I'm totally about to bore you.

Good god, I'm bored. I'm the kind of bored you get when you're making excel list after excel list of contacts that you know you'll eventually be contacting, but right now just isn't the right time so you start to go a little stir crazy and you're considering hurling the stuffed monkey that's in your office across at your boss just to see what happens.

I'm the kind of bored that you only get after you've done 3 myspace surveys (and hated yourself a little bit for it) and a number of online quizzes (in case you were wondering, my inner super villian is Mystique) and found a free-streaming version of Tetris just to keep my brain from dying, turning into a pudding-like substance and escaping out my ear from this utter torture.

I even counted how many calories I've eaten so far today (630) which is something Sputz will tell you I NEVER do. And I did it just to see if I could figure it out. And yes, then I double checked online for nutrition facts.

It's not that I'm not working. I'm doing the power-work thing I used to do in college where I work work work work work for like 20 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. It actually works quite well. The problem is, the work I'm doing is anything but mentally stimulating.

Really, what I wish is that I could get paid to sit around and write. Especially because I work better when I make my own schedule and can get a lot of night work done.

In fact, if I had it my way, this is how my time would be used:

9-12am: workout, errands, chores, and mailings for submitting my work.
12-1: lunch, organizing deadlines.
1-5: editing of partially-written things, outlining, and pushing further on already created works.
5-7: dinner, chilling, getting more chores done
7-whenever (I'm a late-night person): creative new things. I work best at night, so this is where all the creative energy would be used.

A far off destiny of a dream, perhaps, but think of how amazingly sweet it would be. Plus, if I can make my own hours like that with my laptop, I can work from anywhere. One day, in my living room, the next in a cafe, and the day after that, London.

I digress...the stuff I'm doing now that we're closed for the summer and gearing up for a new season is a lot of prep work but not a lot of actual doing of anything. And I'm busy because I have a lot of stuff to do, but it's seriously mind-numbing. The results are that I get incredibly observant about the people around me:

The Whistling one calls house on his bluetooth ("Call....house. Call...house.") approximately once every 45 minutes to discuss dinner plans in greater detail. They're having chicken with mushrooms and some potatoes. Then, every hour, he gets up to stretch and ask us a question he already knows the answer to. Then, he walks with purpose out of the room. He returns 10 minutes later with the same purposeful walk and whistling. He then uses the bathroom.

The Eeyore one will bury his face in his hands and rub his eys every hour or so. He also disappears for no reason every hour and a half, returning 15 minutes later, usually with a random object. The last time he left, he came back with a pamphlet from the new pizza place.

And finally, The Perfectionist will stare out of the window in thought every 25 minutes. Then, she'll click a bunch on her mouse and sigh randomly to herself. She's always covering her mouth with her hand.

I keep visiting the box office to ensure that I will actually get up from my desk every once in a while and not become one of those huge-assed office people with severe carpal tunnel syndrome who is perpetually pale from lack of sunlight. On that note, I'm gonna see if my boss wasn't kidding when he said he's cutting out early.

Cementophobia...

I have a fear of cement trucks.

No, I'm not kidding.

Yes, this is an actual fear.

More specifically, I am afraid that I will be standing behind a cement truck and someone will accidentally undo the safety and I will suddenly be covered in a metric ton of quick-drying cement which I will have accidentally both swallowed and inhaled (like when you don't know you're going to be sprayed with a high-powered water hose) a quick-drying very dense cement which will then harden in my lungs and stomach.

Clearly, I can wash off the external cement. This bothers me because I like my clothes, but it is not a perpetual fear. The fear is in the aftermath...

Will suffocation from the inside-out, a slow hardening of cement in my lungs (while creating a really cool inner-mold of my body) be incredibly painful? What if the cement shards get into my blood stream? Will I be able to feel tiny bits of sidewalk floating around in my system?

Now, let's say that I actually survive the lung part of this. I somehow miraculously cough up all of the shards and now I'm just left with the swallowed cement. I can only picture this slowly ripping up my body as I try to digest the undigestable shards of block. Yes, this does end in a very Chuck Palahniuk-style plot line that is reminiscent of, oh, ANY of his books and concluding to a bloody mess ending with the phrase "My anus is bleeding!" (thank you, Don Hertzfeldt).

I'm sure a lot of this has to do with me working at a place that is under construction and having to walk past many construction vehicles regularly. Today, for example, I was walking along the sidewalk and had to go across the driveway entrance to one of the sides of the building and had to walk underneath a...um...large thingabob. It's a truck-like thing with two large prong-like appendages hanging off the front of it on which you can pile lots of heavy stuff. My point is that I had to walk under the large pile of heavy stuff only supported by two metal prong things. Clearly I need to watch Bob the Builder a bit more because I'm not up on my construction terms.

Very long-winded story short, construction kinda scares me and I don't want a bleeding anus after having swallowed concrete. I've thought about this a lot and I would prefer death by stingray.

Crazy Dream...

I don't usually write about my dreams, but this one was so bizarre that it totally warrants its own post.

So, I was riding on the back of Taka's motorcycle (yeah, she has one in the dream) and she was driving me to the DMV so I could get my own license for a motorcycle. The thing is, I have never actually controlled a motorcycle myself so this was sort of...weird. And as we're driving, she's telling me how to get around the DMV and to lie to them and tell them that I have driven and all of that. So we get there and they ask me like 2 questions (my name and if I have driven a motorcycle) and after I answer, I get a license. That was it. So, I turn to Taka and I say, "yeah, that was a little too easy. It worries me that I didn't even have to take a road test or anything."

Then, about half a minute later, The Chameleon is riding a motorcycle and I'm on the back of it and I'm teaching him how to do it. Mind you, still haven't been in control of one myself but I'm instructing him and I somehow know what I'm doing. Then, we pull up to an outdoor flower garden thing and we're riding in a huge garden maze (like Labyrinth) and he starts singing the Pixies' "Caribou" which is making tiny gnome people appear in the bushes. The only words he's singing, however, are "repent" and "Caribou" so it's not like he's doing the whole song. But these tiny gnome people are mean and have tiny pokey knife things that they keep digging into our ankles, so The Chameleon says, "This is why you have to take the road test for it to count."

Somehow, we end up at Sputz's house (not her parents' house, but a house that we knew and understood was hers despite the fact that I've never actually seen the house before in my life). She was hosting a tea party for her grad school friends and was mad at us for showing up because we were wearing leather (y'know...motorcycle...leather...makes sense) and she had a "floral only" dress code to her party. She herself was wearing some poofy Alice In Wonderland style dress with horrible flowers all over it. Then, she handed me a mug of sour apple Pucker and told me that I had to drink it if I wanted to stay. So I downed it and she told me to change in her room.

I go to put on some blue flowered dress and when I come out, The Chameleon has on a suit and Sputz is telling me that we all have to go to the tv station so they can film us. We get on a train. Instead of the train taking us to a tv station, we end up in the Hinman Commons and we're suddenly trying to build a set to a show called "Nope" (yeah, no clue) and we don't have any of the building materials. My brother shows up and starts taking control until we go out back to take a break. Now, we're in my parents' backyard in the pool and having a party. And then I realized that I was supposed to be in work and missed our biggest show of the year and was going to get fired.

I'd try to analyze the meaning of this but I'm pretty sure it's all because my temperature this morning was 99.2 degrees. My brain is a funny place to live.

My Mother Still Owns My Soul

So I had a really funny thought today. I was walking into work and decided I wanted coffee. The problem was, it was super warm out and I didn't want something hot but I most definitely needed the caffeine so I thought that perhaps I would get an iced coffee. Here is where my brain's logic goes spiraling. I apologize in advance.

So, the coffee place near my office has amazing coffee swirls- a coffee milkshake of sorts. They are frozen and coffeeriffic and wonderful because you get your caffeine and refreshing drink in one. I am not a fan of traditional iced coffees because the bitterness of coffee only tastes good to me when it is warm. Did I get a coffee swirl even though it's what I wanted? No, I did not. I got a small, hot traditional cup of hot coffee.

WHY you ask?

Because my mother has made me a paranoid, neurotic mess of a person.

No, I'm serious. I'm not pulling a Dr. Phil and blaming my mother because I can. I could actually hear my mother's voice in my head telling me not to get the coffee swirl because it's a dessert and this was 8:50am which is far too early for a dessert. Except that when I broke it down, the coffee swirl of choice is a mocha-espresso swirl. This means it has espresso ground with cocoa beans and is then blended with milk and ice. No extra sugar. In my regular coffee, I put in cream and 2 sugars. So, really, even though one naturally tastes sweeter, it's better for you because they use a natural cocoa and not processed chocolate. And even as I stood in the doorway rationalizing all of this, I still couldn't get past the idea that drinking a swirl was inappropriate.

I'm 24 and I'm concerned that my mother will be disappointed in me if I drink a sweet coffee. Meanwhile, my grandfather, her father, put 4 heaping tablespoons of sugar into every cup of coffee and tea he drank for the past 40 years and now has adult diabetes. If she were using the genetic predisposition to diabetes as an excuse as to why I shouldn't drink sweet things before noon, I'd understand, but her rationale really has more to do with the actual clock than it does anything else. Noon is apparently suddenly an appropriate time for sugar. This also make sno sense because when I was in college, noon was my morning but I could have sugar first thing because it was noon. More than that, why does it matter what my mother, who is 30 miles away, thinks about my choices for drink? It's not as though I have a huge bowl of fruit loops with piles of sugar and a pixie stick for breakfast. I actually eat fairly responsibly most of the time. I mean, seriously, I have yogurt every day for breakfast and I eat salad at least twice a week as a meal.

I guess I always knew I'd hit the point where my mom's words were going to really sink in and I'd start to agree with her, whether or not I actually agree with the logic...it's part of the brainwashing she's been working on since birth. Before long, I'm going to be saying things like, "oh, I'll buy the plain white button down because it's a classic piece and will never go out of style" or "I really shouldn't buy those heels because they may hurt my feet after 2-3 hours."

Actually, do me a favor- if I ever hit the point where I don't buy a cute pair of shoes because even though they are comfortable in the store I think they MAY hurt sometime in the future should I wear them all day, kill me. You have my permission.

Apparently I'm Old

I know I just turned 24 and that in the grand scheme of things I'm still in the younger part of my life and all of that, but the fact of the matter is that I can see that I am getting old.

First of all, I have gray hair. Not a little bit of gray hair. I have enough gray hair to warrant the girl who cuts my hair to talk to me about the "great gray coverage" that is available to me in their new hairdyes. Also, it's starting to be noticeable in pictures. AND my father (from across the room) said to me "Wow, you're really turning gray there." I muttered something about the pot calling the kettle black.

Second, my joints used to crack and pop and feel better but now some of them crack and pop and feel...the same. The beginning of arthritis mayhaps? I can't be sure, but I can tell you that my middle finger on my right hand has been cracked 7 times so far today (it's now 1pm) and still feels like maybe it's not in joint. Of course, it IS possible that it is not in joint and that I'm cracking a dislocated finger over and over again which would also explain the unexplainable pain. I can't remember if I injured it or not recently.

Third, my memory seems to be shot to hell lately. Tell me something once, twice, three times, doesn't matter- I'm going to remember what I want to remember and a lot of it isn't going to stick. Like whether or not I've recently injured my finger--you'd think that this would be one of those times my brain would wake up and say, "Hey! You! Dumbass! Pay attention!" but I can't be sure.

Fourth, I look tired in pictures. It used to be that when I was tired, I had to announce this to make everyone aware that I was tired because I never looked tired. Now, on the other hand, I look tired. I don't have undereye circles or anything but my eyes look puffy and droopy if it's past 1am and I'm having my picture taken. This brings me to...

Fifth, I have trouble staying up much past midnight. In college, my bedtime was around 5am and now, I'm passing out in front of Grey's Anatomy. This is just pathetic. I've actually fallen asleep on my bed while chatting on aim on my laptop. THIS MUST STOP. I feel as though I'm turning into a narcoleptic impostor of my former self.

Birthday Goodness

It used to be that my birthday was one day and it ended with cake and candles and that was the end of that. This year, not the case.

Of course, I am coming off of a couple of years of...awkward birthdays wherein something went horribly awry:

2006: Went up to visit old friends where there was just a lot of other drama going on and the overall craziness of emotional baggage came out. That and we saw the MOST emo band on the face of the earth. No one but Motion City Soundtrack would stop a performance to make sure that the crowd was ok and to "rock, but be safe!" God, they were super whiny.

2005: Pulled an all-nighter to finish my thesis and ended up crying on the phone at the Chameleon who "forgot" my birthday. By "forgot" I mean that he forgot to say happy birthday but had called to wish be a happy birthday but got distracted when he realized he woke me up about 5 minutes after I decided I would pass out.

2004: Turned 21 and decided to get "too drunk to remember my own middle name." This was more or less accomplished. Also, part of the motivation for getting that drunk was to avoid social awkwardness.

2003: My birthday got somewhat pushed back to the end of the semester because there was too much going on with directing and producing and school overall. Very anti-climatic day. Spent it with the Pippin Cast and ended up sitting on the floor of some girl's dormroom (who I hadn't previously met) watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

2002: Decent day, very small celebration, but my family forgot to call me until about 9pm. Awesome, since it was my first birthday away from home.

2001: Nearly all of my friends were away on a church retreat thing just before my birthday and came back all "woo-hoo, we love each other and are so close emotionally and you weren't there so you weren't in on it at all."

2000: Had my birthday on a choir trip on the day we were being judged. My friends threw me a surprise party as I was walking out of the shower and I nearly flashed everyone in my room. That's all that needs to be said there.

This year, however, it seemed to be a week-long celebration for some reason. This was not my doing, I swear. In fact, my plan was to go out Saturday night and just have a decent time since my birthday was Sunday and call it a day. Instead, things went down a bit more like this:

Friday night the Chameleon took me out to dinner and we had rainbow cake/napoleon dessert.

Saturday I went to the Secret Angster's bridal party, went out to dinner with the parents, then hung out with a decently group of people:
Ms. J. Crew
Miss Yankee
The Equestrian
The Almost-New Guy
Mr. *heart*
Mr. *heart*'s girlfriend
The Hippie
Mr. Mac
The Architect
The Pirate

Sunday was a continuation of craziness because we went to The Architect's parents' house for his moving party wherein people there sang me happy birthday. A little weird since it was supposed to be a goodbye party and I felt bad taking away any attention.

A birthday weekend just seems a bit too long...

Warning: If you are male, you won't like this post.

Once a month, I hate my uterus and wish I had been born a man. Well, not born a man because I think my mother would have cried had she given birth to a full-grown man, so born a boy. Granted, I would probably be transgendered and going through a whole list of other issues right now, but I wouldn't have the evil attacking uterus that makes me want to give myself a hysterectomy with a rusty chainsaw because I know that infection and self-mutilation is quite possibly less painful. I think Richard Jenni got it best in his sketch:



Mind you, I don't turn into some crazed witch straight from Macbeth who turns on anyone I happen to be with, but it does feel like maybe my body is attacking me for not having children. Which sucks because that "children" thing is not happening for quite a few years. Which means that for the next 10 years (give or take) I'm going to be in pain and bitchy and obnoxious because my body is attacking me from the inside for not being pregnant, which, if you think about it in terms of religion is super funny because I'm not allowed to have sex until I get married but God is (in the meantime) punishing me for not being pregnant. Hmmm. Something seems a bit hypocritical. So, either we should be allowed sex before marriage without condemnation or God should suck less and stop it with the pain. Or even more ideally, we should be allowed sex before marriage without condemnation (even if we use contraceptives) and God should suck less. Either way, there should be a lack of sucking on God's part and an increase of sucking on everyone else's.

On a slightly different note, is there anything worse than a "between the eyebrow incredibly inflamed larger under the surface so it stays perpetually red" zit? I mean, yeah, AIDS I'm sure is worse but no one knows you have that unless you tell them. Or have unprotected sex with them and then they get a bad cold, wind up in the ER and find out that you gave them AIDS, in which case you are sort of a horrible person. And by sort of, I mean you deserve the painful, slow death that is coming your way.

But I digress...the forehead zit is bad enough but with some creative combing you can usually avoid a lot of the annoyances of having to put up with too much of it. The between the eye zit? That just sucks. A lot. And how do you explain that you not intentionally mocking the Indian Caste system and that your face just decided to explode and be obnoxious?

As one of the guys at work put it, I look like maybe someone has a mark out on me from the top of a building somewhere. Awesome.

When songs get stuck in my head, I generally have one of three reactions:

1) OooH! I love this song! *bounce bounce bounce bounce*
2) Ooooh, I'm so sick of this song! *pout*
3) Damn it, Miss Yankee...STOP WRITING "SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE" IN TEXT MESSAGES!

I have two notes stuck in my head. That's right- two notes. Bah-bom. That's it. And I can't place the song it goes to and the rest of it is riiiiiiight there on the tip of my brain. It's almost as though there's a fine line between paying enough attention to get my brain to remember and concentrating too hard and somehow blocking it. It's very frustrating because it's not like I can call up someone and be all, "Hey, do you know where these two notes with no other distinguishing factors, including words, is from?" It's like two guitar chords and then....something. And it sounds almost like another song so just when I think I've gotten it, Aerosmith starts playing in my head and I get frustrated because I somehow know that it is not an Aerosmith song that is stuck in my head.

Even now, I'm staring at the computer screen thinking, "Maybe if I concentrate on something else it'll pop up and I'll remember what it is." Two notes. Like an inverse doorbell sound. And it repeats over and over and over and over and over again because I have no where else to go with it. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to break out the mp3 player when I go food shopping just to not have it in my head anymore. It's sad that I've come to that.

It's also sad that I've taken to food shopping with my mp3 player. I think I've actually hit the point where I do need to be amused and entertained every second of the day. I used to think that if I were magically transported to 1860, I would be able to survive because I like to read and the dresses were really cool. But now, I'm not sure I could get by without checking my email, myspace, facebook, the news, pandora, and various other sites all while writing and half-watching tv while texting people. I don't think I realized how much mutli-tasking I do on a minute-to-minute basis. This is why when I get home from work, I end up doing more work while chatting and relaxing. I think I've forgotten how to completely relax and do nothing because unless I'm sleeping, I'm always doing more than one thing.

I don't think that there's a new epidemic of ADHD in our kids. I think society forgot how to chill out.

Showers, Cell phones, Shoes, and Passover

I am spastic today.

This came as sort of a weird realization at about 8:27am when I finished up my attempt at working out and scrambled to the shower and was back in my room by 8:34. That's a 7 minute shower, including walking and water temperature adjusting time. I think perhaps I missed my calling and should have joined the army. I would have been the first to die, but I would have been the most efficient at showering.

Speaking of calling, I get a new cell phone in 12 days. This is awesome because I went from "my cell phone is ok" to "I hate this piece of shit and would like to melt it with a blow torch but I need it since I don't actually have a landline and I will be the first to admit that being disconnected from the outside world for any length of time freaks me out even though I didn't even have a cell phone until 5 years ago and managed to survive until then." The hatred is deep and it's real. But this does mean that I get to be all bouncy and do all kinds of research on new fun phones. And yes, I get bouncy when doing research. It's the utter geek in me. The Thespian has a bunch of websites he keeps forgetting to forward to me about cell phones and what people's real opinions of them are. Oh, and if you have a cell that you are absolutely in love with, let me know! Opinions are very welcome.

Unless you are Miss Yankee. I say this because she did not approve of any of the 4 pairs of shoes I got this weekend. Yes, I said 4. What? You know what? You can take that disdain and overall negativity and go elsewhere because HERE we love shoes. They are great things. What warranted me getting 4 pairs, you ask? Well, 2 of my shoes were very much on my way out and were falling apart, so I had to replace them. Then, I needed (yes, needed...shuttup) a pair of red heels to go with a couple of outfits that would be more complete with said red heels. And then I found a cute pair of canvass sneakers reminiscent of a pair I had in 5th grade. Oh, and to jump back, Miss Yankee also does not get a say in my cell phone purchasing because she refused to pay for the phone insurance and then dropped her phone in the toilet. Yes, the toilet.

And now for the social commentary section. So, I attended the same Passover seder my family generally attends at our good friends' house. Nothing super unusual happened. By super unusual, I mean outside of the usual chaos. For those of you not at all familiar with Passover, the seder is basically a meal that goes in a special order, complete with reading text at the table. Every year we read the same text and discuss the same story (the whole Jews leaving Egypt and wandering in the desert for 40 years before being allowed into the Promised Land. You may remember this from The Ten Commandments or The Prince of Egypt). There are about 20 pages of text that goes something like this:

Rabbi Whoziwhatzit says that there were 20 plagues because he could not count.
Rabbi Whogamawhozit, son of Unpronounceable, says that there were 400 plagues because his calculator was broken.
Rabbi Whatizname, son of Whogamawhozit, friend of Whoziwhatzit, and overall swell guy, claims that the plagues didn't happen and that they were all in our head and was stoned to death over this blasphemous proclamation. We do not speak of him anymore.

Personally, I have a hard time swallowing a lot of this stuff as absolute truth anyway, but I think a large part of it is because I'm an English major and we read into stuff naturally. So, yeah, maybe life sucked for the Egyptians for a while and then the Jews escaped persecution (the first of many times to come) but if the text says 10 plagues, can't we all just agree that since we weren't there and don't know for sure, it's supposed to be the kind of thing where 10 really shitty things happened? I mean, if 10 things happened 10 fold, then yes, that is 100 things that happened, but still...just...let it be. The Rabbis didn't have an answer and I doubt we will have one ourselves.

Kaiser Wilhelm III will probably disagree with me on this. From what I can tell, he and his father like to debate every aspect of the story of the Exodus which is more than fine. I enjoy watching them debate it. I enjoy making snarky sarcastic remarks to help them with said debating. What I find utterly hysterical, however, is when we go around the table and read out loud. We all take a paragraph so that no one is stuck reading it all. You have your typical boring readers (like my father) who read everything as though there is no inflection and Ben Stein is your own personal storytelling hero. Then you have the overly dramatic readers who over emphasize things ("Thus said the LORD") that don't really make sense being emphasized. And then you have the "new" readers. The new readers are my favorite because they cause little scenarios like this:

Seder leader: New Reader, your turn.
New Reader: And...then...Aaron...d-well...dwelled? in the land of the ancestors but sawjurned-
SL: Sojourned.
NR: Saw-jurned.
SL: Sojourned.
NR: Saw-JURNED.
SL: Sojourned.
NR: SAW-jun-ed.
SL: Lived.
Kaiser Wilhelm III: No! They didn't live there! It says that they sojourned but did not stay to settle.
NR: Sojourned.
NR: Saw-journed until the time of the...

Or this one:
NR: Mount See-nay-
SL: Mount Sinai.
NR: See-nay?
SL: The mountain. The big one.

Between this and The New Reader's insistence that he is not a slave and shouldn't be forced to help out with anything, it was quite the amusing meal.

Vanilla (no, not a latte)

No one wants to be vanilla. While vanilla ice cream or a vanilla latte sound pretty good right about now, vanilla itself is not good. I mean, sure, I suppose that being sexually vanilla is fine for some people and I am by no means knocking the missionary position. If, however, you spend 90% of your time doing the same old thing, I think that perhaps it's time to change things up a bit. I'm not saying you should know and memorize every crazy definition and position known to man, but you should be able to at least have a sense of adventure. Or at least be willing to try a new thing here and there.

I'm sure that at some point, everyone wonders if they are vanilla. I mean, even the most crazy and out there experienced of us wonders, "huh, what if I just sort of do the easy thing? What if I AM boring in bed?" The insecurity of not being good is one thing, but you can be good at what you do and still be boring as hell and that, quite frankly, is a scary, scary proposition.

Maybe it's my misleadingly innocent looks or maybe it's because I'm an open book and if anyone ever wants to know something, all they have to do is ask, but my friends often confide in me some of their fears surrounding sexual stuff, which is great because it's from conversations like this that method-swapping is born. Method swapping is just good for everyone. More guys should try it. It really just means that you say something along these lines:

Person One: And then, I make my wrist go in a swirling motion so that when I reach the top, I lightly use my palm, brush over, flip directions and head back down in the other direction. It's best if you start with your hand in an "upside-down" position and then flip it to right side up.

Person Two: Hmmm...I'll have to try that. Oh, and by the way, if you are ever out of good lube, olive oil seems to be a cheap and easy fix.

Person Three: So is shampoo. Although I have found that Suave is a little too drying and Dove conditioner is sometimes a bit too much. I recommend Herbal Essences Conditioner for normal hair.

While it's all very Sex and the City, girls do it all the time. I mean, yes, some of it is bragging, but it's not a conquest-brag so much as a "guess how much fun I've been having" brag. Which is why guys should do it, too. Because, quite frankly, things don't go down like they do in pornos. And they probably shouldn't only because pornos are designed for optimum viewing pleasure, but not necessarily for optimum pleasure.

The thing about the tried-and-true positions is that while they are vanilla, they, uh, get the job done so to speak. Does this make them vanilla? Sure, a bit, but if you're willing to have your foot tied up in a spur-of-the-moment self-made sling and you're doing a split while standing on your head, arms down by your waist, what's a little vanilla on the side? So long as it's doused in whipped cream, chocolate sauce and, erm, glazed nuts.

I lied.

I don't usually write serious blogs but tonight I'm in more of a serious mood. If you're looking for funny, move along and I promise that the next one will be more witty and humorous.

There was a kid in last semester's performing arts school, we'll call him Scott, who was constantly grumpy. I don't mean typical 11 year-old grumpy, but "something is clearly wrong at home" grumpy. He was reserved and he never wanted to participate and he always found some weird way of disrupting like answering questions with random phrases ("Who call tell me where stage left is?" "Ribbit!") or distracting the instructor by finding new ways to play with random objects during class time. During the end-of-semester showcase, he played Danny from Grease and he was actually quite good- he fit the character, he was very into the part, and he sang very well. He didn't seem to enjoy it overall, so we figured it was something his parents made him try and he wouldn't be back.


Needless to say, we were surprised when he signed up again this semester. When his class started, he was his usual Scott self, barely paying attention, concentrating more on balling up a piece of paper than what was actually going on in class, and being standoffish and cold to the other kids. And then, when we got the kids in a large circle to warm them up and as my boss is giving them instructions, he says, "My mom has no hair!"

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that his mother has cancer of some kind and is going through chemo. So, quietly so that the rest of the class could continue to get into their circle (which, believe it or not, takes about 60-80 seconds for 9-12 year olds), I say, "My mom lost her hair, but it grew back."

Scott: "Why did your mother loose her hair?"

Me: "She had breast cancer and her chemo treatment made her loose her hair."

Scott: "Yeah, my mom, too...the chemo makes her sick."

Me: "Yeah, my mom, too. But she got better and her hair grew back and I'm sure your mom's will, too."

Now, I do feel bad because while my mother did have breast cancer and she did go through chemo that did make her sick, she didn't loose her hair. And at first, I felt really guilty about lying to him and telling him something that wasn't true, but I talked to Sputz last night and she assured me that this wasn't a bad lie. It wasn't as though I were making up my mother's entire health history and it was obvious to me that Scott really needed someone to know what he was going through and he wasn't screaming out that his mother had no hair because he was excited about it. He spent the rest of class standing next to me and being more clingy than we've ever seen him before.

We knew last semester that his mother was sick because she missed his final performance; she had to go into the hospital the night before. This is too much for an 11 year old to deal with. I was 21 when my mother was diagnosed and it's still sometimes too much for me to deal with, but 11? His childhood is slowly being ripped away from him. And he is the oldest of 4 children, so he is playing the big brother (again, something I understand a little too well) and trying to keep it all together.

Later, we were playing one of the many theater name games while standing in a circle and holding hands and I called out my name. He looked at me and said "Your name is Sharon? That's my mother's name." I squeezed his hand and replied, "It's a good name."

Cancer is just not fair.

Pet Peeves

Everyone has them. Everyone tries really hard not to have them, but let's face it: there are just certain things other people do that make you want to magically call a falling piano to drop on their head so that you will never have to deal with their mere stupidity again.

Now, the thing is, generally I'm a chill person who doesn't get hung up on stupid things like this, but here is a small list of things I will never, EVER be okay with:

1. In professional emails (like, any email that is going to contacts outside of your office or business-related in-office emails) should not have the following phrases: lol, omg, ttyl, hotness, or any sort of emoticon (:-), :-(, etc.) especially when going to multiple people. I just think that the following email is somewhat outrageous:

Hey everyone,

The new coffee machine is hotness and I just wanted to collect $1 from everyone so that we can buy the new coffee that is required to use with it lol. If there are any coffee flavors you don't like, just let me know :-) Also, there are extra copies of directions on how to use it by the fax machine hehe. Omg, and in case I forget to tell you in person, we finally got a shipment of paperclips in! Woo-hoo!

Granted, this email wasn't from my office, which I'm super grateful for. But I do feel really bad for Mr. Watermelon whose office is apparently constantly sending things like that to each other. It's like he's working with 16 year old girls.

And speaking of which...

2) Girls who insist that they are absolutely helpless without a guy to do something for them. While I do understand that biologically the male form is built to be stronger than the female form (if you want to argue this point with me, call me and I will be glad to tell you why you're wrong you silly womyn...womyne? What WOULD be the plural?) there is no reason to stand helplessly at a curb batting your eyes at strangers while holding on tightly to a large suitcase. I witnessed this very thing this afternoon at the train station. This girl lugged the suitcase to the front of the station (all the while making a big production out of it and periodically stopping to look to see who was paying attention) and then immediately put on her best "boo, I may cry at any given moment" face. When a guy finally asked her if she needed help, she tilted her head to one side and looked at the ground and said, "oh, I feel bad asking." This makes me hate having a vagina.

3) Hairdressers who don't quite listen to you as you get your hair cut. Granted, I had an unusual hair cutting experience in and of itself (which I'll be posting about sometime later, I'm sure) but this woman just kept talking and talking and suddenly my bangs were...short. I've had bangs on and off for the past two years or so, but...well...I'm pretty sure that Punky Brewster bangs went out when the show was canceled in 1988...which is about the last time I sported bangs like this. I was 5.

4) Cookie and Candy. No, not the sweets. The stage mothers who are friends and who are seriously named Cookie and Candy. Candy has taken to waiting for me outside work in the morning so that as I walk in I have no choice but to talk to her. I've actually taken to pretending to be on my cell phone to look extra busy.

5) People who move my bookmarks. I may not be reading the book currently, but there's a reason the marker is at the page it's at. I haven't yet moved all of my books to my new place yet and my mom found a pile of books and as she was cleaning. She informed me that she found a bunch of great bookmarks in my books and started a collection. *sigh*

Ok, that's all for tonight. I'm tired and it was a really ridiculous day and I have to figure out how to make my hair look not insane.

Because sometimes you just don't know what to expect...

So I was going through some old emails from back in the day and I came across one that I really was...surprised about. I had totally forgotten this and now I feel the need to share it with you just because it pretty much sums up my nutjob relationships with strangers lately.

The backstory is that I posted a personals ad on a site in early fall because I was feeling down. Mind you, it wasn't really a personal ad in the sense that I was looking to meet someone for real, but I was looking to get confirmation that there were actually people out there who were genuine and down to earth and weren't wishy-washy about what they wanted. So, my ad basically said that I was looking for an A. J. from Empire Records--a guy who was artistic and creative and who knew himself well enough to know what it was he wanted out of life and was adorably cute about getting the courage up to go for it. He's intensely loyal to his friends and deeply cares about much more than just himself. That being said, here is a response I got:

Ok, here's the thing. I don't think you've ever watched Empire Records . The A.J. character was anything but "straightforward….and (not) afraid to get what he wants." He fawns the whole movie (as he presumably has his pubescent years) over Corey Mason and does nothing about it. He gets all pouty when she has her big crush on Rex Manning and is all afraid to go to college because he won't be near her anymore. But he never once told her how he felt until she had her sudden epiphany about what a super sweet boy he is and how she needed to settle down with the nice guy at the ripe old age of 18 before it got too late. That and the record store that A.J. made a cardboard donation sign for managed to not get taken over by the Sam Goody-esq chain. So if a happy ending falling into you lap qualifies as "not being afraid to go after what he wants" then I suppose saying "Bless You" to you when you sneeze is equivalent to a marriage proposal.

Also, is your life so clichéd and boring that you secretly wish for Loyld Dobbler to hold up a boombox or have some douche say something pre-planned like "You had me at hello (hey, this email is connected to Rennee Zellwegger in two ways!)" or "You make me want to be a better man"? Yes, movies are a great diversion and always fun to watch, but the problem with comparing potential suitors to characters professional writers create is that the second your relationship stops being moonbeams and rainbows you'll say something like "The spark is gone" or another of those "it's not you, it's me" crap lines to get out of a this "awful relationship." Grow up, dummy.

One more thing. Of all the movies to choose, why Empire Records? That movie is so hacknyed and weak. It's the most blatant of the Gen-X cash in's. Ohh, check out all these hip kids. They dress so cool and work in a record store! Oh man, what an awesome job! Oh man, this super smart existential kid wears leather, drives a motorcycle, and went to AC on a whim! He's like a modern day James Dean! Decent enough soundtrack, though.

The funniest part of this whole email (and your posting) is how I am straightforward and honest and not afraid to get what I want. But, because you've already pigeonholed anyone who you may meet, you won't get past my dislike for Empire Records, or any of my legitimate criticisms of your posting. So yup, by your estimation I'm not kind or generous. Just some asshole with nothing better to do on a Wednesday night. And that is true. But that doesn't mean I'm not right either.

Oh, my intials are AJ. So there, take that.

Peace, love, and a forceful reiteration of all the above,

A*** J****



Well, I was somewhat taken aback that someone would respond so strongly. And at first, I was going to dismiss it completely. And then, after a glass of wine, I thought about it. Who the hell was this guy? And why did he take so much time to negatively respond to a stranger's posting? I mean, what the hell did I do to him that a single posting was offending him so much? Obviously, this wasn't about me, but then again, why should I go and take it as he gets some crazy frustration out on a complete stranger? Here is my response:


First of all, if anyone has pigeonholed anyone, you've pigeonholed me. I never asked if anyone liked the movie, just if they've seen it. I never said that people weren't allowed their own opinion on the movie, nor did I offer mine. In fact, I don't believe I wrote "this is the greatest movie of all time and I will only date people who agree with me!" or "if you do not like this movie you had better not respond to my post!" You, in fact, do not know if I liked the movie as a whole or not, only that a single character from said movie carries characteristics I may be looking for.

Second of all, while yes, A.J. certainly does hem and haw over what to do about Corey, he DOES know what he wants out of life and he DOES put himself out there in terms of his art. For the record, it wasn't Corey's sudden epiphany that made A.J. tell her how he felt; it was her epiphany that changed her mind about him in the end. He blurts out his feelings for her in the middle of the movie just after she attempts to sleep with Rex Manning.

Third of all, no one said anything about my unrealistic views of relationships or wanting Lloyd Dobbler hanging outside my window. I am sick of dating men with ulterior motives or men who do not understand themselves well enough to know what they are feeling or what they want out of life. If my using a character from a movie to illustrate this point (a reference that came out of a conversation with friends, not an unrealistic fairy-tale-like standard of relationships) truly offends you, why respond at all?

I don't want preplanned, perfectly written lines, nor am I the type of person who rushes to end things when the "honeymoon" period ends. Fact of the matter is, you decided a lot about me based on a single post without ever considering that I may be nothing like the wishy-washy bitchy girl you've described, then you've accused me of doing just that to you.

To be more specific, what I want in a guy is someone who is good-humored, sensitive, creative, sweet, generous, unafraid of life, and mature enough to know himself without being threatened by the fact that I know myself. A.J. would be the only movie character I could think of that embodied these traits. While your criticisms may be legitimate, they were based largely in incorrect assumptions, the least of which is that I base kindness and generosity on someone's opinion of a single movie.

Finally, for all you know, I could have be an amazing girl who encompasses all that you are looking for and who, according to you, is looking for you as well. The unfortunate thing is that your hypocrisy and quick-to-judge attitude has closed you off to even considering the fact that perhaps someone was simply trying to be somewhat witty and different when posting a personal ad.

I will agree with you on one point: you are just some asshole with nothing better to do on a Wednesday night.

Best,

Hesper



So, you can imagine my surprise when he responded AGAIN:

I usually don't do this, but I feel compelled to apologize over being such a monster dick on Wednsday. I was having an almost comically awful day on Wednsday, so to take the edge off, I had a few too many stiff drinks. That's not an excuse, but I figure a little backstory helps. Somehow I turned my dislike for Empire Records into a long winded diaatribe against some stranger. So anyway. I'm sorry. And this isn't a seeking forgiveness, because I really don't expect you to reply to this or whatever. Just, for some reason, and it doesn't happen often, I do feel legitmally bad for making myself laugh at an angry letter I write.
Additionally, I was sort of pleased to see you respond back with a coherant, insightful "fuck you" response to the aformentioned dickness. Not taking shit from assholes is a good quality to have. Don't ever lose it.
Anyway, I've got to drive to Washington, so I'm going to wrap this up. Once again, a thousand pardons.
Adios,
A*** J****


I responded just to tell him that I appreciated the apology but didn't elaborate further because I didn't feel there was much point. I mean, everything that needed to be said was said. I was impressed with his handling of uber-bitchy me, though.

I guess my point is that I was surprised when he actually responded to my bitch-him-out email, but more importantly, he apologized. I mean, I only bitched him out because he was clearly taking out a lot of pent-up issues on me and I wasn't in the mood to take it and he actually apologized. Apologized and complimented me on bitching him out. Strangers will surprise you, I guess, but it makes me glad that I have a backbone and that I won't just sit back and take it.