I don't want to count my chickens here or anything, but I think I may have solved my mail delivery problem by outsmarting the post office. Also, I don't actually have any chickens, so can't do a lot of counting of them.
I have received actual mail, not junk mail, real mail addressed to me, at my home, for three of the last four days. Some of it came from people or organizations who recently had things they tried to mail me get sent back. I am cautiously optimistic that this will continue.
So how did I solve the problem? Because contacting the local post office on the internets did not work. Contacting the national post office online didn't work either. Phone calls to customer service, the local post office and the main Chicago branch were wholly ineffective. Complaining about the total lack of assistance when they sent me a survey about my recent USPS.com experience garnered no results whatsoever. I was about to contact the Problem Solvers when I decided to try one more time in a last ditch effort before bringing in the big guns. Because the thing is, the US Postal Service is a huge bureaucracy, right? My telling them, again and again and AGAIN AND AGAIN that I hadn't moved did absolutely nothing to get my mail started because you can tell people they're doing it wrong until you're blue in the face, but unless you figure out a way to get inside the system, nothing is going to change. Well, I figured out a way: I used their online change of address feature and I changed my address from my apartment to...my apartment. That's right, I changed my address from the one where I live to the exact same thing and lo and behold, a few days later I got a confirmation letter with a packet of "Welcome to the neighborhood" coupons from USPS, and shortly thereafter started opening my mailbox and finding actual mail inside it. I've beat them at their own game. Bravo, USPS, you are a worthy opponent, but I watch a lot of Star Trek and I am a master at using logic to defeat the illogical.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
SOON! Well, Not Really That Soon, But Still.
My cousin(ish) Kelly, who is super awesome and loves me so much, had all these airline credits that she needed to use up before they expired. So guess what she did. Can you guess? She booked a trip to Chicago to come see me.
FOR MY BIRTHDAY.
Which is not only THE MOST EPIC BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER but also has given me a perfect excuse to talk about my mid January birthday in late July. You guys. This might be the best thing that has ever happened to me.
The planning, of course, began immediately. My party is officially called "Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Celebration Extravaganza: Now With MORE KELLY!" and features EPIC CAKE (to be announced), party hats for everyone!, possibly some partial nudity and some sort of THINGS! THINGS I tell you! It is not to be missed. Do so at your own peril, because later when everyone is like "Wasn't Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Extravaganza with More Kelly the best birthday party that has ever been held at any time on this globe?" you will have to be like "I don't know, I wasn't there" and then everyone will be like "Whoa, way to kill the mood there, Debbie Downer" and then there will be an awkward silence and it will be all your fault and they will think twice about offing you any leftover epic cake. So, you know, probably you should pencil it in.
FOR MY BIRTHDAY.
Which is not only THE MOST EPIC BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER but also has given me a perfect excuse to talk about my mid January birthday in late July. You guys. This might be the best thing that has ever happened to me.
The planning, of course, began immediately. My party is officially called "Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Celebration Extravaganza: Now With MORE KELLY!" and features EPIC CAKE (to be announced), party hats for everyone!, possibly some partial nudity and some sort of THINGS! THINGS I tell you! It is not to be missed. Do so at your own peril, because later when everyone is like "Wasn't Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Extravaganza with More Kelly the best birthday party that has ever been held at any time on this globe?" you will have to be like "I don't know, I wasn't there" and then everyone will be like "Whoa, way to kill the mood there, Debbie Downer" and then there will be an awkward silence and it will be all your fault and they will think twice about offing you any leftover epic cake. So, you know, probably you should pencil it in.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
I've Got Your Dime Right Here
This is not a post about my cat. Having said that, my evil cat is a tortoiseshell, which if you know anything about torties goes a long way toward explaining why she is so evil. When she sits back on her haunches, her particular brindle pattern makes it look like she's wearing a pair of light brown trousers. This is what I was looking at during dinner this evening that triggered me to start singing to her "I love furry pants, so come on and sit back and lick your paws" to the tune of "I Love Rock and Roll". And that in turn caused me to realize why that song has always bothered me.
I turned to the bartender, who is somewhat older than I am, and asked "Hey, was there a time you can remember when songs played on the jukebox cost a dime? Because I only ever remember them being a quarter. So, like, did she say 'dime' in that song because they used to cost a dime or because 'quarter' had too many syllables?"
The bartender is pretty used to my bizarre conversational tangents by now and has learned it's better to just play along. "They've always been a quarter in my lifetime," he replied kindly while thinking in his head Oh Jesus, not again.
"That's what I thought. We need someone older that can be like 'Hey, back in the 50's a song on the jukebox cost a nickel!' or whatever, but I mean, if it's a right-number-of-syllables issue then 'nickel' doesn't work either. But that still wouldn't make sense because that song is from the 80's and you just said in the 80's songs were a quarter. She wouldn't remember songs costing a dime. So what the hell? That's false advertising! It costs TWO AND A HALF TIMES as much to love rock and roll as what she's telling people!"
The bartender chewed his steak thoughtfully for a moment to give me time to stew and then sagely changed the subject back to the cat in an effort to stop my brain from derailing entirely. It worked for about 10 minutes and then we had this exchange: "She was doing that thing today where she just keeps coming in the room to wake me up and then when she knows I'm awake she walks out of the room again."
"She's so shitty when she's mad."
"And then she went and got one of her bottle caps to bring it in my room and bat it around so I couldn't go back to sleep."
"See, the way it should work is, songs should cost different amounts based on their quality. Like, if you want to play a disco song on the jukebox that should cost a dollar and REAL songs should be a quarter. Or a dime! There should be a premium applied for subjecting the people around you to shitty music is my point."
There was a long pause while I waited for him to agree with my obviously brilliant plan, but all he said was "Wow, you're still on that. Oh well, I tried."
I turned to the bartender, who is somewhat older than I am, and asked "Hey, was there a time you can remember when songs played on the jukebox cost a dime? Because I only ever remember them being a quarter. So, like, did she say 'dime' in that song because they used to cost a dime or because 'quarter' had too many syllables?"
The bartender is pretty used to my bizarre conversational tangents by now and has learned it's better to just play along. "They've always been a quarter in my lifetime," he replied kindly while thinking in his head Oh Jesus, not again.
"That's what I thought. We need someone older that can be like 'Hey, back in the 50's a song on the jukebox cost a nickel!' or whatever, but I mean, if it's a right-number-of-syllables issue then 'nickel' doesn't work either. But that still wouldn't make sense because that song is from the 80's and you just said in the 80's songs were a quarter. She wouldn't remember songs costing a dime. So what the hell? That's false advertising! It costs TWO AND A HALF TIMES as much to love rock and roll as what she's telling people!"
The bartender chewed his steak thoughtfully for a moment to give me time to stew and then sagely changed the subject back to the cat in an effort to stop my brain from derailing entirely. It worked for about 10 minutes and then we had this exchange: "She was doing that thing today where she just keeps coming in the room to wake me up and then when she knows I'm awake she walks out of the room again."
"She's so shitty when she's mad."
"And then she went and got one of her bottle caps to bring it in my room and bat it around so I couldn't go back to sleep."
"See, the way it should work is, songs should cost different amounts based on their quality. Like, if you want to play a disco song on the jukebox that should cost a dollar and REAL songs should be a quarter. Or a dime! There should be a premium applied for subjecting the people around you to shitty music is my point."
There was a long pause while I waited for him to agree with my obviously brilliant plan, but all he said was "Wow, you're still on that. Oh well, I tried."
Monday, July 25, 2011
Amberance: TTN Mega-Guest
I got a Facebook message over the weekend from Max, host of the podcast Countless Screaming Argonauts and friend of my ONE AND ONLY favorite podcast on the whole earth, Total Talk Nonsense. Max writes that he wants to be my Facebook friend because he feels like he knows me. In fact, several people who are TTN listeners have expressed new feelings of familiarity toward me, which I think can be traced back to a couple of events: my hour long appearance on TTN episode 2T4 and my subsequent many hours long appearance on episode 2T5, which for those keeping score at home is the VERY NEXT EPISODE. Yes, for two weeks in a row I was a phone in guest on the greatest podcast going and those conversations appear to have been well received by all (bar one). This can only mean one thing - it is all downhill from here. I have achieved all that I have set out to achieve. Short of someday being an actual in studio, Glenlivet or Jameson or Red Stag drinking live guest, there is nothing else I can think of that would top this moment. If you think of anything, please let me know, because I definitely want to try that something. But I'm not holding my breath.
CHECK ME OUT!
Episode 2T4 (or 224 for those unfamiliar with Scott's inability to speak clearly when drunk) where we discuss two major recent events in my life, neither of which have as yet been detailed here on Bizzybiz, the bartender's brush with death and a challenging game of Shit or Shinola that only ended because avocados are fucking gross. I also do a brief impression of Scott.
Episode 2T5 where I am on for basically the entire show except for the news portion. I would get carpal tunnel listing everything we discussed here, but a random sample of topics we touched on include a vitriolic reaction to my conversation on the previous episode by a person who hadn't actually listened to it, Scott's questionable romantic advice, a discussion of a movie I haven't actually seen, disturbing search terms that have led people to Bizzybiz, tet-anus, the gorgeous but reticent Gene Marteen and what precisely constitutes an "average" American house.
By the time you all listen to both episodes you'll know almost everything worth knowing about me other than what I look like naked and how many grapes I can fit in mouth at the same time. It occurs to me maybe this is a bad idea, as one could argue there would be no reason for anyone to read Bizzybiz again, but I would counter that I am certain to have new terrifying encounters with spiders, new bruises from running into things I know are there and new misadventures that only I could manage to get myself into. There is always more stupidity I can manufacture and you can get that right here.
CHECK ME OUT!
Episode 2T4 (or 224 for those unfamiliar with Scott's inability to speak clearly when drunk) where we discuss two major recent events in my life, neither of which have as yet been detailed here on Bizzybiz, the bartender's brush with death and a challenging game of Shit or Shinola that only ended because avocados are fucking gross. I also do a brief impression of Scott.
Episode 2T5 where I am on for basically the entire show except for the news portion. I would get carpal tunnel listing everything we discussed here, but a random sample of topics we touched on include a vitriolic reaction to my conversation on the previous episode by a person who hadn't actually listened to it, Scott's questionable romantic advice, a discussion of a movie I haven't actually seen, disturbing search terms that have led people to Bizzybiz, tet-anus, the gorgeous but reticent Gene Marteen and what precisely constitutes an "average" American house.
By the time you all listen to both episodes you'll know almost everything worth knowing about me other than what I look like naked and how many grapes I can fit in mouth at the same time. It occurs to me maybe this is a bad idea, as one could argue there would be no reason for anyone to read Bizzybiz again, but I would counter that I am certain to have new terrifying encounters with spiders, new bruises from running into things I know are there and new misadventures that only I could manage to get myself into. There is always more stupidity I can manufacture and you can get that right here.
Learning Curve
My company moved our offices last week, which has been quite educational as far as getting to know my co-workers and finding out which of them are crazy and which are not, something I will not go into here, less out of privacy issues than out of my not wanting to relive the experience because, seriously, oh my god.
On the whole this has been good. I now have an office of my very own with an actual door and a window and a desk made out of wood. Also I have a weird diagonal beam in the back of my office that half covers the windows and truncates the usable space. Obviously I requested this particular office because I thought it was awesome, not to mention the fact that it is also the last one on the far end of the space, meaning that anyone coming this way is doing so on purpose to see me rather than walking by on their way to somewhere else, thus retaining my status of having the most private space of anyone here, which is good because I take naps under my desk Costanza style on a semi-regular basis (I have a pillow and everything). It is also gloriously RIGHT NEXT TO BROWNSFAN'S OFFICE. On moving in, I promptly tacked up a paper ceiling catto watch me calculate because the CEO thinks it's really stupid. On the other side of BrownsFan is the CEO's office, in which he has laid out his furniture in a way that causes there to be a long alleyway of empty space to one side of his desk that everyone has had a suggestion as far as how to fill. Bowling alley was an idea. I went pinball machine after learning that he has a Star Trek one IN HIS HOME which he should obviously bring here so that I can play it. He has boringly gone with his own idea: tree. I was disappointed until he told me I could decorate it for Christmas at which point I started jumping up and down and squealing. I WILL DECORATE THE CRAP OUT OF THAT TREE FOR CHRISTMAS. WATCH ME.
Our new offices are located in the office tower portion of a train station, which I explored last week in an attempt to educate myself about my new surroundings. Here's what I've learned:
More on this later, and photos when I remember to take some. Currently it is time for my desk nap.
On the whole this has been good. I now have an office of my very own with an actual door and a window and a desk made out of wood. Also I have a weird diagonal beam in the back of my office that half covers the windows and truncates the usable space. Obviously I requested this particular office because I thought it was awesome, not to mention the fact that it is also the last one on the far end of the space, meaning that anyone coming this way is doing so on purpose to see me rather than walking by on their way to somewhere else, thus retaining my status of having the most private space of anyone here, which is good because I take naps under my desk Costanza style on a semi-regular basis (I have a pillow and everything). It is also gloriously RIGHT NEXT TO BROWNSFAN'S OFFICE. On moving in, I promptly tacked up a paper ceiling cat
Our new offices are located in the office tower portion of a train station, which I explored last week in an attempt to educate myself about my new surroundings. Here's what I've learned:
- There are no less than three Hudson News stores in this one train station (that I've found so far), two of which are directly across from one another. I bought a 20 oz. Coke Zero and a small bag of Chex Mix in there for over $7. It would have cost me less than $3 if I'd walked a few more feet to the CVS. I learned not to shop at Hudson News.
- There is also an Auntie Anne's Pretzels in here. Dangerous this may become. I am trying to forget that I know that.
- The trek to and from the office level floors involves a ride on the escalator. It is a huge pet peeve of mine when people get on an escalator and then just stand there, particularly when it's going down. People: The escalator is NOT A RIDE. Please either walk your lazy ass down the magical moving staircase or move the fuck over so I don't have to kill you.
- There is one major drawback to working in a commuter train station, which I discovered almost immediately: at quittin' time, absolutely everyone in the world is trying to get into the place you are trying to leave. And since it's the end of the day and everybody just wants to go home, they will mow you the hell down if you get in their way. Since I am leaving the train station I am, by definition, in their way, and getting home for me is now similar to a very frustrated salmon getting pelted with massive rocks on its way to spawn, except at the end I don't get to spawn. This strikes me as a very cruel joke.
More on this later, and photos when I remember to take some. Currently it is time for my desk nap.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
I Will Make Every Conversation About Sex Eventually. Every One.
The cake master's g-mail chat status read "ANTM is still on?" I had no idea what that meant so I googled it. Mistake.
me: Ok, I had to actually go look up what ANTM is, and now I'm upset that I did that
The cake master: hahaha
it's SO BAD
me: it's to the point where I don't even want to watch tv anymore because even if i'm watching something good there's going to be a commercial for something that flat out sucks
The cake master: haha
very true
me: also the history channel should not be allowed to be called the history channel any more
The cake master: why not?
because of the serious lack of history being broadcast on it?
me: who the hell's idea was it to make a reality show about logging? for reals. wtf?
The cake master: oh i know, it's ridiculous
me: also, discovery channel ghost hunters needs to be called "old houses make noises, get over it"
The cake master: omfg
HAHAHA
indeed
and BBC America needs to be called, "Hey, we have a few British shows"
me: OMG RIGHT? I love TNG n' everything but THAT WAS AN AMERICAN SHOW OH MY GOD STOP
The cake master: I actually emailed them about that once
like, BBC has so many good shows, can't we get a few more instead of TNG?
and they responded it's a popular show and they get good ratings on it
me: "it stars a british guy, what the eff do you want from us?"
The cake master: hahaha
right, now they have Battlestar Galactica
which I love, but COME ON
of course, it stars a british guy too, so I guess I shouldn't complain
a British guy with an American accent
me: There's already a Sci Fi channel. It's called SyFy
The cake master: and it used to show Battlestar Galactica!!
me: i really need to bang patrick stewart. fyi
The cake master: haha nice
me: like, a lot
me: Ok, I had to actually go look up what ANTM is, and now I'm upset that I did that
The cake master: hahaha
it's SO BAD
me: it's to the point where I don't even want to watch tv anymore because even if i'm watching something good there's going to be a commercial for something that flat out sucks
The cake master: haha
very true
me: also the history channel should not be allowed to be called the history channel any more
The cake master: why not?
because of the serious lack of history being broadcast on it?
me: who the hell's idea was it to make a reality show about logging? for reals. wtf?
The cake master: oh i know, it's ridiculous
me: also, discovery channel ghost hunters needs to be called "old houses make noises, get over it"
The cake master: omfg
HAHAHA
indeed
and BBC America needs to be called, "Hey, we have a few British shows"
me: OMG RIGHT? I love TNG n' everything but THAT WAS AN AMERICAN SHOW OH MY GOD STOP
The cake master: I actually emailed them about that once
like, BBC has so many good shows, can't we get a few more instead of TNG?
and they responded it's a popular show and they get good ratings on it
me: "it stars a british guy, what the eff do you want from us?"
The cake master: hahaha
right, now they have Battlestar Galactica
which I love, but COME ON
of course, it stars a british guy too, so I guess I shouldn't complain
a British guy with an American accent
me: There's already a Sci Fi channel. It's called SyFy
The cake master: and it used to show Battlestar Galactica!!
me: i really need to bang patrick stewart. fyi
The cake master: haha nice
me: like, a lot
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
My Opinion, And I Do Have One
The Post Office is fucking with me, and I'm starting to feel a little bit stabby about it.
This started way the hell back in May, while the bartender was in the hospital. I didn't even really notice it at first - truth is I don't get all that much mail, what with our modern, instant methods of communication, and it's not unusual to go a few days without seeing anything in the mailbox. But I had ordered a couple of t-shirts and realized that it had been over a week and they hadn't shown up, and that it also seemed to be taking an extraordinarily long time for my Gilmore Girls Season 2 DVDs that I purchased from Amazon to arrive (fuck you, that show is awesome). And just as it was dawning on me that maybe there was a problem, I got phone calls from the place where I rent a storage locker to house all nine of my Christmas trees when it's not the season of Christmas trees and from my insurance company, both of whom snippily informed me that they'd sent me mail that had been returned with no forwarding address and, you know, I really should have informed them of the fact that I was moving ahead of time. Except, um, I haven't moved. In, like, four years. The phone calls came when I was in England, so there wasn't a whole lot I could do at the time.
The nearest I can figure out, the screw up has something to do with my neighbor moving out. This would make some sense - my now former neighbor, while nice enough, is a colossal fucking idiot. Shortly after he first moved in I got notices from both the gas and the electric companies of the cancellation of my accounts and the final bills. As I had not cancelled any accounts I called them up and was told my accounts had been cancelled because I had moved and someone else was living there. I explained that I had NOT moved, someone else most certainly the fuck was not living there and fix it now. Turns out the guy who had moved in across the hall didn't actually know his address and was giving all the utility companies mine. Everything got straightened out, he was all "dude, my bad" and life went on as normal. Except, it seems, that he never did actually learn his address, and when he moved out and changed his address with USPS he again gave them mine. And in the infinite wisdom of the Post Office, they assumed that meant that I had moved, so despite the fact that I had filled out no change of address card they were sending all my mail back from whence it came, with a note saying I had left no forwarding address, which indeed I hadn't, BECAUSE I HAD NOT FUCKING MOVED.
Upon my return, I got in touch with them, explained that I had gotten no mail for an entire month and asked that they please stop doing whatever it was they were doing and go ahead and actually deliver my mail. In the meantime, I got in touch with every single vendor I had purchase something from that had not arrived, and begged them to resend the packages to my office where I seem to have more success with actually receiving mail.
I got a phone call from the post office apologizing and saying the problem had been fixed and for a while it seemed that it had. I got a trickle of things in, occasionally, covered in weird rerouting stickers, and I assumed all was back to normal. Which turned out to be a poor assumption. Again, I started getting a mess of phone calls and e-mails from friends who'd tried sending me things, my employer who'd tried to mail my pay stub, the insurance company who'd sent my cards again only to have them returned a second time - was I sure I hadn't moved? Did I actually know my own address? I fired off a message to them on their website, with the former case number, the name of the person who said it had been fixed, a description of how I knew it had not AT ALL been fixed, and a plea to please ACTUALLY FIX IT. At the bottom where it says "How should we contact you?" I checked off "e-mail" and sent the thing off with the understanding that I would be e-mailed an update within three business days.
I received no such e-mail. Instead I received a voicemail from a man at the post office asking me to call back to "discuss" the issue with a number. Which I called. FOUR TIMES. Four times I called the number he left, and four times it rang and rang and rang for 10 minutes and was followed by a shrill beepy sound and a click. Two days later, the same man called me AGAIN, left the SAME number, which I called again TWO MORE TIMES to the same effect, i.e. NONE. I gave up and resigned myself with having to accept that I might never have home mail service again.
And then, yesterday, I finally get an e-mail from USPS. Does it tell me they've looked into and resolved my issue? Do they ask me for more information on the problem, like dates and such forth? Does it include a working phone number that either gets answered or goes to voicemail? No. It reads thusly:
"The United States Postal Service® (USPS®) would like to thank you for your recent E-mail. Your opinions are very important to the USPS® as we continually monitor and improve customer service.
You can provide feedback on your E-mail experience by completing a brief 5 minute survey. To participate in the survey, click on the Web address below. For your convenience, the survey is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through July 7, 2011, from any computer with Internet access."
Oh really, post office, you want my opinion do you? WELL HERE IT IS. My opinion is that your entire organization should get stabbed in the eye. Right in the eye, with a blunt pencil. My opinion is that this is a vast conspiracy to try and trick me into paying for a PO Box by pretending to be incompetent at delivering mail to my home. My opinion is that you should actually take some sort of action to resolve the problem before you ask me my opinion about it. My opinion is that I hate you.
This started way the hell back in May, while the bartender was in the hospital. I didn't even really notice it at first - truth is I don't get all that much mail, what with our modern, instant methods of communication, and it's not unusual to go a few days without seeing anything in the mailbox. But I had ordered a couple of t-shirts and realized that it had been over a week and they hadn't shown up, and that it also seemed to be taking an extraordinarily long time for my Gilmore Girls Season 2 DVDs that I purchased from Amazon to arrive (fuck you, that show is awesome). And just as it was dawning on me that maybe there was a problem, I got phone calls from the place where I rent a storage locker to house all nine of my Christmas trees when it's not the season of Christmas trees and from my insurance company, both of whom snippily informed me that they'd sent me mail that had been returned with no forwarding address and, you know, I really should have informed them of the fact that I was moving ahead of time. Except, um, I haven't moved. In, like, four years. The phone calls came when I was in England, so there wasn't a whole lot I could do at the time.
The nearest I can figure out, the screw up has something to do with my neighbor moving out. This would make some sense - my now former neighbor, while nice enough, is a colossal fucking idiot. Shortly after he first moved in I got notices from both the gas and the electric companies of the cancellation of my accounts and the final bills. As I had not cancelled any accounts I called them up and was told my accounts had been cancelled because I had moved and someone else was living there. I explained that I had NOT moved, someone else most certainly the fuck was not living there and fix it now. Turns out the guy who had moved in across the hall didn't actually know his address and was giving all the utility companies mine. Everything got straightened out, he was all "dude, my bad" and life went on as normal. Except, it seems, that he never did actually learn his address, and when he moved out and changed his address with USPS he again gave them mine. And in the infinite wisdom of the Post Office, they assumed that meant that I had moved, so despite the fact that I had filled out no change of address card they were sending all my mail back from whence it came, with a note saying I had left no forwarding address, which indeed I hadn't, BECAUSE I HAD NOT FUCKING MOVED.
Upon my return, I got in touch with them, explained that I had gotten no mail for an entire month and asked that they please stop doing whatever it was they were doing and go ahead and actually deliver my mail. In the meantime, I got in touch with every single vendor I had purchase something from that had not arrived, and begged them to resend the packages to my office where I seem to have more success with actually receiving mail.
I got a phone call from the post office apologizing and saying the problem had been fixed and for a while it seemed that it had. I got a trickle of things in, occasionally, covered in weird rerouting stickers, and I assumed all was back to normal. Which turned out to be a poor assumption. Again, I started getting a mess of phone calls and e-mails from friends who'd tried sending me things, my employer who'd tried to mail my pay stub, the insurance company who'd sent my cards again only to have them returned a second time - was I sure I hadn't moved? Did I actually know my own address? I fired off a message to them on their website, with the former case number, the name of the person who said it had been fixed, a description of how I knew it had not AT ALL been fixed, and a plea to please ACTUALLY FIX IT. At the bottom where it says "How should we contact you?" I checked off "e-mail" and sent the thing off with the understanding that I would be e-mailed an update within three business days.
I received no such e-mail. Instead I received a voicemail from a man at the post office asking me to call back to "discuss" the issue with a number. Which I called. FOUR TIMES. Four times I called the number he left, and four times it rang and rang and rang for 10 minutes and was followed by a shrill beepy sound and a click. Two days later, the same man called me AGAIN, left the SAME number, which I called again TWO MORE TIMES to the same effect, i.e. NONE. I gave up and resigned myself with having to accept that I might never have home mail service again.
And then, yesterday, I finally get an e-mail from USPS. Does it tell me they've looked into and resolved my issue? Do they ask me for more information on the problem, like dates and such forth? Does it include a working phone number that either gets answered or goes to voicemail? No. It reads thusly:
"The United States Postal Service® (USPS®) would like to thank you for your recent E-mail. Your opinions are very important to the USPS® as we continually monitor and improve customer service.
You can provide feedback on your E-mail experience by completing a brief 5 minute survey. To participate in the survey, click on the Web address below. For your convenience, the survey is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through July 7, 2011, from any computer with Internet access."
Oh really, post office, you want my opinion do you? WELL HERE IT IS. My opinion is that your entire organization should get stabbed in the eye. Right in the eye, with a blunt pencil. My opinion is that this is a vast conspiracy to try and trick me into paying for a PO Box by pretending to be incompetent at delivering mail to my home. My opinion is that you should actually take some sort of action to resolve the problem before you ask me my opinion about it. My opinion is that I hate you.
Don't Ask Me Questions If You're Not Prepared For The Answer
In the elevator this morning
The CEO: Hey! What are you listening to?
Me: (putting my iPod away) It's on shuffle.
The CEO: So you don't know what you're listening to?
Me: (skipping ahead) Well that was a Snoop Dogg song, the next one would have been Blink-182, then The Creepshow, NOFX, Cake, oooh The Penguins! (holding it up to show The Penquins' "Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine?)" and grinning in victory)
The CEO: (rolling his eyes) I shouldn't have asked.
Me: How to go from Snoop Dogg to The Penguins in six tracks!
My iPod is a dangerous realm for the uninitiated, people. Don't try this at home.
The CEO: Hey! What are you listening to?
Me: (putting my iPod away) It's on shuffle.
The CEO: So you don't know what you're listening to?
Me: (skipping ahead) Well that was a Snoop Dogg song, the next one would have been Blink-182, then The Creepshow, NOFX, Cake, oooh The Penguins! (holding it up to show The Penquins' "Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine?)" and grinning in victory)
The CEO: (rolling his eyes) I shouldn't have asked.
Me: How to go from Snoop Dogg to The Penguins in six tracks!
My iPod is a dangerous realm for the uninitiated, people. Don't try this at home.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
TBS: Very Funny (Just Not On TV)
The TBS Just For Laughs comedy festival sponsored by Twix (clearly the most hilarious of all candy bars) was this past week and I was lucky enough to be a part of the very first event AND the very last event, while seeing my future husband and getting a bunch of free candy in between. Every bit of it was fantastic and way the hell funnier than the TBS prime time line up of shows, most of which can be described in almost any way you want except "very funny". But allow me to start at the beginning.
The festival kicked off in the most awesome way possible: by confusing the shit out of tourists. The MP3 Experiment is a flash mob* created by the group Improv Everywhere in which participants download an MP3 to their iPod (or similar), synchronize their watches with the atomic clock on the website, show up in an appointed place wearing an appointed color shirt and at an appointed time everyone presses "play" and follows the instructions. I'd been to one before about three years ago, and while it was fun, it was cold and raining and not a lot of people showed up. Not so this time. I got on the train to go downtown and immediately noticed a group of about five people in solid colored t-shirts of red, green and yellow attempting to covertly drink a batch of vodka and lemonade from a tube they'd rigged to a container in one guy's backpack who were clearly up to the same antics I was. In fact, about 1,000 other people turned out to be up to the same antics I was. I installed myself near the bean and played a quick game of "Who else do I think is playing?" while I waited for it to be 1:30. At 1:30,chaos organization erupted. Here is a short video of it. A few awesome people with no idea what was going on decided it was best to just go with it, and started following us around doing whatever they saw us doing. The highlight for me was during our attempt to make ourselves into a giant target. While crushed in with all the other people wearing green shirts, I found myself looking at two guys standing near me who were looking right back and grinning. "Dude, you're the girl from the train!" one of them said. "I KNEW it! I knew you were playing!" High fives were exchanged, vodka lemonade was shared, memories were made. It was an amazing day**.
The following Thursday, I forewent my usual drinking night at Tai's and instead met up with Mr and MrsTrivia, Mr. and Mrs. Paulblo and Mr. and Mrs. Eldest of the Brothers Whose Last Name Rhymes With Schmongola for dinner at Elephant and Castle before making our collective way over to the Chicago Theater to see Demetri Martin and Some of His Friends Who Are Also Comedians. Demetri Martin, by the way, is going to marry me someday when he finally meets me and falls hopelessly in love with me and my hilarious t-shirts. I wore one to the show which I thought he would like, but as I was sitting in the balcony he didn't see it and instead pulled some other guy up on stage to look at his t-shirt (said guy had asked Demetri what was with his very plain shirt because it wasn't funny and Demetri brought him up for a comparison. Guy's t-shirt was a drawing of Jesus shooting Charles Darwin in the head and read "Evolve this". "So my shirt just has a line on it and isn't funny, and your shirt is what's wrong with America," Demetri observed. Point Demetri). The show and everyone on was hilarious (though I think Kristen Schaal was holding back her best stuff for her own show which makes total sense), in particular Hannibal Buress, who we are seeing again in July. I was sitting in a different place from the others who were downstairs and MrTrivia had graciously offered me a ride home, so we had agreed to meet out front at the end of the show. On the way out I received several complimentary Twix bars which amazingly happened to be the exact size of fun:
Outside , I walked over close to the street and began scanning the crowd for MrTrivia and/or the rest of our party. Seeing none of them, I texted him and said "I'm already outside! What do I win?"
"I am too right in front. Where r u?" he responded.
I looked around for him some more but didn't see him. "Right in the middle near the street" I replied and continued looking. As I did so, I noticed a tallish man standing right in front of me turn around slowly. Upon sighting me he said "Seriously?" We'd been standing right next to each other for five minutes without noticing.
The festival closed last Sunday with a show titled Steve Martin and Martin Short in a Very Stupid Conversation. When I saw that Steve Martin was coming to town I freaked a little. I've been wanting to see him live since I was about 7 years old, right around the first time I saw the King Tut clip from SNL in re-run. A good chunk of my childhood was spent next door with my best friend Mary watching Dirty Rotten Scoundrels nearly every other day (also we were watching a lot of Jean-Claude Van Damme movies for which I have no explanation save that we were very young). Martin Short is no slouch either, and the show opened with various clips of their work, including their appearance together in The Three Amigos, a little Ed Grimly and the absolutely legendary Great Flydini. They then had a piss funny conversation in which they interviewed one another, Short interviewing Steve martin about himself, Martin interviewing Martin Short about what he thought of Steve Martin. Martin Short sang a song, Steve Martin played the banjo (brilliantly - there's a reason the man's won 4 Grammys) and then Short returned to the stage and interviewed Steve Martin again as Jiminy Glick. Meanwhile, I was pissing myself, had tears streaming down my face and laughed so hard and so long my abs still hurt four days later. It was funny on an absolutely insane level that should not be achievable without performance enhancing drugs and well worth the quarter century wait.
Demetri: Call me.
*Note to the City of Chicago, CPD and Chicago area news outlets: the crime spree you've been witnessing this summer involving roving bands of teenagers ganging up on individuals in the downtown area to beat up and rob them which you all have been calling a flash mob? Stop doing that. Try group thugging, gang activity, or some other wording of your choice. That is not what flash mob means.
**It started out that way anyway. In case anyone is wondering what happened to the other two posts I was planning about my trip to England, due to an e-mail (!) I received when I got home from flash mobbing, I just don't feel like writing them anymore. Sorry.
The festival kicked off in the most awesome way possible: by confusing the shit out of tourists. The MP3 Experiment is a flash mob* created by the group Improv Everywhere in which participants download an MP3 to their iPod (or similar), synchronize their watches with the atomic clock on the website, show up in an appointed place wearing an appointed color shirt and at an appointed time everyone presses "play" and follows the instructions. I'd been to one before about three years ago, and while it was fun, it was cold and raining and not a lot of people showed up. Not so this time. I got on the train to go downtown and immediately noticed a group of about five people in solid colored t-shirts of red, green and yellow attempting to covertly drink a batch of vodka and lemonade from a tube they'd rigged to a container in one guy's backpack who were clearly up to the same antics I was. In fact, about 1,000 other people turned out to be up to the same antics I was. I installed myself near the bean and played a quick game of "Who else do I think is playing?" while I waited for it to be 1:30. At 1:30,
The following Thursday, I forewent my usual drinking night at Tai's and instead met up with Mr and MrsTrivia, Mr. and Mrs. Paulblo and Mr. and Mrs. Eldest of the Brothers Whose Last Name Rhymes With Schmongola for dinner at Elephant and Castle before making our collective way over to the Chicago Theater to see Demetri Martin and Some of His Friends Who Are Also Comedians. Demetri Martin, by the way, is going to marry me someday when he finally meets me and falls hopelessly in love with me and my hilarious t-shirts. I wore one to the show which I thought he would like, but as I was sitting in the balcony he didn't see it and instead pulled some other guy up on stage to look at his t-shirt (said guy had asked Demetri what was with his very plain shirt because it wasn't funny and Demetri brought him up for a comparison. Guy's t-shirt was a drawing of Jesus shooting Charles Darwin in the head and read "Evolve this". "So my shirt just has a line on it and isn't funny, and your shirt is what's wrong with America," Demetri observed. Point Demetri). The show and everyone on was hilarious (though I think Kristen Schaal was holding back her best stuff for her own show which makes total sense), in particular Hannibal Buress, who we are seeing again in July. I was sitting in a different place from the others who were downstairs and MrTrivia had graciously offered me a ride home, so we had agreed to meet out front at the end of the show. On the way out I received several complimentary Twix bars which amazingly happened to be the exact size of fun:
 |
| This is precisely how big fun is. |
"I am too right in front. Where r u?" he responded.
I looked around for him some more but didn't see him. "Right in the middle near the street" I replied and continued looking. As I did so, I noticed a tallish man standing right in front of me turn around slowly. Upon sighting me he said "Seriously?" We'd been standing right next to each other for five minutes without noticing.
The festival closed last Sunday with a show titled Steve Martin and Martin Short in a Very Stupid Conversation. When I saw that Steve Martin was coming to town I freaked a little. I've been wanting to see him live since I was about 7 years old, right around the first time I saw the King Tut clip from SNL in re-run. A good chunk of my childhood was spent next door with my best friend Mary watching Dirty Rotten Scoundrels nearly every other day (also we were watching a lot of Jean-Claude Van Damme movies for which I have no explanation save that we were very young). Martin Short is no slouch either, and the show opened with various clips of their work, including their appearance together in The Three Amigos, a little Ed Grimly and the absolutely legendary Great Flydini. They then had a piss funny conversation in which they interviewed one another, Short interviewing Steve martin about himself, Martin interviewing Martin Short about what he thought of Steve Martin. Martin Short sang a song, Steve Martin played the banjo (brilliantly - there's a reason the man's won 4 Grammys) and then Short returned to the stage and interviewed Steve Martin again as Jiminy Glick. Meanwhile, I was pissing myself, had tears streaming down my face and laughed so hard and so long my abs still hurt four days later. It was funny on an absolutely insane level that should not be achievable without performance enhancing drugs and well worth the quarter century wait.
Demetri: Call me.
*Note to the City of Chicago, CPD and Chicago area news outlets: the crime spree you've been witnessing this summer involving roving bands of teenagers ganging up on individuals in the downtown area to beat up and rob them which you all have been calling a flash mob? Stop doing that. Try group thugging, gang activity, or some other wording of your choice. That is not what flash mob means.
**It started out that way anyway. In case anyone is wondering what happened to the other two posts I was planning about my trip to England, due to an e-mail (!) I received when I got home from flash mobbing, I just don't feel like writing them anymore. Sorry.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Spell Check Break
Blogger spell check doesn't like real Welsh words any better than the ones I made up. VOWELS, DAMN IT, USE VOWELS.
Britannia 2011 - Parte The Seconde
Chester
Chester is an old Roman city near the border with Wales, and one of the best preserved walled cities anywhere in Britain. It is well defended to this day - the comic and I drove past our hotel and all the way back around the ring road no less than four times because all roads either lead away from it, are one way streets in the wrong direction, or are under construction with traffic diverted in the opposite direction from where we needed to go. Eventually we admitted defeat and parked in the car park meant for the nearby shopping center. These frustrations were immediately forgotten upon looking out our bedroom window and seeing this directly across the street:
This was obviously a cause for celebration and we immediately went out and found an Italian restaurant where we ate and drank like motherfuckers, then drunk dialed H-town in Baltimore, yelled something at her about art lovers and equilibrium and stumbled back to the hotel to sleep it off.
The next day we walked around the city, and by walked around the city I actually mean "around" - with almost all of the walls still intact, you can basically walk all the way around on the top of them. There are also spectacular little plaques along the way, inscribed with facts about the their construction, the history of the area, and random factoids (also a recipe), the best of which was this one:
Wales
We left Chester with considerably more ease than we'd had getting there and drove to Wales. Wales is a country of immense beauty, but also a completely insane, largely unpronounceable and completely unspellable language. They have a thing for doubling letters unnecessarily causing their words to be ridiculously long and while the Welsh language does have vowels, they are loathe to use them unless they've completely run out of doubled consonants.
Here's the thing about Wales, ok? Because I'm from Chicago by way of Cleveland, right? So I know what cold feels like. When you walk out your door here and it's 2 degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill making it feel more like 12 below, that is a cold that will slap you right in the face, rip off your nipples, then shrivel your lungs into raisins. Whoever came up with the adage "Don't make a fact like that, it might freeze that way forever" was almost certainly standing outside in Chicago in January when he said it. What I'm trying to say is, I've been cold before.
But not like this.
The cold in Wales is a cold like no other cold I've ever experienced. It's a damp, heavy cold that gets in you and stays there, obliterating all hope that you might ever feel warm again. In Chicago, when it's cold, you just go inside, wait two minutes and then Presto! - you are warm. I spent less than 24 hours in Wales, but even after I went inside, even after I'd left, I stayed cold for six days. It was like someone had filled my soul with equal parts sorrow, hopelessness and dead puppies. I'm still recovering.
Other than that, though, Wales is beautiful, the audience at the comic's gig was brilliantly weird and whatever I had for dinner was delicious (I don't remember what it was because alcohol happened. Oh wait! Prawns? I think it had something to do with prawns). And then I went to bed to get some rest for the next day's planned activities, which didn't happened due to there being a drunk comedian in the room who was snoring like it's his job. It didn't matter - we ended up doing none of the things we'd originally planned to do anyway, but with good reason: the comic realized suddenly that Penrith is sort of on the way to Newcastle.
For an account of my time in Chester and Wales in which I do not actually appear other than a veiled reference to the terrible weather being my fault, check out the comic's blog.
Chester is an old Roman city near the border with Wales, and one of the best preserved walled cities anywhere in Britain. It is well defended to this day - the comic and I drove past our hotel and all the way back around the ring road no less than four times because all roads either lead away from it, are one way streets in the wrong direction, or are under construction with traffic diverted in the opposite direction from where we needed to go. Eventually we admitted defeat and parked in the car park meant for the nearby shopping center. These frustrations were immediately forgotten upon looking out our bedroom window and seeing this directly across the street:
 |
| Roman amphitheater, which thankfully was not showing "The Hangover 2". |
The next day we walked around the city, and by walked around the city I actually mean "around" - with almost all of the walls still intact, you can basically walk all the way around on the top of them. There are also spectacular little plaques along the way, inscribed with facts about the their construction, the history of the area, and random factoids (also a recipe), the best of which was this one:
 |
| This is awesome and henceforth is the standard by which I will judge the information on all other plaques. |
We left Chester with considerably more ease than we'd had getting there and drove to Wales. Wales is a country of immense beauty, but also a completely insane, largely unpronounceable and completely unspellable language. They have a thing for doubling letters unnecessarily causing their words to be ridiculously long and while the Welsh language does have vowels, they are loathe to use them unless they've completely run out of doubled consonants.
 |
| A river running through Llangollen, where we stayed, which in English is the River Dee, but in Welsh is probably spelled more like Gogllywnnscestt or Wydnollffydd or something like that. |
But not like this.
The cold in Wales is a cold like no other cold I've ever experienced. It's a damp, heavy cold that gets in you and stays there, obliterating all hope that you might ever feel warm again. In Chicago, when it's cold, you just go inside, wait two minutes and then Presto! - you are warm. I spent less than 24 hours in Wales, but even after I went inside, even after I'd left, I stayed cold for six days. It was like someone had filled my soul with equal parts sorrow, hopelessness and dead puppies. I'm still recovering.
Other than that, though, Wales is beautiful, the audience at the comic's gig was brilliantly weird and whatever I had for dinner was delicious (I don't remember what it was because alcohol happened. Oh wait! Prawns? I think it had something to do with prawns). And then I went to bed to get some rest for the next day's planned activities, which didn't happened due to there being a drunk comedian in the room who was snoring like it's his job. It didn't matter - we ended up doing none of the things we'd originally planned to do anyway, but with good reason: the comic realized suddenly that Penrith is sort of on the way to Newcastle.
For an account of my time in Chester and Wales in which I do not actually appear other than a veiled reference to the terrible weather being my fault, check out the comic's blog.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Britannia 2011 - Parte The Firste
Arrival and Punky!
I'm not gonna lie, the TSA scares the shit out of me. Something about the combination of their absolute authority in deciding whether or not I pose a threat to my fellow travelers combined with my paralysing fear of public embarrassment makes the "please take off your shoes" portion of my trip the most harrowing part of the whole experience. Why, then, I decided to wear a fencenet body stocking under my t-shirt and jeans instead of underwear and a bra like a normal person is quite beyond my ability to comprehend. It seemed like a good idea when I left the house. It seemed like an incredibly bad idea when I got in the security line and realized there were only two lines open: one regular line and one irradiating porn producing body scanner line. So I was already on edge when the boarding pass checker with the rapist mustache who I was still thirty people away from caught my eye from across the room and yelled "Honey, you've been distracting me for the last 15 minutes!" All heads swiveled in my direction and I laughed nervously and suggested it was due to my pink hair, which coincidentally was now also the precise color of my face. "That and your amazing smile," he said, and I cringed because it was obvious I was going to get flagged for one of those "enhanced pat downs" of which he was sure to surreptitiously photograph me getting felt up with no undergarments to protect me. That didn't happen, of course - I'm just paranoid. Either that or I've repressed the memory, it's hard to say. At any rate, I got to Heathrow as planned, traded my clothes for a raincoat as planned, met the comic sort of as planned, and went to Luton which was not at all planned, but was necessary if I wanted to see my friend Steve, who chose to time his trip to Spain for exactly the same time as my trip to England. I spent an hour chatting with the group in Steve's pub while drinking out of the comic's Stanley Cup shot glass (it is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up) and trying to deflect questions about why I refused to remove my coat.
On Tuesdays, the comic and his partner Manly Tony record Punky! Radio over Skype. On my first Tuesday in town, they recorded the 300th episode of Punky! in front of a live "studio" (the comic's lounge) audience. Said audience included myself, my darling Sulu and her husband G, Felix a.k.a Hamboy (formerly of the recorder band The Blow Jobs - Felix claims they broke up due to musical similarities) and a guy called Phil who inexplicably carries around a bazouki in the back of his car.
This came in very handy as Felix had brought three recorders and a tambourine with him and we performed an impromptu mashup of White Riot and Blitzkrieg Bop. I also got to tell the story of the guy who got his face kicked in at Riotfest and introduce the song I had picked out for the show, "She's Only Fucking 12" by 3CR.
We'd had a lot to drink by the end of the show and so the obvious thing to do was go out for Italian food and drink two more bottles of wine at dinner, then head over to the Arena Tavern for some further beers. While the rest of us were comparing our various mobile devices and the games contained therein, the comic wandered off and found a man he'd met recently but whose name he couldn't recall and brought him over to our table in the hopes that he'd introduce himself to the rest of us so the comic could pretend like he'd known his name all along. This plan went awry (as his plans often do) when, upon encountering Sulu and I sitting in close proximity, the stranger abandoned all social niceties and ignoring everyone else greeted us with the question "Are you two lesbians?" I told him we were, but only on Tuesdays.
Having said our goodbyes to the others, the comic, Tony and I went back to the flat, at which time a sane group of people would have gone to bed. Instead, Tony decided to edit Punky! so we could upload it that very night and we all consumed the last of the wine, the port, and half of another bottle of port, then drunk dialed Kelly in Los Angeles for reasons I can no longer remember. Eventually Tony went to bed, while the comic and I stayed up listening to Demented Are Go long past the time my desire to go to bed had kicked in because the comic wanted to hear "PVC Chair" and kept insisting it was the next track, though it never was. We finally got in bed some time after dawn, drunk as fuck and in no shape to get up, pack, and drive to Chester the next day.
The next day we got up, packed and drove to Chester.
I'm not gonna lie, the TSA scares the shit out of me. Something about the combination of their absolute authority in deciding whether or not I pose a threat to my fellow travelers combined with my paralysing fear of public embarrassment makes the "please take off your shoes" portion of my trip the most harrowing part of the whole experience. Why, then, I decided to wear a fencenet body stocking under my t-shirt and jeans instead of underwear and a bra like a normal person is quite beyond my ability to comprehend. It seemed like a good idea when I left the house. It seemed like an incredibly bad idea when I got in the security line and realized there were only two lines open: one regular line and one irradiating porn producing body scanner line. So I was already on edge when the boarding pass checker with the rapist mustache who I was still thirty people away from caught my eye from across the room and yelled "Honey, you've been distracting me for the last 15 minutes!" All heads swiveled in my direction and I laughed nervously and suggested it was due to my pink hair, which coincidentally was now also the precise color of my face. "That and your amazing smile," he said, and I cringed because it was obvious I was going to get flagged for one of those "enhanced pat downs" of which he was sure to surreptitiously photograph me getting felt up with no undergarments to protect me. That didn't happen, of course - I'm just paranoid. Either that or I've repressed the memory, it's hard to say. At any rate, I got to Heathrow as planned, traded my clothes for a raincoat as planned, met the comic sort of as planned, and went to Luton which was not at all planned, but was necessary if I wanted to see my friend Steve, who chose to time his trip to Spain for exactly the same time as my trip to England. I spent an hour chatting with the group in Steve's pub while drinking out of the comic's Stanley Cup shot glass (it is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up) and trying to deflect questions about why I refused to remove my coat.
On Tuesdays, the comic and his partner Manly Tony record Punky! Radio over Skype. On my first Tuesday in town, they recorded the 300th episode of Punky! in front of a live "studio" (the comic's lounge) audience. Said audience included myself, my darling Sulu and her husband G, Felix a.k.a Hamboy (formerly of the recorder band The Blow Jobs - Felix claims they broke up due to musical similarities) and a guy called Phil who inexplicably carries around a bazouki in the back of his car.
 |
| A bazouki player (not Phil) |
We'd had a lot to drink by the end of the show and so the obvious thing to do was go out for Italian food and drink two more bottles of wine at dinner, then head over to the Arena Tavern for some further beers. While the rest of us were comparing our various mobile devices and the games contained therein, the comic wandered off and found a man he'd met recently but whose name he couldn't recall and brought him over to our table in the hopes that he'd introduce himself to the rest of us so the comic could pretend like he'd known his name all along. This plan went awry (as his plans often do) when, upon encountering Sulu and I sitting in close proximity, the stranger abandoned all social niceties and ignoring everyone else greeted us with the question "Are you two lesbians?" I told him we were, but only on Tuesdays.
Having said our goodbyes to the others, the comic, Tony and I went back to the flat, at which time a sane group of people would have gone to bed. Instead, Tony decided to edit Punky! so we could upload it that very night and we all consumed the last of the wine, the port, and half of another bottle of port, then drunk dialed Kelly in Los Angeles for reasons I can no longer remember. Eventually Tony went to bed, while the comic and I stayed up listening to Demented Are Go long past the time my desire to go to bed had kicked in because the comic wanted to hear "PVC Chair" and kept insisting it was the next track, though it never was. We finally got in bed some time after dawn, drunk as fuck and in no shape to get up, pack, and drive to Chester the next day.
The next day we got up, packed and drove to Chester.
Britannia 2011 - An Introduction
I started to write a post about my trip to England last month only to realize that there was no way for me to make it one post. In the interest of seeing everything his land has to offer, the comic took me on a whirlwind tour that seemed designed to cram everything it was possible to see into one go, from which I am only now starting to recover. The immediate trip to Cleveland upon my return has not helped my situation, nor has dealing with the post office, who allowed my address to be fraudulently changed just before I left, thus ensuring that the half a dozen things I had ordered off of Amazon would be returned to the sender and my insurance company would threaten to drop me for not telling them I had moved. I will attempt to reconstruct the last two weeks over the rest of this one, so please be patient with me - I am still fragile and covered in bruises (not those kind. Ok, those too, but mostly the ones caused by my being particularly accident prone on this trip. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, unless you know where to go to find the truth, in which case the truth will be out there soon, I promise).
Friday, June 03, 2011
Blogging Is Not A Matter Of Life And Death...Unlike Pneumonia
Relax, I'll tell you where I've been, just calm down. I've just returned from spending 11 days on a 10 day trip to England the U.K., which followed directly on the heels of spending the bulk of two weeks visiting Hell Illinois Masonic Hospital, where they were holding my beloved roommate the bartender in a thankfully successful attempt at making him not die, which nearly killed him in and of itself.
I'll explain that shortly, but let's back up a minute.
What now seems like many Thursdays ago, I was in my usual watering hole doing my usual have dinner with my roommate and then drink a beer while antisocially playing games on my iPad thing, when a pretty looking boy began admiring my very pink hair and asking my advice on how he could do something similar to his very brown hair. I have had this conversation many times, and now that I have an iPad, I can augment it with Facebook photos of my coiffure's previous incarnations. He was impressed, deemed me artistic and started showing me some of his design portfolio, including some work he'd done for a motorcycle club. In turn I showed him the results of the Super Secret Project. It was the most stunning transformation I've ever seen: he was having a normal, relaxed, easy conversation with me and then as if I'd flipped a switch he suddenly became so nervous that he literally could not complete a sentence. He eventually took several deep breaths and managed to choke out enough words for me to understand he was asking me out. It's not like I could say no - he was adorable and there was a strong chance his head might implode from a rejection, so I gave him my e-mail and made vague plans to "eat something and watch the hockey game" on Saturday. In retrospect, it seems hilarious to me that I thought there was any chance I might wind up in some sort of normal situation.
The bartender had not been feeling well, so when he came home from working Friday night at 4:30 a.m. sweating and out of breath I was concerned. He asked me if we had an accurate thermometer (we didn't) and then said the bone chilling words that would kick off a terrifying saga: "I think you need to get dressed. I need you to take me to the hospital." The bartender doesn't really "do" hospitals. Despite that fact, he'd just been to the ER two weeks prior to that due to excruciating back and chest pain that was diagnosed as walking pneumonia. He was given antibiotics and sent on his way. He felt better after a few days, went back for a follow up a week later, was pronounced healthy and sent on his way. Two days later he had a fever of 102.2, couldn't breathe and wanted me to take him back to the hospital. Not good.
We got there and did the whole ER routine: triage, get in a room, vitals, talk to a nurse, talk to another nurse, wait for a doctor, explain everything again, wait some more, repeat everything again for a medical student, then a third nurse, get some blood drawn and then finally they took him away for a chest x-ray, which is when I checked my voicemail and realized I'd missed a call from the comic the night before explaining that he'd been randomly punched in the face. None of my boys were doing well, it seemed. I texted the only one who was (the boy from Thursday night) to inform him that I would not be making our date that afternoon and rescheduling it for Sunday. A doctor came in with the bad news: the bartender's pneumonia had not gone away at all, but rather seemed to have gotten worse. They decided to admit him for a couple days. I texted the newbie and rescheduled our date for early the following week, then went home and fed the cat.
When I got back to the hospital the situation had gone from bad to worse. A CT scan revealed that in addition to the pneumonia worsening, his lung was also being collapsed from the outside due to empyema. He would need surgery, but they didn't want to perform it until they got the infection that caused the pneumonia in the first place under control. They started throwing every antibiotic they had in their arsenal at him hoping something would work. None of them seemed to help, and after two days of this with his condition continuing to worsen it was becoming clear he had some sort of antibiotic resistant super bug and that they couldn't wait any longer to do the surgery. He went under the knife that Tuesday, while I paced the family lounge, tweeting what little information I had and postponing my date until the bartender made it home.
I was wholly unprepared for the scene that greeted me when they allowed me to see him in the ICU after surgery. IVs in both arms, a breathing tube down his throat, oxygen, catheter, epidural, three chest tubes snaking out of his back and his arms strapped down as a precaution because people coming out of anesthesia have a penchant for trying to rip their breathing tube out when they come to. He looked terrible. "You look good," I told him, which he obviously didn't reply to because you can't talk with a breathing tube stuffed down your throat. The anethesiologist came in to check up on things. His name was Dr. Dieter, but he looked less like Dieter from Sprockets and more like The Dude from Big Lebowski. He was also hilarious. "I was only in there for the important part," he said. "Basically, we cut you open, drianed the pus out and then took a garden hose to your chest for about 20 minutes."
Having cultured the fluid to get a better idea of just what the hell had made him so sick in the first place, they put him on an appropriate antibiotic that we hoped would clear up the infection once and for all. In the meantime, breathing tube removed, the bartender was free to insult his oh-so-witty surgeon when he came in each day to pull out the chest tubes one at a time. "I promise you, I won't feel a thing," the surgeon said as he de-Borged my roommate, which earned him "Dick" in response. On the day the final chest tube came out, the plan was that he would get out of ICU, go upstairs for observation for a day and then finally go home. Obviously this scenario was not in the stars because when everything else has gone horribly wrong, why not just pile it on?
As it turned out, after a day and a half on the "right" antibiotic to treat the infection, it was discovered it was the wrong antibiotic for the bartenders kidneys, as they had begun to shut down. So began several stress filled days of constant monitoring in an effort to keep the treatment that was saving his life from killing him.
Finally, FINALLY, he was well enough to leave the hospital and I took him home on Tuesday afternoon, 11 days after I'd driven him there in the middle of the night. I spent the next three days hovering over him and carrying things around because he wasn't allowed to lift anything at all (and couldn't have even if he'd tried). Then on Saturday, at the bartender's insistance, I finally left for my long planned trip to England which I had resigned myself already that I was going to miss, sending a text message to newbie postponing our date until June in the cab on the way to O'Hare.
So yeah. Sorry about the long break from blogging. I WAS BUSY.
I'll explain that shortly, but let's back up a minute.
What now seems like many Thursdays ago, I was in my usual watering hole doing my usual have dinner with my roommate and then drink a beer while antisocially playing games on my iPad thing, when a pretty looking boy began admiring my very pink hair and asking my advice on how he could do something similar to his very brown hair. I have had this conversation many times, and now that I have an iPad, I can augment it with Facebook photos of my coiffure's previous incarnations. He was impressed, deemed me artistic and started showing me some of his design portfolio, including some work he'd done for a motorcycle club. In turn I showed him the results of the Super Secret Project. It was the most stunning transformation I've ever seen: he was having a normal, relaxed, easy conversation with me and then as if I'd flipped a switch he suddenly became so nervous that he literally could not complete a sentence. He eventually took several deep breaths and managed to choke out enough words for me to understand he was asking me out. It's not like I could say no - he was adorable and there was a strong chance his head might implode from a rejection, so I gave him my e-mail and made vague plans to "eat something and watch the hockey game" on Saturday. In retrospect, it seems hilarious to me that I thought there was any chance I might wind up in some sort of normal situation.
The bartender had not been feeling well, so when he came home from working Friday night at 4:30 a.m. sweating and out of breath I was concerned. He asked me if we had an accurate thermometer (we didn't) and then said the bone chilling words that would kick off a terrifying saga: "I think you need to get dressed. I need you to take me to the hospital." The bartender doesn't really "do" hospitals. Despite that fact, he'd just been to the ER two weeks prior to that due to excruciating back and chest pain that was diagnosed as walking pneumonia. He was given antibiotics and sent on his way. He felt better after a few days, went back for a follow up a week later, was pronounced healthy and sent on his way. Two days later he had a fever of 102.2, couldn't breathe and wanted me to take him back to the hospital. Not good.
We got there and did the whole ER routine: triage, get in a room, vitals, talk to a nurse, talk to another nurse, wait for a doctor, explain everything again, wait some more, repeat everything again for a medical student, then a third nurse, get some blood drawn and then finally they took him away for a chest x-ray, which is when I checked my voicemail and realized I'd missed a call from the comic the night before explaining that he'd been randomly punched in the face. None of my boys were doing well, it seemed. I texted the only one who was (the boy from Thursday night) to inform him that I would not be making our date that afternoon and rescheduling it for Sunday. A doctor came in with the bad news: the bartender's pneumonia had not gone away at all, but rather seemed to have gotten worse. They decided to admit him for a couple days. I texted the newbie and rescheduled our date for early the following week, then went home and fed the cat.
When I got back to the hospital the situation had gone from bad to worse. A CT scan revealed that in addition to the pneumonia worsening, his lung was also being collapsed from the outside due to empyema. He would need surgery, but they didn't want to perform it until they got the infection that caused the pneumonia in the first place under control. They started throwing every antibiotic they had in their arsenal at him hoping something would work. None of them seemed to help, and after two days of this with his condition continuing to worsen it was becoming clear he had some sort of antibiotic resistant super bug and that they couldn't wait any longer to do the surgery. He went under the knife that Tuesday, while I paced the family lounge, tweeting what little information I had and postponing my date until the bartender made it home.
I was wholly unprepared for the scene that greeted me when they allowed me to see him in the ICU after surgery. IVs in both arms, a breathing tube down his throat, oxygen, catheter, epidural, three chest tubes snaking out of his back and his arms strapped down as a precaution because people coming out of anesthesia have a penchant for trying to rip their breathing tube out when they come to. He looked terrible. "You look good," I told him, which he obviously didn't reply to because you can't talk with a breathing tube stuffed down your throat. The anethesiologist came in to check up on things. His name was Dr. Dieter, but he looked less like Dieter from Sprockets and more like The Dude from Big Lebowski. He was also hilarious. "I was only in there for the important part," he said. "Basically, we cut you open, drianed the pus out and then took a garden hose to your chest for about 20 minutes."
Having cultured the fluid to get a better idea of just what the hell had made him so sick in the first place, they put him on an appropriate antibiotic that we hoped would clear up the infection once and for all. In the meantime, breathing tube removed, the bartender was free to insult his oh-so-witty surgeon when he came in each day to pull out the chest tubes one at a time. "I promise you, I won't feel a thing," the surgeon said as he de-Borged my roommate, which earned him "Dick" in response. On the day the final chest tube came out, the plan was that he would get out of ICU, go upstairs for observation for a day and then finally go home. Obviously this scenario was not in the stars because when everything else has gone horribly wrong, why not just pile it on?
As it turned out, after a day and a half on the "right" antibiotic to treat the infection, it was discovered it was the wrong antibiotic for the bartenders kidneys, as they had begun to shut down. So began several stress filled days of constant monitoring in an effort to keep the treatment that was saving his life from killing him.
Finally, FINALLY, he was well enough to leave the hospital and I took him home on Tuesday afternoon, 11 days after I'd driven him there in the middle of the night. I spent the next three days hovering over him and carrying things around because he wasn't allowed to lift anything at all (and couldn't have even if he'd tried). Then on Saturday, at the bartender's insistance, I finally left for my long planned trip to England which I had resigned myself already that I was going to miss, sending a text message to newbie postponing our date until June in the cab on the way to O'Hare.
So yeah. Sorry about the long break from blogging. I WAS BUSY.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
You Can't Get There From Here
When I woke up yesterday, the 18th of April, and I looked out the window and saw that it had snowed two inches in the early morning hours of April the 18th, and my sleep fogged brain realized that it was snowing, and it was April, I have to say I was pretty fucking pissed off. I stomped off to work and spent the day complaining about the fact that it was cold, and it was snowing, and it was April. Even so, I was relatively certain that it would be the worst morning of my week, what with the snowing and the April, and on the whole I think I took it in stride.
I spent a lot of time thinking wistfully about yesterday morning during the two and a half hour clusterfuck that served as my commute this morning.
It started out well enough. I timed the leaving of my house in a such a way that I would largely miss the rain on my 1/2 mile walk to the train, thereby allowing me to leave my umbrella at home and saving me from having to buy yet another umbrella since I almost invariably forget I have one with me and leave it on the train. A train pulled into the station in due course, and I stepped onto it and found a seat, which is always a bit of a victory. I finished the sudoku while we traveled a few stops. In between Paulina and Southport we stood on the tracks for an unusually long amount of time. I finished the crossword puzzle. The conductor told us there was some trouble with a train that had "broken" ahead of us and that we would be standing "momentarily". I still wasn't alarmed as this happens frequently and we are usually moving again inside of five minutes. Fifteen minutes later we still hadn't moved.
By now I had read the entire paper (to be fair it's the free morning paper and there's not a whole lot to it once you skip all the celebrity gossip and stories about a new bar that won't be open long enough for you to check it out). The conductor came back on to give us the exact same announcement which seemed superfluous as the situation hadn't changed and no one had gotten on or off the train since the last announcement. After another ten minutes he did make a new announcement: the broken train was fairly well fucked. It would not be going anywhere for a while and neither would we. And further to that, when we did go somewhere, it would be to the Southport stop, where we would need to get off and get onto a shuttle bus which would take us to Fullerton where we could get back on a train having bypassed several miles of track to which they had cut power. We had some time to think about our individual game plans though as we couldn't pull into Southport until the train that was already there was able to get onto the northbound tracks and out of our way. Even at this point I was remaining calm. Sometimes things break and it's nobody's fault and there's little you can do about it but soldier on. I called my office and explained the situation and that I didn't know what time I would be in. Then I remembered I had Peggle on my phone and started playing it.
Eventually we pulled into Southport, where we were told there were shuttle buses waiting for us downstairs to take us to Fullerton. Out on the street I did indeed see two buses and also a man in an orange vest with a clipboard who seemed to be directing things. Everything appeared to be under control. It fucking wasn't. There was firstly a problem of physics and the inability to condense the volume of humans that fit into eight train cars into the space of two buses. There was additionally the problem that trains were continuing to come into the station and drop off their human cargo. For me personally, there was the problem that it was 40 degrees outside and that it had started pissing down ice cold rain and I hadn't brought an umbrella. A very lovely Asian girl with an enormous Cubs umbrella offered me a space beneath it - don't ever try to tell me that Cubs fans are assholes, it simply isn't true. The first batch of buses were full up and left without us. I managed to wedge myself on to one of the second set of buses and we took off in rush hour traffic on a circumlocutory route designed to pick up, per orange vest guy, "as many people as possible" from the other three train stops between the one we were at and the one we were headed for. It was possible for us to fit exactly zero other passengers on our clown car of a bus, and we drove past the other stranded CTA customers feeling a mixture of relief and survivor's guilt.
Upon our eventual arrival at Fullerton, we filed into the station like a horde of spawning salmon and headed, logically we collectively believed, to the southbound platform in order that we might catch a southbound train. After allowing us to stand there for ten minutes in the freezing rain and wind, we were disabused of this ridiculous notion by a man on the loudspeaker who told us in a tone dripping with irritation at our stupidity that it was obvious we needed to catch a southbound train on the northbound tracks. As we headed back down the stairs to get to the other platform the woman next to me summed up the feelings of all of us by saying "I've never wanted to get to work so much in my entire life." Almost immediately after the last of us had reached the northbound platform, a brown line train pulled up to the southbound platform we had just vacated. It was followed in about two minutes time by a red line train pulling up to the southbound platform. Those of us who chose not to run back to the other side like the proverbial chicken stood there dumbfounded for the fifteen minutes it took for a train to pull up to the platform to which we had been directed.
By now I was soaked to the core and shivering, having lost my umbrella buddy in the shuffle, and I stepped on the train with no small measure of relief, pleased as punch to find a seat available and for once not caring that there was a mother holding a screaming infant in the seat just in front of me (I also ignored that she was speaking fucking French). About this time, the same announcer who had chastised us earlier began to tell us in the same exasperated tone as before that we were NOT to go to the northbound platform, that southbound trains must obviously be boarded from the southbound platform. He didn't actually finish with "you fucking idiots" but we all heard it. I was already on a train, and had been informed by the conductor that it was a southbound train to the loop, and also I was sitting and starting to dry - I was not, under any circumstances, getting up to go back where I had been in the first place. I continued to sit there for the half hour it took that train to finally close its doors and pull away towards the oasis of downtown. I finally arrived in the office around 11 a.m. at nearly the same time as the person who had flown in that morning from Boston in less time than it had taken me to commute from Lakeview.
And to think, only yesterday I had woken to the sight of beautiful, pristine, non-public transit interrupting April snow. Sigh...
I spent a lot of time thinking wistfully about yesterday morning during the two and a half hour clusterfuck that served as my commute this morning.
It started out well enough. I timed the leaving of my house in a such a way that I would largely miss the rain on my 1/2 mile walk to the train, thereby allowing me to leave my umbrella at home and saving me from having to buy yet another umbrella since I almost invariably forget I have one with me and leave it on the train. A train pulled into the station in due course, and I stepped onto it and found a seat, which is always a bit of a victory. I finished the sudoku while we traveled a few stops. In between Paulina and Southport we stood on the tracks for an unusually long amount of time. I finished the crossword puzzle. The conductor told us there was some trouble with a train that had "broken" ahead of us and that we would be standing "momentarily". I still wasn't alarmed as this happens frequently and we are usually moving again inside of five minutes. Fifteen minutes later we still hadn't moved.
By now I had read the entire paper (to be fair it's the free morning paper and there's not a whole lot to it once you skip all the celebrity gossip and stories about a new bar that won't be open long enough for you to check it out). The conductor came back on to give us the exact same announcement which seemed superfluous as the situation hadn't changed and no one had gotten on or off the train since the last announcement. After another ten minutes he did make a new announcement: the broken train was fairly well fucked. It would not be going anywhere for a while and neither would we. And further to that, when we did go somewhere, it would be to the Southport stop, where we would need to get off and get onto a shuttle bus which would take us to Fullerton where we could get back on a train having bypassed several miles of track to which they had cut power. We had some time to think about our individual game plans though as we couldn't pull into Southport until the train that was already there was able to get onto the northbound tracks and out of our way. Even at this point I was remaining calm. Sometimes things break and it's nobody's fault and there's little you can do about it but soldier on. I called my office and explained the situation and that I didn't know what time I would be in. Then I remembered I had Peggle on my phone and started playing it.
Eventually we pulled into Southport, where we were told there were shuttle buses waiting for us downstairs to take us to Fullerton. Out on the street I did indeed see two buses and also a man in an orange vest with a clipboard who seemed to be directing things. Everything appeared to be under control. It fucking wasn't. There was firstly a problem of physics and the inability to condense the volume of humans that fit into eight train cars into the space of two buses. There was additionally the problem that trains were continuing to come into the station and drop off their human cargo. For me personally, there was the problem that it was 40 degrees outside and that it had started pissing down ice cold rain and I hadn't brought an umbrella. A very lovely Asian girl with an enormous Cubs umbrella offered me a space beneath it - don't ever try to tell me that Cubs fans are assholes, it simply isn't true. The first batch of buses were full up and left without us. I managed to wedge myself on to one of the second set of buses and we took off in rush hour traffic on a circumlocutory route designed to pick up, per orange vest guy, "as many people as possible" from the other three train stops between the one we were at and the one we were headed for. It was possible for us to fit exactly zero other passengers on our clown car of a bus, and we drove past the other stranded CTA customers feeling a mixture of relief and survivor's guilt.
Upon our eventual arrival at Fullerton, we filed into the station like a horde of spawning salmon and headed, logically we collectively believed, to the southbound platform in order that we might catch a southbound train. After allowing us to stand there for ten minutes in the freezing rain and wind, we were disabused of this ridiculous notion by a man on the loudspeaker who told us in a tone dripping with irritation at our stupidity that it was obvious we needed to catch a southbound train on the northbound tracks. As we headed back down the stairs to get to the other platform the woman next to me summed up the feelings of all of us by saying "I've never wanted to get to work so much in my entire life." Almost immediately after the last of us had reached the northbound platform, a brown line train pulled up to the southbound platform we had just vacated. It was followed in about two minutes time by a red line train pulling up to the southbound platform. Those of us who chose not to run back to the other side like the proverbial chicken stood there dumbfounded for the fifteen minutes it took for a train to pull up to the platform to which we had been directed.
By now I was soaked to the core and shivering, having lost my umbrella buddy in the shuffle, and I stepped on the train with no small measure of relief, pleased as punch to find a seat available and for once not caring that there was a mother holding a screaming infant in the seat just in front of me (I also ignored that she was speaking fucking French). About this time, the same announcer who had chastised us earlier began to tell us in the same exasperated tone as before that we were NOT to go to the northbound platform, that southbound trains must obviously be boarded from the southbound platform. He didn't actually finish with "you fucking idiots" but we all heard it. I was already on a train, and had been informed by the conductor that it was a southbound train to the loop, and also I was sitting and starting to dry - I was not, under any circumstances, getting up to go back where I had been in the first place. I continued to sit there for the half hour it took that train to finally close its doors and pull away towards the oasis of downtown. I finally arrived in the office around 11 a.m. at nearly the same time as the person who had flown in that morning from Boston in less time than it had taken me to commute from Lakeview.
And to think, only yesterday I had woken to the sight of beautiful, pristine, non-public transit interrupting April snow. Sigh...
Friday, April 01, 2011
And Get The Hell Out Of My Bed Too.
H-town: lol karen carpenter
*goes to hell*
me: credit to [the bartender] for that one
H-town: i hate feeling that sick
when i got strep this winter it was the worst i've been sick in a decade, too
i thought i was dying, too
me: yeah, strep is a pretty bad one
H-town: i feel ya - moving 2 feet felt like i was climbing mt. everest
thankfully i wasn't hurling
i had a nasty 24 bug last fall though
i can't imagine hurling for more than 24 hrs
me: i was only hurling for about one day, but i had no appetite at all for four
I don't think I ate as much as 500 calories a day for four days straight
H-town: isn't weird when even eating takes too much energy?
bodyFAIL
me: i know right?
H-town: your brain's all, yeah - eating would give me energy and help me, but fuck that noise
then it goes into hibernate mode
me: then some mooching bitch comes in and eats all your porridge
H-town: hahaha
me: LEARN HOW TO COOK WHORE
H-town: HAHAHAHA
*goes to hell*
me: credit to [the bartender] for that one
H-town: i hate feeling that sick
when i got strep this winter it was the worst i've been sick in a decade, too
i thought i was dying, too
me: yeah, strep is a pretty bad one
H-town: i feel ya - moving 2 feet felt like i was climbing mt. everest
thankfully i wasn't hurling
i had a nasty 24 bug last fall though
i can't imagine hurling for more than 24 hrs
me: i was only hurling for about one day, but i had no appetite at all for four
I don't think I ate as much as 500 calories a day for four days straight
H-town: isn't weird when even eating takes too much energy?
bodyFAIL
me: i know right?
H-town: your brain's all, yeah - eating would give me energy and help me, but fuck that noise
then it goes into hibernate mode
me: then some mooching bitch comes in and eats all your porridge
H-town: hahaha
me: LEARN HOW TO COOK WHORE
H-town: HAHAHAHA
Learn From My Fail
Every year, my boss asks me if I'm getting the flu shot, and every year I scoff at him. I have an immune system made of steel and I haven't had the flu in well over a decade. I don't need a flu shot because I'm not going to get the flu, I reason, and as such I'll just skip it and keep the $30 for myself thank you very much. Historically this method has always worked. Unfortunately, what this method doesn't take into account is that extreme stress, such as the unbelievable work and relationship related stress I've been dealing with since the beginning of the year, can and will weaken your immune system. My steel defenses have become more similar to swiss cheese defenses so far this year - through mid March I had already gone through three colds and/or sinus infections. A week and a half after the last one I finally succumbed to the flu.
I didn't even see it coming. I'd been in very good form on Saturday. I got up early, took the cat to the vet, picked up a prescription, put some boxes in storage, dropped off my laundry, bought an Easter dress and did a 45 minute workout all before 2:00 pm. The bartender ordered pizza for dinner and we ate it watching two brilliant college basketball games which both had piss poor outcomes. Shortly after 9:00 pm, I very suddenly became completely exhausted. Because unlike a cold that starts with the sniffles and builds into a full blown illness, the flu prefers to just sneak up on you and clobber you over the head with everything it's got.
I was startled at how tired I suddenly was, which is to say I was tired enough to get in bed at 9:30 on a Saturday night. At which point, I immediately realized I was starting to run a fever. And that I had a terrible chest rattling cough. And that I was in for something serious. Because from that moment until this morning, I have only gotten out of bed to pee and throw up*.
I have never, EVER been this ill before as an adult. At some point during the week, I called the comic in a fever delirium to explain that I wouldn't being seeing him in May because I was bound for death in a few short hours. He congratulated me on being sensible enough to stay home from work. Normally I'm not and will force myself to get up get things done, as per the American way. I wasn't being sensible this time either, I simply couldn't move. To go from the couch to my bed was a monumental undertaking. Making it to the kitchen was out of the question. I couldn't have gone to work even if I'd wanted to because there wasn't strength enough in my body to turn a doorknob so as to get out of the house.
I am upright and mobile now, finally, after 6 days. Sort of anyway. I still can't stand for longer than 10 or 15 minutes at a time. I get winded walking across a room. The cough still hasn't abated and my lungs feel like they're on fire. I lost 6 pounds in four days time and I look like Karen Carpenter. I never really grasped before that the flu is something thousands of people actually die from every year, but I get it now. The flu does not fuck around.
Let this be a lesson to you: just get the fucking flu shot.
*Except for the one time I got out of bed to take a shower, which did not go well. I should have taken a bath, but I'd been lying down for three days and I thought I would try being upright for a while. It lasted long enough for me to get shampoo in my hair and then I was overwhelmed. I finished my shower sitting on the bottom of the tub, dried my hair sitting on the bathroom floor, and crawled - literally - back to my bed.
I didn't even see it coming. I'd been in very good form on Saturday. I got up early, took the cat to the vet, picked up a prescription, put some boxes in storage, dropped off my laundry, bought an Easter dress and did a 45 minute workout all before 2:00 pm. The bartender ordered pizza for dinner and we ate it watching two brilliant college basketball games which both had piss poor outcomes. Shortly after 9:00 pm, I very suddenly became completely exhausted. Because unlike a cold that starts with the sniffles and builds into a full blown illness, the flu prefers to just sneak up on you and clobber you over the head with everything it's got.
 |
| "Imma fuck you up." |
I was startled at how tired I suddenly was, which is to say I was tired enough to get in bed at 9:30 on a Saturday night. At which point, I immediately realized I was starting to run a fever. And that I had a terrible chest rattling cough. And that I was in for something serious. Because from that moment until this morning, I have only gotten out of bed to pee and throw up*.
I have never, EVER been this ill before as an adult. At some point during the week, I called the comic in a fever delirium to explain that I wouldn't being seeing him in May because I was bound for death in a few short hours. He congratulated me on being sensible enough to stay home from work. Normally I'm not and will force myself to get up get things done, as per the American way. I wasn't being sensible this time either, I simply couldn't move. To go from the couch to my bed was a monumental undertaking. Making it to the kitchen was out of the question. I couldn't have gone to work even if I'd wanted to because there wasn't strength enough in my body to turn a doorknob so as to get out of the house.
I am upright and mobile now, finally, after 6 days. Sort of anyway. I still can't stand for longer than 10 or 15 minutes at a time. I get winded walking across a room. The cough still hasn't abated and my lungs feel like they're on fire. I lost 6 pounds in four days time and I look like Karen Carpenter. I never really grasped before that the flu is something thousands of people actually die from every year, but I get it now. The flu does not fuck around.
Let this be a lesson to you: just get the fucking flu shot.
*Except for the one time I got out of bed to take a shower, which did not go well. I should have taken a bath, but I'd been lying down for three days and I thought I would try being upright for a while. It lasted long enough for me to get shampoo in my hair and then I was overwhelmed. I finished my shower sitting on the bottom of the tub, dried my hair sitting on the bathroom floor, and crawled - literally - back to my bed.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Chain Restaurants Simplified
After seeing a commercial for the Tilted Kilt that used the Dropkick Murphy's "Shipping Up To Boston" yesterday
The bartender (walking past me and grumbling): More stupid suburban bullshit.
Me: I went to the Tilted Kilt with Fish once. It's just a plaid Hooters.
The bartender (walking past me and grumbling): More stupid suburban bullshit.
Me: I went to the Tilted Kilt with Fish once. It's just a plaid Hooters.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Amber And Heather Ruin All Your Fantasies
H-Town: i like your fake About Me section
i laughed at the secret sex dungeon part
out loud
a chortle
COL
me: some day, heather. some day...
H-town: we all have dreams
background music swells up
well-choreographed song and dance routine happens
me: it has a round bed in it and shackles on the wall
H-town: does the bed spin?
me: well it does now
Heather: hahaha
you know, speaking of interesting rooms, i remember seeing a Cribs episode where they went through Tommy Lee's house
besides being afraid that there'd be herpes EVERYWHERE, i was a fan of his shower set up
me: does he have a separate bed for his wang to sleep on?
H-town: you could see the shower from his bed
so whatever ladies he had over, you could see a little of them in the shower
trashy, but I liked it
me: oh i like that too, great idea
H-town: it wasn't totally clear glass
so now you have a spinning bed and a nearby see-thru shower
he also had a sex swing in his bedroom
not surprising
me: i don't really get those, but maybe that's because i've never really seen one live
H-town: yeah, same here
they look dangerous
i'd most certainly end up seriously injuring myself
me: pretty sure i'd forget all about the sex if i had a swing though. i'd be like WHEEE!!!!!
H-town: hahaha
SEX? who cares!
PUSH ME!
no, not with that
use your hands!
me: wind it up so i can spin! and then i throw up on everything. party's over
H-town: haha
me: off to the visible shower
H-town: less exciting now
me: sex dungeons can be perilous for all the wrong reasons sometimes
i laughed at the secret sex dungeon part
out loud
a chortle
COL
me: some day, heather. some day...
H-town: we all have dreams
background music swells up
well-choreographed song and dance routine happens
me: it has a round bed in it and shackles on the wall
H-town: does the bed spin?
me: well it does now
Heather: hahaha
you know, speaking of interesting rooms, i remember seeing a Cribs episode where they went through Tommy Lee's house
besides being afraid that there'd be herpes EVERYWHERE, i was a fan of his shower set up
me: does he have a separate bed for his wang to sleep on?
H-town: you could see the shower from his bed
so whatever ladies he had over, you could see a little of them in the shower
trashy, but I liked it
me: oh i like that too, great idea
H-town: it wasn't totally clear glass
so now you have a spinning bed and a nearby see-thru shower
he also had a sex swing in his bedroom
not surprising
me: i don't really get those, but maybe that's because i've never really seen one live
H-town: yeah, same here
they look dangerous
i'd most certainly end up seriously injuring myself
me: pretty sure i'd forget all about the sex if i had a swing though. i'd be like WHEEE!!!!!
H-town: hahaha
SEX? who cares!
PUSH ME!
no, not with that
use your hands!
me: wind it up so i can spin! and then i throw up on everything. party's over
H-town: haha
me: off to the visible shower
H-town: less exciting now
me: sex dungeons can be perilous for all the wrong reasons sometimes
What's All This Then?
After more than six years of the same old same old, I've made some changes/upgrades to Bizzybiz (obviously) that I've been meaning to do for a long time. For one thing, I have now gone through all the archives and added labels to all the posts, so now if you want to see everything I've ever written about spiders all at once (my research is extensive after all, everything you need to know is here somewhere) you just need to click on the "spiders" label.
I've also added some tabs at the top, an About Me page that is filled with lies, and a page of links to things that I often read when I'm not writing on Bizzybiz or checking the corners of the room and the ceiling for spiders, as well as the websites for the podcasts I frequently mention. That same page also has a link to my Twitter account, so if you want you can follow me and find out if I am as clever when I don't have infinite space to go on and on and on about things (probably not).
I am still working on tweaking the template, so if you have any suggestions or complaints like "What the fuck? I can't even read this!" let me know and I'll do my best to fix it. I also intend to add more links on the Linkylinks page - those were just the things I thought of off the top of my head last night when I was working on this - so check back for more and send me your suggestions.
Bizzybiz 2.0 - now with more ridiculousness.
I've also added some tabs at the top, an About Me page that is filled with lies, and a page of links to things that I often read when I'm not writing on Bizzybiz or checking the corners of the room and the ceiling for spiders, as well as the websites for the podcasts I frequently mention. That same page also has a link to my Twitter account, so if you want you can follow me and find out if I am as clever when I don't have infinite space to go on and on and on about things (probably not).
I am still working on tweaking the template, so if you have any suggestions or complaints like "What the fuck? I can't even read this!" let me know and I'll do my best to fix it. I also intend to add more links on the Linkylinks page - those were just the things I thought of off the top of my head last night when I was working on this - so check back for more and send me your suggestions.
Bizzybiz 2.0 - now with more ridiculousness.
Monday, March 21, 2011
The Relative Value of Los Angeles
I'm confused about how Battle: Los Angeles made it to number one at the box office. Now in all fairness, I haven't actually seen the movie nor do I have any plans to see it because it looks pretty stupid. But based on the trailers for it, I'm pretty sure it's just a remake of Independence Day, and Independence Day fucking sucked. Right? Aliens are invading our planet to get our resources and are systematically wiping us out. That's the same plot as Independence Day, isn't it? I've already seen Battle: Los Angeles then and it isn't any good.
Now, granted, it's possible that maybe they've improved on Independence Day. Certainly there was a ton of room for improvement: Bill Pullman is possibly the least convincing person to ever play the President (seriously, once you've played Lone Star in Spaceballs, you've pretty much typecast yourself as "not the President"), Jeff Goldblum has played the exact same character in every single movie he's ever starred in, and the dialogue is so terrible the only line in the whole thing I even bothered to remember was Will Smith punching the alien in the face and saying "Welcome to Earth." But even if you fix all those things, you're still left with a stale plot of alien invasion, humanity is woefully outnumbered, at the eleventh hour someone comes up with a brilliantly unorthodox plan and (presumably) sacrifices him or herself which saves the day and everyone is happy because it's a movie and therefore easy to ignore the devastating aftermath that would certainly follow a protracted war with a hostile extra terrestrial invasion force. In other words, it looks dumb.
At least they put out more trailers than just the first one I saw, because they provided some clarification I desperately needed. The first trailer made it look, to me anyway, like the aliens were invading Los Angeles only, and with all due respect to any friends I have who live there, my immediate reaction was "Who fucking cares?" Because, come on. Aliens are planning an invasion and the target they settle on is Los Angeles and that's it? A couple things come to mind. 1. These aliens are not terribly bright, unless the resources they're looking for are film reels and silicone (if so then good job aliens, you have chosen wisely). 2. All they want is Los Angeles and they'll leave the rest of us alone? GREAT! Give it to them! I'm happy to turn over Los Angeles if it means nothing changes for the rest of the Earth, other than having a new sort of weird neighbor, and we have plenty of those already, life won't be all that different. We don't need Los Angeles. Los Angeles is pretty much jewelery: it's pretty and sparkly and meant to show off our wealth, but it's not really that important and when the money runs out we should pawn that first. I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. Let them have it. After seeing subsequent trailers though, the plot made a little more sense. Apparently, they are attacking all over the place and in fact most of the major cities of the Earth have already been overrun. Los Angeles is not the focal point of the attack, it's simply where mankind has chosen to make its last stand. Which is an entirely different story and far more plausible. If Los Angeles is all we have left, then yes, I agree, defend it with everything you've got. If it's our last toehold and holds the key to our continued existence as a species then it is certainly important enough of a place to serve as the setting of an alien invasion movie.
But it still looks dumb.
Now, granted, it's possible that maybe they've improved on Independence Day. Certainly there was a ton of room for improvement: Bill Pullman is possibly the least convincing person to ever play the President (seriously, once you've played Lone Star in Spaceballs, you've pretty much typecast yourself as "not the President"), Jeff Goldblum has played the exact same character in every single movie he's ever starred in, and the dialogue is so terrible the only line in the whole thing I even bothered to remember was Will Smith punching the alien in the face and saying "Welcome to Earth." But even if you fix all those things, you're still left with a stale plot of alien invasion, humanity is woefully outnumbered, at the eleventh hour someone comes up with a brilliantly unorthodox plan and (presumably) sacrifices him or herself which saves the day and everyone is happy because it's a movie and therefore easy to ignore the devastating aftermath that would certainly follow a protracted war with a hostile extra terrestrial invasion force. In other words, it looks dumb.
At least they put out more trailers than just the first one I saw, because they provided some clarification I desperately needed. The first trailer made it look, to me anyway, like the aliens were invading Los Angeles only, and with all due respect to any friends I have who live there, my immediate reaction was "Who fucking cares?" Because, come on. Aliens are planning an invasion and the target they settle on is Los Angeles and that's it? A couple things come to mind. 1. These aliens are not terribly bright, unless the resources they're looking for are film reels and silicone (if so then good job aliens, you have chosen wisely). 2. All they want is Los Angeles and they'll leave the rest of us alone? GREAT! Give it to them! I'm happy to turn over Los Angeles if it means nothing changes for the rest of the Earth, other than having a new sort of weird neighbor, and we have plenty of those already, life won't be all that different. We don't need Los Angeles. Los Angeles is pretty much jewelery: it's pretty and sparkly and meant to show off our wealth, but it's not really that important and when the money runs out we should pawn that first. I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. Let them have it. After seeing subsequent trailers though, the plot made a little more sense. Apparently, they are attacking all over the place and in fact most of the major cities of the Earth have already been overrun. Los Angeles is not the focal point of the attack, it's simply where mankind has chosen to make its last stand. Which is an entirely different story and far more plausible. If Los Angeles is all we have left, then yes, I agree, defend it with everything you've got. If it's our last toehold and holds the key to our continued existence as a species then it is certainly important enough of a place to serve as the setting of an alien invasion movie.
But it still looks dumb.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
More Hatiness
Still sick and really hopped up on whatever it is I'm taking. I've been acting like I'm on speed all day long, and have just overwhelmed the accountant with a conversation in the kitchen that included diagonal air vents, aliens, ethnic heritage, things that are green, the fact that all the Bourne movies taken together are one extremely long chase scene, the relative value of Los Angeles and a half a dozen other things that I've already forgotten. Which is not the point. In reality I probably would have been somewhat better off not coming to work. However, it is bar night tonight AND it is St. Pat's AND the NCAA tourney started this morning AND I'm still feeling hostile, so I want to go to Tai's tonight in my "Fuck You" etc. t-shirt and argue with people. But in my head there's an "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" kind of thing going on where I feel like if I think I'm too sick to go to work, I must then also be too sick to go to the bar. So I had to go to work. Which also isn't the point. The entire paragraph is to introduce the fact that I still feel like I did yesterday and offer that up as an explanation of why I am ranting about another commercial that I hate. Which I told you would probably happen. OK? Good.
There was one commercial I forgot to mention yesterday which I also hate right now, which is the latest offering from 5 Hour Energy. Apparently, they are trying to gain market share now by going after the morning wake up market in addition to the stay-up-all-night crowd and the man-that-was-a-long-day crowd by attacking coffee. Specifically, by pointing out how enormously difficult and taxing it is to brew it and have to add cream and sugar to it, or what a travesty it is to have to wait in line to buy it if you don't want to make it yourself. It is the classic ploy of creating a problem that doesn't actually exist and then providing a solution that nobody needs. Listen to me: making coffee is not that hard. It isn't. It just isn't. You don't want to wait in line at this Starbucks? NO PROBLEM. There's bound to be five other ones across the street. You make yours at home but you don't want to have to wait for it to brew? NO PROBLEM. Most coffee makers these days have timers set on them so you can program when you want it to start brewing and then when you get up there will be a fresh pot of coffee waiting for you as if by magic. It's so much work to stir in a little cream? Actually, I can't really help you here. If you can't handle the thought of having to put cream in your coffee there is no hope for you anyway. Fuck off and drink it black then. NO ONE IS CHALLENGED BY COFFEE*. And if you are sitting in your kitchen staring at the empty coffee pot thinking "You mean I have to turn on a machine and wait for it to brew and pour it into a cup and put things in it and lift the cup to my lips and take a sip and swallow this coffee all by myself? Why must I be made to suffer this gross injustice day in and day out?" then maybe you better re-evaluate your life and whether or not it should be allowed to continue because you are the most useless human being on the entire planet and an asshole on top of it. No, 5 hour energy needs to stick with what it's good at, which is sending college students to an early grave due to massive amounts of alternating stimulants and depressants.
*Generally. Strictly speaking, this is not always true. When I went to visit the comic the first time he asked me to make him a cup of coffee and I have to admit I was stymied by it at first. This is because in England they all drink instant coffee, not brewed coffee, and I was unfamiliar. "You just put a spoonful of crystals into the water and stir it," he explained. It seemed like it was almost too easy and I was worried that it might be a trap. But I tried it and it worked and nothing bad happened at all, if you don't count the comic drinking a really shitty cup of coffee. Which I don't because he is English and doesn't know any better.
There was one commercial I forgot to mention yesterday which I also hate right now, which is the latest offering from 5 Hour Energy. Apparently, they are trying to gain market share now by going after the morning wake up market in addition to the stay-up-all-night crowd and the man-that-was-a-long-day crowd by attacking coffee. Specifically, by pointing out how enormously difficult and taxing it is to brew it and have to add cream and sugar to it, or what a travesty it is to have to wait in line to buy it if you don't want to make it yourself. It is the classic ploy of creating a problem that doesn't actually exist and then providing a solution that nobody needs. Listen to me: making coffee is not that hard. It isn't. It just isn't. You don't want to wait in line at this Starbucks? NO PROBLEM. There's bound to be five other ones across the street. You make yours at home but you don't want to have to wait for it to brew? NO PROBLEM. Most coffee makers these days have timers set on them so you can program when you want it to start brewing and then when you get up there will be a fresh pot of coffee waiting for you as if by magic. It's so much work to stir in a little cream? Actually, I can't really help you here. If you can't handle the thought of having to put cream in your coffee there is no hope for you anyway. Fuck off and drink it black then. NO ONE IS CHALLENGED BY COFFEE*. And if you are sitting in your kitchen staring at the empty coffee pot thinking "You mean I have to turn on a machine and wait for it to brew and pour it into a cup and put things in it and lift the cup to my lips and take a sip and swallow this coffee all by myself? Why must I be made to suffer this gross injustice day in and day out?" then maybe you better re-evaluate your life and whether or not it should be allowed to continue because you are the most useless human being on the entire planet and an asshole on top of it. No, 5 hour energy needs to stick with what it's good at, which is sending college students to an early grave due to massive amounts of alternating stimulants and depressants.
*Generally. Strictly speaking, this is not always true. When I went to visit the comic the first time he asked me to make him a cup of coffee and I have to admit I was stymied by it at first. This is because in England they all drink instant coffee, not brewed coffee, and I was unfamiliar. "You just put a spoonful of crystals into the water and stir it," he explained. It seemed like it was almost too easy and I was worried that it might be a trap. But I tried it and it worked and nothing bad happened at all, if you don't count the comic drinking a really shitty cup of coffee. Which I don't because he is English and doesn't know any better.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Commercials I Hate
Right, listen. I'm running a fever and I hate having a fever with the hatiest of hates. So fair warning: this post will be nit-picky, overly critical and full of vitriol. This will also be your only warning, so heed it. I am hostile.
With brilliant commercials like the Old Spice Guy, The Most Interesting Man in the World, all the Jameson ones and of course the long running and fabulous SportsCenter promos, it is obvious that there is a lot of talent out there in the advertising world. Why is it then, that there are so many flat out fucking shitty commercials still being made? There's just no excuse for that.
For as good as the SportsCenter series has been for years, I saw an ESPN promo today that was completely off the mark. It was for NASCAR. Now, I get that you have to really talk up NASCAR if you want people to watch it because NASCAR is dumb. But I think it is taking things a bit far to tell people that watching a NASCAR race is exciting because "there's uncertainty around every turn". What? No there isn't. Have you even seen NASCAR? It's a bunch of greasy hilljacks (plus one bow-legged overly dramatic woman) driving in circles. There's nothing that is uncertain here. I assure you, the only thing that is going to happen around every turn is that they're all going to make a left. Well whoopidy-do, assholes. NASCAR still sucks. Fuck off.
Also, what is with the Xfinity commercials (for that matter, what is with the name "Xfinity"? That's not a word. It's not even a portmanteau. You suck.)? That bundle of wires crawling around is fucking creepy. Congratulations, you've somehow managed to make electrical components look gross. Right now Xfinity is promoting their baseball package. They went for the American heritage angle, which is ok, but they go and ruin it by telling you that baseball is "America's first space program". Sorry, I believe the organization you're looking for was called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Hitting a baseball is not the same thing as going to space. No one has ever actually hit a baseball into space. If someone had we'd know about it because he'd have to be a fucking mutant. Baseball has nothing to do with space. Shut up.
Then there are the commercials for Windows Cloud. These are not all bad. The one in the airport makes sense - the flight is delayed, they're stuck there, might as well watch some television. I'll just overlook the fact that the show they chose to watch was called Celebrity Rehab because I'm magnanimous like that. It's pretty neat when you think about it. Who would have thought back in the 80's, when televisions were less of an appliance and more of a piece of furniture, and computers were ginormous and had no hard drives, that someday we'd be watching television on a computer small enough to carry around with you and that you wouldn't have to plug it into anything? No, the one I'm on about is the one with the mom who is editing the family photo. Again, no problem with that per se - I'm all for retouching your photos, no one wants to see Pam's stretch marks in Playboy. The problem I have is with the two lines she has at the end. I'll take each in turn:
With brilliant commercials like the Old Spice Guy, The Most Interesting Man in the World, all the Jameson ones and of course the long running and fabulous SportsCenter promos, it is obvious that there is a lot of talent out there in the advertising world. Why is it then, that there are so many flat out fucking shitty commercials still being made? There's just no excuse for that.
For as good as the SportsCenter series has been for years, I saw an ESPN promo today that was completely off the mark. It was for NASCAR. Now, I get that you have to really talk up NASCAR if you want people to watch it because NASCAR is dumb. But I think it is taking things a bit far to tell people that watching a NASCAR race is exciting because "there's uncertainty around every turn". What? No there isn't. Have you even seen NASCAR? It's a bunch of greasy hilljacks (plus one bow-legged overly dramatic woman) driving in circles. There's nothing that is uncertain here. I assure you, the only thing that is going to happen around every turn is that they're all going to make a left. Well whoopidy-do, assholes. NASCAR still sucks. Fuck off.
Also, what is with the Xfinity commercials (for that matter, what is with the name "Xfinity"? That's not a word. It's not even a portmanteau. You suck.)? That bundle of wires crawling around is fucking creepy. Congratulations, you've somehow managed to make electrical components look gross. Right now Xfinity is promoting their baseball package. They went for the American heritage angle, which is ok, but they go and ruin it by telling you that baseball is "America's first space program". Sorry, I believe the organization you're looking for was called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Hitting a baseball is not the same thing as going to space. No one has ever actually hit a baseball into space. If someone had we'd know about it because he'd have to be a fucking mutant. Baseball has nothing to do with space. Shut up.
Then there are the commercials for Windows Cloud. These are not all bad. The one in the airport makes sense - the flight is delayed, they're stuck there, might as well watch some television. I'll just overlook the fact that the show they chose to watch was called Celebrity Rehab because I'm magnanimous like that. It's pretty neat when you think about it. Who would have thought back in the 80's, when televisions were less of an appliance and more of a piece of furniture, and computers were ginormous and had no hard drives, that someday we'd be watching television on a computer small enough to carry around with you and that you wouldn't have to plug it into anything? No, the one I'm on about is the one with the mom who is editing the family photo. Again, no problem with that per se - I'm all for retouching your photos, no one wants to see Pam's stretch marks in Playboy. The problem I have is with the two lines she has at the end. I'll take each in turn:
- "There! A photo I can share without ridicule." Are you serious? You just dressed your entire family in the exact same god-awful blue flannel shirt, you most certainly are going to get ridiculed. Here, I'll do it right now: you look like a bunch of fucking tools dressed like that. Are you high? You know your kids are going to get the shit beaten out of them at school if anyone ever sees this don't you? Actually, maybe that was the plan all along because the next line is
- "Cloud gives me the family that nature never could." Wow. Thanks, June Cleaver. Way to make your husband and kids feel like failures. Seriously, how bad could they be? They did all dress up in that hideous fucking shirt that may yet get them killed in an effort to make you happy, I think that's pretty nice of them. I sure as hell wouldn't do it. Your impossible standards are going to leave you a lonely bitter woman after your kids cut you out of their lives (after years of therapy from how you fucked them up) and your husband leaves you for his secretary because at least she doesn't criticize every. single. thing. he. does. You seem like a bitch. I don't want to use any products that you use, Cloud is tainted now.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
I Need New Hobbies, I Think.
I have no use for St. Pat's on the whole because I am not Irish and I am not Catholic and therefore it doesn't apply to me. The thing is I'm kind of torn about it because one thing I do enjoy having an occasion for is day drinking. The city of Chicago, where I live and dream, always celebrates St. Pat's on the preceding Saturday. The claim is that it's so children can see the river dyed green and the parade rather than holding those events on a school day. I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on that and advance my own theory that this is how Chicagoans justify day drinking twice in one week, once on the sanctioned Saturday and then again on the actual holiday, in the hope that it will tide them over to the next made up holiday Cinco De Mayo.
For the past few years I've split the difference between my opposing views by going out day drinking with wrongly colored hair and a t-shirt that reads "Fuck you, you're Irish". But after being awakened just after 6 a.m. this Saturday by ALREADY drunk dickwads with presumably little or no Irish ancestry walking down my street and yelling, I decided that this year I would skip the jackassery and stay home by myself (the bartender not having the option to stay home because, well, he's a bartender). So I did.
What I did not do was to pair that decision with another one to also skip the day drinking. It is a designated day drinking day in Chicago, after all, and there is a mostly untouched handle of Captain sitting forlornly in my kitchen crying "Drink me, please, so I can fulfill my destiny". So I got with the pouring and sat down to watch WWII in Color on the Military Channel for reasons I can't explain even to myself. I was drunk by 2:30, which is right around the time I decided to e-mail the comic.
The comic and I have a storied history of drunk communication. He has a peculiar habit of calling me when he's on vacation and then putting someone else on the phone. On my end, since drunk dialing from here would normally wake him up because he's in the future, I've taken to drunk e-mailing. The thing is, I can barely spell when I'm stone cold sober and combined with drunk typing, most of my messages end up being incoherent. He finds the e-mails highly amusing and pulls his favorite phrases out of them to use against me on Facebook (such as the time I wrote "HOLTY FUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!" for who knows what reason, which became his response to everything I posted for the next three days). Here is the message I sent him on Saturday:
"Im drun k. Im going to dfrunk work out and then drunk bake cookies becauase it's daydsrinking dau in chiACBGO. i can't find my cat. national lampoons christmas vcacation is on becausr thaT makes sense in march. OOOO CAT IS HERE!!!!! bye"
to which he responded "chiACBGO is the best spelling of Chicago I have ever seen".
Little known fact: there is a stage in my drunkenness that comes before the one where I am Loud that I call Ambition. Ambition is the time when I have the sudden urge to do things that my drunk brain considers constructive. And sometimes they are, such as when I decide to CLEAN ALL THE THINGS! (by the way, if you're not reading Hyperbole and a Half I suggest you start doing so immediately). It is little known because it's usually short lived and I'm rarely in a position to do anything about it ("I should totally reupholster the dining room chairs right now!" I'll say to myself when I'm drunk in a different country from the one that has my chairs). In this case, the Ambition told me I should work out and then bake cookies, which in hindsight seems totally counterproductive. I did end up doing both of these things, plus a sink full of dishes. But the Ambition can only take you so far, and it did not take me far enough to actually put on workout clothes, or in fact any clothes. My workout attire was panties and a pair of socks with kitties on them. I'm sure it was very attractive. I did at least think to put some clothes on before I started baking. You can tell because if I hadn't, right now you'd most likely be reading a blog post about how I managed to get burn marks on my nipples from naked cookie making and that I'm so much more hardcore than the stupid Girl Scouts. I'm not, by the way, I'm just far more accident prone.
For the past few years I've split the difference between my opposing views by going out day drinking with wrongly colored hair and a t-shirt that reads "Fuck you, you're Irish". But after being awakened just after 6 a.m. this Saturday by ALREADY drunk dickwads with presumably little or no Irish ancestry walking down my street and yelling, I decided that this year I would skip the jackassery and stay home by myself (the bartender not having the option to stay home because, well, he's a bartender). So I did.
What I did not do was to pair that decision with another one to also skip the day drinking. It is a designated day drinking day in Chicago, after all, and there is a mostly untouched handle of Captain sitting forlornly in my kitchen crying "Drink me, please, so I can fulfill my destiny". So I got with the pouring and sat down to watch WWII in Color on the Military Channel for reasons I can't explain even to myself. I was drunk by 2:30, which is right around the time I decided to e-mail the comic.
The comic and I have a storied history of drunk communication. He has a peculiar habit of calling me when he's on vacation and then putting someone else on the phone. On my end, since drunk dialing from here would normally wake him up because he's in the future, I've taken to drunk e-mailing. The thing is, I can barely spell when I'm stone cold sober and combined with drunk typing, most of my messages end up being incoherent. He finds the e-mails highly amusing and pulls his favorite phrases out of them to use against me on Facebook (such as the time I wrote "HOLTY FUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!" for who knows what reason, which became his response to everything I posted for the next three days). Here is the message I sent him on Saturday:
"Im drun k. Im going to dfrunk work out and then drunk bake cookies becauase it's daydsrinking dau in chiACBGO. i can't find my cat. national lampoons christmas vcacation is on becausr thaT makes sense in march. OOOO CAT IS HERE!!!!! bye"
to which he responded "chiACBGO is the best spelling of Chicago I have ever seen".
Little known fact: there is a stage in my drunkenness that comes before the one where I am Loud that I call Ambition. Ambition is the time when I have the sudden urge to do things that my drunk brain considers constructive. And sometimes they are, such as when I decide to CLEAN ALL THE THINGS! (by the way, if you're not reading Hyperbole and a Half I suggest you start doing so immediately). It is little known because it's usually short lived and I'm rarely in a position to do anything about it ("I should totally reupholster the dining room chairs right now!" I'll say to myself when I'm drunk in a different country from the one that has my chairs). In this case, the Ambition told me I should work out and then bake cookies, which in hindsight seems totally counterproductive. I did end up doing both of these things, plus a sink full of dishes. But the Ambition can only take you so far, and it did not take me far enough to actually put on workout clothes, or in fact any clothes. My workout attire was panties and a pair of socks with kitties on them. I'm sure it was very attractive. I did at least think to put some clothes on before I started baking. You can tell because if I hadn't, right now you'd most likely be reading a blog post about how I managed to get burn marks on my nipples from naked cookie making and that I'm so much more hardcore than the stupid Girl Scouts. I'm not, by the way, I'm just far more accident prone.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
The Highest Level Of Laziness
BrownsFan: Did you like that link I sent you?
Me: Yes. So I tweeted it and said "That's my dinner sorted." At least it would be, if I ever left the house.
BrownsFan: You want to be slutty but you're too lazy?
Me: Exactly. Why can't I just be slutty from the couch?
Me: Yes. So I tweeted it and said "That's my dinner sorted." At least it would be, if I ever left the house.
BrownsFan: You want to be slutty but you're too lazy?
Me: Exactly. Why can't I just be slutty from the couch?
Monday, March 07, 2011
PROOF!
I was talking to BrownsFan last week, because I would spontaneously combust if I didn't talk to her every day, and she showed me an article she found on the interwebs she thought I'd be interested in. This one. She also kindly covered up the photograph so I could read the article without having a nervous breakdown.
That's right people: 52,000 cars are being recalled on account of an obviously coordinated attack by the spider nation's Arachni-terrorist division, and I have one thing to say about it.
I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO.
One type of car? Just the one? And I'm supposed to believe that this is some sort of accident of fate? This is no accident, this is the work of a CREATURE WHO SCHEMES. And these creatures are scheming to GET ME.
"But amberance," I hear you asking, "if the spiders were out to get YOU specifically, wouldn't they be building webs in the exhaust systems of MINI Coopers, such as the one you yourself drive?"
Oh you poor, naive little things. Of course not. That would be too obvious. Don't you see how a direct attack would create too much risk of me just going out and buying a different kind of car? No, no, children, they are way to cunning for that. No, they are building them in Mazdas for a reason. You know who drives a Mazda? MrSteve. A Mazda I've been in a number of times, such as when we used to go for long drives on gorgeous summer afternoons, enjoying the weather, relaxing, my guard completely down...yeah. Do you see it now? The creepy bastards are trying to get to me through my friends, and their efforts have escalated now to a pinpointed attack on Mazdas because I hang around with one. What will these foul creatures think of next? Hiding in the rims of beer kegs so they can get to me through the bartender? Gathering their forces inside bags of cat food so as to ambush me when I go to feed my kitty (she's evil too. I need to be on guard for this plan, she may cut a deal with them.)? Massing inside the floatation devices of planes used for international flights so they can jump out and devour me on my way to England (it worked for the snakes)?
One thing is for sure: they are coming for me. The proof is in the Mazdas.
That's right people: 52,000 cars are being recalled on account of an obviously coordinated attack by the spider nation's Arachni-terrorist division, and I have one thing to say about it.
I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO.
One type of car? Just the one? And I'm supposed to believe that this is some sort of accident of fate? This is no accident, this is the work of a CREATURE WHO SCHEMES. And these creatures are scheming to GET ME.
"But amberance," I hear you asking, "if the spiders were out to get YOU specifically, wouldn't they be building webs in the exhaust systems of MINI Coopers, such as the one you yourself drive?"
Oh you poor, naive little things. Of course not. That would be too obvious. Don't you see how a direct attack would create too much risk of me just going out and buying a different kind of car? No, no, children, they are way to cunning for that. No, they are building them in Mazdas for a reason. You know who drives a Mazda? MrSteve. A Mazda I've been in a number of times, such as when we used to go for long drives on gorgeous summer afternoons, enjoying the weather, relaxing, my guard completely down...yeah. Do you see it now? The creepy bastards are trying to get to me through my friends, and their efforts have escalated now to a pinpointed attack on Mazdas because I hang around with one. What will these foul creatures think of next? Hiding in the rims of beer kegs so they can get to me through the bartender? Gathering their forces inside bags of cat food so as to ambush me when I go to feed my kitty (she's evil too. I need to be on guard for this plan, she may cut a deal with them.)? Massing inside the floatation devices of planes used for international flights so they can jump out and devour me on my way to England (it worked for the snakes)?
One thing is for sure: they are coming for me. The proof is in the Mazdas.
Northwestern Here I Come
So, just to be sure I have all the facts straight...
A group of 100 ADULT college students who CHOSE to take a course in human sexuality witnessed a sex act during an OPTIONAL after class session between two people who were in a committed relationship, and it caused such outrage that the university is investigating, the professor has been forced to apologize and people are threatening to pull their (again, adult) children who weren't even involved in the incident out of school?
This is SHOCKING. It is obvious that something needs to be done.
Such as me going back to school.
Seriously, did you see the size of that homemade drilldo? That thing is fucking impressive.
A group of 100 ADULT college students who CHOSE to take a course in human sexuality witnessed a sex act during an OPTIONAL after class session between two people who were in a committed relationship, and it caused such outrage that the university is investigating, the professor has been forced to apologize and people are threatening to pull their (again, adult) children who weren't even involved in the incident out of school?
This is SHOCKING. It is obvious that something needs to be done.
Such as me going back to school.
Seriously, did you see the size of that homemade drilldo? That thing is fucking impressive.
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Breaking News: Amberance Went Somewhere
There have been no updates to the blog lately, mainly because there is nothing at all of substance going on in my life. I go to work, I come home, I watch Tosh.0 and imagine having rough sex with the host (I don't know, the guy just looks dirty to me), I go to bed. Sometimes I work out or try to cross-stitch (which is made difficult by a cat who thinks any and all thread in the home must be attacked and destroyed), but for the most part there simply hasn't been anything to write about. Over the weekend I attempted to rectify six week's worth of lameness by cramming my entire social life into three days.
On Friday, the great Jon from Total Talk Nonsense, the greatest podcast anywhere, was playing a gig out in the suburbs with his new band, The Toxic Crayons. I had originally planned on attending as a participant - the lead singer had been asking me to sing with their various bands for years, and we'd finally nailed down some actual songs to work on rather than just the vague idea that "you should sing with us". Side note: I find the request for me to sing with the band completely hilarious, given that none of them, including Jon, have ever actually heard me sing. They're basing this decision solely on the fact that I told them I could sing, which they've taken at face value and assumed that I'm brilliant. Which I am, but they have no way of actually knowing that. For all they know I could just be saying I can sing when I really sound like Roseanne Barr. Anywhore, the plans fell through when I never went to band practice because various members may or may not have learned the songs. For my own part, I would have been nervous anyway - I know I am capable of singing "Heartbreaker", I just don't think I'm nearly cool enough to pull off getting on stage and looking like I have any business singing Pat Benatar. Besides, boy who doesn't call was supposed to be there and despite the fact that I want to lick him, singing in front of him gives me pause. It didn't matter, because he wasn't there and I didn't sing anyway. I knew I was in the suburbs when I walked into the bar and was immediately surrounded by children. Not college kids on a binge, actual children. Because in the suburbs, you can take your kids to the pub for dinner and not worry that they might see someone getting fingerbanged in full view of the public. The show went pretty well for the most part, despite half the band being sick and one song that completely disintegrated. They made up for it by playing some Stray Cats. In the meantime, I got a round of applause from the band wives and other fans sitting near me for getting carded, which I attributed to my green hair but Mrs. Jon insisted had more to do with my "young face".
I left there and drove Alistair back to the city to leave at the bar for the bartender to run errands after work ("I want you to promise me you'll be very careful," said the Crayon's bass player while bear hugging me goodbye, "because it is snowing and everyone else on the road is drunk, and you're adorable."). Then I went into the bar to let the bartender know where the car was. Mistake. There were too many friends there to just walk in and walk back out again, and I wound up hanging around for an hour and a half, listening to 90's hip hop (yes, I still know all the words to "The Humpy Dance" AND "Poison" by Bel Biv DeVoe, thanks for asking) and chatting with Hellbilly about various concerts and, unfortunately, UFC fighting. By chatting I mean nodding, Hellbilly needs no partner to carry on a conversation because he never ever ever shuts up.
I eventually got home from Tai's some time after 3 a.m. and spend another 45 minutes stalking people on Facebook and eating pretzels before I went to bed. My plans for Saturday had involved a lot of errand running and some weight lifting, all of which fell apart when I didn't get out of bed until 5 in the afternoon (this was not all my fault - I woke up at 3, but was immediately trapped under a cuddly cat who growled and hissed every time I tried to ease her off of me). Instead I spent the evening watching Chicago and deciding that Velma Kelly is the roll for me and that Queen Latifa is actually pretty fucking sexy.
On Sunday, the bartender and I headed over to the Congress to see Against Me! and the Dropkick Murphys. The Congress is one of my favorite venues to see music in Chicago. Unfortunately it is run by idiots. We had bought tickets online, or thought we had. After standing in line to get in for five minutes, we were told that anyone with paper tickets had to go stand in line at Will Call and trade them in for real tickets, which if I have to stand in line for them, it largely defeats the point of buying them online. While standing in the cold and rain waiting in line and shivering, we saw a group of girls who were not exactly dressedfor the weather much at all which happily has inspired the name of my new all girl band - Daddy Issues. Our first single will be called "Get In Line" and is about running a train (Google it if you don't know, just don't watch the videos. Or watch them, I don't know your preferences). The line moved more slowly than it needed to - Will Call has but one door for both ingress and egress because clearly these people are geniuses. Once we got to the front of the line, they took our pieces of paper and issued us our tickets: basically little red tickets you would use for a raffle that I could have bought a roll of 1000 of for $5 at the party store. Then we got back in the first line, where they didn't even bother to take my little raffle ticket anyway, so I'm mystified why they made me stand in line to get one. Once inside we met up with the loquacious Hellbilly and a friend of his and settled in to the side of the main crowd because we are old people and also it's closer to the beer.
The Dropkick Murphys draw an interesting crowd. It's a mix of punks and people who think they're Irish, and everyone is drunk before they even get there. One girl was clearly on Ecstasy and had no idea she was not at a rave. The Dropkick Murphys were brilliant as always, one of their roadies proposed to his girlfriend on stage (she said "HOLY SHIT" which the crowd took as a yes) and they brought Chris Pisani on stage during "I'm Shipping Up To Boston", who Blackhawks fans will know as "That guy who dances to the Dropkick Murphys song at every Blackhawks game". All the while, Hellbilly was trying to kill us with Jameson, which I eventually had to start discreetly setting on the floor and knocking over to avoid a trip to the ER. The show had started very late due to Against Me! getting stuck in traffic driving up from Houston and the Dropkick Murphys having attended the Blackhawks game which went to shootouts. Consequently, there were many disappointed 12 year olds who didn't get flashed during "Kiss me I'm Shitfaced" (which my friend Tanyas participated in at the Saturday night show and then stole a set list) because they left before the encore, and I didn't get home until after 1 a.m. on a school night and paid for dearly the next day.
I am a party animal.
On Friday, the great Jon from Total Talk Nonsense, the greatest podcast anywhere, was playing a gig out in the suburbs with his new band, The Toxic Crayons. I had originally planned on attending as a participant - the lead singer had been asking me to sing with their various bands for years, and we'd finally nailed down some actual songs to work on rather than just the vague idea that "you should sing with us". Side note: I find the request for me to sing with the band completely hilarious, given that none of them, including Jon, have ever actually heard me sing. They're basing this decision solely on the fact that I told them I could sing, which they've taken at face value and assumed that I'm brilliant. Which I am, but they have no way of actually knowing that. For all they know I could just be saying I can sing when I really sound like Roseanne Barr. Anywhore, the plans fell through when I never went to band practice because various members may or may not have learned the songs. For my own part, I would have been nervous anyway - I know I am capable of singing "Heartbreaker", I just don't think I'm nearly cool enough to pull off getting on stage and looking like I have any business singing Pat Benatar. Besides, boy who doesn't call was supposed to be there and despite the fact that I want to lick him, singing in front of him gives me pause. It didn't matter, because he wasn't there and I didn't sing anyway. I knew I was in the suburbs when I walked into the bar and was immediately surrounded by children. Not college kids on a binge, actual children. Because in the suburbs, you can take your kids to the pub for dinner and not worry that they might see someone getting fingerbanged in full view of the public. The show went pretty well for the most part, despite half the band being sick and one song that completely disintegrated. They made up for it by playing some Stray Cats. In the meantime, I got a round of applause from the band wives and other fans sitting near me for getting carded, which I attributed to my green hair but Mrs. Jon insisted had more to do with my "young face".
I left there and drove Alistair back to the city to leave at the bar for the bartender to run errands after work ("I want you to promise me you'll be very careful," said the Crayon's bass player while bear hugging me goodbye, "because it is snowing and everyone else on the road is drunk, and you're adorable."). Then I went into the bar to let the bartender know where the car was. Mistake. There were too many friends there to just walk in and walk back out again, and I wound up hanging around for an hour and a half, listening to 90's hip hop (yes, I still know all the words to "The Humpy Dance" AND "Poison" by Bel Biv DeVoe, thanks for asking) and chatting with Hellbilly about various concerts and, unfortunately, UFC fighting. By chatting I mean nodding, Hellbilly needs no partner to carry on a conversation because he never ever ever shuts up.
I eventually got home from Tai's some time after 3 a.m. and spend another 45 minutes stalking people on Facebook and eating pretzels before I went to bed. My plans for Saturday had involved a lot of errand running and some weight lifting, all of which fell apart when I didn't get out of bed until 5 in the afternoon (this was not all my fault - I woke up at 3, but was immediately trapped under a cuddly cat who growled and hissed every time I tried to ease her off of me). Instead I spent the evening watching Chicago and deciding that Velma Kelly is the roll for me and that Queen Latifa is actually pretty fucking sexy.
On Sunday, the bartender and I headed over to the Congress to see Against Me! and the Dropkick Murphys. The Congress is one of my favorite venues to see music in Chicago. Unfortunately it is run by idiots. We had bought tickets online, or thought we had. After standing in line to get in for five minutes, we were told that anyone with paper tickets had to go stand in line at Will Call and trade them in for real tickets, which if I have to stand in line for them, it largely defeats the point of buying them online. While standing in the cold and rain waiting in line and shivering, we saw a group of girls who were not exactly dressed
The Dropkick Murphys draw an interesting crowd. It's a mix of punks and people who think they're Irish, and everyone is drunk before they even get there. One girl was clearly on Ecstasy and had no idea she was not at a rave. The Dropkick Murphys were brilliant as always, one of their roadies proposed to his girlfriend on stage (she said "HOLY SHIT" which the crowd took as a yes) and they brought Chris Pisani on stage during "I'm Shipping Up To Boston", who Blackhawks fans will know as "That guy who dances to the Dropkick Murphys song at every Blackhawks game". All the while, Hellbilly was trying to kill us with Jameson, which I eventually had to start discreetly setting on the floor and knocking over to avoid a trip to the ER. The show had started very late due to Against Me! getting stuck in traffic driving up from Houston and the Dropkick Murphys having attended the Blackhawks game which went to shootouts. Consequently, there were many disappointed 12 year olds who didn't get flashed during "Kiss me I'm Shitfaced" (which my friend Tanyas participated in at the Saturday night show and then stole a set list) because they left before the encore, and I didn't get home until after 1 a.m. on a school night and paid for dearly the next day.
I am a party animal.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Everything's Perfectly All Right Now. We're Fine. We're All Fine Here Now, Thank You. How Are You?
Everything's under control. Situation normal. Thanks for asking. In case you somehow managed to not get clobbered over the head by the media last week, Chicago and in a fact a very large swath of the entire country got hammered by a blizzard last Tuesday and Wednesday. I was not one of the poor souls who got trapped in their cars on Lake Shore Drive all night long last Tuesday, mainly because when meteorologists nationwide all say "There is going to be a big fuck off storm, stay inside" and the local meteorologists say "The big fuck off storm is going to be worst near the shoreline of Lake Michigan, don't use Lake Shore Drive", I assume that they probably know more than I do and I STAY INSIDE, far, far away from Lake Shore Drive. Morons.
I woke up Wednesday morning to find that it looked like Hoth outside and a renewed interesting in buying this. Now, I don't attend a lot of sleep overs these days and when I do they rarely involve my having to sleep on the floor because my friends are grown ups with spare bedrooms or at least a couch. But I think we can all agree this sleeping bag should be filed under "Need" rather than under "Want".
I also experienced that most elusive of all storms - thundersnow. I'm sure there's a very good scientific reason why it almost never thunders during a snowstorm and that H-town or the bartender can tell you all about it while you pretend to be paying attention during their nerdgasm (speaking of nerdgams, Chicagoans, was anyone else concerned that Tom Skilling might rip his clothes off from his overwhelming excitement over this severe weather? Because I was happy for him and everything but, seriously, no one needs to see that). All I know is, thunder during a snow storm is awesomely rare and now that I've experienced it I'm merely one tornado away from being ready to die.
The only other severe blizzard I've lived through nearly killed me (and it actually DID kill 70 other people). The Great Blizzard of 1978 barrelled into Cleveland on January 25th of that year. I was two weeks old. My parents were noobs at the whole parenting thing, what with me being their first child and all, and they were totally unprepared for the apocalypse that completely buried every door to the house. They were trapped. Then they ran out of baby formula for me. Big thanks to the Middleburg Heights police department for answering my parents' call for help by going to the store, buying me formula, and then digging a tunnel to our front door in order to deliver said formula (which they refused to let my parents pay for, bless) and keep me from starving to death. When I told that story to the CEO he said "Oh, so THAT'S what's wrong with you." It's one of the things.
I woke up Wednesday morning to find that it looked like Hoth outside and a renewed interesting in buying this. Now, I don't attend a lot of sleep overs these days and when I do they rarely involve my having to sleep on the floor because my friends are grown ups with spare bedrooms or at least a couch. But I think we can all agree this sleeping bag should be filed under "Need" rather than under "Want".
I also experienced that most elusive of all storms - thundersnow. I'm sure there's a very good scientific reason why it almost never thunders during a snowstorm and that H-town or the bartender can tell you all about it while you pretend to be paying attention during their nerdgasm (speaking of nerdgams, Chicagoans, was anyone else concerned that Tom Skilling might rip his clothes off from his overwhelming excitement over this severe weather? Because I was happy for him and everything but, seriously, no one needs to see that). All I know is, thunder during a snow storm is awesomely rare and now that I've experienced it I'm merely one tornado away from being ready to die.
The only other severe blizzard I've lived through nearly killed me (and it actually DID kill 70 other people). The Great Blizzard of 1978 barrelled into Cleveland on January 25th of that year. I was two weeks old. My parents were noobs at the whole parenting thing, what with me being their first child and all, and they were totally unprepared for the apocalypse that completely buried every door to the house. They were trapped. Then they ran out of baby formula for me. Big thanks to the Middleburg Heights police department for answering my parents' call for help by going to the store, buying me formula, and then digging a tunnel to our front door in order to deliver said formula (which they refused to let my parents pay for, bless) and keep me from starving to death. When I told that story to the CEO he said "Oh, so THAT'S what's wrong with you." It's one of the things.
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