TOOTHPICKS BRING ME DOWN

Hi, so I have a short attention span today. So I am starting this blog with a LOLcats-generated picture I did a few weeks ago. That site is too much fun.

I have work I need to be doing, yet I can't stay on a task long enough to get much of anything finished. I haven't even been playing on the internet much, either...which is normally my big distraction. Nope, it's just that today I am flitting about like a chubby hummingbird. Without the humming.

I love eating fresh strawberries, but I hate the seeds. I have this jacked-up molar that has the tooth equivalent of a pock-mark (not a cavity) in its worth-down enamel (from years of teeth-grinding), and 100% of the time when I eat strawberries, a seed will get wedged in that spot. And then I feel it every time I close my mouth and the top teeth hit it. I'll be obsessed with trying to push it out with my tongue, even while people are talking to me. I think I move my mouth around a lot when people are talking to me, which probably looks really strange. I keep my mouth shut, at least. So all they would see would be the muscles working around under my cheeks. When I think no one is looking, I hook a finger in there and try to pop the seed out with my fingernail. Yuck. Then I'm stuck with a spitty finger. And lately, the seed doesn't pop out quickly, like it used to. I guess the spot is getting deeper the longer it's there. It now requires a mirror and usually an implement of some sort-- if I'm home I'll just brush my teeth. In public, I use a toothpick. I've been stashing toothpicks in my desk for a couple of months now, taking them from restaurants on my lunch hour. It's helped a lot, and cut back on "spitty fingers." It occurs to me that maybe I should have been using the toothpicks all along. Well, whatever.

I still feel weird using a toothpick, though. When I stick one in my mouth, I immediately picture how I look and that to everyone else, I look like a simpleton, some kind of country hick with no class. You never see high-class ladies picking their teeth with a toothpick. There's really no delicate way to do it. I've tried to be lady-like in my picking, lightly grasping the end of the toothpick and keeping my wrist up as I discreetly work things around in there. Instead of looking classy, I think I just look even more like a spazz and probably draw more attention to the act of toothpicking than I would have had I just shoved the thing in, picked what needed to be picked, and tossed the pick away, bam bam bam, done.

But I feel like with the toothpick in my mouth, I should be wearing overalls and leaning over the open hood of some old Chevy pickup, a beer in one hand as I squint at the engine. "Yep, looks like the carb-er-rater's shot," I'd say around the toothpick dangling on my lower lip. Then I'd lean back and belch. I'd probably have an old hound dog that would lie on the porch next to the old couch we'd use as a sittin' spot, and upon hearing my unladylike belch, the dog's ears would twitch for a second and then he'd go back to sleep. That lazy ol' hound.

It might seem like I am imagining myself as a gentleman in the above scenario, but I am not. Because I have seen "ladies" like that, plenty of times. Out here in Arizona they're always leathery, too. Dried out and greasy. Way too much time out in the sun, and not enough time spent on hygiene. Sad, really.

Because I don't want to wind up like one of those dried-up broads, I think I need to cut back on my toothpick usage. What if it's just a slippery slope? First it's the toothpick, then it's the crappy old clothes, next I'll forget how to speak properly, and at that point I might as well just give up on life and go with it.

I'm wondering if Dried-Up Toothpick Broad would be a decent Halloween costume idea. A similar idea would be Dried Applehead Witch. Remember those? You take a peeled apple, carve a crude face into it, and let it dry out so you can make a doll out of it? No? Anyone?

We had a kitchen witch when I was little. A good-luck charm, apparently with German roots. She was a little witch on a broom with a shriveled-up face. I can't find a picture of what ours was like, but it was kind of like this:

So maybe this would be a fun costume to try to put together. But where in the world do I get an apple as big as my head? Maybe at one of them fancy bioengineered farms they got now. I seen a watermelon that was as big as a calf. No foolin.

Where's my toothpick? (SPIT)

POPCORN, JOCKEYS AND GANGRENE

I am reposting this, yes. Bear with me. RRRAAWWWRR!

Hi, folks! So, the big news is we're just days away from our exciting NJ trip! I can't wait, especially since this is a very special trip-- and not like in a Very Special Episode of Blossom kinda way, either. It's the first time I'm bringing Greg there to finally see where I came from; it's my first trip back in almost 4 years; and I will meet a bunch of blogger chicks in person!! That's just going to be so cool. Some might scoff at the concept of "blog friends" but they're just jealous. We know we have a pretty sweet network going on here. Besides, it's just too damn hard to make good girlfriends in the first place, the older you get. If mine come from the blogs, so be it. Amen.

Want to hear about the weather? Hell, who wouldn't!

It's officially the monsoon season here. It's really...warm outside. I refuse to say the "H" word because it's just ALL a person hears around here this time of year. "OHHH, it's soooo H*#!" everyone whines as they either head outside of an air conditioned building or when they are coming in from the heat outdoors. At a certain point, you have to say, "Really? Wow, I never would have expected it to be H in Arizona in the summer! OMG!" If you insist on stating the obvious, then I shall insist on throwing mud in yer eye.

That phrase, "here's mud in your eye," makes me smile. I like the idea of someone running up to another person and flicking a spoonful of mud into their eyeballs. Because yes, in my mind, it's a spoonful. And for some reason, the person flicking the mud-spoon looks a lot like me, but in old-timey clothes (like Tom Sawyer-times), and the person with the flung mud in their eyes looks a lot like Orville Redenbacher. I have no idea why. Maybe because I never liked the looks of that guy. Sure, I liked his delicious popcorn, but I won't trust a guy with a corn fetish and suspenders. So don't try to make me.
Orville Redenfreaker sure loved to "pop" some "kernels" every chance he got.

By the way, here's what I came up with when I tried to find out the origin of "here's mud in your eye":

_It's a horseracing phrase: The winning horse would kick up mud at the also-rans. (OK, I don't mind thinking of horses kicking mud around, but I'd prefer the mud hit the jockeys in the face instead of the other poor horses. PS: I am also kind of creeped out by jockeys. They're just too small to be "right," and I hate when they stand really, really still for days and days outside of someone's house, holding a lantern...)

"At my signal, UNLEASH HELL!!!"

_It's a Biblical phrase: In the Gospel of John, Jesus cures a blind man by rubbing a bit of mud on his eyes. (Now I don't know 'bout you, but the Jesus I IMAGINE wouldn't play a mean trick like that on some poor, blind dude. And I don't care if it is in the Bible, I think the Son of God would just use good ol' fashioned GodMagic and not waste time smearing wet dirt on the faces of the unfortunates.)
"OWWW! What the hell are you doing?! I asked you to heal me, not make me even MORE blind!"

_It's a World War I phrase: Soldiers spent a lot of time hunkered down in muddy trenches. The horrors of that war were many: Machine guns, grenades, gangrene, mustard gas. If all that happened to you was a little mud in your eye, you were lucky. (Christ, I should say so. Imagine how terrible it would have been to be a WWI soldier? Worse, imagine getting gangrene? How about in your eye? And you're stuck way out in some trench in some foreign battlefield, and no one has any idea how to treat ocular gangrene, so you are stuck sitting there, holding your gun, waiting for your rotting eye to just, I don't know, fall out? Mmm, wait a second. That's not a nice thing to imagine. Besides, I don't really know anything about how gangrene works and I'm certainly not in the mood to look it up! What do I look like, a smart person or something?!)

"Dudes, living in this trench sucks. We've got to get out of here before someone gets gangrene in their eyes."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRISH!

Today is my sister's birthday, so I wanted to publically wish her a happy birthday. Or should I say, Schoenes Geburtstag in our secret sister-language (OK, it's just German). One year she gave me a book of matches that said "Happy Birthday, You Bitch!" in big bold letters on the cover. I still have it, still love it, and still think it's fun to say that every year on her birthday. So, Happy Birthday, You Bitch! (Giggle giggle)

I'll always love my little Schwester (more of that pesky German). We've been friends since she was born, I think. I know I pushed the friendship thing pretty hard back then...I was a sad, lonely child... but maybe inside her little infant-head she was thinking, "Oh, Christ, why is that weird girl with the bowl-cut bothering me again? What a loser!" but she didn't lack the language skills to tell me. Well, if that was true, I guess my persistence paid off because we became friends by the time she was about a year old. Good for me, otherwise I'd be totally sociopathic by now, because I really had NO FRIENDS as a child until I started kindergarten. Not a lot of kids in the neighborhood, no other kids in my family--NONE. My baby book always cracks me up, because my Mom wrote things in it for several of my first years, marking down milestones, etc., and one of the things in there is a space to write in "Best Friends" and instead of the names of some other sticky-faced toddlers I played with, she wrote in "Buffy". That was the dog.

I am digressing in a big way. Must be because it's Friday and work circumstances have mushed my brain into lumpy pudding. But yes, Trish is a great sister and I am really glad that we still get excited for our weekly get-togethers where we eat some dinner, watch something like Flight of the Conchords, Mr. Wrong, Annie or Arrested Development and free-associate and laugh for hours about pretty much nothing. It's kind of cool and I feel lucky to have that. So thanks, Trish, for being fun, giving me craft advice and ideas, being "right there" with the perfect movie or TV quote at any given moment, and mostly for the friendship. I came for the friendship and I'm stayin' for the cupcakes! There WILL be cupcakes, right? Because I mean, I love cupcakes.

Enjoy your day! We all raise a glass to you!

(OK, so this is a photo of a past drink-raising, but it illustrates my point so here it is. Actually, I stole this photo from your Flickr page. So, I guess, thanks for that.)

NOT QUITE DONE
Hey, so check out this unicorn deer! It's some lucky deer in Italy whose genes went batshit crazy and made a horn grow out of the top of its deery head. I love it! Here's the official AP caption:

This undated photo provided by the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, Italy, Wednesday, June 11, 2008, shows a deer with a single horn in the center of its head. The one-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed 'Unicorn'' - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences, said. He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.

I haven't been very communicative these days, and I'm hoping that's going to pass with the writing of this blog. That's putting a lot of pressure on this blog, I know. So I better make it count. I have a Report coming up soon and everything.

So the other day I wanted to make some brownies. I had a walnut brownie mix in the cabinet, and thought I'd just go ahead and bake some brownies before G came home from work. In my mind, we would enjoy delicious brownies after dinner and all would be well. But of course, things didn't go as planned.

I think I made two mistakes, the primary mistake being I baked them in a long Pyrex dish. The second mistake may have been putting a pan of water in the bottom of the oven, a trick G taught me to keep baked goods from drying out. It would have been fine if I'd done the baking in a dark metal pan or something, but I think the combination of clear glass dish and the water just didn't work out so well.

Because the box said "bake 21-24 minutes." But at 21-24 minutes, the toothpick was coming out covered in batter. At 30 minutes, same thing. Finally, at 42 minutes, the toothpick was still coming out with batter on it, but by that time I'd read a sentence on the box that worried me: "Do not overbake." Surely, at 42 minutes, my brownies were overbaking! Since I don't normally bake brownies, I rationalized for some insane reason that it was actually OK for some batter to be on the toothpick when you make them-- they are thicker and you want them to be moist, right? So Genius Me took them out of the oven and cooled them off. Covered it with plastic wrap, put them in the fridge for later. Figured it was gonna be OK.

Of course not. The whole middle of the brownies were raw.

That didn't stop us from salvaging what we could of the mess, since the sides were baked. Right now there is a horseshoe-shaped brownie in our refrigerator, the middle cut out and thrown far away. I did wonder (out loud) if we could maybe take that ball of mostly-raw batter and throw it back in the oven to make a nice little Brownie Ball or something...but G wisely nixed that idea.

I love brownies, cookies, cakes, all of that. Yet why am I cursed when it comes time to create some it on my own? Not fair!!

STATIC

There isn't much to write about lately for some reason. I haven't even been working on my book this week, other than starting the eighth chapter about 4 days ago. I've had a ton of work to do and it's cut into fun times. Oh well. Plus, I am having memory problems, apparently, because I know things occurred this week (like my birthday, yeah) but I'm coming up blank when it comes to what I could write about. Hopefully this big huge BLAHHHH feeling will go away and I can get back to having at least one creative thought a week again, soon.

Maybe next week I'll be back to blogging. Have a good weekend though, in the meantime!

IT'S GETTING HOT ALL UP IN THIS BITCH

Well, it's true: the heat is ON. On the streets. You know this whole city's got Glenn Frey stank all over it.

Today, I went on what may be my last hike for awhile. The 100+ degree temperatures just don't add to the desert hiking experience. Not at all. You'd think that a person could last for days out in that crap, but no. My face stayed beet red long after I got home and took a cool shower and everything. And it wasn't sunburn this time. It was HOTNESS. It was bad.

I'm sad about this forced hiatus from hiking. I've grown to love it, and crave it, over the past few months or so. Now I'll have to go to the gym. Yuck. It's not the same. I'll do it, but it's stuffy and ugly in there. I hate that all the equipment faces a bank of TVs and it's hard to not look up and see some stupid show like The Farmer Wants a Wife or The Hills. One thing I appreciate about hiking in our city's mountain parks is the lack of these shows in my peripheral vision. Also it doesn't smell like old sweat and feet. And I don't have to spray down the rocks after I touch them with disinfectant spray. At least it has air conditioning, though, and I won't end up with an exploded heart from pushing myself in the retarded summer heat.

At least we have a pool, even though I'm not real anxious to go in it this year. I've got my reasons. Maybe I think there's a water-devil in there, or maybe I just don't feel like swimming. I'm not saying. Either way, though, others are welcome to go in and splash around if they so choose. Just no hobos or transients, because they'd leave a film on the surface and we can't have that. We pay a lot to maintain our pool; we don't need hobos mucking the whole thing up. Anyway, I digress. I tend to do that when it comes to the grim spectre of hobos lurking in our pool. Here's a cute shot of chubby baby legs to illustrate my point about who IS allowed in our pool. (This is Dean, the baby who came to our house on Memorial Day. He came with his parents, by the way. He didn't just drive up in a baby Camaro and barge right in or something.)

My sister got a kitten this past week. In case you haven't been to her blog yet and read all about it, you should. This kitten is kind of awesome. It's funny because the last time any of us saw a kitten this awesome 'round these parts, it was when Fizz was a baby. Now Trish has two very sweet cats. Things are as they should be. The universe breathed a big sigh of relief when Bella came home to her soul-brother Fizzgig.

We also got a new washing machine. It's a fancy high-efficiency front-loading deal. I am going to run the first load as soon as I publish this post. I'm really excited to sit in the laundry room and watch our laundry tumble around through the little porthole. I think I'll bring our radio in there and play my old cassette of The Smiths songs as I watch the wash. Why that tape? I have no idea. It's not like The Smiths have a song about laundry. Or do they? I don't know. All I know is what my great friend Karen gave me on that tape back in 1991. Speaking of Karen, this past week she became a full-fledged Registered Nurse! Here she is:

It's hard to believe that a girl I used to get in trouble with in the back of English because we were sticking scotch tape to our faces and making fun of the stupid short stories we had to read (Truman Capote? Come on) is now allowed to poke people with sharp objects whenever she wants. I'm really proud of her because that is a dream we all have and yet so few of us ever legally accomplish it. Yay, Karen! I'll play "Frankly Mr. Shankly" tonight in YOUR honor, my good woman!

I wish I could calm down but I can't. Greg just brought me a surprise chocolate milkshake from Sonic and wow, it was delicious AND satisfying. I can hear "Futurama" playing in the next room, which also makes me happy, and I'm about to embark on LAUNDRYAGANZA 2008 in a few minutes! Life is, as the Germans say, Gut.

My final thought: I hope I don't wind up with diarrhea anytime soon.

Same goes for you, too! NO DIARRHEA FOR US!

Good night, now.

A POOR SECOND TO BELGIUM

Here is today's relentless earworm. This song is stuck in my head soooo badly because my copy editor added the word "Finland" to a mention of Helsinki in an article. I want you--yes, YOU!-- to enjoy it, too!

Now I want to go listen to all the old Monty Python songs. See you later.

GOOD, BAD & UGLY

A nice long weekend. Ahh. Here's how it went:

The GOOD:
* Finished reading "The Host." Loved it.

* Had lunch with my Mom on Saturday, followed by a hike on Piestewa Peak under overcast skies. (It was a great hike even though it was interrupted by reports of "a rattlesnake holding its ground" not far ahead of me on the trail; after standing there for a few minutes trying to decide if I was brave or not, I decided I wasn't, and headed back the way I came.)

* Enjoyed a nice BBQ with our friends Laura and David, and got to spend quality time with their almost-1-year-old, Dean.

* The weather held up nicely and it wasn't too hot.

The BAD:
* First and foremost: Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. I was NOT amused by the mess they made of this movie. I went into it knowing it had received mixed reviews, so I admit I wasn't expecting to be blown away. But I didn't know I'd feel so bummed out when I left the theater! Indiana Jones himself seemed like he wasn't the same guy from the earlier movies; not as fun, not as interesting. Shia LeBeouf didn't work as his son...and his character was completely one-dimensional and I didn't feel like we got to know who he was at all. (Not to mention at one point he apparently communicates with monkeys and proceeds to swing through the jungle on vines-- completely and utterly ridiculous. The old IJ movies never would have done something THAT implausible and cartoonish.) Cate Blanchett's character wasn't an effective villain, plus she seemed like she was CGI herself she was that unbelievable... there were plot holes and inconsistencies all over the place, and not for a SECOND did I feel tense or think that the heroes weren't going to get out of whatever crazy situation they were in. Could it have been the CGI? Or poor writing? Or a deadly mixture of both? Who knows? I just want to forget about this particular IJ movie and convince myself that only 3 movies were ever made. Yuck.

* My own Indy can't control himself around babies, apparently. He kept wanting to play --roughly-- with our friends' baby. He wasn't being mean at all, just waaay too excited. He even leapt up and tried to grab the baby's foot at one point, and that was just too much for us to take. He was banished to the bedroom for the rest of their visit. Meanwhile, Hailie was a complete angel and she charmed the baby into the cutest thing: Dean held out a goldfish cracker to Hailie, who carefully took it from his tiny fingers as he smiled. So at least 1 out of 2 dogs isn't a total spazz.

The UGLY:
* On Sunday I made a terrible error regarding my skin: I thought I'd do some yardwork while wearing a sport camisole, and since I had a wicked farmer's tan going on, I slathered on the sunblock on the tanned spots, hoping to even things out while I was outside. Bad move.
First, I was outside for a longer period of time than it felt like: about two hours, that felt more like 45 minutes. The sun was at peak brightness, since it was around noon.
Second, I apparently don't know how to evenly apply sunblock, because you can see where it was applied thanks to the ragged, uneven edges to my horrific sunburn. One of the more humorous parts of the sunburn is the area around my tattoo, because I had wisely chosen to cover my tattoo with sunblock to prevent fading. The only problem is, you can see right where my fingers swiped the sunblock on, and I went way beyond the borders of the tattoo itself, even though I really thought I was careful to stay in the lines. It looks like I taped a piece of ripped paper over the tattoo.
Two days later, this burn is STILL bright red and still ultra painful. It's one of the worst burns I've ever had. Usually I get a mild burn that fades to a tan over the next day. Not this time. I woke up today hoping it would be faded somewhat and it's just as red as ever. This sucks. I wish I'd covered everything up.

* I forgot to do a couple of things I was supposed to do this week/weekend. So now I have to run around today and try to get them done. But I've got a ton of work to do; yet here I sit blogging because I can't seem to stay focused. Plus I have yet to hear back on some test results I am anxious to receive. So anyway, this ugliness today had better fade away as the day goes on...otherwise my bitchy side is sure to force even more ugliness onto the world and no one needs that!

LOLTORI

I made this today for my friend RaeAnn. :)

MIDDLE MANAGEMENT

RANT ON!
I'm annoyed today because people at my husband's place of employment are screwing around with him. It's a long story, but the point is that stupid middle management is trying to make a completely ass-backwards change just for the sake of making a change, and it's going to affect my husband negatively. The best part is they are trying to sell it to him by saying things to the point of "it will be good for him to learn new applications" and stuff like that. G's been in that department for 8 years and this new manager? Only one year. And he's made buckets of asinine decisions already because it's clear he doesn't understand how things work. So now this guy is proposing taking his best guy (G) off this team and throwing him on another. Without really giving G any input as to if he even wants to do this or not.

I will never understand how certain people get to become managers. I know some people only get the job because they have, say, a Masters degree; whereas someone with years of relevant experience with only a BA would get passed over for the same job. It doesn't matter that the Masters is about 30 years old, or that the skills aren't there to do the job properly... nope, there are minimum qualifications and damned if upper management isn't going to remember that first and foremost.

Or people are brought in from outside when perfectly capable people are sitting right there in the building already, just ripe for promotions. Or you get the passive aggressive managers, or the egotistical jerks only looking out for themselves even though they are responsible for managing a group of people, or the just plain stupid managers. That just don't know seem to have a clue about what they are supposed to be doing, and regularly go to their employees for help and 'ghostwork.' Man, the list goes on and on. And everyone knows a middle manager like this, EVERYONE has had to deal with some idiot at some point in their working career.

So why is it so widespread a problem? If we all know it's there, why does it keep on freakin' happening? Can't the pattern be broken? Can't managers be trained to improve? Shouldn't there be consequences for not doing their jobs or making poor decisions? I think so. I have to admit that I work in a place that does seem to try to keep a checks-and-balance atmosphere, but this company is not the norm. I guess I'm just really aware of the sins of the past places I've worked, and the places my loved ones STILL slave away at, now that I'm somewhere that does it correctly, 95% of the time. And having to watch this crap happen, knowing that people I care about are routinely getting the shaft, well...it makes me so angry I could spit. Hell. I WILL spit. Pptt. There!

Sometimes I want to go to my husband's place of work and just FIGHT his stupid manager. Like with fists. Just because someone needs to do it. And I'm just the person annoyed enough to go for it. For that matter, I wouldn't mind pulling my mom's boss aside either and giving her a piece of my mind. ("You don't take advantage of my mother that way! What the hell is the matter with you?")

If I'm ever a Mom, I wonder if I'll be one of those psycho mothers who flips out on the parents of other kids who wrong my kid somehow. Or if I'll fight with coaches or do other asshole crap like that. It's just that my temper can flare when the people I love are involved. I don't even like people LOOKING at my family the wrong way. The primal urge to attack, maim and maybe kill just comes on. I'm mostly calm and non-confrontational in real life, but inside I am screaming I WILL END YOU, YOU STUPID FUCK. And one day...I worry that I really will. Especially if I have a kid.

Oh, joy! A whole post about ANGER!! How delightful. I'm sure anyone reading this has loved it. I hope you have enjoyed this light-hearted yarn and will come back for more in the future. Next time I am going to write about elder abuse. Get ready for the feel-good post of the year!

SPINNING INWARD

I've had so much on my mind lately I'm wondering if the very force of my thinking is what is making me feel so physically exhausted these days. When I got home from the gym yesterday I made myself busy just so I wouldn't just lie down and sleep for a couple of hours (and then ruin my regular night's sleep). It could also be the heat; yesterday it broke a record by hitting 108. Whatever it is, I just know I'm not playing my best game right now.

I won't get into it, because seriously, no one wants to hear it and I don't want to share it. It's not like life is shitty right now, or anything terrible is going down; it's just that I'm spending lots of time in my own head and whether or not that's a good thing remains to be seen. Maybe I'll come out of it having figured some stuff out. Or I'll just continue to be the boring girl who just wants to sit quietly and read by herself.

Since I said that things aren't all so bad, here are some things that have made me happy in the past few days or so:

* Dogsitting Clara, our friend's dog, and having her follow our dogs' lead and sitting before going out or eating--and seeing her tail thump happily when I praised her for it

* Watching a matinee of Baby Mama on a hot day, after we'd spent the previous one working hard on our pergola to add a sunscreen-- it felt so nice to just sit in the cool darkness and laugh

* The way the pergola came out, because it looks so nice now

* Having some of the wildflowers bloom in my makeshift garden, and finding out Greg pulled some weeds out of there for me, which was really nice of him

* Getting a lot of articles recruited, edited and out for review

* Writing and re-writing Chapter 6 of my book-- this is good, of course, since it means I'm not giving up, but I do worry I am telling the story wrong and everything's going to wind up sucking-- but nope, this is a happy list, must stick with the I'm WRITING and THAT'S GOOD thing

* I painted my fingernails

* The fact that they brought Adam Carolla back to Phoenix radio a week or so ago, and how fun it is to listen to the show again!

* Listening to the dogs playing so loudly that I have to tell them to leave the room so I can concentrate

* Air conditioning and ice-cold water. And shade.

* The pesto Greg made last week is still super delicious

* Maybe braiding my hair is going to be my look for the summer

* The slightly lower number on the scale the other day

* The fact that my best friend is getting a dog today...a Chinese Crested puppy named Caesar! I can't wait to meet him in June when I go back to visit!

* Thoughts of the BlogBQ :)

* Reading The Host and not being able to put it down. Stephenie Meyer's writing makes me so happy and inspired! When I read her books (which are all incredible), all I want to do is go write my own and do my best to be even half as good as her

* Being super excited about the Twilight movie in December. Yeah, aren't we all?

* The little old man I saw helping his wife get out of the car today at Walgreens. He took her arm and before they walked across the parking lot, he kissed the top of her head. I smiled about it for a long time as I drove home. And smiling's the BEST.

I need some visuals now.
So here's the first (blurry) photo of my new nephew, Caesar:


The book I'm in the middle of:


My Dad and Trish, when they assaulted a metal bull a few years ago:


My sweet, unique little angel:

HOW TO TELL IF THE ADULTS HATE YOU

I've had it with crappy toys. It seems like everyone's got a crappy toy story to tell. Someone once told me about the doll with no eyes her mom bought her at a yard sale. After I stopped laughing at her, I realized how traumatic getting a fabric doll with the button eyes torn off could be for an impressionable little tot. And then I felt sorry for the girl. Too little, too late...she jumped off the bridge anyway. Oh well.

No, that girl is probably still quite alive, for the record. I remember seeing her graduate from college the same day I did, so she at least made it that far. (Way to go, Rachel! That eyeless doll handicap couldn't hold ya down!)

Getting back to toys that suck:

I love this topic.

I love it because it calls to mind images of parents full of vitriol for their offspring. I think of the evil-mustached parents who secretly enjoy planting that fake monster under the bed or paying their neighbor to put pantyhose on his head and "kidnap" the kid on the way home from school. You know, as a joke. What? This sort of thing is frowned upon in our society? The hell you say!

My sister and I got bad toys from my one grandmother all the time. Actually, no... we didn't get bad toys, really, she simply stocked her HOUSE with bad toys and we got to "play" with them when we visited. Here is a quick list of some of the toys at Oma's house:
* Small decorative bottles (I'd make them talk out of boredom)
* Dried pasta
* Open bag of flour in the basement
* Picture frames
* A piece of wood with a man's face carved into it...the memory of which can make my piss run cold, I tell ya
* A blanket (I could make Trish sit on it and then pull her around on the carpet. Wheee!)

I remember bringing my record player to her house once and listening to my "The Fox and the Hound" record and having her lecture me on the volume. She made me turn down The Fox and the Effin' HOUND. Who does that?! Cripes! Not cool, Oma.

That's enough about her for today, though. Today I want to talk about my INVISIBLE DOG!

Yep, I had one of those things. A lovely wire with a dog collar attached to the end. I could spend hours walking my invisible dog if it so pleased me. Oh, the frivolity inherent in the INVISIBLE DOG toy!

What a stupid thing to give a kid. Seriously. I know they were popular in the 70s and early 80s, but why? What is so stimulating to a growing child about a wire leash with no real animal attached? Is it to train kids early on ironic comedy or something? Or perhaps learn to weather the many taunts one endures over the course of a lifetime ("you're crazy," "you're a schizo freak," "how did you get out of the locked ward past Jell-O Treat Hour?")?

But I was kind of a stupid kid, so I think I liked my idiotic invisible dog. I seem to recall walking my invisible dog through the mall. PROUDLY.

I bet I tried to feed the invisible dog. And brush it. I know I would have wanted to do those things. Food was essential in all play-games. I wonder if I fixed it a nice plate of invisible bologna, or if I took actual food from our actual dog and set it in front of my invisible dog so it could have a proper dinner. And I wonder if I was surprised when the food went uneaten. Oh no! Maybe my invisible dog is SICK! Maybe the food's gone bad! What are you trying to tell me, Boy? Huh? Is the house gonna blow up? Who threw what down what well? Talk to me, Boy!

Now, I wonder how long it was before the novelty of the invisible dog wore off. I sincerely hope it didn't last for, say, longer than a week. If I had a time machine, and could go back and find out how much time passed before I hung the invisible dog up on a hook to die, I might not do it because I am a little concerned about what I might find out. I might find out I was a Grade A Retard who brought that thing to school and everything. I might have named it, bought it a little hat. Might have introduced it to everyone I met, asked everyone to pet it. And as a result, my poor, disappointed parents might have had some long, hushed talks in their room at night, trying to figure out the best possible place along the highway to abandon me so I could be raised by street people. Or squirrels. Whichever wanted me first.

The best toys for kids? That's easy: An empty box big enough to hide inside; a stick; some string.

Those three things will serve a kid well.

I accidentally typed "sever a kid well" back there. And now I forgot what the rest of my blog was supposed to be about. This is another reason why I am going to be on medication the rest of my stupid life-- I laugh for 20 minutes at a typo involving the killing of children using a box, some string and a stick.

"Pour the gin, Lydia. I'm on my way home."

IT'S CLIPTASTIC!
It's been a long time coming, but I can finally announce that we have a 1947 FLXIBLE Clipper bus of our own now.

Well, it's really a joint ownership thing between Greg and his college friends...but it is living in our backyard now as Greg finishes restoring it into an RV. It's an investment. These things, when they are finished, can sell for 50K or more! And he only paid $6K for this one. It was a smoking deal.

A small part of me is, "Ehh...now we have a BUS. In our BACKYARD"...and the other part of me is totally geeking out on how cool it is to actually own one of these things. Back when I worked on Bus Ride magazine, we ran an annual photo contest and I had a tendency to choose FLXIBLE buses as the winners. I love them. They're just neat old buses. People convert them into cool retro RVs-- and I admit I kind of daydreamed about possibly hunting one down one day for myself. Little did I know one day I'd marry a guy who'd hunt one down. And here it is:


What started this whole interest in FLXIBLEs for Greg was when we stayed at the Shady Dell in Bisbee, AZ, the night after our wedding. We stayed in the Tiki Bus, if you will recall...and it made quite an impression! Now here we are a year and a half later, with a bus to take apart and covert ourselves. (I probably won't do much on it, really, unless he asks me to help since I am kind of afraid of messing up something this antique.)

We tried to pick the bus up a month ago, but it broke down only 10 minutes later as we drove out of town. (We bought it from a great guy named Dave in Hesperia, CA... a good 5 1/2 hours from home.) So we had to leave it there while Dave did some more repairs on it to get it road-worthy. Finally, it was ready to go this past weekend, so on Friday, Greg and I drove out to Hesperia once more, stayed in a hotel for a night, and drove over to Dave's in the morning to pick up the bus. We've gotten to really like this Dave guy-- he owns a FLXIBLE, of course, and his son Jason has one, and his other son has an old Greyhound bus converted into an incredibly cool Elvis Bus... clearly it's a family obsession. Dave just became a grandfather for the first time a week ago, so we brought the baby girl a gift, too. Why not, we figured. They're just really nice people.

Of course getting the bus HOME wasn't easy. It was fraught with peril, literally! First, the bus overheated two hours into the drive home. It was an extending uphill climb that did it in, so we had to pull over and let the temperature drop down to at least 170 again (it hit 240!). That was really no big deal. Then, we made it to Quartsite, AZ, which is just over the border of CA. We needed gas. As Greg pulled up to the tanks, and I sat in my car a ways back so he had room to maneuver, all the sudden I notice FIRE under the bus.

The bus. was. on. FIRE.

And Greg is driving towards the gas pumps! Holy SHIT.

A lot of screaming and running towards the bus happened next, as I rightly freaked out and tried to catch his attention so he could stop driving towards the pumps AND get the hell out of the bus. Other people saw it, too, and started running and screaming. Finally, he figured out what was happening, shut the bus down and jumped out with a fire extinguisher and put the fire out.

It turned out a hose for the power steering fluid had blown apart. Since the engine was so hot, the fluid caught fire as it dripped out. Nothing exploded. Everyone was OK.

Well...

Until the BEES showed up, that is.

A truck pulled into the gas station while this was going on, and this truck was apparently carrying food, or something that attracts pollinating insects. And that meant a swarm of bees came with it. These bees proceeded to swarm and attack everyone at the gas station. The guys trying to throw saw dust down on the steering fluid and clean up were chased and stung... people at the pumps were hollering and getting attacked... yeah, just what we need while trying to deal with a burning 1947 bus blocking some gas pumps. Fun. At one point about an hour later, I looked around at the chaos and thought: "Is this really my life?" :)

Greg somehow managed to MacGuyver the bus back into action. He fixed it right there in the parking lot, ruining his favorite T shirt in the process, unfortunately...but the important thing was it was operable again. Amazingly, the whole time he was out there in Crazy Bee Country, he didn't get stung at all. And I didn't either...even though they were landing in my hair, on my neck and at one point, on my eyelid...! Not sure how we got so lucky given the magnitude of that swarm. Towards the end, I was forced to hide in my car and watch poor Greg from a distance as he labored under the bus. I had no choice, though. I couldn't exactly help him at that point, since I am not a mechanic even though I was fathered by one; and the bees were getting really touchy-feely by that point and I needed to flee.

We got the bus home many hours later, finally. On Sunday Greg spent the day moving the gate so the bus will fit in the backyard, alongside the house. It's strange seeing this old bus there... Hailie and Indy loved exploring the whole thing when we finally let them out to do a walk/sniffaround. Indy made me laugh because he systematically moved around the entire bus, smelling everything and checking it out like he was some sort of safety inspector. He's going to be a cool RV dog. I know it.

So that's the bus story, and how I spent my weekend.

Other than that, yes...I was in St. Louis, and it was a decent time overall. Even though I was busy non-stop and had a few points where I literally passed out the second my head hit the pillow at the end of the day, for a work function it wasn't too bad. Then again, my company knows what they're doing and that helps a lot in making life a little more tolerable in these situations. I got to know several more of my co-workers on this trip (people I don't normally cross paths with since we're in different departments), and went to the top of the St. Louis Arch like a good tourist before we left town.

I liked St. Louis, from what I experienced, because the downtown was full of old buildings and interesting architecture; the people were pretty friendly and nice; and they have mass transit. I don't underestimate the power of trains, and use them whenever I can when I travel to a city lucky enough to have them. I know they're kind of gross sometimes, and can be packed with weird people, but seriously... so cheap! So efficient! I love that. I'll be in Phoenix 10 years next month, and I still can't believe the lack of decent mass transit in a city this enormous. We have buses, but oh my GOD. They're not easy to navigate. I remember I once wrote an editor letter about how difficult it was to map a route from my home to the office, because the system would have required me to transfer buses about 4 times and a drive that would normally take me 20 minutes by car would take almost two HOURS by bus. And as of this writing, there are NO TRAINS.

Oh, we're supposed to be all excited because the light rail system they've been building for about 4 years now is finally going to be operational in December. Don't get me wrong, I am excited for myself because I am fortunate enough to live near the line, but I am still not impressed because it's going to cover such a small area of the Valley. It'll connect Mesa to downtown Phoenix. Ok, I know, that's great, really! But damn... Phoenix is nothing but miles and miles of SPRAWL. In every direction. Traffic is terrible, everywhere. The lightrail is going to be a bandaid on a massive, gushing wound. I guess it's better than nothing, and it IS a start. I just can't fathom how a city can explode to this size with no real planning regarding mass transit. I think a train should have been installed decades ago, had anyone thought ahead and tracked population trends. Oh, well. Sure we have over 300 days of sunshine a year, but all that sun can warp brains, apparently.

Wow, I really railed on for awhile there about trains, huh? Get it?

It's good to be back to the blog. I missed my stupid thoughts, vomited all over the keyboard like this. Ahhh. Word vomit.

HOW MUCH JOY CAN YOU STAND?!
A few years ago my sister and I had way too much fun reading aloud the names of courses at the local community college. Don't let ANYONE tell you we don't know how to party like rock stars. Because it isn't true... we are hard-core and we'll mess your shit up, without a doubt.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh, yeah. The names of the courses were great. There was "Baking Bread...And Beyond!" (Have you ever read a more exciting bread-making class title in your life?! It makes me think of Buzz Lightyear, baking bread like an astronaut on speed made out of yeast). Another one was "Sew It Yourself!" (yeah, that's right, lardass...time to darn your own socks, already). My favorite was a course on appreciation (or something)... "How Much Joy Can You Stand?"

Think about that for a minute. How much joy can YOU stand? I think I can stand quite a bit of joy, myself. I'm not the type of heartless bastard who shoves happy people down in the street because I just cannot tolerate that happiness shit for one. second. longer. Nah. I'm OK with joy. The only thing is, it makes me think of Joy dishwashing detergent. And now that I think about it, I do have limits when it comes to Joy dishwashing detergent. There's only so much I can drink before the violent diarrhea sets in. Whew, boy.

You might be wondering why Judy Garland and a bunch of other JOYFUL fruits are gracing the top of this blog post. They're caught mid-song in a scene from "Meet Me in St. Louis," and today I leave for St. Louis. So I'm commemorating it with happy assholes on a trolley or whatever. (I'm not going to be able to blog for days and days, just FYI so you have the 411 and won't have to put out an APB to find lil' old me.)

BIG INCREDIBLE NEWS!

If we were playing the 7 Degrees of Tina Fey, I'm one degree away. Turns out my best friend's father is her driver. Last night, he was even on 30 Rock ("Sandwich Day") as one of the teamsters. He was the one in the orange sweater, if you happened to Tivo it. I am so proud of him, and excited as hell about this connection I hadn't even realized existed in the first place. Here I am loving this crazy-smart bitch Ms. Fey, and now it turns out she's someone I could potentially meet some time, according to my friend anyway. I guess Tina Fey is as cool in person as you think she'd be. Dude...my friend even helped Tina pick out her dress for the Emmys this year. And no, that's not a joke at all. It's true. That's just all kinds of cool.

Well, that's all I have for now. I must retire for the eve, for in the morning I have to go to the airport and experience the JOY of air travel. There's a limit to how much plane-joy I can stand, I realize. Let's hope I don't have to sit near any more practicing Jews for this flight, or I'm going to be fishing the hell out of someone's gefilte.

I don't even know what I am talking about anymore.
At all.

SMACKED IN THE HEAD BY THE THRILLER HIMSELF
I’m so busy right now, trying to finish up some work before I leave on another business trip, but something calls to me to come here and blog anyway. Why does that happen? Why, when I know I am pressed for time, do I do this? Is it stress-relieving to write about Pee-Wee Herman? I don’t know.

Anyway, I was tagged by Leezer to do this thing where you post 6 random things about yourself and then find 6 other people who haven’t done it yet and get them to do the same. Since I really adore Leezer (we share a love for Chris Elliott as well as the same awesome first name), I’m doing it even though I’m pretty sure I have already written every single random thing I can think of about myself on this blog over the past 5 years. But hell, let’s see what happens when I give it a go. I have no clue what I’m going to write after this sentence, so it will be interesting to see what my brain pukes out.

Here’s what you do: Post the rules on your blog, which are:
- Write six random things about yourself in a blog post
- Tag six people in your post
- Let each person know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog
- Let the tagger know your entry is up
Next, write your 6 things (duh). Here goes…

1) I won a framed glittery picture of Michael Jackson at one of those boardwalk stands with the big wheel that spins around and if it lands on the same number that you’d plunked your quarter down on, you won some crappy treasure. It was around 1984, so a likeness of Michael Jackson as he looked on the cover of “Thriller,” rendered in glitter-infused paint and placed in a tacky thick wooden frame was pretty much THE prize to choose! I hung it over my headboard when my sister and I had bunk beds. I was on the bottom. One night, the picture fell down for some reason and hit me in the head. It hurt a lot, and it sucks to be woken up with a head wound from a falling Michael Jackson picture.

2) Whenever I travel for work, and have to attend a morning meeting or workshop, there is always a strong chance that I will nod off sitting there in my chair. Even if I go to bed early the night before, and even if I eat a healthy breakfast…about an hour in, I drop out. It’s always when I am trying to take notes, too, so I end up with these drawn-out, scrawling messes that run off the page when I start to fall asleep. Later I can’t tell what I was writing. Not just because of the bad sleepy penmanship, but because when I’m like that I only capture certain words or phrases that, put together later, make no sense at all. Since I’m going to a five day conference next week, this morning nod-off is something I’m dreading right now in a big way.

3) There is a brand-new combination lock in my house right now that I cannot find. Yet I know I have come across it several times when I have not been looking for it. But every time I look for it (so I can change clothes at the gym and lock my stuff up), there is no way in hell I’ll find it.

4) I don’t mind drinking room temperature water straight from the filter at the sink.

5) Even though he sheds very badly and his nails can scratch me, I love picking Indy up and holding him like he was a smaller dog. I’ll also let him hop up onto my lap when I’m sitting at my desk, or I will lie on the floor and let him flop down on me. I like cuddling with that damn dog.

6) My friend D told me today that I made an “angry Strawberry Shortcake face” while we were talking. So apparently I can look like a plastic doll from the 80s (because we are not talking about the newly-redesigned 21st century Strawberry Shortcake, in the “Kristy McNichol clothes,” another great description by D). Sweet!

By the way, this took ALL DAY to actually get up here. So there was effort involved, just so you know.

I hereby tag: Trish, Fraulein N, Monotonous Life, Vegas Princess, Shades and Dot. And now, as Shakespeare would say, “Go to!”

IS THIS SOMETHING YOU CAN SHARE WITH THE REST OF US...

...AMAZING LARRY?!

Oh, man, I love this so much. I love the entire movie, but this scene packs in the laughs for me. I woke up thinking about this today. I think Large Marge sent me a dream that reminded me of the basement in the Alamo...

When I was in fifth grade, there was NOTHING funnier to me than Pee-Wee. This was because my Mom taped a special off of Showtime, the Pee-Wee Herman Show, which pre-dates Pee-Wee's Playhouse by a couple of years, and I watched it non-stop. That show was my comedy drug, and Neverending Story was the dramatic (for lack of a better word) movie I watched all the time, over and over. 1985 was filled with me wearing out our VHS tapes while eating iceberg lettuce smothered in Wishbone French dressing. (Me and my sister always loved to eat lettuce 'salads' like that after school. I'm surprised my Mom never bitched us out for going through entire bottles of dressing in about three days each...that stuff isn't exactly cheap when you practically drink it.)

Anyway, there isn't much online from the Pee-Wee Herman Show, but here is a clip where Miss Yvonne shows up and does two awesome things: 1) Hands Pee-Wee a strange little ghost thing and 2) Applies her favorite lip and cheek stain, Wild Raspberry. I know every single word, note of music, and facial expression of this entire show. Seeing this again today makes me so nostalgic. I always wanted to be the most beautiful woman in Puppetland myself. Sigh.

I don't understand Hermit Hattie, though. I think she was gay, making perfume for Miss Yvonne and everything. And she was all concerned with the "cam heads on her Jeep." Weird.

I won't start with Captain Carl. Where can one really begin. The man is legend.

At least we see Monsieur Le Croc at the end of this video. I love the idea of a French crocodile showing up at a window, wanting to test its latest computer dating service. This NEVER happens to me. And that's why life is incredibly boring.

EATING MOVIES, POOPING TV SHOWS

My God. I feel blank today. I mean, I woke up barely knowing what I was supposed to do today (go to work) and now I am sitting here, at the place I go to get paid, looking around at my desk thinking, "Now, what was I doing again when I left here on Friday? All of this stuff here looks mighty confusing." Yes. I thought the words "mighty confusing." Shut it.

Actually, things are pretty good if I actually stop and apply myself enough to think. I've seen a couple of fun movies recently, and watched some TV-type things that made me happy. I worked on the book. Went hiking (it's seriously addictive). Read some, slept some. Not too bad, overall.

The two movies I've seen in the theater recently are:
1) Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Even though it's got more male frontal than is truly needed, it's still a sweet movie and I liked it a lot. I was impressed that Jason Segel wrote it. He was very funny in "Undeclared," a great cancelled show that Greg introduced me to a couple years ago, so check that out, too. I loved Mila Kunis (she's so pretty! I never really noticed it before. I wouldn't mind getting a Mila Kunis Facelift and Hair Transplant, if anyone was looking for a little something to buy me for Victoria Day [Canada]). I enjoyed the cameos, and the "Dracula" puppet musical. I recommend this movie. (Bonus: I saw the preview for Pineapple Express for the first time before this movie. I do enjoy Seth Rogen, especially when he is freaking out; and there's a quick scene they show where James Franco puts his foot through the windshield of a cop car while he's driving and for some reason, it's hilarious.)

2) Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. I told you I'd see it on opening weekend, and I did. I know it's retarded, and all of that, but damned if it didn't make me laugh like a braying donkey anyway. I knew it would; I love the first movie. Rob Corddry made a great asshole Homeland Security officer... Neil Patrick Harris did not disappoint, eating a bag of shrooms and talking about Hershey's Kisses in a lovely context. Although there is a very sad scene at a Texas whorehouse run by Beverly D'Angelo, so brace yourself if you go see it. Also, there's a surprise cameo by the Reverend Clyde Stanky as he is billed in the credits. He plays a KKK grand wizard, and it's a short scene, but it made me giddy that he was there. Points are taken off for the kind of sappy Kumar love story sideplot, and the kind of terrible Presidential impersonator, but overall I still give it a high grade. Get it? Ah-duh.

As for TV, LOST was back this week and I enjoyed it, of course. It was Ben-heavy this week, and because I don't like Jack very much I was glad to see that he looked like he has severe intestinal pains or something. I'm annoyed that the show killed off Frenchy and her daughter before we got to really know their story, and even more annoyed that Ben's reaction to everything made me feel a little sorry for the big-eyed bastard for the first time ever. Don't tell me the show is going to try to make us care about Ben now. Well, whatever, they got me...I'm along for the ride, whatever they do, I admit it. So go ahead, LOST. Just try to make me like Michael. I dare you.

And YAY for "30 Rock" and "The Office"! I love pretty much every minute of those shows. "Devon, I knew that when they cast Clay Aiken in Spamalot, it was only a matter of time before you showed up here." Hee hee.

We also watched the pilot of "Dead Like Me." And for some reason, that show's kind of got its hooks in me now. I know it's yet another cancelled show on DVD for me to fall in love with, but it's still good stuff.

The Season 1 DVD of "Tim & Eric Awesome Show" came out last week. Trish got it, of course. And we watched a lot of it one night when we had dinner together. It's not for everyone, but it's seriously one of the funniest shows I've ever seen because it is the closest to the type of humor me and my best friend have been saying all these years, and the randomness of it also speaks to my sister and I because we, too, have had this sense of humor forever. I'm all into weird faces, noises, nonsensical songs and completely absurd, random humor.

I'm reading The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop. This comes highly recommended by Shades, and it's a huge book so it's going to take me awhile, but I like it so far. Huzzah for reading!

Well, that's about it for now. Here's a completely insane photo of one of those bizarre Olsen Twins to make your Monday that much scarier:

COME ON. She can just go to hell and die. I'm sick of this shit!

WHAT I KEEP IN THE ATTIC

Words on paper make me happy.

Today two different people asked me if they could read more of my book. Both knew what chapter I am currently up to, and both wanted me to send over what I had today. And might I add, I am not related to either of them in any way.

That is so cool. I’m so flattered and excited that they want to know what happens enough to seek me out to ask for more. So I just had to come on here and get all giddy about it for a minute. Yay!

I was just remembering Milk and Cheese comic books today. They were among some of the first comics I bought once I got brave and ventured outside of the safe DC Vertigo world back in college, and they are hilarious. I forgot all about them until I was talking with a co-worker about comics just now, and Milk and Cheese just popped into my head. I asked her if she ever heard of it, since I have never run into anyone who has heard of them before, and to my excitement she’d not only heard of them, she loves them too. So we just reminisced for a few minutes about the “dairy products gone bad” and the particular humor of those books. Now that I have remembered them, I want to buy more than the 4 issues I have...and maybe find a t-shirt or something online.

The thing is, as we talked about comics, I realized how many I actually have. It’s a lot. And I have good ones, too. All the Preacher comics; Fray (the futuristic Slayer series by Joss Whedon); every Sandman collection (I got into them after the individual issues were on the market, so the collections were the best way for me to get the whole story); The Books of Magic; Witchcraft; Moonshadow; House of Secrets; a signed hardcopy of “The Crow” (one of my prize possessions in fact); the first third of the Y: The Last Man series; and a scattering of random issues from various series I tried out. It would be cool to get back into it again, in some ways. I really do want the rest of Y: The Last Man SO badly. I buy them for the stories first, the art second, and the collectability a way distant third. Even though I’m not into trading or selling comics, I do keep them nice, though, in bags with board backing. I don’t want them to fall apart.

Anyone else have a collection of something? What is it and why do you have it?

ALIENS ARE COMING TO GET ME!

Well, I guess it's finally time I make out my Last Will and Testament. Maybe I'll take some time today to do some of the crazy stuff I always wanted to do before I die (pilot a power boat; learn to swing dance; visit Germany and Italy; have drinks with Chris Elliott and Tina Fey...) because I fear that my time here is short.

The aliens have figured out where I live.

This is SERIOUS.

Last night, they made an appearance over the skies of Phoenix in the form of four mysterious lights in the sky. They know about me, and how much I hate them, and so they're coming to exact their revenge on me for saying shit about them on the internet for years now.

I just hope they won't do something like possess our dogs and mess with my head for a few days before they finally take me away to their scary torture UFOs and jam huge needles in my eyes. That would just be cruel. Or that they don't just keep calling me and hanging up. Or putting shoe polish in my food. God...there are so many things that those dick aliens could potentially do to me.

I wonder if digging a hole in the backyard and covering it with plywood would work, at least to give me a hiding place so I have time to actually write that stupid will. I hear these wills take time. Note to self: build Alien Shelter wide enough to allow lawyer to fit inside so he can assist in will-writing.

No, those assholes would probably just blast right through my protective plywood with their lasers. Grrrr! I HATE them!

Maybe I can just get a gun. Should be easy enough. That way, when the aliens come busting down our front door to get me, I can at least take a couple of the sons-a-bitches out before they take me away. Maybe I can die a hero if it means my desperate, crazed gunshots saved my husband and the dogs from possible murder at the hands of overzealous aliens. I think they'd take off once they had me, and leave them alone, if they saw all the ruckus I was causing with the gunshots and everything. Remember: the aliens only want ME. Dogs and husband would only be collateral damage, more trouble than the aliens want. Plus they'll have to clear out of there before the cops show up.

My other idea is to kill 'em with kindness. What if they show up and I smile and let them in, offering to take their ray guns so they can sit down a spell and have some chocolate milk and cookies with me? They'd be really confused. They might even do it! So get this: when they sit down and enjoy their milk and cookies, I would make pleasant chit-chat, to put them at ease. As they finish up, I'll say, "Well, this was LOVELY, aliens. But I suppose it's time we get back to your ship. I imagine you have a lot of sharp objects you can't WAIT to stick into my head!" They'd laugh, and that's when I would yank the pin out of the grenade I've been hiding in my apron all along, toss it at 'em and dive out the back door as they are totally annihilated! Fuck you, you lousy aliens!

Eeek. Either way, I don't have much time. I bet they'll be back tonight with their stupid lights and their "unexplained phenomenon"-ness. I'm sorry if this has to be my last blog ever, but at least you'll know what happened to me.

And if they don't kill me right away when I'm up there, in their horrible alien clutches, I'll probably try to blog a few times from the Human Zoo.

420
Duuuude. I totally spaced and forgot yesterday was 4/20. I could have used it as an opportunity to roll a fatty and get toasted. Instead, what did I do? You guessed it: I took a nap. So at 4:20 pm on 4/20, I was asleep. Typical.

Truth be told, I actually couldn't give a shit about 420. I can't remember the last time I smoked The Weed. It wasn't in Arizona, I know that much. So we're talking at least a decade. I just don't make a good smoker, or taker of drugs. I'm a wimp with a terrible immune system, so inhaling smoke into my lungs usually means a few days later I'll have a cough or something. I already take prescription drugs and I fear weird interactions; hell, even an innocent beer or two can have a profound effect on me these days.

But I'm no snob, and I have been known to enjoy things near and dear to the pothead community. I get the munchies pretty much ALL the time. I still have a little Rusted Root on my mp3 player. And I love watching cartoons and eating big bowls of sugary kid's cereal. I'll go see Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay on opening weekend.

All I wanted to say with this post, really, is Happy 420, one day late, to anyone who appreciates and celebrates this national holiday. I respect your decision to smoke up. Hope you had a nice, stoned time and didn't get busted by anyone.