The Brunch Platter

We've Moved!

2010-04-16T14:42:00.002-04:00

Actually I'm just trying to consolidate everything in one place, so The Brunch Platter can now be found here: http://brunchplatter.wordpress.com/

This means that my fun blog and my professional blog are in the same place. In fact, here's a link to my professional blog: http://shkowalsky.wordpress.com/

And, should you really feel the need to stalk me on the interwebs, check out Orange Learners, a collaborative blog with by 5 distance learning Syracuse Students: http://orangelearners.wordpress.com/

Come visit! I'd love to see you all there! And by see you...eh, you get it.

I used to be a contender...

2010-04-14T23:31:00.003-04:00

I miss theater.

Sure, I've been the choreographer for a local middle school for the past 3 years but that's not THEATER theater. That's being a teacher and making sure the kids don't accidentally fall off the edge of the stage the first time they work under the stage lights while simultaneously hoping that they remember to take the chair off when they exit stage left so it isn't accidentally left in the middle of the stage during the full cast dance number.

What I miss is the camaraderie. The friendships. The late night rehearsals that ended in random visits to diners for horribly bad food that didn't affect my stomach because I was young and in college and if I slept until 1pm it was fine - no one I knew would be conscious until at least 5pm which was, conveniently, just about half an hour before rehearsal started.

This all began because I am teaching a theater course (as one of my many current part-time jobs) and I went looking through some old scripts to find material for them to read as monologues. I don't miss acting per se (I think I'm a better director than actor) but I do miss trying out how words feel and practicing the same line with three or four different emotions. You don't really get to do that in real life so much. Well, okay, you can but people won't be sitting next to you on the bus.

Since I met most (read: ALL of my post-high school) friends through theater somehow, I think I also miss the teamwork and friendships that go into making a good show. I used to love performing not for the attention (fine, a little bit for the attention) but mostly for the fun of exploring someone else's life with a group of people who rooted for you.

As you get older, you have less people rooting for you. I'm pretty sure that this is because at the end of a good week of work, you don't have 60-100 of your closest friends showing up at your apartment looking for the free booze.

*sigh*

I miss college. Who knew.

Bad Person Thought of the Day

2009-10-15T03:27:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I think about how I kind of don't want to have kids because I've been working really hard to stay in shape and having kids will ruin all of my hard work.

I wish I weren't serious.

The thing is, I've never been one to like exercise or go to the gym so the idea of spending 9 months feeling sick, uncomfortable, and generally fat only to have to work extra hard to get back to where I am right now is sort of unappealing. And by sort of, I mean completely.

I wish I weren't so vain about it but yeah...it really is kind of about my looks.

Maybe I'll just be the crazy kitten/puppy lady.

My Continued Annoyance At Local Papers

2009-09-21T23:23:00.006-04:00

Today, upon opening up the New Jersey Herald, I found this headline glaring back at me:

America is a Christian Nation

This was news to me as I consider myself to be relatively well informed and hadn't seen that on any news reports nor do I remember learning this in school.

As it turns out, this was the headline the Herald opted to use for their "Letters to the Editor" section and the following is the original letter by a reader:

Editor:

This letter is in response to a letter printed Sept. 15 regarding the separation of church and state by Susan Jones.

Having read your editorial on the separation of church and state, I’d like to let you know a few things and maybe educate you on your topic. It seems that you accepted a “generic” prayer for the victims of 9/11. Prayer, defined as a devout petition or communion with none other than God, according to you, was “more religious than a town sponsored event should be.” Perhaps you might let the rest of us know where we might find such information, i.e., rules and regulations regarding same.

As for the separation of church and state, you did not include where one might find that law regarding same. You might be surprised to find out that there is no law regarding separation of church and state. That was merely a phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter from him to a friend at the Baptist Association of Danbury, Conn., shortly after he became president. Jefferson, in fact, made numerous declarations afterward about the constitutional inability of the federal government to regulate, restrict or interfere with religious expression. To put this in simpler terms for you, had you read the First Amendment, you would have discovered that it was created to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination. If you really must be told, this country was founded on basic Biblical principle. In fact the pilgrims (God bless them) were so afraid that anarchy would break out once they arrived here that they created the Mayflower Compact, a short but Christian document that put them all in agreement to keep God’s laws intact for their survival.

You also might not know that the U.S. Supreme Court declared America a Christian nation in 1892. Now I repeat, the Supreme Court (law of the land) declared America (your home) a Christian (followers of Jesus Christ) nation. Benjamin Franklin didn’t have to convince any of our founding fathers to pray for our creator, because they already were doing that. One might deduce that we are in a moral free fall since Madeline O’Hare succeeded in removing the Bible from public schools to “protect” her school-age son, who is now an evangelical Christian, from Christianity. We are living in amazing times when a president attempts to declare that we are not a Christian nation. But that is OK, because Presidents Adams, Roosevelt, Wilson, Hoover, Truman and Nixon already beat him to it.

You might try a lesson in history and civics, and maybe a visit to a church, for the education you need.

Chris Janiec
Vernon

Using the resources I have available to me (read: the official government website as well as that of the Constitution) I wrote the following letter that I will be sending out tomorrow to the Herald:

This letter is in response to a letter to the editor from Chris Janiec of Vernon that ran Monday, September 21, 2009. He originally wrote it in response to a prayer read at a town-sponsored event.

In this letter, the following claims were made:
1) The First Amendment was created to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination.
2) The Pilgrims were afraid of anarchy would ensue upon reaching the shore so they created a “Christian document” called the Mayflower Compact.
3) The U.S. Supreme Court declared America a Christian nation in 1892.
4) There is no law that forces a separation of church and state and the phrase came from a letter Thomas Jefferson sent shortly after becoming president.

I was astonished at the incredibly twisted and biased interpretation of these statements. Allow me to now correct a few facts.
1) The First Amendment reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Found easily on the U.S. Government’s website under “Constitution”)

If Congress cannot make a law respecting an establishment of religion, then it is clear that Congress does not have the jurisdiction to declare America a Christian nation. While this does not choose a specific facet of Christianity, it does imply that all Americans are followers of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, even if Congress does not pick a specific sect of Christianity, it still discriminates any Americans who do not consider themselves to be Christian and forces them to associate governmental laws and mandates with Christian philosophies and principles that do not pertain to their religion of choice. The First Amendment very blatantly protects their right (as well as yours) to practice their religion in the United States.

2) The Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact was lost but transcripts are available from a number of sources, including William Bradford’s journal Of Plymouth Plantation. This document does in fact have a number of references to God and was designed to be a guideline for how their new government would run. What needs to be said, however, is that the Pilgrims were escaping religious persecution for practicing their faith. This means that while the document may be Christian in nature, it makes sense because those who established the document and those who signed all belonged to the same faith. So yes, they were founding the first colony as a “Christian Colony.” At this point in history, the citizens of any given European country were expected to practice the religions of their kings. This is the way it had been for hundreds of years and this is the model the Pilgrims used to form their own government. This is not the case in modern America where we are not forced to practice the religion of our president nor do we all belong to the same faith.

3) The United States Supreme Court never ruled that America is officially and legally a Christian nation. If this were the case, then any number of court trials, including the one mentioned in Mr. Janiec’s letter about removing the Bible from public schools would not have been allowed.

The supposed ruling he was referring to came from a court trial, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, and was actually in regards to an employment contract between The Church of the Holy Trinity, New York and an English preacher. The act of 1885 prohibited the “importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor in the United States, its territories, and the District of Columbia.”

The court ruled that the circuit court erred in concluding that the church could not hire an English minister. Justice Brewer stated that “America is a Christian nation” when explaining his reasoning for allowing the minister to work for the church. This statement was NOT the outcome or ruling of the Supreme Court. It was simply a statement that the justice used to introduce his explanation that he felt the country's moral ground (which he, as a Christian, felt was rooted in Christian principles) allowed for a soft interpretation of the Act of 1885 which was put into effect to prevent the hiring of illegal immigrants for American jobs.

4) Finally, while Thomas Jefferson may have coined the term “separation of church and state,” he and James Madison both have stated that the United States Constitution was drafted with this philosophy in mind and after the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, James Madison wrote “practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.” He goes on to say that “We are teaching the world the great truth that governments do better without Kings and Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.” (These quotes can be found in Monopolies Perpetuities Corporations – Ecclesiastical Endowments by James Madison, found on the government’s website.)

The Constitution does mention religion specifically under the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Both mention a separation of church and state as well as focusing on state actions that may amount to a government establishment of religion.

So, Mr. Janiec, as you suggested that I might “try a lesson in history and civics and maybe a visit to a church for the education [I] need,” I suggest that you try your local library and be sure you know what you are quoting before making umbrella statements about the intention of our nation’s founding fathers or Supreme Court rulings.

Hesper

I'm sure there are people out there who will argue with me but please note that I never said our country was not founded on Judaic-Christian philosophies. It was. There is no arguing that. But to declare that our country is specifically Christian is to say that I, as well as many of my friends and family, can legally be discriminated against for not opting to accept Jesus as my savior. To be frank, while attending a town-sponsored event, I do not feel comfortable praying nor am I comfortable knowing my town has specifically chosen to pray when a moment of silence and personal meditation would have sufficed. This way, each individual is allowed the opportunity to reflect or pray to the higher power of his or her choice.

Also it annoys me when people use false facts, especially when they can easily be researched and confirmed or corrected.

Remember that time I had a blog?

2009-09-11T01:50:00.004-04:00

I do.

It's been quite a while and I could bore you with all that's happened since I last wrote but I'll just summarize and say that I took a bit of a hiatus to find myself. I wish I had a less cliche reason but it's the unfortunate truth.

I'm currently working on a master's degree in library and information science. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to capitalize that or not so we'll just say that I should be getting an MSLIS by December, 2010 if all goes well. If not, Spring 2011 and if I don't do it by then, something horrible has happened to me because I am too motivated to just let it slip on by.

I don't really know what made me write tonight (the avoidance of homework, the sudden realization that I am far too old to spend most of my time sitting on the computer and yet I do it anyway, today feeling like the first day of fall and that makes me exceedingly happy) but here I am. At a ridiculous hour of the night. Not sleeping. Again.

That's the other thing - since I started the MSLIS program, I have somehow managed to revert back to my college hours which means I'm up until 3 or 4 am everyday working on stuff. What. The. Hell. I worked so hard to get on an adult schedule and once I start doing fieldwork and practicum hours I'm going to have to be on school time so this is really just setting me up for disaster.

I think the other thing that has me up and writing is the fact that while I've been doing the grad school thing, writing has taken a bit of a backburner. I don't just mean poetry and fiction and all that stuff I like to write, but like, emails to people who long over-due deserve them. I'm kind of a bad person when it comes to keeping in touch with people I really don't want to loose touch with. And don't get me started on holiday greeting cards. I know that there is some unwritten rule in ettiquette somewhere that says any girl over the age of 25 should send everyone she knows a greeting card. Being 26 now, I feel this pressure but my problem is that 1) most of my friends don't have real addresses. If they're not moving from apartment to apartment every year they're in school or temporarily living somewhere or, 2) if they do have a permanent address, I sure as hell don't know it because the majority of the interactions I've had with them in the last 6 months has been over Facebook. It's a really sad reality of the times, I suppose. This is my very long explanation as to why you should not expect a greeting card from me.

Also, they never make good secular ones that are just all "Hey, I'd like you to appreciate the winter during the holiday season." I can only seem to find mass produced boxes of "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" and "Christmas Is The Season" and "May the warmest wishes of Jesus' birthday follow you through the rest of the year, warming your heart and spirit with Christmas even if it's already hot out because it's July and the last thing you want to think about is making your heart any warmer." Maybe not that last one. And I honestly don't have anything against Jesus personally, it's just that as a Jewish girl I'm not likely to send my non-Jewish friends "Happy Hanukkah/Chanukkah/Hanukah/Chanuka" cards and I kind of don't want a Merry Christmas card. I've gotten into conversations with people where they tell me that I should accept well wishes no matter where they come from and yes, this is true. That being said, sending a very religious-based card to someone of a different faith has a certain arrogance to it that I don't think many people consider.

Having grown up in a not diverse by any stretch of the imagination town, I was often sort of the odd man out and by third grade, explaining Hanukkah got old. This isn't supposed to be a rant about how I was the misunderstood minority because that's not what I mean at all. I just feel that there is a weird double-standard in the card-giving world. If I give an overly religious card that celebrates Rosh Hashanah to non-Jewish friends, they'd consider it a joke and assume I was being funny. This could be that for other occasions, when Hallmark didn't seem to have the right style of humor, I've been known to congratulate someone on their newly expected baby instead of sending a birthday card (and no, they were neither expecting nor female). That being said, I'm expected to assume that an overly religious Christmas card from my friends is a simple wish of joy and happiness for the coming year. Why can't they just make a card that's all "Hey, this is the season society says that I give cards to people I care about, so here's yours." Of course, you still won't be getting one from me, I just wish they made them.

Love is Watching Someone Die

2008-05-02T10:46:00.003-04:00

And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD took you a little farther away from me
Away from me
Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself'
Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that
"Love is watching someone die"
So who's going to watch you die?...

-Death Cab for Cutie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1SZvhCNIY0

For Rory.

I'm totally about to bore you.

2007-07-03T14:45:00.000-04:00

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...

2007-06-08T12:47:00.000-04:00

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...

2007-06-04T08:23:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-24T15:37:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-14T13:11:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-01T22:15:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-04-18T12:28:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-04-09T16:11:00.000-04:00

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

2007-04-03T11:33:00.000-04:00

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)

2007-03-30T15:56:00.001-04:00

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.

2007-02-06T20:43:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-31T00:03:00.000-05:00

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...

2007-01-19T01:15:00.000-05:00

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.

The Year in Review

2006-12-14T00:22:00.000-05:00

Okay, I did it last year, so here we go...

January: Started with a bang down in D.C. with The Sputz and The Honorary Sputz but I was miserable at my job and utterly unhappy commuting. Confused as all hell about my love life.

February: Totally did the best mock-phone-call of my life (ask for details), still confused, growing more miserable at work. Also, spent Valentine's Day with Dr. Athanasian, my hand specialist, because I had broken my wrist and the 14th was the first available appointment he had. Stupid wrist breaking. And yes, I did say that I have my own hand specialist. What? You don't? You're clearly not all the klutz you can be.

March: I got my first phone interview with a real publisher! Finally quit my job, visited The Thespian for the first time with The Dancer in Virginia, highlighted my hair with 3 different shades.

April: Started to freak out about not having a job, writing uncontrollably, went to visit the Bingers for my bday!

May: Signed up for a temp agency position and was convinced that no one was going to hire me ever and that I was destined to live in my room in my parents' house until I turned 30 or until my father could pay a man to marry me. Or give him a cow. Whatever it is those desperate Jewish fathers do.

June: I got a job that I love! The Dancer graduated and I was in a car accident on the way to her ceremony, then she was in the Miss Sparta pageant. I stripped the dye out of my hair (hello, grays!) and sat down and made a bunch of career goals for myself.

July: Crappy ass month. Nothing good happened here. Oh, well, The Thespian turned 21 so I could stop sneaking him sips of alcohol when he was home, but other than that, NOTHING good happened. Spent a lot of time at various doctor appointments and at work.

August: Continued crappiness, but began picking up a bit. Went to a Mets game with the whole family for the first time since before I could drive. Also, somehow ended up in the same restaurant my grandfather always took us to, even though the place had new owners and was made over and renamed. Crrrreeeepy!

September: Began assisting classes at work. This will also be the month forever nicknamed "the month of the bad date." It started mid-month though, so it carried over into October. And oh, it was bad. Funny as hell, but bad.

October: The Baker/Painter got married! Angy Squirrel and I snuck out of the office to witness! I reconnected with The Hippie after, like, 10 years. I went down to D.C. again and got in another car accident on my way down there. And I dressed up as Maid Marion for Halloween and handed out stuff to kiddies trick-or-treating by the theatre. Also, talked to The Chameleon for the first time in almost 3 months.

November: The theatre's season officially opened and there was much drinking at the pub. The Baker/Painter moved away with The Canadian and we were all sad. I had the most ridiculously huge Thanksgiving in the history of Thanksgiving. I slept on The Dancer's floor.

December: The first semester of classes came to a close and I was really glad since I am utterly exhausted. Waiting to get my car fixed so I'm driving around with what I will call a "dimple" on the front bumper. OOOOOH! AND I moved out! I am now an official adult living on my own. Sort of. I'll post pictures of the new place when I can find my camera.

I'm a bad girl

2006-12-06T21:09:00.000-05:00

No, not a dirty girl who needs to be punished, you perv. I mean I'm actually bad at being female. It's like every other girl took this course in being a girl and I somehow got my transcripts all messed up and I ended up taking something incredibly not useful like Perpetually Distracted and Somewhat Disoriented 101. It's not that I'm good at being male either, so I'm just sort of in this obnoxious in-between genders place. Omni-gendered if you will. I'd say androgynous but that's not quite right either.

Part of it is that I'm just not comfortable being the damsel in distress a lot of the time. It takes a lot for me to open up to people so being that vulnerable and needing someone else's help in a big way is scarier than the thing causing the need for help. So, instead of just asking for help or letting people do things for me, I tend to go out of my way to NOT let people do things for me. For example, when I twisted my knee horribly out of whack and was walking around in a hip-to-ankle brace, I wouldn't let Sputz make me dinner because I was frustrated with myself for not being physically able to do normal things.

The other part of it is that I was always somewhat of a tomboy so being treated uber girly isn't quite comfortable for me. I mean, neither is being treated like I'm the guy in the relationship. I guess that's part of why I'm so pro-equalness, especially because I don't want to be stuck in one positon or another.

I'm sure my dating history plays a major part in it as well. It's funny because I had a very long and strange conversation with my ex whom I will fondly refer to as The Moron (he knows why and has agreed to let me refer to him as such...and by "agreed" I mean that the alternative name he gave me to use was Mr. Big Boy and I refuse to use that) and he was saying that the person I am now isn't the person I was at all when we dated. It was actually really good because it sort of reminded me of who I want to become again because I know I've lost some innocence and have become very cynical over the years. The thing that struck me the most was that he said that I hadn't lost my silliness or child-like wonder for some things. In fact, here were his exact words (yay aim): "It's funny because no matter how old you get, you still look at life the same way you always did, like at first it just amazes you and then you slowly disect it and understand it and by the time you're done you can fully analyze it better than most. I guess that's why you're a poet."

It was also good to talk to him because, when I dated him, a lot of life hadn't happened yet and it was interesting to see what his perspective of me was then and what it is now.

It's been a good month for other people's perspective of me, really. I mean, I've sort of had the opportunity to see myself through other people's eyes more in recent times than ever before. In fact, Dr. V. made me a WeeMee, thus, according to her, if I were a cartoon, this is what I would look like:

Probably pretty accurate, especially the wearing black combined with long bangs falling in my eyes. At least I'm consistent, I suppose. Although now I am considering a dramatic haircut. Maybe something a bit more punky? Not in a Punky Brewster way, just a punk way. I don't want to dye it because I finally got all of the hair dye of the past 7 years out of my hair. Maybe I'll just get a piercing.

The Great Mall Adventure

2006-11-16T22:11:00.000-05:00

As a Jersey girl, I find it necessary to visit every mall in the state. It's one of our common goals as girls in Jersey. That and simultaneously spraying enough hairspray in our already sprayed hair to cause the ozone layer to thin out over Atlantic City for the duration of said spray...while navigating a jughandle on our way to a Bon Jovi concert.

Ok, obviously I'm being sarcastic. If you didn't catch that you should start here and work your way forward. And if you're still not picking up on it, you don't know me at all, in which case, hi, welcome, there are cookies on the table in the corner and welcome to a crash course in Hesper.

Anyway, here is the gist of the adventure. After work on Wednesday, Zombie Leftovers, her boyfriend (who I do not know well enought to give a real nickname to so I will call him Mr. Bob), and I decided to take a mini-trip to the Bergen Mall to visit The Pirate. Now, this seems seemingly simple. Get on a highway, drive, arrive, yayness. I assure you that simple, this was not.

First of all, I woke up at 5:15 for no real reason except that my body is clearly rebelling against me for trying to be an adult and getting back at me using reverse-psychology. Instead of trying to sleep in, it keeps trying to wake me up earlier just because it can. Then I went to work all day, culminating with working with 5-6 year olds on Annie, which was super fun, but tiring. Sooo...when Zombie Leftovers claimed that the Bergen Mall was 25 minutes away (or so) I figured it was no big deal. What she didn't tell me was that she didn't take traffic or her extreme lack of directions into account.

The traffic was the usual rush-hour traffic, so no one can be held responsible for that. Since no one who reads this will be familiar with the roads I'll be referencing, I'll just put it in super layman's terms. We got off the major interstate highway, turned onto a local highway (going the wrong direction as per Zombie Leftovers' directions) and were in downtown crazy Jersey town. I don't even know which town it was at that point, all I do know is that after 10-15 minutes going the wrong direction, we pulled over to a gas station where every attendant gave us different directions. And suggested that instead of the Bergen Mall, we go to the Garden State Plaza. Finally a nice business suit guy gave us decent directions. Now, by "us" I mean "Zombie Leftovers" because she's the one who got out of the car to ask.

We turn around, head back in the right direction, and Zombie Leftovers announces that she knew that we went the wrong way, declares herself "right" and decides to get adventurous yet again and tells us to take a random right-hand turn onto a road that "may be right...or something." For some reason, I listen to her. Now we're in some ridiculous residential area with no sign of anything that remotely resembles a mall. We turn around. Zombie Leftovers announces that she knew it was wrong and that she was right. Again.

Now we're back on the local highway and we go past the ramp from which we entered in the first place. Zombie Leftovers announces that she's right. We finally find the right place to be and pull into the parking lot. Zombie Leftovers declares that she's right.

We walk into one store, only to find out that it is not, in fact, connected to the rest of the mall. We head upstairs and attempt to find an entrance to the actual mall. By the time we finally do see The Pirate, it's nearly 6:30 and we left at about 5. 25 minutes my ass. Oh, and Zombie Leftovers relayed the story to The Pirate, frequently expressing that she was right and she knew we were going the wrong way. Thankfully, Mr. Bob and I cleared up any misconceptions The Pirate may have fairly quickly.

Long story short, the next time we take a random road trip, Zombie Leftovers will not be the navigator, I don't care how correct she is.

It's a blog about nothing!

2006-11-15T14:12:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling incredibly random so this post will be incredibly random. Deal. Yes, I just ordered you.

So, I'm moving. Sorry to sort of blurt it out in the first sentence, but I figured it would be the best way to take care of it...put it out there and be done with it.

So far, the announcement of my moving has produced a wide range of emotions from my family and friends. My sister, for example, burt into tears until I pointed out that I would need help shopping for new bedding and towels. My brother was less emotional and asked if I got into one too many fights with my father. My parents have been supportive. I know this because they are doing everything in their power to remind me why I want to move out in the first place. These small reminders have been helpful, really, because for a split second after it was official, I did freak out and think "oh, but wait...maybe I don't want to?" but then my father immediately asked me if I had checked the weather report because he didn't think the jacket I was wearing was conducive to the cold weather and I should really watch the weather channel more often. Also, my car needs an oil change and do I know how to take care of that?

Aside from the jacket thing, here is a list of question that they have asked me this week alone:
- Is there enough gas in my car to get me to work?
- Have I done my laundry recently?
- Do I really want to go out and get a drink on a weeknight? I have work tomorrow.
- Have I checked my bank statements recently?
- When is my cell phone bill due? I should really make sure not to forget to pay it.
- Did I make myself lunch for tomorrow?
- Am I awake? Do I know what time it is? Shouldn't I be getting ready for work?

Mind you, this is all stuff I not only took care of on my own when I was in college, but stuff that hasn't been an issue for the past, oh, year and half after college. Suddenly I'm completley inept and cannot possibly understand what it takes to live on my own without adult supervision. And when I point out that I am an adult and that there are plenty of things I can do without supervision (and many things I would *ahem* prefer to do without parental supervision), they tell me that even though they logically know I'm an adult they still think of me as a child.

My dad's reaction in particular has reminded me of "Father of the Bride"...specifically where Steve Martin has a flashback and pictures a 5 year old in pigtails sitting at the dining room table saying "I went to Paris and met a man and we're getting married, Daddy." I didn't really expect anything less, especially because I am the oldest, but fact of the matter is, I do not need to be spoonfed everything.

Ok, vent done. Sorry about that.

Now funny stuff.

So, the new office we are in is quirky. Quirkier than I am, which is difficult to beat. First of all, there are 5 of us sharing a single DSL line, which wouldn't be a big deal except that 2 are dealing with ginormous graphic-infused files that take up a lot of bandwidth. Basically, for those of you who do not want to try to follow my geekiness, the line to our office that gives us the internet is like a clogged artery waiting to cause a heart attack. So, when I'm trying to place an order or plan a field trip, the system will clog, causing my internet to cripple and my computer to freeze...much like an old woman who has had a stroke and is now paralyzed on the left side of her body. Yeah yeah, I mixed medical analogies. Either way it's bad and requires hospitalization.

One of the possible solutions is to move The Perfectionist (formerly known as The New Girl) and The Boss Man to the old offices and The Tool, The Photographer, The Giggler and I will share a space. This is not good. I will cry. A lot. First of all, without The Boss Man around, The Tool will be a full-fledged wood shop of badness, Peter-Pan-Posing with his half-zipper all around the place. The Photographer is just a little cheesy which isn't that hard to deal with, but he's also an aspiring actor so he's a little dramatic. Allow me to give you an example:

The Tool: *cough cough cough choke choke cough cough cough*
The Boss Man: You ok?
The Tool: Yeah, my twizzler went down the wrong pipe.
Me: Twizzler? That IS a pipe.
The Photographer: *spits soda out, dramatically hold hands on knees, laughs until face is red* That's hysterical!

Um, no. It wasn't a good joke. While I will admit that every now and then I have some good one-liners, this was not one of them. I know this, The Tool knows this, The Boss Man knows this. You wanted an excuse to spit your soda out.

The other funny thing our office does is ring. We have a doorbell so that we can let people into what I call The Crime Scene (the carpeting seriously looks just...gross) but it is actually a storage room that is not currently in use. We do have windows so it's not horribly depressing. But yeah, so the doorbell will ring when people aren't there. And I don't mean someone is pranking us...I mean that literally no one will be in the hallway and the doorbell will ring as if to say "Hi, just letting you know I still work and I'm a little bored because people didn't visit me today. So, um, HI!" Other times, when people ARE there, it won't ring. We have a bi-polar doorbell. Or the office is haunted. Either one, really.

One of these days I'll take a picture of the office to show you just how insane the setup really is.

I'm That Crazy Fish Woman!

2006-10-28T00:11:00.000-04:00

I am the crazy fish lady.

I had one fish. One. His name was Chrono and he was an awesome fish. And yeah, I know that fish don't generally have a lot of personality, but he seriously did. He knew when I was about to feed him and would sort of swim to the surface and pounce on his little granules of food.

And then he died this past spring. He was old for a fish so it was understandable, but still very upsetting because, as it turns out, I don't deal well with death. I buried him outside in a great quiet place because I couldn't bring myself to flush him. In case you were wondering, his name was Chrono because he was blue with red tipped fins. Chrono, the character from Chrono Trigger, had red hair and wore blue. It all makes sense. Shuttup, I'm just as dorky as you are.

So, my brother, as I mentioned before, got me Voldemort (whose saga can be found here). Voldemort is an awesome fish, but I am pretty sure he is slightly evil. I know this because he swims upside down and STALKS his granules. Yes, stalks. He hides in his plants and slowly ventures towards the surface where he then POUNCES. It makes me glad that I am bigger than he is.

Why am I the fish lady, you ask? Well, okay, here goes. You may want to take a bathroom break before reading this- it may be a while.

The Baker Painter went off and got married. By went off and got married, I mean that she and The Canadian were engaged for a long time and then decided to do it somewhat last minute. Angry Squirrel and I were witnesses at the courthouse. And then The Beer Connoisseur and The New Girl (who isn't so much the new girl anymore...hmmm...) took them out to lunch to celebrate. As it turns out, The Baker Painter and The Canadian are now all kind of adventurous and are moving far away just because they can. They cannot, however, easily take their two beta fish with them. So, now I am babysitting them indefinitely, although The Baker Painter promised me that if one or both of them passes away and heads out to the great fish bowl in the sky, she will not be upset.

Now I have Stan, Yet-Wah, and Voldemort living in my room. All in different bowls because betas will kill each other if they are in the same bowl.

Part of me wants to dump them all in the same bowl and video tape the giant fish-style gladiator event, but I cannot emotionally stand there and watch them kill each other. I mean, I did actually cry when Chrono died so there is no way I'd let them kill each other.

Speaking of death and killing each other, is it weird that the primary ingredient in these beta granules is "fish meal" immediately followed by "fish oil?" Mmmmmm...Cannibal the Musical better watch out- I may have to write Beta Fish, the Musical Melodrama.

Man Jewelry

2006-10-12T11:45:00.000-04:00

Let's discuss Man Jewelry, shall we? Now, I don't mind the occassional piercing or necklace or watch, but there is a point wherein it becomes...utterly obnoxious.

The Tool, for example, wears what I will refer to as a "mass produced Pacific Sun Wear hippie necklace." Every day. With his work clothes. For some reason, seeing said necklace peaking out amoung the weird fuzzy, curly chest hair that reaches to his neck, really bothers me. Maybe it's that he's a large man who looks much older than he is. Maybe it's the carpet of chest hair that is ALWAYS showing from under his collared shirt. Maybe it's the fact that he wears it as though it is a badge to his true self and this office persona he puts on is a facade he must work under because he is in the corporate world. I'm not sure, but I do know that it makes him that much more of a Tool.

The Gopher is also one for the Man Jewelry. In his case, he has each cartilege pierced in the same place with the same gold hoop. And nothing else. In the right light, it resembles pot holders and it makes me want to pick him up by the piercings. As of late, he has also taken to wearing a pinkey ring. That's right. A pinkey ring. A fashion statement generally representative of WWII Vets and Mob Bosses, I have to say that it is my favorite of the non-smooth manaccessories.

I think there's a direct correlation between the amount of cheesy man jewelry and the level of toolness in this office. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of acceptable pieces for guys to wear. In fact, a lot of my close guy friends have some really nice everyday wear that I think are great. Watches are fine. Piercings (so long as you're actually a piercing person and not trying hard to pretend to be a piercing person) are fine...this is generally silver and not gold though. Even a necklace or ring is fine. But when you pile it on to look like Mr. T. or an original cast member of Hair or a one-man display case for PacSun, we have issues.

Ok, mini-rant done.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons...

2006-10-08T01:02:00.000-04:00

S&M. Stages and mothers. Two things that should never ever be combined because once they are fused, they create a tight, powerful bond similar to that of gorilla glue and wood. The mother cannot be separated from the stage.

Having had too much contact with these mothers as of late, I have divided them into four groups:
the overprotective, worrywart mom
the competitive mom
the "I take everything seriously when it comes to my child" mom
and, of course, the "my child is living the dream I could never live myself" mom

Now, of course there is some overlap. You can have a competitive, living the dream mom or a worrywart taking it serious mom or any other combination. The point is that for the most part, if you are a stage mom, you will fall into one of these categories.

The overprotective, worrywart moms are the ones who come into the administrative offices to sign their children up for theater classes, even though they can mail in their forms just as easily. They do this so that they may not only meet with someone to discuss the school and see who the teacher is, but also to ensure that the teacher is aware that their child is shy/quiet/often sick/prone to asthma attacks/allergic to bees/sensitive about his big ears and to see what the male to female ratio of the class is. Logically, the male to female ratio of a musical theater class for 7-8 year olds is, oh, 1:16. IF that. These mothers will sit in the front of the office for an hour and a half and hem and haw about the fact that little Timmy is the only boy signed up so far and that makes him uncomfortable. They will then ask that you go through everyone else's registration forms in the class and tell them what towns all the other children attending are from. This is necessary when coordinating soccer practices of other siblings. Once classes start, they do not leave the classroom until they are sure that little Timmy is not going to burst into tears. Timmy will not burst into tears. Timmy will start screaming and yelling and go into general disrespect mode. Timmy is a brat.

The competitive mother calls up for registration and immediately tells you that her daughter, we'll go with Sue, is amazing and should be in the 9-12 year old class even though she is just now 6 years old, because she is that talented. She is better than every other 6 year old because she has more experience and it just isn't fair that the other children should hold her back. This registration, which should take all of about 10 minutes, is a 45 minute ordeal complete with you having no choice but to say "Oh, wow" as enthusiastically as you can push yourself to be, when in actuality, you don't care that Sue is on Sesame Street, Martha Stewart, Jerry Springer, Oprah, or Conan O'Brian. Sue, meanwhile, is screaming in the background the entire time about how she wants to go play at some other kid's house and why isn't mommy paying attention to her? Can she have a cookie yet? Once class starts, she will start talking to any other parent sitting out there and immediately ask them about their child. This isn't actual interest; it's summarizing the competition and giving her an opportunity to brag about her child. A typical conversation goes like this:

Mother 1: Which child is yours?
Mother 2: The one in the pink in the front.
Mother 1: Oh, she's cute. How long has she been doing this?
Mother 2: Thanks. This is actually her first acting class.
Mother 1: I see. My Sue's been doing this since she was 6 months old. Someone told me she should be a Gerber baby, so I got her an agent.
Mother 2: Oh, really?
Mother 1: Yes. She's been in countless commercials, she's doing Sesame Street, and next month she's going to be making an appearance on Ellen as a little star singer. She's been taking voice lessons since she was three.
Mother 2: Wow. Are voice lessons necessary at this age?
Mother 1: Oh, definately. If you're serious about it and they know they want to be a star one day, you have to start them as young as you can. You want to give your children every advantage so that when they're 7 or 8 and can start to audition for Young Cosette in Les Miserables, they have a fighting chance.

This is a method mothers use to intimidate one another and make the other mothers think that they aren't doing all they could be to push their children to make it. I mean, if by 5 years old, a child doesn't have an agent and has no idea how to act, then maybe she won't be on Broadway. Maybe she missed her chance to be truly great. Maybe she'll be stuck working in a dog food factory manning the production lines because her mother didn't think that voice lessons were necessary in kindergarten. This, of course, also plays on the fears mothers have that one day their child will need therapy and everything will be their fault.

The "I take everything seriously when it comes to my child" mom acts more like an agent than a mother. She will call up for registration and ask if she needs to bring a resume and headshots to the first day of class. No, she is not kidding. She will then go on for about 10 minutes about how wonderful her precious Nate is. And yes, her child's name is something douchy that will look good on the cover of Teen Beat in 10 years when he is the heartthrob she is grooming him to be. Like Nate or Corey or Ashton or Everett. He will, of course, drop his last name and go by his middle name, equally as douchy, so you end up with Nate Benjamin, Corey Lawrence, Ashton Scott, and Everett Michael. No Goldstein has ever been the next Leo. On the first day of classes, mom will seek out the director of the school, bypassing teachers and assistants, to discuss little Nate's potential directly. She has no regard for time and will literally talk to the director, regardless of classes starting or other parents, as long as she feels is necessary. This undetermined amout of time is genarally about 20 minutes per parent, which is great when the class is an hour long.

And finally, the "my child is living the dream I never could" mom will call to register her child and spend hours on the phone with you discussing how she has always loved theater. Her favorite role was Dolly in Hello Dolly and she really got a great number of compliments on her interpretation of the text, but unfortunately, a career as an actress wasn't in the cards for her. But little Emma (a name made popular thanks to the Friends phenomenon) is very excited to start her musical theater career and would really like to follow in her mother's footsteps. When you ask for an emergency contact number, instead of giving us her cell phone, she'll recommend contacting Stanley Lieberman, Emma's agent. While Emma is in class, this mom will insist on talking to you about the time she played Catherine in Pippin or Sandy in Grease and discuss all the things she knows and can help out with. She'll offer herself as a voice coach for the class or as an accompaniest, or a choreographer. She'll then want to know if you're planning on offering adult classes any time soon because, if not, she'd be more than willing to teach them. She did play Adalaide in Guys and Dolls before she got pregnant and had to give up the auditioning.

And these women, my friends, are the reasons why I will never ever, under any circumstances, be a stage mom. And also why I have taken to keeping a flask with me Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.

New Paltz and weekend update...not really all that sarcastic.

2006-09-24T00:36:00.000-04:00

I'm exhausted but I'm going to post a blog anyway.

I went up to visit my sister in New Paltz with Miss Yankee today. Overall, I have to say it was quite the adventure. My father went to New Paltz back in the day, so we used to take all kinds of trips up there in the fall for apples and hiking and general day trip goodness so I'm fairly familiar with the area, but my father likes to give directions like "You'll see M&T Bank on your right and then you'll turn left" which is fine, until you realize that the point at which you would see the bank, you'd have to already be making the turn. He likes landmarkes like that. In any case, we got there fine and found my sister fine and decided to sort of lull about town a little bit.

For me, New Paltz has always sort of been the quintessential college town. It has all of these great restaurants and shops and the town feels like it never updated itself after 1968. Plus, it's a small town up in the mountains, which is ideal.

We found our family's usual apple place where we bought 2 large mums for my mom, a ton of apples and a bunch of cider and then took a drive up the huge mountain to our family's usual scenic place/hiking trails. Now, this sounds like it would be easy, but I assure you it is not. I forgot to ask my dad where we usually park and which site we usually go to, and by the time I realized this, we were halfway up the large mountain with no cell service to speak of. So I'm doing all of this from memory and the last time I was up there was probably six years ago. We drive past it. No worries, though, because I made a 4 disck soundtrack fo mp3's (about 1,000 songs) for this trip entitled the S&M Adventure. S&M being myself and Miss Yankee. And no, we do not dress in leather outfits or whip one another. Thanks for asking. Anyway, the soundtrack has all kinds of cheesy songs on it, so the three of us spent the day singing and being stupid. All the while, my poor sister sat in the back with the mums randomly attacking her and making my car smell vaguely like the woods after a really bad rainstorm. Except that the mums were really potent and making everyone in the car get various headaches and stomachaches.

Ok, clearly I am queen of the tangent. Anyway, we turn around and head back and I take the turn that I think could possibly be the place we want to go, but at this point, the park closes at 7 and it's around 5:30 so we may as well take the turn. Luckily, it's the right one. And I found the house I want to live in:
How perfect is that? Lost up in the woods, overlooking a great mountain. I'm sure it's hellish in the winter, but if everything goes to plan, I won't have to leave to go to work because Random House will realize that I am an amazing writer who should really get paid just to breathe the air and I can work from home. I'm fairly certain that the house is not for sale. In fact, I'm fairly certain that it is a landmark and is part of the state park. Bla bla bla, details.

So just as we're taking in the beauty and really starting to enjoy the weather, despite the light mist and humidity that was going on, we are attached by a ton of gnats. Gnats are the worst because you'll suck them right up your nose if you're not careful. And then, you feel like they're crawling in your hair for the rest of the night. So, we're standing on the edge of the cliff and we sort of scream about the gnats. And our screams our answered. Now, we weren't obnoxious "omg, we're so girly!" screaming. We, well I, was doing the noise of exasperation as yet another bug made my ears tickle. I hate ear tickling. Our screams are being answered. And yes, I'm sure you're now saying "right, because of the echo." Nope. I'm pretty sure that my scream would not be answered by a lower, deeper, testosterone filled voice. And my voice sounds like a little kid's, not a man's. Miss Yankee and my sister take turns screaming back at this testosterone-filled stranger. I roll my eyes. This continues for a few minutes until finally, Mr. Mystery screams, "SHUTTUP! I'M TRYING TO SLEEP!" Right, because we started it. Oh, and it makes sense that you're trying to sleep at 5:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday. So we take off. Miss Yankee points out that it's ridiculous that we were flirting with boys while getting attacked by gnats, standing on the edge of a cliff. I point out that I don't think it counts as flirting if at the end of it, one of the boys tells us to shut up. Unless we're back in 4th grade.

All in all, I have to say that it was some serious good times and much needed mini-vacationing. I should really take more day trips to different places. Also, even though she will be mad at me for posting this incredibly flattering picture of her, I think my sister was glad to see me. At least I think she was. Then again, I'm at the tired point where my perception of things is way off, which I know because I thought about getting a drink of water and talked myself out of it becaus the kitchen is too far away. It's time for bed.

AARRRRRRRRRRR (not like a pirate)

2006-09-21T19:24:00.000-04:00

Ok, I seriously need to get something off my chest. If I am at work and you feel the need to make fun of me because I am young and then hug me to make me feel better about myself, you may get a heavy, hard kick in the balls...and I wear pointy heals. I say this as fair warning so that when it happens you cannot say that I didn't warn you. Yes, I was in 7th grade when Clueless came out. Yes, I was wearing diapers when Culture Club first shocked the planet. And yes, ten years ago I was just getting out of my awkward phase consisting of plaid, bad bangs, and a deep love of Kurt Cobain. This does not mean that I am not qualified to do my job just because I am not a fat, prematurely balding tool. In fact, I think it makes me that much more qualified. Especially because 10 years ago, you were the same person you are now, but with more hair on your head.

I feel better now. Yes, the Tool is the same guy who thought I was engaged. And the same guy who decided to go over and bug our better half...I don't know how old he really is, but my guess is 30, going on 55 looks-wise and going on 20 emotionally. I'm not usually this harsh about someone's looks. In fact, so long as I'm not supposed to be judging them for something based on their looks (like when watching America's Next Top Model, The Biggest Loser, or Access Hollywood...for the record, I don't watch any of these, but you get my point), I rarely care about people's looks. But this guy...THIS GUY pisses me off.

Like today, when I was on the phone, he screams at me from his office (that has a door...I just have a cubicle) about something stupid and completely unimportant. AND THEN because I didn't answer him (because I was on the phone) he came into my cubicle and tapped me on the shoulder. Right. Because I'm going to say to the person, "Oh, hold on, my colleague wants me to pop my jaw out again so I can show him how I can lock it out of joint." Mind you, the only reason he knows I can pop my jaw out in the first place is because The Angry Squirrel and I went on a joint-popping spree at lunch today.

He just...doesn't get it. It's like he has no decorum for working in an office. And I understand that he's fairly new and proving himself, but The New Girl is totally cool. She's not loud and obnoxious and completely in everyone's face all the time.

And, on an unrelated related note, if you are gay and you are out, congratulations. If you are in the closet, I completely understand and I hope that one day you will have the courage to be out. If you are in the closet and are going to try to convince everyone that you are straight and you make up a girlfriend in order to do so, don't pretend to be dating a financial planner in the bank of a local branch that many local people use. Eventually it will come out that she does not know your name. At least say she's in Nebraska or someplace similar that no one in the office will visit and no one will accidentally bring you up on conversation.

Ok...so now that I've vented, I feel much better. It's been a really long week. Something like a gazillion hours long and next weekend is completely shot because I have to be at various street fairs. The Sunday one, the Morristown Fall Festival, is going to have puppets. I may be one of the costumed folk scaring, er, entertaining small children. We'll see how that all goes.

She's BAAAAAAAAAACK!

2006-09-18T00:03:00.000-04:00

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, she's back and she's crazier than ever. Who is this "she" you may ask?

MERRIANNA!

Critical Acclaim for Merrianna*:

"Just as dark and outrageous as [her] previous work....H[er] voice is so distinctive that [s]he exists as a genre unto h[er]self." -The Washington Post

"[Kowalsky's] language is urgent and tense, touched with psychopathic brilliance, h[er] images dead-on accurate...[S]he is an author who makes full use of the alchemical powers of fiction to synthesize a universe that mirrors our own fiction as a way of illuminating the world without obliterating its complexity." - LA Weekly

"Puts a bleakly humorous spin on self-help, addiction recovery, and childhood trauma...[Merrianna's] funny, mantra-like prose plows toward the mayhem it portends from the get-go." - The Village Voice

"Oddly, defiantly, happily addictive." - Daily News

"[Merrianna] shines a flashlight into America's dark corners...As darkly comic and starkly terrifying as your high school yearbook photo." - GQ

*The critical acclaim is actually for Chuck Palahnuik's Choke. Although small edits have been made, we feel the sentiments are what critics would have said if they had the opportunity to read Merrianna.

Anyway, here they are, Chapters 1-3. That's right, I added another chapter, biotch.

Chapter One

Merianna awoke suddenly from the storm. The wind had pushed at her window and had blown her white nightclothes off her bed, leaving her distractingly exquisite and barely clothed form exposed to the elements of the harsh Binghamton cold. When she had considered moving to Binghamton, it had seemed like a place full of romance and adventure, but now, the prospect of venturing out into the cold left Marianna feeling...wanting. Longing, even. Wanting and longing is, indeed, what she felt. And she needed some release from said wanting and longing.

With a groan, Merianna tore herself from her bed and moved swiftly across her carpeted room to her closet. Sifting through her extensive collection of French, silk bathrobes and negligees, she finally pulled out her favorite item of all: her purple lace bra and panty set with matching thigh highs and garter belt. Yes, despte her awakening, Merianna was going to make this a good day. She headed to the apartment's kitchen for some succulent melons for her breakfast (which of course, she would throw up later).

"Hey, there, sleepyhead." Merrianna stopped with a start! It was Frederico, her long-lost boyfriend who had ventrured off into Endicott in search of adventure and fulfillment, only to go missing for nearly three months. Merrianna had since moved on, taking many lovers in his long absense, because she could not bear the wrath of the cold, desolate reality of being alone.

"Frederico," she finally breathed, her breasts bouncing with her every word.

"Merrianna." Frederico rose from his chair at the table and floated towards her, sure to breathe in the scent of her skin.

"Frederico," she breathed again.

"Marianna." The intensity between them was still there, as was evident by their words of lust and love to each other. Without another word, Frederico took Merrianna by the waist and pulled her in close to his broad, hairless, needlessly exposed chest. Then, because the intensity was simply too intense for him, he kissed her, the kiss of a lover three months missing in Endicott.

Chapter Two

When he pulled away from the kiss, Frederico smiled, then shook his head, as though engulfed in a terrible conflict of will and desire. He pulled away slightly, then said, "Lo siento mucho, mi amor querido, pero nuestra relacion no puede seguir/continuar mas. He encontrado un nuevo amante en Endicott y ella me ama mas de lo que tu jamas podrias." Frederico spoke no English except for the phrase "hey there, sleepyhead" and, due to a horrible mix up in the public school he attended, only learned Spanish off of http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr and was therefore, very bad at speaking any language that did not involve his penis, which actually worked out well for him since his character is the stereotypical "Latin Lover." Unfortunately, one of the problems in their relationship had been that Merrianna didn't understand a word of Spanish, so she simply replied, "I missed you, too," as she began to unzip his jeans.

Frederico took her hands and peered into her eyes and said, " No puedo acostarme contigo porque seria deshonesto y causaria una maldicion sobre mi nueva relacion. Pero estoy seguro que sobarmela no es encontra de las reglas. My pene temblante espera el calor de tu boca, pero se en mi corazon que esto no es correcto. My corazon no te pertenece y te veo ahora simplemente como a una puta.."

Again, not knowing what in the world Frederico meant, but knowing that she awoke in a position to be, ahem, royally screwed, Merrianna seductively sat on the table, legs spread, and pulled Frederico to her, all the while using her right hand to manipulate his jeans so that she may better feel his quivering member, long lost for those three long, hard, lonely, months in which she had slept with nearly 30 other men.

Frederico bent over her, his mouth inches away from hers, their hearts beating in tune with one another's, neither aware of the world around them. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity of flowery description, she reached up and kissed him. Their passion and heat grew, heating their passion and passionately instensifying their heat. No, there had never been such heat, passion, or intensity in Binghamton before. Merrianna was left breathless after their intenset, passionate, heated kissing.

Suddenly, the lovers heard a door open and Frederico quickly jumped off of Merrianna, who tried to cover herself with her hands.

"Merrianna?" It was Lillianna, Kristianna, Orianna, and Liz, Merrianna's apartmentmates, who somehow managed to speak in unison. Upon seeing the compromising position their apartmentmate was in, it was Lillianna who spoke first, blurting out, "But it was my turn to sleep with Frederico!"

Kristianna gasped and gawked at Lillianna, screaming, "No, you slept with him just before he left for Endicott, it was my turn to sleep with him!"

"No it was mine!'' Because Orianna's name sucked the most, she was often shafted when it came to sexual pleasure. Also, people often mistook her for brand name of some sort.

"Jesus! Forget Frederico," chimed in Liz. "Merrianna, it's your turn to buy toilet paper and we're getting low, so if you could please run to Wal-mart, that'd be-"

"How can you think of something as vulgar as TOILET PAPER at a time like this?!?" Merrianna had no idea that Frederico was sleeping with the others, despite a very obvious schedule that had been posted on the refridgerator, next to Liz's notes about toilet paper, paper towels, and sponges. "The four of you disgust me and I will never be able to be friends with you ever again!"

"Oh, Merrianna, no! It's not what it seems! It's just some harmless sex! Please be our friend, we love you more than we love him!" The three other "-anna's" all pleaded with her. Their ample bosoms heaved with every plea, causing Frederico, who did not speak English, to grow more and more aroused at the sight.

"Oh lord," sighed Liz. "Why don't you ALL just sleep with Frederico? This is what I get for transferring. A bunch of whorish sorority girls with the brains of cockroaches." She turned from the kitchen and went to her room, slamming her door behind her. Within seconds, loud, angry girl music could be heard.

"That's not a bad idea," said Merrianna, as she again reached for Frederico's zipper.

Frederico, who still had no idea what was going on, realized that he was about to have sex with four women, none of whom were his fair love he had mentioned earlier in Spanish. Suddenly, he realized that he did not love any of them and therefore, he could not push his red, hot rod in between their fleshy, wet lips only to pull out and repeat several times, gradually increasing speed until finally reaching a dire moment of sheer unadulterated pleasure from which he would later come down from and rest easily against whichever of them he finished with and pulled sheets up around them to go to sleep (becaue the only rational thing to do after having sex is to go to sleep...there is never any clean up involved...at all). The devil in Frederico's mind said, "Que haces pibe? Te quieren! Te desean! Andale! " but the angel could only think of his love, so Frederico zipped up his pants and said, "Lo lamento pero debo irme. Estoy seguro que hay muchos hombres que te cojerian ya que vives en un campus de universidad y cualquiera que no sea terriblemente desfigurado pueden tener sexo. Adios.."

And as he closed the door behind him, Merrrianna burst into tears. "He was the only man I ever loved ................................................................................................................. so far ................................................................today!
The other three quickly rushed to her side to comfort her.

"Don't worry, I'm sure another man will walk into your life," said Kristianna. "They always do in this type of book. No girl is ever single for more than a page or two."

"That's right," Lillianna agreed. "If we order a pizza, one is bound to show up."

"Mmmmm...pizza..." interjected Orianna. "What? My name prevents me from having any kind of real relationship that goes below the waist, so I can fantasize about whatever it is that gets me off. Today, that thing is pizza."

"Ew," shuddered Merrianna.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Later that day, Merrianna thought about what the others had said about a man walking into her life. Could such a man really do so? If so, could he take the place of Frederico? And if he could, would that mean a serious relationship for Merrianna? One that lasted more than a couple of hours? And if that was also so, was she ready for such a commitment? Could she remember his last name?

Absentmindedly, Merrianna decided she would order a pizza, whether it was because the girls had earlier suggested it or whether she hoped that the delivery person was attractive enough to tip with sexual favors was irrelevant because all she knew at this point was that she wanted pizza, possibly with more desire than Orianna. And Orianna was not a thin girl. Nor was she an average-sized girl. Nor was she even fat. She was really just ugly and liked to eat a lot.

The voice on the other end of the phone was husky, sending shivers down Merrianna's still scantily clad body. "Adriano's," it said, the sounds of sex dripping off of every syllable.

"Yes, hi, I'd like to order a large cheese pizza," Merriann flirted back. She figured that she may as well find out if this pizza boy theory would lead somewhere fun.

"Is that all?" Oh, that voice, touching her in the most remote of remote places, so remote that they were probably left out of most anatomy books.

"Yes." Merrrianna could barely stand the tension between them.

"Delivery or pick up?" Merrianna gave a sigh; his words reached out to her, beckoning for her to go with him to naughty places of the night.

"Delivery," Merrianna whispered seductively.

"What?" The voice was doing it on purpose, teasing her until she begged for release.

"Delivery," she breathed again. "Campus delivery."

"Ok, it'll be ready in about 45 minutes."

"I can hardly wait." As she hung up the phone, Merrianna decided she would change again, slipping into something more seductive than her purple lace bra and matching panty set that you all may remember from the last chapter. Again, she searched her closet, hoping to find something, anything, that would match her mood. Finally she found it.

"My naked outfit!" she cried. She quickly removed the purple outfit and disgarded it on the floor in front of her mirror. Then, without missing a beat, she pulled on her naked outfit, careful that the air fit nicely around her curves. Yes, being a nudist was definately the way to catch a delivery boy's attention.

Before long, the doorbell rang and Merrianna raced to get it before her apartmentmates could pounce on her new love.

"Hi, that'll be, er...uh....oh god." The delivery person adverted his eyes to the ground, then to the sky, getting a quick glimpse of Merrianna's body in between, then back to the ground again. "Um, it's on the house...HERE." He pushed the pizza into her arms.

"Would you like to come in for a minute?"

"Um, that's actually against the restaurant's policy. I really have other deliveries to--" Merrianna pulled him in by his insulated pizza box bag.

"I've been waiting for you for nearly an hour," she purred. "I think you owe me something."

"Look, lady, I already gave you the pizza for free, what else do you want?" She grabbed his crotch, sure to make her message clear. "Uh, please let go of that. I have to go."

"You're not going anywhere." Merrianna pulled him into her room, locking the door behind her and placing the pizza on her desk. Then, she pushed him down on the bed and climbed on top of him. "This is going to be one delivery you're never going to forget." She clawed at his shirt, pulling off buttons that stood in her way. Then, when his bare chest was revealed (because there is no such thing as chest hair, apparently) she took his hand and let it to her breast, which was aching from lack of attention. His pizza-making hands immediately went to work, kneeding and flattening, pushing her breast into a large flat circle. She moaned in pleasure, knowing that finally she had found a lover whose skills would be useful. She leaned down and kissed him, hard and pure, because she deserved a man who could withstand a good kiss and he was just the man to ...deliver.

Chapter 3

Merrianna reached down to undo the pizza delivery boy's pants to finally reveal his large, throbbing flesh sword. She could hardly wait to stab herself repeatedly, pumping her hips to a rhythm of desire that would eventually build to a climactic spasm and release, the sword no doubt jabbing the inner recesses of her womanly canal. As she unzipped the zipper, her carnal desire was too hot for words, so instead, Merrianna simply moaned a loud, drowning moan of a maiden trapped under the desire of the sword, the desire of twitching pleasures only her prince could evoke.

"Oh!" Merianna gasped at the size.

"Yeah...um..." The pizza delivery guy was at a loss for words.

"You're a..."

"Girl, yeah..."

"Huh..."

"I thought the breasts would have given that away when you tore off my shirt in Chapter 2, but you seemed like you were on a mission."

"Well, it's been one of those days and I really, really need to get laid. I was actually thinking about how I would exclaim how big you were and I've never seen one quite so large while the author would go on to say how I felt a familiar itch between my legs at the mere glance at your trembling rod, but I guess we can skip that part. I'm Merrianna, by the way."

"Dawn. I'll just get going then."

"WAIT!" Merrianna looked at the pizza delivery girl, licked her lips and said, "I still want that special delivery." With an evil smirk, Merrianna pushed Dawn down to the bed and repositioned herself on top of her. "Let's see what those pizza making hands can do elsewhere." She bent down and kissed Dawn, a kiss that was obviously not that of "just friends" or else this scene would be really boring. Instead, it was the kiss of lovers, lovers with pizza awaiting them for a post-coital snack. It was hungry, veral, and above all, lesbian which made it taboo and somehow hotter. Not quite as taboo as gay men, but it’s up there in terms of things that would make extreme Republicans in the Bible Belt uncomfortable.

As Dawn's toungue intertwined with hers, Merrianna reached down to help her remove her pants, in one not-awkward dance-like movement that is only possible when you are making out with someone in a movie or book. Merrianna ached for Dawn's touch and wished, prayed really, as a last minute appeal to God that maybe, just maybe, she would grow a penis..? Not because Merrianna was against girl on girl action, it was just that she was really hoping for some real penetration rather just external stimulation. Admittedly, she liked that as well, it was just, if you could manage, God, Dawn would be better as a Doug or similar just so that she could really go through with that sword stuff she was looking forward to before.

Dawn pulled away from the kiss and looked deeply into Merrianna’s eyes. Merrianna could scarcely breathe as she waited for Dawn to say something, to pull her in close and treat her like the dirty whore she wanted so badly to be treated like. Dawn placed her hands on Merrianna’s shoulders and whispered, “I should go. I have pizzas waiting in the car and this is a little too weird for me.”

"It wasn’t weird for you a second ago!" style="font-family:georgia;">

“That was before you were praying out loud for me to grow a penis.” She gathered up her clothes and tried her best to close the shirt that Merrianna had ripped. "I think we’re done here."
A gust of wind wooshed through Merrianna’s soul and pulled at her heart. She felt empty and cold. She closed the door to the harsh Binghamton wind and pulled her sheets up around her. This was the second lover to leave her in only two chapters. There was no way around it: she was going to eat the entire pizza by herself and she wasn’t going to care about the calories or the fat content or the carbs.

The more she thought about it, the more the pizza seemed like a good idea, but she needed motivation to push on, to continue her meager existence as the campus slut, to rekindle the massive burning within her loins.

As she munched mindlessly on her slice while flipping even more mindlessly through VH1 Celeb Reality shows and E! True Hollywood Story reruns, she realized what was missing from her life. She craved passion and depth in a world of utter chaos and mundane activities. She needed drama and fire in a world of data entry and mild weather. She needed…to go to class.

Having realized the extreme genius of this epiphany, she quickly jumped up and put on her favorite school-girl uniform and check her class schedule to see if, by any grace of God or the devil, she was supposed to be attending a class at this time. She hadn’t been to one yet this semester, but she knew they were out there. Other people went and came back like tiny hairy messengers with a ring to destroy over mountain ranges through Middle Earth, full of new knowledge and conceptualizations of the “real world” and she would do it, too. Yes, Merrianna was going to attend her very first lecture in Linguistic Anthropology.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

William was pre-med major. He knew that if he could just follow in his father’s exact footsteps that life would work out perfectly for him in every way possible, in every way his pretentious Long Island family dreamed. He would be the forty-fifth generation to study medicine, tracing all the way back to his ancestor Marcus Frius who was a world-renowned alchemist and gynecologist for the Roman Army during its occupation of London before the British were really British. He had the Coat of Arms to prove it.

Not only that, his parents had been talking about him attending medical school and becoming a gynecologist since he was in preschool. In fact, for the first seven years of his life, he was a doctor for Halloween, despite his unending begging to be allowed to dress up as Ray from the Ghost Busters. Even now, as he walked across the snowy campus to his linguistic anthropology class, which is, of course, a complete coincidence, he remembered the agony and the emotional turmoil his mother had caused him.

Maybe he didn’t want to wear a stethoscope and confidently place it on women’s exposed chests, making them jump lightly at the sudden cold, causing their nipples to protrude. Maybe he wanted more from life than slipping his hands into a woman’s flesh box, examining her depths. Maybe he wanted more than health insurance forms and hospital visits and constant births.

William opened the doors to the lecture hall and took his usual place in the back right-hand corner, preparing to take a 90-minute nap. As he fluffed his winter coat into a pillow-like pouch, he noticed a girl, no, an angel walking in what seemed to be slow motion down the stairs, just past his seat. Her long blonde hair, wet with snow flakes, clung to her back, which gave way to her plaid skirt, short enough to reveal her long legs, covered only by what appeared to be thigh-highs held up with a garter belt. He had to sit next to her. This girl could certainly keep him awake through Professor Glick’s incessant speaking in Glickish about form and function.

Merrianna looked around at her new world. There were seats with desks attached on one side, giant screens in the front of the room, and above all else, boys. Everywhere. Just the thought of having her aches taken care of in front of all these other people made her lady jam flow. She knew that she would finally have or orgasmic dreams realized. Oh yes, here she would meet true love.

To be continued...

EDIT: I'd like to thank Flo for helping with the Spanish...what with her speaking it fluently and me not at all. You should really use the link and translate it into English to get the full effect of the story.

Secrets- EXPOSED!

2006-09-06T19:12:00.000-04:00

We all have our secrets. In fact, I would go so far as to say that humans, by nature, are secretive creatures. Part of this, I'm sure, is because sometime in second grade we told the "cool" girl something embarrasing about ourselves in an attempt to become closer with her and she told the rest of the class, mocking us for the rest of the year about our teeny tiny crush on a kid named...shoot...what was his name? I want to say Ross, but I'm not completely sure. He had a really cool pencil case though. But anyway, the question is, which came first: the secrets or the pain?

I didn't realize how secretive I had become until a recent conversation with Miss Yankee who pointed out that I don't really let people touch my computer. Or my cell phone. Or my camera. Or anything that would give people any real glimpse into what my life is like. And after a couple of hiding porn jokes and a long stream of teasing, I thought about it. I really don't let people into my mundane, everyday life things. I mean, yeah, part of it is that my business is my business and I don't really want people reading text messages that could easily be taken out of context and thought of being something completely different. And while I don't really have much to hide in my computer's history, I don't want people asking me why I visited a site.

My real secrets, the things that really matter and are really important, are all things that I only trust with those who have proven themselves to me. And also, I have a decent amount of dirt on them as well. But something of dire importance has been bothering me lately. Something that I feel I should really post to get a good grip on reality.

So here it is.

I want a motorcycle.

That's right, you read correctly. I want a motorcycle. And not just that...I want to take a cross-country trip on said motorcycle. Armed only with enough clothing to get me through a very basic week, some basic necessities, a journal and a large novel. And possibly a camera, but that depends on how not-secretive I feel like being on this trip.

So everyone who knows me is probably thinking one of three things:
1) What? HESPER on a motorcycle? Can we say STITCHES?
2) Wow, I didn't expect this of her...it seems so random for Hesper.
3) This is a lousy secret. I kept reading for some real dirt and all I got was a confession about a motorcycle. I'm going to go see if she changed anything on her myspace profile.

So the idea would basically be to leave with enough money to get me to California and back in terms of gas and food, but I'd have to find temporary odd jobs to find places to sleep. Sort of a test in both my ability to be completely independant and completely on my own with a ton of unknowns and possibilities. And also, I would look amazingly cool on a motorcycle. Clearly, I've given this a lot of thought. I have my cute black leather jacket already picked out.

But in all seriousness, I really would like to do something crazy spontaneous like that. It doesn't have to be a long-drawn out cross-country trip, but maybe just a weekend where I just drive without any plans or directions and just see what happens.

So I guess my real secret is that I'm going to try to be more spontaneous and less anal about everything. Ok, no, that's a lie. I do really want a motorcycle. And not just for the cute jacket.

I am not engaged. It's just my tuna.

2006-08-31T23:35:00.000-04:00

Although for half a second at the lunch table at work today, it was almost the rumor going around. Allow me to explain.

A bunch of us often eat lunch at work together. Sometimes outside at a table we borrow from the restaurant next door and sometimes inside at the conference table. Either way, hilarity generally ensues. I mean, anytime you have a bunch of people who have been cooped up in a room in the same seat for more than 4 hours who, while doing their other work, have had too much time to think about things to talk about at lunch it's gonna be an event. Usually it's the Yankees. In fact, there is a very specific line being drawn between the Marketing and the Development departments because Development is all about the Yankees while Marketing hearts the Mets like no other. I am a Mets fan. I am also in the Marketing department. It's all very simple logic.

In any case, there I was eating my tuna sandwhich and talking to Angry Squirrel and The New Girl about how my mother woke up early to make me tuna (she's suffering from empty nest syndrome since my sister left for college). Angry Squirrel thinks that I should relish in the fact that my mom wants to make me lunch because I have the rest of my life to be independent. This is where it gets weird.

No one knows how or why or what lines could have possibly gotten crossed, but somehow The Tool thought he heard that I was engaged. Here is a reproduction of the exact conversation, including my inner thoughts which will help you to recreate the entire situation. Inner thoughts are in parentheses:

Hesper: So yeah, she got up and made me tuna.
Angry Squirrel: Well, you know, it's really nice of her.
The New Girl: Yeah, your mom seems sweet.
Angry Squirrel: I mean, I say let her do it; you have the rest of your life to be independent.
The Tool: Wait, you're engaged? Did that happen this last weekend?
Hesper: Uh, what? (who said engaged?) I'm not engaged (to WHO would I even be engaged???)
The Tool: I thought someone said you were engaged...?
The Gopher: Wait, you got engaged?
Hesper: Whoa, no! (All I need is an office party where I have to explain where I'm not only not engaged, but also not even in a relationship...oh god...there will be cake...)
Angry Squirrel: Who said engaged?
The Tool: I thought someone said engaged, but then I remember that last week she was talking about some relationship thing...
Angry Squirrel: Yeah, we were talking about her tuna.
Hesper: (Oh, what now? And did he seem upset that I was engaged? Maybe The Baker is right and he does have the hots for me...)

So now, of course, I'm blushing because I'm embarassed for The Tool that he would even mistake that so badly. I mean, tuna...? Seriously? No one even mentioned engagement. The only thing I could think of later was that he misheard what we were talking about when Angry Squirrel said something about me being independent.

This is a great example of why I love Angry Squirrel though. I mean, only she would have the guts to smile at him and say, "We were talking about her tuna" in such a way that really said, "Um, I don't know what you think you heard, but you're clearly an idiot."

So the thing about this little lunch table is that people seem eager to jump on the gossip bandwagon. And there isn't really much gossip. We're not a big office. And if I were engaged, I don't think I would be able to leave it on the downlow for almost an entire week. That would be a shrieking Monday morning in Angry Squirrel's office. Not a tuna-based sidenote over the local newspaper's sports coverage while The Giggler and The Gopher discuss who the starting pitcher is for the upcoming game.

So I got a new camera

2006-08-30T23:20:00.000-04:00

Technically I got a new camera a couple of months ago for my birthday, but now I'm taking the time to get to know my camera. This has only made me nostalgic for the days when disposable point and shoots were the norm.

So, in true artistic form, I've spent a lot of time on self-portrait. There are a few reasons for this, and none of them good:
1) My myspace picture was outdated. I needed to update it to reflect the new haircut.
2) I couldn't think of anything better to shoot and my dog was not being cooperative.
3) I have an innate fear of photos and I have decided to try to get over it. So, I shot about 30 shots of only me. Not me hiding or making a face. Just me.

And no, you don't get to see most of them. Sorry. I am not a massochist.

Anyway, moving on to juicy things because I'm sure you're all totally excited about my camera. I mean, I know that I am but I don't expect you to be because you most likely will never get to see it in real life. And yes, in case you are wondering, I am lying down in the picture. Mr. Fooseball took that picture when we were watching Family Guy last week. That's the only picture I didn't take myself. Mine are actually somewhat blurry because i have yet to master the whole "hold your camera away from your body and take your picture" thing. In fact, I'm much better at the "oops, I accidentally took a picture of the inside of my pocket" thing.

So, back to the juicy stuff that I have yet to touch on. As I said, I've been thinking a lot about relationships lately, which gets me thinking about past relationships and what went wrong and what went right and what I miss and what I don't miss and what I liked and what I didn't like. And all of that thinking makes me really want to eat a lot of oreos. Oreos are really great things...all that chocolate and fluff...

But yeah, I think everyone hits a point where they don't necessarily miss the relationship itself, but the familiarity of the relationship. It just seems so much easier to just know the person rather than put yourself out there and know that this new person may reject your quirks, your interests, your past. And then you have to get to know the other person. How do they like their coffee? What is their humor style? Are there any habits they have that are downright disgusting, like picking at their toenails? If they do have any disgusting habits, how much of them can you overlook before you turn to the other person one rainy night while watching television and scream, "There's scratching and then there's downright picking and you bypassed picking the moment the tip of your finger disappeared!"

Anyway, I was checking people's away messages, just to see what they were up to without having to have a real conversation with them. Most people refused to post what they were actually up to (which is something I'm definately guilty of) so instead, I was bombarded with song lyrics. The most popular songs as of late? Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" and Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars." This to me basically tells me who is single and who is in a relationship.

Justin Timberlake's song, while about a couple, is not really about love or romance or anything sweet and cute. In fact, I would go so far to say that, after listening closely to the lyrics (Pretty babe/you see these shackles, baby/I'm your slave/I'll let you whip me if I misbehave/it's just that no one makes me feel this way) it's safe to assume that this is mostly about sex. Kinky sex at that. And while kinky sex would require some sort of trust on every level, it doesn't necessarily require love. This can be proved or disproved with a simple trip to your neighborhood fetish club. I doubt that most of those people even know their...*cough*...friends' real names, let alone dreams and ambitions. This doesn't mean that some of these people who are quoting Justin aren't in loving relationships, but my guess is that most of them really like to go out dancing. And also think that they are so amazing that they alone are "bringing sexy back." Having met some of these people in person, I beg to differ. I wouldn't go so far to say that they are making sexy hide in a man-made tunnel out in the Middle East, one step ahead of Bin Laden, but sexy is definately not in the same timezone.

On the other hand, Snow Patrol's lyrics about washing the world away and lying down with another person has no real hidden meaning in the away messages. They are in a great relationship and would like to lie down and "forget the world." While this is cute in theory, it seems a bit odd to want to completely dissolve the world away so that it is just you and your significant other. I mean, what if you need a doctor and neither one of you has been to medical school? It could be a serious emergency. I think you should really sit back and ask yourself, "Do I trust my partner to give me home-made stitches?" If the answer is no, forgetting the rest of the world is a bad idea.

Carrie Bradshw is not perfect.

2006-08-27T19:50:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about relationships a lot lately (who hasn't) and with all of these Sex and the City episodes buzzing about on tv, I've realized a couple of things. 1) Carrie Bradshaw got some of it very wrong. 2) Whenever emotions are involved, people get hurt. 3) In my next life, I would like to be a male beta.

I'll start with number 3 and work my way backwards here.

First, I should explain that I have officially named my fish Voldemort (Voldy for short), for those of you who have been worried about him. He has this little pesky habit of swimming upside down which I'm trying to convince myself makes him amazing and not evil, what with him hanging out on the nightstand next to my head. I'll keep you posted if I should find any random animals coming to pay homage or some sort of weird wands lying about. Chances are, Harry Potter and his little friends won't be visiting but in the even they do, you can be sure that I will post pictures. Moving on to the interesting stuff, male betas (as Voldy has shown me) have incredibly little to worry about when they're not in the wild. In captivity, and in Voldy's case, he has a great bowl that is probably the equivilent to a decent sized studio apartment, plenty of plastic plants, a great gravel color combo (if I do say so myself), and, to top it all off, food arrives once a day around 7pm. This is a great life. Great apartment, great furniture, great color scheme, and no worries about food. That being said, I'm sure he'd love to have a great female beta, but one of them would probably eat the other so that is not going to happen.

On that note, emotions are crazy little things. I have yet to talk to anyone in any kind of relationship who can say, with 100% accuracy, that they were never ever hurt by the other person. Yes, in the beginning of a relationship it is easy to say that you have yet to be burned, but if someone burns you in the beginning, you're just going to break it off with them. And even in the beginning there are things to work out and discussions that must be had and emotions put out there on the cutting board, waiting to either be slaughtered or nurtured.

And finally, as much as I know there may be some backlash from the SATC fans, Carrie Bradshaw is not perfect. How can she be? Her experiences in dating in no way really resemble mine except that they both involved men. I mean, yeah she has some good points, but when it comes to my life, none of her psychosis matches up with mine. Therefore, she may be right for her own situation, not for mine at all.

I know that I am damaged, having somewhat recently ended a 4 year lightswitch relationship. Knowing this and knowing myself fairly well, I decided I would take some time to work on me before jumping into another relationship. As soon as I decided this with my entire being, I met someone.

Now, of course you would think that this is where I get all sentimental about love and relationships and how they can change your life and you never know what is coming next, but as I said, I know I'm damaged. Be prepared for a fresh breath of air in the dark haze of "new happy coupledom."

I met Mr. Fooseball through friends. He seemed nice enough; funny, mature, all of that stuff. So of course, thinking that nothing would come of anything because I was not in a place where it would go anywhere, I made out with him. This is the point at which I was prepared to say "ok, well thanks" and call it a day (night), but he insisted on getting my phone number. And then he insisted he would call me. He also insisted I was pretty and that I was amazing and he had been afraid to start talking to me. Yeah right. Me? Sure there, buddy, I'm certainly intimidating. I know this because many people have told me how much I resemble mobsters, Jack Bauer, and the women of World Wrestling. Needless to say, I am a skeptic. Also, as far as first encounters go, this was a little too good to be true. We made out and that really should have been the end of it, but instead, he was adorable and smirked and said that he would call me.

As a single woman in this century, I took that to mean either he may call me at some point or that he wasn't going to call but felt the need to call because it was the polite thing to do, after having his tongue in my mouth and all (Hallmark really does need to make a card for that occasion...). And then, just because fate likes to prove me wrong, he called. And then we went out.

Now as far as first dates go, I haven't been on many in the last couple of years, but they generally go something like this:
* Awkward meeting
* Silence, following by nervous giggling
* Getting food, eating as neatly as possible so as not to show all of your bad sides in a single evening
* More awkwardness
* Talking about common interests and things that are coincidental
* More awkwardness
* The end of meal "is this is?" phase
* "Ok, well I had a great night/do we kiss? Do we hug? What happens now?" end of date.

This date went more like this:
* Meet up, he gives me flowers
* Casual banter while bowling
* Coffee and casual banter, a lot of laughing
* Walking on the boardwalk and casual banter
* Sweet kissing, dancing under the stars, and casual banter
* Walking back to our cars, goodnight kiss, end of date.

So, while normal people would be talking about how nice and sweet this date was, I took the opportunity to freak out. He was too sweet, it was too nice and he was too intuitive about what was going on with me. Am I just not sure how to be romantic? Am I so used to settling for normalcy that anything above and beyond freaks me out?

Why was I freaked out at all? Well, this I knew the answer to. I am freaked out because beginnings are scary. He's a very intense fooseball player and an even more intense person. Mr. Fooseball does not play by any of the rules I've played before. In fact, he doesn't even play the game. If any of you have ever seen a movie starring John Cusack, you'll know what I'm talking about--the guy just puts whatever he's feeling right out there for the sake of putting it out there. For someone like me, who takes things slow and isn't easily tricked into opening up (I take months to hug well), this is a bit much.

I talked to Sputz about this. Sputz is my best friend and she has a pretty firm grip on where I am and where I'm going and all of that. She thinks I'm nuts. Then again, we recently had a conversation about finding guys that went something like this:

Sputz: There are 3 guys in my MSW program and at least 1 is gay. I'm pretty sure I can turn the gay guy, though. I think it is love.
Hesper: Right. Good luck with that. I know it's always turned out well for anyone else who ever tried it. Always. Like anyone who ever went after Mr. Piano Player. He's very much not gay now.
Sputz: Uh, what? Are you joking?
Hesper: Yes.
Sputz: I was so almost on Facebook.

Now, that conversation wasn't really necessary to the story, but it does illustrate the relationship I have with Sputz.

But I digress, back to my fears of intimacy and my fears of relationships. So, after the amazing first date, we hung out a few more times, each one really great, each one romantic, each one causing me to have an out-of-body experience where I would literally say "Really? Are you serious?" because of the level of cuteness and intensity.

Mr. Fooseball knows this and finds it funny that I would actually have that reaction. Even when I'm completely insulting and horrible he finds me amusing. In fact, he actually called me late at night a few nights ago because I told him I was super cranky and he wanted to hear what I sounded like when I was super cranky. Even as I type that, I think of how corny it is, but the truth of the matter is, it's actually really nice to have a guy find you adorable when you're cranky and whining about how your sheets aren't lining up correctly and how it's pissing you off.

So where do I go from here? Well, I asked him for spme space because it was too much too quickly and I know that where I am right now, I would not be good in a relationship. Just the idea of being responsible for someone else's emotions is causing shaking and double vision, let alone knowing that someone out there would be expecting certain things from me. And it isn't that he isn't amazing...in fact, because he's amazing, I need to take some time. If he were a schmuck, this would be easier.

But instead, he's a nice guy and while he isn't perfect, he's understanding about everything I could possibly need. In fact, I was talking to him about how I was having trouble writing recently, and he's the one who suggested a Sex and the City style blog. Which means that yes, I have his permission to completely expoit him. So, incredibly long and pointless story short, I guess you can look foward to Carrie Bradshaw-esque posts.

The Fishy Problem

2006-08-06T11:25:00.000-04:00

I have a fish. I had a fish but he passed away from old age. Now I have a new fish and while he is very pretty, I can't seem to name him for anything. This is only a problem because my mother keeps walking into my room and doing that baby-talk thing she does to the dog and doesn't know what to call him. In absense of a name, she has taken to calling him Mr. Fishy. While I'm sure that at one point I had a fish named Mr. Fishy (at about the same point I had Mr. Big Bear, Mr. Blanket, and Mr. Sand Box), I should be able to come up with real a name for this fish.

I have considered using He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but I don't want an evil fish who will start using magic as he grows and becomes more powerful, causing me death (or at least a hiddeous forehead scar) in my sleep while he lulls about his plastic plants.

My brother, the thespian, has suggested I look for something out of a play. Like Stanley. Or Eugene. He only really wants this because he gave me the fish for my birthday and because he is a very huge Tennesee Williams and Neil Simon fan. He has other ideas, but they include Dinner, Fillet, or Stick.

In the meantime, my fish is afraid of his food. This makes me want to name him something like Anorexic or Dumbass. If you sprinkle a few granules on the surface of the water, just as the kind people at Nature's Cove Pet Store suggested, he will back away deep down to the gravel and hide behind one of his plants. While the term "fighting fish" may apply to the species as a whole, I'm pretty sure mine is more of a pacifist. He certainly would not have made it in the real world where there are other Bettas out there just waiting to tear him apart feathery, blue fin for feathery, blue fin.

Welcome to Brunch!

2006-08-06T11:14:00.000-04:00

Welcome to The Brunch Platter. Why brunch? Well, mostly because it's really a great meal and no one appreciates it the way that they should. What is it? A huge sampling of foods and people you won't ordinarily see together, just like Sunday Brunch. Except this will be more entertaining than the huge fight between Great-Aunt Mildred and Great-Aunt Bea that caused the specially designed seating at Cousin Leah's Bat Mitzvah.