Job (dis)satisfaction

Recent phone call with Gabi. Because if you can't call your friends crying about how old they are getting, then they're not really your friends.

A: Hello?
G: Hi.
A: Who is this?
G: What do you mean who is this? It's Gabi. You've had caller ID for like 20 years.
A:You don't call me though, it's usually only texting. How do I know this is really Gabi?
G:You want me to prove it?
A:Gabi doesn't call me!
G: Fine. In High School you were once in Gige's Dad's house and right before your Mom came over you were-
A:-OK! Stop right there. I believe you.
G: Are you sure? Cause I just remembered something else about that day.
A: I'm sure. What if your man secretary hears you?
G: He'll probably want to meet you.
A: With the amount of snot that was involved he probably won't.
G: What?
A: What?
G: We're not talking about the same thing.
A: I think we are.
G: Ew.
A: This is why we only text.
G: Are you at work?
A: Yes. Are you?
G: Yes. I hate it here. It makes me . . . (**muffled sobs**) ... my life is like... and everything is speeding up. My boyfriend's getting older. And you. . . I mean you're gonna be thirty!
A: What?
G: Thirty. You're gonna be thirty, my boyfriend's gonna be older. . .
A: Oh, I heard you. How come you're not getting older?
G: I'm always gonna be younger than you.
A: Ok. (**shaking it off. she's upset.**) So, I'm gonna be thirty - I'm still your friend. We still have fun right?
G: We cry and eat.
A: Well, half of that is fun.
G: We don't even eat as much as we used to.
A: Speak for yourself. Plus, we don't cry as like a thing we do together for fun. It only happens when you're at work and you start conversations like this.
G: It's sucking out my soul.
A: Yeah, that's the fluorescent lighting.
G: I'm serious.
A: So am I! Those pipe lights are like that scary octopus lady from The Little Mermaid who sucks out the voice of Ariel; except they suck souls and make you look like you just threw up a few times and then washed your face with gifilte fish.
G: Pipe lights?
A: That's what you chose to focus on in that sentence?
G: Hang on. . . (**to her fancy walkie talkie**)Yeah whatever, arrest him, don't arrest him, I don't care.
A: Do you need to go arrest someone?
G: Nah, whatever he stole probably wasn't that big.
A: At least you take pride in what you do.
G: I can't arrest everyone who steals! I'd have to fire 90% of everyone who steps into the store, employees included.
A: Well, that might be a good way to get out of working there now wouldn't it? You can't come to work if everyone is in jail.
G: . . .
A: Gabi?
G: Interesting. . .
A: Better than my second idea. That one involves a small fire in the children's section, and a goat.
G: I could just arrest everyone . . .
A: And then your job would be finished.
G: Oh my gosh I'm so happy. How come I never thought of that?
A: Well, I am always older than you.
G: Thank god for that.

Happy Christmas Eve!

My favorite Christmas present so far:



The best part about this was that right after I got it I had to call my sister and say, "When did Chanukah start? Is it over? Do you spell it with a 'c' and one 'n'? Or a 'h' and three hundred 'k's?"

"It ended already, it started on the 11th."

"Wow super-jew, way to keep up with things."

"I do have a hebrew tattoo remember?"

"So does Posh Spice."

"Ok, it's pre-printed on my work calendar."

"Awesome."

"I am gonna make fried matzo on Christmas eve when Dad comes over to celebrate."

"There see, we've fulfilled out duty then. Maybe I'll see if he wants to play dreidel with us."

"Do you remember the rules?"

"No, but I figure if I just start shouting out all the Yiddish words I remember and throwing gelt at everyone it'll seem like we're doing it right."

"I'm in."

"L'chaim."

"Uh. . . that's a toast."

"Goyim."

"Amy. . ."

"Shiksa."

"Oh, Jesus. . ."

"Anne Frank."

"Too far."


So, we might not get to the dreidel or even be able to talk my Dad into putting on his yarmulke for the spirit of things, but there will be lots of fried crackers soaked in eggs (oh my gosh, don't judge it's surprisingly amazing) and my Dad will be playing every Christmas song on the planet for us on his guitar while we get drunk on non-kosher wine, and watch Babes in Toyland - the Annette Funicello version - and have to listen to my Dad tell us again how he used to have such a big crush on her. It's not Christmas until your Jewish father is singing Jingle Bells and blushing about a Mouseketeer, while your brother is making the bells strung on the tree play Silent Night at an insanely high decibel as some sort of horrible back-up to your dad's acoustic guitar, and you and your equally tone deaf sister get just tipsy enough to join in for the "harmony" but end up stopping your dad dead in his tracks to cover his ears in mock pain, and even your brother focuses on you long enough to sign, "Stop please", which you do because I mean c'mon - you've just offended the boy who thinks New Kids On The Block still kicks ass - that's gotta be some bad singing.

It Does A Body Good

I just found a note stuck in the middle of my important work papers that just says:

"is awesome form of nutrition. is breastmilk!"

I cannot for the life of me remember writing this, but I'm almost 100% sure I wrote it yesterday. (You know, due to the date written in the corner.) I'm pretty sure it was a basis for a discussion I was having in my head with Gige about breast feeding. I like to have discussions with her with myself first, playing both sides, because now that she's a mom she's super busy we don't have a lot of time to talk, so when we actually get voice contact I like to bring something up that I don't have to get a ten minute rambling start to*, I want to be prepared for all her logic and well thought-out-ness. It's sort of like how I get pumped up to get into an argument with my Mom but on a much lesser scale. My mom goes into an argument knowing she's right and never, NEVER, loses. Even if she's wrong she somehow spins it so she's right. She's like a politician trying to avoid a sex scandal, only most of the time she's avoiding acknowledging that it IS embarrassing that she wears a pillow case over one of her arms when she drives. A pillow case. Over her arm. WHAT. Who does that?

"I don't want to get a sunburn."

"You're in the car."

"The sun is still shining isn't it?"

"But you're just going to the grocery store, what is that - like a three minute drive?"

"I have very delicate skin."

"Mom, couldn't you just use sunscreen?"

"I don't want to be sticky just to go to the store."

"What about long sleeves?"

"I'm hot, and what about my hands? You want them to get skin cancer?"

"No, I-"

"Are you saying you'd rather I get melanoma than wear the pillow case to spare you some embarrassment?"

"Well, no, that's not what I mean-"

"I love you Amy. I would give you my pillow case if you needed it."

"You would?"

And then suddenly I'm deeply touched my Mom would give up her protection, I feel four and like she's just picked me up from Kindergarten and carried me all the way to the car because she knew I needed an extra long hug after the whole running out of milk money, and peeing a little bit on my shoes thing because the Kindergarten bathrooms are different from our home bathrooms and I got nervous and missed. And somehow I'm tearing up and telling her I love the pillow case idea, I really love it, and end up wearing the matching one to hers as we head to 7-11 for some Chocodiles and Dr. Peppers. She's sneaky. Very, very sneaky.

(*This is good in theory, but it never works. When we actually do talk I tend to hit sonic levels only dogs can hear because I'm so excited to hear from her, and by the time we're both calmed down from our giggling and best friend love pouring, it's time for her to pump or for me to eat so we have to hang up.)(Because me and four-month-old are on the same schedule.)

Anyway, what I meant to discuss with Gige yesterday before we got all caught up talking about firecracker pork, was the fact that she and her husband seem very set on denying the fact that they have ever, maybe even just on accident, tried her breast milk. Like not even a little drop that spilled out. I think I would totally lick that up. I mean, I eat food I drop in the street, that's gotta be worse for me right? Last time I asked the husband he looked at me like I'd just asked him if he tried his own poop. I did not ask that - poop eating is gross - milk though, milk is perfectly normal. Babies live off it for goodness sake! Like my note says, "is awesome form of nutrition. is breastmilk!"

I started to get all worried and embarrassed though (with myself, because Gige wasn't actually saying anything back to me - and even if she was, she would never make me feel bad about wanting to try her breast milk) (I mean. . .)(no she probably wouldn't make me feel bad about that either - but let the record show, I don't want to try her breast milk, I want her to try her breast milk.)

There's a whole world of people out there who are so relieved right now that she got stuck with the job of being one of my best friends and they didn't.

So, I'm feeling really weird about this, because it is weird a little bit, but I've never had a baby so I don't know. So, I do the logical thing and text my mom who's working her a off ten feet from me.

TXT: thanx 4 getting the irs to fax me that stuff ur the best. also, did you ever try your own breastmilk, like even just on accident?

And then I watch her from behind a potted plant while she reads it and I see her face go from amusement to slight disgust, and then she began rubbing her temples, which is a reaction to me she does a lot lately. But then she looked up and saw me peeking out from behind a fern where I was starting to giggle, because breaking my Mom's concentration is hard to do and making her giggle at the office is even harder, but she kept looking at me and her face started to break, and reluctantly, against her will, a huge smile broke out and she started shaking in silent giggles, and the fern started shaking wildly because I was laughing and holding on to it, and she calmed herself down enough to look up at me, nod slowly and mouth:

"Of course I have."

Of course she has. She wears pillow cases for goodness sake. And apparently now so do I.

I Also Once Had Nightmares After An Episode Of The Facts Of Life

So on Saturday I decided to go to a party with one of my teacher friends and was pretty sure I'd be home and in bed by nine because the thing started at 4:30. Becky went out of town for the night but before she did she said, "You are not gonna be in bed by 9, when you hang out with her its for like four days straight, and you come back eventually all hung over and talking about this zoo you broke into and that it's quite possible one or both of you is pregnant."

"That's totally not true."

"What happened last time you guys hung out?"

"Fun happened."

"Exactly."

And despite my best efforts to keep it normal, at the end of the night (which to be fair was only like 11pm) my teacher friend and I were sitting on the floor, having a tea party with the host's four year old son, and were pissed when we were told it was his bedtime because we knew that meant tea party was over. Apparently we were together enough to know if we continued to have the tea party with just the two of us, things would get weird.

Anyway, the whole point of this is to say that Sunday I was a little out of it. I'm too old to drink til 11 apparently and then try to be functional the next day. (My 21 year-old self is shaking her head in disgrace at my now-self, but that's ok, because my 21 year-old self also thought Justin Timberlake was the un-cutest of the boy band boys . . . oh my gosh if only she knew what Chris Kirkpatrick would end up like.)




He's not terrible. But he's not this either.




(Hi Justin. Just kidding about when I was 21. Here, let me make it up to you. By that I mean with sexy stuff, you know that right? Ok, just so we're clear.)

Anyway, I was couch-bound on Sunday and spent the entire day reading this book In The Woods, and it was so (dork alert) nice to be reading! Like actually wanting to spend hours reading because I liked the book so much, I haven't had that since. . . well, probably since the last Harry Potter came out. (Gabi, I swear to god if you finish the Twilights and don't read any of the Harry Potters we're gonna have to rethink our friendship.)(Ok, not really, but I am gonna start making more fun of Britney.)(Consider yourself warned!)

So, I was totally thrilled with this book, and it's a mystery so I was trying to figure out what happened, and I'm always wrong - always - because I usually end up thinking it's the best friend, or the supporting character, even though there's been nothing but awesome from them, because in my head that's the scariest thing that can happen. Your best friend turns on you and stabs you in the woods and then leaves your body in some hollow somewhere even though you have no idea what a hollow is, and you're all, 'Oh this is neat, thanks for showing me this hollow' and secretly your best friend is pulling out a serrated hunting knife, and you just keep blabbering, 'I wonder if this would be considered a sleepy hollow', and your bff rolls her eyes because she knows she's about to stab you and leave you there, probably for reasons not far off from the fact that you just wondered about the identity of this hollow, and then you're all 'It's sorta dark in here, I'm hungry' and then she says, 'Not for long' and then bam! you're stabbed to death. But since it was a stabbing and not something fast like a gun shot to the eye, you have time to process everything that's happening, and that's the scary part - not the actual stabbing, that just hurts, the scary part is when you see the murder creep into the eyes of the person you just told that you had a burrito for breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday and watched fourteen episodes of Say Yes To The Dress and thought she understood, and suddenly that all vanishes because she's not, she's not the person you thought she was. She's the one who kills you in a hollow, sleepy or otherwise.

So, yeah, I guess wrong, and mysteries scare the living daylights out of me. I was reading this book for hours on end, and it was REALLY captivating, but it started to get really twisted and really creepy, and before I knew it, it was dark and I was so scared and skittish that not only could I not move from the couch, but then the dog sneezed and I screamed so loud my neighbor came over and asked if I was ok.

"Oh yeah, the dog scared me."

She looked down at my deaf, fourteen year old, snoring dog.

"Well she didn't scare me now. Now she's harmless, but earlier she sneezed."

The walking away without saying goodbye was probably totally deserved.

I could not shake the freaked-out-ness though, and when Becky got home, I heard her jangling her keys in the door, I heard her open it, and saw her face through the crack, in all real-life senses I knew it was her, but I still screamed (in a freakishly mannish voice) when she came in (sisters are the 2nd on my list of scary secret murderers). My only solution to such terror was to finish the book immediately so I would know what happened and could return to a normal life.

Once I finished I breathed a sigh of relief, and Becky breathed a sigh of relief because she was sick of me shrieking at her in terror at inappropriate moments.

But then yesterday, this happened:

"Becky guess what?"

"What?"

"I just found the sequel to my scary book."

"Oh Jesus, Amy no."

"But I have to-"

"No."

"But I want to know what hap-"

"No."

"What if it's not as ba-"

"No."

"I already bought it."

"Shit."

"I'm gonna start reading it right now."

"Thanks for warning me. I'm gonna call you as I'm walking up to the house so you don't throw something at me when I walk in."

"Don't call me! Have you heard my ringtone? It's like Satan's siren."

"Goodbye."

"Don't call me!"



I'm so excited.

Ten Reasons Why My Sister Deserves A Really Great Brithday Today

1. Because yesterday when I couldn't find my ice cream and vehemently decided to blame it on the cleaning lady, Becky backed me up - even when a half an hour later I found it in the oven where I'd left it to defrost like, four days before.

2. She's not ashamed to wear her Paramore concert shirt out in public.

3. She's not ashamed when I wear my high school P.E. shorts out in public.

4. If I quote her yelling at me from a home video circa 1984, she will, without fail, roll her eyes at me and yell, "You can't quote a home movie weirdo!" and will then quote a different one to me. Because as children, we spent a ridiculous amount of time documenting ourselves. My mom wouldn't even know how to turn the thing on, and my dad was too busy filming the scenery around us and announcing it all, "And here's the tree in our front yard . . . it used to be smaller . . . but now it's a little bigger . . . and look. . . it's right next to our honeysuckle bush . . . which is about the same size as it was last year." Someone had to capture our youth, and it sure as hell wasn't gonna be our parents.

5. She once broke her toe from too much dancing.

6. Up until she was about eight years old she refused to wear a shirt if it was hot out on the grounds that 'the boys didn't have to wear shirts, why should she'.

7. She's stopped getting mad when she notices I'm wearing her underwear.

8. This is probably because one day we both realized we were wearing our mom's underwear.

9. Our mom has not stopped getting mad about us wearing her clothes.

10. When she was five she finished building a Construx house the size of a recliner and turned around and proclaimed, "I'm going to be an architect," and then she went ahead and did it. She has more dedication and talent than she ever gives herself credit for. And now she puts these in her clients houses.




11. She always shows me her toe cramps because they don't hurt her (alien) and her feet get so out of whack it looks like she has rubber bones, and this never fails to freak me out.

12. Anytime she's going out-out she'll ask me what she should wear and lets me do her hair, but always, always refuses the jewelry. It's the one girly moment we have together a year, in between her teaching me how to do a beer bong, and me showing her how half my toe turned black from running.

13. She has every episode of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman on VHS.

14. She never cries at movies, not even if a little baby dies, or if that underprivileged black kid makes it as a pro football player because a sassy southern lady decides to raise him as her own - but if it even looks like a puppy, or some sort of animal is maybe going to get hurt, or just taunted, she'll bawl for four days.

15. She's really funny.

16. I don't even need to add this one, because it's totally obvious, but look at this - she's totally grown up into this ridiculously beautiful person.



Oops, wrong picture. That was the first time I did her makeup, she was very grimace-y about it.




And that was more than 10 reasons but I wasted some with all that embarrassing underwear talk.

Happy Birthday Becky!


(*And Michael! I didn't forget him people, he's getting Do You Know The Muffin Man sung to him 10,000 times tonight, and that's way more than equivalent than a blog post about him to him, trust me*)

Not Contagious

So a month or so ago, I got in the car to go to Costco because suddenly my sister and I were out of anything paper, and I had been holding it for two days. Ok, that's not true, because I did go out at midnight (read: 9pm) one night to get some tp and Becky pitched such a fit that it was only 1 ply that I was pretty sure her tiara started to slip off. The only solution: go buy a package of 14 million rolls.

Anyway, so we get in the car and I'm feeling a little feverish, which I chalk up to the fact I was just wearing full sweats even though it's like 80 out (because I like to dress as if I still live in Chicago), and I look in the mirror and notice I look wrong. I look wrong because I am covered in red spots. Like, not just a little bit covered, it's all over my neck, chest, face, torso - but not my arms or legs - which causes me to turn to my sister and yell, "It's not on my limbs, it's just on my body!" (because logic and me part ways when I'm fairly certain I've just inherited a latent strain of SARS) (because even in my freak-outs I'm not cool enough to get a disease when it's popular)

I pulled down the visor-mirror thing to check the rash from different angles while Becky just keeps repeating something about how I need electrolytes. That's her solution to my SARS - just have some Gatorade, you'll be fine. This was not that shocking to me though - when we were kids if Becky had a stomachache my Mom used to hand her the bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos, tell her they were her medicine, and Becky would have to lie on the floor while she ate them. For headaches I was given my choice of See's dark chocolates; for colds we got a combo of butter-peanut butter toast and jars of baby food; and for the flu - Taco Bell. The flu was the best.

It seemed to always work somehow, we survived childhood without any major illness anyway, but right then in the car, with my rapidly spreading rash, I did not think a lime-flavored beverage was going to cure me. I took several pictures with my cell phone to send to Gige's husband so he could diagnose me via a grainy picture the size of a Triscuit, and then went back to examining myself in the visor-mirror when I noticed the SARS was not just on my body, it was also on my eyeballs.

Cut to immediate panic and thoughts of having to have my eyeballs removed and robot ones put in - if I even made it that long, because pretty much, I only had minutes to live.

I couldn't even cry because I was afraid the tears would somehow cause a reaction with the rash on my eyeballs and things would start to explode. I made Becky double check for me, which she refused to do until we were at a stop light because she "didn't want both of us to die today" or something safe like that, but once we stopped she looked at the whites of my eyes and then gave me a look I've only seen on Grey's Anatomy right before they tell the patient he's got a baby bird stuck in his gallbladder.

"You do have a rash on your eyeballs. Holy shit."

"Oh my god I do?!"

"You're the one who made me check!"

"I was hoping I was just feverish and hallucinating!"

And so on. Becky was still convinced all I needed were some electrolytes, and after several minutes of wondering who I could have caught this from, Gige texted me back and said:

"Did you run today?"

"Yes."

"How far?"

"Eighteen miles."

"Then did you shower and put sweats on?"

"Can you see me?"

"You have a heat rash. Stop freaking out and tell Becky to turn the air-conditioning on."

I was fairly certain it was not a heat rash, that would be silly, but I rolled down the windows, Becky cranked the air while muttering about how of course it was the heat and hadn't she been saying that all along? And then magically, ten minutes later of fresh air, the rash on my body and on my eyeballs was totally gone. Heat rash, not SARS. Weirdest side effect of running ever.

Then yesterday night (a month later and forty degrees colder) I got home and sat down next to Becky who looked at me and said, "What the heck? You have that rash thing again!"

"Is it on my eye?"

"Not yet!"

"Quick open a window so it doesn't spread!"

"How much did you run today?"

"Just five!"

"Your exercise is causing problems!"

"The fact that I just came in from 40 degree weather to 80 is causing problems!"

And so on until the season finale of Glee came on and we were both distracted from my temperature change problem by dancing singing adults pretending to be teenagers - and by the time it was over and I'd stopped crying (I love that show a little too much, and I'm a little too emotional these days if I'm crying just because the Cheerleaders are on the Glee Club kid's side) my redness was gone, and no eyeballs had been harmed.

So now if it ever happens again I'll know I can either get somewhere cold real fast, or turn on a musical. Both can fix me - and that's exactly what I'm going to explain to my kids when I'm holding them out the window of a speeding car to help cure their diaper rash.

Holy Crap - You're Welcome In Advance

Happy (3 days after) Thanksgiving!

So, it was 85 degrees here on Thursday. Yeah, 85. This isn't some weird post I forgot to put up back in July, it's the end of November, and it was Thanksgiving, and it was so hot Becky and I wore tank tops and were sweating our asses off because someone had the audacity to make us bake on such a hot holiday.



You can't tell from my cell phone picture, but we are sweaty, and in matching tank tops - because when people ask us if we're twins we like to make it that much more awkward when we say no. I'd also like to point out that we look absolutely nothing alike in this picture - we're both tall, but that's about it. Had I angled the camera down a few inches you would have been made insanely aware of the fact that Becky's bra can hold three of mine inside of it and that my legs start around her belly button. Our limbs are sometimes like a baby giraffe's or one of those wind blown dudes at a used car store.



So, Thanksgiving was weirdly hot and made me miss weather ("This is Ohio, we have weatha.") a lot. Like leaves that fall, and skies that get cloudy, and waiting anxiously like a 3 year old for the first snow, and then walking around in it after consuming gallons of wine and proclaiming "This is a Winter Wonderland!", because the first snow - untouched, freshly fallen, white snow - is glittery, and smooth, and if you're from California it looks fake, like Disneyland sparkly fake, and you just want to cry when you realize - nope, all this gorgeous white stuff - that's real. (Well, that and because you're still drunk, and you cry a lot when you're drunk; ask boyfriends 3 through 7) Of course, four hours later it's brown mush, and you've got 8 months of not being able to take out your trash without stepping in pee-snow, but still, it's pretty for a while.

Anyway, I was totally missing that. And then I watched some people jump in the ocean after their Thanksgiving dinner just across the street from my Mom's house and they didn't immediately die of hypothermia, or drown because there's no salt to help them float, in fact they stayed out their enjoying it for a long time, and then I looked down the coast and there were tons of people at the beach, just being all thankful for year-round tans and the fact that 'getting the winter gear out' means the warm hoodies. And I gotta admit, that is pretty nice. Being able to wear flip flops no matter what time of year it is.

Doesn't mean I don't miss this though, cause I do.




So cold, but so fun.


(For the first seven months anyway.)

I Now Will Have Dumbo Stuck In My Head For The Next Five Years

Last night was dinner-with-my-brother night, and instead of going out with my Mom we went out with my Dad, which was totally different a) because with my Mom we always eat out, because we love eating out, but also because since she hooked up with E she doesn't cook for herself, pick out her own clothes, or drive herself anywhere anymore. The other day she came in wearing something very comfortable looking, something very much like the way I remember my Mom from childhood, and I went up and hugged her, half expecting to smell Obsession and Suave hairspray, and having to duck out of the way of curls because they used to be stiff little spirals of eye-gouging death - but her hair was soft, and she smelled like fancy new-Mom, and when I asked her about the change in wardrobe she said, "Oh, E left early this morning so I had to pick out my own clothes. I think I got this in 1989," she said proudly.

"It shows," I commended.

"Right? I love it. The 80s are back."

"Not in the carpet-jacket shoulder-pad sort of way."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"Remember when I wanted to get blue eyeliner tattooed on my eyes?"

"Every day of my life."

"Maybe I should do that. You can't go wrong with blue eyeliner."


And this is why it's ok E insists on being her fashion stylist.


Anyway, dinner with Michael was also different because b) it was at our house, and Michael is not used to being there, so upon arrival he opened every cupboard, went through every drawer, opened every single piece of mail we had and then flung the bills and letters to the floor, choosing to focus on the envelopes, flushed the toilet a few times for good measure, and then ran* back and forth between my room and Becky's room trying to decide which bed was going to be most comfortable for him to relax on. (He chose mine. No surprise there. I'm the favorite - but only in the way I'm also the dog's favorite. I give the dog human food when she looks at me all cute-like, and I give Michael pretty much anything he wants when he looks at me all cute-like. Lesson: if you want something from me, look cute.)

(*Michael doesn't run, he stomps. I'm not sure if it's his cerebral palsy or that he never learned, but stomping quickly is about as fast as he goes. Becky doesn't run either, and she definitely doesn't have cerebral palsy. I think it's just a thing they decided they weren't going to do when they were in the womb together. That and clean their own dishes. "No running, no dishes, lets get ourselves born!")

When we're out with my Mom, Michael tends to act slightly adult. He asks to listen to Michael Jackson, he doesn't want to hear the Disney songs we usually sing to him, and you can just forget about hugging in public. But when my Dad showed up he was immediately pulling out the Dumbo tape we played on a loop from 1983-2001, letting me dance with him (ok, fine, near him) and sitting all two bills of himself down on my Dad's lap. Michael is not a small guy, he probably outweighs my dad, and is the same height (the men in my family cap out at 5'8 while the women don't drift under 6' which makes family photos awesome), and so within 5 minutes my dad had lost all feeling in his legs and was beginning to look a little faint, but nobody wanted to tell Michael to move because it was so f-ing cute, and lovey, and adorable that my 27 year old brother wanted to be sitting on my Dad's lap that we just let him sit there, giggling, and happy, and smiling this smile that can break my heart from four billion miles away. And then I looked over and saw Becky smiling and laughing at the whole scene, and suddenly I couldn't stop looking back and forth cause here were the twins, smiling, and happy at the same time.

It was so goddamn magical that you could have asked me for my first born son last night and he would have been yours. He would have been yours a hundred times over.





Ok, not really. I want my first born son. My second though, he's all yours.

Mr. Balboa

Tell me this isn't the cutest little sucker you've ever seen! His name is Rocky. I will be shoplifting him later today.

Ok, not really but if I was slightly more angsty and teenagey I would be shoplifting him, and then stealing a pack of my Dad's cigarettes and smoking them behind the weird water shed in the middle of town, while I reapplied my black eyeliner to my lips, and checked to make sure the back of my head was still shaved the right length.

(I shaved the back of my head in 7th grade, like just the underside part so when I wore a ponytail I would look badass. That combined with my Raiders jacket should have been devastatingly awesome, but someone forgot to tell me I had a bob that wouldn't reach into a ponytail so instead I just looked like a kid in a Raiders jacket with an oddly high back hairline. I was grounded immediately, by my (deservedly) furious mother who said, and I quote, "You're not even allowed to shave your legs, what makes you think you're allowed to shave Your Head!?!") (I also wore black lip liner, but that actually was awesome.)

He's sooooo cute! And totally not stinky like the last one I wanted! But about fourteen people have recently told me I can't have him for various reasons, all of which I can't remember because I'm too busy thinking about how cute it was when he was simultaneously chewing on my hand and peeing all over the other little puppy in the crate. That's like telling Angelina Jolie not to adopt that little Ecuadorian baby because there will be lots of other little ethnic babies for her to adopt! Is she gonna listen? No, she's gonna bring home the whole litter of diverse babies, and then her and Brad are gonna discuss his new gross facial hair.

To be fair, all fourteen of them actually made really good points, one of them being there are lots of puppies to adopt that are cute and need love - not $800 ones from pet stores. And that's true. That's very, very true. And one day I'm gonna adopt them. I'm gonna adopt the sh*t out of them. (I don't swear in front of puppies)

In the meantime, look at that face! He just got done licking himself for like fifteen straight minutes and he still looks adorable (and sort of embarrassed that he realized I was filming him).

Asparagus Is Genetic

You know asparagus right? You know how its a tasty vegetable, and funny to say when you're drunk at the grocery store shopping for the dinner you're supposed to be making in about ten minutes, but you got all distracted because you wanted to sip the white wine you bought and see if it was good, and then Real Housewives of Orange County came on at eastern time instead of pacific time and you're all "Happy birthday to me!" and then you sit down to just watch the beginning because you have to get to the store, but then you need just a little more than a sip because you never really know with white wine now do you, so you go get the bottle and sit down just for just a second because you have to get to the store, and you're all "Oh my god, stop bitching ladies. You have so much money I can see that little tiara on your bush from here" (you just learned you love to say the word 'bush', especially in front of your mom)(even though it makes you uncomfortable, like to the core) but then 48 minutes, and 3/4 of the bottle of gewurztawienerschnitzl later you're all, "Oh my god Tamara, that's right, you do deserve a phone made of diamonds, how DARE he!" and then you realize your guests are gonna be there in like fifteen minutes and you don't have any damn asparagus, which would be fine except the name of the recipe you're making is "Asparagus and Goat Cheese Pasta", and shit you forgot the goat cheese too, so you haul your ass to the store and get to the produce aisle and slur, "Excuse me, I just need to get a bunch of assss-" but you sort of trip a little and so you stop talking and then you start giggling out of control because you just told a stranger you needed to get a bunch of ass.

Well, anyway, I sobered up and made the asparagus pasta and afterward my sister was talking about how if she looks at asparagus the wrong way it makes her pee smell. Which is a horribly awful side effect of asparagus. And you all know what I'm talking about right? It's so weird! But my cousin Nels who is at dinner goes, "I can't smell it. Ever." And I'm all wha-? And Becky's all wha-? And I don't even really like talking about it right now, because it's a really weird topic for some reason. Bush - fine. Pee smell - not fine.

Anyway, Nels's incredibly smart, and ridiculously sweet wife goes "It's genetic."

And immediately I think she's somehow looking the three of us over, head-to-toe, sizing us up and all our flaws and finally realizing what it is that's weird/wrong with us, "Ah! It's genetic!"

But no, she's still fooled into wanting to be married into this mess, and begins to explain that when people can smell asparagus after they pee, it's a genetic trait. Like some people can't smell it because they were born that way.

And then she told us that being able to make a taco tongue is NOT genetic.

And my world crumbled before my eyes.

Because I can't do it. I try and try and try and the only thing making me feel better about it was that it wasn't my fault. It was genetic for the love of God! But no, apparently it's not genetic it's just me not being able to figure it out. Which I'm refusing to believe, despite the fact she graduated with honors in All Things Science-y. There's not a Dr. in front of your name yet little missy! Until that day I'm still blaming my parents for not passing along that all important taco tongue gene.

Jr. High coulda been so different.

They're Not The Same Thing. I Knew That, But Refused To Give In

It's been confirmed, finally, by scientists (me) and teams of research students (what I call my little cup filled with chocolates) that staring at my work computer screen is actually making me less smart (at life) due to the recent findings of a heated debate I had with Google about the difference between a zip code and an area code.

I lost.

Souplantation Conversation

Yesterday my sister told me my blogs were getting a little long, and a little "all over the place", and she was right. So today, I just give you this little snippet of conversation from dinner last night.

Mom: So, Becky and Michael's birthday is coming up.
Me: Oh yeah. Are you guys gonna be 28 or 29?
Becky: We're gonna be 28. And you're gonna be 30.
Me: We weren't talking about me.
Mom: When I was your age I'd had four kids.
Becky: That's true.
Me: I know I'm one of them remember?
Mom: And I was married.
Becky: For the second time.
Me: What happened to talking about how old Becky and Michael are gonna be?
Mom: Oh honey, don't worry about it. Think about it this way- you don't have four kids.
Me: I'm not sure how this is helping.
Becky: I'm gonna get more pizza.
Mom: Oh get some for Michael too.
Me: You're gonna be 28!
Becky: I'll always be younger than you.

And that's why I love Michael the most out of the twins. Because he can't ever tell me what I don't want to hear.

But then later Becky refilled my wine glass for me. It's always a toss-up.

E-A-G-L-E-S Eagles!

So, on Sunday Becky, the math teacher and I kept trying to drink beer and watch football, but it just wasn't working. No matter how hard we tried, we just kept getting sidelined by Girl Scouts (not selling cookies, but instead luring us in and then revealing they weren't selling little boxes of magic, they were selling tins of mixed nuts. What in the what?! I almost punched one of them in the face I was so upset.) , or the Mothership (Target - where I need nothing but buy everything.)(Three times a week.), and subsequent bike shopping after we realized we really wanted to buy the bikes we had been riding around the aisles of Target, but didn't want to have to tell people we got our bikes from Target.

We started off the day by going to the totally wrong place for breakfast (no beer or tvs) but by the time we realized it we had already ordered and they both vetoed my idea to quickly sweep all of the dishes off the table, let them clatter to the floor while we hurl the table on it's side and make a run for it. So, we stayed and then after that we were on it. Home. Beer. Football. But then like I said, I saw that Girl Scout green and almost lunged out the passenger side window at them if it hadn't been for my pesky seat belt.

Cue immense disappointment. "I can buy nuts INSIDE this store," I said. "Where mah cookies at?!" The little girls just stared at me blankly and then after an uncomfortable amount of adult-child stare-down, one of the moms said, "You buying our nuts or what lady?"

"Yes." Wait what?

"How many tins?"

"Wait what?" Seven.

"You just said yes, so fork over your money?" Fork over my money? What is this a drug deal?

"I meant no, I don't know why I said yes."

"No?"

"Oh no," shit what the hell am I saying? "I mean yes, of course, but no, I don't have any money."

"Stop staring then."

Perfectly reasonable request.

Once we finally made it to the bike store it was like four hours later, because Target is like a Vegas casino, there's no visible clocks and no windows to let you know what time of day it is so you'll just stay there throwing away your money and drinking.

I found this bike, this beautiful, amazing blue bike and called across the store, "Becky! I just imprinted on this bike!"

Three pre-teens in the back giggled, and the rest of the people in the store stared at me in confusion AS THEY SHOULD. Because "imprinting" is from Twilight - it's what the werewolves do when they fall in love, but it's more than love, it's imprinting. The really disturbing thing about this is that there's a character in the book who imprints with a baby. He more than falls in love - with a baby. (Dear Becky, Time Traveler's Wife creeped you out but that doesn't?! It's time for a talk).

Anyway, after being thoroughly embarrassed that I just quoted a fictional wolf-man we made our way home and instead of watching football like we'd talked about, somehow our living room morphed into a den for teenage boys who won't have sex til they're in their fourth year of college, because when I looked up I was on the couch reading the 4th Twilight, Becky was entranced with the Jonas brother's show, the math teacher was quietly playing World of Warcraft in the corner whispering to her computer, "Come on little penguin, run!" We were like five minutes away from starting to argue about who's twenty-sided die was going to be the best for our Dungeons and Dragons games later.

Geekiest day ever. And that's really hard to do if you're me and you spent your Saturday getting drunk with a Latin expert who once tried to teach you the exact routine to Britney Spears' Hit Me Baby One More Time, and then tried to see if you could still do it. And you couldn't. You really, really couldn't. No matter how many times you made people stop and watch you.

You Know How I Know It's Friday The 13th?

Cause everyone in the office is wound tighter than the inside of a baseball (not the small rubber ball inside the baseball, but the 25 feet of string inside all wrapped around the little ball. 25 feet! That's some tight winding to fit inside such a small casing. Wrapped by a thin sheet of leather. Then the thick leather skin around that. Held together by stitches.) (Anyone else just get creeped out by the baseball?)

This is already a really high-stress bunch - people tend to freak out if they accidentally hit print twice and the thing spits out two pages instead of one (the horror! whatever will we do with the extra page?! i'll tell you what to do with it), or if someone - and I'm not kidding - knocks on the office door instead of just walking in (the horror! who's gonna get the door?! i'll tell you what to do with the door). See that right there, that reaction where I tell them where to shove it? That's not my normal calm reaction to this place, usually I just shrug and go back to financial statements. Because financial statements can't talk to me, and I appreciate that about them. But right now for some reason there's something weird in the air, something where if I brush past someone in the hallways I have a good feeling they'll go flying into a bookcase and will then ricochet off to the file room where they'll bounce around between the copy machine and the water cooler before landing in the recycle bin. Like a pin ball machine.

I actually just got yelled at for standing too close to the fax machine. Because my body was going to interrupt the signal, beaming down from space apparently, and not through the phone line as I tried to explain, just before shutting up because the woman had a freakish grip on the letter opener for an 80 year old. The fax came through and I did not stick my tongue out at her because I AM NOT GOING TO LET IT AFFECT ME.

Everyone is walking around with their trigger finger just itching to reach for their wands and do some sort of Harry Potter changing-you-into-a-pile-of-spiders-and-then-making-the-pile-explode spell on the next person who breathes wrong. Even my Mom just yelled (to no one at all) "I'm taking Advil as a precaution to all of you."

I think Friday the 13th is just bringing out the crazy that has been lingering now that we only have one guy working here. Just one. One brave soul because the others (small Guatemalan man included) have fled to the safety of somewhere saner, and with more testosterone. And I don't blame them - today this place reads like The Craft, but without the sexy teen witches, and Neve Campbell.

There has to be balance people! Quick, hire some boys before we all start showing up to work in our pjs and talking about our cycles over the intercom. No one wants that. No one wants to hear me say "cycle" either. Me included.

Twitchy

I thought I was having some sort of mild seizure this morning, or that my eye twitch had reached disproportionate levels, because my computer screen was shuddering over and over again as if remembering what it was like to be kissed by that boy in 7th grade who was all tongue and no lips. But my screen was just broken.

But I do have a this twitch. I have this twitch in my eye that will not die. It starts about an hour after I wake up and then ends sometime between when I decide - why not, this red could use a splash of white - and bedtime. My mom keeps telling me I need to not work so much, and then she holds out her hand for my rent money. Make up your mind Mom!

I'm pretty sure the Subway guy thought I was just winking at him because he gave me extra tuna after the twitching went full force. Either that or he forgot how many scoops go on a 6 inch. (Scoops of tuna by the way.) (Scoops of ice cream - yes. Scoops of fish product kept in a plastic bag - hell yes.)

So, I'll be starting a new training regime, in which I sleep more than five hours a night and I only work eight hours a day. I'm not saving lives by working here so much, just slowly dwindling mine down to the point where I'm alone in the office crying because the soundtrack to Glee came on my shuffle and its just. so. beautiful.

If You Need Me I'll Be At The Airport Hoping Tina Fey Notices Me

So I get told I'm tall - a lot. Mainly because I am, but also because I don't hang out with a volley ball team or, you know, all of the NBA. Those guys probably never hear it because they're in a group, and would you tell the Lakers they were tall? No, because they're a group of big men over 7 feet tall who can shatter glass with their bare hands, and because there's a possibility one of them will rape you.

(Too soon? It's been like six years people. Plus I'm a firm believer Kobe is slutty, but not rape-y. Because I watch him on tv, so I know all about him.) (All of my friends in Chicago are silently revoking their friendships with me, again, for even mentioning the Lakers, let alone defending them. I can feel that hate stare BW, bring it!)

Anyway, my point is, a group is intimidating. A single girl - that's an open invitation for awkward conversation. But I'm used to it. What I'm not used to is famous people telling me I'm tall. You're the famous one! Lets turn this attention back where it belongs George Clooney - right into your dreamy eyes, and your impressively muscular body for a guy who's . . . oh, you're only 48? Interesting.



Except it wasn't George Clooney.

It was Gilbert Gottfried.

(Close enough)

So, here I am getting all flustered and weird because Gilbert Gottfried stopped and asked where I found a Jack In The Box in the airport, and I'm all, "You're Gilbert!" as if we're on a first name basis. And he's all, "Is it in this terminal?" And I had to tell him my mom drove through J in the B on the way to the airport because she loves me and she even got out of her house before 8am, which is rare for her because she's usually too busy spritzing her ferns with imported soda water or something in the mornings to make it to work at a normal person hour, and then when we get to the Jack she orders her breakfast sandwich without the ham, and then makes me take off the side of the sandwich that has the white cheese because her boyfriend usually takes that side and eats it like a taco while she eats the one half of the sandwich with the yellow cheese even though she can't remember why she won't eat the half with the white cheese she just thinks she doesn't like it.

And Gilbert Gottfried just stares at me for a minute before saying:

"That was a horrible story."

Yes. Yes it was.

"You're really tall."

And then he went to catch his flight somewhere fancy.

So, this wouldn't have been that weird, EXCEPT then I get on my plane and I'm standing in the aisle in the first class section waiting to move to the back of the bus where I belong, when I look down and see Ben Stein. The-Wonder-Years-teacher Ben Stein! Win-Ben-Stein's-Money Ben Stein! President-Nixon-speech-writer Ben Stein! Bueller-Bueller-Bueller Ben Stein! Apparently I was lost in this list of who he was in my head because he senses me looking at him and lifts his head up to look. . . right at my chest. You know, where the head should be. He realizes my face is not there, and neither are some huge boobs that could possibly leave him stranded there, and cranes his neck to look up higher.

"Wow," Ben Stein said. "You're very tall."

"And you're Ben!" Because today apparently I can only refer to famous people by their first name.

Then half the plane turns to see which Ben it is I'm nervously yelling at, and he just kinda sighs. "I guess I deserved that."

Awwwww, I blew Ben Stein's cover and he feigned sadness for me! I told him I was sorry (in a whisper because I was too embarrassed to use vocal chords anymore) and moved out of the way of two blond girls racing down the aisle to get his autograph.

Weirdest flight ever. My sister is always running into like Adam Sandler, and Jamie Foxx, and a variety of Victoria Secret models, but I get Gilbert Gottfried and Ben Stein. Something is off here. Very, very off.

Please Promise Me You Won't Do Anything Reckless

Uh, ok Edward. Anything else you want me to promise you? How about a million dollars, or my womb.

Yeah, I just quoted the Twilight movie up there, and no I don't feel good about it. The radio station here that I listen to because I want to have a deep, meaningful relationship with everyone on staff (even the King of Mexico) plays or talks about or mentions how to win tickets to New Moon EVERY FIVE G.D. SECONDS! I've had to hear how sad Bella is she can't be with her Vampire lover so much I'm almost tempted to listen to Ryan Seacrest. Almost.

But after last night I realized all that force-feeding me Twilight was actually kind of working because not only have I been dreaming my sister is all moody and emo and friends with shift-changers, but I was home alone last night and wandered into the bathroom with my (third) glass of wine and the dog. We poked around in Becky's cupboard looking for some nail polish because we decided it would be a good idea to paint her (the poodle's) toenails pink as a fun surprise! I didn't find any nail polish, but we did find her biore pore strip things - you know, those things you stick on your face to rip off the top layer of your skin so you look refreshed and/or like you just washed your face in an acid bath and couldn't find the emergency shower.

Anyway, I put one on me and then one on the dog (she needed it) and we wandered down the hall to Becky's room so Crystal could get cozy on a pile of Becky's sweatshirts that I set down for her because I couldn't find a blanket, and so I could scan Becky's books for my signed copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day (That I can't find and that I can't think about not finding because it was the best inscription EVER and I stood in line for an hour to get him to sign it and then when I got up there I couldn't think of anything to say except ". . . hi" and then I started crying. Ok, I didn't cry, but I may as well have. He had to coax me through talking to him like he was my therapist and I was about to meet my real dad.), but I didn't find it. Instead what I found was the entire Twilight series and I said aloud to the bookshelf "Please promise me you won't do anything reckless" in my best man-vampire impression.

And I picked it up.

And I started reading it.

WHY? WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF! Every page makes me feel dirty and weird inside (not in that way Gabi), but it's so hard to stop because . . . I don't even know why. The only explanation is that the book has some sort of hypnotizing powers instilled in it at the printers, or at the very least, crack-cocaine is seeping out from the spine in regulated intervals. I read 20 pages before I realized what I was doing and put the book back on the shelf and walked away. And I swear Crystal was shaking her head at me in disappointment as I made my way back to the loving arms of 30 Rock.

"But I can picture Robert Pattinson as Edward now!" I said in my defense. To the dog. Who was not in the room at the time.

"Not that I even like Robert Pattinson," I continued. Because I don't even like him. I just didn't have a good excuse at. all. Not. At. All.

I better come up with something good though, because if I start reading when I go home I'm gonna have to explain myself to Crystal and that's not easy to do. Not with those judging eyes of hers.

Traci Lords Went To Our High School, Coincidence?

I learned a lot of things in High School. Like how to dissect a baby pig all by myself because my lab partner threw up and/or passed out when I told her we needed to break the rib cage to get at the innards. I also learned how to say the pledge of allegiance in Spanish (always helpful); how to sing the Quadratic Formula to the tune of Burning Down the House (only impressive to my sister's math teacher girlfriend); that if you were taller than most of the teachers they would just assume your were smart and make you their 'class assistant' even though you had no idea what was going on in the Korean War let alone who won; and that if you leave a group of young boys deserted on an island they will turn into conch-wielding little heathens that hate asthma and are capable of murder.

But the thing that stuck with me the most was the class (very inappropriately) called 'Adult Living'. Adult Living was just sex-ed with a few weeks spent carrying around an egg and pretending it's your baby. There was no 'how to pay your bills when you've only got twenty dollars left in your bank account because you just haaaaaaaaad to go to Vegas for the weekend' section. And there's no 'you can't eat Taco Bell for pre-dinner snack every night and not gain weight like you can right now, so enjoy that metabolism before you hit your mid-twenties and everything halts faster than it takes to say 'extra nacho cheese please'' section.

Adult Living was the name of it just so the parents wouldn't freak out over the fact that we watched a sex-ed video every week. The week we had to watch the C-section four people had to run out of the room and two girls started crying. My favorite though, was a cartoon reenactment of what happens when Mommy and Daddy want to make a baby and are Chickens. To the best of my knowledge chickens don't actually have face-to-face loving intercourse, but whatever, they did in this video, and they gave a play-by-play while they did it. The whole reason I bring this up is because I cannot go through a week without thinking of that video and this is why:

I have sex with chickens.

No I don't. It's because the Mama chicken is talking about the Dad's penis and she says, "Penis: it's like Peanuts, without the 't'." It . . . what? It is? "Say it - peanuts. Penis. Peanuts. Penis. See?" No. No I don't, but today and for the rest of my life I won't be able to hear a Planters Peanuts commercial, or be offered a tasty party snack without thinking "this is just like something else without the t" in my head over and over and over again.

Thanks for making me feel like a ten year old Adult Living. I'm fairly certain that's not what you were supposed to be aiming for, but at least I know that if I ever give birth to a chicken egg I will be able to go two weeks without breaking it, and if I do I will be smart enough to know where the invisible ink marker is kept so I can re-mark my baby egg and still pass life with an 'A'.

Not The Chaka Demus & Pliers Song

So I was making coffee this morning when this happened:


Coworker: Amy, I figured out who you should model your life after.

Me: Jesus?

Co: No. Aren't you Russian?

Me: No, but what does that have to do with-

Co: That writer from tv.

Me: Oprah?

Co: Is she a writer?

Me: What isn't she? She beat my marathon time.

Co: No, not her. That older lady with the really neat outfits and she solves things. Not Murphy Brown but...

Me: I hope it's not what I'm thinking. I'm not sixty you know.

Co: Murder She Wrote.

Me: Uh...

Co: Yes! You need to be like her.

Me: How did you mix her and Murphy Brown up?

Co: You know she just has this house in Maine and sits and writes. Everything is so neat.

Me: I sit when I write too.

Co: See! You can solve little town murders and write about them and everything is neat. You know you don't have messy murders, just cute little ones.

Me: Cute murders?

Co: Yeah, that you can write about. Nice ones.

Me: Wait, do you want me to solve murders or write about them?

Co: Oh, both I guess. And you should wear cute outfits.

Me: I am wearing a cute outfit.

Co: Not as cute as Angela Lansbury.


Well obviously Mrs. Coworker. What's cuter than Angela Lansbury?

Fresyes

Yesterday, after reviewing a client for four straight hours with my boss, she got up, stretched, and headed out for a midday walk on the beach (the spa was closed so she had to settle). Right before she left she turned to look at me literally under a mountain of files (I made the mistake of thinking that if I could stand up without falling over (that often) then a stack of files my height should be able to make it - cut to me rolling around on an oddly tropical patterned carpet, in tax returns like it was money from that scene in Indecent Proposal), and said:

"You know you look tired. What are you doing for fun?"

Ok, if your blind boss is telling you that you look tired, those dark circles under your eyes aren't just little pools of reflection from your hoodie, they're so dark the blind can see them.

Fresno. Fresno is what I do for fun. Because when I think relaxing, I think manure smell and K-fed. On our way up Gabi and I got into cattle farm territory (cowschwitz) and inhaled deeply with smiles on our faces because that meant we were getting close to awesome. I don't know what it is, but there's something about going up to visit Gige that's like going away to camp. We sleep on an air mattress, we eat every two hours, I suddenly can't go two sentences without making an inappropriate joke like I'm twelve years old, there's a strong urge to make a craft, and Gabi stops every ten minutes to show me a half naked David Beckham in one of her magazines and just says, "Mmmhmm". We're like five seconds away from bragging about how Julie Milton almost gave us a hand job in the back of her Dad's Chevy right after she almost let us get to second base. (because at camp we're boys from the 50s)

And Gige is such a good sport, because not only does she invite us in and allow us to be alone in a room with her baby, but she also pretends it doesn't bother her that five minutes after arriving I've spilled an entire glass of wine on her white carpet and Gabi has woken up the baby by yelling 'Fuck' after I spilled the entire glass of wine on Gige's white carpet because it interrupted her blowing up the air mattress with a blower that can only be described as 'louder than god'.

We had such a good time, how could you not, look at this baby:



Hi, that warning strip by my head is because I'm going to make you want be impregnated immediately by anyone, anyone at all!

As we were leaving, Gige said, "Hailey, say goodbye to your Aunties! We're gonna miss them so much!" and Gabi and I started to get teary and throw-up love onto the two of them when she tacked on, "We're gonna miss them 'cause this is the last time you'll see them!"

"Hey!"

"Say bye-bye."

"Wait..."

"They're like humans that should have a rated R stuck on them. When you're eighteen maybe you can see them again."


Needless to say I will be ignoring that last part. She'll have to get a restraining order to keep us away from that town.

Glee

Something tells me Becky is going to stop watching Glee with me very, very soon.

There are two shows we wait to watch with each other (that's how we bond as sisters. we watch tv. talking is for suckers.) (oh and we sometimes do horrible dances in horrible outfits (bras and ill-fitting underwear) at each other when the other one is trying to do something important like, go to the bathroom in private, or not burn themselves on the fire that has started in the oven on the actual nachos themselves) (sidenote: tortilla chips are incredibly flammable) and those two shows are Glee, and Dexter.

Dexter is awesome because it makes me wish I was a serial killer. A thoughtful serial killer. My mom actually walked into work on Monday and said, "Dexter hasn't killed anyone in two weeks. TWO WEEKS! I'm getting really antsy."

"To watch a murder?"

"Yeah, but he only murders bad people."

Good call mom. Way to parent.

Then Becky chimed in later on that day, "Hey you know what I was thinking?"

"Why is Amy wearing my underwear? Because there's a really good explanation for that."

"No, I was thinking if Dexter can lure that girl back to his place he won't leave any traces that he went to her and then he can kill her."

"You were thinking about how to help someone murder better?"

"All day."

"Yeah, me too."

Anyway, the other show we watch, Glee is so wonderful to my heart sometimes I can't stand it. They sing and dance in between teen drama, and pregnancy, and fake pregnancy, and baby buying, and drugging, and a whole lot of Jane Lynch awesome. But the thing that is going to make Becky stop watching with me is the fact that I cannot stop saying "He's so cute" or "I want to French him" any time Finn comes on the screen.



I'm not even sure why. He's too pretty and young than I usually like (in high school I carried a picture of Kevin Spacey around in my wallet) but I swear to God the show comes on and I suddenly have sex turrets.

"I want to make out with him."

"I know Amy, you just that four minutes ago."

"I feel kind of creepy about it."

"You should - you say it sort of under your breath."

"No, I mean I feel creepy because he's in high school. He's like 16. I'm more than ten years older than him."

"You know in real life I bet he's in his twenties."

". . ."

"Here, I'll look it up."

"No, don't. That'll ruin it."

"And his real name probably isn't Finn."

"I said don't ruin it!"

"You like that you think he's sixteen?"

"It adds to the excitement of our love."

" . . ."

"I mean. . . "

"Nope, I think we're done here."

"But. . . "

"We don't talk during this show anymore."

An Open Letter To BW (And All The Other Friends I Used To Have Before I Decided To Marathon Train)

See this picture? The one where I'm crying about three seconds after crossing the finish line? That means I'm officially fun again.



I held off bursting into tears until I was sure I had actually crossed the line. The guy holding the medals actually had to stop me and say, "You can stop, you did it." And he made direct eye contact with me when he said, "you did it" and that right there is what made me burst into tears because let me tell you, there was about thirteen miles in there where I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it. I'm not sure how he got the medal on me or how I made it to my mom, but I am sure that before she hugged me she stopped to take this photo of me, because that's what everyone wants - a picture of themselves crying and sweating so much they could salt Lake Michigan. If only she could have made the angle so it would have exposed my thighs, it would have been perfect.

Anyway, more on the marathon later - it was actually a really beautiful run, and no one with cerebral palsy passed me up this time so I have that going for me. I did double back for the beer shot because on mile twenty I was so amped/exhausted that I was thrilled/terrified about possibly getting buzzed on two ounces of MGD.

I can sleep in again on the weekends! I can eat whatever I want Saturday nights! I can get really drunk WHENEVER I WANT! 9am anyone? On the day before tax day and I'm probably going to spend twelve hours here again? LETS DO IT! BW, girl get your flashing ice cubes, pack them in your carry-on and lets do it Chicago-circa-winter-style (wherein about one hour into the evening I decide it's a good idea to start buying four thousand rounds of shots and then every hour after that announce we need pizza until 2am when we get pizza and devour it because the boys always seem like they're in a race to see who can eat the most the fastest, rinse, lather, and repeat).

Or we can sit on the couch watching re-runs of Friends. Both sound equally awesome to me.

Paying Attention Doesn't Mean I'm Going To Move The Four Phonebooks I Use To Prop Up My Calculator

You know how sometimes you don't notice things around you because you see them everyday? Like, you know logically that empty coffee cup has been in your bathroom for probably three months but you don't move it to the kitchen because you just stopped seeing it? For instance, I have a roasting pan, for turkey cooking and such, in my closet full of unused kitty litter. I do not have a cat living with me. Just the roasting pan. And I totally forgot about it until Becky's dog decided to eat half of it yesterday as her dessert after inhaling a trashcan-full of used Kleenex. (Just so you know, I had it there for the night James spent with me right after we moved back, it's not like I just put it there in case a cat happened to wander into my room one day and I wanted to be ready, or in case I got lazy at night and couldn't make it to the bathroom.)

Anyway, my office is the mecca of things you just don't see. Piles build up and new stacks are made, and files from 1976 are found under a plant that gets watered every single day, yet no one thought to even check what that file was doing there. "Oh that? That's just the file under the plant, it's fine."

Then, today as I was coming back in from the restroom I saw this little gem.




Oh yeah, that's a framed photo of space. It's not only a framed photo of space, but it's a framed photo of space as the main piece of artwork you see when you walk in. It's been there the past thirty years, but I just realized that that's it. That's what our clients see as an intro to the accounting firm. We have a framed photo of "The Spiral Galaxy in Antilia" because what says taxes better than the universe.

I'm not sure who put it up there or where we got it; we have some artwork that people who work here have painted, we have a sad clown black and white right above the candy dish, we have photos of my three youngest cousins holding musical instruments that my grandma hung because she loves them the most. (No kids, no other grand kids, just the three special ones.) So it's anyone's guess as to where Antilia came from. Maybe someone who works here took it.

And yes, it does feel like I work in a log cabin sometimes. That wood is not deceiving you.

I'm not even going to think about the things I'm leaving out of this post, but I will tell you what I can see in my immediate vicinity is a pillow in a filing cabinet; a cell phone like the one Zack Morris had in the early 90s; not one, but two Guinea pig calendars (hanging side-by-crazy-side); a book about Egyptian Pharaohs, and a small Guatemalan man crouching in the corner.

He probably has no idea how he got here either.

Putting Things Together

I was so exhausted and tired last night that I not only broke my sister's wine glass (the 4th since I've been back - apparently I'm going for some sort of destructive record), but then I cried because the cleaning lady smooshed my cookies.

Oh yeah, I said cleaning lady.

My mom acts as our landlady and before me, my sister had a roommate who wasn't related to her and thus did not kill the ants for her, or do her dishes, so my mom hired someone to come clean the house twice a month so that the roommate wouldn't stop paying (the ridiculously high) rent she charges (even to her own flesh and blood). Didn't work. The roommate moved out, but I got to move in! And when I start seeing a therapist again he/she is gonna have a lot of work to do with that. That and the fact I will undoubtedly point out that their job title is also "the rapist".

Anyway, I was tired so what do I do? At ten pm I decide to put a desk together as quietly as possible so that I don't wake Becky up. Do you know how hard it is to be gentle when you're screwing things?

Thank you, goodnight!

It's really hard to put a desk together without making any noise, but somehow I managed to do it and at about midnight when I couldn't see anymore, and was drunk and alone with a lot of power tools, I finished! Look! I whispered. A desk! That I silently put together perfectly! Nothing's breaking! Nothing's toppling over! All drawers and shelves are in the right spots! Except for that huge piece right there against my wall that I forgot about!

What the hell? I still have no idea where that piece goes despite the fact I triple checked the instructions and looked over my desk a million times to make sure I wasn't missing a surface. Maybe it's just a backup piece, I concluded. Like an extra dowel or screw they always give you. Either that or someone else is having a really hard time trying to figure out why their desk is just three legs and a drawer.

That's what you get for buying furniture at CVS.

Puppy Town

So, I almost bought this stinky little sucker yesterday.




He was soooooooooooo cute. And soooooooo stinky. Apparently that's what four months in a pet store does to you because the cashier girl didn't smell much better. He literally left something weird on me and when I got back to Gabi's house I made her smell my chest and then we both dry heaved for a while.

This photo doesn't even do his tininess justice because you all are probably thinking those are normal sized boobs he's up against, but they're not. They're just mine. Becky boosted my spirits about them though the other day by asking if she could borrow my strapless bra, and then when she took it out and held it up to herself she said:

"Oh wow, there's no way this is gonna fit me."

"Hey!"

"What is this? A training bra?"

"Get out of my room."

Did I say 'boosted my spirits'? What I meant was crushed them into tiny little pieces and then showed me her cleavage. So in retaliation I didn't replace the toilet paper. Take that girl-who's-exactly-like-me-but-has-bigger-boobs-and-perfect-skin!

Anyway, as I was trying to figure out which organ I could sell to buy him, a woman walked up to the cage we were standing in (by the way, when the sales girl said we could play with him, but only in the cage, I was immediately freaked out we were gonna be trapped in there and suddenly steel grates would come down over the windows and the door would slam shut, and the lights would dim and we'd be in some weird combo of Silence of the Lambs and that scene in Pulp Fiction (you know the one I'm talking about - you all do - it involves a ball gag) and suddenly the humans are the ones in the cage. The humans are the pets!) and the woman looked over at me and the puppy falling in love, and said, "I'm going to buy him." And I just kind of laughed because, really? Don't you see what's happening here woman?!

And then she did it. She bought him. Which was sad, and for a moment I thought about clutching him to my small bosom and hauling ass, but I didn't. And Gabi gave me a look that was like, "Want me to go after her?" because aside from being my sexy friend (read: slutty)(in a good way) she's also my most ghetto friend and could kick some O.C. butt if she needed to. But I said no because I realized I was absolutely going to have to burn and then bury the shirt I was currently wearing because no amount of washing was going to get that smell out. Maybe the woman who bought him can afford to chemically alter all her clothing, but I can't. I've got toilet paper to buy for my sister.

A Post From Last Saturday

Last night I pre-partied by myself with a bottle of hard cider.

Oh yeah, you don't wanna mess with me.

What's even better was that I was pre-partying while waiting for my sister to pick me up so we could go have homemade sushi at my mom's house. Shut up! And watch the Alma awards. That part wasn't planned, it just happened. Sort of like how I got pregnant in high school.

I was drunk by the time we arrived and stayed that way as evidenced by the fact that every time I walked down a certain stretch of hallway I apparently had to back it up while singing the effervescent Jamaican-rap fusion star, Sean Kingston's 9-1-1. So I'd go to the bathroom and then get into the hall and shout, "Somebody call 9-1-1, shawty fire burning on the dance floor!" while shaking my ass at a wall of family photos.

It didn't help that my mom broke out the (pineapple flavored) champagne when Salma Hayek won some sort of impressive Latina in films and tv award.

"Why are we having champagne?" Becky asked.
"Because she's just so pretty," my mom answered taking a sip her eyes focused on the screen. We all turned to look and stare, and then slowly take sips as Salma Hayek's boobs bounced all over the tv in every single clip they played.
"She is," we said in unison. "She is really pretty."

And then we finished off the bottle. All before ten p.m. Dinner at my mom's everybody!

Working With My Mom...

Frequently goes something like this:

Me: Do you have any mints?
Mom: I think I have one at the bottom of my gum tin. (**pulls out her gum tin - whatever the heck that is - and proceeds to pour all the gum out on top of an audit she's working on.**)
Mom: Oh see, there's one.
Me: Thanks, can I take some gum too in case I want it?
Mom: What if you don't want it?
Me: (**looking at the gum in my hand I already picked up - it's not wrapped, it's like big chicklets**) Do you want it back?
Mom: No.
Me: I just washed my hands because I went to the bathroom so all of this is clean.
Mom: Did you wash the key too?
Me: No.
Mom: Well then it's not all clean.
Me: Well, I didn't even really wash my hands so there goes that.
Mom: That's not funny. I always wash the key. Do you know how many people don't wash the key?
Me: Everyone.
Mom: Yeah.
Me: Which is why I don't wash my hands - what's the difference really?
Mom: . . .
Me: . . .
Mom: I swear to God you better be funning me or I'm going to smack you.
Me: (**turn and walk to my desk so she can't read my face, I hate working with my Mom sometimes, it's so hard to lie. I'm fairly certain she can judge my soul if she looks at me right**)
Mom: Amy Michele, I mean it.
Me: I do ok!


Ok, two things are wrong with this. Number 1 - 'you better be funning me'? Uh, ok unidentified black rapper - can I get you some more Cristal? What about for your shorty?

And Number 2 - she's never smacked me in her life. My dad spanked me once on my butt when I was like 2 but the sound apparently was much louder than either of them expected and they both started crying while I stared up at them unharmed, and wondering if I could play with the scissors and Becky's hair some more.

It Is The Most Important Meal

My sister just got a new car. It's very fast and doesn't have Taco Bell stains all mother f-ing over it like the truck does, and it smells like fresh strawberries and sunshine. (The strawberry smell is from her air freshener, but the sunshine - that's pure legit sun smell).

She loves that car. And I love that she got it because now I get the truck - the exact same car I was driving 13 years ago to Denny's at 3am after drill team competitions. (You can make fun all you want, but if I were you I'd wait til I post the flag competition videos Gabi just got transferred to dvd on her birthday. Fake hair people. We wore fake hair! While spinning flags! IN GYMS! The amount of band booty we got is indescribable.)

Anyway, then I get this text sent to me that says: "Check out the tree on my car"




No earthquake, no tornado, no chainsaw-wielding psychopathic neighbors angry at the amount of Paramore my sister plays. Nope. . . just a good old fashioned tree falling over on her brand new car.

And a happy Saturday to you too!

I assume she's waiting for me to come home to help her move it (I'm the muscle) because when I called to find out what the f was going on she said, "I heard a loud crack, then a crash, then I looked out and saw a tree on my car. So I left and went to breakfast with Beth."

Which is exactly what I would have done.

Ice Cube Knows What I Mean

I have to run 20 miles on Sunday. Did I mention that when I ran 20 a few weeks ago I alternated between wanting to murder this man who had the audacity to ride his bike near me, not even right up next to me, just near me, then (I'm not even kidding) high-fived some gardeners - no - all the subsequent gardeners, or others working in yards, that I passed? Like, I actually ran down a little stretch of walkway to get someone who was too far from the path to reach me.

Running: like using and then coming off of drugs, without the fear of being arrested. Mostly.

Anyway, that plus working so much (I just turned in my time sheet for the last two weeks and had 120+ hours on it. You know who works those kinds of hours? Doctors. You know who's not saving lives? Me.) has made me incredibly exhausted. So exhausted that I've stopped behaving in a way I normally would. And by that I mean, I don't have very much of a filter. Today in a five minute time span I, a) called my Mom 'Captain Menopause', causing her to spit her smoothie at me, then b) made a vagina joke to my grandmother. A sexual vagina joke, not just a joke about the thing, but a joke about one being sexed up.

Luckily both women were in good moods and just laughed it off before wildly diving back into work.

I need a nap. And to check myself. Before I wreck myself.

Shumway Salsa

So it was between writing a post about how one of my favorite cousins knocked up his wife, or writing one about this new salsa I tried in Catalina and I'm gonna do both, but lets face it I can't combine the two so I'm gonna go with the most important one first...

This salsa is so amazing!

(Just kidding Nels and Bre - I'm really happy for you!)

But this salsa is so good!

Ok, so you can't really tell from my cell phone camera, but believe me, it's like crack. I almost put it on my cereal this morning.

Bub's friend Marc came to the island and paid his way by a) looking sexy when he sweats, and b) making food for the big 4th of July BBQ night. All the friends we bring have ended up cooking on the big night while I get to relax (hide) for a little while (hours), (at least enough hours to make sure I miss the part where my mom comes in and starts bossing people around in some sort of pre-party panic she can't function without). So Marc made the salsa, Patty brought a suitcase full of corn with her, Gige makes the potato salad but almost couldn't come because she was going to be like having-someone-check-how-dilated-she-was-pregnant at the time, T-Chang made some fried rice, and Bub made the cheesecake (because she's adopted).

Anyway, I stopped hovering over the salsa only, ONLY, because my cousin stopped to announce he and his wife were gonna have a baby. I said congratulations and then took the bowl with me to go hug them.

Look how the sun shines in on it and all it's heavenly glory - I swear the clouds parted when I held this up to the window.



Ok, so I really need to start using my camera instead of my cell phone, but let me tell you when it comes to food this sort of a picture is all it takes to make Gabi moan like she did the first time Eric Bana walked on the screen of Time Traveler's Wife, making everyone around us slightly uncomfortable. (But not as uncomfortable as they were gonna be half an hour later when the two of us [beaten down from the exhaustion of running and working too much] started uncontrollably bawling because they're just so in time-travely love!) It's not just love, it's love where people disappear in front of you and visit you in a different time, like when you're three. Slightly creepy - yes. But Eric Bana naked through half the movie - forget the creepy, I'm already on the waiting list for when the dvd comes out.

The only thing that would make it better - Eric Bana making sweet love to the salsa. Yeah, not even to me, but to the salsa. I would totally watch that.