B: That famous football player I work for that you can't mention by name on your blog bought me tickets to the Patriots - Chargers game!
A: He did?!
B: Yeah you want to go?
A: Are you kidding?
B: No. I mean, ok, honestly I asked a few people first, but you were like third on my list.
A: What?
B: Third behind five other people I asked before those three.
A: That's not what I mean - although thanks for boosting my self-esteem - I mean, he gave you tickets? Himself?
B: Yeah. And then he said I could make out with his hot wife.
A: No he didn't.
B: No, dang it, he didn't. But he did give me tickets to the NFL.
A: Well, not the whole NFL.
B: You can't say it like that?
A: No, I think you're just supposed to say, "He gave me tickets to the game." Tickets to the NFL, is like saying, "He gave me tickets to the NBA."
B: Well, that's stupid.
A: I know. So he just gave you tickets? Does he know your name even?
B: Uh, he totally knows my name! Maybe.
A: You should make out with his cleft chin for that!
B: Well, maybe someone has to remind him what my name is, but he got our whole project team tickets, and there's only a handful of us, so I like to pretend he knows my name.
A: And doodles it in his playbook during pep talks.
B: Gross.
A: Seriously, you need to make out with that chin.
B: So anyway, do you want to go? Because my offer expires soon.
A: Of course I want to go!
B: Oh . . .
A: Oh?
B: I thought you were going to say no.
A: BECKY!
B: What! I already asked Beth and so now I have to take her!
A: Well, lucky for you I can't go.
B: What! You just said you wanted to go!
A: Well, I want to but I can't.
B: I knew it.
A: Thanks for thinking of me though.
B: You're welcome.
A: How many people did you really ask before you asked me?
One of my really good friends, Starbucks, is pregnant. (That's not her real name, that's her code name. It was between that and Ice Man, but then I remembered I'm saving that one for when I date Stefan from Vampire Diaries - because he looks like a weird cross between Val Kilmer and Willem Dafoe to me.)
Anyway, Starbucks is pregnant, and the other night she wanted to go to the Lomita Fair, and since she's pregnant I pretty much do whatever she says because I'm slightly afraid of pregnant women - like they hold this weird supernatural power because they're growing humans inside of them like some sort of alien-witchy woman who can do spells and CREATE LIFE.
(The angle of this picture sort of looks like she had an affair with a Lego man, doesn't it?)
Optional wedding photo:
Have you ever told a pregnant woman no? I once thought about telling Gige I didn't want ice cream one night when she was pregnant, and she glared at me so hard right after I thought it, that I'm fairly certain she used her pregnant voodoo to climb into my dreams and see every bad thought I've ever had. I didn't even say anything out loud, I just let the thought drift into my head and I'm pretty sure if I didn't throw some Double Stuf Oreos at her right at that moment she would have used her pregnant mind-power to make the steak knives lift out of the drawers and come flying at my head.
She said she was just having some indigestion when I asked her why she was looking at me like that, but I know better.
So, when Starbucks asked me to go to the fair I said yes. Despite the fact you have to walk through a metal detector just to get into the fair, and then be patted down before you go into any of the haunted houses. The fish toss didn't even have fish (or water for that matter) in the little bowls. It was just empty bowls lined up by angry carnie.
Starbucks tried to convince me she wanted us to ride this roller coaster:
And then it got stuck there. Which didn't dissuade her at all, because Starbucks loves danger. Pregnant danger. But luckily I was able to distract her with funnel cake and art.
I've been looking for an oil painting of fictional mob bosses from six different stories all in one!
I mean, who hasn't?
My favorite part is that Tony Soprano is in there twice. Once just wasn't enough.
My other favorite part of this is that this is the second time we went to the fair in one day. When a pregnant lady tells you she wants to go back and get more funnel cake, you turn the m.f.ing car around and prepare yourself to be wanded again, because they have little humans growing inside of them, feeding off their blood and nutrients and stuff. I don't even have a virus right now, so I have no say.
But that's not all! Once they birth them - they feed them with their boobs!
Sometimes talking about the cycle of human life is sort of like describing an 80's movie starring Anthony Michael Hall.
Which is why when Starbucks's kid asks me where babies come from I'm going to pop in Weird Science and let John Hughes do aaaaallll the explaining.
And if that doesn't work I'll just point to the oil painting of mob bosses above the fireplace. It might not explain anything, but at least it'll confuse the kid for a while.
So, normally I would be just horrified by the fact that James brought a bird into my bedroom at 6am this morning, let it go so that it could fly into the wall, crash, and then be TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY EATEN by James right in front of me like some sort of crunching, horrible, early-morning soul torture.
But not today. Today I just sighed, poured myself some coffee and leaned against the counter to wait and let the caffeine kick in before I got into bird-feather-clean-up mode.
(Oh, and a slight beak-clean-up, because he could eat the talons, but not the beak. Of course.)
This laid back attitude toward my murderous cat is only because the last two days of work have been so rough and long, that I could pretty much handle it if James brought a baby deer into the house and rode it around from room to room, before mud wrestling with it in my bathtub.
They've been so stressful in fact that at about 3pm on the first day I glanced at the wine bottle on the counter and realized it was going to be my only savior. Just a few calming sips - and you can all stop with your intervention plans - I don't even have a glass a night anymore, so back up off - if you worked for family You'd Be Sipping On Something Alcoholic On Your Lunch Break Too.
So of course, the one time I do this the Fed Ex guy shows up. The last thing you want when you're sneaking wine in the middle of the day is to be caught by someone bringing you a gift you bought for yourself.
The next last thing you want is for it to happen again the next day.
And the third last thing you want is for all of this to happen when you're dressed like either a) a homeless hippie who somehow spilled ranch dressing all down her chest a week ago and hasn't washed her sweatshirt yet; or b) some sort of slutty P.E. coach gone terribly wrong, and still in a ranch stained sweatshirt.
Since I didn't have the foresight to photograph myself because I was too busy trying to convince a stranger I wasn't as off as I looked, I recreated it for you here. Enjoy.
First day. Homeless-hippie-looking me, tries to hide day-drinking, and talk about Jersey Shore in an effort to distract Fed Ex guy:
Second day. P.E. coach gone wrong me is now so over pretending to be something she's not, that she is flaunting wine glass. Sometimes it's better to just be honest with the Fed Ex guy.
And now I have to go finish vacuuming up feathers.
And put some actual clothes on. Just in case UPS comes by. I don't need another round of this.
Have I ever mentioned that when I tell people what I do for a living it stops the conversation in it's tracks, kills it, and leaves it for dead on the side of the road? It's really the weirdest thing I've ever seen. I know I don't have an exciting job, but I've never in my life seen three more powerful words in the world.
I'm an accountant.
Cut to the person I'm talking to immediately glaze over and all people within a five mile radius die inside a little of boredom, and have no idea why. Like they're just minding their business, walking down the street all relaxed-like and suddenly they can't feel part of their soul because I sucked it out when I started talking about taxes, and they don't know why, but they go home that night and yell at their wife for making brownies too gooey, confused about why they're doing it, but powerless to stop the creeping soul-death that has entered them all because they happened to be in the vicinity of my job-talk.
"They're too gooey bitch!"
Blank stare. "What? Since when are brownies too gooey?"
So, I just shoved a huge Hershey's Pure Dark Chocolate bar into my mouth and actually moaned out loud it tasted so heavenly.
In other news: I'm working 12 hour days again, and my co-workers couldn't care less about the moaning. Just so long as it's not stabbing.
Other side effects of working so much:
1. Horrible right eye twitch is back, making me look like I have winking turrets.
2. Sparkletts guy enjoys eye twitch.
3. Falling asleep at a red light, only to be awoken by an angry driver honking his A off.
4. I screamed, "Stop honking your A off!" and continued to sit at green light much to the amusement of the driver next to me.
5. "A. off?" overly friendly driver next to me said.
6. "WHAT." (aka, Bring it.)
7. Eye twitch is of course no where to be found at time like this when it would come in handy.
8. "Jeeze. Sorry."
9. Totally feel bad for yelling at stranger.
10. "If it makes you feel better I threw a pencil away today."
11. Not sure why I told him this.
12. "I'm not sure why you just told me that."
13. Is very bright stranger.
14. Before I can explain his light is green and he's gone. I am still sitting at my light which has, of course, turned red for a hundred years.
So, I'm so out of it I threw a pencil away today because it was out of lead. Where - out of lead - means it was an old fashioned sharpening pencil, the lead broke and I couldn't figure out what to do with it in two seconds, so I threw it away and opened a box of new ones only to discover They're All, All Out Of Lead!
What in the devil!
Just as I marched up to the front to tell them they had spent hard earned money on broken pencils, my brain joined me and I slowly started walking backwards out of the room, hoping no one had seen me mutter to myself, "Why don't any of these pencils have lead??"
"They do have lead you know?" the new girl said to me. She's 18, and very cheery.
"What? Oh, I know. I didn't mean lead, I meant sticking out lead." Ok, apparently my brain hasn't totally joined me yet.
"Do you mean, sharpened?"
"Sharpened?" Of course I mean sharpened! I'M TIRED.
"Want my pencil?" she said handing me her pencil because this was as far as she was going to take me in the learning process.
"No, I figured out how these work."
"Good honey," she said patting me on the arm and leaving to spread her cheer and knowledge elsewhere.
"Honey? You're 18. I'm old enough to be your mother!"
Her twelve year old mother but still. In some cultures that's normal. Don't honey me, honey. If anyone can call anyone honey it's me to you - older to younger - or same age to same age - or girlfriend to boyfriend - and you're sure as hell not my girlfriend, honey. That spot is reserved for Adam Lambert.
Or Halle Berry. (Because of course if I turn gay it will totally happen that Halle will turn too and we will obviously fall in love.)
Once one of my High School teachers called my mom in for a private meeting so he could bang her talk about some issues he was concerned about.
Those being mainly that he was concerned about my attention span, and thought perhaps I should get tested for ADD (that's back before they added the H) and should maybe go on drugs.
(Am totally kidding about the bang-her-line-thru thing, I just learned how to do that. Am computer genius! Can Html like a third grader!)
Her response?
"Amy, Mr. Cannon thinks you can't concentrate."
"Why?"
"Because it took you a week to fill out the months on his desk calendar."
(pause)
"How long is it supposed to take?"
"I'm guessing five, six minutes."
"Well. . .huh. He might have a point."
"Do you want to be tested for ADD?"
"No, I don't have ADD, I just hate office work."
"What were you doing instead?"
"Imagining what life would be like if My Little Pony were actual live moving ponies. And then choosing which one I would get."
"We don't have a big enough yard for a horse."
"No, it's a My Little Pony. They're little."
"Amy . . . "
"But wait - see I would make this sign in wood shop that says "Dream Valley", because that's where the ponies live, and I would hang it up over the garage where we'd keep our real life My Little Pony. And I would get somebody to sculpt little goblins and other magical creatures to get all up in Dream Valley because the ponies didn't live alone if you remember. They had magic buddies."
"You cannot nail a sign up on the garage that says Dream Valley."
"Are you sure?"
"Very."
"Do I have to be a Teacher's Assistant again next semester?"
"Not if we ever have to have a conversation like this one again."
"Deal."
Anyway, my point is - there's been a lot of talk about how I get can't focus for a long time on one specific thing. But maybe it's not attention deficient people, maybe it's just the fact that I like lots of different things. Some people call it worldly.
And I ask you - if you could love both of these men at the same time, wouldn't you also be impressed with yourself?
Brett Dennen.
Ian Somerhaljdfalsdhf.
(yes it's the same picture as yesterday. I don't care.)
(ooh just looked it up - it's Ian Somerhalder. Same thing.)
I mean - look at those two. Gorgeous.
Before you judge you need to listen to these two things. Preferably while crying. Alone. In a bathtub. With a picture of your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend just out of reach. (even if it doesn't make you sad, it might just make you mad, but it's just out of reach, and that makes you sad.) And a bottle of wine opened and floating in the new little float-y thing you bought for the bathtub. (go out and get one right now.) Ok, maybe you just need a picture of your old dog that died just out of reach. - Turn on the song. Let the beauty wash over you. Thank me with oral your smile.
Place, But Still Love Vampires Due To A Weird Obsession With Anne Rice When I Was 12, So This Magical Little Piece of Television Programming Is Actually Filling The Lestat-Sized Hole That Was Left In My Heart When Anne Rice Decided To Focus On Religion Instead Of Fictional Blood-Sucking Creatures - Not That There's Anything Wrong With That, It's Just Not What I Would Have Done
I haven't blogged in a long time because I went ahead and did something really stupid.
Heroin.
Ok, not really, but it felt just as wonderful and bad as I imagine heavy IV drug use must. I really didn't want to try it. I held off, said no as politely yet firmly as I could, and changed the subject, or just said, "No, that's ok. I don't want to. But please, you go ahead. I don't mind if you do it. I just don't want to be a part of it," and then I'd catch a glimpse of something awesome as I walked past the room and I could feel myself start to give in. Or I'd hear the gasps and the ohmygods, and I'd peer over my shoulder to see what they were gasping about. Finally they just all looked so satisfied and happy in ways I didn't know because I wasn't doing it with them - ways that I decided I needed to know about, even if it went against everything I stand for.*
(*who am I kidding? Everything I stand for blah blah blah. I love pappy crap more than my own mother.)
(that's totally not true Mom, I'm just trying to make a point.)
So, because I love giving into peer pressure even though I'm thirty now and have a cat of my own, I downloaded Season 1 of The Vampire Diaries and lost two weeks of my life.
Seriously . . . SERIOUSLY. . . It's soooooooo bad and good! Like I could not stop watching. I went to bed at night with my computer running on all cylinders, downloading the four episodes I allowed myself to watch a day (to show my computer I have restraint)(he judges) because God forbid I have to wake up and eat my Cheerios without an episode of the Vampires to watch. One day my internet shut down for about two hours and I almost cried I was so desperate to find out what was going to happen with Elena and Stephan and Damon.
Oh yeah, did I forget to mention why I love it?
Vampire brothers. In love with the same girl. They're both totally sexy and murderous. LOVE TRIANGLE. One has to resist feeding on human blood to remain human-ish in demeanor because he loves her so, and the other just doesn't give a shit because he's all, "I'm a Vampire yo. I'm not here to be nice, I'm here to be sexy. Now step back while I take off my shirt and bite into this reporter dude." (Why the abs have to come out for eating and fights? I don't know. Maybe it ups their power. Mama doesn't care. You can be shirtless at my wedding for allI care.)
I wouldn't even answer my phone last week because I had three episodes left, and I wanted to do all my crying in private.
Here's the thing - it's a totally teenager show. It's on the CW for goodness sake. But it's by the same guy who did Dawson's Creek, so it's sort of like he realized all of us who were 14 when that show was on, are now 30 and need something a little heavier so he gave us Vampire Diaries.
Then passed me my Otter Pop, and told me if I didn't get asked to prom he'd take me; but just as friends.
Oh, and did I mention Boone is in it. Oh yeah. I'm pretty sure he didn't die on the island, he just was converted by the smoke monster into a Vampire, and then left to reside in a less confusing place, far, far away from Jack.
I find people on their cell phones checking their email every five minutes to be TOTALLY ANNOYING. Being all, "Oh hey guys, look at my new app." and then they spend forty minutes showing you how they can ask their phone questions like a Magic 8 ball, and fog it up like a steamy window then draw things in the steam. Because seriously, I'm right here. Can't we just talk face to face instead of app-ing each other things like we're in some sort of annoying Sci-Fi movie where nothing scary happens, just really boring clicking? ("Hey dude, did you see the new Sigourney Weaver movie?" "Oh yeah the one about the future?" "Yeah where the computers send stuff **blahblahblah-boring-stuff-I-don't-get-because-it's-all-programming-computer-speak-and-nothing-explodes-or-catches-on-fire-when-internet-stuff-happens-you-just-have-to-BELIEVE-it'll-work-because-seriously-ones-and-zeros-is-doing-all-this-shit. . . I DON'T GET IT-ones-and-zeros-and-electrical-currents-my-ass-as-far-as-I'm-concerned-the-internet-is-pure-fucking-magic-and-if-this-were-the-1600s-Steve-Jobs-and-all-those-dudes-would-be-burned-alive-in-the-town-square-by-a-bunch-of-rabid-men-in-skirts** and then the screen shifted direction so you can read it the long way?" "Yeah I love that movie." "Me too.")
Correction:
I found them to be totally annoying. Then I got a Droid X (or Incredible. I can't remember. All I know is it's shiny, and new, and I had to be on a waiting list) Now, I just want to join them and be the best checker of my email on my cell phone ever!
Do you know what all those apps can do?? ME EITHER but I'm totally gonna waste years finding out! That Magic 8 Ball app? I've used it to figure out my life for the last 8 hours. Should I take a shower? Answer: Not likely. SO BE IT.
I'm gonna join all the people with the fancy phones and then work my way up in the ranks at lightening speed, and ultimately lead them as . . . their leader. . . to all kinds of glory, and world domination, and . . . glory. . . and I'm not even worried that I can't think of new words right now because I bet there's an app on my new phone that will think of words for me!
And I got this "Retro Camera" app that I've been using all day to photograph piles of laundry and my cat because it all looks like a Fiona Apple video and if that isn't the most thrilling thing you've ever seen it's probably because you don't spend 10 hours a day by yourself in front of a computer accounting for people! Sure I could pick up a real retro camera, but that's not fun. That's work.
And when my kids lose their phone down the toilet (because they'll be mine, and that's what we do in my family) I'll just go, "Come here my lovelies. Watch Mommy." And then I'll steam up the mirror with my own breath and wipe it away and they will be so amazed they'll think I'm some sort of wizard-y genius! "Mommy! How did you learn to work like my Droid 9000?" "Oh honey, Mommy is part cell phone." Cut to screaming and nightmares for the rest of their lives.
Look at how cool this Retro Camera app thing is though:
Well, it looks cool. I kinda look like there's a dinosaur behind me and I'm totally freaked out but don't want it to know I'm freaked out, so I'm sort of grinning because I think if I smile the dinosaur won't know I'm freaked out.
But then I remember that I actually love dinosaurs!
And we fall madly in love.
The end.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go program Family Guy sound clips as my ringer for all of my friends, and then see if I can get my phone to tell me where I am, because I'm pretty sure it can do that! I could just look around but I don't want to waste time.
So I went to Target today with the understanding that I was NOT going to be spending my money frivolously on things like t-shirts with shiny gold tigers on them, or wicker baskets in four different sizes that I don't know what to do with and so they'll just sit on my bedroom floor for half a year until one day when I accidentally trip on the arm hole of my shiny gold tiger t-shirt laying on the floor and direct my fall into the wicker baskets for cushion, thus crushing them into oblivion, and actually making the fall a whole lot more painful than if I had just fallen into the carpet like a normal person.
And I was doing so good, "Cat food. You're only here for cat food." I'd say to myself after stopping in the kitchen section, which is far away from the wicker baskets, but unfortunately contains things I want to buy like cupcake shaped cupcake pans (which is so amazingly ridiculous - cupcakes don't need to have the tops resemble a 2-D cupcakes - that's like pickles having an imprint of a pickle on them)(oh my god I would totally buy pickles with a pickle stamp on them!), and I kept saying no to things like this, which I always add up in my head like:
"Ok, that cupcake pan was $17.99 so added to the other things I haven't bought, that's like $156.99 - Ooooh but that purple spatula is so rubbery. . . no! I don't want that either! Ok, so cupcake pan $17.99, purple awesomely rubbery spatula $9.99, that's $166.98 that I'VE SAVED TODAY! I am such an amazing saver."
And that's how I ended up with $30 worth of lip gloss.
Because in my head-logic not buying things means I've saved hundreds of dollars which means, hey, I can spend $10 on lip gloss. I deserve lip gloss after all that frugal shopping I just did, even though all I really needed to do was come in and spend $7 on cat food in the first place.
Plus buying lip gloss is so confusing and enthralling at the same time because they all look so pretty and shiny, but you have no idea what they're going to actually look like on your lips, and nine times out of ten I end up buying the one that makes me look like I just caught the flu during a bout of hypothermia. Unless you're one of those people that tries lip glosses on in the store in which case, you probably just got AIDS. Enjoy.
So, I only picked up on lip gloss and was going to leave but then I saw it had tingling, plumping action in it. I'm sorry, what? Tingling plumping? If I wanted my lips to tingle I'd be handing out blow jobs at the Pier to toothless men with the prefix 'Little' or 'Big' followed by just an initial or an adjective as their name. Seriously, the thought of something I purposely put on my lips that has an action it preforms while it's there that's not prescribed by a doctor freaks me out.
So, I threw the tingling one back and grabbed three others, and walked out of the store spending only 37 dollars more than I thought I would, which is awesome, because that means I really saved like 130 dollars.
Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to spend all that extra money on.
(Just as a quick reinforcement - that is not me in the post below with the stripper. Am I that unrecognizable people?! In that case, here's another picture of me:
my new haircut makes me look way more latina.)
So, I'm in Fresno right now because Gige's baby is one year old and so smart she's doing my homework for me. Seriously, this baby is like scary smart. If you sing If You're Happy And You Know It - and she's not happy, she doesn't clap her hands. I mean, if that's not genius staring you in the face I don't know what is.
Here she is testing the stability of the table:
And then she danced up on it.
So, I'll be in the pool all day trying to convince the Gige's to have seven more babies because look how chubby!!!
So, it's true - there was a time in my life when I wasn't always this smooth:
. . . but that was a long time ago and I don't like to think about it. I just like to think about how well-poised I am now, and how well it comes off on camera.
(Ok that's not actually me. It's just some girl who looks like me when she's upside down and paying someone to give her a lap dance. Me? I get my lap dances for FREE damnit. And repetitively! "Keep that shit on repeat" I yell when I like what I'm seeing. And then I turn up the Dion real loud. Because when I get danced on I want it to be to Celine Dion making love to my ears while a half naked Jake Gyllenhaal licks whip cream off his own nipples.)
Anyway. . .
I just came across that picture of a stranger being very suave (I honestly have no idea who she is - but I know for sure it's not me, a) because she's wearing a silk top and a skirt and I only wear jeans at the strip club, and b) because I took the picture.) and seeing that picture reminded me of this picture down here:
Wherein I confront the waiter about the horror that is Gabi's hideous, shiny pink purse. I think I shouted something like, "EXHIBIT A!"
(shouting "exhibit a" is suave. lawyers do it aaaaall the time.)
Then proceeded to ask if he approved, and would he want to be seen with this glinting off of anything that has even the dimmest of a glow, because I'm pretty sure it melted a piece of the carpet when I winked at it.
He shook his head no, and spilled that water on me. He was so terrified of that purse his hands shook when he was trying to wipe up the spill because it was staring at him.
Making the waiter spill and feel totally uncomfortable while doing his job?
Not so suave.
But now I'm older, and smoother, and I can control myself around servers and just strangers in general. I don't take pictures of them in strip clubs (anymore) and I don't make embarrassing conversation to all those involved.
Unless I go to the local Subway by myself and there's no one to stop me.
Subway: You want lettuce?
Me: 'Course.
Subway: (talking to her co-worker) You see Mad Men?
Me: Ooh I love that show.
Subway: (ignoring me) That show about the mens from the 40's.
Me: I think it's the 50s.
Subway2: Yeah I saw it. I like that main guy.
Subway: Oh hell yeah, what's his name? You want olives?
Me: I love olives.
Subway: Mia Hamm or something.
Subway2: Mia Hamm is a girl.
Subway: Hamm something.
Subway2: Jon?
Subway: Yeah. Mayo?
Me: No thanks. He's so sexy.
Subway: . . .
Subway2:. . .
Me: I wanna get him pregnant.
Subway: . . .
Subway2: . . . .
Me: I can't do that. I don't know why I said that. He's a boy. I didn't mean, I meant I want to make out with him.
Subway: . . .
Subway2:. . .
Me: Not him-him, but his character-him.
Subway: . . .
Subway2: . . . .
Me: I'll get the meal please.
Why's it so hard to make friends when you're an adult?
So I need a co-eater when I go out to avoid things like this. For the sake of my friend's embarrassment levels at the very least.
You know how sometimes having an overactive imagination is a bad thing?
Like when you decide you can make your own pogo stick with a two branches and a mattress coil? Or when you're sixteen (thirty) and still afraid of the dark? (God made street lamps for a reason people) Or when you see a cute haircut on a famous person and your imagination fires off like a gernade in a swimming pool, drenching you and everyone around you with your horrible, blow-up-y idea to get the same haircut because you have somehow convinced yourself that yes, you do look just like Halle Berry, you certainly are looking blacker these days, and by God yes you have her boobs, your imagination just told you so!
Well. . . luckily I'm well-versed enough with my terrible imagination to know that I don't actually look like Halle Berry, but that I would probably look really great with bangs like Jennifer Garner/Aniston! No, I don't look like them either but clearly they look good in bangs so I must too! Because we all have longish, brownish hair and so I SHOULD HAVE BANGS TOO! Yay lots and lots of bangs! And then I'll look like Halle Berry! (my logic takes a dip into crazy-town when I get on a haircut-roll)
Do you know anyone with curly hair who has bangs? No. Because curly haired people don't have bangs. They have short hair in the front, but they're not bangs. Bangs are straight and lovely. People with curly hair don't do straight and lovely, so they get sticky up-y short forehead hair.
But do I remember this when I march into the salon on Saturday? No sir. I tell her to bang me and then I sit back and wait for the magic to happen.
It turned out ok until she chopped off about five inches more of my hair than I wanted, and then when I said "Oh thanks that's perfect", she feathered my bangs.
Like I'm a guy in a hair band from the 80's that never made it.
It wasn't that bad when she styled it:
But then of course when I tried to style it myself I made it four hundred times worse than she did because it's totally impossible to ever, in the history of man, style your hair the same way the hairdresser does it because before you leave they curse you with black magic and the plague.
Here it is the next day:
You'll note I drew a face over mine (complete with an eye patch so people won't know it's me) because for some reason I'm smiling with joy in the picture.
I look like my cousins from the 80's.
(they're still my cousins, it's not like I got rid of them in the 80's, I just mean - these are what they looked like back then. Now they look. . . well, pretty much the same just with less hairspray.)
How AWESOME are they????
I wanted to be them soooooooooooo bad when I was 8 and they looked like this. And now I'm starting to look like them. Which is totally going to be awesome because the 80's are back right? This is what they meant? Skinny jeans and bangs?
Right?
Please.
(If not I can always straighten my hair and play the Hi-My-Name-Is-Becky game, because apparently the hair was the only thing setting us apart, because at the wedding I got called Becky so many times I just started going along with it. Becky - if someone named Jeff calls and says he's willing to donate his stuff so you can have children, just go with it.)
Once the medical crew treating me realizes I don't just have a fever - but instead have a serious life-threatening medical condition brought on by something mysterious yet household-y that can only be solved by a guy with a limp, a sassy attitude, and a crew of misfits.
No, I'm not sick with something jungle-y but I expect to be within the week due to an alarming number of animals and insects and possibly fish that have taken up residence in my house.
How did they all get there you ask? I'll give you the same answer I got this morning while I screamed in terror, "WHY ARE THERE SEVEN MOTHS FLYING AROUND ME WHILE I'M TRYING TO SHOWER?!"
"Five letters!"
"What?"
"Five letters!"
"I can't hear you!"
"Forget it."
"What? Gah! One just flew INTO MY HAIR! Is it still in my hair??? GET IT OUT OF MY HAIR!"
Several minutes and re-washing of hair later just to make sure there were no moths in there:
"Why is the bathroom a moth sanctuary?"
"Five letters."
"James."
"Bingo."
"Bingo?"
"No, it's James, I just meant - Bingo you're right, it's James."
"Bongo."
"No - bingo."
"Yeah I know, Bongo is what you say after Bingo. I was just finishing it."
"Bingo Bongo?"
"Bingo."
". . . "
"Do it."
"No."
"Say it."
"No."
"Bongo."
"There you said it."
"Yeah but you were supposed to, and now I just feel dirty."
Anyway, I leave the window open for James so he can climb in and out at will thus making him the happiest cat alive, and me the happiest cat owner alive. Because if you've ever heard a cat wail in boredom and agony of said boredom you know that it's just as powerful as a new mom hearing a baby cry in the grocery store and then leaking through her new tank top. It's HEART-WRENCHING.
Buuuuuut, because I leave the window open the neighborhood militia has taken it upon themselves to move on in and dominate.
I kill at least four spiders before breakfast, several more before I go to the bathroom - which, as I mentioned before is the new moth habitat - and on top of that dead, and/or half mutilated birds and mice are often wriggling around my living room floor, office floor, computer desk, kitchen counter, and my recent favorite - the couch.
And then I went to throw the trash away and this was trying to slither into the house:
Not on my watch!
No, instead of freaking out girlish-ly and screaming 'Snaaaaake!', I stood my ground, kicked out at the air above it and screamed:
"Shaaaaaaark!"
Much better.
Shark? That's just confusing and disorienting. There is clearly not a shark on my patio, and maybe I was thinking that I would throw it off by calling out the wrong thing and the snake would look around and say, "What? A shark? WHERE!" and then flee for his life into the bushes and someone else's yard where he belongs.
But it didn't work. And really I just could not figure out what the word for snake was and I just kept repeating 'Shark' over and over in my head, complete with fin-images even though I knew I wasn't looking at a shark. Is this a sign of some sort of degenerative illness? Mixing up scary animal names? Because if so then the spiders already got me and Dr. House will need to know this.
I snapped out of it and caught my breath and instead of calling out the right thing I said:
"Is the dog in the house?"
"What?"
"Is the dog in the house?" (Because clearly I think the dog will die if it sees a snake.)
"Can you stop shouting at me from the other room?"
And because this is an insane request due to the amount of life-threatening things I'm trying to deal with right now I just open my eyes real wide, connect big-eyed-serious-eye-contact and point to the dreaded shark-snake.
"Oh."
"He's not inside." (I like to point out the obvious in scary situations so that no one else freaks out)
"Ok."
"Look how he's right next to the doormat." (See, there's nothing to fear.)
"Uh huh."
"And wrapped around the chair." (This is normal. Sometimes I wrap around the chair. Do not be frightened.)
"Great."
"Do you think he'll kill me?"
"Probably not."
"Do you think he'll crawl on my face? I do not want a snake on my face."
"No, I don't think he'll crawl on your face."
"WHERE'S HE GOING?" I scream because he's suddenly slithering toward the corner of the house and disappearing into the wall like some sort of weird disappearing-into-brick-walls-Harry-Potter-platform-train-catching snake. Also I scream this as if I'm going to get an actual answer: Oh don't worry Amy, he's just going to check on his pound cake and make sure it hasn't fallen yet. To which I would reply: Pound cake doesn't fall. WHERE'S HE REALLY GOING?
Again, I love my cat. I have to keep telling myself that because for now it's worth the wild animal/insect infestation, but pretty soon it won't be. Pretty soon the window is getting shut and James is just going to have to learn to take a set of keys with him. Because I will not stand for this shit.
A: Oh yeah, that too. (she didn't really say rapists, but I don't want to divulge her issues all out in the open and I figure rapists is a good substitute. Everyone can have an issue with a rapist.)
B: Wait, what?
A: Nothing. Tell me about rape.
B: You were just agreeing wildly that I have issues? In general?
A: As a joke.
B: Very funny Mrs. OCD Touches Her Knuckles Every Time She Has A Bad Thought And Can't Find Wood To Knock On.
A: I do not do that.
B: The other day when we were driving in the car you all of a sudden started fake cracking your knuckles. And I know you hate cracking your knuckles, so what you were really doing was some sort of weird prayer-knock-on-wood-crazy combo because I'm assuming your mind drifted off to something sad.
A: Whatever.
B: What were you thinking?
A: Nothing! I didn't do that!
B: Amy. . .
A: I was thinking about my kid getting kidnapped.
B: See. . . what?
A: And then buried in the woods.
B: You don't have a kid.
A: Not yet.
B: . . .
A: . . .
B: Are you knocking on wood again?
A: What, you think I should just let them get kidnapped and buried in the woods???
B: Knocking on wood doesn't actually stop things you know that ri- ALSO you don't have a kid!
A: You'll thank me later when I do the same thing for your kids.
(Blurry photo of me showing how big my boobs used to be)
Well, it's official. Everything they ever told me was a lie.
#1 "Adults can do whatever they want."
Uh, not with my student loan payments, no they can't. Unless doing whatever I want involves writing a check for more than my rent money every month to someone named Sallie, and her evil little friend Mae.
Or maybe they weren't lying, maybe they were just leaving out the footnotes:
"Adults can do whatever they want.*
*provided they don't get a degree in something art-y. Jesus God don't do that."
(Ok, well this one sort of backfires on me because writing checks for school is sort of exactly what I want to be doing because I love/d school so I'll pay for it until I bleed tears.)
(Also, I think a fellow child told me this so, it's totally stricken from the record, but the rest are valid!)
#2 "Put some soda water on that it'll come right out."
Never. Never in the world has a stain come out because of soda water.
#3 "We'll never get divorced."
Thanks for ruining my life Brad and Jennifer!
#4 "You'll get boobs, don't worry about it."
Wait, seriously . . . didn't you think Brad and Jen were going to make it, and then that crazy ass Angelina Jolie got in the way and all the fairy tales in the world got re-written and suddenly Rapunzel can't get out of the tower because turns out she has lice and has to get her hair chopped off and Sleeping Beauty O.D.s on Ambien?
No?
Just me?
I swear to God if Katie and Tom don't make it I'll never believe in love again.
#4 Sorry, back to number four. "Boobs. They're coming"
Oh, really? When I'm seventy? Because I have news for you, that's gonna be TOO LATE. You know who has their boobs out when they're seventy? Grandmas who wear their hair in a beehive, and chain smoke menthol Virginia Slims, and apply blue eyeshadow like it's gonna help them see better, while talking with their mouths full of cottage cheese they have to eat to help keep their girlish figure for the lads at the Indian Casino she visits twice a week and plays the penny slots while sipping on her Diet Tab and Malibu because it's the only place in the world that still serves DIET TAB.
They're actually getting smaller I think. My boobs that is. Because I bought this dress for a wedding I have to go to this weekend, and when I bought it, it fit, and I just tried it on and it now fits everywhere but in the chestal region. What up with that?
I took another non-blurry photo so you wouldn't think I was exaggerating.
That's me grabbing a handful of dress fabric that should be hugging something someone told me I would get when I grew up. Well, I'm grown up. I have bills to pay. I have a family to take care of (James). Where mah boobs at??
Mom, a word please?
How come Bub looks like this?
And I look like this?
Just wondering.
Anyway, now that I've thoroughly embarrassed anyone related to me, I have to go to Target and return a dress.
Rinsing clothes off in a sink that has running water, in a penthouse apartment in Miami built and styled for a group of people who use gangster tagging equipment to paint on tans, and drink something called Ron-Ron juice IS just like being a Pilgrim from the 20's!
What sort of f*&ked up Back to The Future is that?
"Hey John Locke?"
"Yes Jedidiah?"
"I thought we just landed in Massachusetts looking for religious freedom. What is this place???"
"This is the 20's Jed. My flux capacitator must have calculated wrong. I told that nosy little Pocahontas to stay away from the men's work."
"How come those guys have tattoos of Italy on them?"
"Sex appeal?"
"Well, sure."
"Dang. I did not want to end up here. The 20's blew. Roaring my ass."
"There's no roaring?"
"Not for us my friend."
"Oh."
"Well, I guess we better rinse these clothes off in the mettacular sink."
"Thank God we still have some comforts of home."
"You said it Jedidiah."
And then they fist pumped their way through the Depression just like everyone else. The End.
I'm so excited Jersey Shore is back on, I can't stand it! I actually clapped with happiness at my TV last night because IT'S JUST SO AMAZING. It's the only time in my life I get to use words like, JWOW, Snicks, blow-out, and smush and feel totally serious about it.
Why wasn't this show on when I was in college? I would have transferred to New Jersey Community College faster than you can say "I'm putting Vaseline on my face, taking my earrings out, putting my hair up and I'm beating the crap out of her."
(Vaseline? So if she gets a hit in it just slides right off? Seriously. How can you not love that?)
You know that feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and something is just wrong?
You check the clock and no, you're not late for work, it's Saturday. You check under the covers and you still have your legs. In fact you've still had your legs everyday since the early 80s when you started waking up and freaking out that they'd been amputated in the night - maybe it's time you calm down about that. You check your phone to see if you missed a death phone call (one where someone calls you to let you know someone is not. . . you know if you can't figure it out, I'm not gonna explain it for you), but no. Everyone is still alive. The dog is fine and breathing, the sun is up like it's supposed to be but. . .
And then it hits you.
Where is the cat?
And who set the alarm to play Ace of Base EVERY MORNING?
(I mean seriously. Every morning? I love them, but a girl can only hear The Sign a certain number of times before she wants to claw her own eyes out. I'd take a little Wilson Phillips now and again. Hold on to One More Day?
I know that there is change.
Butcha.
Hold on for one more day.
Breakfree from the chaaaaaange.
(and then I skip straight to the breakdown part of the song because it's just too damn good, and I love it so much I can't waste my love on the boring parts of the song) ).
(the amazing starts at 2:33 and ends at 3:20)
However these guys kinda make the whole song bearably amazing. Especially the ending.
Anyway, I woke up feeling weird and then realized I couldn't find James. And THEN realized there was blood all over my bathroom floor. Not the hall, or the bedroom, or anywhere but the bathroom. It was like someone knew they were going to murder, and so they covered themselves up in saran wrap and surgeon booties and then Dexter-ed the shit out of my bathroom but ran out of time to clean up.
Now that James is an outdoor cat he is out and about in the elements all night, and occasionally returns home muddy, and scraped up, and soaked even though it hasn't rained (sprinklers set off while he was robbing a bank?) but he usually checks in and sleeps at my feet still (proving he loves me even though he's free to run away, which just makes me more insanely in love with him/9,000 times more likely to be a crazy cat lady sooner than I thought) but not last night. Last night he didn't check in.
Or did he?
Now, let my backtrack by saying the blood on the floor was not startling to me. At first. Because he's left blood on the floor before, but never this much. I did a fair amount of panicking/expecting to see his head in the bathtub staring out at me, but just as I was about to call the police (logic not abundant when I'm tired and scared - the police would probably have arrested me for calling them) guess who came sauntering into the house all sleepy and cute?
Anyway, long story short: James is alive. But several mice are not.
Turns out, James was just a serial killer trapped in a Chicago apartment for too long with nothing to kill. He probably would have turned on me if we'd stayed a little longer, because clearly that little sucker has a taste for blood, and it wouldn't have been easy to overpower me and carry me around the place with his tiny little jaws, but he would have figured out a way because he's obviously a sociopath.
A sociopath who is the cutest little sociopath around!
I tried to take a picture buy my camera died, and my cell phone now refuses to take pictures, so instead I drew this diagram of what I saw so you too can know the horror I felt at 6am Monday morning.
(I'm considering applying for a job as a sketch artist for the FBI)
My grandma invites people to Catalina the way someone blows on a dandelion and suddenly there's a million dandelions in your front yard, on your porch, sleeping four on the fold-out couch, and you're fighting them to use the bathroom in the morning and then once you finally get in there there's no more toilet paper.
She judges occupancy not by the number of beds, but by the lengths of floor open that will hold a body. Most years in a room that sleeps 5 we've had to squeeze in at least 9 - and that's just that room, once you step out of it you'll have to dodge bodies strewn about the living room, kitchen, and onto the porch. It's like she's running her own hostel in Bratislava that doubles as a commune.
So this year, Gabi, Gige and I decided we would get our own house so that we could control the amount of people sleeping in it, and Oh My God - It was so worth it. The only people waking me up in the morning were these two, and it's totally ok because look how cute she is:
Oh, and Hailey is pretty cute too.
Seriously, she looked like that almost every moment of every day. She's the happiest baby in the world. I'm fairly certain Gige has some sort of racy drug in her breast milk and that's why Hailey is so happy. You better believe the next time I'm feeling down I'll be calling her over for a little cream in my coffee.
My feelings about this trip were pretty boring, because I had fun. (Aside from missing the P's, and SA like I'd miss a limb) There were no crazy meltdowns, or enormous family drama, or making out with underage boys - and at one point I looked around and was like, "Wait. . . Hold up. . . Is this what growing up feels like. Ew. Weird. Why aren't I hungover? How come the dishes are done? Why doesn't Gabi have a new STD?"
So here's some pictures from the trip. I'm going to try very hard to not post seven hundred of me holding Hailey.
Oops. Bad start. Ok, no more of me and Hailey I promise.
Just kidding! Here's another! I'm probably yelling about how much I love that couch. Look at it. It's the most pastel couch in the world.
The Math Teacher and Marc are trying to get their iPhones to tell them where the fun is.
Gabi also checks her iPhone for fun. Gige checks her invisible phone.
Me: "And then the bear said. . ."
Hail: "Yeah, whatever. The ending blows my mind, let's skip past all this bear bulls$%t and get to the ducks."
You can't tell from this picture, but Bub's boobs are actually way bigger than Gige's. I put one of her bra cups over my entire face the other day. It's huge.
(As a joke. Not just 'cause I go around putting bras on my face.)
We took fourteen of these types of pictures before the waiter finally asked if he could do it for us. You can tell from the following, Hailey was not pleased with how long we spent taking pictures of ourselves.
We made her sit alone. Also, doesn't it look like Gabi is doing something sneaky to me under the table, and like she is whispering through clenched teeth, "No one's ever gonna know."
Oh yeah, and like dorks we read the same book every year in a weird book race. This year is was Eat Pray Love. Last year it was Tori Spelling's STORI Telling. We're only getting smarter people. Only getting smarter. Next year it'll probably be War and Peace. In Russian. (Not a hundred percent sure that's by a Russian author. Not going to look it up either because I already have wikipedia open to dandelions, and Usher Raymond and I don't need any more tabs cluttering up my task bar.)
Look at Gabi, sunbathing in the nude like a floozy.
(She's not really naked, but somehow Gige managed to capture this in a totally awesome way.)
And I apparently grabbed a hand towel instead of a beach blanket to lay on.
Next year:
Less pictures of me with babies. More pictures of my friends looking naked.
James is officially an outdoor cat! No leash, no escaping, no running away to live with another family for six months - just pure, unadulterated, outdoor cat-y stuff. He loves it, and I love it. Need to go get the mail? James will follow you. Need to run outside to the car to check and see if that's the thing that's been running for almost seven hours in front of your garage? James will trot along beside you. Missing a little kitty love? Just stand at the door and call "Hi honeys. Where's my little kitten power?" and watch James run from a nearby tree into your open arms.
Seriously, it's like I had this grumpy, moody cat who like to shred furniture and human arms, and then all of a sudden I have a cat made of fairy sparkles and tickles.
Outdoor cat = way better than indoor cat. I don't care that his lifespan has been cut in half, and it's much more likely now for him to be carried away by something with talons than it was before, he's happy. And that's worth more than his life.
(You know what I mean.)
When James became an outdoor cat, flowers just started blooming spontaneously.
The bad news:
James is officially an outdoor cat.
My feelings on this can only be expressed via visual aids.
Feeling 1:
Nooooooooooooooo.
Feeling 2:
Noooooooooooooooo. GAH!!!! Why are you scooting CLOSER to it????
Of course no one was home to help me rid the house of the prize James brought in (and then shook a little for good measure sending feathers flying all the which way, coating the house like I just had a slumber party from an 80's movie), so I had two decisions: 1. Leave it there until someone more appropriate could take care of it. Or 2. Gear up like I was going in for a HVAC procedure and try to get the thing from the ground to the outside trash without causing any more damage to my psyche.
Yes, I'm a wimp when it comes to animals. Dead humans? I'll hold the hands of those suckers until the cows come home, but dead animals? No. I'm fairly certain they're just faking it/have become evil in their death and by the power of some sort of Freddy Krueger-poisonous spider they will come back to life and start moving around, and I will NOT KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THAT SHIT.
So, the clean-up process took about a half an hour and went like this:
Ok, ok, it's ok. . . just don't look, just don't AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH IS IT IN THE BAG?????? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH JAMES HELP ME GET IT IN THE BAG!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! OK, OK, It's ok. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. It's dead. It's not gonna do anything, it's just lying there like AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH I THINK IT JUST MOVED! FUUUUUUUUUUDGE (apparently I don't curse when scared because I said 'fudge' like seven different times) Ok, Ok, Please don't come back to life, please don't come back to life, please don't AAAHHHHHHHHHH JAMES DON'T EAT HIM! OH GOD PLEASE DON'T EAT HIM WHILE I'M TRYING TO GET HIM OUT OF HERE! Ok, Just for the love of fudge please if you do come back to life, just let it be for a little bit so you can roll yourself into this bag so I don't actually have to feel your dead little body because then I'm gonna start crying on top of all this and I don't JAMES STOP TRYING TO EAT HIM!!!!!
Yeah.
Anyway, after all that I'm still thrilled with James being an outdoor cat. I'll put up with the trauma because of his happiness.
My brother came to Catalina for a few days, and for the first time in YEARS he had a good time. The last few years? Not so fun. Mainly disoriented, confused, angry, depressed, hating anything fun, ripping clothes off in public - and I don't know about you, but all of those things (save for that last one) do not spell vacation to me.
Life is apparently really hard when you can't talk, and your family loses the ability to read your mind accurately. I mean, the nerve of us. He looks and looks, and points and points but there were(are) a few years in there where we just Could Not figure out what he wants to tell us. Mainly it's something as simple as:
"Hey, people - this sandal is cutting into my foot and I'm freaking starving. Where's my sandwich? Seriously, my blood sugar is dangerously low. Sandwich? Sandal? Cutting into my foot? Sandwich? Blood sugar? Anyone? ANYONE?"
And there we sit chit chatting about Taylor Lautner and planning out our naps.
None of those things is a sandwich.
(but, mmmmmmm . . .Taylor Lautner.)
But sometimes (and this is where my heart breaks into a million pieces) it's not that simple. Sometimes he's upset because he's in pain from the enormous sinus infection/blockage that's been plaguing him for so many years, and has become so enormous it takes bleeding from the ears (mygod) before he'll actually be able to let us know he's in pain because this - this is what finally gets him to cry. My brother? He doesn't cry. He bites things. He yells. He points his fingers off at words that do not convey what he's trying to say, but (I guess) is hoping will distract him. But cry - no. So, when he does it, I pretty much want to find the nearest set of train tracks and lay down on them because honestly I cannot handle it when either one of the twins are so upset they cry.
(I once broke down in tears when I was at a doctor's visit with Becky and she had to get a shot. Not me. Her. But we were little and she seemed scared, and I didn't want her to be scared so I did the right thing and started crying. This at least confused things. I couldn't assure her everything was going to be alright, but I sure as hell could make her freak out about something different. It's a wonder she chose to go solo to her first gyno visit, despite my willingness to be there to support her. "Are you sure?" "Yes. You're just gonna cry." "No, I'm not." "Amy." "Ok, maybe. But it's just because I care.")
ANYWAY, he had a good time. Which was awesome. Lots of smiles and trolley rides, and my mom didn't lose her clothes anywhere (later story for those who haven't heard it)(though if you haven't it's probably because my mom was around and I'm pretty sure she's not at the "Well, it's funny now. . . " stage yet.)
This is when he first got off the boat. I have a better picture of us, but I love this one because it looks like I have something magical in my (gigantic) hand (why does it look so large?) and Michael is captivated by it.
Lucky for us the island library had Dumbo in stock. God forbid we go a whole day without watching it and ruin his life.
We went swimming which is Michael's favorite thing to do.
Oh yeah, except that he didn't really get in because it was too cold. It deceptively looks like it's sunny and warm here. It's not. It's freezing, and this picture isn't cropped to show just the three of us. We were the only three brave enough to get in. And then the fish started charging us like hungry little zombies. I'm not sure who that guy is with the snorkel, but I'm fairly certain he was bending over to see if he could find his finger that had just been bitten off.
They're cold blooded those Garibaldis. Look:
If that isn't the look of blood lust I don't know what is.
