stand above us dutifully shaking paw-to-hand for a half an hour so someone will please, please, please help her off the bed and back onto her pillow bed on the floor where she belongs, while the Math Teacher continues singing Like A Virgin in a voice that can only be described as Kathleen Turner swaddled in marzipan - she's got another thing coming!