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.

Like You Talk About Other Things At Dinner

A conversation I started I kinda wish I hadn't:

Me: "So I heard this guy, he . . . well, he stuck his finger up his. . . "
Mom: "His what?"
Me: "Pee hole."
Mom: "His urethra?"
Me: "Yes."
Mom: "Eeewww. You'd think that would totally hurt wouldn't you?"
Me: "I guarantee if I tried to pull that shit in the bedroom with someone I would get smacked."

And that's how I ended up making my mom spit her coke all over me.

This was all at dinner with my brother, after we let that pass and my mom moved the conversation to more appropriate topics like how she just learned how to "kick lemon drops up a notch". She was wildly gesturing with her utensils about how to pour the two things into the martini glass at once in some sort of wondrous vodka waterfall when she got a little too big with her movements and stabbed my brother in the face with her knife.

"Jesus Mom!"
"Oh shit, I mean shoot - I'm trying not to swear for the grandkids."
"I don't have kids."
"Don't remind me. I mean E's."
"Is Michael ok?"
"Oh I forgot to check."
"It just happened!"
"Michael are you ok?"
"Is that blood?"
"Is it?. . . Oh, no. That's just hot sauce. He's fine."
"He could have lost an eye!"
"Oh for Christ's sake it's just a plastic knife, it's not gonna do any real damage."

Did I forget to mention we were at Taco Bell when all this went down? Because when we take my brother out to dinner we like to do it in style.

Speaking of family style, my grandma has this thing in her front yard. . . wait. I should preface by saying she lives on what is affectionately known as 'the hill'. It's a fancy part of the south bay, where people have views of the entire LA basin, and on a day when the smog is not at deathcon five levels, you can see both the Hollywood hills and Catalina Island. Rich/famous people who don't want to deal with the 405 traffic live there. Note: my grandma is neither rich nor famous, but she's older than the hills (ha!) and bought the house when LA was nothing but farmlands and orange fields. Point is, she's lived up there so long she can pretty much do whatever she dang well wants and It. Is. Awesome.

Exhibit A:
She bought this painted (life-mother-f-ing-size) buffalo at an art auction on the island and had it shipped over so it could live in her front yard.




My Aunt makes her cover it up whenever she visits because she's so embarrassed of it, but it's not like the neighbors forget what's under there just because they can't see it.

Here's a little closer picture so you can get the full joy:





I rag on her a lot because she's a basket of crazy, but let me tell you something - every time I see this it reminds me how much I just love her for doing stuff like this. Love it.

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the (also life-size) tile hanging she has on the front of her house that is the Virgin Mary because it was covered for the moment. Probably because some Jews were coming to visit. Next time people.

Watercooler Safety

Someone at work just scolded me for replacing the Sparkletts water bottle all by myself because she said I need to be "protecting my baby producing organs". Because apparently I am of the breed that makes a baby grow with her arms.

"Wow, look at those guns. Have you been working out?"
"Nope, just pregnant with twins. Arm twins."

I realized we were out of water and then looked around to see how many people would see me sneak away from the empty cooler, realized it was too many to get away with it, and sighed, trudging to where the spare 90 gallon jugs are kept. I need to say that the only reason I sighed was because I am not what you would call 'graceful' when it comes to aiming a full thing of water at an opening the size of a silver dollar. I tend to take a more, get-some-of-the-water-in-there-at-least-and-do-it-before-the-whole-office-comes-to-watch approach.

I grabbed the jug and then psyched myself up to get at least a third of it all over me, much in the same way sports teams psych themselves up for game time - lots of grunting and clapping and incomprehensible shouts about fucking shit up. But then I went in for the attack and everything went amazingly. Like not a single drop anywhere. Not because I'm suddenly Harry Potter (because he would just use magic to do it) but because they have a new safety valve - a new safety valve of awesome - that I'm pretty sure says "Made especially for Amy. No, not you Amy, the other one, over there. That tall one who looks like she just stepped out of a quick jaunt in a local fountain, that one" in fine print somewhere on the cap.

So, now I can change the water all by myself without getting myself and half the break room soaked, but I'm still endangering the lives of my unborn children. My born children though, they're just fine with it.

Like Typing In Space

So I have this computer that I inherited from Becky after she had it for five years in architecture school. Recently, it has decided to slowly drive me crazy and will work only when it feels like I've made a big enough fool out of myself. "Oh, what's that? You want me to turn on and actually let you open documents, I've been doing that my whole life and I'm not taking it lying down anymore! Literally!"

(And yeah, living alone makes all my appliances talk to me - like the other day when my tv suddenly turned off when I accidentally stopped on an episode of Reba. I swear as it went black I heard it say, "What the f is this bullshit? Reba? SERIOUSLY?!)

Anyway, my computer will only power on and/or work if it's turned on it's side, so if I want to check my email, or I don't know, do some work I have to type on it in that position like I'm in some weird Escher painting where everything else is in the upright and locked position, but the top half of me and that brazen Mac are turned to a 90 degree angle. James found it really amusing, and as punishment for mocking me I only let him stay in the freezer for a half hour this time.

I got a new one. A non-Mac (which is sad because I was starting to get on the Mac-only bandwagon. Macs and Diet Pepsi!) and it's all shiny and pretty, but more importantly than that, I don't have to ice down my neck after watching Nurse Jackie illegally for four straight hours.

Like A Little Matthew Perry

Reason number 7 why I probably won't be mistaken for the gay one this week:

The puddle of drool around me that appears whenever I watch 17 Again and Zac Efron is shirtless. Or shirt-clad. Doesn't matter really, I know what's under there.



Reason why I will probably have to stay 500 yards away from elementary schools, and go around and introduce myself to all my neighbors as a creepy pervert:

See above.

Like Having A Trainer But Weirder

Just as I was about to be upset that I was getting passed up (for the second time) by a line of Army recruits on my very rainy run this morning, one of them smacked me on the butt and said, "Keep up the good work ma'am" and then took off to the front of the line.

I should be offended. But then again none of you has ever seen me sweaty and drenched in dirt and rain water - not the prettiest I've ever been. And dang it if I didn't finish my run a minute and a ten seconds faster than normal. See. . . objectifying women with a side of encouragement does do some good in the world.

Take The Stairs

You know how you have those moments in your life where you're like, "If only I'd taken the other elevator!" or "Oh my gosh I could have been on that plane, but I had to check my deodorant situation and ended up missing my flight and because I care about my body odor I didn't die!" Those moments? Well, I had one of those the other morning.

Ok, maybe it wasn't as serious as that, but it was pretty close. Or. . . it was looking at close from atop a mountain range with high visibility binoculars, but still - it could see it.

Anyway, it's 9am and I'm cooking chicken, and plugging in my iron, and turning on my hair straightener - because I like to do all hot things at once. If I had a dryer in my apartment that would be going too. Unfortunately, my timing was a little off and I had too much waiting for things to heat up time, so I decided I was gonna be even more productive and take the trash out (because Regis and Kelly was on commercial), and I get to the elevator and somehow - like by sheer force of gravitational evil - my keys leap out of my hand and fall down the mother loving elevator shaft. It was like a movie where something falls and you just wait to hear the crash, I don't know what I was waiting for - like maybe if I don't hear it, it didn't happen and the keys are still in my hand?

But I heard it.

Luckily, I was supposed to meet my manager right around that time anyway, and about thirty seconds later she comes out of the elevator looking mighty pissed. Then she sees me and says:

"I just dropped my keys down the elevator shaft."

Uh...what now? I think I actually spun around like, did I just say that and it came out of her mouth?

"No," I started. "I dropped my keys down the elevator shaft."

Pause where she looked at me much like I was looking at her.

"Just now?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's why I'm standing here in my pj's with Quiet Riot hair."

"Shit. I just dropped mine down there."

"Who is gonna let me into my apartment then?"

She shrugged, "We could try to lift the elevator?"

"We could try to lift the elevator?"

That's when I realized I was never getting back in. I would be stuck in my sister's 'Class of 2000' t-shirt, boxer shorts with bears on them, and black business socks forever. Correction - black business socks with bright orange bottoms, because that's what happens to them when you mop your floor with something bleach laden and then walk across it before you rinse it down. James was going to burn himself on my straightener, run to the kitchen sink for safety and water, trip on my iron which would land on my curtain, setting the whole place ablaze, and then, because it's on and I'm not there to watch it, the oven would explode.

"Well, shit," she said again. "Do you have anywhere to be today?"

"Just work."

She looked me up and down. "I guess you could wear my sweater."

"Can't we call a locksmith?"

"My phone is locked in my office, is yours hiding in your (**more looking my attire over**) hair?"

"No."

"Well, then this might be a while."

"But my cat and all the hot things!" I yelled at her.

"You have a cat?"

"No."

And thank god, before she could tell me cats were illegal in my building someone walked out of what was supposed to be her locked office and scared the bejesus out of us. Turns out her office wasn't locked after all, spare keys were found, and after what seemed like the longest elevator ride ever, I got into my apartment which was in tact and James was casually sleeping in my backpack like 'What? Oh it's just you. That chicken smells done.'

She didn't manage to lift the elevator herself, but the handy elevator people did it and got our keys back, along with a can of Budweiser (which is apparently a magic shape shifting can). And this is why I'll be glad when I move, because my elevator can summon things at will, and if I have to go to work one more time in my pjs I'm afraid people are gonna start to talk.

A Rash of Calls

I like medical stuff. I always watch when they draw blood, I don't shy away from asking the dentist what she's going to be stabbing with that three-pronged shiny metal thing, I started nursing school for goodness sake, and once, when we were about 8 and 7, I set Bub up in one of our parents recliners, positioned the needlepoint magnifying lamp over her open mouth and proceeded to retract a stubborn piece of plum from in between her molar gums because I care.

But, that doesn't mean I always like it or want to hear it. I'll spare you the phone call about someone's exploding something that sent blood flying all over something else, but a day after I got that phone call, I got this one:

Me: Hello?
Mom: Have I told you about my new rash?
Me: Mom?
Mom: Who else calls you?
Me: Lots of peop. . . you and Bub do. What do you mean your 'new' one?
Mom: Oh, it's been a weird year for me and my skin.
Me: Ew.
Mom: Don't ew me miss sends her sister a picture of her healing stitches everyday.
Me: She wanted to see it.
Mom: It's all over the place, and it's spreading even farther.
Me: Your new rash is?
Mom: Yes.
Me: Did you see the doctor?
Mom: Yes he told me to take these two pills and use this cream that smells like a lavatory.
Me: What?
Mom: No, not a lavatory.
Me: You smell like a bathroom?
Mom: That's not the right word . . . lavender.
Me: Those are totally different smells Mom.
Mom: I look like I have an allergic reaction.
Me: What did the doctor say it was?
Mom: An allergic reaction to this cream I was using for a different rash.

Thank you Lori. And so it went. Then, later on Bub called me:

Me: Hello?
Bub: Did mom tell you about her rash?
Me: Why does everyone want to start conversations with me that way?
Bub: We went to Starbucks together today.
Me: Does it look as bad as she says?
Bub: No. Well, it looks bad, but she doesn't look like a leper.
Me: I think lepers are missing limbs and chunks of skin and stuff.
Bub: Right, she doesn't look like that.
Me: Ok...
Bub: So, we walk in - me, her, and the rash - and she yells, right after she steps into the door, 'It's not contagious! DON'T WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING AIRBORNE! I'm not contagious!'
Me: Nice.
Bub: We got free coffee though.
Me: You did?
Bub: No, but we should have. She looked gross.

Hot At 5am Is Too Hot

Dear Marathon Training in 85 degree weather,

Way to make a girl suicidal.


Sincerely,
The girl who was sweating so much she stopped mid-run at one point to yell, "My eyes! My eyes are burning!" and then had a (turned out to be) good-natured fellow jogger splash her in the face with Gatorade to try and help. It didn't. It just made me sticky.


So, when I woke up at 5am it was blazing, and I thought it won't be that bad outside, and then I got outside and proceeded to sweat my balls off for the next three hours.

Normally I love my long run days because I get a weird feeling of joy when I know I've worked so hard it's gonna be a struggle lifting that leg over the bathtub to get out of the shower, and because there's an odd sense of euphoria and ridiculous emotional stuff that comes after about mile 15 when I either want to break down sobbing because that tree is just so pretty, or start giggling uncontrollably because I've suddenly decided something my mom said to me the night before about her rash is hysterical. But today was not all fun and games. Today was so hot I was soaked before I finished my first mile. And I was sure Chicagoans must have sensed I was having a hard time today, and wasn't gonna make it without their support because for the first hour or so everyone that passed me smiled. Smiled big. And I smiled back. And said hi more than I usually do, because damnit, if they were rooting for me the I was too!

And then I stopped to refill my water.

I glanced down while I was trying to fight off the urge to strip naked and try to bathe myself in the water fountain and noticed my shirt was a lot wetter than I'd thought. And then I noticed it. Two huge wet circles right where my boobs live. It looked like I'd forgotten to put in my breast feeding pads and was leaking. Turns out if you carry your water bottle kinda up high and don't pay attention to how hard you squeeze it sometimes, it can leak. It can leak in some very noticeable spots.

Thanks for the support Chicago.

Anyway, the Gatorade throwing guy immediately said, "Oh shoot! I thought that was the one filled with water." It didn't matter, I was so hot he could have doused me with cool kerosene and I would have been fine with it.

By the time I finished my run I headed straight for the lake, stripping off my shoes and shirt as I walked, fairly certain this song started playing all around me in a building thing of song wonder(thanks weird running hormones) and dove into the freezing, icy, colder-than-actual-ice lake, and it was amazing. It was such a shock that it knocked the breath out of me and when I came up for air gasping, with a weird ice cream headache, an old woman who was inching her way in said, "Did you swim here dear?" I wanted to ask her where she thought I swam from, or just tell her yes, yes I did - but instead I just said no, I was hot, to which she said, "F yeah it is." She censored herself for me, which of course made me start to giggle and then I knew it was time to get home and eat something (everything) in my house.

It was really sucky most of the time, and I certainly don't ever want to run in that sort of heat again, but the lake, Gatorade guy, and the lady totally made it all seem worth it. Totally f-ing crazy. But worth it.

Not Hannah Montana

So, Gige went ahead and had that baby! She was all, "Ok, I'm ready. I don't wanna wait two weeks." And Hailey was all, "Fine, lets get that mucous plug out HOW ABOUT THAT?!"

We talked yesterday for an hour, her doctor said she was 3cm dilated but that it would probably be a few days and she should just go ahead and go to work tomorrow. So we were chatting about nothing really, maybe a little bit about how her life was going to change FOREVER, but other than that it was all - I'm so excited to see Time Traveler's Wife, and how she liked the smell of her loofah (seriously, the loofah took up a huge chunk of the conversation; we don't accomplish much in the way of world peace when we talk, but we do solve a lot of the world's problems regarding good things to smell).

Anyway, I started to get hungry and Gige was like, "Yeah I have to go to the grocery store but **yawn** I'm tired." Cut to a few hours later and she's bringing a human to life. All I did was vacuum. It seemed like a good accomplishment at the time but she just haaaaad to one up me.

And holy crap she did.


Goopy eyed babies are so dang cute. It makes my ovaries hurt just looking at this.


I got Bryan's text that he was a dad right before I went on my run this morning, and then proceeded to immediately lose my cool and cry at a stop sign. A homeless guy stopped to ask me if I was ok and I just nodded and told him my best friend had a baby, and he then asked me for a quarter.


These two people....



...made this.




And that, is pretty fucking awesome.

High-Five

So I threw my back out this weekend. (Because I'm 80 apparently?) And since I am the opposite of having my shit together when it's ninety in my house, it's the one time I decide to forget Advil exists. Normally I down that stuff like its M&Ms if I think I might get a headache, you know, someday. I once gave Gige a dose of what I take during a (sorry boy readers - or reader - hey Nels!) special lady week and she looked at me like I was trying to help her with some sort of friendly, way-too-early, Euthanasia.

Anyway, I made my way to 7-11 to get some Ibuprofen and when I walked in my neighbors were standing there chatting with the guy who runs the place, and who you have to scream at over the radio if Guns 'N Roses comes on because he turns it up so loud the wine bottles rattle and sometimes knock the milk cartons over.

"HEY! EMILY!" he shouted. "YOU LIKE NOVEMBER RAIN?!"
"I used to!" I screamed.
"WHAT?!"
"I love it!"
One of my neighbors walked up to us at the counter and high-fived me. I think. The second I slapped her hand I realized she was probably just waving hi.
"YOUR NAME ISN'T EMILY!" she yelled.
"It is when I get free ice cream from them."
"WHAT?"
"Nope it's totally not!"
When the song ended the volume got turned down but everyone was still semi-screaming, like when you leave a concert and are walking back to your car and you can hear some guy yell clear across the parking lot, "I DON'T CARE THAT YOU PUKED A LITTLE IN MY MOUTH. WHO HASN'T?"

I paid for my Advil and flaming hot cheetos, and waved to my neighbors and the 7-11 guy - waved like a little kid, up and down, something I haven't done since I was four - because I didn't want to have the same high-five/wave mix up again, which really just made me feel even more weird than if I'd just tongue kissed everyone goodbye. Just as I was backing out into the safety of oncoming traffic the guy said, "Emily! You stand up so straight!"
"Oh, yeah I tweaked my back a tiny bit, it's fine."
"You look so tall."
"It's probably just these pants."
"No, really. You stand up like that and you get a nice man."
"Uh. . . "
"Maybe you hurt your back, but you should keep doing it."
"I don't really think. . . "
"Yup. Nice man."

Thanks 7-11. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go lift a couch without bending my knees in case Ryan Reynolds walks by.


Also, have I mentioned Gige is gonna have a baby in like two days?!?! Ok, like two weeks, but that sucker is gonna fly by. She had her baby shower a few weeks ago and sent me some photos from it, her favorite being this one I like to call - "Amy in the background, discovers there's another pitcher of Sangria, and this one IS NOT getting spilled on the white carpet."




So excited for it I answer the phone, "Are you in labor?" every time she calls, and when she says no I hang up. Because maybe if she feels offended it'll speed things up.

Some Days We Talk About Politics And The Meaning of Life, All The Others - Not So Much

People always ask me if it's hard to be so far away from my sister (ok, people don't ask me that, maybe *a* person has asked me, and it's fairly likely that person was my sister herself, but still...) and I always tell them, No. Not so much. Not because I don't love that little sucker, but because I talk to her more now than I did when we lived in the same city. We usually talk at least once a day, but today was one of the ones where we talked five - oh yeah that's right, FIVE - times. Nothing thrilling happened, there was no major catastrophe or something exciting going on in our family that we just had to talk about (even that day we found out our older sister went off and eloped - for the third time - even that day we only talked once, and I'm pretty sure the rushed wedding came as filler in between talking about the latest episode of Weeds and me making her listen to James meow).

And from the following conversations it's pretty safe to assume the two of us decided talking to each other about nothing is actually making us dumber, just like when we read Twilight. Melon-sized scoops out of the brain.

Me: Hey what's up?
Bub: MYCABLEWON'TWORKIDON'TKNOWWHATTODO!
Me: What?!
Bub: MYCABLEWON'TWORKIDON'KNOWWHATTODO!
Me: Unplug it.
Bub: I don't know where the outlet is.
Me: Unplug it from the box.
Bub: Oh.
Me: Did you do it?
Bub: Yeah. But, I just ate dinner staring at the blue screen because I didn't know how to fix it.
Me: Seriously?
Bub: When I eat dinner I'm supposed to be sitting here staring at something on tv.
Me: . . .
Bub: That's really sad. Isn't it?
Me: A little.


And then, later on. . .

Bub: What are you doing?
Me: Nothing. What are you doing?
Bub: Nothing.
Me: I'm lying.
Bub: You're doing something aren't you?
Me: James and I are playing with my magnet pen.
Bub: Oh, Jesus. . .
Me: It's so fu. . . he's so cu. . . you should see how he jumps . . .
Bub: . . .
Me: Shut up.
Bub: I didn't say anything.
Me: I hear you making fun of me.
Bub: You're playing with a magnet!
Me: You watched the error signal!


Tomorrow we talk about Michelle Obama's muscles and how to get melted peanut butter out of your favorite pajama pants - you know, the important stuff.