"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. FUUUUCK. WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT FUCKING LAKE?"
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I heard from behind me all the way across the one and a half mile marsh that turned into a three mile marsh that we hiked in the cold and the wet at 11pm, by moonlight. Did I mention cold and wet?
Yes, it was the annual summit trip, that turned into the annual hiking trip because nobody was able to summit. Before I even tell the stories, you may be asking why nobody was able to summit.
Well, there's an argument that we were wrong that this could be done in two days and that all along it should have been a three day trip (up to camp, summit and back to camp, off the mountain). I think that I think that it would have been possible to do it in two if you got an early start on the first day, though that climb down off the mountain on day two would SUCK. Either way, we ran out of time to try for the summit. Why did we run out of time?
Well, firstly, there were flight issues. Not for me, but I drove. I pulled into the hotel parking lot at 9:30pm. At that exact moment, my cell phone rings and it's PBM. We start talking, when it dawns on me. "Hey," I say, aren't you supposed to be in the air?" PBM is delayed in Denver. He should be in around 1:00am. Then I check my email. Frank is delayed in Chicago. He should be in around 1:00am.
PBM calls around 11:30pm again. I answer the phone, "Shouldn't you be in the air?" PBM's flight from Denver is canceled. He can't get to Salt Lake City to meet us until 8:30am the next morning, and that's going to be with little to no sleep. Awesome.
So, Frank gets to the hotel around 2:30am. PBM gets to the hotel around 9:00am the next day. We let PBM sleep for a couple of hours, and then there are still all the logistics of going to Wal-Mart for last minute supplies, driving to the mountain itself (several hours), stopping to see a moose (see below) and putting packs together.
So we don't actually hit the trail until ... wait for it ... 4:00pm in the afternoon.
I mean, we should have known.
The first day is an 8 or so mile hike to a lake. A lake where we will camp and then in the morning will pick up the trail to the summit. The idea, per usual, is to head for the summit around 2:00am, be back off the mountain (realistically) by one or two in the afternoon, and then off the mountain by early evening.
It almost looks possible. We're moving slow on the first stretch of the hike, but not super slow. There aren't thousands and thousand of breaks. But we started late, which means were hiking late. Like hiking as evening sets in, ie: it gets dark. So, we cross over this mythical footbridge, from which point it's supposed to be two miles to the mythical lake. The first thing that happens is that suddenly there's a lot more snow. We lose the trail. Okay, in fairness, Frank does not lose the trail, he stealthily guides us through. But if it had just been PBM and I, we would have been lost. So, the trail goes up an elevation gain, and then you come out onto a meadow that stretches for about a mile and a half. And on the other side of the meadow is the lake.
I should self-correct here. In the morning, when it is light but all of the snow has refrozen in the cold, cold night, it is a meadow. It's about a mile and a half across and you can walk it in 45 minutes and on the other side, to the left of the tree line is a lovely lake, and just beyond that lake is the summit climb.
This, however, is not what this is like at 11pm. I should note, that though it was cold, it would have been pleasant to hike across that meadow at 11pm if it were *dry*. The moon was up and almost full and bright and bouncing off the mountains and snow. The walk is flat. And yes, it was cold, but I was never too cold when we were moving and before my feet got wet. Oh, but my feet got wet because...
At 11pm when the sun has gone down but the snow has been melting all day, this walk was not so much a meadow as it was a marsh. And we had to march across the marsh. There was water everywhere. Big expanses of cold, muddy, water. In the freezing cold, so you wanted to avoid them. To avoid them, you had to keep crossing back and forth over stones and jumping over huge puddles. This meandering path turned a 1.5 mile walk into something much closer to two or three miles. Then there are the brambles. Since the path itself is now flooded with run off, you are walking on what would be the land surrounding the path, and that land is full of brambles.
It is cold. It is wet. You get wet which then makes you cold even if you are moving. You get muddy because, oh yes, it is very muddy. You get hit with brambles. You are tired because it is 11pm and you have been hiking for seven hours and you just want to get to camp and warm up and eat something. But you have no idea how much longer it's going to take you to get to the tree line on the other side of the meadow/marsh, and you're not even sure how much further the lake is from there. But you know that, if you turn around, you're hiking back for over an hour or so to the last campable ground you saw AND you're further away from the mountain, so you're not doing that.
I miss a rock and land in the water up to my calf, and my left foot slips in, too. So now I am hiking for however long we have to hike with wet pants, wet boots and wet socks. I lose a snow show in the brambles and don't even care because the idea of backtracking is so horrid (we found it on the way out the next day). I start to cry, OUT LOUD, and don't even care that the boys are hearing it. PBM steps in mud about a thousand times over, and that's when I start hearing the title of this blog entry from behind me over and over again.
We finally get to the other side and ...
... wait for it ...
we completely lose the trail. Can't find it. In the morning, we would realize that not only could we not find it, we were not even close to it. We were, quite literally, lost in a forest.
We give up, and pitch camp, not even bothering to get out the tents, even though they would have held body heat in for us. And it is cold. And at least two of us have gotten wet. Frank, apparently, walks with the hand of God guiding him around puddles.
In the morning, we finally find the trail, which isn't all that near to us, and the lake, but by that time, it's too late to make for the summit unless we don't want to be off the mountain until six the next morning, and that seems unsafe even beyond unsafe. So we agree to try for the summit another time, and head back down the mountain. Which is a bummer, but it's not like I personally didn't get my dose of "hard." And I got to spend time with Frank and PBM. And maybe next year I'll have a story for you where we actually make the summit, but not this year. This year, I have a story for you about PBM walking behind Frank and me through a marsh in the middle of the night and cursing to the high heavens.
That is all. It was an awesome weekend, even with the fubar parts.
First of all, I promise funny on Friday because that entry is about St. Patrick's Day (I know, FINALLY) and that night had good stories.
But today I really want to talk about this: Pretty Babies.
Firstly, let me say that I know mothers who engage in this behavior, though perhaps not as extreme as this article lays out. But I do know mothers whose eight year old daughters get manicures and eye brow waxings. I surely do. And worse yet, I actually think those little girls look adorable with their perfect pink nails and their perfectly sculpted eyebrows. Much like I think that ear piercing in little girls is cute. And to a certain degree, I hate myself for thinking that because I'd like for little girls to just get dirty, too. And I could not promise that if I had a little girl, by the time she was 10 she wouldn't have been dolled up like that. But I'd like to think that I had trained her to be dirty, too.
Dirty in the play in the dirt way. Stay with me.
Okay, so, the first thing that happened in that article was this brilliant line about what happens when we make girls too pretty, too young ... and "How, without the ugly years, will girls learn to accept themselves?"
And I agree.
My "ugly years" were in my early to mid twenties, kind of that last year or so of college and the first years of San Francisco. First, I gained some weight, people. Seriously. I was smoking a lot of pot near the end of college, which of course means extra weight - especially when you live in a college town where half of the economy is driven by pizza delivery that happens after 3:00am - no pun intended. And then I moved to a city where the 3:00am shwarma is king and Victor's Italian was right down the road and my life become more sedentary because I had an office job. My clothing size was almost double what I currently wear, though I guess in fairness I was also wearing my clothes baggier.
And my skin went bad. My skin has always been temperamental, but when I'm stressed out about something my immediate physical reaction to it is to break out. And I was stressed a lot during those years, so there was always some skin issue of varying degrees going on. And sometimes it was embarrassingly bad. Bad like the "before" stories in a Proactive infomercial. AND I WAS USING PROACTIVE AT THE TIME AND IT DIDN'T HELP. For example, one day when I was living with (I Love) Paul Jack, I woke up one morning and my skin was broken out so excessively that I couldn't even physically open my mouth. I had to call a doctor and drink through a straw for a day.
I'm probably remembering most of this as worse than it was - but that's not the point because I'm sure that a teenager who goes through her ugly years then remembers her breakout and unibrow as worse than it was too. What I know is that I felt insecure and unhappy about the way I looked, and I had to find other ways to like myself. Or, at a minimum, because that may be an overstatement, I had to be able to look in the mirror at my big, fat butt or my incredibly broken out face and just be angry about it, not hate myself for it.
And eventually the weight fell off. That's not true. Eventually I worked the weight off through changing my late night eating pattern and making it a point to work out.
And eventually, though I still respond to stress with a big zit here or there, my skin pretty much cleared up through better product, better birth control and a dryer climate.
So, back around Super Bowl time of this year, I was very stressed. Because as you know, for the last several years Super Bowl has been one of my most stressful times of the year. And I developed a stress zit. Actually, it was more like a stress boil. Actually it was more like an alien child trying to birth itself from a pod on my right jawline. It was bad. It actually literally was about the size of a quarter and took about two months to completely heal/drain. You couldn't look at me without seeing "Frank the Zit" first. *I* couldn't look at me without seeing it first. And I am single and ready to mingle and a huge blemish on my skin is not ideal.
So, ToniK and Mike and I go to the Super Bowl. And we're hanging out in the RV one night and "Frank the Zit" decides that this is when he wants to explode all over my face, meaning that I will now have a big, draining, scar-ridden cyst for the next two days while surrounded by hot available men at the Super Bowl.
And my response to this?
Literally...
My response is to shrug it off and say, "I mean, you know, whatever. If I were a super model, I wouldn't be hanging out in an RV with you yahoos at the Super Bowl. And that would kind of blow."
But most importantly, I meant it when I said that.
And I mean, the point is, if from the time I was a tiny tot I'd had perfect nails and perfect skin and perfect eyebrows, would I still be able to kind of shrug off the BIGGEST SKIN BLEMISH ANYBODY HAS EVER HAD - EVER and not think that it was something that really detracted from the awesomeness that is me as a whole? I mean, who knows, but probably not. I probably would have stressed about that stress zit for weeks and spent money better spent on saving starving African children on treatment after treatment and whined like it was the end of the world.
So I see the author's point. It's important that we're not always perfect on the outside so that we don't start to expect ourselves to be perfect, either on the outside or the inside. Or, more accurately, if we start to expect ourselves to be perfect on the outside, the degree to which we're imperfect on the inside will grow.
I hope that Sadie and Rayna and Cienna all have ugly years. I just hope that they don't have the kind that scar them for life but instead the kind that make them closer to perfect on the inside.
And I hope that the next time I get a big old stress zit, it's on the right side of my forehead so that I can brush my bangs over it and just conceal it.
1. Things That Happen Without My Brain Realizing It: This is something that actually happened this week. I stopped at 7-11 on the way home from the gym the other day to get some bottled water. I was on the phone at the time. On the phone, to the other person, I'm actually saying "I don't get it. I'm not running like training running, but I'm running hard and I'm running consistently, and I still feel like I'm putting on my annual holiday fat." And then I look down and realize that even as I'm talking, I'm taking Reese Cups out of the package and eating them before I even took them to the cash register. True story. When I get back from Texas on Monday it's going to be five straight days of running to matter what anybody says or does. For real.
2. Speaking of Texas: It's where I'm headed tomorrow through Sunday for Paul and Kari's wedding. Here is what I will say without saying much, and also making it clear that I am in no way talking about the bride and groom. You know what's amazing? It's amazing how when a large group of people are all friends and stay friends for a very long time, which is true of this particular group of college friends, things change yet they stay the same. By which I mean that drama changes targets. For example, there is a girl who is invited to the wedding whom I cannot stand. And there was some drama about to brunch or not to brunch, and I was IMing with another friend from the group who at one point really liked her. And he was all like, "Oh YEAH - that thing she did to person x at the Kolodny wedding? I refuse to be around her after that." And it was funny because it's the same story that did her in in my book, too. But at any given point in the decade long history of this group of friends, that attitude could have been about a dozen other people. Ah, the nature of life.
3. Holiday Check In! Do you love the holiday theme? You do, you know it. I feel like I'm in good shape with the holidays. I mean, sure, it's almost 11pm on the night before I leave for a trip and I'm not packed and need to give myself a manicure, but I feel like I'm in good shape. I almost don't know what to do with the extra time. Oh, wait. I'll do a Nature of Sand entry because there's one that's been dying to get out. I love this time of year.
4. Have You Seen This Kathy Griffen Special? It's so effing funny. There's this whole bit about how apparently all child molesters, if you watch To Catch a Predator, must LOVE iced tea. It's really, really funny. I love her so much.
5. But Where Is Your Blog? I know. Not so much with the updating. But it's busy time. I'll be better next week.
6. You can amuse yourself with a Friday playlist though. Here's what I'm listening to this week.
a. Mariah Carey: All I want for Christmas. Which is also my ring tone right now, though my ring tone if the remixed version with Little Bow Wow rapping about the holiday.
b. Sara Bareillis: Gravity: The whole album is good. It's not as good as the Alicia Keys album, but it's great. That "Love Song" song is great, too, but this is my favorite. "Set me free. Leave me be. I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity."
c. Alicia Keys: The Thing About Love: And this, in my opinion, is the best track off of the new Alicia Keys album. Okay, maybe not musically, but lyrically, it's lovely Kind of Beatles reminiscent in some of the chords, actually.
d. Ingred Michaelson: The Way I Am: Let Go is actually my favorite song from her, but that albums been quite soothing this week.
e. Finger Eleven: Paralyzer: Don't laugh. "This club will probably be closed in three weeks. That would be cool by me." I love those dudes.
And...GO! A Friday Ten In Which I Give Up on the Rest of the Year
Ha! Do you like how I stopped the Africa updates right before the three single best days of the trip (lions, gorillas and zebras?). I actually have a rare 20 minutes of down time right now when I should be trying to clean out my inbox, but let's just update instead. There are many, many things going on right now.
1. I LOVE STRESS: I mean, I probably don't love the way that it ages me, but I do thrive on it. The good thing about the current levels of stress is that it comes at a time of year when I habitually get manic anyway. I'm averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night right now. You would think that with 20 hours of awake time a day I'd have time to answer people's emails or return phone calls or not bail on social engagements. Ha! Here's what I'm balancing right now:
- A stressful job transition that's also resulted in some bad mojo for some people who work/ed with me. So I'm basically working about 12 hours a day, on a good day. Literally, my day starts at 7:30am. Around 4pm, I go to the gym for a couple of hours, and then around 7pm I start working again. Usually until around midnight.
- November is NOT party season in Vegas, but we're determined to make our revenue goal, so finding people who want to party in Vegas during one of the months of the year when NOBODY parties in Vegas is hard.
- You know it - it's holiday season. I have a shopping list of 120 people plus a card list of about 300, and you know that the majority of that card list gets that custom, special letter that Pookie and I do together which is 3x the work of a card and 10x the expense of a card. And you also know that of that 120 people a lot of them get things that I make, and though I made 35 of something during the summer, that's still a lot to do. The good news is that I have "the spreadsheet" completed. The bad news is that I also have three months of late birthday presents that need to be sent out as well. Viva!
- I AM OUT OF SHAPE: Which means I'm running like a beast. I'm not sure how it happened. I was underweight before I left for Africa, but still in good running shape. I didn't gain weight in Africa, but I also didn't run. And then when I got back, I didn't get right back to running, and I ate a lot of pizza, but it wasn't all that out of control. But when I went for my first run back this week, I was sucking air at four miles. Not good.
- AND THEN I HAD A PANIC ATTACK ABOUT MY SCHEDULE. Literally, a breathing issue panic attack. I did my calendar, and I realized that between the time I got back from Africa and the week after New Year's, I had only two weekends where either I didn't have an out of town trip scheduled or I have people in town. One of those weekends is this weekend, and one is either the weekend of December 8th or December 17th, depending on which weekend I do "Holidays in LA." After Africa I had Halffington in town, then the eight million nieces PLUS Jess's bachelorette, this weekend is blissfully off. Then November: the first weekend Matty and Jess get married, the second weekend I am going to Vancouver, the third weekend there are LA girls in town, and the fourth weekend I'll be in New York for Thanksgiving. Then there is December: the first weekend I'll be in Texas for Paul and Kari's wedding, one of the next two weekends I'll go to LA, then I'll be home in Pittsburgh for the holidays, then I'll be in Arizona for New Year's. When I looked at that schedule, I had a panic attack. Because, if you're following, I have no down time during the week right now. There's nothing I'd want off that schedule though. So I'll just buckle down and make it happen.
Here's the most awesome thing about that schedule though. So the other day I was having lunch with this boy I really like (and who I think really likes me) and he said, "Yeah, I'm going to be out of town the next two weekends."
And I immediately made my pouty face like I was so offended that he wouldn't want to spend time with me so badly that he'd leave a weekend clear. And he looked at me like I was the world's biggest hypocrite and said, "We're both really busy people. That's how it is with people like us."
AND I TOTALLY CONTINUED TO MAKE MY POUTY FACE LIKE I WAS 100% IN THE RIGHT. Which is, you know, ha ha ha ha ha ha, because if the question had been reversed and he had asked me what my weekend plans look like in the near future, I would have been all like "Yeah, why don't you talk to me in January. That's when it looks like things clear up for me."
Awesome.
And so I am stressed. My plans this weekend involve locking my door, closing my curtains, turning off my personal phone (but leaving work phones on, sigh) and chilling out - even if chilling out means that I'm actually doing work, just doing it in the comfort of my (now clean!) home. There will be crockpot action. There will be outings to the gym. There will even be laundry (which I find peaceful and relaxing - the sound of the dryer running in the background while I look at spreadsheets). There will be reading. There will be holiday crafting. THERE WILL BE ZELDA. And by 7am on Monday morning I will be refreshed.
And by 10am on Monday morning I will be in exactly the same stressed out, maxed-out place I'm in right now!
Listen, this is me saying I love everybody, but anybody who knows me knows that I go dark in November and December, and this year will be worse because of additional factors. Don't hate. Just know that when I'm not emailing or calling, I'm wishing that I were. If you are on Facebook then you get more action from me. That's all I'm saying.
2. A Little Ditty for the Marketers: Yeah, sorry, this is only funny if you've ever run a marketing department before, but since a lot of you have...
Me So, you know, I would need the data on x as it compares to y in order to decide what I wanted to do with that situation.
Other Person Um, yeah, the only way to get that data is manually.
Me You mean, like, read it and enter it into a calculator?
Other Person Um, yeah.
Me But...but...it's housed in a database!
Other Person Yeah, but there's really no way to easily ... let me just get you a calculator.
Let me tell you, there's some automation about to happen here. I can't think of a LESS useful way to spend my time than manually transferring data.
3. A photo that makes my photos look lame: It's seriously like Mr. Holland's Opus in Pittsburgh. I'm not even joking. My little bro just out-ghetto'ed me. "Mr. J" wins. I don't even know what to do with this.
4. Car! Detailed! Yes, finally. For those of you who have been following the saga, a can of Pepsi exploded in my car earlier this summer. The car needed to be detailed before that, but after the can of Pepsi exploded, it REALLY needed to be detailed. You know how sometimes things make it on to your to do list and then just keep getting moved to the bottom because it's such a hassle?
Then a couple of months later, I accidentally left some batteries in the car during the high heat and they leaked. Then the car REALLY REALLY needed to be detailed. However, not so much, apparently, that it rallied my ass out to get it detailed.
Then LAST WEEK I was on my way to a meeting and I hadn't eaten yet so I tried to eat sushi in the car. And at a red light, I went to open the little packet of soy sauce and it exploded all over the inside of the car.
But you know what finally got me motivated to get the car detailed? My tags have been expired for OVER A MONTH NOW because I've been too lazy to get my smog check done. The last time my tags were expired I totally got pulled over for a moving violation and had to eat the other $150 fine for having expired tags. So I finally got my car into the Saturn dealership. Exciting!
And then today I mailed in the smog check and the tag registration and was so excited that those things could be moved off my to do list.
And then I got home and opened my mail, only to find out that my lack of paying attention had meant that my driver's license had expired and I forgot to renew it, so I'm now driving on a suspended license. HOT.
I am a HOT MESS people.
5. Can we talk about SMOS briefly? You know how every year around this time, when things start to get crazy busy in my world, I start this lecture about how "I REALLY need to do something to slow the pace of my life down?" And then I go into this whole inner turmoil about how I would benefit from slowing myself down, but my nature is to live fast and big and I'd hate to have missed out on any of the things I would have missed out on if I didn't live that way? Well, can I say that in many ways this year I failed to slow the pace of my life down (see the two month schedule above as Example A). However, SMOS has totally made me slow down at least a section of my life. I have the most lovely, wonderful, beautiful men in my life right now. And if I had been going at my normal pace, I'd be well ensconced in another relationship by now and would have missed out on a lot of wonderful things I've learned. So, I'm saying, SMOS is the best thing I've ever done for myself. I did have a little bout of "single insecurity" going on the other week. And Shimmy reminded me that that's the point. As she said, "You need to become secure in the insecurity." She is so zen.
Slowing my life down will, once again, be something about myself that I try to work on in 2008. The other one will be trying to be at my best even when I'm not motivated or not inspired, which is something I learned this year is a weakness of mine. That is all.
6. I went through a phase this week where... I couldn't stop lusting after Luda. Yep. Sure did. I mean, like, talking about how hot he was all day long to anybody that would listen. Then Pookie drunk IM'ed me, and he sent me a copy of "Sexy Motherfucker" by Prince. And then I couldn't decide who I thought was sexier. Here, ponder for yourself.
7. The best thing you won't hear on my public playlist this week. You won't hear it, because I can't find a copy to put on the playlist, but there's a 2 DISC cd set of mashups of Britney and/or Madonna songs that made it down the girl chain from Ang to Shimmy to me. All the mashups are good, but there are two I just leave on repeat and listen to over and over again. One is a mashup of Missy Elliot's "Pass That Dutch" with Madonna's "Holiday", and the other is a mashup of "Holiday" with D-Child's "Make Me Lose My Breath." AND THOSE TWO MASHUPS ARE SO GOOD. You should totally try to find them online somewhere if you can. I can't stop listening.
Also, why do we love D-Child? It's because of lyrics like this: "Ooh Two things I don't like when I'm trynna get my groove - Is a partner that meets me only halfway, and just can't prove - Take me out so deep when you know you can't swim- Need a lifeguard and I need protection- To put it on me deep in the right direction. Ooh You understand the facts that I'm trynna give to you- You movin' so slow like you just don't have a clue- Didn't momma teach you to give affection? Learn the difference from a man and an adolescent It ain't you boo, so get ta steppin'"
Secondly, here's a conversation Halff may not have wanted to be made public. He and I are in the car (unfortunately pre-detailing job) listening to said cd (disc 2!).
Halff These mashups are way better than the original Britney and Madonna songs.
Pause
Halff and I Simultaneously Except for "Holiday." That's a great song on its own.
What have we learned? Mash any song with "Holiday" and everything gets better.
8. Cat Blog! This is honestly how fat Sly is. This is how he's sitting: He has his back paws on one chair, his front paws on another chair and his HUGE GUT is actually hanging between the two chairs. I am a bad mom!
9. Because I need a number nine ... Listen, I'm going to come clean here. Because the Rockies are Ry's favorite team, I always put $5 on them to win the World Series at the beginning of the season as a show of faith to him. The odds at the beginning of the season were, like, 30 to 1. I'm sorry. I know so many of you are Red Sox fans, but mama wants a pair of $1300 snakeskin Versace shoes she saw the other week. Go Rockies!
10. And a playlist! When I get super stressed like this, the music sounds more like a nightclub. Why? That's so obvious. Because nightclubs are where I reduce stress. Here's what we're listening to in Jocelyn world right now.
"Do It Well" - J-Lo: OHMYGOD! How much do I LOVE the new J-Lo single WITH a breakdown from my boyfriend Luda? I've been warned that if I don't stop playing and dancing to this in the work environment there will be a boycott, but IT'S SO GOOD. I work to it, I do laundry to it, I run to it. It's the best thing EVER. Or at least recently. You can't even listen to this and then listen to "Gimme More" and take Britney even a little bit seriously. I LOVE J-LO.
"Lose My Breath" - D-Child, "Pass That Dutch" - Missy Elliot and "Holiday" - Madonna: Okay, I can't give you the mashup, but I can give you all three singles and you can imagine. And dance. You can imagine, and then you can dance.
"Sexy Motherfucker" - Prince: "In a word, it's you I want to do." Or, better yet, "I want to get to know you, tell me what you do, what you eat...I might cook for you."
"Sexy motherfuker, shaking that ass, shaking that ass."
"End of the Night" - Luda: I mean, I could have picked any song here. He sounds smooth and sexy on anything. That is all. If for no other reason, this song is on because of these lyrics: " By the end of the night you gon' be wantin to marry a nigga Cause I make 'em erupt like volcanoes, you just shake and you shiver Get 'em up, get down, turn around and put your face in the pillow Cut 'em up like Jason, just face it that boy Luda's a killer Half man, half gorilla, beatin all on my chest Pleasin all of your flesh, squeezin all on your breast Givin you reasons to rest, and ain't never say no to papi Wake 'em up like Folgers cause I fold 'em like origami Hey mami let's get it poppin like Orville Redenbacher The way you move once you started nothin could ever stop ya Sweeter than Betty Crocker, and I'm ready to belly flop ya Just mention today but for now I forever gotcha"
Yep.
"Great Pumpkin Waltz" - Vince, Guaralid: Okay, so you'll only get a snippet here, but I've been listening to the whole thing. You know how I love my Peanuts holiday dvds.
Oh, God, come on, that's awesome how I just transitioned from Luda rapping about dirty sex to Charlie Brown. Give me points!
Special Extra Bonus Item! So I can't sleep (shocker) so I log into Facebook because I notice that AshleyPooh has tagged a new photo of me. It is a photo of me and my niece Stephanie "recovering" on my couch the night after all of these photos were taken. Nice, Ashley. Thanks for bringing this picture to the public. I really think the comment I left Ashley on Facebook says it all, which is, "Why would you post this? I look like I just spent five days doing crack."
Which is also what I felt like because my body doesn't recover from staying out all night two nights in a row as quickly as it used to. But I have no pride, so I'll share.
Though, you know, I do have the next four Africa entries ready to go over the next four days.
It was a stressful week. I mean, one could certainly say that it was a stressful week because I'm impacting positive change in my life. That didn't remove the stress. And then the weekend, wow. I hurt today. Physically hurt. Yes, it was that bad. It can really be told in three chapters.
Chapter One: Fortunately, I am not pregnant. Friday, I was approaching two weeks late. (Yes, I know, you will read this when you get back and say, "You totally told me before I left that we didn't need to worry." It's true. I said that. I just wanted you to have a clear mind while you were on your trip.). Anyway, normally in that situation, I would have just said, "Travel. Super high levels of stress. Late is normal." But there was a small margin of error going on, and so I was worried. And so, on Friday, I wanted to know if I could drink over the weekend with a clear conscious or not. Later, we will realize that I should have just stayed worried and not been drinking, but who knew. So I picked up an EPT test on the way home from work. The very act of buying that test seemed to spur my body into action a couple of hours later, but before that, I did take the test.
I am thirty-three years old.
When I took the test, my two nieces were at my place. One of them is twenty-one years old. One of them is twenty-four years old.
Me (reading directions that make the act of peeing on a stick seem like brain science level challenge) This is a lot more confusing than I though. I've never taken one of these tests before.
BOTH Nieces Oh! I have! Let me explain it to you.
There's so much wrong with what I just described.
I still love them even if they're apparently, ahem, more active than I would like.
Chapter Two: Hott Scott Joins an Exclusive Club This was the conversation on Friday.
Hott Scott I kind of want to keep it mellow tonight. How about we call K-rock and have A-train and Latchkey hang out around nine and we just open a couple of bottles of wine and then call it a night around midnight?
Me That sounds perfect. I had a week from hell, and I have to go out on a rager on Saturday night, so I'd super like to keep it mellow tonight.
And see, that's how the plans laid out. A mellow night of just drinking some wine with some friends and being home around midnight for a full night of sleep and a productive day the next day.
And four hours later, Hott Scott joined a very special club. It's a club with a small membership, but unfortunately not as exclusive as it should be. It's the official "I Have Put Jocelyn to Sleep on my Bathroom Floor" club.
Here's how this played out: After holding my hair for an hour while I threw up, Hott Scott let me lay down against the cool tile of the bathroom floor and pass out for a while. Then he came back.
Hott Scott Jocelyn, will you get up off the floor and go to bed on the couch or one of the extra beds?
Me (Insert about a full minute of moaning.) Nooooooooo. (Insert more moaning)
Hot Scott Do you want to just sleep here on the bathroom floor?
Me (Insert about a full minute of moaning.) Yeeeesssss. (Insert more moaning)
And in the morning, I woke up with a blanket and a pillow and a neck ache from sleeping on the bathroom floor. You know what Hott Scott is? He's awesome for taking care of my drunk ass.
To be honest, I'm not even sure how it happened. I had four, maybe five, glasses of wine over a three or four hour period. I mean, that's a lie. Not a lie about the fact that I didn't drink all that much, but a lie about how I don't know how I ended up that drunk. I had neglected to eat most of the day. I'd had, like, two rice cakes at 2pm and that was it. That's how I ended up spending the night on the bathroom floor.
Chapter Three: And then there was Saturday night... Yes. Sigh.
Honestly, you may just want to look at the pictures from Saturday night. That's a better way to tell the story. Click here to see the full set.
Not only was Saturday night Jess's bachelorette party, but also as I may have mentioned all three nieces plus a bunch of their friends were in town for a birthday party. So the plan was that we'd do Jess's bachelorette and then all meet up at Ghostbar late night.
Here are some highlights.
We started at Voodoo with a Witch Doctor and some steak.
We went to Chippendales for Jess's birthday. Yes, we did. And we all rolled our eyes about how much we're not going to dig this. And then...we were wrong. We were not only entertained, we were all oddly turned on. And I have a total crush on Bryan Cheatham. We all agreed that the best scene in the entire show is the "art scene" in which there is an unexplained bed, chaise lounge and motorcycle on stage and three separate solos about the sadness of being alone going on. I may not have laughed so hard in years. In between stripping, the men just look hearbroken. I recommend. I strongly recommend. That is all. So.good.
After the show, the entertaining, fantastic show that I want to see again, we headed to Moon. Where I will leave it at "We got our drink on. We got our dance on."
And then, the explosion of ghetto hit us at Ghostbar and the party turned up even more, and I can't even think about it, really.
And then I got home at 5 and the nieces were at least an hour later than I was. Rough. I have big black spots of memory. Literally.
Okay, and so I had dreams of going to LA next weekend, but today I was brutally brought to the realization that I went to Africa, and came back and pretty much had houseguests every weekend and went through a traumatic job transition and had a bad pregnancy scare and I'm just exhausted and I need a weekend of Zelda and tea and quiet. So that is what I will do next weekend.
An Africa Interlude: A Friday 10 In Which I Surely Cannot be Pregnant
What's sad about the intrusion of a Friday Five here is that the next Africa entry is one of my absolute favorites, and it's very entertaining and it would have been a fun way for people to kind of wrap up the weekend with a funny story about how lazy I can be and how Lisa basically won. But I feel like there have been no real updates on ME lately (ha). And it's been a strange week. I've had lots of change thrown in my face. Upheaval, really. Some hard decision making. So, some of this is short, but it's really a Friday 10 to maybe not catch us up, but cover some things.
1. Meandering: In the face of some change, and some young'ins, I updated The Nature of Sand. Which is to say that I pontificated in a circuitous manner and indulged myself by blogging it.
2. Just for Pookie: I rarely point to the thankful journal, but today's entry is special and just for Pookie, so I want to be sure he notices it. Here's today's thankful entry, baby brother.
3. Gay or Douche Bag? This is a new game that Larry invented for us to play on the Strip. I think the game is pretty self explanatory, but in case you don't get it, you basically grab your cocktail and sit in a casino (or a club, or the airport) and try to identify who's gay and who's just a douche bag. You have no idea how fun this is, or how hard it can be.
4. The Joel Robuchon Mansion: Was unreal. I want to say that the caviar course was my favorite, but the veal was amazing. Also the shellfish course was amazing. Oh, and the mushroom course was amazing. But oddly, there was a palette cleanser of a soy bean risotto that was actually our favorite. I just salivated.
5. Eddie Vedder: It was like 1992 all over again, except not since there were no music downloads in 1992. I rushed to my iTunes account the day the new Eddie Vedder was released, and it is good. I don't know that I'll be able to watch Into the Wild, because the book alone sent me into a fit of depression for a week, but the soundtrack is beautiful. I heart Eddie Vedder.
6. G-Mail Chat Poetics: I have once again translated mine, Paul and Dex's gmail status indicators into a poem for you. In this case, it worked out to pretty much be a haiku.
Nintendo's Bitch - Paul Nintendo Widower - Dex Nintendo's White Slave!
7. Where is my period? This is what we're all asking. I'm sure it's just stress related. I have a zit, a headache and a backache, so I'm sure it will be here any day. Given that it's a week plus late, I didn't drink tonight, just in case. And then you know how it is, the later it is the more you worry and the more you stress and the later and later it will be. And then you find yourself saying things like, "I mean, it would be nearly impossible," but then you do the math and "nearly impossible" is not "impossible." This is my brain right now with every minute that passes with a zit, a backache and a headache but no period. Hi, mom!
8. Later on...when my period comes and we're all like "See, it was just the travel and the stress of all the other unexpected changes when you got back," I'll tell you about all of the other crazy stuff that's been going on in my head as the days drag by and I get later and later.
9. See, now I've stressed myself out: This is the cycle. I know I probably have nothing to worry about, but as soon as I start thinking or talking or writing about it, all I can think about is how freakin' late I am.
10. Let's watch a video instead. This is probably only funny to you if you've ever worked in a corporate marketing department and dealt with corporate design issues. And usually there's only one corporate "design" issue. And it has to do with...logo size. If you've never worked in a corporate marketing department, this is not so funny. If you have, well, you'll laugh your ass off.
Friday Six: Tattoo Wisdom, Champagne, Social Injustice
1. Because I enjoy being financially tight but exceptionally well-traveled: "We're going to Madrid in February" somehow turned into "Some of us are going to Madrid in February" and "Some of us are going to Seville in April". So I'm just going to call it now - That means no more travel plans for '08, because that's Spain twice and then Mongolia in the fall and that's about all this girl can handle until she becomes a full on lady of leisure. Bitches better plan some parties.
2: Big Josh wants to drop some wisdom: And in case you were wondering, Big Josh is from Diversity Tattoo where I just got my new one done. He wants you to know that "People love to get hurt by the people they love - it makes them strong." I might say that it only makes you strong if you choose to let it make you strong. It's pretty easy to hide from it and let it make you weaker. And I think that you know who you are.
3. Actual quote from my mom to C-Woo: "I always say that Joel's going to save the world, and then Jocelyn is going to buy it from him."
That's fucked up, mom. It implies that after saving the world, Joel would embrace capitalism.
4. Notes from Partay World: So ToniK rolls into the office with five bottles of embarrassing pink champagne that each cost more than you probably pay in rent or mortgage per month. I mean, like each bottle INDIVIDUALLY costs more than you probably pay in rent or mortgage each month.
Me There are five bottles there.
Toni Yeah, they added two people, so I figured we'd need the fifth bottle.
Me They only approved four bottles though, you know.
Toni Right, well, I figure they won't have a problem with it, what with the extra people and the fact that they have more money than God. But you know, if for some reason they don't want the fifth bottle...
Me Then you and I are about to have an awesome evening in your backyard with your dog, a pizza and a bottle of champagne that costs more than you or I pay in rent or mortgage a month. Hot.
5. An important social question - discuss: One might think that the important social question would be "Is there something wrong with a world in which one can buy champagne that costs more than a person's rent or mortgage?" No, the important social question is:
Which of the following has contributed more to the stripping away of people's dignity? Is it:
a. The mere existence of YouTube. See the following as an example.
Or is it....
b. The industry that is Bollywood. See the following as an example.
Discuss. Let me know.
6. And a play list: I've been musically (and mentally, and emotionally, and physically) all over the map this week, so this play list is literally the six (since this is a Friday six) songs that went through on my iPod while I was writing this. "I'm crazy," is what this playlist says.
a. Oasis - Fucking in the Bushes: This is the song I start EVERY RUN I'VE EVER TAKEN with. It's the most motivational piece of music I know of. That may say something about me, I suppose.
b. Jack Johnson - Bubble Toes: I love me some Jack Johnson and everybody knows it.
c. Seasons of Love - Rent: What's funny is how there are two motivational songs on this list. One about fucking in some bushes, one about moving through life. Ha.
d. Jackson Brown - Sky Blue and Black: I think that the "I'm Alive" album is one of the greatest albums ever recorded. I really do. I'm not sure why more people don't think that. Cory convinced me to buy it one day back in Bloomington and I've never stopped listening to it.
e. Billy Joel - And So It Goes: I have no idea why my random shuffle is so mellow today, but it is. Kind of mopey, no? But again, I'm not sure we can argue that this is one the single most beautiful songs ever sung by a man to a woman (HINT).
f. Lyndard Skynard - Sweet Home Alabama: Back in the day, when the Avery and the Janet and the PJ and I used to go to the Toronado, like, EVERY Friday, there was this fun little game I would play where I would put this song on the jukebox, and then Johnny the bartender would yell at me not to play that crap in his bar and use his manual override to switch the jukebox to Black Flag or some crap like that. I think we can probably all see how that story eventually ended.
Postscript: An actual conversation.
"What are you doing this weekend, Jocelyn?"
"Going somewhat insane because Ferrisx2 is in town AND we're running a party that costs more than you make in a year."
"How about next weekend?"
"I'm going to LA to see some kind of fucked up band in some bad neighborhood on Friday night and go to the roller derby on Saturday."
"So I see that your new spiritual journey is going well."
1. I won the racial humor contest this weekend with my girlies. I won it with this one, which I busted out five minutes after they arrived: "Em, look, I put the Barack Obama book on the nightstand so that you Black folk would be comfortable in my home."
Though, if you were going for my vote, Em would have won it with this line, "Tell that boy not to upset you this week. Your minority friends are in town."
2. There are holes in this journal from the last eight months. Have you noticed? There are no entries about my birthday, or about the Super Bowl. There's nothing about St. Patrick's day. Or New Year's. Or my trip to Pittsburgh last November. And there are other, non-holidays that were beautiful and important and there's nothing in here about them. It's like those days didn't even exist. And I guess sometimes when you ask somebody to pretend over and over again that the good parts of something aren't there, eventually they start to believe it. I wish I had entries about some of those things right now, because it's getting harder and harder to believe that they ever happened.
3. I'm rewatching The Intruder right now. Somehow, avant guard French film doesn't work as well on dvd. But still beautiful.
4. Today, I arrived home and there was no loud hip hop playing in my home. Nobody was yelling at somebody. Nobody was screaming at T-Mobile over the phone. I could sleep in my own bed. I didn't have to fight through five flatirons and ten dirty washclothes to get to my toothbrush. Nobody stumbled in drunk at 5am. I didn't have to count all three cats to make sure nobody had accidentally let them out during the day. And you know what? For about an hour I was really happy, and then I started to miss my girls.
5. I'm making a decision this weekend about taking an extended trip home to PA, like, for a month or so. I think I may just need my mom to take care of me right now. I think I clearly know right now that I am not going to get better on my own, and I don't really have the support system I would need here. There's part of me that knows that if I go back there for a month, I'll end up never leaving again. But there's another part of me that just wants to be home. I don't know. I'll meditate this weekend and see what I think at the end.
Now that it's out in the open that I'm having some health struggles, I can share the most awesome thing I said last week.
"Honestly, things happen, and I don't know if I'm having an actual emotion, a depressive reaction to the medication or a euphoric spike from the antidepressant. It's like I'm not even walking around on the same planet as the rest of you.
I think my planet may be better."
Since we're talking about it now, I think the number one goal is to get off the anti-depressants. Those seem to be what's making me the most volatile and irrational, even though they're supposed to do the opposite. It's just that off them, and on this particular cycle of medications, well let's just say it's not very functional that way.
On Friday my blood counts had started to normalize, by which I mean an improvement of about 10%. At that rate, we could hopefully go med free by fall. I just need to be diligent.
Don't worry mom! Totally under control! I promise! And see how I'm actually saving us an awkward conversation by communicating with you about this here instead of calling you and then dodging questions? Awesome. Thank God for the internet.
1. The Best Thing That Got Said This Weekend "Girl, relationships are like birth control pills. If you think you're going to find one without a side effect, you're dead wrong."
This, of course, is only REALLY funny if you've been following my saga with birth control pills, which unless you are ToniK, K-Rock or Bonnie Bentley, you probably are not. I am not a fan of birth control pills. I haven't taken them, except for two short periods of about six months each, since I was in college. But, for various reasons we don't need to go into, I decided I would go back on them for the time being. This begins with my totally unreasonable conversation with my obgyn.
Me I don't care what other side effects it has, but DO NOT put me on a pill where the side effect is weight gain. I do not want to gain a single pound from this. Not one pound.
OBGYN I mean, is three to five pounds of water retention really going to matter to you? Come on now.
Me NOT.ONE.POUND.
And so we, until this point, had tried five, FIVE, separate pills.
1. The first one made me break out like a 14 year old. Happy Thanksgiving 2006 to me. And while I'd said I didn't care about other side effects, clearly I did.
2. The second one apparently defined "some light spotting" as a full on period for longer than two weeks. This one was particularly enjoyable.
3. The third one made me vomit every morning for three weeks. But not only was there no weight gain, there was weight loss because I couldn't keep food down!
4. The fourth one was, I believe, everybody's favorite. It was the one that made me emotional and probably a little bit insane for the month we tried it. K-Rock, I'm sure, will confirm, that for several weeks, I would be sitting in the office looking at a spreadsheet or a logo comp or something and suddenly, out of the blue, for no reason, crying. And I am not so much a crier. I would have to get up and go cry in the bathroom, or some days cry while sitting in my car. And if you asked me what I was crying about, I had no answer for you. American Idol? Made me cry. My taxes? Made me cry. I mean, the list was endless. Crying. Constant crying. Momentary losses of connection with reality. Anxiety. Not good. Unpleasant to be around.
5. And then pill five, which seems to be a little miracle worker. I'm not acting crazy. My skin seems fine. No weight gain! No vomiting! No reduced sex drive so far (which has historically been a problem with me and birth control). The only side effect one month in is that my breasts have gotten tender.
And so, if you're enjoying this metaphor I'm spinning here, relationships are like that. Some will make you vomit, some will make you crazy, some will make you never want to have sex again, but in the end hopefully you'll find one that just makes your boobs swell a little bit. And really, what more could we all hope for?
2. Even Angels Have Existensial Angst My goal for this month is to output lots of creative, well, output. When I make that my goal, there are often certain sacrifices that I have to make. For me, one of those sacrifices is not going out on Friday or Saturday night unless there is some super compelling reason to. I know me. If I go out on Friday or Saturday for "a drink", I may only have one drink, but I will get wrapped up in the "being out and about" and it will be well into the morning before I get home. Then it will be well past noon-thirty before I get up and my creative energy will be shot before it even gets started. So I look for ways to pass the evening hours that don't require me to be out, laying it down. So, lots of movies and books to talk about.
Saturday night I re-watched Wings of Desire, which I probably hadn't watched in five years and which is one of my favorite films. I mean, you know, I love Wim Wenders and Until the End of the World is my favorite, favorite film ever. And the very beautiful Solveig Dommartin is in this film, and she's also the protagonist in Until the End of the World, and in both movies Wenders kind of uses her to explore this concept he loves of "a woman gloriously alone in the world." And I always relate to that. Anyway, the film always gets me thinking about spiritual eternity versus physical transience. And it makes me want to go out and touch leaves and smell concrete, which is what I did on Sunday.
3. I also finished reading... The Game of Silence by Louise Erdrich. She wrote much better before Michael Dorris died, but you still feel the nature in her writing, which is why we all love her so much, right?
4. I have stress. I have lots of work stress, a little personal stress, and then lots more work stress. I also have six days this week where I won't be updating in an effort to chill and offload some stress. Just letting you know.
5. Here's a poetry meditation. Except that it's not really a poetry meditation. It's the opening narration to Wings of Desire:
"When the child was a child, it was the time of these questions. Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did time begin, and where does space end? Isn't life under the sun just a dream? Isn't what I see, hear, and smell just the mirage of a world before the world? Does evil actually exist, and are there people who are really evil? How can it be that I, who am I, wasn't before I was, and that sometime I, the one I am, no longer will be the one I am?"
This entry is also subtitled: Hott Scott Likes to Fog Off with his Fistfull of Cockney
Saturday, April 21st, 4:45am: The alarm clock goes off. My response? "Fuck.Me."
Saturday, April 21st, 6:45am: Yep. It's cold. Hott Scott and I are in the starting area for the Salt Lake City marathon. It's cold, but it's beautiful. It's too early for sunlight, and there's a pretty bridge and a huge ass mountain range that's still purple from the night with white snow caps in front of us. There's a childrens' choir dressed in white robes. There are some pimp ass Kenyans jogging down to the starting line two minutes before the gun goes off like they're too good to wait out in the cold with the rest of us. And honestly, they're too good to wait out in the cold with the rest of us. 6:45 am people.
(Hours of running and the following phrase ensue: "Fuck me. That CANNOT be another two mile stretch of gradual uphill running in front of me. That is SO NOT what the elevation map and promo material for this course made it sound like.")
Here are some pictures from SLC marathon weekend for you. Dear Scott and Kari: I live for your love. Every day. Every minute.
Saturday, April 21st, 1:00pm: Arrive back at hotel and take half hour nap.
Saturday April 21st: 1:30pm: Take ice cold bath hoping that the ice down will help alleviate not just your general marathon pain, but also the pain that's about to be caused by the stupid, stupid thing you're about to do.
Saturday, April 21st: 4:00pm: Depart on a plane from SLC to Vegas to hop another plane to Pittsburgh. Say this to somebody while talking on the phone before the plane takes off. "Yeah, you know, I'm pretty naseous from the running. There's at least a 50% chance that I'm going to throw up on this flight."
Saturday: April 21st: 5:00pm: Enjoy your lay over in Vegas. Pick up a voicemail from Pookie asking when you get in and what the plan is. Leave this message on his voicemail:
Me I'm in Vegas on a fucking layover on my way to you. You know what? There's a reason why you're not supposed to finish a marathon, take a nap and get on a plane. I'm in excruciating fucking pain. I cannot even describe it. I am cranky as fuck. I get in at 1am and I'm going to Tyler's baptism in the morning. We're having family dinner at the house that night. You should come. I have to go. Arghhhhhhh.
Pookie will then play that message on speaker for J. And J will say the following: "Your sister is amazing. Does she always do amazing things like that?"
And Pookie will say the following: "Jos doesn't do amazing things. Jos IS amazing. Jos always says, 'Why do it, when you can BE it?"
Now, if you just read that sentence, you would think that my baby brother thinks I'm awesome and gushes over me. But when you read it, you don't hear the four inches of sugary sarcasm icing on tip of the words. Pookie has had 30 (!) years of dealing with my constant quest to kick ass, and he's amply equipped to mock my inability to turn it off. So if you KNOW me and you KNOW Pookie, then that quote is funny. Otherwise, you're probably not so much getting it.
Sunday, April 22nd, 2:30am: Finally roll out of the Pittsburgh airport after a flight where it was too cold for you to sleep on the plane and having to stand in line at Hertz for over half an hour behind the customer from HELL.
Sunday, April 22nd, 3:30am: Arrive at your parents' house. Realize that you need to wake up in 3.5 hours. Say it again. "Fuck.Me."
Sunday, April 22nd, 7:30am: Wake up half an hour late.
Sunday: April 22nd, 9:10am: Arrive at church ten minutes late dressed like Strawberry Shortcake and have to endure the disapproving looks of the octagenarians as you stroll down the aisle during worship. Have Candy have to explain the whole baptism ceremony to you in whispers in between prayers. Your favorite moment though? You pick up the prayer booklet and start praying along to participate in the worship service because you are a guest in this House of the Lord. AND CANDY LAUGHS OUT LOUD AT YOU WHEN YOU DO IT.
Tyler is a stunningly beautiful baby.
Sunday, April 22nd, 11:00am: Attend Tyler's welcoming brunch. Mention this specifically because your favorite moment with Tyler's father, Wing Man, happens at brunch. You are sitting with Wing Man's Brother and Wing Man's Brother's Girlfriend. The brunch food comes out, but nobody has started eating yet.
Wing Man Get up and go eat guys.
Wing Man's Brother's Girlfriend The old people should eat frist.
Wing Man They know better.
Yep! And also, I have found a new food to love that's Pittsburgh-centric. They're called "Three Rivers Potatoes" and they're cheesy potatoes with a layer of potato chips on top. We know how to eat here.
Here are pictures from the Baptism. Candy makes beautiful babies. I, personally, enjoy the photo of Tyler and I where I look about as Roma as Roma can be. It's like I just jumped off of the gypsy train and offered to read your palm and dance for you with ankle bracelets on.
Sunday, April 22nd, 2:00pm: Stop to have lunch with Glory Days. Enjoy this exchange.
Me I love my thirties so much more than my twenties. My thirties are like an entirely different, better life.
Glory Days My thirties pretty much still feel like my twenties to me.
Me You live with your parents, dude.
Sunday, April 22nd, 3:00pm: Finally arrive home. Alternate the rest of the day between napping and eating and talking to Pook, your mom and your 84 year old neighbor who wants to talk about Viagra.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is 48 hours in the life. This trip is going to be great. I can feel it.
Form Over Function, Function Over Form Also subtitled: Phone Drama Continues
I have often in my life been known to choose things that look pretty over things that work well. My cell phone is an example of that. Oh, I know, and knew before I bought it, that the pink RAZR phones had tons of problems. But they were so cute. And I am cute! This is an actual conversation I had with Luca yesterday.
Luca Your phone is still broken? You KNOW the RAZRS have problems. Why did you get one?
Me It was pink.
Luca Let me guess. You have clothes and purses you bought just to match your phone.
Me And a matching iPod. And lots of matching sunglasses.
Luca Of course you do. Of course you do.
Me Kisses!
And so my warranty replacement phone finally arrives yesterday - AND IT IS DEFECTIVE. It doesn't pick up my voice. If you are a 200 lb man with a booming voice, the phone picks you up just fine. If you are 110 lb girl with a girl voice, no bueno. But did I upgrade my phone? Nope! Insisted on a RAZR so I could stay pink. I suggest texting for the weekend if you need to get in touch with me.
Don't Be Calling My Mary-Kate, Ya'll So, Ryan posted those pictures of me in Long Beach over on MySpace and I do look really thin in them, and there was also talk of this picture where I'm the first to admit that I look a tad bit Ethiopian. And this has led to a rash of emails from folks telling me I look too skinny. So I just want to put that to bed. I'm running a marathon in two weeks (yikes!) and I get really skinny when I distance run that much. I don't weigh a lot right now, it's true. Please believe me that I'll bounce back up to a healthy 125 or so after this race. Maybe even 130 if I give into the PMS temptation of pizza. I miss my boobs, too. But at least my hips will never, ever go away! Don't stress. It's just that it's race season.
You Clearly Have Me Confused with Somebody Else This is an actual part of an actual conversation discussing an actual relationship I was once in.
Him You know what I loved about our relationship? That you and I were both looking forward to the part where we got tired of sex because it meant that we were moving to a higher ground.
Me (Looks around in confusion. Makes confused face. Squints.) Are you sure you don't have me confused with one of your other ex-girlfriends?
And then, later...
Him You know, I always felt like it wasn't fair because you keep your body in such amazing shape, and I wasn't giving that back to you, though it never mattered to you.
Me (Looks around in confusion. Makes confused face. Squints.) That wasn't me. That was somebody else. I was the one who told you that if you gained any more weight we'd start running into a problem. Do you remember our relationship at all?
I mean, it's kind of like I felt like there were moments when we were talking about two different relationships. But that kind of not being on the same page, that may be where some of our problems were, right? People say things, and other people interpret them to be what they wanted to hear. And I love this person I was talking to, but this person does that a lot.
There, those were three better thoughts than the first one.
I Do Not, in Any Way, Feel Like I am Slamming Into the New Year
I knew the first weeks would be rough. The travel. The bowl games. The work stress. The decompressing. My dogged determination that even with all of that going on I was going to have a blast one way or the other. On top of that, trying to explore LA as a real possibility for the first time as an actual instead of a, "Yes, I'll move to LA this year" vague kind of thing. Combined, of course, with the annual "The holidays are over and now I'm depressed becasue they are my favorite time of year" bout of depression.
And maybe, just maybe, I pushed it a little too hard to make sure I had the fun while I was slamming through the most absurd schedule a person has ever had. Okay, not the most absurd because I know some people with some crazy schedules. But that said, I decided to sneak one extra little trip to LA in last weekend (and my ladies and I went shopping and those jeans are HOT, but not as hot as that bag), and probably that trip was the one trip too many and now.I.have.strep and an ear infection.
Yes, it's hard to slam into the new year when you're sleeping 16 hours a day. Maybe more. I stare at my laptop. It does not speak back to me. I have a list of outlook tasks due today. They'll all be glaring at me in red by tomorrow because apparently the idea of organizing some logos is beyond me. My joint is a mess. I have 122 unanswered personal emails and 71 unanswered work emails. And none of the following things are likely to happen this weekend: a)Zelda completion, b)painting completion, c)phone call returns, d)knitting completions or f)personal writing goals.
But I do have the entire first season of "Supernatural" (thanks Charms94), the entire first seasons of "Melrose Place" and "90210" (Thanks Matt McD) and lots of new "Northern Exposure" (thanks Halff). So if you're going to be stuck in bed doing mindless things, at least those are good mindless things.
Madonna Tribute - Cast of Glee
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