A Night Out With Gene Yaas (The Few Bits I Remember Of It Anyway)

I have to blog about Saturday night because I have not kept up with my promise to post weekly dirty grocery lists and because I vaguely recall telling some people that I would write about it. Also because the comic has a blog now and I refuse to allow him to outblog me. Unacceptable.

My friend Jon of the brilliant Total Talk Nonsense podcast was filling in on drums for his friends' band for a gig that was in the city. Jon is suburban folk and is never in the city, so it seemed like a good opportunity to hang out without having to drive to the middle of nowhere and then not drink because I'd have to drive back.

The evening started out in the way that most of my evenings out typically end: with me nearly falling over and some vague molestation. Due to my own sheer stupidity, I thought I should take the red line train at the same time the Cubs game ended, thus ensuring that I would be crammed into a train car with the maximum number of douchebags possible. One of those douchebags was the guy who got on the train directly behind me. I admit, the train was very crowded, but given that I was not glued to the back of the person standing in front of me, I don't think it was quite crowded enough to have him pasted up against me like wall paper. Turning sideways was not helpful either. No matter how I tried to adjust my stance I couldn't get this guy (literally) off my ass. And then he started slightly humping me. Seriously. Weirdly I was far less concerned about the rapiness of the situation than I was about that fact I was having a hard time standing upright in heels with this guy's full weight pushing me forward. Either way it was bad so I ended up getting off at the next stop and waiting for the next train which blessedly was filled with only the normal, non-rapey, drunk Cubs fan type of douchebags.

Jon et al. (we'll get to them in a minute) were playing at US Beer Company. I had never been there before. I don't anticipate being there again. It's the most poorly named bar I've ever patronized - they have a whopping four beers on tap, one of which they were out of, and about a dozen bottles, a third of which they were out of. It didn't matter much because tracking down a bartender was about as frustrating as hunting a Sasquatch. The stage is adjacent to the bar and faces a wall about eight feet away, so your choices for viewing the band are to stand right in front of them which feels creepy and stalkerish, or sit off to their right where there are chairs and tables and also a huge cabinet blocking most of the view. The sound guy was on his second day working there, looked nervous and appeared to be 12 years old. I sat at the bar and peered between the cabinets and the 12 year old, from which I could see the tip of Jon's sticks, a microphone stand and part of Gene's right shoe.

Gene Yaas is a band I had actually heard before on an episode of TTN*. They play what they describe as "adult goof rock" which is incredibly accurate. It's rock music with lyrics that are slightly x-rated, extremely funny and entirely absurd. You'll like it. They have an album, you can buy it here or the other usual places (iTunes and such the like). Jon was filling in for the drummer, who was filling in for the lead guitarist, who was missing in action (the band claim he has been deported, but I suspect they got that information at www.madethefuckup.com). There were supposed to be four bands, but three of them didn't show up, so Gene Yaas had the show to themselves, which worked out great because everyone in the place had come just to see them anyway. It was suggested they even do an extended set which would have been cool, but unfortunately Jon had only learned 12 songs. They sounded great in spite of the nervous 12 year old.

At some point someone realized that one band was not going to be enough live music to cover the night and called in the back up plan. The back up plan was a hip hop group - the kind that inexplicably hold their microphones upside down and have a guy on the stage whose entire job seems to be standing there and nodding. It didn't really follow from Gene Yaas. It was funny, just not on purpose.

From here things start to get hazy. The problem is that I know this is the part of the night that I told people I would blog about because everyone was saying things that were funny, but all I remember is the laughing part. I have no idea what the details were. Drinking is bad, kids. I know that everyone liked my dress (which was as inappropriate as my t-shirts and reads "You want me to suck what?") and that Gene Marteen know something about Buckeye football that impressed me (no idea what) but that he didn't know what he was supposed to do when someone yelled "O-H!". The only thing I remember in detail is talking to Scott about the quality of various brands of telescopes, because it is a law of social functions that the two nerdiest people will start a conversation that absolutely no one else cares about. I think I also mentioned that humpback whales look like giant pickles, apropos of nothing. I was obviously a brilliant conversationalist (luckily I was the only girl in the group so I think they all gave me the benefit of the doubt).

By the way, protip: If you ever buy a telescope, make sure you also buy a red flashlight. It takes at least a half hour for your eyes to get acclimated to the viewer, and using a regular flashlight when you're changing the filters means your eyes will have to adjust all over again. A red flashlight will allow you to see enough to change filters without ruining your night vision. You're welcome.



*I went back and listened to it again today, which I do not recommend. It starts out fine, but they quickly get overJamesoned and it turns into a train wreck. I believe I said to Jon and Scott that it was the most excruciating thing I had ever heard, and that was after they had played audio the week before of Bill O'Reilly reading some sort of pornographic drug story. Some of the best sound clips they have now were taken from the drunken ramblings of the band's front man on that episode. Jon reminded me he had been on the show after he introduced him to me on Saturday, to which I said after a beat, "Oh. He's THAT Gene Marteen." He turned out to be really adorable and not at all annoying, but also the bar didn't have any Jameson.

Is Star Trek Voyager Good For You?

It's a question we've all asked ourselves at one time or another. I personally have spent many hours pondering it:

I can't stop staring at Jeri Ryan's tits, and I think I've developed a Borg fetish. Can this be good for me?

I'm not sure if I want to give Neelix a great big hug or punch him square in the face. Can this show be good for me?

And so on for 172 episodes.

Good news everyone! The comic (this guy) and his friend Brian (who bears a startling resemblance to Neelix) have a new show this week at the Camden Fringe that answers this very question and is coincidentally titled "Is Star Trek Voyager Good For You?" FELLOW NERDS, THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR. The show is this Thursday, August 12 (or 12 August depending on where you live) at the Roundhouse Studio Theatre in Camden, London, England. Tickets are £7.50 and are available here.

Go because this is an important question to have answered. Go because it's going to be absolutely hilarious. Go because I need you to report back to me with a full transcript* as I'll be trapped in the United States on Thursday and won't be able to see it. IT IS ONE NIGHT ONLY so be there before the answer is lost to you forever.

*With helpful footnotes and drawings please.

Amberance: Happy Yet Full of Rage

I have mixed feelings about the weekend festivities in Canton, Ohio. I was happy for Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith, though I had to tune it out when Smith started crying. I'm not saying men shouldn't cry, mind you, I'm just saying they shouldn't do it on television.

The bartender and I were excited to watch the Hall of Fame Game at first, enough to scrap tentative plans to drive to Green Bay for a Social D concert even. In retrospect we might have been better off with the 7-8 hour round trip drive. The game turned out to be such a shit storm that we turned it off at halftime. Still, even though it was one of the most crap games I've ever seen (and mind you, I'm a 32 year Browns fan), it means that football is back and I am delighted.
In related news, my next door neighbor remarked that my new dark auburn and purple hair looked like Ravens colors. (Long pause while I count to ten) OK Matt, look. Number one: no it does not. It's a reddish brown, not black. Number two: Fuck off. And number three: IF YOU EVER SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT AGAIN I WILL THROW YOU OFF THE FUCKING PORCH.

Note to my readers: Your mother lied. Counting to ten does not work.

The Scientific Method Step 7: Publish Results

I formed a hypothesis at this years Tai's charity golf outing in Galena that the real reason people golf is for the sexual innuendo*. Based on the swearing and frustration, I don't think there's any way people could be golfing for fun. I cite several examples from the foursome** I was in, aptly named Team Spank:

-(The bartender on the green): This is wetter than I thought.

-(Bob and Sarah sorting out golf balls) Bob: Sarah, did you grab both of my balls? Sarah: No, and that's my ball in the trap.

-(Bob, encouraging the bartender in a sand trap): Whack it away. Just go right at it.

-(The bartender, commenting on the little prize flag stuck in the green): We'd find out about closest to the hole.


The discussion is open. Opinions?

*In YOUR end-o.
**While I was technically in a foursome, I didn't actually golf. Not that they didn't try to make me. Sometimes I love being left-handed.

The Jury Is Still Out

On the golf course, watching porn on Big Ron's iPhone

The bartender: Who is this? I thought this was going to be someone we knew.

Me: It is. It's me.

The bartender: No it's not because this girl has a hairy snatch.

Big Ron: How would you know?

Me: Everyone knows, Ron. Everyone knows.

Long pause. The porn gets louder and I can hear it from 15 feet away.

Me: That's the loudest iPhone I've ever heard.

Big Ron: Oh. Well then maybe it is you.

Amberance: Prison Sexpert

"Do you want some more corn bread?" asked the bartender tonight at the dinner table.

"No, I want to stab him in the eye." I had been telling him about my hellish day at work that involved an hour and half long "15-minute" meeting, complete with a pointless impromptu phone call to someone who wasn't expecting it and was clearly annoyed by it, and being strong armed into a fancy dinner with a client later this week involving 5 people I've never met and a restaurant where I'll be completely out of my element, thus guaranteeing my social phobias will have me throwing up in the bathroom instead of eating.

"Well ok, but you'll wind up in prison. Hope you like broom handles."

I thought about whether or not I did, in fact, like broom handles. "Crap. All right, I guess I won't stab him in the eye, because I don't think I could handle prison."

"Actually, I don't know about that. You might be able to find a niche. Because you know how in prison people have to improvise weapons out of what they have around? Maybe you could do the same thing except you could improvise sex toys. You'd be good at that."

I lit up like a Christmas tree. "Dude, I could TOTALLY improvise sex toys, I'd be awesome at it! Seriously, I can make a sex toy out of almost anything!" (I can.)

"Yeah, and then you'd have your niche and you'd be ok."

So it looks like I could probably survive prison. It's always good to have a plan, I think.

Parsnip. Celery stalk. Ooo, Hand of Ginger!

My comment in the previous post about the possibility of posting a grocery list made me start thinking of an actual grocery list post, and how I could possibly make that interesting. And as is par for the course for me, I almost immediately turned to the idea of a dirty grocery list. Because I am that person who can't walk through the produce section without thinking something absolutely inappropriate.

Problem is, I got as far as "carrot" and I had to stop. There used to be a show on Spike TV called 1000 Ways to Die. It may still be on actually, I just stopped watching Spike when I discovered Top Gear on BBC America. Anywhore, one of the ways to die was a story about a girl who went to the grocery store, bought a carrot, and decided to masturbate with it. Which at first sounds like a really good idea. Until you find out that she ended up with a tiny tiny cut inside her that an air bubble got into, which made it's way into her bloodstream causing a gas embolism which killed her. Now, I'm an unapologetic frequent fiddler, but that doesn't mean I like the idea of my roommate having to explain to my parents how he found my cold, lifeless body laying there with a root vegetable in a place that was never made for a root vegetable to be in. Or any vegetable for that matter. Because I also had a vision of someone writing "coochcumber" underneath my name on my headstone, the joke being on me for all of eternity, and it was not a nice vision (again, with the parents and the visiting and all). So the dirty grocery list is now on hold until I can get my mind out of the produce section, which will clearly be the death of me.

On My Long Absence

It's not that I'm taking a break from the blog, or that the blog is dead, or even that I don't have anything interesting to write about. It's that I've been dealing with the worst case of writer's block I can ever recall. This needs to end and it needs to end now, because I love writing this blog, and also because I've promised to write some things for a few people and I feel that I've let them down. So starting now there will be something up here at least once a week. This week, at the very least, there will be a review of the agent's new album that he put out a few months ago and that I promised to review even before it was finished. Next week, at the very least, there will be a plug for the comic's new show at the Camden Fringe. I don't know what will be up the week after that, but there will be something, even if it's nothing more than a grocery list. Because this is getting ridiculous already.

Run Away! Run Away!

They're more afraid of you than you are of them, I'm always told by exasperated people who purportedly love me each and every time I am attacked without provocation by a spider. Well I have a question then. Because if that's true, then why THE FUCK did a spider just repel down and nearly land right ON ME just now when I was minding my own business taking a shower? Huh? HUH? Because that doesn't sound like fear to me. Something that was afraid of me would have gone somewhere else in the face of a scary human who was splashing water around in a way that threatened it's continued survival. It's not like it didn't see me there when it looked around with it's eyes eyes eyes before it started down from the ceiling. No, it looked right at me and at the flying water droplets AND THEN decided to join the scene. THAT IS NOT THE BEHAVIOR OF SOMETHING THAT IS AFRAID. That is the behavior of either an adrenaline junkie that enjoys putting itself in danger or of an intrepid hunter on a mission, willing to disregard his own personal safety in order to be the one who brought down The Big Food (which is what they call me in their strategy meetings). It was I who demonstrated a reaction driven by fear: I jumped out of the shower with conditioner still in my hair and a razor blade still in my hand and RAN THE FUCK AWAY like any sane, rational being would do when faced with another being trying to kill it. So don't even give me any of that bullshit - I know what's what and I know when I'm being STALKED AS PREY by malicious and hungry arachnids. Now I'm going to go find another sink where I can wash this crap out of my hair, and when I get back I don't want to hear any more of your patronizing rationalizations, are we clear on that? Good. Sheesh.

AWOL

Where have I been you ask? Well, actually, I've been exercising.

No really. I'm absolutely serious.

Please stop laughing at me.




(sigh)

I decided it was high time I started doing something to take care of myself the way a mature grown up would. OK, fine, that's a flat out lie. I watched the Olympics and then right after that I watched a special on Scott Hamilton's come back to figure skating. He was doing back flips. He's 50. And I realized very suddenly, hey, Scott Hamilton is doing back flips and landing axles at 50 and I'm 32 and I can't so much as touch my toes. WHAT THE FUCK? I am jealous of a bald smurf in sparkle pants.

So I've decided to exercise. I've also decided that I wasn't going to fall into the traps I've fallen into every single other time I've decided to exercise. For instance, I decided not to join a gym, show up for 3 weeks, give up, and keep paying for a gym membership I wasn't going to use. Instead, I just DVR things that look interesting on FitTV. And it's working: I'm not bored. I'm thinner and I can almost touch my toes.

Here's the thing though. I hate it. I hate it with the hatiest of hates that have ever hated. I don't like being sweaty, I don't like when my muscles ache, I don't like being out of breath and I don't like drinking water. And I especially don't like the crop of lunatics they've rounded up to host shows on FitTV. Total Body Sculpt With Gilad: Right off the bat, they refer to him as an "Israeli stud muffin" in the promos. Just, no. Do not refer to anyone, ever, as a stud muffin and expect me to take them seriously. Gilad also makes it a point to remind you again and again that his is filming his workout in Hawaii. He grins at the screen while trying to murder you with plyometric exercises and says things like "You are landing too hard! I can heard you all the way to Hawaii!" Listen G, 1) No you can't. And 2) Fuck you. And that's another thing - he never stops smiling. EVER. He is absolutely overjoyed to be exercising; thrilled than I'm feeling the burn. "If you don't feel that, I don't know what you're going to feel," grins Gilad as I contemplate the odds of thighs literally catching on fire. My fist. I'm going to feel my fist connecting with your happy face. And probably bouncing right off because your face muscles are stronger than my whole arm. I hate you.

In Shape With Sharon Mann is even worse. Clearly Sharon Mann is a replicant because she has no grasp whatsoever of normal human emotion. She never stops smiling. She's never not cheerful. She bounces around the room like a grasshopper on a pogo stick. She is manically, mind-blisteringly happy to be working out. She makes me want to pin her down and stuff her full of Valium, but of course I can't because I am weak and that woman and her 8 pack abs will straight up kick my ass. While giggling. And giving me tips for life.

Ugh. I need to calm down. Thankfully I DVRed some yoga. I'll be OK. Eye on the prise.

MrSteve Calls 'Em Like He Sees 'Em

Discussing my diabolical seduction plot involving a ridiculously tiny vinyl dress

MrSteve (shaking his head): Subtle as a train wreck. And twice as...rubbery.

The Olympics Bring Out The Best In Each Of Us

Discussing the USA v. Switzerland Ice Hockey game in progress:

BrownsFan: End of 1st period. USA is winning 1-0

Me: Whee!

BrownsFan: I think you meant, "USA! USA!"

Me: Yes yes, but mine was less letters, and as a proud American, I reserve the right to be unspeakably lazy.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

My desk at work is currently the home of seven (soon to be six) boxes of Girl Scout Cookies. Girl Scout Cookies are an annual problem for me. The only thing preventing this from being a full blown addiction is the fact that they only sell them at this time of year, and then I have a year of withdrawal before I can get hold of them again. The only good news is that I inhale them so fast, the self loathing only lasts a couple of weeks at best.

I don't see "crystal meth" listed in the ingredients, but I know it's in there. It has to be. There's no other explanation for the fact that I have already eaten an entire sleeve of Thin Mints and I've only had the damn things for 10 minutes.

Camping: Just Say No

A very dear friend of mine may have tried to invite me to go camping. I say "may have" because she sent me an IM that read "hey, do you camp?" which I understand is often followed by an invite to go camping with that person. My response though, "i most certainly the fuck do not," may have quashed that invite before it was ever made, so we'll probably never know.

I was being serious though. I most certainly the fuck do not camp, because outside has bugs (especially spiders) and also, camping is stupid. You people with the camping: what is wrong with you? Is indoor life and comfort and easy controlled cooking making you so unhappy that you just can't stand it and need to go sleep on twigs and eat crap that you cooked over an open flame? That is not my idea of a vacation. A vacation is being even more comfortable than normal, where someone else cooks for me and I can take a bath in a great big jacuzzi (not a river) and I can crap on a shiny gold toilet (not carry around little baggies to clean up after myself because I have to poo in the woods). I demand loads of pillows, dammit, and I demand that someone else makes my bed, which had better be a mattress on a frame and not a sack on the ground.

Oh, and before you go telling me that I can't criticize because I don't know what I'm talking about, let me just inform you that I have, in fact, been camping. Once. Because once was more than enough. I went when I was young with my friend who lived next door and her parents. To be fair, they may not have been the best people to try out camping with. Mrs. D was a charm school graduate (no joke) who had got it into her head that camping would be romantic despite that fact that she is even less suited to camping than I am. The woman brought, and I kid you not, LASAGNA for us to cook over a fire and eat. We rode the whole way to the campground in a rickety truck they had borrowed. I was stuck between some folding chairs and a stack of lumber (why?) and so by the time we got there both my shoulders were bruised all to shit. It was not an auspicious beginning.

My pain and unhappiness was nothing compared to that of Mrs. D. We pulled into the campground and discovered that (gasp) there were other people camping there. And those people were dirty and looked suspicious. She didn't like it. She informed her husband of this via a running commentary, "John, I don't like this. I don't like this John. John, I can't stay here. Please don't make me stay here John..." growing more and more hysterical the further in we went. Luckily for her, the campground appeared to be completely full. We stayed in a motel that night, which itself was filthy and it smelled like B.O. She would not allow us to walk on the carpet without socks on for fear of what might be lurking in the grime that was once a floor.

The next day we found another place to camp and the fun began!

That was sarcasm. No fun began, it was NOT fun. Putting up a tent? Sucks. Washing off in a cold murky lake? Sucks. Sleeping on the ground? Sucks a big bowl of dicks. S'mores? I hate marshmallows, s'mores totally suck. Spiders? HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING GOING TO THE WOODS ON PURPOSE? In fact, aside from this blog post some 20 years after the fact, there was not one single good thing that came out my attempt to go camping. No, there most certainly the fuck was not. Suck it, campers. Camping sucks.

Evidently My Marital Status Is The Correct One

Here's a bit of Valentine related amusement at my expense for the benefit of all you lovers out there - and by "at my expense" I mean "laughed out loud at myself on a crowded train and everyone turned around to look at the cackling crazy woman":

Last week on my way to work, I was doing the crossword that can be found in the back of the morning red paper as I do nearly every day on my way to work. It's generally a pretty simple crossword puzzle - no strange words no one would ever actually use, straightforward clues that don't try to trick you - I can usually complete that and the sudoku puzzle before I get to my stop assuming there were seats when I got on the train or I snagged one when everyone changed trains at Belmont.

Last week though, I found I was stuck almost immediately. The second clue down was a four letter word beginning with "L". The clue read "reason to wed". I stared at the puzzle blankly because I was deeply confused: I was certain that I knew of no word starting with "L" and consisting of four letters that would be a reason to get married. I started thinking of all the reasons I knew to get married in the hopes that it would jog my memory. Pregnancy? Money? Seriously, because I'm sure you all figured it out immediately, but those were really the first two things that popped into my head. Why do people get married? 1. Pregnancy. 2. Money. 3...I couldn't think of a third. I moved on and did some other clues. It wasn't until I got the next across clue which gave me the "O" that the light bulb clicked on in my head. "Love." Love is a reason that people get married. There I sat, my mind having immediately turned to reasons for marriage that were coercive, not even pausing to consider that some people actually get married ON PURPOSE. It summed me up so perfectly. It was a mistake only I could make. Thus making me the hysterical woman on the train jump starting everyone's day with a dose of concentrated crazy. I love being me.

At Long Last, The Birthday Recap

The first rule of fight club is that you don't talk about the fight club. The first rule of birthdays, however, is that you get your ass on the internets and point out how ridiculous you are to the entire world. I will belatedly do that now, although I'm not certain I really need to. The event was summed up pretty well in this comment from the bartender late the following afternoon, "So, what time did you get off the bathroom floor?"

The day started with me going to work. I had brought mini cupcakes for everyone, since no one else can be trusted to make me a proper birthday cake (except, perhaps, Mrs. Sizemore, who no longer lives here). I left them in the kitchen, which I also decorated with confetti. At my desk I taped up a sign next to a stack of party hats: "Anyone wishing to speak with me on my birthday must first don a party hat. No exceptions. Come on, it's fun!" This rule was amazingly (and awesomely) followed by every single person in the office, including our outside web designer who had come in for a meeting with us and conducted said meeting with a slightly askew party hat on the entire time. I also insisted that pizza be purchased for a lunchtime birthday party, and that everyone sing to me before I blew out the candle I had brought and stuck into my first slice.

I repeated the demand for singing and hat wearing when I got home and scrounged up a couple of neighbors for a quickie party before the bartender and I got dressed to go out. Then we headed for Delilah's. Downstairs Pretty Sean was spinning hardcore, but paused long enough to make an announcement that it was my birthday and that everyone should clap and cheer because I am awesome. Upstairs, which is where we settled in for the night, my friend Machetti was tending bar and playing every single song I asked him to, because it was my birthday and on my birthday I get whatever I want. He also showed off his newest tattoos: a pair of Civil War era cannons, one on each bicep, intended to illustrate his "gun show". The bartender rolled his eyes, but I thought they were awesome. Our arrival was followed in short order by that of Eric (who works there), Corporal (the adorable skinhead/ex-Marine) and Ritchie the cop (who I had never met before, but had been invited to my party by the bartender because he lives across the street). This would prove to eventually lead to my downfall. You see, I was already drinking cider that was way more alcoholed than both normal cider AND the ridiculously alcoholed cider I normally drink at Delilah's. I was therefore in no shape for what I was about to do next, which was accept every shot anyone offered to buy for me. As I have stated many a time, shot drinking is against my normal policy both because I am a giant pussy and because I am not at all fun to babysit when I am uber drunk. Being as it was my birthday though, I chose to ignore this rule: It's against the law to be a huge pussy on one's birthday and too bad if my inanity needs to be reigned in by others, it's my birthday. So Machetti bought me a shot. Corporal bought me a shot. Eric bought me a shot. Pretty Sean, who kept coming upstairs to drink between sets thus providing me with brilliant birthday eye candy, bought me a shot. Ritchie bought me a shot. Machetti bought me another shot. Some total random at the other end of the bar who heard it was my birthday bought me a shot. The only person who did not buy me a shot was the bartender as he was already buying all my normal drinks and also he knows better.

Now, the thing I said before about people having to babysit me when I drink to extremes? This is mainly because I get lippy. I once went out with my pretend cousin Steve and a friend of his for a night on the town in Buffalo. At first it was fun for everyone: an ex-girlfriend appeared and had no idea who I was, a fact we used to torture her, and some kind of outdoor festival was going on - I vaguely remember saying really funny things about port-a-potties. At some point though, I got it into my head that what we needed to do was go find strippers. The boys thought not. I was shit-faced. The end result of this was us standing in the patio area of a bar getting stared at by everyone because I was angrily ranting screaming that it was OBVIOUS we should be at a strip club and the only reason they wouldn't take me was because I'm a GIRL and if MY BROTHER were visiting instead of me they would be at a strip club RIGHT NOW having fun, but NOOOOO, they were going to be TOTAL ASSHOLES because they CAN'T HANDLE IT that their FEMALE cousin wants to go to a strip club and GODDAMMIT I WANT A LAP DANCE. They took me home, Steve put me to bed, and they went back out, presumably to meet up with less crazy people who can control themselves in public.

I told you that story so that you might better understand why it was that after drinking a bunch of shots and escaping the bartender's watchful eye, I thought it would be a good idea to 1) Give my patented and extremely detailed lessons on hair-pulling to Ritchie, who I had known for an hour; 2) Vociferously advocate for anal sex to some girl that I didn't know at all; 3) Inform Machetti of where he could go to find a collection of my erotic musings and 4) Give him my number in case he wanted to provide feedback. I can't even imagine what else I might have gotten myself into if the bar hadn't closed and Jeff and I took a cab over to Tai's. Much less trouble is to be had at Tai's, because there everyone will babysit me.

I remember basically nothing from Tai's other than arriving and someone buying me a shot of sambuca. I have some fuzzy recollections of getting out of the cab at home and the bartender telling me he was going to go to the gas station and buy a paper. I have zero recollection of asking him to buy me string cheese for some reason - I was told about that the next day. Likewise I have no memory of going up the stairs or getting in my apartment. At some point, as per my now established custom, I woke up on the bathroom floor. I had pulled my towel over me as a blanket and there was a washcloth laying on the floor which I must have thought would make a nice pillow. I crawled to bed and stayed there until a quarter after 5 in the afternoon, when I only got up because I heard the bartender getting up.

Which is where I left off at the beginning with bartender asking, "So, what time did you get off the bathroom floor?" I had no idea, nor did I know precisely how many times I vomited while I was there. "See? That's why you don't drink sambuca," he told me, certain that the sambuca was the obvious problem and not the other nine shots.

I spent the rest of the evening on the couch with my back to the television and only got up to go back in my room and go to bed, thus proving that my birthday was a total success.

In Which The Bartender Attempts To Save Me From Myself

The bartender walks into the living room, sees me eating a bowl of cookie dough (erm, again), yanks it out of my hands and walks away with it.

Me: Hey, I was eating that!

Bartender: No. Cookie dough is NOT a diet.

Me: I'm serious. Don't throw that out, I'm not done with it.

Bartender (yelling as he dumps it in the trash): You can't just eat flour and sugar!

Me: It has an EGG in it!

Bartender (completely exasperated): YOU CAN NOT EAT COOKIE DOUGH FOR YOUR DINNER!

Update: Just retold the story at work and had this response from the CEO: But really, that's not good. For you.



Note: I will be blogging a recap of my birthday festivities, and soon. My stomach just can't face the memory just yet.

Coming Soon! My Birthday!

I can't believe how little I've been mentioning my birthday over the last month. Like seriously, what have I been doing, celebrating Christmas or something? It's a week from today, just so you know, and I will be 32, so if you want to get me 32 little presents instead of one big present I'd be cool with that. Hint: I have inadvertently started a Pez dispenser collection owing to MrSteve and Gene Honda buying me so many on other birthdays and Pez dispensers are cheap (plus if you want you can go ahead and eat the candy instead of giving it to me since I'm only after the severed head part).

Planning has begun in earnest and by planning I mean running around in a panic because I have no idea how I want to decorate my cake and hitting up every person who has ever met me for ideas. Those ideas were fruitless either because they were even more crap than my own ideas or because I am lazy and they seemed too ambitious to tackle, especially given that I work exclusively in buttercream now after last year's fondant debacle. Also, H-town suggested a Darth Vader helmet which would be perfect if I hadn't done the Death Star last year, but I don't want to come off as a one dimensional geek who only makes herself Star Wars related cakes. I am a geek on many levels thankyouverymuch.

My current best cake idea is a Flying Spaghetti Monster cake. This would be advantageous for a number of reasons: it would be relatively simple to do (i.e. noodly appendages are not hard to draw in frosting), MrSteve is almost guaranteed to show up just to see the cake, it gives me an excuse to wear an eye patch and a pirate hat (and also make others wear them) and any reason to use googly eyes on something is always a good reason.

I have also purchased my present to myself and am waiting for Amazon to send it. It is a 3000 piece jigsaw puzzle of Pablo Picasso's Guernica painting, which is all black and white. It is clear that deep down inside I despise myself and want to make my fun hobbies into a never ending hell of frustration and pain.

One week to go. The countdown has begun.

You Can Never Go Home Again Oatman! But I Guess You Can Shop There.

Look, I don't mean to sit around trash talking my hometown, but Cleveland has a way of being a soul-crushing vortex of despair even when you are having a good time.

Saturday I embarked on a trip to Cleveland that I have not made in years, after a tag team attack from Mrs. Sizemore and my stepmother - apparently my father and brother continue to live in a magical fantasy land where I am not only a valuable member of the family but also fun to be around and therefore they miss me. I know right? Inexplicable. Regardless, Saturday I flew to Cleveland so they could see me.

The trip itself probably deserves its own story. I was up at the ass-crack of dawn so that I could catch an orange line train down to Midway in time for a pre 9:00 a.m. flight. The bartender, fresh off a Christmas night shift at the bar, tells me that this is ridiculous and as long as he's up he'll just give me a ride. Which seemed like a nice gesture until I realized that this meant a half an hour of driving through snow to the south side, all the while listening to him complain about how he fucking hates going to Midway and that it would take him forever to get back home in all that snow because every other driver on the road had turned stupid. So sorry to have inconvenienced him with my not asking him to take me anywhere at all. This has the added effect of getting me there fully three hours in advance of my 50 minute long flight.

The earliness of my arrival actually turned out to be a good thing, as I tried to go through security with red and white striped hair and a shirt that read "All Bets on Death" on the day after some douche tried to blow up a plane in Detroit (seriously Detroit? WHO DID HE THINK WOULD CARE?). On top of that I had one of Mrs. Sizemore's Christmas gifts in my bag - a Magic Cheezburger, which I unbelievably forgot had a tiny amount of liquid sealed inside it so the little phrase thingy could float around. I can't really blame them: it would have been obvious to anyone that I was a terrorist, what with my attention calling hair, fake sandwich/bomb that I didn't even try to hide and the announcing of my intention to die on my shirt. Besides, I'd be lying if I said the attentions of the TSA screener who felt me up didn't leave me feeling a bit frisky. You caught me. I liked it.

While waiting (and waiting and waiting) for it to be time for my flight, my attention was caught by the recently updated automated announcement system, which now includes instructions on basic hygiene such as: Cover you face with a tissue if you cough or sneeze! and Wash your hands...with soap! They actually said that "with soap". And I started having the thought that geez, do people REALLY need to be told to use so- ...and then cut myself off as I realized that yes, sadly, they really do.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful, except for my realization that despite knowing intellectually that I live next to a cluster of some of the largest fresh water lakes on the entire planet, I fail to grasp their vastness until I am in a plane flying over them and I still can't see the shore on any side. Fuckers are just absolutely massive.

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport smells like cinnamon rolls and mediocrity. It has been perpetually under construction since before I was born and despite this, looks exactly the same as it did 30 years ago. Oh, with the exception of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Store they have in there now. I laughed out loud like the crazy woman I am when I saw it. The concept is brilliant: buy souvenirs for your friends and relatives from the one and only interesting thing worth seeing in the entire city without ever having to actually go there and see it! It's fucking genius and underscores my longstanding argument that American ingenuity does not stem from the question "How can we make the world better?" but from the question "How can we make it so that we can be as lazy as possible and put no effort into anything, ever?" IMMD.

The triumphant return of the prodigal daughter was just as I expected. My dad cried, I ate pie, and mysteries were solved. Apparently Mrs. Sizemore and RLC didn't plan their ruse for getting me very well, and Cap was highly confused when Mrs. Sizemore started panicking that she and RLC were not ready at 11:00 to "go get doughnuts". Following that, as is traditional in my family, everyone settled into their own room doing their own activities by themselves, thereby negating the entire point of "getting together". It was quietly hilarious.

Later we drove out to visit Simmy and a very surprised and confused Kelly (I'd called and left her a message that Cap and I wanted to get together on Mrs. Sizemore's assertion that Kelly knew I was in town. She didn't). The highlight was my little niece who not only knows that a screwdriver will remove the panel on her cash register so the batteries can be changed, but can tell a Flathead screw from a Phillips-head and select the appropriate tool. She's two years old.

After a dinner out with my parents where I made a complete ass of myself trying to order a bowl of soup, we retired to the house where Cap, Mrs. Sizemore and my dad engaged me in several rounds of Smart Ass, one of which I won. This was a really huge deal: Mrs. Sizemore and her giant brain packed full of crap had apparently won every single round of Smart Ass that had been played since Thanksgiving. I was the hero of the day. They threw me a ticker tape parade and had my name written in the sky by an airplane (OK, really they just said "haha" and pointed at Mrs. Sizemore and I poured myself a glass of Amaretto).

The fun continued when us three kids met up with Kelly, her beau and some other graduates of our high school at a bar. Of this I have little memory, but the photos in my camera assure me that I had an excellent time. Per usual, I took notes that turned out to be mostly useless:

• "R.T. Story" - I know what this one means. R.T. stands for "rubber twat" and is indeed a great story, however it is not my story so if you want to hear it, you'll have to pester Cap.
• "White supremacist ass crack" - I also remember this one. While we were merrily drinking at the bar a short, fat man with a shaved head and white supremacist tattoos all over it walked in and bellied up to the bar. We noticed him and were afraid, but as we were all white and out of his line of sight we soon forgot he was there. Until someone (Kelly?) happened to glance over and notice that his pants were falling off. Like, a lot falling off. His jeans were nearly to his knees and his gray boxer briefs were just above balls level. I can't believe he wouldn't have noticed a breeze across such a large amount of exposed ham hock. Being very drunk by then, we fumbled conspicuously for cameras and may have been talking about it much louder than we intended, but we manged to get our shots without being shot by him or his friend.
• "Tai's face (the photos that are the same)" - In my camera is a series of photos where various people are holding their hand out in front of their face and appear to be either angry or singing opera. I am assuming these are the photos this note refers to, but I fail to recall what the fuck I was talking about.
• "Jenny, how do you make it happen?" and "cap & cow (ask Kelly)" - These are some of the last notes I wrote and I haven't got any idea what the could possibly mean, though I seemed to place a great deal of importance on remembering the second one because I've written it very carefully in even better handwriting than I have when I'm sober.

There is another separate set of notes from when I polled everyone at the table about what my next hair cut and/or color should be. Most of the suggestions are as would be expected for my head: "Jet black with platinum and Burgundy highlights cut to the chin", "Burgundy or eggplant", "Pink and black/ jagged", "Green and rich yellow", "Black with silver, jagged (not curly)", except for my brother's vote which says far more about the speaker than it does about me. I quoted him directly: "Put it back to the color it's supposed to be. I want you to look like Ann Coulter is your friend."

All in all, I had a really great time, including watching the Browns win their third game in a row (the hell?) before going to the airport on Sunday. Which is why I was so startled by the overwhelming sense of joy and relief I had upon landing back in Chicago. I can only conclude that it is the flat and colorless expanse of Cleveland itself that produces the feelings of hopelessness and despair I get every time I go there.

Christmas Jeer

Ok, ok, I get it now. I finally realize how it can be that not everyone shares my Christmas related glee. This is the saga of the tree.

I waited until the last minute to buy a Christmas tree, either because I am lazy or because I told myself I was poor so I wouldn't have to admit that I am lazy. Either way, on Sunday afternoon I found myself at the Home Depot pawing through picked over Douglas Firs looking for one that was taller than I am. The 7 footer I found was already baled and I bought it without bothering to unbale and look at it, either because I am lazy or because I told myself it was the only 7' Douglas left and I was buying it regardless so I wouldn't have to admit that I am lazy. It was actually a pretty painless transaction: the guy at the check out counter was unbelievably friendly for a Home Depot cashier standing outside in the cold all day (he volunteered that he was enjoying his work because so many people were leaving with trees and it made them happy). He even talked to the tree trimmer guy for me about cleaning up the bottom of it, which was one less stranger I had to talk to. Then two other remarkably chipper Depotists merrily bound my new tree to the top of Alistair whilst gushing about what an awesome car I have. This was the last good tree related thing to happen.

Later that evening, after carrying the tree up three flights of stairs unaided, I began the process of trying to get it erected. Usually this is an extremely easy endeavor due to the Magic Tree Stand. The Magic Tree Stand is a stand that has a long spike up the middle of it. The tree farmer I bought it from used to drill a hole in the bottom of the tree that had been purchased that would fit the spike, then when the customer got it home they would simply impale the tree on the spike through the hole and the tree would miraculously stand up straight without any screw tightening, arguing or swearing. The only thing different now that I live in Chicago is that the hole is not pre-drilled when I buy my tree. I have to get out my wood boring drill bit and make it myself. Up until Sunday that hadn't been a problem. True, I am a weakling and drilling into a tree is hard and makes my arm tired, but it only takes 10 minutes and then voila! Easy treesy. (heh.) So I got out my drill, lined it up straight with the trunk, drilled a 5 inch deep, 5/8 inch wide hole in the bottom of my tree, manhandled it through the back door and into my house, stuck it on the spike and let go.

It slumped over.

I stood looking at it, shocked, because this had never happened before. The bartender walked into the room behind me and helpfully told me "That's really crooked." The problem did not become apparent until I finally unbaled it: the trunk of the tree ran straight and true, right down to the bottom - except for the lowest 8 inches or so, which jutted off at 30 degree angle from the rest of the tree. Thus my carefully drilled hole was 30 degrees off center and my tree appeared to be drunk. There was nothing I could do to fix it. The hole needs to fit tight to the spike or the tree will wobble around with nothing to support it, so redrilling wasn't an option. Knowing that if I had just unbaled and looked at the tree when I bought it instead of being lazy, I could have avoided the problem entirely wasn't helpful. It was too late to come up with a solution, so I just filled the tree stand with water, leaned the tree on the wall and went to bed.

Monday morning dawned, and so did the realization that the only real solution was to go out and buy a normal tree stand and start over. So after work I set out to buy one. This was easier said than done. Home Depot was sold out of tree stands. Target apparently never carried them in the first place. Eventually I found myself at Menards where not only did they have a stack of tree stands that was taller than me, but allegedly I saved big money. After dinner I went about transferring my tree into the new tree stand.

Actually, it may be more accurate to say that after dinner I spent an hour and a half wrestling with a dead tree. After I'd assembled the new tree stand, I picked up the tree out of the old tree stand and laid it on the floor. I now had: one tree stand filled with water near the wall, one empty tree stand way too close the the coffee table, a 7 foot tall unbaled fir tree laying across most of the floor and cutting me off from the rest of the room and a one year old kitten slowly circling the tree like a land shark. It seemed best that I take apart the old tree stand and get rid of the water first since if I didn't I was certain to spill it, step in it, or both. I took it apart and picked up the tub of water, then realized that the only way to get rid of it was going to involve me climbing over an armchair. I somehow managed to do this without breaking my neck or dumping the water all over the bartender (who was very helpfully sitting two feet away and gambling at the computer as if nothing were going on behind him). This will be easier than I thought, I said to myself, ensuring that it was going to turn out to be way more difficult than I thought.

I picked up the tree and tried to put it in the new stand, which was still way too close to the coffee table because I hadn't thought to move it. Everything on the table tumbled to the floor. I sighed and put the tree down, fixed the coffee table and moved the tree stand. I went to pick up the tree to try again but this time, the cat, who had disappeared earlier, poked her head out from inside the tree and glared at me. I extracted her from the branches and tried again. Yay! The tree was finally in the stand. Oh but wait: Why was it wobbling around like that? It turns out that while the lower branches were perfectly high enough on the trunk for the old stand, on this one they were too low and would have to be sawed off before I could get it in the stand. I don't have a saw. I put the tree back down and sat on the floor glowering, thinking I was going to have to go back out AGAIN and buy a saw. Luckily, it dawned on me that Jose, our friendly but extremely drunk, English language challenged building engineer probably had a hand saw I could borrow. I went down the three flights of stairs to his apartment to check. "Hey Jose. Do you have a saw I could borrow?"

"A sword?"

"No, a saw. Like a hand saw? For my tree."

"Three sword?"

I mimed sawing and wondered why I just HAD to take Latin in high school instead of taking Spanish like everybody else*. But it worked, and after five minutes of him digging around in his massive collection of tools, I was trudging back up three flights of stairs with a hand saw.

There appeared to be only one branch that I would need to remove, which was a huge blessing because as I stated before I am weakling and sawing is hard. Mr. Scrooge the bartender continued with his fine assistance by turning around in his chair to watch and saying "That is not a good idea. You're going to cut your leg off." Angela was also watching from a position way too close to the saw and I had to keep stopping to shoo her away. Eventually, the branch was removed (my leg still attached) and I went to pick up the tree to try again. Once again there was a cat in it. Once again I fished around inside it until I pulled out an unhappy kitten.

By now my wimpy arms were exhausted and I closed my eyes and made a wish for the tree to please PLEASE fit in the stand without me having to saw anything else. When I heard the trunk hit the bottom of the stand my heart skipped a beat and I let out the breath I didn't realize I was holding. "Is this tree straight?" I asked the bartender.

"Hold on," he said, finishing his bet while I stood there holding up a 7 foot tree. A minute later he glanced over his shoulder for an 8th of a second. "Yeah, that looks good," he said and went back to gambling. It was obvious by now that I was not going to be offered any useful help from the roommate who had been asking me for weeks when I was going to get "our" tree. Oh, I should also mention here that this entire time I had been wearing long sleeves and gloves because as could only happen to me, I am allergic to the tree and I break out in a very painful rash if the sap gets on my skin. I now found myself kneeling on the floor, hot and sweaty from sawing and repeatedly lifting a tree whilst wearing a fucking snowsuit, trying to keep a tree standing up straight as I reached underneath the tree to tighten the screws with my other hand, my face breaking out in angry red dots because the low branches were all up in my face, praying that I wouldn't poke my fucking eye out with with one of them and begging my cat (who was now sitting on the arm of the chair staring at the tree and licking her lips) not to jump in the branches and knock the fucking tree over on top of me and for one moment, one brief moment while I was on the floor turning screws, I caught a glimpse of why everyone glares at me when I start singing Christmas carols and wearing Santa hats the day after Halloween. But then I stood up and saw my beautiful, full, fragrant Christmas tree and I remembered myself and realized it was all worth it.

The lights, however, I decided could wait for one more fucking day.

*BrownsFan pointed out that even if I had taken Spanish, I probably would not have learned the word for saw anyway.