The Accidental Bulimic

So last week, I went out of town, and Sunday morning I woke up with a sweet bout of chest pain. How many people die of a heart attack at 30? I found myself asking. I passed it off as indigestion, (which is probably why I will end up dying of a heart attack) and figured I would eat a little bit lighter that day.

Monday, said chest pain was still there. It was uncomfortable, and on my way to the airport, I felt a little barfy. I hate flying, so needless to say I always feel a bit barfy when entering an airport and being on a plane, gripping that pack of cigarettes telling myself every time a patch of turbulence hits that I will be damned if I don't at least smoke once on a plane if we die. Probably how I will end up getting arrested on a plane.

Tuesday, I had the day off, and I didn't really eat all day. I went to my mom's and eat a smorgasbord of chips and popcorn all within my lazy arm's reach. Considering that wast he first thing I had eaten that day, it felt weird how full I was. On the way into my house I started slowly throwing it up. This is the kind of vomit, for the sake of making me sound adorable when I puke, that I will call kitty pukes. It only comes up a few tablespoons at a time and I don't make that horrible retching sound. It's like...."Bleh! Oh pardon me!" as I wipe my face.

Wednesday and Thursday it continued. I felt so full every time food would touch my lips and the chest pain was just chillin' there. Well, I wasn't dead yet, so it must not be my heart attack time. Friday I woke up telling myself if I felt the same way, I would go to Instacare. I felt the same way. But I wanted to go shopppping!!!! On my way out to go shopping, rationale kicked in and I went to the stupid Doctor.

"What are we seeing you for today?" the nice lady at the counter asked. "Well, since last Sunday, my chest has been hurting and I have been vomiting up all my food" I said politely and smiling.

She didn't even bother taking any of my stuff. Instead she screamed to a nurse, "WE HAVE SOMEONE HERE WITH CHEST PAIN! GET HER IN THE BACK NOWW!!" I was petrified. Note to self: If I ever want to get into Instacare without waiting again, I will just say chest pain. And then ask them to check on my ear infection/cold/flu whatever secondly. All my blood pressures came out fine. They made me do an EKG and an X-Ray of my chest while I was in there. Well, had I known I was going to be splayed out topless on a sterile metal table with lights and stickers all over me that day, I may have done some crunches. I felt like I was in the middle of an alien abduction.

As I figured, that stuff all came out fine. The doctor came in and told me I was experiencing esophageal spasms. Beautiful. Just beautiful. My weird shoddy genes kick in again. She explained to me that I needed an endoscopy sooner than later so that they could stretch out my esophagus so that I may start enjoying life again. She told me to go on an all liquid diet. I shook my head yes and smiled.

I am not going on an all liquid diet. The only way you could get me to do that is if you broke my jaw.

My mom asked if bourbon or scotch counted. I want to thank her for thinking I am that classy when I drink.

So going on day 9 now, I am still doing kitty pukes every time I eat. It's been a wonderful experience, having a conversation with someone and my mouth fills up. I have to hold my finger up as in "hold please!" turn around and spit into a garbage can, toilet, or on the ground. The other day at work was a crowning achievement when I quietly tried to not call attention to myself by vomiting pure coffee into a napkin. It all came spraying out the sides.

On the upside, this whole time, I thought I was this withery going to die at any moment girl, because for the past few years, I have been having heart palpitations. At times they are stronger than others, and I have just accepting my doom as I have been to doctors, and they merely told me to do yoga, relax and not stress so much. After looking into esophageal spasms, turns out it was not the old ticker after all! It was my esophagus, spasming out, there to remind me how much it loves me. Also if I eat the right kind of food, ie cake or candy, at least it comes out tasting the same?

I am making a doctor's appointment tomorrow by the way, I just keep forgetting to bring the papers with me. But for now, you can just whisper quietly to your friends when we hang out and I have to run away for a second, "That's my friend Dominique, she's an accidental bulimic."

Smokelore

With more cigarette taxes coming into full effect next week and my ever lying mouth talking about how I plan on quitting all of the time, the extra money that I could be spending on beer may be the thing that will have me stop putting my nicotine where my mouth is.

I have had some weak success in the past of going a few months without smoking here and there, generally it is replaced by a sucker and running addiction, but paired together, those can't be all that bad right? Unless I trip and fall while running with the sucker in my mouth, that may not be too pretty.

I purchased an e-cigarette awhile back, convinced that it would be the perfect replacement partner for my life, but much to my disappointment, it compares to someone getting dumped and replacing their past partner with a blow-up doll.

For those of you not up to par with your vice technology, e-cigarettes are not some little avatar that you watch smoke online, they are little electronic cigarettes that you screw a nicotine cartridge into and inhale your precious, precious nicotine that way. The unfortunate downside of this method is that even though I am expelling a non-harmful to those of you who pride yourselves on your lung capacity when I expel my vapor into the air, I would never dare hang out at my desk at work and puff away on one. I fear the looks that that electronic red fake burning tip and vapor smoke would draw over to my very private desk corner. The less people that know I exist here, the better, trust me.

So you are forced out with the other smokers on break who then start eyeing you as though you are the Terminator coming in to warn them of real cigarette destruction. Then comes the slew of questions that follow about it, and before you know it you are an unintentional spokesmam for the e-cigarette, which let me tell you is much less cool looking than being the Marlboro Man. I am pretty sure I saw the real Marlboro Man in a cowboy hat and boots at the gas station yesterday purchasing a 24 pack of Bud and a carton of Marlboros. He drove away in his white pickup truck and I thought, “Damnit I want to hang out with him, I bet he won’t ever smoke e-cigarettes.”

See, way cooler than the E-cigarette Man, who is probably sporting a small track jacket faux-hawk and too tight jeans with Converse on who only wants to talk politics to me and about what shitty taste I have in music, all while smelling perfectly cologned without a trace of the nostalgic smell of burnt tobacco on him.

I think I will give that cursed e-thing another whirl though before I have to start paying exorbitant amounts of money on 20 measly cigarettes that I will more than likely finish in a day and a half, and on and on and more than likely finish the whole pack once I am a few shots of whiskey and beers down in just mere hours over the weekend.

Huffing and puffing on that contraption in my room I call an elliptical machine has been a silent shame that I've been harboring over the last month. I bet if I took my wheezing ass to the gym to show the public what I have become, I may humiliate myself into stopping right then and there. The more likely end to that scenario is the usual one though; me lighting up right outside the gym doors after a rousing and heart pounding workout. Nothing tastes better than a cigarette burning in your mouth after some calories have been burned in your body.

The things I can justify not missing from smoking are few and far between because come on, I am a junkie for it, and I have to rationalize as much as I can when I think about all the benefits I reap from this life consuming habit.

I think back to all the social aspects of it, the wonderful people I have been able to drunkenly interact with while sitting outside having a cigarette, and of course in my younger years all the dreamy boys that I have laid eyes upon all while sitting outside smoking.

Well, I am hitched now, so there is no need for the "maybe if I light up outside that hot coffee cart dude will come out" hopeful moments, and I am not 17 so I don't have the vigor and energy that my once supple lungs supported, and I suppose I could stand outside the bar drunkenly meeting new friends while irritatingly explaining to them what my e-cigarette is and then drunkenly asking them for one of their cigarettes because I want a real one and don't want to spend the $7 on a pack, therefore bankrupting a nation of drunk smoking people over the next 15 years.

Or I could just keep talking about how I am going to finally quit and probably never do it, as per always, I mean why not? Talking about stuff is fun.

Let's Talk About Sex (& The City)

I know that I am probably going to catch about ten piles of hell for this, but I can no longer be consumed with this secret that I have been harboring for ten long years inside of me: I hate Sex & The City.

I know there are a lot of women out there and maybe even a man or two that are diehard fans, but I do not fall into that demographic. Many times I have sat quietly as I do when listening to men talk about sports, while female friends and acquaintances discussed episodes and their passion for it. I never said anything because one: I was outnumbered and didn't want to risk the sharp point of a stiletto meeting my eye when bringing up my feelings on this subject matter, and two: if they were my friends and they liked this show so much, I still wanted to keep them as my friends and I was too frightened of losing them over not enjoying all of the same things.

I am still scared of strangers, and I am pretty sure that my friends still like me the way I am, even if I can't sit down for an hour in front of Carrie typing away at her computer trite stories of falling in love with the least attractive people in New York City while wearing questionable outfits that probably would cost 6 months of my paychecks.

Admittedly when I would work a lot of overtime at home, while flipping through channels I would catch and episode here and there, but it was more background noise than anything. I found myself detesting the ever so breathlessly speaking Samantha (get an inhaler already) talk about all the younger dudes she was banging and was just happy to be that way. She should have just called it quits after Mannequin and Big Trouble In Little China, because that is the way that I wish to remember her.

Okay, and I draw a blank on the rest of their names. I promise. And I am too lazy to look them up. I think the uptight prudy one is Charlotte, and all she cares about is being a Stepford wife, and her friends find that very endearing, while I find it very appalling.

The red-headed one with the freakishly tiny head that perches atop a freakishly long neck disturbs me in all her cold rationale and unwillingness to forgive. I would imagine that would be one of those marriages that you get suckered into because you knocked her up and now you are stuck sucking on ice for the rest of your life. Which is what happened in the show.

And then there is our beloved SJP, who smokes cigarettes in her apartment longing for a man named Big, who is this hoity toity rich executive type but they can never quite seem to get it together to work. Did I mention all the dudes on this show are ugly? If we are going this far with the self-indulgent materialistic attitude of glamming up New York City, at least give me something to fantasize after.

Well. I did something bad, and I rented the movie from Netflix. Because I wanted to see what all the hype was about. I wanted to see if maybe my brushes with the T.V. show were just not enough, and that perhaps I would get some sort of better understanding out of this if I got it in a condensed version. Condensed was gratuitous 2 hours and 24 minutes by the way. The only time I want a movie that long and potentially crappy is if stuff is going to be blowing up A LOT. (See 2012)

Unfortunately within the first 20 minutes in of watching the movie, I came to the realization that nothing was going to blow up, but I was on my elliptical, and I still had another 30 minutes to kill. The movie starts out by catching you up on what all the ladies are doing now, which is pretty much nothing different except for being married, two have kids, and Samantha is still a whore but a Hollywood one now, because she probably wiped out a population in New York by infesting most of the males with STDs, and Carrie is now marrying Big, the man of her dreams.

There is a lot of extravagance going on, fancy parties, looking through old clothes as Carrie rushes to move out of her apartment and into the walk in closet as big as my house that Big has built for her, complete with a "girl power" music session that is as banal and predictable as any chick flick could offer. After 30 minutes, I came to the conclusion that I had never, ever, once in my life apologized to myself or anyone around me for a movie that I had rented from Netflix. That had just changed, and the amount shame I was feeling started to wash over me in great waves. Is there a way to erase the record of a movie being rented from Netflix?

These women were supposed to be 40+ years old, but the soundtrack to the movie was built for a 14 year-old girl. They characters were so materialistic and shallow, fraught with one-liners so cheesy and terrible that it made them completely unrelateable on any level. One scene depicts them all at lunch together with Charlotte's adopted three year-old daughter where they attempt to discuss sex, but need to use a different term so as not to scar the kid. They decide to ask each other how often they color with their significant others.

Carrie responds, "All I can say is when Big colors, he does it outside the lines." Followed by a series of high pitched ooooooohhhhhs! (must be the female equivalent of a high five in this movie)

And Samantha, dead set to get this ring at an auction with her money that she has earned in Hollywood, stops bidding at $40k. For a ring. That was her limit. I am supposed to be like "You go girl!!" To something like that? Don't worry, she gets home and is on the phone with her friend when her boy toy shows up, something large protruding from the crotch of his tight bathing suit when she breathlessly gasps into the phone, "I have to go....SOMETHING just came up!" Good one. He then pulls the ring out, which he paid 60k for because he wanted to get it for her. Before being happy and accepting one 1/3rd of what my house cost, she wants to make sure it is just a ring and not an engagement ring before she can show any sort of excitement for receiving it.

Once all of New York gets word of Carrie getting married, they are on it like flies and poo. They put her on Vogue magazine where she tries on dresses, and it leads to a 15 minute scene which could have been all together cut of her just namedropping off designer names that she loves. If I want to know who all the designers in this world are, I don't need a movie for that, please just keep giving me what little plot there is, I will go Wikipedia it somewhere.

She gets the dress of her dreams, she gets the wedding of her dreams, apparently price does not matter in this film, everyone is just dripping with money, I am sure at some point there is a scene where Samantha wipes her ass with $100 bills.

Now I am adding the spoiler alert, and I probably shouldn't even forewarn because the point of all of this is to deter you from watching the movie, but when Carrie gets to the place to get married, with an overly large peacock feather sticking out of her head that just looks uncomfortable and awkward, (I could be wrong it may have been an full peacock,) she is wondering where Big is. Well, Big has been trying to call her, but Charlotte's three year-old has placed Carrie's cell phone in her purse! And in a world where there are only two cell phones they have to make a third cell-phone so Carrie can call Big to find out where he was!

He tried calling her 20 times he said. She doesn't know where her phone is she says. He says he doesn't thing he can go through with this, and SLOOOOOW MOTION, you see the cell-phone drop to the floor as Carrie clutches her heart. Is she having a heart attack? She can't breathe! Oh wait, they ask if she is okay and she says, "He's...not....coming." as the girls start to surround her she screams "GET ME OUT OF HEEEERE!!!!!!" like she just found out she was standing barefoot on a pile of hot lava.

They drive away and Big in his car says, "What the hell am I doing? Turn around DRIVER" Driver says he "I can't, it's a one way street!" Big yells, "If we go around the whole block she will be gone by then!!!" Once again, where are all the cell phones in the world; are they being held up somewhere?

He turns the car around when who does he run into but Carrie's limo! He gets out apologizing, he tells her he is sorry, and that he wants to go through with it, but that is not enough! She walks up to him and starts beating him over the head with flowers.....in front of a crowd. He says "Wait!!" trying to explain his little brain fart, but in Sex & The City land they are too self-absorbed for a moment of rationale, and Charlotte, screaming at him with a red rimmed cold look of anger in her eyes, they type of look you would give someone had you just found out they murdered your beloved simply screams, "DON'T!!!" as Carrie melts into her friends who bring her back to the limo.

Seriously? A little dramatic right?

At this point Carrie is drunk and Samantha still wants to party so they decide to take Carrie's honeymoon to Mexico. Where I left off.

I make it a point to finish all bad books and movies that I start, even the crappy ones by Gus Van Sant, but I am not sure if I am going to be able to trudge through the next 1.5 hours of slop that I have left that is in this movie. I am not a hardcore feminist by the way, but this has reduced women to shopping, whoring freaks who can only find solace in thinking that the only thing worth living for in life is love, but being so broken inside that they cannot figure out why they are incapable of meeting and keeping men.

When I see movies like this based in New York it makes me never ever want to live there, and it makes me pray that these are indeed fictional characters and that nobody ever tries to model themselves after them. I understand that some people are into the show for the good fun times, but the fun I was watching in this seems to fall a little flat for me, barren of much creativity when coming to the silly quirks and trials and tribulations that these people are supposed to be going through.

Did I mention there is a sequel coming out?

Ugh.

Latte Dawdy Who Likes to Coffee

Coffee has been a staple in my life since the age of 15. For those of you that remember angst ridden youth in 1995 and watched a lot of Singles and Reality Bites, you knew that if you were at a coffee shop, you were in the place where all the stuff happened. What stuff you ask? I don't know. Underage cigarette smoking indoors (for those of you that remember that too) acoustic guy with dreads on guitar, poetry guy that would be sitting in the corner rabidly scrawling down his feelings because we didn't have laptops yet, ready to get up and share those deep and intricate thoughts with all twenty people that were in there, and pointless fast hyper caffeinated conversational hours to waste away with friends.

I remember back then (in ye olde days) that in order to go to a coffee shop for me, it required sneaking out of the house. It wasn't approved of at all, so I always felt like I was doing something ultra cool when I made it out. I was hanging out with the older crowd, full of wit and conversation that I didn't quite have a grasp on, but so badly wanted to be a part of. When you are a kid, people that are a mere three years older than yourself seem to know a lot more about what's going on than you would ever imagine comprehending. But this was right on the cusp of adulthood, before jaded and jagged had set their little talons into your brain. Coffee just exacerbated that energy that was already flowing through my active and passionate about life and wonderment little soul that was still kicking around inside of me.

I never thought of caffeine as a necessity, maybe it was like Cocaine for wussies in those days, (for the record I have never tried cocaine) making it so that you could amplify those hormones.

Later in life, as the necessity to get up early and have a job, pay bills, learn to exist on no sleep, and getting old kicked in, it has become something that I cannot live without because it is what keeps me level. I don't go to coffee shops to hang out now. I go because I want to get in line, get that latte, and get the hell out as fast as possible. Gone are the days of the acoustic dude and the poetry writing guy, and here are the days of the people smoking their cigarette and stubbing it out before they get in the door, opening a laptop and placing it on a table in the Starbucks so that they can get some work done.

Over the years, I have become impervious to most things energy enhancing. I used to drink Red Bull because I liked the taste. It had no other job but to continue being delicious and I would consume it. Rock Stars were just a bigger version of that for me. I pick up Zing Tea Energy drinks every once in awhile and will sit on the couch watching a movie at 11:00 at night sipping away on one, and then heading to bed at 1:00 and slumbering away. I am at the fatigued point in my life that the only thing that coffees, teas, and energy drinks do for me is keep me that one step away from not falling into a coma. I just feel there, not more alert, not more tired. Just there.

I remember when Five Hour Energy Drink first came out, it was touted by many of my reputable friends (shady friends you know who you are) that it was the best thing ever. No caffeine shakes and just a natural sense of alertness. I went into the gas station and picked up my vial of potential savior and brought it home, cradling my little guy in my hand. At first I proceeded haltingly, taking down only half the bottle in case I couldn't handle the high charged happy rush that was bound to warm my body. I waited 20 minutes. Nothing. I downed the rest of the bottle thinking that maybe I just had to do it all in order to get the full effect. I went and sat on the couch. And proceeded to take a 2 hour nap.

So for the most part I gave up on the calorie laden energy drinks, and the calorie-less shots of hope and promise and stuck with my dear friend coffee and tea. Over the years I have gotten pickier with what I put in my body though, because when you are bound to a beverage for life, it is time to start researching everything you can about it in order to make sure you are getting the full benefit of your vice. I used to drink Folgers every day, but I bet if I had a cup now I would start crying while my unsatisfied taste buds rejected it. . I can only stomach breakfast blend coffee in any brand plain ol' black at this point, or a latte is my staple drink. I love Christmas time because I get the delicious egg nog/gingerbread concoction sugar in a cup mix.

Teas used to come in $3 a box green form, but now that I have discovered the wonderment of loose leaf all flavors under the rainbow stuff that in your bag and steep it type, I cannot get enough. I scour the tea shops and internets constantly looking for the next best rose or lavender or violet flavored teas. I have an affinity for consuming all sorts of plant life now.

I recall two weeks ago (I know it is amazing I can even think back that far anymore) going a week with only one cup of coffee and one cup of tea, and the narcolepsy that followed along with the pounding headachy feeling and weakly saying "Dim the lights!" every time I came near a fluorescent bulb, and began to wonder if this was an acceptable addiction that I was harboring.

I have come to the conclusion that as long as I still refuse to say things like "Caramelito Frappalatte Skinny Frozen Chickychita Blended With Cream on the Side and a dash of lemonita scabies Soy Milk Cicle" large please,” I am in the clear.

How About Some Blissful Ignorance?

For the most part, I think it is perfectly acceptable to melt my brain on the extraordinarily shallow aspects of learning about the puddle part of culture when it comes to what is going on in the world.

I like to pick up a People Magazine on Sunday and see for the millionth time that Brad and Angelina are herding their quiver of children around France and buying them ice-cream, and realize that this is what is considered "big news" in the land of the luxuriously beautiful and hot tub full of money humans.

I enjoy flipping through the glossy pages of an US Weekly and see that section that is excitedly titled “STARS! They are just like us!!” And then being regaled with photos of them doing things captioned: They clip their nails! They wear flip-flops! They have eyes, ears, mouths and noses!

Look, I use a good 40 hours of brain on my job every week. I use another 40+ hours of brain cells on school a week. I use, if I am lucky, a good 35 hours on sleep, and then we will put the rest in for my weak bladder on peeing, which is probably another 35, dog watching, cooking, running errands, getting gas, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. By the way: drinking beer is the best part.

So when I have time to sit down and sigh, and crack open something that has pages of words nestled within it, I can't have it be too serious, because what happens is I get angry, and then I start ranting, and then I want to expend all that anger energy that was supposed to be relaxation time punching a hole in the wall. And then I would probably have to fix that wall, and suddenly there goes all my couch time. So if you have ever wondered why I am a bevy of worthless information, ie what is Kate Gosselin up to, (Dancing With the Stars) this is why.

I am not the most politically savvy person out there, and it is for good reason. I keep myself subconsciously aware of what is going on, but in the same token, I know a few things about myself. Very few, but one of them is that there is honestly not much that makes me ashamed of people or disappointed at people to such a degree that I want to punch holes in walls. But there is one thing that gets me every time without fail, and that is hateful ignorance. Yes, I am biased against ignorant people that promote hate.

So it is not necessarily the politics thing that gets to me, it is the hoi polloi that bow at their feet. I know not everyone out there is a gun totin', money hoarding, camo but not in the Military wearin', Bible thumpin' hick, but Palin has been the one that gets me every time. She is like that annoying person we have all had in our lives who gets some sort of sick joy out of trying to bait you and bait you, and you know you shouldn't take it, but you do every time and end up nothing but pissed while they walk away unaffected.

If I see an article with her dim-witted face on it, I am drawn to read it whether I want to or not. It's like "Oh hey I thought I quit you, but you came back didn't you. Let’s just catch up and see how things have been going, I am sure I can check in and be able to walk away mentally unscathed." Instead it is like hearing about a kitten being drowned. I think she just takes me out of a comfortable spot that I enjoy being in, and that place is called reason. I can't quite put my finger on why she is still around. Why people keep writing about her, and why she gets any sort publicity that is outside of a joke. When one of her favorite things to say is, "You betcha!" and when she has to write on her hand to remember to say profound things, and when she is riddled full of ridiculously ignorant and violent solutions to making 'Merica a better place (Let's just whack the Iranians before they get the bomb, what are you a female Tony Soprano?) I can't help but think how she managed to get a hoard of followers to begin with. It almost makes me want to start a cult if it is that easy.

Many people will use the argument that by saying things like, "How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?" makes her relatable. She talks to us in a voice that we understand, i.e. school teacher trying to talk to four year olds. She is just a small town bumpkin and is like you and me. The thing is, when people use the term, "He's the kind of person I could sit down and have a beer with," I would prefer that they not be referring to people that are in charge of this damn country. I don't want to sit down and have a beer with my boss at work, I want to do shots and drink beer with my friends.

Is it wrong that I want the people running the show to be more intelligent than myself? That they are able to put endings on their punctuation when speaking to masses of people? To be people to be able pronounce the word "nuclear?" I don't think so. I don't want a frat boy operating on me if my appendix bursts, so why in the hell would I want someone who is consistently trying to cater to the lowest common denominator in 'Merica running this country or having some sort of political impact on the lower rungs?

I am not just talking right-wing vs. left-wing here, (well unless I am talking about Palin who has a bad case of verbal poo and will let any ol' thing spew out of that word hole she calls a mouth without thinking) I am just talking about people getting trapped into a tunnelistic realm of thinking without researching looking at all of the facts before nodding and agreeing. Not everything can be based on faith people. Regardless of whether your opinion differs from mine or not, recklessly giving information out such as global warming isn’t real, look at all the snow outside!” is not a responsible method of delivering information to people that would consider you a credible source of where they are going to base their beliefs from.

I mean call me weird, but I don't think there is anything wrong with having a classy, well-spoken, eloquent and highly educated person who seems to be a lot better than me in charge of things. My parents weren't my buddies growing up; they were people that taught me morals and the foundation of living a life in a selfless manner to ensure that everyone gets a piece of happiness. They weren't there to party; they were there to make sure I looked up to them and respected them, and whether or not I was pissed at them for doing a thing or two I didn’t agree with, in hindsight I can see why. It was necessary for change to occur and it was imperative to ensure that I would have something to grasp onto when caught in sticky situations as an adult.

And I think it should be the same for people that have the power to influence piles of others into doing what they want. To me, hearing some of the ignorant comments and selfish attitudes that have come out in light of change all in coming to an agreement with a person who is not a human being that deeply and truly cares about others or making effective change is a slap in the face. All I see right now is just a negligent person who is drunk on power. On tequila even, and they just want to share the worm with us when they are done with the bottle.

Now pardon me, I have a couple episodes of The Bad Girls Club to catch up on, some crunk to listen to, some whiskey to drink, and a couple of puppies to romp on the ground with.

My Fearbook. Experimentation With Social Network Altercations

It's not really that often I sign up for contests, raffles, competitions, what have you. I have a mad streak of not ever winning anything, but every once in awhile I do it, and it's fun for a minute. So I signed up for this thingie to win money for a new kitchen if you whore yourself out the most and get the most votes and blah blah blah. I really want a new kitchen. Mine really is caveish...if that is a word, and it would be nice. Well somehow the MOST POPULAR people in the world have far superseded me thus far, and when checking how, (you can see where all their views are coming from) I saw something that was referred to as "Myyearbook.com" that a high scoring person and received tens of thousands of views from.

I figured I would sign up for said account and be swimming in views and votes in no time. Once I logged onto the site the first thing that I noticed was that it was like an aborted version of Myspace. It was like drunkenly walking through 40 casinos all that the same time. My eyes started to hurt as I struggled to come up with a user name and password. There were sparkles and colors, and battles and hot or nots and games and stickers and gifts and ways to "own" people's photos.

So I signed up and almost immediately I had a flurry of stranger friend requests. Drunk on the amount of votes I could get, I blindly started to approve everyone. I decided to stick with photos of me from when I was blonde so that God forbid should some of these people see me in real life, they would never know it was me. I will tell you why in a minute.

Apparently the history behind this site is that a young dude was flipping through his yearbook and he Eureka'd the idea to do basically a virtual yearbook type thing. Because God, we all miss high school right? I know I miss being teased, feeling awkward and having about 50,000 raging hormones surging through my flat chested body.

Well, this is like a virtual yearbook that yes, people can sign. And be your friend on etc. etc. Except in this case, t his would be like when you got your yearbook out at the end of school and ALL your friend's pervy uncles got to show up along with some 19 year olds that were never raised to talk to girls with the swanlike grace of a Romeo.

So. Sign in. Flurry of friend requests. I blindly accept them all in hopes to get more hits on my other account for the kitchen. Pattern erupts. All my new friends are mainly 50+ year old men with their shirts off in the photos next to their trucks. Now, I know I am 30, but is it so wrong that the only thing I could think was pedophile when I saw half of them? As soon as the friend requests were accepted, flurry of emails from said men! Flurry of "flirts",yes glittery sparkly saccharine comments you can post on someone's page. Oh it was getting a bit weird in here. I didn't respond to any of the emails, and I made some half assed attempts to be all "Heeeey vote for meeeee" on my wall, but after a week, I just was beyond wiggened out, and canceled the account.

I mean, I was in 3rd place with my contest. This was going to be cake! Then I got dumped down to 8th place. Then I grudgingly shuffled back over to myyearbook to create a new account again. Then the forum where "To Catch A Predator" probably catches most of its dudes happened to me at a mindblowingly higher scale this time I must be one of those commodities that you have to see twice before I am worth the time. But, like I said earlier, you can "buy" people's photos with your "lunch" money. Okay now picture a 50+ plus year old man without his shirt on getting into a bidding war with virtual lunch money over one of your photos. Suddenly Silence of the Lambs is all I can think of. Someone posted immediately on the photo "MINE" then they posted again, "MINE." then they posted one last time as they gave up their whooping $500,000 virtual dollars to win my profile picture, and the last comment boldly stated "MY PICTURE!"

I don't know how I feel about this. When someone is giving up their hard earned virtual bucks for a picture of me, I loathe to think of what they are doing to that photo. This site is dedicated to the degenerates, perverts, old men, slutty girls and emo kids that want to bitch 15 times a day that they are "done dating party girls" so that they can get a few other girls to send them sympathy boob shots.

Oh and I got a mini stalker out of this whole deal too. He is good at spelling too, and immediately won me over with the “I wont to get 2 know u better.” Again, I don't reply to any messages I get in there. But he thinks we are dating. I stated I was sick one day. He said "I'm sorry you're sick babe is there anything I can do for you?" A picture with hamburgers was met with how he likes "handbuggers" Then I got another message from him a few days later saying he would like to get to know me better once again. Aiesha, I want to get to know you better I am not, so I did not respond again. The last message I received was the catalyst to cancel this account once and for all before I end up having my name lit ablaze in my front yard. Sorry Ron, this one did not cut it:

"how was your day beautiful,how was school to day starting all of your new classes i wont to wish u good luck,i was hoping to hear from u i realy like to get to know u more thanks Ron"

Okay maybe it is all innocuous on his part, but dude, really, I haven't replied take a hint. Well it's much better than the message I received for an 18 year old kid who looks like he enjoys shooting up public places in his spare time, lovingly written in prose form by Stan:

shit..i would definatley tap you HARD

Whoah Stan. Back that tap up.

See the thing about yearbooks is that if someone I didn't like signed mine, none of them would say things like this, nor would they have the option of coming back and saying it again and again if I didn't have a funnnn summer and call them over it.

Lots of dudes calling me pet names that are reserved only for relationships like sweetie, beautiful, precious, honey....the filters are off and I am creeped on. I look at my friends list that I have built up in two weeks time of all 163 gentlemen, and I use that term loosely, and I realize that not one person on there is a female. It must be my charm, yes my charm that makes the fellow females scared to add me. The ones that I see posting pictures of them in a belly shirt that boasts a mountain of cleavage, with the caption that simply states, "I thought I lost this shirt, I am glad I found it!"

They are so glad that they had to show the rest of the internet and so that a hoard of men taking a cell phone picture of themselves in front of the bathroom mirror with their shirt off can proclaim "Glad u found it to baby!" “U look hawt in that shirt!”

I am actually very curious as to how many actual innocent kids get propositioned on this site as I gaze upon a photo of a man wearing a Budweiser shirt, baseball cap, Budweiser in one hand, gun in the other, with his caption stationg "I love beer!" and how heavily policed it is, as the privacy blockers on myyearbook seem pretty loose.

Maybe I have just become a social networking elitist, as I lean back on my office throne and cast judgment down upon the man who gave me his phone number in the first message he sent me, or the man who spelled you're "your" when he was attempting to say you are, or maybe I am just tired of being sent battle requests to battle it out with the person who wants to see who has the cutest pet, funniest pic, and nicest smile.

Most likely, I will never stop being baffled about how people actually come off on the Internet. The Internet. It is supposed to make you more attractive, more eloquently spoken, extra hilarious and a little cooler than you are in real life. When I see people that can't even pull off that feat, when the best photo that they have is one where they are holding their gun and they don't have the time to actually spell check things before posting them, let alone put together a legible sentence, what else can that tell me about that person? Because damn, I am much cooler online than I am in real life.

The Time of the Season For Laundry

Terrence was singing that it was the time of the season for laundry, and he was correct, it definitely was. Since we bought our house in September, we have not had a washer and dryer hooked up here, and it has been an epic pain in the ass. You know when your dog pees on something, you wash up a really disgusting spill, or your want your sheets to be fresh? Normally you would run it down to the washer and dryer and poof, everything was clean again. Not for me as of late. That favorite pair of jeans would have to be worn at a later date. A date with the laundromat, and the other piles of awful would be tossed aside in a corner to fester and be ignored by me.

The first few times I went to the laundromat, I was on a straight up mission. Get in, get food, get back, dry, go home to do schoolwork, get back, fold, get out. Last night, after getting home from work and being preternaturally happy on only five hours of sleep the night prior, I was ready to get this washing party started rather than collapsing on the bed to take a nap first. We got to our regular haunt, and I started to stuff clothing into the washing machine that was ready to eat my $3 in quarters. The walls of this laundromat are epically amazing. It is a desert backdrop that has been painted by an artist, with many rock formations looming in the background. In the beautifully clear blue sky, there are two washers with wings flying across in a happy daze, eager to make it to their location.

This time I am looking around at everyone that is there, and I note that there is a homeless man washing all of his belongings. That saddens me a bit, the fact that the moment his socks come out of the dryer, he will be sitting down to put them on under some dirty work boots, not take them home to rest them in his drawer, or curse one when he can't find its partner. A confused looking lady comes up to me and asks how much it is to run the washers. I must look like a veteran now, and I am as I tell her the price. I observe the other patrons and get to wondering as to why each and every one of them doesn't have a washer and a dryer. I know why I don't. I bought an old house that needs about $700 worth of electrical work done on it so that it won't blow a fuse every time I turn on a hairdryer while someone is watching television. I also need outlets put in to house an electrical dryer.

I leave for Bajio to get a very filling dinner, and come back to get my clothing out of the washer and put them into the dryer. I am bored now, my iTouch is on lockdown from all the wifi that is requiring passwords, and I have tapped the Hangman well dry. One can only feel so smart by guessing the word "lime" so many times. I walk over to Alchemy coffee and get a latte. I ask for soy milk, and he foams it heavy at the top. Generally I am not a huge soy fan, but for some reason it makes that latte pop. I sit on one of the velvet couches that they have in there and sip my coffee, just enjoying the atmosphere. Generally coffee shops are offputting to me, so many young kids trying to write poetry where people can see them, or milling around talking about how hard life is at the ripe age of 18. This place is full of adults and crazy women talking about Persian conspiracies. After I few more sips and a need for a cigarette. I leave. Smoke. Walk to the laundromat.

As I go to my dryer, a shaky old man who has no teeth and tufts of gray hair is removing clothing from his dryer. He says, "These machines sure don't dry very well do they?" I use that voice. The one I hate. It always reserved for old people and children, paired with the high pitched nice tone I learned to use at phone jobs. It isn't intentional, I can't stop myself sometimes. I lean in and say "Oh did you put the heat on high?" He looks at me, that look of "I am old therefore not retarded" and says nicely, "Yes, I did, the machines...they don't dry that well." I said "Hm that's weird, as I pulled out my hot dry clothing. He told me to enjoy doing the rest of my laundry.

For some reason, I started to pull out my items to fold, and I realized I was standing right in front of a huge window in front of a shop.I can assure you, nothing sets off "my underwear isn't good enough" alarms like standing in front of a laundromat window and having to fold each and every pair in front of it. And there were so many pairs! It felt weird, soul baring, having to carefully extract each article of clothing from a basket in front of a room of strangers and carefully fold it into neat little piles. The old guy passed me again. He started to speak to a large woman. She was talking to him about his cancer. And how he looked great considering he had throat cancer. And that he still had his baby face and sparkling blue eyes. I looked out of the corner of my eye, and I saw him in a different light. I could see that the things she was telling him were true. It made me happy to hear him say that he didn't make it 70 years on this world for nothing, and that he was happy to have beat cancer.

I think last night, I found my new favorite people watching spot.

Vote Up!

Help me get a new kitchen by voting for me! I have been harassing my assing off here to get everyone to hook it up, it is so easy, you can vote every day, and if I win I promise to make you cookies of your choice. I am in dire need of an awesome new kitchen.

Food For Awesome Thought

I grew up with four brothers and a set of parents that were busily working full-time to help support us in the future. Needless to say, we were basically left to our own devices to concoct any sort of mad scientist meal from the ingredients that we had kicking around in the kitchen. While I mastered the many culinary skills of cracking an egg inside a bowl of ramen to cook, pouring cereal for lunch, or placing impeccably cut hotdog rounds and placing them lovingly atop a bed of macaroni and cheese to serve up to my hungry siblings, I never quite learned how to actually cook real food, and it haunted me well into my adult life.
My friends found it humorous that late into my 20s that I was eating like a 15 year old boy with no adult supervision, so I made a concentrated effort to learn to cook real foods. It started out haltingly. At first I would thumb through home magazines picking out quaint looking recipes that I could dream of gracing my kitchen table with. Many kitchens ended up filled with smoke, and many chickens sat sadly on the baking pan covered in ham and only cooked halfway through while I rushed out to get some Chinese takeout. But one day after many efforts it just clicked, and meals started coming together for me. Having been in such a large family, and it only being my husband and myself now, out of sheer instinct, I was soon cooking up curries, stews, taco bakes, and strudels for a slew of imaginary people that were not going to get fed.
As we trudged our way through the massive amount of leftovers, I realized that we should not just be enjoying all of this wonderful food for ourselves that I have been cooking. So I would invite a few friends over at a time for dinner. We would have wonderful conversation, they would pitch in on meals, and even the confident ones would dig in and help out with the cooking. Cooking for me now has become so much more than just placing a meal on the table and mindlessly chewing it down because of the mere fact that I am hungry. It has become a bonding experience, time for good conversation, and a way to be able to interact with people in a way that is so much different than just talking about work.
When you are cutting up vegetables and throwing them into a steamer, or when you are trying to learn how to cook a turkey for the first time, things get expressed and shared on a whole different level of interaction as opposed to say, just sitting down to a bag of fast food and tuning out to watch television. I live for being able to see the joy, or even sometimes false joy at times I’m sure, on people’s faces as they take that first bite of something I have prepared and knowing that we all took some part in creating that moment.
I get a sense of solace and calm whenever I bake some sweets for people that I know will appreciate them. There is also a feeling of accomplishment that comes from being able to whip something up from scratch and then see the look of surprise on my husband’s face when I bring some cookies into a room for him. I know most people would think that it’s just cooking, it can’t be that big of a deal, but I have been able to make it into so much more. In these busy times of being in school, working, and not being able to interact with my friends and loved ones as much as I would like to, we have made food into something that we can all fit into our hectic lifestyles, because hey, everyone could always use a nice home cooked meal, and it isn’t a guilty pleasure that you have to rationalize.

Food For Awesome Thought

Share Your Dinnertime Moments Sponsored by Barilla

Smarmy

I know this is totally pretentious and assholey of me, so much that I just made up the word assholey, but I have been privy to some terrible blogs lately. It's not that I think I am this profound beacon of wisdom that spouts out wonderful things from the mountaintops. God knows the last time I was even in the mountains, hiking would actually be good for me, and the only thing I do that is good for me anymore is think about working out.

But these blogs. Oh my blog. I have noticed a pattern that follows along with them. It is a young girl that is blatantly beautiful, and she is spewing on and on about how terrible and complicated how life is, how her body isn't doing what she wants it to do any longer and how everything would just work itself out perfectly if she could just find that perfect combination of mustache and flannel to love her the way she needs to be loved.

Women can be idiots. Being one, I can testify to this without being called a misogynist. They get these ideas in their head that life is supposed to be a carbon copy of a romantic comedy, and this fellow that is slightly clumsy but attractive is supposed to chase after them like some sort of hungry puppy dog slobbering over their every move that they make. It such a contrived notion, that I would think if these women were indeed the intelligent and beautiful beings that they fancied themselves, they wouldn't be in this blogging pickle of sorrow and sadness, spouting terrible poetry, pining after something that they can never have. Have you ever seen the most BEAUTIFUL woman in the world and asked yourself, "Gee why is she single?" If you ask that and then proceed to pursue her, I might tell you to run for the fucking woods and never come out. Because my friend, she is crazy and wrought so much with crazy that you will find yourself in some sort of tangled up mindfuck craze and never be able to fully tear yourself out.

She will blog about you, I can guarantee it. And she will put in all these vaguely dark things about you along with your picture, every douchey thing you said to her when you happened to get off a bad day of work and anything that has been taken out of context. You will become her obsession, and her girl power minions will follow suit, holding up protest signs with your name attached to them, ready to burn you at the stake. Now, I am not saying that every beautiful woman is this way. I have many gorgeous and sane friends, but I think you know that type I am talking about. You can see the crazy popping in and out of their eyes. They are able to mask it for a moment, but once you catch the first inkling of it, heed my advice and go far far away.

These women, the think themselves as some sort of Jane Austins of the 20th century. Writing flowery poetry and speaking of how much they enjoy sex and being naked and walking through cemeteries and crying, they are always openly weeping and blogging about it while they do so. They create this persona of themselves as some sort of 50s housewife but independent and full of spitfire at the same time. Yet they are the most co-dependent people I have ever happened across. They thrive on the attention of another female's jealousy, get high off of a man pursuing them and the freak out when he doesn't fawn in the manner that she fantasized about he night before. They talk about what raging wine lushes they are and how they are proud of that and how amazing masturbation is. It is just bragging rights. It is just trying to impress the hoi-polloi with tales by hyping themselves up. It is the reason that blogging could get a bad rap. They coin the term "What are you going to blooog about it now?"

I'm not saying that I am this cold robot without thoughts and feelings, that I don't like to down the booze and pine at times. But when those moments strike, those true deep and dark moments, you will never find them publicly gracing the computer screen of a blog. Like my friend said the other day when I was sharing excerpts from these little ditties, "When the locks start coming off of journals?" I may be old fashioned spouting motherly advice, but damnit, there is a time and place for those things to come out, and you will never see me posting why I hurt inside or a fight that I got into with my husband unless it is in form of a hilarious anecdote.

In the meantime though, you can bet your ass I will keep wasting my precious time sifting through these people baring it all on the internet, because for me it has become like reality t.v. but in blog form.

Nationwide Is On Satan's Side

So after all the toiling that goes into buying a house, having great helping in finding said awesome house, we are in. The final and end result that gets you into a house would be homeowners insurance. Ah, yes.

Not too hard to do if you have car insurance already right? You just call up an agent and get it hooked on with your car insurance and away you go? Not if your name is Ryan Bigg and you work for Nationwide. Ryan is special. Very helmeted special indeed. He started out by not keeping in touch with my financing officer in the beginning so that we could close on our house early.

Something tells me he took a few days off to stay home and play WoW, so he was a little more than busy and couldn't help us out as quickly as we needed it to be done. I understand, I mean all that Mountain Dew is not going to drink itself.

So we missed an early closing, and moved in a bit later. Ryan was sooo confused when I was mildly upset about this. I guess his mom never gets mad at him when he doesn't do his homework. Well, after much bumbling and fumbling on Ryan's behalf, and after he managed to ask many repetitive questions over and over and over again, he somehow managed to wizard wand me into getting homeowners insurance.

Maybe I wasn't grateful enough. Maybe I should have mailed him a gold star. "Yay Ryan you do job goodly!!" But, alas, I was too excited to be in my new home to be thinking about sending gold stars. But, Ryan, he likes to remind me that he misses me.

So he calls me last week while I am at work. He wants me to call him back to tell him about this visual inspection they have done and that my roof is in poor condition and that they saw a dog on my property that didn't look like a chihuahua! He would like to know if we did an inspection before we purchased the house, and if we can send it to him.

I assume Ryan just misses my voice, silly guy, he knows we did the inspection and sent him the report! It was one of their terms before they could insure us! To appease Ryan though, I call him back and let him know. Oh Ryan, he lost the report. I understand, keeping a customer's information on file isn't really important when you have SO MUCH sitting and staring blankly at your desk wall thinking about nothing to do.

So I have my Realtor send him another one. But Ryan just isn't ready to let me off the hook just yet. He is such a goofy friend, wants to get some more jabs in and says that they saw a dog on my property that wasn't a chihuahua. Well the funny thing, Ryan, I haven't even brought my dog over to live with me yet. So no, we don't have any dogs. Ryan starts goofing with me again, forcing me to list all of the neighborhood dogs that live within the perimeter of me. I think it is ridiculous and I don't like this game, but I play along.

I mean I have been with Nationwide 12 freaking years, what could they possibly do. Well, a week goes by. I come home yesterday on my birthday ready to die from tired. I have a letter from Nationwide informing me they are canceling my homeowners insurance due to my collapsing dilapidated roof, and my mystery ghost dog that wanders the premises and haunts the neighbors.

Okay, Ryan isn't being funny anymore so I call and speak with his supervisor. Weird, they are such pranksters at Nationwide because his supervisor bears the same mental semblance as Ryan. I list off the slew of problems I have had, the supervisor feigns interest and shock, and then says they will talk to the underwriter about us making the minor repairs that really don't need to quite be done on our roof just yet in the spring. They are from Iowa, but they must think we are from Antarctica over here, because they say they cannot wait until spring because our winters are so cold and horrifically cruel. Um...has anyone else been able to compare a Midwest winter to ours around here.

Yeah. Also supervisor informs me that even if they inspector said the roof has a good four years on it, Nationwide will not consider that, it has to be five years. "Awesome" I tell him. So great that they were willing to approve and put through insurance from me, only to pull it out saying they would have never considered in the first place. "How does this make sense?" I ask Ryan's dad...er supervisor. "The only thing that would make this make sense is if the person that insured me was totally incompetent, and that actually does make sense because that is the only thing that has happened that far that has been a consistent pattern." Supervisor fumbles saying that maybe there is a tiny possibility that Ryan missed that when processing the paperwork. Ryan and the underwriter that has to approve that right????

Oh man after hanging up the phone on the supervisor and a few curse words later, I bet Ryan gets at least 5% docked off of his QA score that they give him at work when they make sure employees are doing their jobs right! I bet he has to stay at work an extra ten minutes to talk to his boss about that too!
But just in case not, I decided to shoot Ryan a little email to thank him for all his help. Here you go!

Oh here is his email address too: biggr@nationwide.com



Ryan,

Just a quick note to thank you. For if they were to give out awards for incompetence in employees and for their lack of caring about other human beings, and for being completely incapable of doing their job in a studious manner, you would be the shining beacon of light that encompasses all of the above. For starters, you never stayed in contact with my financing person so that we could close on my house in an orderly and quick fashion, you managed to lose my inspection report twice, and to top it off you went above and beyond my expectations by insuring me with homeowners insurance when it was brought to my attention yesterday that Nationwide will not even consider insuring anyone with a roof that has four years left on it.

I do appreciate the phone call that you did not make to me to let me be aware of this as well. That was great. You must have known it was my birthday yesterday, because oh my God, that was exactly what I wanted for my 30th birthday. It was so good to come home after a long day of work, get ready for school after approximately five hours of sleep, and then to find an insurance cancellation notice in my mailbox. You must have read my mind on things that I wanted for my birthday. Scrambling to get insured again, not doing schoolwork, and missing dinner, that was definitely on the list. You are too kind. Really, thank you for keeping it a surprise, and not calling me up to inform me that this was coming, I don't know how you managed to keep that one under your hat.

Apparently now every dog, child, piece of trash that happens to wander in my yard now becomes my property as well. That is good to know. It seems as though I will not have to pay for things as much as I used to have to since according to Nationwide, once something touches my yard, it belongs to me. If I need a new car? I will be sure to push one onto my lawn, according to Nationwide law, it's mine! New dog? Let one wander onto my property, Nationwide says it's mine!

I would also like to give my most deepest and heartfelt thanks to the fact that even though I have been with this company for 12 years, you guys seemingly don't seem to bat an eye in considering helping out your customers when it comes to situations such as these. But then again, why would a big company care about someone who has measly old car insurance with them. I am sure you don't care either, you care about punching in and going home at night. Not actually how the fact that you don't know how to read an inspection report and compare it with your actual company policy when insuring someone can have an effect on them.

But in the end, Ryan, you have taught me one thing. Oh wait, you have taught me nothing. This situation is banal and predictable. Big company screws little people, employee doesn't care.

After all you have not done for me, I feel like I really should do something in return though. At the advice of my attorney, I will be filing a complaint on Nationwide for the fact that you insured me and then yanked it out from under us under the premise that your supervisor told me that maybe you just managed to miss the little part where it says that Nationwide does not insure people with four years left on their roof. I figure since you guys have done so little, it was the least I could do for you.

Have a great day Ryan, you are the anti-best.

Dominique

House of Pain

One day I was in my apartment flipping through the latest issue of Better Homes & Gardens when it occurred to me that did not have a home nor did I have a garden. I had a steaming hot bedroom in the summer time no matter how high the air conditioning was on, and I had a small patch of grass outside that contained all my stray cigarette butts. This then moved me over to the train of thought that perhaps it was time to put on my grown up pants and purchase a house. Now I know this is not an easy process, and when I attempt to do something I take hard and times it by three because generally there is that the Dominique factor that plays into everything that God has put into place in order to drive me stark raving mad.

The best part in mission destroy my self-esteem is the initial part. Finding out how shitty your credit is, trying to explain to everyone that you are a good person now, and then having to talk to debtors that are probably the most vile of human beings on the planet in order to negotiate out a deal to make all good with the credit history dictators. Once that is all over and done with, you still have shitty credit, and you go through the re-talking everyone that you are good enough to own a house process and you promise that you do enjoy having a place to live and would do anything to get said place.

I remember at one point, I was pretty frustrated during this process and I lamented to my dad “You know how come all the people that are on COPS have houses? How the hell did they get a house, I see the cops busting into them all the time, wading through their possessions and catching them in the act of hitting their wife, crack pipe on the floor, yet it is taking me months to get approved?” Well, finally, an approval went through.

Now that above part is starting to sound like the easy part. I don't know if I am a weird shit magnet or what, but I can tell you if my life is a Choose Your Own Adventure book, I want to smack the 12 year old on the head that is reading it and to pick a new one for me!

Why do people put houses up on the market? To sell them correct? then why have I walked into countless amounts of dog piss smelling filthy houses that haven't been cleaned since they were built? My favorite is when the tenant that is renting is not notified that we are coming too. The first time this happened, a very hungover, very unhappy college kid answered the door and told us his roomates were sleeping so we couldn't look in some of the rooms. He then proceeded outside to scream at his landlord. That was comfortable! The second time, some guy came wandering out in his underwear looking sleepy and confused, but at least he was that kind of hungover that is sweet and told us to look everywhere. Still weird creeping around that though, I feel like a burgler! The third time, the poor people didn't speak English and we had them so confused. They had a cute dog I wanted to steal. One house I went into, the guy was cooking breakfast for himself and all 12 of his kids. I was tempted to ask if I could have some.

The next factor in fun is the craaaazy neighbor. Okay, I am kind of grateful about one thing on the crazy neighbor. They are pretty much the same. Hunched over like Golem on the back porch, smoking a cigarette, always having that twitchy look to them like they can't go five minutes without being in anybody's business. This one was no exception. He dove right into how he was keeping his stuff in the vacant house's garage because someone was trying to break into his car and he watches over the property. He then ended it up with "We sure throw a lot of parties around here, they can get out of control so I hope you don't mind." That had me walking out on a house that I was on the fence on to 1000% no way in hell. See why the crazy neighbor always being out back is a good thing? What if he were hiding and then I moved into that. I can't hack anymore crazy neighbors, not after the last batch I went through.

One place we found was nice, but I just couldn't get a feel for the neighborhood, and of course, go figure, the one people next to us had the trashed out house right? That and an unleashed pitbull that was not fenced wandering around. I am terrified of dogs. On second visit to the house it ran up to me to see if it could give me a heart attack and then happily started to lick my toes. I did that nervous giggle, I was happy it was nice, but I could picture it envisioning my toes as hotdogs. I have a chihuahua too, and I don't want him to be another animal's Dorito, so I had to bail on that house. The next one, I was all about, except for the fact that I have no depth perception whatsoever and had to have two people tell me that it was severely crooked. I totally thought you could just easily jack a house up too, I am such an optimist for the wrong things, but it turns out it is a risky procedure.

So at this point, I am about 6 months into looking, and I am beginning to wonder if there is something wrong with me, if there is nothing good on the market, if I need to learn the ways of Home Depot so I can turn partial poo into diamonds, or if, well God hates me. I am probably going to have to go with the God hates me part at this point, sweat away the pounds in my upstairs apartment room, and remember that I am actually agnostic so I will have to change that to the maybe someone might hate me if they exist above me. Until then, I have 12 more houses I am scheduled to look at soon and adventures ahoy hoy!

Wearing A Nicotine Patch Sippin' On Expensive Beer

I totally got to see Snoop at Blazed & Confused.
It was totally awesome.
Totally read about it here.
Totally is the only word I know about now.

I still don't know how to make the link clickable so get some exercise by copying and pasting in your browser for golly's sakes!


http://www.slugmag.com/article.php?id=1791

Michael Dean Damron

First review with Slug!

Read it and weep with joy.

http://www.slugmag.com/article.php?id=1785

Work It On OUt

I had this brilliant idea that wearing exercise gear all day instead of getting dressed would make me motivated to actually exercise. Now I just look like I should be frequenting Wal-Mart. I am pretty sure my clothing is going to get in a fight. There is something about brands that label their clothing with animals that appeals to me. So if the fox on my jacket and the puma on my shorts can’t work things out that’s their problem. This is some sort of sick addiction that happens once you stop getting dressed, as though there is nothing quite like living in a pair of sweatpants and going out to get the mail at 4:30 p.m. only to give off the illusion that I had just woken up even though I have been working all day.

I keep going to the grocery store all slob like too, never learning my lesson that every time I go there, I run into at least fifty people I know. I just want to explain to everyone that I clean up pretty well, but I don’t want to call attention to the fact that yes, I look like shit. Plus if you dressed up to go to the grocery store? Come on now, I have seen the goth girl that goes there in her stilettos, white painted face, purple and black hairsprayed helmet head put into place perfectly. All to get a snack? No thanks.
The fact of the matter is, I did start getting into the whole exercise thing again this year, but my body is not into it. I did turn into a little sweaty pig who is left a panting pile of jelly after just 30 mere minutes of intense workout, but then my stomach starts to growl and before I know it, I have downed a bag of something or another. I even got a gym membership. I used it a few times. But I am hopelessly addicted to Netflix Instant watch workouts and On Demand workouts on cable.

I tried a few embarrassing ones. Sometimes I am just strapped for time on lunch and in a panic I hit the first thing I come across like Flirty Girl Fitness. Oh. My. God. I am so glad I don’t have a stalker. If they peered into my window while I did that workout, they would have posted a note to my door that said something like “I’m sorry, I used to find you very enigmatic until I saw you putting your fingers into your imaginary belt buckles and whipping your hair around in an attempt to burn calories. You just made me feel sane, and I am going to retreat back to my life and never stalk again.” I even tried the Playboy Bunny workouts. No, not sleep with Hugh Hefner and milk him for all he is worth while pretending to be attracted to a mummy for a few years, though I am sure the effort of that alone would make any girl thin. I would have to say topping the charts of stupidity for fitness On Demand was the Carmen Electra workout which required YOU TO BE ON YOUR BED WHILE YOU DID IT. I made it two minutes into it and disgracefully walked to my sink in an attempt to drown myself in shame.

I think since we live in a world saturated with every possible element of any way to make money, that I have forgotten my friend good ol’ running. Sure I may flop my hands around all stupid like while I am doing it and shriek like a wounded animal, but at least it looks tougher than the how to get the body of a slut workouts that are all over the place nowadays. So maybe it is just time for good ol’ back to basics training. Conor and I had the idea to chug beer while running, or to eat a full bag of Doritos right before a workout, that way we would never want to eat or drink these things again. I think that is going to be my workout video that I market. It will be called Vomitcise.

Oops I Did It For The First Time

I was staring longing at my calendar, April 14th only a day away. See some sick, secret part of me wanted to see Britney Spears in concert, but I knew I hadn't the funds to see this. At this exact moment I received a phone call from the illustrious Peter, informing me that he had just scored four Britney tickets and they were mine all mine! And my friends too of course. I squealed with joy. I had been following my Britney concert moments starting with her exclaiming "My pussy is hanging out!" on stage and also her getting booed away in Canada. She claims she smelled marijuana smoke and so it was not safe for her and her dancers to be out there. I don't know what she would do if she smelled coke or Valium but ok!

I have heard a lot off of her new album "Circus" and just barely figured out why parents were horrified when they heard their children walking around singing "If U Seek Amy" I actually felt like an ignorant parent actually when my oh....OH! Kicked in. We surprised our sweet little Ashlee telling her that we had a present for her and when Trax dropped us off at the Energy Solutions Arena, her realization kicked in as to where we were going. Within five seconds of being there I was hit up for a cigarette by a homeless man and a girl with glitter eyelashes and a bright blue halter top. I was more frightened of the girl. I have an Ed Hardy lighter, it was purchased for me as a JOKE so when people kept asking to borrow it, I felt defensive like I should tell them I don't really like Ed Hardy. That was, until I saw 90% of the population wearing Ed Hardy gear in there. What was this an audition for Rock of Love?

As usual, we were late, that's what we do, so we missed the Pussycat Dolls opening up. I walked in questioning as to whether or not there was at least beer when I saw a man who looked like he did not belong there gripping his beer for dear life. I said "Look he has one!" his eyebrows raised as though he needed it and I said "He needs one!" he nodded his head up and down slowly in agreement without speaking a word. We later realized why he was at the show when he was surrounded by a heard of large breasted blonde girls all hugging onto him.

I got my overpriced reason to pee ($6.75! PLUS A $1 tip) and was scared that I was missing the concert, for people had started stampeding inside as though they were running terrified from a T-Rex on Jurassic Park. Not wanting to miss the action we quickly ran around looking for our seats. It was the usual hyping up they do for about 30 minutes and all. Look I appreciate Britney being able to help out the carnies in this tough economy but we wanted her to come on stage and show us her crazy ass.

Finally, an elaborate introduction started up on a big screen that was housed on a circus looking stage and it was a very eerie Perez Hilton dressed up like a Ringmaster giving the introduction super-pepped up and grainy looking. I just thanked the lord I didn't take mushrooms for this show. Brit came out with "Circus" and I will have to admit, she did get that banging body back (no thanks to a court order I am sure) and the production was ridiculously elaborate. I mean it was full on acrobatics, midgets, flexible and talented dancers and lots of lip-syncing. Ok maybe her pussy wasn't hanging out (she said it not me) but her boob did fall out at one point. If she exclaimed it, the mic man was smart enough to have it off this time.

In between clothing changes people would come out and do some more acts, and seriously at one point, I wanted to cover a poor child's eyes when this film came on that had Britney, masked men, and all of the making of an Eyes Wide Shut film while "Sweet Dreams Are Made of These" bellowed out by Marilyn Manson. Seriously if the 8 year old in front of me ends up being a fetishist serial killer when he gets older, I can pinpoint the exact moment that it happened. She sang her old hits "Look at Me" all the kids got up and sang to "If U Seek Amy" as well. Oh I bet that boy in front of me had lots of questions for him mom when he got home, I mean I saw a lot of orgasmic dancing and even couch humping going on. I thought this only happened in my living room while I was drunk.

I stepped out for a smoke and met a boy asking if I had seen the Youtube footage of all her concerts as many times as he had. He was pumped. He was outside because he knew the order the concert was going to be in and Britney was his favorite. I say this with utmost sincerity, there is nothing more that makes me happy in this world than a man in love with Britney Spears.

Pre-encore Britney sang "Hit Me Baby One More Time" but the innocence of her first hit was definitely lost at this point, weird huh? Not wanting to get caught up in the crowd, we left right as she was singing the highly anticipated "Womanizer" Hey this concert was right up my curiosity alley, but at some point I started getting all Mother Teresa and could not stop thinking of the children there! It was still awesome though.

Vehicular Suicide

Ah yes, we have all heard of vehicular homicide. But have any of you stopped to think about vehicular suicide?

Many a time I have scoffed and psshawed when people don't own a car. But how do you get out to West Valley to check out the Ross on that side of town when you don't have a car? I am scared of riding a bike too, something about the horror of some SUV'd out mother texting her kid on her cell phone not paying attention to me until I hit the hood of her car freaks me out. Plus, I honestly don't know if I have bike legs anymore, I haven't ridden one in so freaking long. So I do envy you careless lean legged bikers, and your need to not fill up at the gas station.

I should own up to the fact now that I did not have a license until I was 18. My parents wouldn't sign off on it until my grades were good enough, hence me having to be an adult and doing it my damn self. For the record, my grades are plenty fine now. But I don't get pizza dinners and a license out of it, just more debt.

I have never paid off a car save for one time when my friend sold me the Chevy Celebrity for about $200.00. That beauty had a passenger side door that would not open and every time I wanted to start it, I had to pop the hood and jiggle the battery. One day the battery died. I pushed it onto the street and placed a cardboard sign on it that said "For Sale $50" attached with my phone number. A nice Hispanic gentleman showed up with his mechanic and they took it off my hands. I used the money to buy a plane ticket to Iowa. This was pre-911 pre-recession and plane tickets were dirt cheap.

The next vehicle I purchased was brand spanking new. It was a Ford Escort in a pure virgin white color. I actually did not want a white car, but I am a car salesman's wet dream. Put me on the lot and chances are I will walk with what you show me first, I don't have the patience to dilly dally around. My mom even tried to get me go to back for a new color but I stuck to my guns. That car was not but a year old when the whole transmission went out.

I brought it to the dealership and they told me that it would be $500 to get it up and running again and that it could be another $1000 to fully fix it. I said "Really, I have $500 now can we trade this bitch in and I can use that $500 for a down payment?" They happily and greedily obliged. Thus started my transition to not paying off cars due to transmissions.

True to my word, I bought the first car I test drove, a secret that I had been keeping to myself for oh so long. Something I pined for at night before I would lay my head on my pillow. A red Ford Mustang. The second my foot fell onto the gas pedal I didn't care about the cost of the car, I left with it and with a big sports car smile on my face.

The Mustang was great! I drove it everywhere. Then one day it rained. And my car started skidding wildly left and right. And this foreign term was spouted to me: rear wheel drive? What? Hence began the journey of terror that was winter. I reached a period where I couldn't even move the car from small snow banks and every day I would pray to God to not let me die due to the fact that my chic little car had a bounty on my head. Years did go by of me owning this car, loving it in the summer, loathing it any time the ground got wet or the winter.

Then out of nowhere, parked on the street some jerk hit and ran it. Messed up that rear wheel drive. I put hundreds into fixing it, but alas no matter what it would shake like a seizure every time I hit the brakes. I was not giving up on my little dream yet, I kept trying to get it fixed. Until one night, about two weeks later I was backing up and did not realize my friend's door was not shut and tore about 75% of the door off. Ugh.

That car got left for dead at the dealership and I got my Nissan Sentra ie "The series of unfortunate tire events car" It never really gave my too much grief until I got four flats in the span of a year. This car is now starting to become the Damien of cars. I am noticing that every time I have money, my car puts a sensor on that and something happens to it that is super expensive to fix. I had to spend $600 on brake problems last year.

I have been really good at saving my money this year and planned on taking a little trip to reward myself. Until Damien, let's call it Domien, it least that has my name in it, started to squeal like a stuck pig every time I turned it on. I took it to the car fixing guy place (oh by the way this is about a month after the full bumper ripped off due to an unfortunate contact meeting with a mailbox) and the mechanic said the thingamajig was leaking onto the whatseywhosit and that it should not cost too much to repair.

He must have thought I was wearing diamonds on my neck because when he gave me the quote my heart palpitated and I smiled hard. $350. About the amount my vacation I WAS GOING TO TAKE would have cost me. Well, I have no choice now but to fix it. And while I was angering over this on my freeway ride to my mom's house to pick up her mini-van to borrow for the week the inevitable happened. Something that has never happened in all 11 years of driving my cars. A rock hit my windshield and chipped it.

My cars hate me and want to commit suicide.

MC Hammered and Vanilla Iceless

So the question is, how did I wake up with skinned knees, pounding head, a vague recollection of last night’s incessant laughter still ringing through my ears, a bag of Baconators being ordered from Wendy’s and only photos to remind me what had happened? Well, I will give you the recipe, but I don’t suggest you cook it. It is a night in Orem, built up anticipation followed by complete boredom, a bottle of Jameson, and the right kind of friend with you to participate in aforementioned things. The moon had aligned perfectly with the stars for this kind of night.

See, I was always that kid who was about three years behind on trends. Living in Iowa,that set me back to at least six years behind. I never did get the Girbauds while they were hot of the jeans press or the slap bracelets that threatened to come out of their protective casing and cut your wrist until they were settled into the DI. For that reason, I never went to concerts or watched Beverly Hills 90210 when it first came out. I knew and loved MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, and true to form, twenty years after the fact I was ready to see them in concert.

The mere idea that they were coming to Orem Utah on February 27th and only Orem Utah alone, no other tours, just this, blew my mind. Since I don’t get out of the house much, I had actually never been to Orem and had to prepare for this trip. This concert in my mind was going to be epically epic. Well before we made that drive Conor and I sat in the liquor store debating which kind of whiskey could be downed wihtout choking hazards.

We then made the one hour drive up there and arrived shortly before 8:00. I feared we were actually going to be late since the bill stated that the show started at 8:00. As I sat in the parking lot I started to fill a Coke bottle with Jameson. Then Conor and I were faced with the task of how we were to fill the flask. See they have these tiny holes and no funnel! Easy, the funnel was made out of the directions to get there.

We finished our Coke and exited the vehicle. I was greeted by a massive sea of people standing in a massive sea of lines all excited to get inside. Some were dressed up straight out of the 80’s, hardcore fans had steps shaved in their heads, and others appeared to be the curious onlookers of the night.

Just a few sips of liquid courage later, you know to get me warmed up while I waited in the cold, and I was ready to go inside and nail this concert. Well, the line proved to be longer and colder than anticipated. I sent Conor back to the car to retrieve the other Coke bottle. We were destined to smell like hobos for the night. He came back and warned me this was a strong batch, he also called out my manliness so I had to drink right along with him as he had left about 1/100 Coke and the rest whiskey in this one.

So a few sips became a few gulp, guzzles, pounds.



We finally found our way inside and explored the many tunnels of the McKay Events center. Hoards of people were gathered around waiting for the show to start, and it was set up much like a Junior High pep rally with dancers on stage and our favorite hits from back in the day blasting through the speakers.

We found the press room where we were excited to meet our men of the 80's, and I decided to pose by the beautiful backrop that was glistening with washed up success reunited for just one night



I wandered upstairs and was beckoned by some men with a Playstation video game console up and running. “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly, I haven’t played video games since the first Nintendo came out.” They convinced me to do so though and I picked your typical character for a girl, Wonderwoman, and proceeded to kick my video game loving friend’s ass. I was just that perfect amount of buzzed, you know the kind where you can bowl a great score? Oh I got a free t-shirt out of the deal, and that to me was as good as gold. I danced around a lot and said things like "SUCK IT!"

So then it sounded like something big was about to happen since it was about 9:30 and we ran downstairs to see if our Hammer or Ice was coming out. After a few minutes of just more amping up the crowd happened, and more opening acts, and more breakdancers, we confirmed it was not happening yet and went wandering (drinking) some more. This is where you are about to have that second game of bowling and you suck because you drank a lot more because that is supposed to make you double awesome.



In the process of going outside to have a cigarette, I put my coveted shirt in the door to keep it open. Security snaked up behind me and snatched it out the door and ran off with it! Luckily for cell phones Conor came and got me back in and we told my tearful story to the Playstation men who happily supplied me with another t-shirt. 10:30 rolls around. We have been here for hours, and no sign of the main acts. More people dancing around, Vanilla Ice’s dancers went up to Conor and asked when he was going to go on. He lied and said next. I think it was more wishful thinking than lying. Even Vanilla’s dancers didn’t know when the actual show was starting!

Yet more wandering commenced which led us into the media room. Alone. With a copy machine. Bored. Things that shouldn’t get copied got copied. There is still a photo copy of my boobs sitting in Conor's car. I kept giggling and saying the 3-year-old phrase "Don't look don't look!!"





Finally, all the excitement, buildup, happiness about this whole event started to wane down. I had about as much fun as one can have in a media room and Conor even had to stop me from tearing down the tapestry to take home (with a lighter) and instead we decided on a chain that weighed about 150 pounds. I was also in dire need of water. This much need.




We had been in Orem for hours upon hours, we were out of things to do, and quite honestly I am surprised the gigantic crowd outside wasn’t rioting. We remained patient and loyal for as long as we could, and even adult beverages make me more patient that Mother Theresa. So the executive decision was made after over four hours of waiting for the hype to stop and the actual event to happen.

Sometimes awesome things are better kept a mystery, and the buildup in your head is far better than the actual event that unfolds before you. This decision was made as we walked out those doors and missed our epically epic event. Though somehow, it still turned out to be one of the best concerts I had even been to this year.

Afterwards some Iranian men bought me some much not needed shots which pretty much put me over the edge. I think I convinced myself that I was a hobbit and that this endearing fella was Gandolf the Gray because I wanted my picture with him and was dumbfounded that I was so short in comparison with his tallness. I don't remember this photo being taken.

Along the way BACONATORS! was screamed. Conor thought it was a good idea too. I don't remember that either. Nor do I remember falling flat on the floor the second me feet walked inside, but there is proof in photos of course.

A Date With The Ups

I have no particular subject to talk about so this will just be a randomized list of successes, failures, and okay, nothing really in particular.

1. I am taking three classes this semester and they suck so much harder than taking two classes. Right now as I am writing this, all I can think about is how much homework I have to do and how I should be doing that and not this. I wish I were graduated now but I still have a good year or so to go but it will be worth it if I can just get my ass in gear. Currently: Ass not in gear.

2. I don't know what happened but over the last few months I have abandoned all hope ye bras who try to enter my shirt. It started out innocently enough, I would not wear bras in the summer because I figured that nobody would notice anyway due to my lack of boobage, but then it continued on from there. They feel like tight boa constrictors trying to suffocate my boobs to death. Out of nowhere I will be at the bar and realize that whoops I forgot to add some padding and underwire to my chestal region. I keep trying to tell myself I am not a hippie and that this better be socially acceptable. We'll see.

3. I went to MC Hammered and Vanilla Iceless (thanks Andrea) last weekend and I think that I am scared of whiskey. It is a bully that threatens to make me look stupid in front of others and do things that I don't remember. There will be a story and you have seen the pictures.

4. Out of nowhere, tired, sick and in pain, I decided to rearrange my room today. I threw my back out (how!??!?!?) and almost started crying when my dvd rack melted and I was sitting atop a pile of dvds, clothing and dresser drawers. This now results in me needing to purchase multiple items at Ikea this weekend. Something tells me that my subconscious forced me to rearrange my room so said events would happen so that I could buy new shit. I love buying new shit.

5. I am going to tour the Draper Temple with my mom on Friday. So if you don't see me after Friday it is because I was struck by lightning.