Ummm

FUCK! Let me start by saying I had typed this awesome post about how:

{It's Wednesday, Kel has the case of the fuck-its, Summer & Sarah went to a concert without me last night (yeah I know I live in Chicago, but that's not the point), I have no idea how I'm supposed to pack everything I need for my trip to SLC without getting dinged $80 for overweight luggage, I broke the zipper on my favorite pair of black boots this morning and these are the essential black boots I wear with everything in the winter and when I dropped them off at the shoe repair the lady said they wouldn't be ready until Friday and I leave on Friday which means I won't have the essential black boots in SLC and lastly I never found a Random Hot Guy for the Halloween Extravaganza in SLC.

Does anybody think Sarah would mind loaning me Rlo? Maybe Helmey can bring one of his single friends if he has any.}

And then my computer decided to have a case of the fuck-its and crashed! I've decided I need this day to be over, because apparently my computer thinks I'm already on vacation and the two applications I need to use are fighting both each other and me. This has taken all of the wit right out of me.

Sincerely,

Apparently on Vacation!

Lesson Learned

Hey Internet, did you know it is practically impossible to write a post while your head is resting on the keyboard. Go ahead, try it! Sure you can type but when you finally find the strength to pick your head up, stop the world spinning and try to focus through blood-shot eyes at what you've "written" you'll know exactly what I mean.

I tried, a little too hard, to extend my weekend by participating in Sunday Funday. Now I say "participating" (I love using McCain air quotes, it makes me closer my friends) and I act like none of it was my idea thereby placing the blame on others, but you see, it was partly my idea.

After Saturday night's various antics, by the time I rallied on Sunday morning, OK early afternoon, OK late afternoon, the girls and I decided not to go to the haunted house. I will absolutely admit to being a major pussy when it comes to haunted houses, I am jumpy by nature and I hate being startled so I was very happy when the girls suggested, and I agreed, to bag that idea. We decided to do Sunday Funday at McGee's to grab something to eat, drink and be merry...we were very merry! Then we carried it over to Stanley's for more fun and more merriment. Unless you've seen Stanley's for yourself there is no way to accurately describe it, but it's always packed on Sundays for live band karaoke. So after imbibing more "merriment" and ogling the baby daddy - damn he's cute - I decided it was finally time to head home since it was technically Monday and I really hate Mondays. MG decided to share a cab with me and on our way out the door there was a small crowd gathered at the front and I realize that one of the guys is Chris Kirkpatrick from *Nsync - short little fella - so I snapped a photo with him and MG. By the time I made it home and stopped the room from spinning I'm pretty sure it was at least 1am.

So here I am now, it's early in the morning, I'm trying to write this post, my stomach is queasy and I have yet to get ready for work. The alarm and the cat conspired together to get my ass out of bed, so I'm sitting on the couch, it's still dark outside, the cat is curled up next to me and I'm trying not to puke my guts out all over my laptop! I will make it to work on time, I will be very glad when I get to leave work early and I will be very happy to get my hair done this afternoon and believe me I will be super happy when I can just go home, lay down and die!

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

Have any of you seen this?

Seriously, I can't imagine being mad enough at anybody in real life to kill them, let alone in a virtual world. I have previously read stories about people carrying on alternate lives in the virtual world; affairs, prostitution, drug-running and various other illicit activities.

For some reason this story just made me feel so sad for humanity! If people are living their lives in virtual reality at the risk of incarceration and monetary fines in the real world, how great can the virtual world really be? I understand the feeling of being somebody else and the role playing that comes along with "Second Life" and the virtual world, but sacrificing your "real world" to play in the other world is just a sad commentary on the world today.

I've said my peace, thank you very much!

Job Creation

I would love the ability to give away my cold. This is nothing new of course, I know everybody who has ever had a cold has thought the same thing. Get rid of the sinus pressure, the sore throat, the constant back and forth between stuff and runny nose and the, OMG I think I just coughed up a lung cough. Why not give it away to somebody who would love to spend a few days in bed and eat chicken soup?

Instead of spending billions of dollars on cold remedies, we should fund research on how to "transfer" our common colds to hypochondriacs! Seriously,it would cut down the amount of loss productivity and I think you would spawn a whole new industry of professional "sickies". Hypochondriacs think they're sick all the time anyway, why not have a verifiable illness and get paid for it. They could set rates and charge by the day. How much would you pay to give your cold away?

Right now, I'd give half my savings account to make this sinus pressure leave for good.

Little Black Box

Friday - home sick, did none of you read my chemically induced blog?

Saturday - Umm, home sick again, except for the short foray to MG's building to check on douche -baggy temporary roommate....UGH, just the thought of him gives me the creeps!

Sunday - Brunch with MyraG - who will henceforth be known as "The Professor". We all met up at a friends house for brunch, which consisted of tons of food, Bloody Marys and Mimosas! Interestingly enough, on my way to brunch, I learned a funny thing about Illinois, you cannot buy liquor at a liquor store on Sunday before 11AM. Now coming from Utah, this is not all that new, but what's funny about it is you can order it at a bar/restaurant before 11AM, but not at a liquor store. Is it just me or is that weird to any of you? Anyway, we had tons of food, good drink and absolutely amazing conversation! Besides the Prof, there was Natalie, Scott, Mark, Alan and Sarah (hopefully I just remembered that right). We talked about all the taboos - Sex, Religion and Politics, my three favorite subjects! Which brings me to my subject.

A few years ago my friend KW (Should I use Sadie? Up to you KW, you just let me know, since I know you read this.) mentioned having a box that contained things from her life/past. Should anything ever happen to her, she had a friend who was designated to come and "take care" of that box. I loved this idea! Since that discussion, I have since compiled all the things in my life that I can't bear to throw away, yet I would hate for either my mother or sister to deal with should I pass on without a significant other. It contains, some pictures, some letters and some "others". I love having this box, it's fun to go through sometimes, and if there was somebody significant in my life, my box would not necessarily be off-limits to that person, but it would definitely need explaining. The funny thing about this box, is not what's in it, but the memories I get from seeing the items in it. The explanations would never mean the same thing to someone who wasn't there to share in the original moment. Everytime I think about what is in this box, it reminds me of the saying "Never judge a person 'til you've walked a mile in their shoes."

Strange but true!

Highly Medicated

I have decided that red wine does indeed go very well with cold-medicine!  

I will hopefully refrain from doing the following acts while high on the afore mentioned substances:

Stripping naked and running through the streets of  Boystown in Chicago, because  a) it's fucking cold outside and b) it's "boystown" nobody would care and it's almost a guarantee I won't get any offers, so why bother.

Calling/Texting old lovers - I think I already mentioned they are dead and stashed in my closet, hiding the batteries from my biological clock... so no worries there.

Blogging, using such silly words as "va-jay-jay" "abso-fucking-lutely" and "joe-the-plumber" oops, wait a minute I just did!  Sorry!

Cranking the stereo and playing Katy Perry so loud it prompts my neighbor to call the authorities, who inevitably will find that I am high, will somehow assume it's illegal contraband, arrest me and thereby assure me a trip to the police station where I will then be required to  a) strip naked and submit to a cavity search (OUCH!) and b) take a really horrendous mug shot, which will end up on Perez Hilton...oh wait I'm not a celebrity so no worries there.

OK, Internet, this is my promise to you.  I will stay in my apartment, watch Made of Honor and behave myself!  If you catch me doing any of the above, except for the blogging thing cause I fucked up there already, you have my permission to call the authorities.  which will then of course ultimately make me do the last one and then we have a vicious circle!

Facebook Freak-Out

I may have to take a break from the "Face". It's beginning to freak me out that people from my past are now showing up with alarming frequency and that little e-mail from Facebook that starts - "So-and-So has added you as a friend" is starting to make me wince.

I still love it, the "Face" that is, don't get me wrong, it's just that some folks from my past that I hardly knew are adding me as friends. It's mostly the high-school thing that's giving me fits. I start to think, if I were still in high-school, and I was the person now that I was then, and they were the people now, they were then, we'd never be "Facebook Friends". I realize we're all grown up and we're adults and all that, but that itty-bitty, tiny little piece of insecurity, still hanging on by her finger tips, is having a MAJOR FUCKING FREAK-OUT! Think of it this way, they're looking through my photos and reading my "wall" and my "info" and maybe even my blog! The people I knew in high-school, that I considered friends, this of course doesn't bother me in the slightest, in fact I have given them the link to this blog. It's the "others", you know the cool kids who wouldn't let you play with them (disclaimer - I was totally not a cool kid, I was a jock).

Recently one of my friends from high-school said these exact words to me "Wow, you've changed a lot since high-school." I had two thoughts - DUH! and You bet your sweet ass I've changed, because I couldn't have made it through life as the person I was then. And so far I have been joyfully surprised by some of the people from my past and I smile whenever they pop-up, especially when they send you drinks on Facebook. But I still wonder what they think when they see the pictures and perhaps read my stories. Some have actually commented on photos and I get a little weirded out. It's the hazard of living part of your life in the cyber world, open to the public and all that.

I will get over it, I will...I just may need to find a Chemist who could create some Facebook Prozac, that little blue pill that won't make me cringe just a little when another person from my past pops up.

Baby Mama!

My one fear of heading home to SLC in a few weeks for a visit is the pure fact that pregnancy is contagious in Utah! I have two friends who are currently pregnant, one of which is my VeryBFF's girlfriend, who is also a BFF! <--See how we keep it all in the family! I swear it's something in the water in SLC, I think instead of fluoride they put in fertility drugs to keep the population boom humming right along. You all remember that report a few months back about drugs in the municipal water system...yep, in Utah they were fertility drugs! OK, just kidding, it was Prozac, and we all know how Utah loves its Prozac.

Lately, it seems pregnancy and ticking clocks comes up a lot in conversation. Don't get me wrong, my clock has been dead for awhile now, because I purposefully hid the batteries under the skeletons and remains of past lovers in my closet! Wait aren't the skeletons the actual remains of past lovers anyway? Or are skeletons the ghosts of misdeeds and the remains are just that - freeze dried corpses left to rot and never be heard from again? (Hmm, will definitely have to ponder this one a bit)

I digress, as I am known to do, in the last month I have had no less than two attractive, fine specimens of the male half of the species ever so delicately (i.e., bluntly smack me across the face with a dead fish) ask me if I would consider having a genetically superior child with them. This is nothing new of course because I am tall and athletic, survival of the fittest and all, but it made me realize that if the human species suddenly digressed back into animalistic behavior and caveman tactics, where procreation and coupling were based on physical prowess and athletic characteristics...then I'd be an alpha female and have one very worked over vagina!

Walk of Shame

One of the more mundane things I do every morning is walk the one and a half blocks to catch the bus every morning Monday thru Friday. It's usually a very quiet walk through the neighborhood, you see other commuters, people walking dogs and others out for a run. This morning however, I saw something that kept me smiling all the way home.

I was just a few buildings away from my apartment when I saw a girl exiting a taxi. She was very disheveled, wearing skinny jeans, 5 inch strappy stilettos with the straps undone, puffy fur coat only half-way on, layered shirts that were riding half-way up her muffin-top midriff and dragging a small purse. I knew I had to watch this all from behind. I slowed up just a bit so I could watch this catastrophe unfold.

As the girl slammed the taxi door, she toppled over into the wet grass. I helped her up and that is when I noticed her face. She definitely had the OMG-what-did-I-do-last-night make-up thing going on. Mascara and thick black eye-liner smudged all over her eyes, traces of lipstick around her mouth and the tell-tale sign of whisker burn. It was all I could do not to laugh. I picked up her purse handed it to her and grabbed my own purse as she stumbled her way up the sidewalk. As I passed by her building, with her standing in front, I could see she was pushing every button on the intercom panel. I'm assuming either she lost her key, forgot her key, forgot where she lived, was visiting from out of town or maybe that wasn't even her apartment building. The last thing I heard before I turned the corner to catch the bus was "Let me in you bitch, I have to pee?"

I couldn't make this story up if I was trying! It must be a Friday. Just one more reason I love walking in this city. You don't get to witness such human comedy when you drive all the time.

I'm High!

I am having a major rush of endorphins due to the lovely, beautiful, glorious, abundant sunshine streaming through the office windows today!

I have been quite down lately due to the copious amounts of rain we've had lately. Instead of a lovely pair of fall weather chocolate brown suede boots, I had to buy my first pair of rubber rain boots - EVER! Seriously, I was so despondent I cried into my keyboard! OK, not really, but I felt like it. I miss the fall weather in Utah, the trees changing, the crisp nights and the lingering warmth during the day....ahhhhhhh! Instead, I spent a good amount of time on Tuesday night on the Internet searching for cute rubber rain boots! Oh, let me add in size 11! Hey, just because I'm a giant, doesn't mean I should have to be forced to wear ugly rubbers!

I seriously don't know how people in the Pacific Northwest deal with this! It's no wonder it's the home of grunge rock...it's fucking depressing! I do agree the country is gorgeous...as long as you see it on one of the three sunny days of the year!

All that whining aside, I'm going to enjoy these two days of sunshine, because the rain comes again on Saturday. I guess it will be a good excuse to stay home, sew my Halloween costume and give the abode a thorough cleaning.

*Update: When I receive my boots in the mail, I promise to take a picture of me wearing them, in the rain...which should probably be this weekend, if I'm not curled up in the fetal position on the floor!

Strange Bus Folk

On my way to volleyball tonight, there was a woman sitting in the front and she had multiple rings on every finger, including her thumbs.  Make that a ton of rings, a gaggle of rings, a flock of rings, I mean HOLY SHIT every centimeter (that's for my international readers) of her fingers and thumbs were covered by rings.  If I were trying to hazard a guess I'd say she probably had about 8 rings on each finger.  Uh huh, you do the math, that's 80 fucking rings!  Not just bands either, these fuckers had stones and gems in them.

Some questions running through my head:

How does she keep the rings at the tips of her fingers from falling off?

How does she pick anything up?

Does she lose some of them and never know it?

How long does it take her to put them on?

Can she even bend her fingers?

Does she have to remove them all to wipe? - this question of course leads to other more graphic questions which I shudder to even imagine.

Next!

The Sox and the Cubs are now done for the season, I'm not a basketball fan, so it looks like I'll be turning my attention to da' Bears! I admit I have been watching a few games, only when it's scheduled by somebody else and there is alcohol involved.

Except for baseball and volleyball, I'm just not into watching sports. I'm a participator not a spectator when it comes to sports. Most women understand this, unless we have a favorite team or a significant other who watches sports ad nauseum, then we'd rather be doing just about anything else besides sitting on the couch watching men sweat, hit, grunt, push, pull, shove, run, jump, roll, drive, and dribble their way to victory. This is why I need alcohol to get through it all.

If it weren't for my Chicago girls and their love of football, friends, food and gatherings, I'd be spending every Sunday for the next three months doing something productive. I guess it's not called Sunday Funday for nothing.

Duh!

You know that feeling you have when you've finally figured something out and you're all, "Oh yeah, you can't fool me, I'm on to you!" and then it all changes. Like a gust of wind just came out of nowhere and blew the shit out of your house of cards?

Oh yeah, you know what I'm saying.

After 34 years on this earth, and nearly half of that dating boys/men...OK boys, I thought I had it figured out. Boys are simple creatures and women are complex, it comes from being put on a pedestal all of our lives. Boys are raised to be simple creatures, this in no way whatsoever means they're dumb, it just means they don't get caught up in drama and nonsense, the way we women can sometimes...OK a lot of times. So you'd think meeting a guy would be a simple task right? You meet, you exchange numbers, you chat, you go out and you either decide to go out again or you don't. Pretty simple.

At this point you might be wondering where I'm heading, I'll get to the point. Over the summer I have met quite a few guys and they all ask for your number, and if they're not texting you right away that night, then you never hear from them at all. Seriously, what gives with that shit? Then my friend TBills was telling me how this Chicago things goes, you meet all sorts of people during the summer and then the guys get around to calling you in the winter. Apparently it's the "cooking-for-one "dating routine. When you're cooking for one it can get pretty expensive, so you cook a lot of food and then freeze the leftovers for later. Guys gather numbers during the summer when it's hot and the girls are out and abundant, but there are just too many to settle down with one for the summer, so they stockpile numbers. When it starts turning cold, they give you a call and see if you want to "hang-out".

I received two such calls yesterday! While I was at the Sox game with my friend Jennine and two of her guy friends, I received a text from one of the guys I met very early in the summer and haven't seen nor heard from since and last night just as I was about to go to bed I received an actual call from another. Now, I have a pretty good memory, I remember faces, names, dates, places and numbers. But for the life of me I could not remember either of these guys! I had to text the first guy and ask who he was, which he responded and I promptly decided that I didn't need to reply. The phone call was awkward because I had to fake my way through it until I could finally figure it all out and I'm not very good at faking it. So, if I have a pretty good memory and I can't remember you, how in the hell do you remember me?

Personally I think all the boys in Chicago are stockpiling a bunch of numbers in a big giant freezer somewhere in the city and when it gets cold they just go to the freezer, pull out a number and give it a try! Now it all makes sense to me, like that same gust of wind reversed course and just blew my house of cards back to upright!

Rock & A Hard Place

The current playoff season of MLB has put me in between a rock and a hard place. Unfortunately not a two carat diamond ring and a stunningly beautiful, hard-bodied guy, get it rock, hard place...OK, forget it, just trying to be funny today.

Anyway, since I was not born and raised in Chicago I don't have any life-long ties to either the Cubbies or the White Sox. I live a few blocks away from Wrigley Field, that's about the closest I come to any sort of loyalty to either team. However, since they're both in the playoffs, and both doing poorly I might add the Cubbies are down two games to the Dodgers and the Sox are down one game to Tampa Bay, I feel I have to choose a side. The reason this is a dilemma is because should both of them make it through this series, and then both of them make it through the next series (big IF) who do I cheer for? I can cheer both teams equally unless it becomes an "El" series or "Crosstown Classic" if you will. Then and only then must I choose sides.

I've narrowed down my reasoning for picking one team over the other to two factors: fashion or superstition.

THE CURSE - for any of you who follow baseball, you know this is the 100th year of the Billy Goat Curse. The famous curse brought upon the Cubs because they would not allow a man to bring his goat to Cubs games - totally cliff noting the whole story for you. If the Cubs make the World Series I should cheer for them, because then we could move beyond this curse. The Red Sox did it a few years ago, they broke their curse finally and now the Cubs need to just move beyond all this nonsense. It would be great for them to win, because I could say that I saw the cubs in Wrigley Field the year they won the title and broke the curse. It's a moment in baseball, it's a Chicago thing, it's part of living in Chicago.

Fashion - I look better in black and white than I do in blue. Blue is just not my color. Black and white is clean, slick and it goes with everything. Pretty simple reason actually.

I think I choose fashion. Besides my Sox t-shirt has rhinestones on it, shiny pretty rhinestones! Makes me girlie just talking about it.

So, hear this, if the White Sox and the Cubs end up in an "El" series I will be cheering my little heart out for those southside boys!

Total Disappointment

I have never, ever been truly disgusted with Congress until this morning. When I awoke and turned on the morning news show I watch, the hosts were giving a rundown of the "Bailout Bill" that passed the Senate last night. Guess what? They had to add "sweeteners" to get the new bill to pass.

Here are just a few of the add-ons:
Tax breaks for wool research - umm, shouldn't we leave this up to the Scottish, they're much better with wool then we are, plus they have way more sheep than we do, it's a culture there. Seriously, how man sheep herders do you know out there. Yeah, I thought so.

Tax breaks for kids wooden arrows - hmm, me thinks the NRA is behind this one somehow. Even if they aren't, I'm going to blame them.

Tax breaks for race tracks - are you fucking kidding me! Like we need more NASCAR wannabes out there, don't get me wrong, I do watch NASCAR sometimes, usually when I'm in Vegas with the boys and putting down a bet. But seriously, it's guys and a few women turning left all day long. It's the epitome of a guy/woman who is lost and won't stop to ask directions. Plus it's a shit-ton of asphalt, removing open-space and we are encouraging MORE burning of fossil fuels and adding to Global Warming.

Tax breaks for rum producers in Puerto Rico & the U.S. Virgin Islands - OK, since I've been to PR and USVI, I could almost agree with this, but I'm not a rum fan and I'm pretty sure they're not hurting for money. How about a tax break on my favorite US distilled bourbon huh? I'm tired of paying almost $40 for a bottle.

OK, now that all my steam is gone, the majority of the tax breaks that were put into the "Bailout Bill" are actually worthy, but they should NOT be in this bill. It taints the idea of helping main street. It dirties the waters of economic reform. It reminds the constituency that it will always be business-as-usual in Washington.

Utterly disappointed today, I need some cheering up, maybe bourbon for lunch would do the trick.

Costumery

I love Halloween! I haven't always loved Halloween, but I do now. It's the perfect time of year to behave in a manner you wouldn't normally behave the rest of the year, women get to dress like sluts and get away with it, guys can don new identities and play super heroes and kids get candy for free. Don't get me wrong, I realize that Halloween is "supposed" to be for kids, but if you look at the history of Halloween you'd see that it was always adult oriented, until Hershey got hold of it - OK kidding about the Hershey remark or am I?

Halloween is a true pagan holiday that has not morphed into a Christian holiday and I love it simply for that fact! Then I get to add in my mad costuming skills and it gets better! Through the years, my design and sewing skills have definitely improved and since I started making costumes I have held firm to one principle - Never wear the same costume twice! That being said, I have a crazy costume closet. Through the years I have been, Yvette from Clue, a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader, a Vampire, a Witch, a Musketeer and a host of others. This year I'm torn between Little Dead Riding Hood or a Goth Ragdoll. Either way I'll be wearing the black corset I wore at Burning Man, and I promise to post pictures when I figure out which one I'm going to do.

The great thing about this year for Halloween; I'll be celebrating the week before in Chicago with two parties, one at Bon V and a private party downtown, then flying to SLC on October 31st and partying with the friends at Chippy's place! I can guarantee two things for SLC 1) TA will dress up as some obnoxious male character (Vic Binnion, Cletus, Brew Crew or possibly Coco) and take that opportunity to molest unsuspecting females and 2) Ed and Janice will have some sort of fabulous couples costume.

Since today is the 1st of October, my deadline is fast approaching, be prepared for a lot of whining!

**UPDATE**
Ok, just found out via e-mail from the host; the SLC party is being hosted by couples. COUPLES! FUCK ME! I asked the host if there was going to be a sequestered spot where all singles will be banished, because dammit I need to plan appropriately for my costumery! I figure there are two places for the singles to remain out of sight (because you know how couples hate seeing singles having fun, it reminds them they're only allowed to sleep with the one they brought to the party) 1) the low-ceilinged basement is not good for the platform black boots that may become part of my costume or 2) the scary garage loft that is not conducive to any sort of heel and it's cold which means I would need a coat at all times and then nobody would see my awesome costumery!