Hide Your Vegetables. Thugglife's In Town.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm out at the Douche Dorm this weekend, and I have the plague. It reached it's worst point yesterday evening while Fish, Thugglife and I were watching American History X. So when it was decided that the group would go out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, I declined to attend. I wasn't terribly hungry, what with the plague and all, and I didn't want to face the prospect of having to sit up in a chair for an extended period of time. Instead it was decided that I would take a nap on the couch while JoE, Fish, Chester and Thugglife went to dinner, and that they would bring me back an order of celery and ranch.

So I napped fitfully for a while and awaited their return. In the course of this I suddenly discovered I was ravenously hungry. It came out of nowhere - I wasn't hungry at all, and then in the next moment I could have devoured an entire horse. So I was happy when Klug came home and told me the boys were on their way back, which meant that so was my celery. Or so I thought.

The guys trooped into the house. The moods of these gentlemen were a bizarre mix: Fish had a look of barely restrained fury, Thugglife was moping along sheepishly, Chester seemed nervous, and JoE was on the verge of cracking up laughing. I knew immediately that something was up. Fish sat down beside me on the couch. "Where's my celery?" I asked.

"Ask Chris," says Fish, at the same time as Chester says "There isn't any." Chris looked at his feet and JoE snickered.

I tried again. "Where's my celery? I'm starving," I addressed to Fish a second time.

"I told you to ask Chris," he spat. Chris had retired to the porch for a cigarette by now but JoE and Chester were in the kitchen attempting to restrain laughter. "Yeah, it's real funny for you guys, but I'm going to be the one getting guilt-tripped all night because there isn't any celery."

"You guys forgot my celery?"

"No. Almost. We remembered at the last minute and JoE went to get it. But it's gone now."

"What happened to it?"

"Ask Chris."

I am now pissed off for a number of reasons. First of all I am starving, and the meager dinner I was expecting was clearly not going to materialize. Secondly, there is obviously something going on that I don't know about and they're doing a shitty job of hiding it. And third, I'm angry at Fish for apparently thinking that I am going to start a jihad over a couple pieces of celery. Does he really think I am that much of a shrew? I decided on the silent treatment method of punishment for them all, closed my eyes and pretended I was trying to go back to sleep.

When Thugglife came back inside he sat down in the Lovesac and said quietly, "I'm sorry, ish*."

"Chris, where's my celery?"

Crickets.

Fish says, "Do you want me to make you something?"

I am exasperated. "NO. What I want is for people to answer questions when I ask them something. Where's my celery?"

"I already told you. The person you can thank for your celery not being here is Chris. So ask him. I'm going outside."

I exploded. "JESUS CHRIST! Is it that hard for you people to answer a simple fucking QUESTION? It's JUST LETTUCE!" Fish said nothing and shut the door behind him. JoE sat down on the couch next to me and I looked at Thugglife.

"I'm sorry, ish," he said in a tiny voice.

"Chris," I said calmly, "I'm not going to freak out over a couple pieces of celery. The only way I would freak out about it is if you guys just said, 'Fuck her' and didn't bother to get me any. Obviously at some point there was celery, and now there's not. What happened to it?"

"I ran it over with the car."

"You WHAT?" I shouted, and then burst into hysterical laughter.

"I ran it over with the car," he said again.

I was laughing so hard that I had tears running down my face. "Chris," I choked out. "How the hell do you run over celery with the car?"

"It was in the street."

"The street? How did it get in the street?"

"Ask JoE."

By now I'm laughing so hard my head hurts and I turned to JoE, who was also doubled over. "What did you DO?"

"O.K.," he says, "Here's how it went. We went out and then realized we forgot to get your celery. So I ran back in to get it. When I was coming out, it just leapt out of my hands and into the street right behind the wheel. And Chris ran it over. And then I just jumped in the car and we took off."

I didn't think I could laugh any harder than I was already laughing, but somehow I did. My head is pounding and I still can't stop. "That's just....(laughing)...That's...(laughing)....you ran it over with the car? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!" Over and over, until finally I had the entire house cracking up with me.

I dined on pretzels and orange juice that night. It was the best I'd felt all weekend.

*They nicknamed me ish, because while I am not Fish's girlfriend, I am girlfriend-ish.

I Think I'll Go For A Walk

Hey there kids. Just wanted to say that I have the plague. I'm in the care of Dr. Fish and his crack(head) team of nurses out in Lisle. Dr. Fish has me on a strict regimen of DayQuil, Kool-aid and episodes of Deadwood. I hope to have my condition improve soon, as I don't want to go on the cart.

Crazy Girls

Some years ago when 1153 and I were in Vegas we went and saw a show called Crazy Girls. It was alright I guess. I was somewhat underwhelmed. I mean, I was entertained by it, but it seemed kind of pointless to me to be sitting 14 rows back from the stage watching topless girls dance around when, for about the same price as the ticket, I could be watching completely naked girls dance around up close and in my lap at a strip club. When in Rome I guess.

That little story is pretty much not related at all to the point I'm trying to make here, and that point is this: Girls Are Crazy. They're all of 'em crazy, and they will drive you crazy, and they will drive themselves crazy. If you are a girl and you are reading this thinking, "but I'm not crazy!" well, that just proves that you are not only crazy but also delusional. Let me explain by way of example:

Driving Themselves Crazy

What is it with girls that are in bad relationships with bad people who make them entirely miserable and cry constantly that they will do absolutely anything to stay in their terrible relationship? Huh? (By the way, I am one of these.) Their ability to rationalize and explain away disrespectful and even downright abusive behavior on behalf of their partners is far more acute than almost anyone of the male half of the species.

I have this awesome friend who I love. She is pretty and funny and fun to be around, has a great heart, a great sense of humor, great taste in music and a job she's good at. Her boyfriend is a lazy, verbally abusive, persistently drunk, almost certainly cheating, very certainly lying, freeloading bottom dweller with no job. No paying job anyway. He lives in her house with her, uses her computer to chat online with countless other girls (who are told by him that he has no girlfriend) and justifies that behavior by saying he can't respect her because he doesn't like this guy who she knew, like, 5 years ago (4 1/2 years before she met her boyfriend), despite the fact that she hasn't talked to him since before she met her boyfriend.

We talked about it this weekend and I sat and listened while she relayed the following things:

• She feels she has to have him living with her because she doesn't trust him not to cheat if she's not right there watching him.
• She came across an e-mail from a mutual friend of theirs that alludes to him having already cheated on her.
• She is afraid to hang around with another friend of ours because she thinks he'll tell her bad things about her boyfriend that she doesn't want to hear (even though they're true).
• He continuously makes statements like "If we can't go three days without fighting it's over" and then conveniently "forgets" when they fight after a day and a half. (Keep in mind he has no where else to live.)

This girl is not stupid. She knows he is untrustworthy and she knows she should leave him. But she won't. Why? Because maybe this time he'll keep his promise. Because that 5 minutes a day when they're not fighting are really great. Because anecdotal evidence of cheating is not the same as actually catching him. In short, because she is a girl. In the end this relationship will not be over until he leaves her for another girl. Which she knows, but disregards. This is how we drive ourselves crazy.
Driving You Crazy
On the flip side of that coin, you sometimes find girls in perfectly good relationships with very nice people. And when a girl finds herself in such a situation she will do everything in her power to sabotage it. It's not on purpose. It's just because we can't help ourselves.
A guy friend of mine was recently dating a crazy girl. Incidentally, when it was pointed out to her that all girls are crazy she was horrifically offended, because she is not crazy, she is perfectly sane. She chased after my friend pretty hard-core early on. It started off rocky, but she was quite persistent. My friend is very sweet and nice and funny and adorable and a pretty good boyfriend as far as they go. Because of this, the crazy girl had to destroy it. So she cheats on him. Which is shitty, but that's not the crazy part.
When she tells him that she cheated he doesn't take it particularly well. In fact, he breaks up with her. Her response to this is quite frigging insane. She really, really, really wants him to reconsider and for them to stay together. And, you know, it's not an unreasonable request because the cheating was not her fault. Oh no! In fact, it is my friend's fault for pushing her into a relationship before she was ready! Obviously he should have known that this would lead to cheating. The holes in this logic could sink an aircraft carrier:

• If she wasn't ready for a relationship, why did she chase him so hard?
• The cheating was not an accidental, in the heat of the moment thing. She invited the guy over her house. To sleep over. She deliberately hid this date from my friend.
• If she's not ready for a relationship, why is it so friggin important to get this relationship she's not ready for back on track?

I think we all know the answer: girls are mother fucking crazy.
If it seems to you that my knowing that all girls are crazy should exempt me from the craziness, let me assure you that it isn't true. In high school I dated a 25 year old alcoholic who routinely had me drive him home long before I had an actual license because he was way too drunk to even handle opening the door. He took all my money from my restaurant job and spent it on booze and weed. He had no job of his own. I stayed with him for over a year. I loved him! Because I am a girl and girls are crazy.
Listen my friends: if you are out there trying to find yourself a girl who is not crazy, you are going about things the wrong way and you will be alone for a really long time. What you need to be looking for is a girl whose type and level of crazy is something you can learn to tolerate. Because we are all of us crazy.

You Know You're Old When...

You know you're old when you are reading the paper in the morning and there's a story about this year's crop of college freshmen which points out that they weren't even alive yet when the Challenger exploded.

Chicago Tip #117

The Paulina Brown Line station is apparently infested with ginormous, hideous, evil, gray spiders. I wouldn't have found that out if I was smart enough to remember to get off at my brother's stop when I've left my car at his house.

Does This Actually Work on People?

Here's a message I just got on MySpace from some person claiming to be named CrAS (oh how I love the trendy new randomized capitalization!) whom I have never met, spoken to or corresponded with in my entire life:


Aug 19, 2005 10:26 AM
Subject:
No Subject
Body:
Yo whattup shortie....not bad. aiight here's the deal, i'm here from california on business and i'm lookin' for a hot date. got tix to the yankees game tonight so holla at ya boy. Also open to going to the 97th floor of the john hancock. CrAS

Be still, my heart! Thanks, CrAS(s), but I already have plans, aiight?

*delete*

Not Feeling It Today

Today marks 13 years since I lost my mom to cancer. I wrote a whole thing about it over on MySpace, but I'm not really in the mood to talk about it anymore. I will say here what I said there:

Do me a huge favor and go hug your mom or call her and tell her that you love her. Because you can. You never know how much of a luxury that is until you lose it.

Sorry I'm not a barrel of monkeys today. I'll return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense tomorrow.
(P.S. Spell check wants to replace "MySpace" with "mishaps" which I think is a great idea.)

Stealth

Well, they did it. They made me watch Stealth. It was even worse than I expected. Off the charts unreal. Really.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for suspension of disbelief - it's pretty much how I get through the days. But in this one, they just asked too much of me, to wit:

• The U.S. Navy has no qualms about sending new planes that are still in the testing phase into combat situations if they feel like it.
• Insubordination and failure to obey direct orders in the U.S. Navy is not that big a deal, and in fact, your commanding officer will even tell you that you did a good job on the thing you were expressly ordered not to do.
• An airplane developed by the U.S. Navy to be capable of thinking for itself, flying for itself, and continuously evolving will have an expensive state of the art cockpit built into it, just for fun.
• The U.S. Navy is so inept at advanced technology that they need ubergeeks with scruffy hair and no social skills to take care of their expensive new airplane. Also, they will allow these geeks to hang out on their aircraft carriers.
• Robots have DNA.
• Let me repeat that one. Robots have DNA.
• Technology geniuses who develop planes for the U.S. Navy are all really cool and suave, have giant, ultra modern houses and superhot women in tiny dresses hanging all over them.
• Not only can you eject from your plane at 30,000 feet and still be conscious, but you will also be able to keep a running monologue about how fast you are falling so your friends on the aircraft carrier will know you're ok.
• You can fall from 30,000 feet, have your parachute catch fire, live to tell about it AND have the wherewithal to hang on to your gun.
• Sometimes your commanding officer will try to have you killed by outside assassins if you know too much.
• Not a single person in the North Korean Army save for one guy can aim to save their lives. Our people never ever ever miss.
• The border between North Korea and South Korea is separated by a chain link fence.

If I can save one person from going to see this completely worthless drivel then I can die knowing I made a difference. Please, I beseech you, spare yourself from the agony which I could not escape.

Bobcat Bacchanalia

Old friends are the best kind sometimes (as in you've known them a long time, not as in they're decrepit and smell like mothballs).

My friend Ashley is in town for a few days for all the goings on surrounding the Improv Olympics. Ashley and I went to college together at OU for two quarters until she transferred to another school. She was roommates with Heather and we all lived here. We had really good times in college, such as wearing Ashley's bra as a hat, screaming obscenities at hockey games and "decorating" the boys' floor with tampons colored in red marker.

I haven't seen Ashley in something like 8 years, so when I found out she was coming to town I was ecstatic and promised to pick her up at the airport. As a side note, let me just tell you how cool and native I felt going to pick up my friend at O'Hare all by myself without any help. It was so Chicago of me. I was almost as excited about picking someone up from the airport as I was about seeing my friend after nearly a decade.

Our plan was to check her in at her hotel, her shower and get dressed because she didn't want to be airplane fabulous all night, grab some dinner somewhere, and then meet up with a bunch of her friends for an improv show. This would have been all well and good if it hadn't taken us over an hour to find her hotel in Evanston. This is not my fault: when the directions say to travel 5 miles, I don't regularly assume that by "five" they mean twelve. We traversed the street twice before finally calling the hotel and demanding a list of landmarks to guide us to our destination (which Ashley dutifully checked off as we passed them and cheered loudly). So by the time Ashley was ready to go in her way awesome strapless dress and cutest shoes ever (I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that reads "I taught your boyfriend that thing you like." which Ashley thought was awesome and tried to take a picture of, but it looks like she was just trying to take a picture of my boobs), we had to skip dinner because we were going to be late for the show. This was maybe not the best idea.

When we get to Wrigleyville and friggin' PARK, Ashley calls her friends from her improv troupe so we can met them for the show, and is told that we won't be attending the show after all since all the tickets are sold out. As an alternative plan, they've decided we should just drink tons of beer all night long (except for Ashley, who rocked it hard core with double shots of Malibu and coke), which was great for the two of us since we'd eaten nothing at all the entire day. Consequently I was drunk in 11 seconds.

Ashley's friends are awesome and funny and quick, and Dave pointed out to me that I should probably have expected that since they all do improv comedy, which was a very good point I thought. In short order we started telling some "this one time at college" stories, which in turn caused me to say "Hey, we should call Heather!"

"OH MY GOD WE SHOULD TOTALLY CALL HEATHER!!!!" I love Ashley because she says this like she thought it up and I didn't just say the exact same thing one second ago. And also because where Heather lives it's 1:30 in the morning on a Wednesday night. It took us a couple of tries to get it right however. The first call we completely screwed up so we had to try again. What follows is an e-mail I got from Heather this morning, which will describe this event much better than I could (because she was not drunk):

-A detailed account of Heather Moyer's activities between 1:20am and 1:50am on August 11-


Heather is sleeping. She hears the phone ring, but she never answers the phone while she's half-asleep because if it's really important, the person will call back right away.In the background, Heather hears an oddly distorted message, but can't make it out as the machine is too far away from the bedroom.


Suddenly, Heather's cell phone rings. Her stomach drops because that now means someone is dead or something is on fire. Amy grumbles about who the hell is calling us right now.


Heather gets up, staggers into the living room, steps on the cat, steps on the cat's sharp toy, and then turns the light on. The cell phone has stopped ringing, so Heather listens to the message on the machine.


The following is a transcript of that message on the home phone number's answering machine:
----------
(loud noise and garbled words), HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, CRAP, SHIT, WHAT? HAHAHAHAHAH
aslgijwogijwerovijnoivjhioerjhvboijhweroibhoi!!!!!
*beep*
------------
Now Heather listens to the message on her cell phone's voicemail. The following is a transcript of that message:
------------
(very loud background noise)
Okay Heather. this is Ashley and Amber, for real. We're leaving you a message, we would like to apologize for whatever message is on your phone. HAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
And now we are clearly drunk, ahhahahahahahhahahahaha!!!!!!!
laishfolahifsadghiwiouvbhuiweb!!!!!!!!!!
Mindy is someone I know who Amber only met tonight and Mindy is using Amber's vibrator in her nether regions!!!!!
hahahhaahfgoaihgwoirhgouwerhgvaosifhoaihvoahvoh!!!!!!!!!
*beep*
------------
Heather's lovely wife rolls over to ask what's going on after hearing Heather say, "Those fuckers" while laughing.


For the next 20 minutes as Heather tries to go back to sleep, she will just start to doze off and then start giggling uncontrollably at what the hell just happened. The words "nether regions" keep making her crack up and Amy is
getting irritated that Heather keeps shaking the bed with her laughter.
FIN

I really only remember the rest of the night in snips, such as Ashley's dress falling down and Dave saying something about it being a Jesus dress because it rose again, and Sam managing to sing all of "Piece of Shit car" at kareoke without swearing, and drunk dialing the bartender because someone said the word "manhole" which is a now defunct bar he used to manage (bartender: What are you doing up? me: Dude, someone just said manhole so I called you! bartender: It's not there anymore. It's closed. me: I know! And Mindy just kissed Ashley's teeth! bartender: *click*), and trying to get my keys back from Mindy, who did indeed have my keychain vibrator in her nether regions.

It was a completely awesome night and I'm so glad I got to see her, and so sorry we made her walk about 5 miles up and down Clark Street in her fabulous but totally impractical shoes. And so disappointed that we waited 8 freaking years to do that.

I Think They Like Me

If you haven't noticed, I spend a fair amount of time with my awesome friend Fish. Yeah. His friends have noticed as well, as evidenced by this IM conversation between Fish and Thugglife Chris, which will also serve to illustrate how much we both are loved:

Thugglife: You guys are a couple
Fish: I know
Thugglife: of dorks. I wasn't finished.

Happy Birthday Thugglife Chris

Today is Thugglife Chris' birthday. This is important because for his birthday we are going out to BD's Mongolian BBQ, which is better than sex*. Unfortunately I also promised him I would watch some movie about a repentant, formerly evil airplane that wants to stick its fuselage inside Jessica Biel. I tried to get out of it by claiming I was drunk when I said it, but I was at work at the time, and for some reason I wasn't believed. That's alright. For my birthday we'll be having lobster and watching Ishtar. Two can play at this game.

*depending on who I'm having sex with and how hungry I am at the time.

Oxygen Starved

I have a tendency to write stuff down a lot, because funny things happen around me all the time and I think to myself "I should blog that". But then I sit down to write and I go "Wait, what was that again?" So I started writing things down so I would remember to blog them.

The problem is I'm sometimes in such a hurry to write something down that I provide myself with no notes as far as context or even who may have said the thing I thought was funny.

This is my guess at what must have happened last Thursday, when I came across a snip of paper in my purse this morning which read as follows:

"Last week I almost took a breath. But then I thought about it."

Don't You Know My Time is at a Premium???

You know what sucks mad dick? When you are one or two pages from completing a report for a client that took the entire day yesterday and most of the morning today, and then your boss comes over and says, "Oh, I forgot to tell you, on that Client X report, we need to change, um, everything."

So much for having an actual life this weekend.

And Speaking of Jennie Smash...

As soon as I posted that last thing, I ventured over to her blog to see if there was anything new, only to find that she too wrote about peeing, bugs and trains. I'll let you know if the crazy has any comments on this coincidence(?).

Ghost in the Machine (and other tales about my crazy)

As my heroine Jennie Smash might say*, I have a touch of the crazy. As such, my brain occasionally** derails over ordinary, mundane things.

Today I had to go to the bathroom at work. I try not to go in there much, because there might be other people in there and I don't want people knowing that I sometimes pee. But extra coffee this morning (because I was tired, because I slept on the couch, because there was a spider in my room) necessitated that I go in there, so I did. I was relieved to find that I was in there all alone. I choose a stall and sit down, and the next thing you know I hear the toilet in the stall next to me flushing. My immediate thought was that there was someone crouched on the toilet seat so that I couldn't see their feet trying to catch me in the act of peeing. I am not making this up. But then the toilet flushes again. And again. And I realize that this particular toilet must be the ghost toilet, and not only that but there must be one heck of a line.

So now that I know it's just ghosts and not a pee spy, I feel much better and go to wash my hands. Did I tell you about the automatic soap dispensers? You stick your hand under there and it drops the perfect amount of soap into your palm. I am still completely mesmerized by this. But today there is a problem. The dispenser on the right, which is my preferred sink, has a flashing red light. And again, the crazy tells me that a flashing red light in the soap dispenser means someone has planted a bomb in it. If I use that particular soap dispenser the bomb will go off and blow me to smithereens. As much as my logical, rational side (and I do have one) keeps trying to tell me how ridiculous that is, I end up washing my hands in the left hand sink. Just to be on the safe side.

Speaking of bombs, yesterday I'm sitting on the eL at noon, playing collapse on my phone. Across from me is an enormous (in the solid sense, not in the fat sense) black man with work boots on. Which really wouldn't be anything to write about in and of itself, except that when he got off the train, I saw some kind of round metal thing that had been left in the seat next to him, and I presumed by him. And I start to freak out because they've been bombing trains and buses in London lately, and while Chicago is neither London nor New York, it still is a pretty big city, so someone leaving a bomb on the eL is not entirely out of the question. But seconds later I relax as this thought jumps unbidden into my brain: Don't be silly, black construction workers do not leave bombs on trains. Which is true as far as I can tell, but don't ask me where my brain came up with a blanket statement like that. I have no idea. It is futile to ask questions of the crazy.

So did I slip it by you? The part where I was on the eL at noon? Right. That was because I was headed home on my lunch break due to the crazy insisting to me that my lovely cat had jumped out a second story window and was lying in a crumpled heap in my backyard. See, I had left a window open without a screen in my kitchen because for some reason there's a bunch of flies in my apartment and rather than kill them like a normal person, I decided to leave a window open all day long while I was at work in the hope that they would taste freedom and just fly out. But an hour after getting to work, I realize that I opened it pretty wide...wide enough for Kristen to fit through should she so choose. Now mind you, my cat doesn't really show signs of wanting to escape, let alone by way of a two story drop onto a slab of concrete. Additionally, she seems to lack any kind of initiative for anything other than trying to steal chicken from me. Nevertheless, the crazy had a hold of me by then and there was no way I was going to be able to concentrate until I was sure she was safe inside the house. Which she was; I found her sleeping on the couch right where I left her when I went to work in the morning. Explaining to my boss when I got back about what my "emergency" was at home was...interesting. But may I say thank heaven that guy thinks his dogs are his kids the way I think Kristen is mine.

So what have we learned today kids? Nothing really, except that Amber's thought patterns may or may not be based in reality depending on the day, and possibly the size of the room. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to concentrate on chewing the exact same number of M&Ms on each side of my mouth to prevent my face from becoming visibly lopsided.

*Must give credit where credit is due. There's been a rash of e-plagiarism lately, especially on MySpace. Also, she might argue that she is crazier than me.
**frequently

Betrayal

I have loved IKEA since the first time TupperDoug dragged me to the one in Pittsburgh. "It's a furniture store," he told me.

"Whoopity-doo," I said.

"No, you don't understand. It's Swedish."

Having set my expectations firmly at underwhelming, I was entirely unprepared for the awesomeness that awaited me on the inside of the gaudy blue and yellow building. Everything is set up like rooms that look exactly like the rooms on the Real World (which I was still into at the time)(The reason for this is that MTV decorates the Real World houses with stuff from IKEA). It's so modern and trendy looking, and affordable! and best of all, you can take your furniture home with you the same day. Oh the hours I spent at Pittsburgh IKEA, wandering around with Doug and not with Doug, since my addiction became so great that I started sneaking into town behind his back to quench my IKEA need. I soon had a couch, several chairs, a dining room set, a coffee table and assorted rugs, curtains and picture frames. My house could have been an IKEA catalog page and I was so, so happy about it.

Flash forward a number of years to 2005 when I moved to Chicago. My friend Fish just bought a new house, where he has moved with 3 and a half other fine gentlemen (the half gentleman being Phil, who doesn't officially live there, but also never seems to leave). Move in was two weekends ago and I went out to the new abode for the duration to help out. One of our first orders of business? A group outing to Schaumburg IKEA. Imagine my joy at spending the better part of four hours in the store of my dreams! JoE, Fish and I giggled as we stood in line with an overflowing shopping cart and two flatbed carts full of at home assembly joy.

It was all downhill from there.

The first problem encountered was Fish's new four drawer dresser. It wasn't that it was difficult to build, it's just that it is difficult to build a four drawer chest when you've only been provided with two drawer bottoms. I mean, you can do it, but there wouldn't be much point now would there? The bottom is kind of an important part of the drawer. In the meantime the MASSIVE wardrobe JoE had purchased ( I am not kidding you, you could comfortably fit five people in there) was the wrong color and had to be exchanged. Also the mirrors that are meant to be hung inside the doors were missing the adhesive backing that we were assured would be in the package.

And then there was Fish's bed. It seemed simple enough at the start. If you've never built IKEA furniture before, let me explain that there are no words telling you what to do anywhere in the instruction book. The entire tale is told through drawings. On the first page is a drawing of the tools you will need, which in this case included both a phillips head and a flat head screwdriver. Step one was a drawing of this: screw hex nut onto double threaded screw. Use included flimsy wrench to drive screw into the footboard. Further use included flimsy wrench to remove hex nut from double threaded screw and save it for later. This went ok until I tried actually getting the hex nut off. For every time I tried to turn it, it would start unscrewing the screw from the footboard. Eventually we solved the problem with a pair of pliers holding the screw in place, however I was mildly annoyed at that fact that pliers were not pictured at the beginning of my instruction manual. Next there was the problem of the metal supports spanning the space between the midbeam and the sideboards. The screws required here were miniscule, and had to be screwed in upside down, into pieces that kept slipping out of where they were supposed to be even when someone else was holding them there for you. Fish and I struggled with this for an hour. Just as we thought we were nearing the end we discovered we were missing one screw. FUCKERS!!!! There was no way I was giving up. Fish was sleeping in his bed that night come hell or high water. We managed to scare up a screw in the house that was the same size but a different thread, which I managed to force in through sheer will.

After all that, my blind devotion to the IKEA gods is waning. All those years, IKEA, all those years of loyal purchasing, only to be betrayed during my most comprehensive visit yet? Why? Why have you forsaken me IKEA? I have done everything that you asked: I have pulled my own boxes out of the warehouse, loaded my own car, assembled my own pieces. I don't understand why you would abandon me like this. IKEA you have broken my heart.

Atkins, Shmatkins

I discovered at Bed, Bath and Beyond this weekend that I've lost about 5 pounds on the Only Eat Dinner (if that) and Walk to the Bar Diet. I bet I could lose even more if I start drinking some straight up Jack Daniels instead of the fattening beer. It would be gross, but in order to look your best you have to make sacrifices.

The Height of Laziness

I have a few pieces for you all, but no time to write them today. It is busy season after all, as Mary, Timmy and Bia can attest. But in the interest of giving you at least SOMETHING to read, here is a post I wrote for my MySpace blog on Friday when I was in an exceptionally bad mood. As bonus material I will include the comment from it left by my new friend Kat, who is extremely funny and should have her own blog. I know moving material around from one place to another doesn't technically qualify as a "new" post, but try and work with me on this one, alright?

Friday, July 29, 2005

Shit that pisses me off
Current mood: aggravated

- People who say "nine-one-one" instead of "nine-eleven". 9-1-1 is a telephone number you call when your grandma mistakes your heroin for her insulin. 9/11 is the date of a horrible tragedy with massive civilian casualties. Get it straight. My boss just did this in a meeting - twice. If we were setting a meeting for that day, would he say "Are you available on September one one"? NO OF COURSE NOT. Because it makes no sense. STOP DOING THIS.

- My cat getting bizarre knots in her fur. WTF??? This just starts all of a sudden? How the hell is she doing this? And Fish even bought me a special shedder brush which I brush her with EVERY SINGLE DAY and yet somehow when I'm brushing her yesterday I still find a knot! Kristen Ann, this has to stop. Seriously. Are you doing this on purpose? Do you grab my brush when I leave for work and tease your fur like it's 1986? I can't figure out how you are managing this feat. But cut it out.

- The bartender's roommate has a swollen lymph node that they are removing on Tuesday and doing a biopsy to see if it's cancer. I assure you, it is. This will be the THIRD FUCKING TIME. Testicular cancer, followed by two brain tumors, radiation and chemo both times...and more fucking cancer. The kid is like 24 years old for fuck's sake. CAN WE CUT THIS POOR GUY A BREAK PLEASE? There is no one I can punch in the face to make me feel better about this. And I'm not even the one with the cancer.

-Ann Arbor, Michigan and all things contained therein. This should be pretty self-explanatory. Maize and blue are shitty colors and they can suck the shit out of my ass. Lloyd Carr is an asshat. Go Bucks. Scarlet and gray baby! Let's start the football already, I'm tired of waiting.

- Not having a garbage disposal. This is the single most important appliance in the house people. Scraping plates into the garbage a) sucks and b) means your garbage is going to stink when the food rots which means you have to take it out more often, which is another thing I hate doing. And also, when you have to clean the little trap out in the sink? Fucking grossenating. Who wants to stick their hands in that shit? It should be a law: all kitchens must be equipped with a garbage disposal. If landlords fail to provide said appliance, they shall be made to lick the trap in the sink every day until one is provided. Seriously, this is not the 50's. Not having a garbage disposal is like not having a flush toilet and having to use an outhouse. I can't live like this anymore.

Kat's comment:
haha, i like your cynicism. this is going to be a BEAUTIFUL friendship.
i just thought i'd add a couple things that i, myself, hate:

i hate that Mariah Carey still has a career, i hate when people call scissors "skizzors", i hate PEOPLE WHO TYPE EMAILS IN CAPS LIKE THEY DONT REALIZE THAT ITS REALLY INTERNET CODE FOR OBNOXIOUS, i hate dying (but not quite dead) bugs that walk away when you're trying to kill them, i hate when you walk into wal-mart to buy, like, toothpaste and walked out with $361.00 worth of stuff thinking "thank god i didn't buy the fishtank.", i hate pretentious middle initials, i hate MLA format, and i hate how i have to suddenly buy ALL my movies on vhs ALL OVER AGAIN because vhs is the new beta.

but thats just me, i hate everything.

Are You Ready For Some Football?

I am. I love football. I love Chicago. I love IM conversations all day long at work.


PGS DenMILF: i downloaded a desktop theme for my 'puter today!
PGS DenMILF: GO BROWNS MOTHER FUCKER!!!!!!!!!
Fish: setting yourself up for disappointment
PGS DenMILF: The "waiting" cursor is a little tiny referee
PGS DenMILF: am not. dude listen, we've got romeo coaching now AWESOME
PGS DenMILF: and
PGS DenMILF: AND
PGS DenMILF: Braylon Edwards
PGS DenMILF: BRAYLON EDWARDS!!
PGS DenMILF: no, this year will be awesome
PGS DenMILF: romeo: defense covered. edwards: offense covered
PGS DenMILF: it's going to be awesome
PGS DenMILF: AWESOME
Fish: oh ok
PGS DenMILF: so awesome that i have to keep repeating key words twice
PGS DenMILF: Hey
PGS DenMILF: Did you know the Browns actually play the Bears this year? During the season?
Fish: battle of the titans
PGS DenMILF: They play twice, pre-season and week 5
PGS DenMILF: we have a bye the week before, we will be rested
PGS DenMILF: too bad it's in Cleveland, it would have been awesome to go
PGS DenMILF: in my brown and orange
PGS DenMILF: fuck some bears
Fish: they probably will too
Fish: the bears suck
PGS DenMILF: i know, that's why i feel so at home here.
PGS DenMILF: white sox are fucking up my shit this year. i can't handle living somewhere with teams that are good
PGS DenMILF: it confuses me and screws up my world

An Important Announcement

After many years of abstinence I have rediscovered the mouthwatering joy of Nacho Cheesier Doritos.

Carry on.

Sheep Counting Alternatives

Things to try when you find yourself wide awake for no apparent reason at 2:00 a.m.

1. Call your cat. Over and over and over until she gets sick of listening to you and climbs in your bed.

2. Pet the cat. Then grab the brush and try brushing her.

3. After the cat runs away, drink a glass of warm milk.

4. Send a text message to your bartender. Wait 30 minutes for him to either call or text you back. Give up.

5. Lay in your bed, stare at the ceiling and think "I have to fall asleep. I really really need to fall asleep right now."

6. Masturbate. Um, for a while.

7. Lay there for 10 minutes wondering why you're not asleep after all that masturbation. Make a mental note to put batteries on your grocery list.

8. Sing. Out loud. To yourself. Christmas carols.

9. Ponder what your friends would say if they knew you were singing Christmas carols to yourself in the middle of the night in July. Make a note to post it on your blog so you can find out.

10. Masturbate. Er, again.

By following these simple steps you should finally fall asleep around 5:00 a.m.






The phone call you gave up on getting from the bartender will come at 5:30 a.m.

I Hate Feet

My feet are going to be the death of me, I swear it. I was awake all night because of them.

Here is the problem: It's hot in Chicago right now. Really hot. Even with the air on in my apartment it's freaking hot in there. Consequently I am hot in there. Especially my feet, which seem to be the temperature control center for my entire body. If my feet are cold the rest of my body is freezing; if my feet are hot my body is on fire. Fix the temperature of my feet and everything else will follow. I do have air conditioning, and also a fan. So when I go to bed, if I could just put my feet by the fan, all would be well, right?

Well probably, but I can't do that you see. In order for me to sleep, my feet have to be covered. Because if my feet are covered, nothing can get me. And I'm not talking about some flimsy bedsheet either, I mean a substantial blanket must completely enclose them or I risk being dragged off by the boogyman. Currently I am being guarded by an old Pokemon comforter that used to belong to my youngest son (before I did his entire room up in Ohio State colors, the way a boy from Ohio's room should be decorated). It is thick and comfy, but above all it is warm. Extremely, unrelentingly warm. So not only am I not able to put my feet by the fan, but I am also having to tuck them away inside a poly/cotton blended furnace.

I tried making a little hole at the bottom for the air from the fan to get in, but the boogyman could penetrate that so easily I might as well not have a blanket at all. I tried covering just my feet and nothing else, but since my whole body is controlled by my feet, that exercise was pointless. I tossed and turned all freaking night, staring at my clock and waiting for daybreak so that I could stick my feet out (the boogyman melts in the sun, you know). Tonight doesn't look too promising either. I hate my feet.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Bookworm

Lest you think that I'm faking this whole "Amber is a geek" thing so I can score with nerds, let me tell you about my weekend. I read the new Harry Potter book. And pretty much that's it.

Well, not entirely. Steve and Chris G. decided they would like to have pork for dinner Saturday, so they roasted a 100 pound pig and invited several hundred of their closest friends over to share. I stopped in for a few hours, but I couldn't fully perform the requisite mingling as my mind kept wandering back to the shiny new book I knew was sitting on my coffee table. The bartender had stopped over as well, but had to be at work by midnight, so I used the fact that he's been borrowing my car to get him to drop me off at home on his way to work (a figure of speech as coming from Steve and Chris' place, my house is not remotely on the way). That way I could get a few chapters in before bedtime (which, because I'm lame, is usually right about the time the parties are getting started anyway). I fell asleep at some point during the train ride to Hogwarts and dreamed of wands, and cauldrons, and bland English food.

I was jolted from my slumber at 5:45 in the morning on Sunday by a text message from the bartender, which was basically a commercial: SOCIAL DISTORTION AT HOB SEPT 25. TICKETS ON SALE NOW! I was briefly annoyed at being awakened at dawn on a Sunday to be told that there will be a concert two months from now. That is until I realized that as long as I was up anyway, I might as well use the time constructively and read me some Harry Potter. Consequently, when Fish arrived around 2:00 I was four chapters from the end while he was only four chapters in. This proved to be disastrous. I will not put any spoilers in here, but by the end of the book I was, quite literally, sobbing. Bad enough for Fish to get up and bring me some Kleenex. I was completely heartbroken. I needed someone to talk to, to commiserate with and pool our collective sorrow, and Fish was only on fucking chapter 10. I snapped at him when he put his book down to try and comfort me. "KEEP READING!" I shrieked. "The longer you try to make me feel better, the longer I have to wait to talk about it!" Of course he left before he finished it, so I had to wait all the way until today to talk about it with someone.

I really don't see how this is a children's book. I mean AT ALL. People die horrible deaths, or get gruesome injuries. There's a whole bunch of reanimated dead bodies running around doing whatever reanimated dead bodies do. People are swearing. People are sucking face like it's an Olympic sport. Don't get me wrong, the book is AWESOME. I just wouldn't give it to my 10 year old any faster than I'd give him a copy of Playboy or front row tickets to a beheading. I was so depressed by the end of it I started reading a book of Dilbert comics to cheer me up. Then I got all depressed again when I realized I would have to wait years, YEARS to find out how it all ends. That is just completely not fair. Oh Madam Rowling, you torment me so.

That's What It's All About

Do you know any of those people who think the entire world revolves around them? You know the type: Constantly steer the conversation to themselves no matter what it was originally about, overdeveloped sense of entitlement, little if any consideration for the feelings of others, excuses for every untoward thing that they do, obsession with their own appearance, bound and determined to be offended and hurt by remarks not directed at them? For example, you say something like, "I'm enjoying being in a committed relationship." and they respond with "Oh, what, so I'm a big fucking whore? You're calling me a whore? Where do you get off saying something like that to me?" Or maybe they run a traffic light and hit someone else's car, and then insist that it isn't their fault at all because they were being rushed to get somewhere, and in fact, the driver they hit should be at fault for making them more late? They're the ones who frequently leave you thinking "Where the hell did THAT come from?" or potentially "What a fucking asshat." Do you know any people like that? Or worse, are you, maybe, one of them?

If so, then let me let you in on a little secret: It's not about you. Really, it's not. I know it seems like everyone is trying to hurt you, or that the length of your hair is important enough to effect the tides, but none of that has anything to do with you. At all. Trust me on this one; I know.

Because it's about me.

Seriously, look at the evidence! The spiders? They're all after me. They seek out not only the location of my bedroom, but then position themselves directly above my bed to maximize their ability to jump on me. They've even taken to attacking my friend Heather in an attempt to torture her into betraying me. Also, baseball: directly related to me. I lived in Cleveland and rooted for the Indians and they sucked. But I move to Chicago and start rooting for the Cubs, and suddenly the Indians are pretty darn good, but now the Cubs suck. Sorry Cubbies fans, that was me. And the nastygrams I get from people if I don't update my blog for a week? I'm obviously the primary entertainment in the lives of millions, checking back day after day in the hopes of learning more about me. Just the other day the entire city of Chicago turned around to check out my ass. The bar around the corner from me keeps my favorite Cleveland microbrew ON TAP. Why? Clearly, it is for me. The crew at my local D'Agostino's knows me by name, I just have to tell them my phone number and they know it's me*. My cat cries if I don't pay enough attention to her (though strangely enough that only happens in the kitchen). My favorite color is green, and the leaves on the tree outside my front window are green. Coincidence? I think not.

See? It's so clear. It's not about you, people. It's about me.



*Actually, Fish has to give them my number. I'm scared talk to the pizza man on my own.

The Funniest Geek You Know

Excerpted from an IM conversation I was having with Thugglife yesterday:

Amberance: The stupid thing is that I warned him this is what would happen, and then I turned around and did it anyway. Everything is proceeding exactly as I have foreseen.

Thugglife: Dork.

Amberance: Who is the bigger dork, the dork, or the dork who gets it?

I crack myself up sometimes.

(It's a Star Wars reference for those of you who don't get it. (Mary))

Shopping Misadventures

I'm not good at shopping. Like, really not good at it. It involves a whole host of things that I'd rather avoid: going out in public, talking to strangers and more recently, finding parking. None of these are my forte, which is why I try to shop online as much as possible. Nevertheless, I found myself out shopping yesterday, being that it's Fishy's birthday tomorrow and I was pressed for time.

I did start out online, though. I started out online some time ago when I was reading Dear Abby and she mentioned this cat book, about the history of cats. Fish loves cats, and also Mary loves cats, the bartender loves cats, Kelly and Simone both love cats, and so on. So being the quick thinker I am, I carefully write down the title and author of said book, figuring that I'd hit up a book store and buy half a dozen or so of them and hand them out to the cat people as opportunities arose (also one for me!). I wrote it on a post-it, stuck the post it to a receipt and stuck the receipt back in my purse. And went about my life.

So now weeks have gone by, it's too late to get the damn thing from Amazon and I need to find a bookstore. My awesome brother, practically a north side native now, informs me that I can find a great big Borders at Clark and Diversey and not only that, the mall across the street has a garage I can park in. Which of course, since I'm not paying attention I pass the first time and have to go around the block and start over. But hey, at least I found the place. So I hide my backpack under the seat, grab my purse and head for Borders.

I find the animals section and reach into my purse to get the receipt with the sticky note on it. Surprise! It's not in there. And since I wrote it down, I didn't bother to memorize the title, let alone the author. As I'm making a mental note to flog my smug self, I hear a voice behind me say "Can I help you?"

OK, let me just say something right here. I do not like talking to people who are strangers. Most especially I don't like talking to people who I perceive as having greater knowledge about the subject at hand than I do. For example, I am terrified of asking for drinks in a bar, because the bartender knows more about making drinks than I do. Even with my bartender friend I am afraid (blessedly he pretty much knows what I like and rarely asks me anymore). The most feared groups for me are bartenders, librarians, and the pizza guy. But just about anyone who is working somewhere when I need something will turn me into a quivering pile of jelly. So whereas a normal person hears "Can I help you?" and is grateful, when I hear it I turn into a stammering nut. The fact that I have no idea what my book is called or who wrote it is not particularly helpful. Not surprisingly, the guy can't find my book based on my half-assed description. I try to explain about the note, that it must have fallen out of my purse, but the guy obviously didn't care and scuttled off to go make fun of me behind the counter with the other people who are smart at finding books and remembering what they're called.

I continued to shop, making it a point to avoid the area where the guy tried to "help" me and eventually find a few things I think Fish would like and buy them. And go back to my car. The parking garage I'm parked at is an unattended lot. To get out you have to go to the little kiosk, put your ticket in and some money, and it will validate your ticket so that the gate will let you out. I put my ticket in the kiosk. $9. I have $5 in my purse. Fuck. I hit cancel and start thinking about where I can find an ATM. But then I see the sign that says I can pay with a credit card. So I put my ticket back in. And now I can't find a slot for my credit card. I tried one slot and realized it was for bills. I hit cancel again. Maybe it's broken? It doesn't look broken. I put my ticket back in. I look around me. No credit card slot that I can see. Hit cancel. Debate whether I want to walk up to the one on the 4th floor and try it there. Decide there has to be something I'm missing. Put my ticket back in. Nothing. Hit cancel.

Finally it dawns on me, what the little pictures are trying to say. That the credit card goes in the same slot as the ticket! Who knew? I smack myself on the forehead. Problem solved, I put my ticket back in the slot. And the machine spits it right back out at me. "Invalid ticket" the machine tells me. What? I try again. Same thing. Apparently, you can only put your ticket in the thing so many times before they decide you are so stupid you should have to pay full price for a lost ticket. Swell.

When I finally got out of the garage I went over to Target because I needed some wrapping paper for Fish's gifts. In the aisle labeled "wrapping paper" I find all kinds of great paper...for weddings, baby showers and graduations. For your average birthday boy there is nothing. NOTHING. The aisle on one side has greeting cards, on the other side candles. This is the only paper they have? I think. What the hell kind of Target is this? I start thinking maybe I can get one of the plain white bags for weddings and color it or something. Which seems ridiculous for anyone over 12, but I am desperate here. I decide to think on it a while I wander over to the toy section to find some goofy Star Wars thing I can give to Fish (which I found: a Darth Vader bobble head pen). Heading back over to the wrapping paper, something brightly colored caught my eye. It was more wrapping paper! Four aisles away from the other wrapping paper aisle. Seriously, whose idea was that to put wrapping paper in two totally different places in the same store? I find some paper appropriate for a mid-20's male and make for the registers.

Walking across the parking lot, I pass a guy who is sitting in his running car with gansta rap blaring loud enough you can hear it 6 blocks away. As I walk by he turns the music off, leans halfway out the window and SCREAMS at me, "Woo! That is a fine ass! I mean, that is a FINE ass! Can I PLEASE get your number?" The entire city of Chicago turned around to look at me. People, I know I am an attention whore, but there are limits. For instance, calling everyone within a 10 mile radius to examine my ass.

I get in Alistair and curse myself for losing my sticky note, being unable to figure out a garage pay booth by myself and not having a stash of wrapping paper already in my house.

From now on I am only shopping on the internet.



Post script: Today on the train to work, I pull the book I am reading out of my backpack, to discover my receipt/post-it combo marking the place where I left off. Fucking A.

Shiv & Lemon

Yesterday I had lunch with His Holy Fishness and spent a good part of the afternoon hanging out with him and Thugglife Chris at their place of employment. And I'm pretty sure I'll never be invited to do that ever again. Also, it is clear to me that, while they think I am the crazy one, the reality is that they just fail to see the incredible brilliance of my idea.

I'm hanging out in the store talking small gamer talk (ok listening. Truthfully I had no fucking idea what they were talking about) and wound up somehow having two items in my hands: A Nerf-like lemon thingy from Jamba Juice and one of those little metal hook-like hanging-thingies you put on the wall and hang shit from when you want to display it (Fish is currently shaking his head at my extremely articulate description of this. But you all knew what I was talking about right?).

And being that I'm hanging out in a video game store, as well as the fact that I'm a jackass, I randomly start slashing at things with my display hook. Which I've now begun to imagine is some type of shiv. After a particularly vicious slice to Thugglife's chest, I remember my "lemon" and say "Oh hey, wouldn't it suck if I had actually cut you? and then squeezed some lemon juice into it with my real lemon? If I had one? Boy that would be totally mean."

That was when it hit me, and what hit me is this: Wouldn't that be an awesome video game? Your character slashes people in battle, pretty bad alone, but then he squeezes some lemon juice in the open wound? I mean, that's just brutal. Did you ever get some lemon juice in a cut? That shit hurts! Why simply cut your enemy when you also pour citric acid in the wound? Man , I am so brilliant.

I run this great discovery by Fish and Thugglife. Their identical reaction being to stare fixedly at me and blink. But no matter, I'm on a roll now.

The patented move in the game is this spin move, see. You spin around so that you lead with your slasher hand, cutting your enemy, and then the spin carries you through for the follow through with the lemon squeeze. I twirled around the store in demonstration* of the beauty of this move. "and I even know what I'm going to call it," I announced. "It's great. I'm going to call it Shiv & Lemon."

"That is never going to sell," announced Fish in his Retail Voice of Authority. "Never. You're better off with your original idea." The original idea he was referring to was my first attempt at video game concept generation, a game I tentatively titled "Kill Things and Take Pictures". The inspiration of this was my horror at a story Fish told me. Apparently, back when he was the Ubernerd, he once was playing Everquest and killed the same frog over and over again for 12 and a half hours. That's real time folks. His motivation? It had a pretty earring, and Fish wanted his character to have the pretty earring, and to get it he had to sit there for over 12 hours repeatedly killing a frog. And, living in reality (or rather next door) as I do, I found that to be...a tad excessive. As in, when I want an earring I got to the store and buy one. I don't massacre tiny reptiles just so I can look pretty. But apparently, in Everquest, that is what you do. And it seemed, I don't know, fruity? that boys were bludgeoning things to death for charms and body glitter. So I was trying to think up another reward system for all that brutality. And what I came up with is, every character has a little camera, and when you maul something to death, you get to take a picture. Then you can show it off online to all your other reality challenged fantasy gaming friends and prove what a manly stud you are. At the time Fish insisted that that was the dumbest gaming idea ever, but now he had cast his previous disdain onto Shiv & Lemon.

"No," I insisted, "You don't understand. It will have a cult following. It will be bought by people like me just because they think the title is funny. I mean, c'mon, Shiv & Lemon! And what will happen then is, they will like the game so much, they will tell others, and they will like it, and tell more people, and suddenly it will be flying off the shelves. You won't be able to keep them in stock. AND THEN, after Shiv & Lemon is such a big hit, then I will release Kill Things and Take Pictures. I'll get James Earl Jones to voice the commercials. Like this (in my best girl-trying-to-sound-like James-Earl-Jones-voice), 'From the makers of Shiv & Lemon (long dramatic pause) comes Kill Things (shorter, but equally dramatic pause) and Take Pictures'. Oh, this is so going to rock."

"No, it's really not. No one is going to buy that, I'm telling you. No one." Fish, obviously just jealous that I thought of it first, continued to try raining on my parade, with Thugglife Chris standing behind him nodding in hardcore agreement.

They refused to understand, and also refused to let me go get a second opinion at Best Buy. I refused to shut up about it, and also refused to stop running around the store like an ADHD toddler.

Shiv & Lemon people. I am telling you. It's genius.

*Yes there were customers in the store. Yes, I asked them if they thought Shiv & Lemon was the greatest idea ever. Yes, they left quickly without buying anything.

Back With A Vengeance

Let me preface this post by saying that my boss is really a lovely person. He is very sweet and very thoughtful, kind, mostly cheerful, loves his partner and absolutely adores his dogs. He asks after my kitty, brings me chocolate for no reason and remembers to call his mother.

On the other side of that particular fence, you have the fact that the guy is a complete spastic. Everything in the world is a major crisis. He flits around the office in a panic all day long, frets over tiny details, hems and haws, gets underfoot, and makes a general nuisance of himself.

He was just out of town for three weeks, two of which he was out of the country, and moreover off the continent. Today is his first day back in the office.

I am going to kill him.

I don't mean that I am going to just hurt him. I mean that I am going to push him right out yonder 28th floor window, with nary so much as an umbrella to break his fall. I had gotten so used to being able to get things done, uninterrupted, being able to concentrate, and now....now it is gone. So, so gone.

So far today he has:

-Forwarded me 27 e-mails that he received while he was out, with a note attached to each: "Did you get this?" ...right above the original header containing my e-mail address.
-Brought an old copy of Baron's to my desk to look up something wasn't even in it in the first place, and left it here.
-Spent over 2 hours trying to figure out the answer to a question I answered for a client three weeks ago. Despite my telling him it had been handled, he resolved the problem, got the same answer I did, and copied me on the e-mail he sent to the client.
-Actually asked me if I was positive that EuroPacific Growth was an American Fund (apologies to those of you who don't work in this industry. Let me assure you, my readers who do are currently smacking their foreheads incredulously.)
- Came back to see if perchance he'd left the Baron's over here, looked in it for 10 minutes, and left it here again.
-Came to ask me if a client's June 30th statement came to me in the mail last Friday, that day being mere hours after the markets closed on the month of June (i.e. NO).
-Called because he thought he needed a password to open an e-mail attachment, then actually tried clicking on it after he called me, and found out he didn't need a password after all.
-Called to ask me to e-mail him something so that he could then e-mail the same thing to someone else...and copy me on it.
-Called back after I e-mailed it to him to say nevermind, just tell him where to find it on the network.

I'm going to get some lunch right now before he does one more completely irritating thing.

Going on a Golf Trip With Your Bar

The staff and friends of Tai's Til 4 returned Monday night from a Golf Trip to Galena, Illinois. I attended this trip with them, and had a purely lovely time. I've spent the last few days compiling a list of Dos and Don'ts so that you'll be able to glean the maximum enjoyment out of a trip with your bar, should you have the chance to go on one.

• DO ride there with your bartender. He already knows how to get there and he'll buy you lunch and play the Cow Game* with you**. He will also take you on a very fun and entertaining "Girls I fucked in Galena" tour.
• DON'T expect a direct route to Galena when riding with your bartender. He will stop repeatedly, including an hour and a half detour to take his niece for a throat culture at the hospital. Go with the flow. It will be worth it when he announces he knows how to cure his niece's sore throat, then walks over and farts on her.
• DO remember to bring your bathing suit, lest you find yourself doing some emergency shopping at the brand new 24 hour Galena Wal Mart.
• DON'T just decide "Aw, fuck it" and go swimming in your underwear. Especially if your underwear are a pair of white boxer shorts. And if you forget and do go swimming in your see through undies, please, please don't get out of the pool and go running around the banquet room where everyone can see your drippy wiener. Trust me: NO ONE wants to see that shit.
• DO room with your bartender. He will handle check in and check out and will carry your bags in for you.
• DON'T expect to get any sleep if you room with your bartender, between his snoring and his jumping on your bed at 4:30 in the morning when he gets done drinking while asking you why you disappeared an hour earlier. You can nap when you get home. (and at the golf course clubhouse under a table before dinner)
• DO steal a golf cart and ride around the course harassing the people who actually went on the trip to golf.
• DO partake heavily of the free alcohol the bar owner provided at the convenient filling stations placed strategically around the course. DO also take advantage of the tiny bottles of Captain and Jaeger the bar owner has stashed in his golf cart.
• DON'T forget sunscreen if you're going to be driving around harassing golfers in a stolen golf cart all day.
• DO invite the little boy bringing you ice to have dinner with the group. Do engage him in a deep conversation about the life of a dairy farming family when he tells you he can't have dinner with you because tonight is his turn to milk the cows.
• DON'T ask him if he has to milk the cows by hand. He'll look at you with scorn and say "no one milks by hand anymore" and then you will feel stupid. Or go ahead and ask if you don't mind feeling stupid.
• DO hang out with an ex-marine CPD sharpshooter and watch him try to cure someone else of the hiccups through Extreme Breathing Relaxation techniques. DO laugh about this with a guy who has a master's degree in religion but dropped out of seminary to be a bouncer.
• DON'T leave your arm hanging out the window for the duration of the 2 1/2 hour return trip - especially if you burned it on the golf course the day before because you forgot your sunscreen.

* The Cow Game is this thing my mother invented when Cap and I were kids. When you go on long car trips, you look out the window on your side. Any cows that you see you count out loud. How ever many cows you count is how many you get to have. As you pass more cows, you add them to the cows you already have. If you pass a cemetery on your side, you have to bury all of your cows and start over. Whoever has the most cows at the end of the trip wins. It took me until high school to figure out that my mother only invented this game to get us kids to shut the hell up and stop touching each other.
**He'll play it but he won't play it right. For instance he'll see a field of cows, and instead of counting them, he'll just estimate "Oh, 100 cows." when clearly there aren't more than maybe 30. Or neither of you will pass any cows for a long time, and then suddenly there will be some on your side, so while you're basking in the glow of your hard earned 4 cows, he'll say, "Well yeah, but I've got like 60 horses." You can try to tell him horses don't count, but he won't listen. At this point I advise that you just sigh and be content with the fact that you got him to play your asinine game in the first place.

Drama-o-rama

So my friend gets very sick while he's on vacation with his family out of the country, right? If you were his girlfriend back in the states, what would you do? Would you:

a. Send him cute e-mails with pictures of soup and ginger ale and other sickbed items, along with messages about how you miss him and hope he feels better;

b. Try not to bother him, but plan a big "Welcome Home!" surprise for him when he returns;

c. Jump on an emergency flight packing a thermometer, throat drops and Vitamin C and rescue him in his hour of overseas need;

d. Have your ex sleep over your house, cheat on your boyfriend with him, tell him about it in an e-mail when he's ill and far from home and friends, then get upset when he breaks up with you and go cry to HIS friends expecting sympathy.

I'll let you think through your answer for a bit while I discuss the concept of consequences. Dictionary.com gives the following definitions for consequence:

1. Something that logically or naturally follows from an action or condition.
2. The relation of a result to its cause.
3. A logical conclusion or inference.

It seems a very simple concept, no? Yet people seem to be struggling with this concept at present. For example, if you should, say, cheat on your boyfriend, the naturally following action is that he may break up with you. This should not be a surprise; it is the consequence that fits your particular action. That you e-mailed him and admitted it really has little bearing here. Nor does your being remorseful about it after the fact. Cheat on boyfriend = no more boyfriend. Similarly, assume that now you have cheated on your boyfriend and he dumped your ass, you decide to call his friends looking for advice because you are hurt. Whose friends are they? They are his. Who is their loyalty to? To him. So if you call them up and try to play the "I'm the victim" card, the logical conclusion of that is that rather than the validation you crave, you will end up getting a big "Fuck you". That is the consequence for deliberately hurting that person's buddy. How you feel about the whole situation: irrelevant. See? Consequence. It's simple.

Now, back to the SAT question at the top of the post. In the context of this recent discussion of the consequence principle, which of these options seems like a good way to NOT keep your boyfriend hanging around?

Epilogue

After drying my body and hair with paper towels and throwing some clothes on, I headed for work. As I stepped out onto the front porch and locked the door behind me, I glanced into the laundry basket.

Mother fucker was still in there.

Amberance and The Visitor (a comedy in three acts)- Part III

Part III

I woke up this morning long before dawn. As in 4 a.m. Usually if I'm up at 4 a.m. it's because a) I haven't been to bed yet or b) the bartender has called me because he 1) is drunk 2) is angry 3) has a bar story to tell 4) feels like making fun of me 5) some combination of the above. Today however, I set my alarm for 4 a.m. on purpose because I needed to be in super early today to run some last minute Monte Carlo simulations (Fish insists on referring to these as "Monty Python" simulations, and to be honest, with as well as this endeavor has gone for me today, that is probably more appropriate. But I digress). Let me just say that because of the bartender's bizarre phone-in hours, I'm generally awake at 4 a.m. as often as not. Somehow though, when you are doing it on purpose for work related reasons, it is almost unbearable.

By 4:45 I had finally tired of bashing my alarm clock to death every 9 minutes, and so I stumbled out of my room and toward the general direction of the shower.

Ah, the shower. The shower is a special place for me. How I love to lather up my head with shampoo and twist it into funny shapes. Or to draw little cartoons on the steamed up window. Or endlessly play with my navel (which contains a small shiny object, which I have mentioned before I am fascinated by). But also I do some of my best thinking in the shower.

Today's shower was a fairly long one since it was far too early to be functional and the longer I stayed in there, the longer I could avoid going to work. Meaning I had a lot of time to think. So there I was scrubbing away and thinking about my waking nightmare the prior evening. I went over my decisions for errors, now that I was out of any immediate spider danger, but concluded that at each turn I had done the only thing I could have done to survive. I was quite pleased with my outer calm and rational* behavior. Concluding that that particular hellish episode was behind me, I turned my thoughts to the few scraps of clothes I had in my closet (since my laundry was still in the car) and attempted to make a reasonable professional ensemble for work. Dark gray slacks and a red mandarin shirt were still available, so I was all set. So, having done the best thinking I was going to do for the day, I rinsed myself off and shut off the water.

Which is when it hit me.

Every single towel that I own is in the backseat of my car.

And "every single towel" literally means every single towel, including beach towel, hand towels, dish towels from the kitchen, even my tiny little scrap of wash rag were all outside and a block away from naked, wet, dripping me. Folks, this is my life. This is the way it is in my world all the time. Every single day is some variation on my being trapped in the shower, dripping wet and cold, with no towel in sight, because of a teeny tiny fucking bug.

I started laughing. I laughed and laughed, so hard that it hurt. And then I laughed some more, so greatful was I for having with a sense of humor about myself.

*or at minimum, rationalized.

Amberance and The Visitor (a comedy in three acts)- Part II

Part II

I'm really not a fan of doing laundry, which is why I own enough underwear that I can go 3 weeks to a month without washing clothes. The drawback to this is that by the time I sack it up and do my laundry, there are TONS of clothes. Enough to usually require me to make several trips when transporting them from house to car, car to laundromat, laundromat to car, and car to house. Also I will be standing there listening to Spanish language television and folding them for a really long time.

Aside from the Mexican soap opera blaring from all corners of the room, laundry goes fairly well. I have enough laundry to use the Big Washers, which for some as yet unexplained reason, I think are really neato. So I'm happy about that. I also get a surprise call from my friend Minnick in Cleveland, who may potentially visit me late next week, so I'm also happy about that. And by the time I'm done washing and drying my metric ton of laundry, almost everyone else has left, and I have the folding table all to myself. So I'm happy about that. While I'm merrily folding my underwear in thirds (not even kidding you), Fish calls. He's on his way home from work, and I tell him how the laundry's going and that my buddy called and so forth. Fish says, "So what about your visitor?" I am momentarily perplexed. We had just discussed the possibility of Minnick visiting, so he couldn't be talking about that. And boys don't typically refer to women's periods as a "visitor" (as we girls do), and in fact, generally don't bring up such topics at all, so I'm pretty sure he's not talking about that.

It is then that I remember: There is a spider on my porch. And it's dark. It will be waiting for me. Waiting for me to struggle up the steps with heavy bags of laundry, repeatedly. Waiting for it's chance to jump on my head and Eat Me. "Oh God," I say in dismay. "Um, can I sleep at your house?" This would seem almost reasonable (almost, because who sleeps over someone else's house because of a spider on the porch?) except for the fact that Fish lives a solid hour away from me, and it is now 10:30. And I have to be at work early. Which gives me another idea. "Oh! Or, I could just go to work now, and sleep under my desk. That might work. There's no spiders in the Loop."

"I'm pretty sure that's not true," said the wise Fish.

I park my car while talking to Fish. Fish tells me about some games he's playing and we chat amicably. Ten minutes later he asks "Are you still in your car?"

Me, sheepishly, "Yeah. But it's because I was watching this little bunny hop around."

"Amber, you have to go in the house."

"No. I'm sleeping in the car. With my laundry." I had already determined that I was going to have a hard enough time getting myself back in the house without having to lug a clumsy, not to mention heavy bag of clothes up the stairs. It would slow me down and give the spider more surface area to use in order to get ON ME. My plan was to leave the laundry in the car overnight, and bring it in the following evening, when it was still light out and I could watch for the spider. I had a few scraps of clothes still in the house that I could wear to work the next day. Assuming, of course, I could find the inner strength to go in the house.

"You are not sleeping in your car. Go in the house."

I meandered my way towards home. Passing my neighbors, whom I've never spoken to, I wondered if maybe they wouldn't mind my crashing on their couch for the night. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up, paralyzed. He's up there. Waiting for me. Waiting to jump ON ME. And I realized that as I stood there quaking with fear, directly above me was an enormous tree. And everyone knows that trees are giant spider army bases. Any second one or 50 of them would be parachuting onto my head. I was trapped between a spider infested tree and a spider infested porch with nowhere to run. I narrated for Fish, in case something happened to me, so he could explain to the police when they found my half-eaten corpse halfway up the stairs. "Ok. Ok, Fish? I'm going. I'm going up the stairs right now. I can't see anything. Oh God. What if they've built a web across the stairs and I walk right into it in the dark?" (Seriously, these are things I was actually thinking. In my head, I imbue them with an overwhelming intelligence, malice and superior organizational skills. And so, so much evil.) I felt something touch my head. "AAAAAAAGGHH! AAAAAAGH? WHAT WAS THAT? WHAT TOUCHED MY HEAD? (pause for hyperventilation) All right. Ok. I think I'm ok. I'm pretty sure that was just a tree branch. All right, I'm almost there..." Fish's patience is absolutely astounding, I'm telling you.

After my flight through the gaunlet of terror, I slammed the door behind me and locked it (you know, so they can't turn the knob and just walk right in). I made Kristen sniff my head for any spiders that may have transferred there from the tree branch, but she didn't find anything she wanted to play with, so I figured I'd lucked out on that one. Fish kindly listened to me wax psychotic about how they have magical powers and can fit into tiny spaces and come out huge again on the other side, and that I could feel them crawling on me,and about how they are Dastardly, in the way the villains from the pre-talkie cinema days were dastardly, laughing maniacally and twisting their mustaches while the train bears down on the damsel they tied to the tracks.

Finally Fish talked me into going to bed, and I fell asleep, waking only occasionally with the sensation of evil eight legged monsters crawling all over my skin...

Amberance and The Visitor, (a comedy in three acts)- Part I

Note: The only, and I mean ONLY reason that any of this happened is because I was dumb enough to actually laugh and enjoy Heather's story about her own run in with a spider. In the future I will take better care when tempting fate.

Act I

I stand in my dining room, staring fixedly at the laundry basket on top of my dining room table. I have my phone to my ear. Fish cheerily picks up the phone on his end and hears me say "Fish, there is a fucking *spider* In. My. Laundry basket."

Fish is 35 miles away and at work. How exactly I thought he was going to be helpful in this situation I have no freaking clue. "Uh oh," says Fish.

"Fish! What am I going to do?! It's inside my dining room!"

I love Fish. I love him because he is possessed of much logic. Unfortunately for me, logic does not help in these types of situations. "Kick it down the stairs and outside. It will come out."

"ARE YOU CRAZY?! I can't touch the laundry basket! It's IN THERE! It could GET ON ME! It's contaminated now. I'll have to throw it out." I am entirely serious when I am saying this. Under no circumstances can I put clothes that touch my body into a container that once harbored a spider. Clearly I must buy a new laundry basket. Eventually. But someone else has to get it the hell out of my house because I can't touch it.

Fish calmly tries again. "Do you have a spray bottle? Spray it with water, and it will crawl to the middle of the basket, and then you can kill it with a shoe or something."

I'm not having it. "You want me to SPRAY IT WITH SOMETHING?! And piss it off even more? No way. No. Fucking. Way. If I spray it, it will *move* more! And my shoe? I can't kill it with my shoe. It could get ON ME FISH. And I'd have to throw my shoe out too. Think of something else."

"I'll call you back," he replied. This is not because he was thinking of solutions for me so much as it was because he had customers with problems he could actually solve and thus, wisely decided to focus on them instead.

I am left to deal with the spider alone. We are having somewhat of a staring contest (I think at one point I even said to Fish in my best crazy-talk voice "He's staring at me!"). I have to get my laundry done tonight. And I can't just leave when there's a spider in my house. There is no way around it. I must pluck up the courage and Act.

I run to my front door and open it wide. I am going to carry the basket out there, but I can't pause to open the door with the basket in my hand, because the thing might get ON ME. So I do it ahead of time (score one for advance planning). I go back to the dining room. Carefully I check all over the outside of the basket, looking for more of them (another of my irrational spiderisms is that if I see one, there is obviously an army of 65 others hiding nearby waiting to pounce). Finding no other interlopers, I grasp the edge of the basket and start walking quickly toward my front door. As soon as I start moving, IT starts moving. Blood curdling screams fill the house, if not most of the neighborhood. Immediately upon getting to the porch, I drop the thing like it's on fire. The spider bounces and almost falls out one of the side holes. I shriek again, because if it is airborne it could get ON ME. But he falls back into the basket and scrambles back to his post to stare at me some more.

Quickly as I can I make several trips to the car, always watching for movement from the basket, and skirting it as much as possible. I get everything into the car and lock myself in. Paranoid, I check every surface of my car for the elusive Spider Army. Fish calls back in the middle of this sweep. "Any progress?"

"Um. Um. Um. (I struggle with words when I'm on the verge of panic.) Lateral progress. The basket with spider is outside on my porch, and I am in my car with my laundry."

"Well good! How is that lateral?"

"Um. Yeah. Um. Well, you see, I'm going to go do my laundry now, but when I get back it will be dark. And I won't be able to SEE where it is. So. I have no idea how I'm going to get back in my house. But I don't have to deal with it for a few hours, so the problem is temporarily solved."

Fish talks to me calmly while I drive to the laundromat. He graciously gets online to research characteristics of the Brown Recluse, since I have now convinced myself that that is what this creepy fucker is. He is patient and makes affirmative sounds as I ramble on about how they are Evil, and Conniving, and Dastardly, and most importantly, Trying To Eat Me. My blood pressure has nearly returned to normal by the time I pull into the parking lot.

You Bastard(s)

I am tired. I am exhausted beyond belief. I sleep and I sleep, and I'm just as tired as before. I also have a sore throat and a headache, and my body is sore. And because I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, I know that what I have is mono.

Alright now, who was it? Come on, fess up. Which one of you fuckos that I've been kissing was sick and didn't fucking tell me? You know who you are. Hell, you know who each other are (hint: if you haven't been in the Chicago area in the last two weeks, it's probably not you). I swear to you, next month when I have the energy to stand for longer than 4 minutes at a time, you'll pay big.

You just think about owning up, you germ-leaving kissing bandit you. You think about it...while I go take (another) nap...

Mini-Update

Someday, and someday soon, you will stop by Bizzybiz and, lo and behold, there will be a long and involved post about the serious and intense drama I've somehow managed to let envelop me yet again in my life. It will make you laugh and it will make you cry. Mostly it will make you smack your forehead and say, "How does she continually get herself into these types of things time and time again?" That day is not today.

Today what you get is a link over to Heather's Blog where you can find details of an experiment the two of us have cooked up for your inevitable amusement and our probable embarrassment. Though honestly I can't wait for my dare. I'm never happier then when I'm making a complete ass of myself and then photographing/writing about it so that the general public can see me for the shitpencil I really am.

So, to recap, and in the interest of brevity: Drama abounds. Hilarity ensues. Posts are forthcoming.

Heather & Amber: Clearly Not Punks

VelociHeather: hey, does the PGS in your name stand for pukey girl socks?
VelociHeather: pungent gritty soda?
VelociHeather: perfect green silk?
VelociHeather: pussy goat shit?
VelociHeather: ugh, that was gross, sorry
VelociHeather: prancing gargantuan sweeties?
PGS DenMILF: haha
PGS DenMILF: i'll suggest those to joe
PGS DenMILF: it joe and jim's band
VelociHeather: putty grape stains
PGS DenMILF: pale green stars
PGS DenMILF: seriously
VelociHeather: haha, gay
PGS DenMILF: is that the worst name for a punk rock band ever?
VelociHeather: lol
VelociHeather: looks like we feel that same about the name
PGS DenMILF: it would explain why joe was rubbing jim's nipple the other day anyway
VelociHeather: pale green stars for a punk band?
VelociHeather: lame
VelociHeather: iron fist of death
VelociHeather: punch the throat
VelociHeather: ass kickers
VelociHeather: those are names
PGS DenMILF: fucked your sister, thad be good
VelociHeather: suck my wang
VelociHeather: punch that bitch
VelociHeather: something like that, you know? needs more rage
PGS DenMILF: indeed. rage is important
PGS DenMILF: it's the main reason i can't be a punk myself
VelociHeather: they could use one of our awesome insults for a name
VelociHeather: like shitpencil
PGS DenMILF: people are like "FUCK YOU" and I go, "okay"
VelociHeather: tinselfucker
VelociHeather: You have no rage?
PGS DenMILF: not enough to fit in with the anarchists
VelociHeather: hmm
VelociHeather: don't they have punk rock for passive aggressive people?
VelociHeather: Groups with names like, "Whatever, go ahead and do it, I don't care"
VelociHeather: "Sure, fine, whatever"
PGS DenMILF: yeah. bouncing souls
PGS DenMILF: also an incredibly bad punk rock name
VelociHeather: hmm, but not as bad as the pgs one
PGS DenMILF: no that sucks mad dick
VelociHeather: there you go
VelociHeather: "sucks mad dick"
VelociHeather: for you avg homo punk band
PGS DenMILF: oh, i like it

This Is Ponderous, Man. Really Ponderous.

Recent events have got me debating: Is it better to have a fuck-friend, or a friend-fuck?

Now I know you're saying, "Amber, you tawdry slut! Perhaps you should be less of a tart and get into an actual relationship."

Someday kids, someday. But the truth is, I'm not over the ex, and I'm even more not over the kids, and I'm having a good time justifying this behavior as "finding myself". So, kindly blow it out your ass.

"Fair enough," you say. "But what in Bilbo's pocket is the difference between a fuck-friend and a friend-fuck?"

The difference is this: A fuck-friend is someone you are sleeping with and that's it. You don't hang out with them, you don't go for drinks or have long telephone conversations, you don't get them a nice birthday card. In fact, you may not otherwise even be able to stand each other. There is nothing there but the physical. A good example of this is the Rusty Nail (nickname compliments of my dear friend TupperDoug, who explains, "Rusty, because he's old. And Nail, because he likes to nail you." Thanks, D). The Rusty Nail used to work with me several jobs ago. He was an ornery bastard who never turned his timecards in on time, and resented having this 21-year old fresh from college with her fancy degree little lassy nagging him about it. For my part, I thought he was a stubborn mule and general all around asshole. We used to get together on Tuesday nights and make hate to each other. The next day we'd be back at each other's throats. This went on for an entire summer. We never started hanging out, we never went to dinner. Hell, we never even learned to get along. I haven't seen him even one time since I quit that job. That's a fuck-friend.

A friend-fuck is someone that is just exactly like your other friends. You get together, hang out, go to parties, talk on the phone, e-mail, whatever. You also happen to occasionally fall into the same bed, and subsequently each other. Everything else stays the same. You don't start holding hands in public, or buying them flowers or shit like that. You're just friends. Friends with a cherry on top.

So which is better? With the fuck-friend, there is no chance of getting any more deeply involved. There are no feelings there, even of the non-romantic variety, and therefore no real chance of getting hurt. But along with that, there is never going to be anything deeper, and if it goes on long enough it will start to get hollow (read: boring). Conversely, with your friend-fuck, you have the benefit of being with someone you really care about. You actually have something to talk about in between takes or what have you. But what you also have is a connection. A connection that can grow into romantic feelings on the part of one or both parties. A connection that can lead you down a path of fear and jealousy. The dark side of friend-fucking if you will. The kind of stuff that if you don't tread very, very carefully could unravel your entire friendship.

Over the years I have found myself in both of these situations a number of times, and I have to tell you people: I still don't have an answer for you. Or, for that matter, for me. The benefits and drawbacks for each still appear pretty evenly balanced.

It's a mystery kids. And that's why, so is mankind.

Murphy's Law

Today I'm wearing a dress. It has material of three colors: white, red and black. Also today, I stopped for a very rare cup of Starbucks finest on my way in. Because I am Captain Klutzo, I spilled it within seconds of leaving the shop. Where did it land?

Yes. Only on the two white parts.

6th Grade English

Remember when you were in junior high or middle school, and your English teacher made you write in reflective sentences? An example:

Homework question: Did Suzy go to the grocery store with her mother?
Your answer: Yes, Suzy did go to the store with her mother.

Some guy was talking like that on the train the other day:

Reflective Sentence Guy: What do you want to do tonight?
Aquaintance: I don't know. Would you like to get some dinner on the way home?
RSG: I would like to get some dinner on the way.
A: Do you think we should just grab takeout?
RSG: We should just grab some takeout.
A: Oh! I think I have some leftover cake for dessert!
RSG: Yes, leftover cake would be good for dessert.

This went on from the Loop all the way to Belmont. You know what? It's annoying.

This Is Why My Friends Always Run Away

Have I mentioned my childlike awe surrounding small shiny objects? Fascinating I assure you.

Such as yesterday. I took a break from working* to use the latrine yesterday. I was sitting there (as girls do) looking at the floor, and I noticed some little tiny silver pieces of something I couldn't identify.

Which obviously made me think of mercury. You know, the mysteriously expanding-with-heat, in a liquid state at room temperature metallic element, formerly of thermometers**? That's what tiny silver specks on the bathroom floor remind you of right? Right?

So anyway, I'm in the can, pondering mercury. I once spilled some mercury by dropping a thermometer on the floor. And immediately panicked because, you see, I have a cat. A special one. A young one. Who, like many young animals of various species, likes to put things in her mouth. And completely brain-addled person that I am, in my head I start picturing my cat, floating in water upside-down with x-shaped eyes. Because that's how they always draw mercury-poisoned fish, so I figured Kristen would eat some, draw x's on her eyelids, find a body of water, willingly get in it, and keel over dead if I didn't do something to clean up the mercury right then.

Have you ever tried to clean up mercury? It's hard. It beads up all weird-like and rolls around on the floor. Eventually I discovered that if I blew on it, the whole mess would gather as one large quivering silvery bead. Once I did that, all I had to do was get a paper towel and mop it up right? Because, hey, liquid!

But that didn't work - I did successfully get the mercury bead on top of the paper towel, but instead of absorbing, it just rolled around on top like a spineless marble.

All of this went through my head while I looked at the shiny metal things on the floor of the bathroom. When I got back to my desk I asked my friend Fish via AIM what he thought about my bead of mercury, and his take was the same as mine: that the molecular structure of the mercury must simply be too big to fit into the holes in my paper towel. It is a metal after all, despite it's viscosity. But then, as always happens, Fish wanted to know where I even came up with such a question.

And that is why my friends consistently end up running away.

*carrying on multiple IM conversations with Fish, Vicodin Jim and PGS JoE.
** Hot Heather informed me last night that thermometers are now made with alcohol instead of mercury, assuming you can even find one that isn't digital.

I'd Tell You About It, But I'd Have To Kill You

Just coming off of one of the most awesome weekends ever. It was beautiful! There was sex! There was booze! There was rock and roll! (though, not all at once nor necessarily in that order)

I had so much fun that, unfortunately, I can't really tell you about it. There are people who are reading who will barf if I post all the gory details, and other people who might read them and find out Things of Which They Need Not Know (T.W.T.N.N.K.).

What I can tell you is that the guys from Sum 41 are really nice guys. And that that opinion is based on spending 35 seconds watching them sign a big glossy photograph for me and the collective 6 words they spoke to me. But they did it while smiling, so obviously they are very nice.

I can also tell you that Rise Against rocks so much ass I started to think that maybe I should become a punker. And I can tell you that when Rise Against is rocking out all hardcore-like, and a torrential downpour starts, that it is very cool and punk rock to just keep jumping up and down and waving your fist (or potentially your "rock on" finger-pose) while getting thoroughly drenched. Until they are done playing, and you are cold and wet, and no one knows if Sum 41 is even going to get to play, let alone what time it will be, so you go home. (Note: after careful consideration of this last part, I have decided that being punk is still not quite for me.)

I can also tell you that my brother makes a mean Long Island, and that by "mean" I mean "Gets You Fucking Drunk". And that if you're ever at a party of my brother's, make sure to order his very tasty self-invented shot called Barney's Balls (it's purple). Just be prepared to wait 20 minutes for it, as it involves about 17 kinds of liquor, a shaker that leaks and the ice which he stores in a separate room.

I'd like to tell you about how cool my cousin Sarah is, but much of her visit occurred during the T.W.T.N.N.K. So I'll just say this: she's really fucking cool.

So is my friend Fish, but again T.W.T.N.N.K. prevents me from elaborating.

So you see, a good time was had by all, but really you don't see, because the best parts happened during T.W.T.N.N.K. and I've entered into a C.T.K.S. (Conspiracy To Keep Secrets) even though in my humble and sober opinion, the T.W.T.N.N.K. wasn't really as B.A.D.A.P.A.M.I.O.T.B. (Big A Deal As People Are Making It Out To Be).

But whatever, y'all. It kinda harkens back to the days of Tim Doesn't Know and that's never not fun. My advice? Come visit me if you don't already live here. We will create our own nights of T.W.T.N.N.K. and you too will have something to hold over the heads of your friends and torture them with.

*Addendum: Hot Heather would like me to add that she was present for nearly every event chronicled and not chronicled in this post.