The Insanity Has Begun

It's getting to be that time of year when I go completely insane*. The two biggest events of the year are right around the corner: Christmas, the best holiday ever invented, and then the most glorious day of all days, MY BIRTHDAY.

Yes, I do know it's September and that Christmas starts in November** and my birthday is in January. I am running out of time! There is planning to do! For the inevitable Christmas cross-stitching marathon, I have patterns to design and thread to buy. More importantly, I have to brush up on my knowledge of structural engineering.

Why? I'm glad you asked.

Faithful readers of Bizzybiz, prepare yourselves for the Greatest Birthday Cake of All Time. Seriously. My volcano cake from a few years back? Child's play. The Flying Spaghetti Monster cake? Amateur hour. The Death Star cake and accompanying X-Wing and Tie Fighter cakes? Pure crap. This cake, my friends, this cake is going to be such a triumph you will cry tears of joy at the majesty of it. You will be at odds with yourself wanting to eat it because you know it will taste like love and rainbows but also not wanting to eat it because if you do you won't be able to look at it and bask in the glow of the heavenly light that surely will be shining down upon it. Provided that I can fortify this delicious monument to my birth enough to keep it standing up and to transport it from my kitchen to the bar - hence my needing a tutorial in How To Build Things That Don't Immediately Fall Over.

As I said at the beginning, it is that time of year.

*as opposed to my normal baseline level of insane.
**The 40 Days of Christmas, invented not by me but someone else (in all fairness someone equally as unbalanced as I am), begins on November 16th for those who have not been around in previous years to roll their eyes at me.

In Which Amberance Is Too Amberancy For Her Own Good

Most of the time I'm pretty good at impressing boys, because, let's face it, apart from the tits and the vagina, I am one. The average guy seems to really enjoy the fact that I can intelligently discuss football and hockey, know positions and formations and who the players are, and most importantly the fact that I never claim to enjoy such and such player because "he is so hot"*. Your nerdier type of guy is usually drawn in by the fact that I can recite the entire original Star Wars trilogy verbatim from memory, or that I'm happy to debate Kirk vs. Picard for as long as it takes to convince you that it is obviously Picard. By the time the conversation turns to sex (and the conversation ALWAYS turns to sex) every guy around thinks I am their dream girl. I'm happy to point out and then join you ogling that girl over there who is falling out of her shirt, after all, that IS an incredible rack! Girls need to be less selfish and uptight: blow jobs and anal sex for everyone, all the time! And did you see the centerfold in Playboy last month? Oh, because I subscribe, that's how I saw it.

The thing is, and here's the rub (heh): the above behavior is the kind of thing that works best in a group setting. When you're one on one it can be kind of off putting in that it comes off as overly aggressive, and when you're one on one with your really hot friend who is so attractive he distracts you and throws you off your game it can be a disaster. Such as when he is nice enough to drive you home and he makes a comment as he's dropping you off about the hilarious squeakiness of your vinyl pants. Answering that statement with a pouty sounding "Well you were SUPPOSED to take them off me!" can quickly make you go from "this girl is really cool" to "this woman is fucking terrifying". I should probably apologize for that. You know who you are.




*Seriously girls who like sports, this is annoying. Stop doing it. I'm not saying you can't think they're hot, but you need to keep that shit to yourself and not bring it up in the middle of a conversation about whether or not the Wildcat can continue to be an effective formation in the NFL now that the defenses are prepared for it (it can't).

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.