happy birthday

Yesterday, I peeked into a world which alternately fascinates and horrifies me. I gained entree, via the begging of my friend, to the fitness world of the beautiful people. I shall never be the same.

It should be noted that I am, indeed, a workout snob, but the environs don't necessarily bother me, provided there is ample, useful equipment for me and not just a sea of useless nautilus machines and calf strengthening stations. In fact, most of the better gyms in which I've trained, would probably not be suitable for the "clean" person, who goes to the gym to get some cardiooohh in (must be said in valley speak) and work the 5lb hand weights for a bit, to get "toned".

Anyway, I found myself there yesterday, looking at the random, edgy, brushed metal features on the walls, the blonde wood cabinets, cleverly arranged gym towels and strategically placed foliage. All around me there were small people. They were both short and thin, all of them. The women had on cleverly matching gym outfits, full faces of makeup, earrings and smartly coiffed "workout hair". They diligently rode the reclined stationery bikes, marched on the elipticals and stood idly around kibitzing and checking themselves out in the mirrors, which lined the walls.

Some of the men, with their track pants and logo tees, hoisted the 40lb. dumbbells, grimacing to show the ferocity of their work. They pulled the triceps extension down with bad form and flailed their bodies around as they did bar curls with weight that was both pointless and too heavy for their strength levels. I also noticed that the boys did a regular inventory and survey of the other Y chromosomes in the area, clandestinely measuring cocks as they strutted around the "weight" area, which should actually have been called the "nautilus bullshit" area. Because when "exercising" so ineffectively, one must find another means for comparison in order to woo the matchy-matchy girls in the cardio section.

All of this mayhem, coupled with the droves of people who literally ran into me as I warmed up on the ergometer, made me want to hurt. At one point, I actually began throwing elbows on the sly, hoping to catch an errant quadricep so that I could inflict a dead leg on it's vacant owner. It was at that moment where the snobbery reared it's head and I realized that I am not a beautiful gym person.

I, with my boardshorts and wifebeater tanks and aptitude for actual athleticism, belong in the gym that looks dingy to the outsider. The one where punk and hard rock are blasting from the speakers and nary a "hand bike" is in sight. I belong in the gym that the beautiful people would scoff at because there are not long, neat rows of retardedly complicated nautilus machines and where one can regularly hear the pounding of bumper weights as they crash back down onto the olympic platforms in the corner. I belong at a gym where they not only have a glute-ham raise, but where the patrons actually know what to do with it.

I have recovered from the irritation of the whole experience and come to a realization. A beautiful person in life I may be, a beautiful gym person, I never will. Thank the stars above for that.

frites de disco

Well I'm going to have to adopt the supermodel anorexia diet to the stars this week. That's all I'm saying on that subject.

In my culinary travels last week, I came across a phenomenon I had no idea would speak to me the way it did. I am generally a "conscious" person when it comes to eating. This is not to say I'm a food nazi, but I do pay attention to the health profile of what I put in my body. Even when sobering up. But Wednesday night, that all went out the window, when the harried, over-explaining waitress at the Sayville Diner plunked down a plate of gravified goodness called: Disco Fries.

I stared quizzically at the plate for a second. Although I understand this delight is common in Canada, by another name, I had never heard of such a mixture of ingredients. Curly french fries on a shallow reservoir of gravy, topped by a bit more gravy and then, American-tastic plastic slices of processed cheese melted on top like a warm, orange blanket.

At first, I was afraid. All of these elements are regularly avoided by me for various reasons, so I thought there would be no shot at satisfaction. Additionally, I had already received my omelet, and the flavors of the two items, would probably not mix. It was then that I heard the "Omigawwd's" from the other side of the table. Could it be that good? Really? I took my fork and tentatively struck a fry, half bare, half drenched in the layers of possibility.

It was that first taste that really got me. The crispy, salty fries, the gooey cheese and the spices of the gravy all dancing coyly around my mouth, daring me not to like them. And I tried - tried not to like it, but I had to aquiesce; fries and gravy can be good! In fact, not only can they be, but they are and once the seal was broken on that flavor festival, it was like a crazy, fork-stabbing extravaganza between me and my 2 dining cohorts. Our individual meals went largely untouched, while we attacked the disco fries like fat people eating donuts. Quickly and in large chunks, the plate was cleared and I think the only reason no one licked it is because the other two would have protested.

In the disco aftermath, I was greeted by a feeling akin to having eaten an anvil and my stomach, which is apparently the logic center of my body, was a little upset by the whole experience. But my brain, my brain told me that it was completely worth it, so upon returning home, I waddled my disco fried ass up the stairs and rolled myself into a deep, food-coma induced slumber.

I will now begin the recipe search, so that I can propagate this experience for my loved ones in the future. I will save it for the rare and special day, when calories, fat, sodium and carbohydrate content have no power over my dining decisions. And then......I will unleash the disco fry and all its gravy soaked aptitude on the world.

tday

Happy Thanksgiving!

See, I'm not really a holiday girl. This is because whenever the holidays began to flirt with us all when I was a child, I was thrown, headlong into "serving wench" mode. Not in the sense that my ample bosoms were displayed for an unruly crowd of drunken warriors, but because the silver needed to be polished, the china cleaned and displayed and the dusting and vacuuming done, so that the rest of the family didn't know that we lived in a house that wasn't clean and spotless 24/7. I suspect they guessed, but that did nothing to dissuade my mother.

Anyway, today on the day of thanks, I'm passing along the good vibes, free of sarcastic or cynical dinge. Now that I've had sweet potatoes, vegetables, a piece of decent turkey and loads of pie, I'm thankful. Thankful that I have a functioning brain, good friends and a life, with which I am still young enough to make a fantastic impression.

Hope your day is going well.

doggehh

Okay, I'm mailing it in today, but this always makes me laugh (because it's sick and strange) and I can use all the laughs I can get. I wonder how many times this has happened before, or if this is the moment of discovery.

sleepy little pill

On the topic of insomnia again, I'm back on the no sleep kick. While some would think that being a "night owl" is somehow lucky and fun, what with all of the interesting late night programming and all, I would argue that it is only beneficial in a collegiate or jobless situation. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of wasted time in a zombie state and several hundred extra dollars a year spent on coffee.

I've received a few recommendations recently, for aids that will allow me to both sleep and wake "naturally" and leave me rested as opposed to having a sleepy-over the next day. I find the use of the word natural, very creative. This is one of the stupidest things I've ever read. For people who really have sleep problems, do they think we haven't checked into all of this already? I mean, really. No insomniac I know has not tried every possible trick to get themselves to sleep. Short of stabbing myself in the temple and letting my brain leak out onto my pillow every night, I have put in the fucking effort on this one.

Sadly, even the most safe, over the counter sleep aids cause me extreme drowsiness and leave me operating about 2 - 3 sentences behind the rest of the world the next day. This tends to be problematic when trying to discuss the state of the real estate economy and relevant information with regard to the placement of tens of millions of dollars. Thank god I'm not in the practice of operating heavy machinery or wielding medical tools in surgery. "Uh, oops....you said it was the left leg....right?" "Anyone seen my ju-ju-bes?"

I'm one of a gajillion people dealing with this, though. Our collective stress levels and lack of coping skills have thrown us all into a world dependent on sedatives to sleep and stimulants to wake. Gone is the time of a simple drifting off to a land of happy slumber and restful awakening with joyful rays of sun streaming through the lace curtains each morning. In it's place is the writhing stress of tossing around trying to trick your body into relaxing and rejuvinating itself.

Due to this, there are so many ads out now for prescription grade sleep aids, that you'd think some hippie out there would become incensed and begin leveraging his or her holistic-ness and computer skills to market some sort of pay service. It would be targeted at stress reduction techniques involving body contortion, breathing techniques and strange herbs you've never heard of.

Of course, I must digress that this is America and we would sooooooooooooooo much rather take drugs than deal with our problems. Perhaps the hippies realized this (in between bong rips) and have pre-emptively claimed futility. Perhaps this is another idea that I really should jump on, so that I can make the millions of dollars that the universe owes me, since I already lost out on the road rage thing.

I now think that perhaps I should rally my fellow insomniacs and see if we just can't shift the workday to coincide with our epidemic. If you think about it, the white collar world is probably the largest funder of both the coffee and sedative markets, meaning we have the most authority on what would work well to alleviate the productivity losses associated with our, ahem, disorder. If we shifted the workday, we'd have plenty of good, daylight hours to ease into wakefulness and then we could keep happy hour where it is, and lunchtime would rock. I'm taking this one straight to the top.

I apologize in advance to the pharmaceutical industry for their impending losses, but I'm sure we'll come up with another affliction for them to exploit.

road rage

About 8 years ago, I had this idea.

Seems I could have made a million dollars had I bought HTML For Dummies. Silly me.

But now you know....you can report all of the assholes you come across on the freeway. You can post their information and offense on the web for millions of other angry drivers to read and digest. Perhaps they will even make themselves aware of the vehicle in question so they may give the driver the bird, on your behalf. Hell, you may even be able to find a support group of people who can help you deal with the frustration you feel from interacting with scores of bad drivers.

I'm now going to invent a site for people who cannot walk down the damn sidewalk without obstructing as many other people's paths as possible. Perhaps using my energy to develop a website about them will somehow keep me from tripping them and then standing over them laughing.

sticky

Just a disclaimer here, this is just a story. There is no moral at the end, just a funny memory from a simpler time.

One day my cousin and I went out across the park behind her tract and over to a new housing tract, which was not yet completed. She lived far enough away that we didn't get to see each other too often because she lived in an unsavory area that my parents visited begrudgingly, when her family wouldn't or couldn't come to see us. I didn't really pay attention to these details at the time, because all we cared about was ditching our brothers and parents and going off to play and have fun.

We went into the model homes of the newly developing areas and pretended they were ours. This was in the infancy of my awareness of a place called the "Inland Empire," which I would grow to avoid at all costs. At this point in time, all I knew was that these houses were nice. They were fully furnished with exotic couches and large totem poles placed conspicuously about for no reason. No totem poles graced my childhood home. We cruised around in the luxurious models and checked out every detail. We were disappointed to find there was no food in the refrigerator and we contemplated bringing our own, so we could cook fantastic dinners for the parties we would throw in our lavish abode.

When people would come into the house to look at the models, we would hide under beds, inside the cabinets and behind large items, hoping to god that the people didn't think to look there and ruin our charade. Occasionally we would be found or jump out and scare the shit out of the poor, unsuspecting intruders, after which we would run out laughing and hide so as not to be reported to our parents.

Sometimes, the models were rudely locked and secured, so there was no way to get in and have our fun. In these times of misfortune, we would simply adapt and play outside the models in the landscaped yards with the fancy patio furniture. There was one day however, when we came upon a bunch of work supplies. The yard of the house had not yet been completed and there was no one anywhere in sight to claim the trove of work supplies which had been abandoned by their owners. There were buckets with all sorts of random substances inside, a couple of random tools, paint cans, a hose, some bags of concrete and then a bucket off to the side. It seemed to have a spotlight on it. Some nails were on the ground around it, so we were careful, but then we discovered that the contents were a strange, rubbery compound of some sort. It was kind of a yellowy color, didn't have a pungent smell and looked as if it could be made into a huge, fun, rubber ball.

My cousin, in her curious excitement, thrust her arm into the bucket and pulled out a handful of our mystery toy. When she pulled her hand out, she had a handful and then some of what turned out to be the stickiest substance either of us had ever come across. What fun. She moved it back and forth between both hands, trying to construct some sort of object from it, as if it were silly putty. But the more she played, the stickier it got and suddenly we were both overtaken by a sense of panic. I, stupidly, tried to save her by pulling the goop out of her hands in order to ditch it in one of the buckets. But of course, it not only became stuck to my hands, but didn't leave hers either. We were in our own sticky version of the blob. I imagined the goop eating it's way up my arms, choking me out and then taking over my whole body, leaving only my bones for my unsuspecting parents to come upon when they finally realized that we were gone.

In our panic, we began to run. I'm not really sure why running seemed like a good idea, but we took off. We ran like hell toward home, stopping occasionally to wrestle just a little bit more of the goop onto an unsuspecting sapling. As we approached her street, however, our fear was compounded by the fact that the last words we heard when we left were "don't go over to the models." Now the evidence was inseparably adhered to us. We were so toast. As we came down the street, we frantically strategized how we could get this shit off of our hands without being found out. We grabbed leaves off of bushes and stuck them to our hands before we stuck them in our pockets. Insurance, you know.

We spent the next 40 minutes in the bathroom messing with every kind of soap and chemical we could get our hands on, trying frantically to get it off. As it worked out, we both came out of the bathroom with red, chapped hands and neither of us got the sticky completely off. I spent the entire hour and fifteen minute car ride home with my hands in my pockets, not even bothering to defend against the horde of little brothers. This was the ultimate price to pay, I had decided.

I ended up sneaking into the garage and pouring gasoline on my hands and then scrubbing them with a short-bristled wire brush. This, of course, was a red flag (literally) and I was found out. Phone calls were exchanged almost instantly and suddenly there I was, getting yelled at, while I stood with my nose in the corner. My cousin and I never spoke of the incident again, once our parents got a hold of us. I decided then and there, that I would never force my children to be stuffed into the house at family outings with no activities to keep them occupied. Turns out, this was only the beginning of our antics and though we were restricted to the house at family gatherings from then on, it didn't stop us from drinking in Yosemite, while the families sat around the campfire...

Yes, I know....I was such a bad kid.

da troot

Ah, the white lie. The most innocent and innocuous of lies...so seemingly unimportant, it gets to be associated with the color of purity and innocence. Such a paltry little thing, the white lie. The white lie gets one out of boring meetings, off the phone with relatives, and provides a trove of excuses for those who lack the gene enabling punctuality.

That's where it starts. One little white lie, leads to a few more white lies, designed to protect the original slight, whilst helping the utterer to maintain his or her reputation as an "honest" person, save face, and not have to back out of the fact that an untruth was told. But the delicate web is where the problems start to coagulate.

No one wants to be called a liar. But even a white liar, is still a liar. In my research, I have found that people who engage in the practice of white lies will vehemently deny being liars and will retort to such an egregious accusation with anger and potential violence. This is due to the fact that their integrity has seemingly been called into question. Hm. These, however, are the same people to whom the white lie is such an integrated habit, they often can't even recognize when the untruths begin to drip from their lips.

A wise person told me many, many times in my youth, "If something doesn't make sense, then it's probably not true. But, before you go accusing anyone, just take a step back, watch, and genuinely give the person a chance to tell the truth. Don't try and string people up in their lies, because it won't get you anywhere and the liar will never react well." Such sound advice.

The initial reaction by a truthful person to this kind of behavior generally begins with confusion. Something doesn't jive, doesn't sound quite right and the listener is forced to try and make logical sense out of what just doesn't piece together quite right. Headscratching begins and the brow pinches into a discombobulated furrow. After confusion, comes suspicion and then shortly thereafter, the street signs for "Lack of Trust Dr." start to appear in the distance, the faint yellow flashing of caution lights, becoming visible in the white fog of the story.

The only problem, is that the astute perceptive and observational powers I took a lifetime to cultivate and hone, often appear to the liar in question as some sort of superhuman ability. Suddenly, rather than just paying attention and remembering details, I become some sort of threat to my white liar friend and I'm met with open hostility. But you see, I have no tolerance for lying. Tact, yes; lying, no. In no way does the definition of tact include fabrication or misleading information. Apparently, it's a common misconception.

See, I'm not out to trap the liars of the world and hold the proverbial mirror up to their tarnished souls. I'm waaaayy to lazy and have no interest in judging anyone. I'm just out to know the truth on subjects about which I choose to inquire. If I ask a question, I expect an honest answer, even if it means taking in difficult or uncomfortable information. I can handle any truth, I cannot handle any lies. Taking away my ability to look at a situation for what it really is, is just rude and arrogant. Funnily enough, most times, I wouldn't even be upset by the true details. But the lying ....the lying opens up a can o worms, friends. Can o fucking worms.

Once you've lied to me (we've already gone over my struggles with trust), it opens up a new line of questioning in my head. Why lie about something so seemingly harmless? Why have you chosen this simple subject to lie about and what else have you lied about that I don't yet know? More importantly, why do you feel the need to lie to me? Have we not adequately established respect for one another? Of what are you so afraid, that you can't tell the truth?

So what are we left with then? What is the proper recourse for dealing with a half-truther? This phenomenon seems to be both so rampant and widely accepted that I'm left to wonder if I shouldn't just give up and start in with the white lie fad myself. But then I'd be catching me lying to me all the time and I'd be so annoyed with me knowing that I'm lying to me and yet continuing to do so anyway, that I'd probably beat me up. No good.

I'll edit this in the morning.

harrassment, please

This is meant to be a joke, but come now....if Tom Brady came up to me in his underwear - even if they were tighty whiteys - he could grab the girls for sure.

fun with text

The boy was forced to be in the company of many, many people he didn't like and didn't want to be around for several hours. This happens to him frequently and so we text our way through the night for time passage and amusement. This is one such conversation.


Him: I'm surrounded by idiots and douchebags. How are you?

Me: Trying to get sleepy....any good characters there tonight?

Him: They are all a bunch of fucking retards and I'm forced to stand here in the middle of them.

Me: Maybe you can plot the retard-lympics. They could be sponsored by a hair gel company and Ed Hardy.

Him: Don't forget Myspace.

Me: They could team up with You Tube for broadcasting purposes.

Him: This is like the remedial bar night for people too scared to go out on weekends.

Me: Haha...is there a short bus in the parking lot? Anyone wearing a helmet?

Him: No, but there are 2 guys with Aspergers.

Me: You should befriend them for social anthropology purposes.

Him: I have. I make them sing really difficult songs.

Me: Good job! See if you can get them to sing any Linda Ronstadt or Gary Newman. The retard chicks will swoon!

Him: I have them sing Hank Williams, Jr.

Me: That's just so you get to hear it. Although hearing it butchered may cure you.

Him: Quit hugging trees and absolving the Clinton's and I'll stop listening to country.

Me: Good one. But country is way worse than any politician could be. And I know you secretly love the trees.

Me: And I know about your stash of hemp clothes and sitar 8 tracks.

Him: Clinton gets credit for a wave of prosperity he had nothing to do with and his wife had a guy murdered.

Me: Country assaults the ears of millions, daily and has fueled hundreds of domestic beatings and more than a few trucks hurling themselves off of cliffs. Totally worse.

Him: Have fun in your socialist paradise.

Me: Republican. Maybe Gee Dub could preside over the retard-lympics, although I guess he kind of already does.

Him: Good luck paying for Hillary's health care program.

Me: I'm gonna invite her over to my village for a town hall meeting to discuss it. Bill can play Hail to the Chief on the sax when she comes in.


There were a couple more after that, but this was the crux of the conversation. Even when in a pseudo-social situation, we can still covertly debate politics and country music. Country music, incidentally, is a genre that elicits convulsive vomiting from me. But that's neither here nor there.

Next week we'll tackle immigration reform; stay tuned.

can't truss it

I don't trust anyone. I'm not proud of this, nor am I happy about it, but I also didn't choose this route voluntarily. See, I didn't grow up in the place where everything was fine, love conquered all and people banded together and protected each other. In my youth, the basic needs were met out of an extreme sense of duty, but if one wanted love and acceptance, you were in the wrong joint. It was an environment where you could and would get sold out if you made a mistake, shit got rough, or the other person(s) just didn't feel like putting in the effort to help you out. Your options were to be perfect or face total rejection.

Consequently, my friendships kind of went like that and my relationships sure as hell did. I have had a penchant with all but one person, of choosing people who have no chance of reciprocating any real or genuine love and affection. This is mostly due to the fact that we attract our own, generally speaking. You want to find friends or boyfriends who are going to be loyal to you and take care of you as they expect you to take care of them, but guess what....if you didn't grow up in that kind of environment, you're not playing with a full deck and it's sure as shit that you're gonna pick some other sorry asshole who's just like you, wanting a happy life and healthy relationships, but wandering around aimlessly, without a map or a plan, trying to find them.

But you really like each other, so you check it all out anyway....you hang out, you have things in common, you laugh and tell stories and have sex and maybe even make some nebulous future plans. What you don't realize, is that you are like two blind people holding hands and running through a field of landmines, and that eventually, as is destined to happen, you'll get your leg blown off and never have seen it coming. You'll find out that your friends have been talking shit, your boyfriend is spending as much or more time and affection on someone else and the earrings he gave you were a pair that he stole off of her dresser. All of the little white lies, the times when things didn't quite line up, but you let it go anyway - now they've all caught up and make sense. You feel like a total asshole. So now what?

At the outset and prior to the inevitable, what you failed to realize in your deluded state of hope and optimism, is that all of these little, seemingly harmless situations and circumstances lead to one road....Lack of Trust Dr. Once you are on this road, there are no exits unless you build them, so you'd better get used to the view if you don't intend to put in some serious work. But the work....ay, there's the rub.

There are only a handful of people that I have met in my years on this earth, who aren't inherently distrustful of everyone around them. This is not to say that these people are not cautious or aware, but they seem to be able to take people purely at face value and people generally seem to do right by them. I marvel at this. How do they accomplish this monumental feat? I wouldn't say that I am a jealous or even a very cynical person, but I will say, even if I've known you for years, I still harbor the assumption that one day, you're gonna fuck me over and bail, should the circumstance present itself. Not that you would be looking to do that, mind you, but it's happened "accidentally" enough times, that this is the taste and expectation I'm left with. I battle inwardly for a new set of expectations, daily.

See, everyone goes into relationships looking for someone to fit with them. Fit with their ideas, their plans, their friends, their likes and their dislikes. What people fail to realize, is that you have to do some fitting in as well. The more rigid we are about ourselves and our lives, the more difficult it will be to fit someone else in and the less we'll be able to fit in anywhere else either. The trust required to show someone who you are; to give them information about you, to love them, to let them love you back....that trust is fragile and it's hard to dole out when it feels like you're giving away your protection.

And therein lies the quandry, I suppose. Be alone with your friends and your normal routine and be "protected" from hurt, or take a chance on trusting someone with your peccadilloes. It might just add a dimension to your life you would never before have thought you'd experience. 'Sup to you.....