Unlawfully Wedded Wife

A new home

2010-05-24T19:41:00.002-04:00

I believe I should have migrated all 3 of my dedicated readers over to my new home, but just in case, come visit me over here from now on: http://soulspeak23.wordpress.com/

this move enables me to be able to post from work now, so hopefully, there'll be more to read shortly!

And since we're all here, I just wanna say thanks for thinking that what comes out of my brain is worth reading!

My miracle

2010-05-21T19:31:00.000-04:00

I had an e-mail waiting for me when I got to work. The only words on it were these:
If you could make one miracle happen in your life, what would it be?

My response was so visceral, so instantaneous, and so absolutely clear that it nearly knocked me out of my chair. It was like I didn’t even have to consciously THINK about it. It was just there already. And I guess it shouldn’t come as such a surprise to me, because it’s not as though I’ve never thought about it before. I just never thought about it in terms of a miracle.

My one miracle in life would be for me and HH to be able to create a baby together. Difficult, seeing as we’re both women and all, but something I wish for with all my heart, nonetheless. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that we will HAVE kids. I just really wish that I didn’t have to use DNA from a stranger in order to do so. And I’m fully aware that any kid raised by us, will inherit our behaviors and habits and such, but I just would love to be able to carry a baby that came out with HH’s eyes in their little face. Or to have her carry a baby that came complete with a tiny bubble butt, like me.

I guess it just bothers me that any features our child will have, that didn’t come from whichever one of us carried them, will be found on some stranger out in the world. Some man will be out there, who has my son’s eyes or my daughters nose and he won’t even know about it.

I guess I’ve come to terms with this, to an extent and I’m positive that I’m going to love those kids to the fullest of my ability no matter what. But I guess there will always be that part of me that mourns over the fact that my DNA + HH’s DNA will never = baby.

But hey, it’s my miracle, and I’ll wish for it if I want to!

An Assignment

2010-05-18T18:43:00.001-04:00

So my friend xisting4me and I like to challenge each other to blog assignments sometimes. She usually gets my challenges done in a matter of hours, and I make her wait around for weeks. Cause that’s just the kind of procrastinator that I am. But on this particular challenge, I wasn’t simply being lazy. I was attempting to answer her challenge honestly while hanging on to some semblance of my pride. After much and careful consideration, I’ve realized that it can’t be done. So I’ll just answer honestly and let my pride have the day off.

Her challenge looks like this: How many people can you look through on your facebook friends and delete because you don’t talk to them regularly, you don’t really need them knowing stuff about your life, you added them because they asked or you haven’t talked to them in years? I did it and deleted 138 people. It was a scary thought. So why did you put them there to begin with?

At the time of this posting, I have 249 friends to my name on FB. I will say that I have had real world contact at some point in my life with all of my friends on there, but admittedly, not for quite some time with many of them. Do I absolutely need all of them? Nope. Have I spoken to half of these people in the last year? Probably not. Do I leave them there anyway? You betcha.

So that was the easy part. But now we get to the why part. Why did I add people who I haven’t spoken to in years and most likely are not going to be starting up a new relationship with anytime soon? Because they remembered me. Remembered me enough to either friend me or accept my friend request. And right here is where my pride just hung it’s “Out for lunch” sign. Because I am not proud of this, but I have lived much of my life thinking of myself as a very forgettable person. As though once I was physically out of someone’s life, that I also popped right out of their memory altogether. And so, when someone from my past pops up and recognizes and remembers me, I guess it makes me feel good, in some strange, psychologically-unhealthy way. It makes me feel like I made a difference in someone else’s life.

One particularly heart-wrenching incident of this was when a girl I had gone to 3rd grade with friended me. She had moved away in the middle of the school year and had left her address with the class in case anyone wanted to be penpals (remember those?!?). I had written her a letter at the time, but never got a response and it went long forgotten. When she friended me, she added a note telling me that I was the only one from the class who had written to her after she moved, but that something had happened to the envelope and she lost my return address, so she never got to write back to me. She told me that she had always felt bad about not being able to write back to the one person who had written to her.

I don’t know exactly what it was about this situation, but I was literally brought to tears. I had affected this person in some way so much so, that 20 years later, she was so happy to have found me just to say thank you for a letter that, to be honest, I don’t recall writing. But it was something. I had made a difference and someone remembered.

And I guess, to be fair, I have to give a part 2 as to the why. And part 2 is that on most days, I feel like I have no friends. I guess I have no everyday friends, people who you talk to all the time and know everything about you. I mean, I do have some very good friends out there, but we don’t see each other or talk all that often. We’re more like those kinds of friends who you can not see for a long time, but when you do, it’s like you just saw them yesterday. I have lots of those. I guess I’m missing some BFF’s, as cheesy as that sounds. Someone to vent to when I’m pissed at HH or something. And I guess the feeling of knowing things about other people from what they post on FB, makes me feel closer to them somehow. Like I can turn to HH and be like, “Oh, So-and-So is having a baby soon” or “So-and-So just posted a picture of their new haircut” or something.

I guess, when it all boils down, it helps me to not feel so lonely. But now that I’ve gone over the brink into the realm of pathetic, I’m going to stop and consider the challenge completed.

Mysterious Peaceful Moment

2010-05-14T17:58:00.000-04:00

It’s got to be a bad day when my only peaceful moment happened on a New York City 1 train at 8:45 in the morning, right? What’s that, you say? A peaceful moment on a train, you say? Why, yes, actually, and I can’t believe it either.
I was doing my usual “ignore everyone and read my book” routine this morning. And I’ve learned over the years to be able to pay attention to where we are and read at the same time. So between Rector St. and Chambers St., the train came to a halt and basically powered down. And the trains run on electricity, so once they stop, there’s really no noise factor. We got a garbled announcement having something to do with a stalled train in front of us and to please have patience. Now, there were probably 40 other people on my train car. And as soon as the announcement guy shut up, it was complete and utter silence. No one was speaking, no one was tapping, no one was moving at all. I could hear a faint tinny iPod somewhere at the other end of the car, but that was IT. Complete and utter peaceful silence on a NYC subway car, during rush hour. I should have known then that the rest of my day would have no choice but to be filled with complete and utter shit. Which it absolutely was, and it’s not over yet so I’m not gonna write about it right now. Maybe tomorrow.

An Update

2010-03-23T19:18:00.003-04:00

***NOTICE - Read the post below this first, so you know whats going on. - NOTICE***

So, after purchasing my headphones, I was just uncomfortable walking around with that much cash, so I put it in the bank. Seems reasonable, right?

I get home, rockin out in my new Sony's and HH notices them so I told her I bought something for myself! Yay! She's proud. Then we're thinking of ordering some food for dinner, so she asks me if I have any cash on me. I say no. She said, "I KNOW you didn't pay $200 for those headphones." So I put my head down, and admit that I put the rest in the bank.

She stares at me for a few minutes and then says, "I SHOULD SLAP THE SHIT OUT OF YOU! HOW OFTEN DOES IT HAPPEN THAT YOU HAVE JUST EXTRA MONEY LYING AROUND AND I TELL YOU TO PLEASE SPEND IT ON YOURSELF?!?! NEVER! UUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHRRRHHHHH!"

So I calmed her down, by telling her that with the money in the bank, I can ORDER whatever I want. Which was a new bag for her. She just sighed.

What I Want

2010-03-23T19:16:00.001-04:00

I did some side work with a friend over the weekend. We painted 4 rooms in an apartment. And while I’ve always done painting in our own apartment many times before, it was always on our own time, not an 8-4 schedule in which we try to get as much done as possible. So, to say I was tired at the end of the day would be a SEVERE understatement. My friend joked that I would sleep like a cannon ball that night, and he did not lie. I have a vague recollection of thinking how comfy my bed was at around 9:15pm, on a Saturday, and then it was 13 hours later. I slept for a full 13 hours. I can’t even tell you the last time that happened. And I woke up sore as hell. Knees, arms, shoulders, all of it, just pain. I really need to get crackin’ at the gym. I truly have a newfound respect for the people of the world who are in the business of physical labor.

But alas, with work, comes money. Cold, hard cash, to be exact. And when payment came on Monday in the form of a couple of crisp $100 bills, well, I just didn’t know what to do. My first instinct was to throw it into the credit card that I just put concert tickets on, and I said as much to HH. And she looks at me. She shakes her head.

HH – Do your knees still hurt?
Me – Yeah.
HH – So you earned that money, right?
Me – Yeah
HH – So why don’t you spend it on yourself?
Me – But. Um. No. It’s ok. I don’t have to do that. I’ll just pay off bills.
HH – PLEASE! Just do SOMETHING for yourself for a change!
Me – Um, Ok.

So yeah, I don’t know how to do that thing where you do something for yourself. Doing things for other people, this I know. HH told me last week that she hasn’t been to a lot of concerts and that she would like to go to some. We now have tickets to at least 3 concerts, 2 of which are huge, we have plans for another 2 and are waiting on tickets to go on sale for another one. She says she wants something, and I make sure she gets it. That’s how I roll. But if I want something, even if I NEED something, I am so reluctant to get it. For any number of reasons: The money could be better spent elsewhere. I just want that, I don’t really need it. But I could buy something for HH instead! Always an excuse to NOT do something for myself.

I don’t know what is wrong with me. I go so far over and above the expected for HH, it’s not even funny. I’ve had a cake flown in, overnight, from a bakery in Ohio, because they made a traditional Hungarian cake that she hadn’t tasted since she left Hungary. I’ve kidnapped her, coordinating with her work for the time off, to surprise her with a weekend in a B&B in New Hope, PA. I had a tiny leopard tortoise (yes, a live, rare animal) shipped to my work from California so I could surprise her with him, for her birthday. And yet, I’ll turn down buying myself a new pair of slippers, cause “Nah, the one’s I have are really fine.” (So what if they’ve caused me to fall down the steps? Twice.)

So, in light of this, I went and bought myself new headphones for my iPod today. Cause the one’s I had were frayed and starting to get static-ish. And I spent a whopping $25 on them. Which is a veritable SPLURGE for me! They weren’t the cheapest ones available! I swear, they weren’t. I even considered cheaper ones, but then went back and got the Sony’s. I’ve got like $175 left now. To spend on me. And I don’t know what to do with it.

So here is a list of things that I want, but will most likely NOT go out and get for myself:

- A new hairdo and color that will make me look and feel good
- Another tattoo
- A new watch
- Window tint on my car
- A new ring
- Kitchen gadgets of any variety (https://www.titanpeelersale.com/)
- A new spring jacket
- Gym clothes
- A new phone (but that’ll have to wait till I’m eligible for a new one)
- A new iPod
- Lilith Fair tickets (though, I swear, I’m gonna try and get some of those!)

It's coming

2010-03-19T07:13:00.003-04:00

My hand. OUTSIDE my vehicle. Cause it's 72 degrees!! AND, it was only March 18th, which is technically still winter! But not for long!
Happy Spring Everyone!

P.S. Please excuse the horrendous line of traffic behind me. It wasn't my fault!

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

2010-03-15T20:10:00.000-04:00

So, my girls at work are both huge spice-heads and think that the hotter it is, the better. They have their own bottles of hot sauces in their desks and put it on everything. Jalapeno peppers are like a mild snack to them. They MAKE their own hot sauces and something that sounds like peek-lees, which is basically fire with some cabbage thrown in. You know, things that hurt to SMELL. My level of spice is nowhere near theirs, but I do like a little spicy now and then. Like, a little bit. Tiny.

So last week, on the one day we’re actually all together nowadays, we went to get lunch at Chipotle. If you haven’t been to one, go now. I’ll wait. Yummy, yummy food. So I get my usual Veggie Burrito Bowl filled with rice, fajita veggies, guacamole, some salsas and cheese and as I’m standing there with them as they’re filling up their little travel cups with the various provided hot sauces, I decide that I wanna try some too. I’m tired of being the spice wimp. So I get myself a little helping of some Tabasco Green Pepper sauce, which says “milder” on the bottle. We go back to work and dig in. I carefully interspersed my few drops of sauce over the whole of my burrito bowl and I declare that it is good. It’s got just that right amount of heat. I like it.

Fast forward to today. Mamasoo and I order up some more Chipotle. And I figure, since I liked the spicy so much last week, why don’t I ramp up the intensity just a little bit more and get one of the spicier salsa’s put right in there. Now, I already have fresh tomato salsa and roasted-chili corn salsa added in as my standard. So I up it one level to add in the tomatillo-green chili salsa, which I’ve never had before. How bad can it be? Oh, and I also got about twice the amount of the Tabasco sauce too. We come back to work and I just pour that sauce right over everything, like it’s my job. No careful sprinkling of drops at all. Just a drenching.

And now, now that the fire is out and my eyes have stopped watering unnaturally, I can admit it. I got cocky with the hot. It took me nearly two hours to finish that bowl, because I had to take breaks. You know, to allow my mouth to regain the ability to feel. Mamasoo came back into my office at one point to get some more chips, and I made her take them and the salsa away, whilst the only thing I was able to utter was “It’s too hot! It’s too hot!” as she laughed her way back out.

So while I can handle a few strategically placed drops of the mild Tabasco, I think I’ll be skipping the green chili salsa from now on. Cocky’s not really my style anyway, so I’ll admit defeat.

My lunch kicked my ass today.

I'm watching...

2010-03-12T18:32:00.001-05:00

So, on a recommendation from a friend, I decided to use my time on the ferry this morning to tune in, rather than out, to the people around me. So, I whipped out the baby blanket that I’m currently crocheting for that same friend and I tune in. Now, usually, I slam my head directly into a book and pay no attention whatsoever to anyone around me at all. I mean, like, if someone were to drop dead right next to me, I wouldn’t know about it. So tuning in took some effort for me to do. But I gathered some interesting things about the folks around me simply be eavesdropping on their conversations.
The first thing that stands out to me is the tinny sounds of roughly 50 different people blasting their ipods to different tunes interspersed with the rustling of various newspapers. People are just getting settled into their seats and such. Then the conversations begin. It seems like a lot of people have formed these little cliques that they travel in all the time, at least to and from work. Ferry buddies, of a sort, I guess. Most of these were mumblers and I couldn’t really hear much from them. But then I hit the jackpot.
These two chicks sat directly behind me and they were luckily loud talkers. And lord, did they have problems. One of them started off talking about school and how she thinks she’s going to fail her economics class. Then her friend starts talking about some creepy guy she goes to school with who is stalking her. Like waits for her after class and has memorized her schedule so he knows where she’s going to be. She said that he even texted her one time asking why she was leaving a particular building so late after class had ended. That’d be enough for me to have gotten the old restraining order paperwork going, but apparently she thinks he’s a little cute, so she’ll put up with it.
Speaking of putting up with it, chick # 1 thinks her man is cheating on her and she’s almost caught him at it. “If only I can get all his text messages forwarded to my phone too.” She and her friend briefly consider if this is a breach of privacy and if Verizon would go for such a ploy. They think not. So she’s moved on to signing onto his AIM and waiting to see if any of those “other ho’s” are gonna try talking to him. Cause she was ready to give them a piece of her mind. And those are just the ones she KNOWS about!
So, bottom line, all my eavesdropping got me thinking. Thinking how lucky I am to not be currently worrying about failing, being stalked, cheating boyfriends and the conundrum of how far is too far when it comes to electronic snooping. My boring little life sounds downright picture-perfect when I think about it in comparison. But be warned, for all intents and purposes, I’m just some innocent spiky-haired chick crocheting a baby blanket on the ferry. But make no mistakes: I’m listening to you.

Snowboarding took over my life

2010-03-11T20:07:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. It’s been a while. Yet again. I’m bad at this. I’ll admit it. But I’ve got a good excuse this time. It’s not my fault. No, really. It’s true. I’ve been abducted for the last three months by the snowboarding monster. And I feel bad for the 3 people or so who actually read this blog, because they’re already most likely sick of hearing about it, and here I am, writing about it, so they have to READ it, too. I’m sure they’re thrilled.
So HH and I have developed a horrible addiction and seriously EVERY weekend from December 12th, until now, with the exception of the week we were in Florida and the other weekend I got bursitis in my hip, we have been on some mountain, somewhere, snowboarding. And while we do all of this voluntarily and it’s fun, it’s gotten to feel like a second job of sorts and I don’t remember what my couch feels like to my butt. I miss my couch. I used to spend a lot of time there. Now, I go to work for 5 days, which is really just a buffer for the weekends, and then I get up even earlier on the weekends to get in the car, eat various forms of fast food all day long, waste copious amounts of gas, buy expensive lift tickets, throw myself off of mountains and bust my ass, repeatedly. All. Weekend. Long.
Before I know what the hell happened to me, it’s Monday morning, I’m back on the subway and wondering how I got there. I look down when I’m driving and wonder how the hell I have 17,000 miles on a 9 month old car. Where did I go? How many freaking times did I go there?? Why does EZPass think that I need to maintain $115 at all times on my account and anything below $57 is now considered “low balance”?? Oh right, cause I live in the car every weekend.
Snowboarding has trumped everything for the last three months. And I mean everything. We don’t do dishes, cause we don’t really cook. Our dining room table has turned into the snowboarding clothing/equipment receptacle. There’s giant snowboarding boots strewn about the living room. Both of our laptops have instant links to various mountains we frequent so we can check the snow conditions and web cams. We tolerate the incessant rattling on the car created by the snowboard-holding-roof rack.
And speaking of the car; oh that poor thing. She’s been used and abused, covered in mud and salt and snow, inside and out, the butt warmers never shut off, she smells like sweaty feet, cause sometimes the boots live in the trunk for weeks on end. Car wash, what’s that? We’ve taken to scrubbing the side view mirrors with Dunkin Donuts napkins so we can attempt to see out of them and we’ve probably gone through about 3 gallons of windshield wiper fluid.
But I’m ready for a break. I looked up the weather earlier in the week and I nearly cried tears of joy when I saw that the weekend was going to be completely drenched with rain over all available reasonable driving-distance mountains. I’ve never been so happy to hear about a rainy weekend in my life. So this means that we have to stay home! I can clean the house, cook a meal, and reacquaint my butt with my couch! It’s so exciting! I can watch a MOVIE! And maybe even see what the hell I’ve been recording on my DVR. I may even bake something.
Oh, I tell ya, me and HH are gonna do some serious, big, fat NOTHING this weekend. And I, for one, can’t wait.

The Happy Post

2009-12-08T23:43:00.003-05:00

Ok, so oh. my. god. I had no idea how difficult it would be to come up with 100 quantifiable things that make me happy. Seems simple, but it's really not! I don't even have the energy to put a whole lot of preamble on this so I'm just gonna throw it out there. Here you go!

Things that make me happy – In no particular order of any kind

1. My wife, HH. And all the goodness that she brings to my life.
2. The sound of rumble strips. I have no idea why. I’ll always roll down the windows when approaching a toll just to get the full affect.
3. Reading. Anything and everything.
4. Baking. Especially from scratch.
5. Thinking about the rare occasions when I heard my Nana curse. Cracks me up.
6. The fact that Tootsley lets me wedge my feet completely underneath him while I sleep. He keeps my tootsies toasty!
7. The rare occasions when Chadwick turns into my personal teddy bear.
8. Snowboarding. I never would have thought I’d find a reason to love winter, but there it is.
9. Hot tea and a cozy robe on a cold night.
10. Porto Rico coffee.
11. Cooking things that make you go hmmmm and having them be delicious anyway.
12. Actually using the ginormous spreadsheet that took me two months to put together that I thought would be useless.
13. Realizing that my brother is turning out to be a fine little human, if not a little strange.
14. Driving. Especially when I get to play with my SPORTSHIFT manual on winding roads at high speeds.
15. Grocery shopping with HH. I don’t know why, but we end up having some of our best conversations in the supermarket.
16. Apple picking in the fall.
17. Shopping at the wonderfulness that is Delicious Orchards after apple picking.
18. When HH and our #1 Lezbro, Mike, have dinner waiting for me when I get home.
19. Babies laughing.
20. Black Walnut from Banana Republic. On HH. Makes me VERY happy.
21. The smell of the ocean right before it rains.
22. The first peeps of green on the trees after winter is over.
23. Really good chocolate.
24. Rubbing HH’s bald head fuzz.
25. When I catch HH staring at me and I can see how much she loves me.
26. My mother’s laughter. And all her open mouth pictures, cause that’s exactly how she really is.
27. Giant dogs that are really big mushballs.
28. When Gia secretly sneaks onto my lap and falls asleep without me even realizing it.
29. That new-baby smell.
30. The thought of my dad being the best granddad to my kids.
31. The color of my eyes in direct sunlight.
32. When my car is seriously clean.
33. Good hair days, of which I have few.
34. Movies with Angelina Jolie in them.
35. Making other people laugh.
36. Having pre-selected books waiting for me at the library.
37. Camping. Especially the no-cell-phone rule.
38. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 20 and making it look effortless.
39. http://www.icanhazcheezburger.com/
40. Baby animals of all kinds.
41. When my dad lets me drive his car.
42. The fact that my cars have now spanned 20 years. My first was an ’89 Mercury Sable and my current is an ’09 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport.
43. My newly revamped credit score.
44. Rashi wine.
45. Kitchen gadgets. The weirder the better. My current favorite is my new Wilton pastry cutter.
46. My Kitchenaid mixer.
47. My spice rack, which is bigger than your spice rack and the fact that I know how to use all of them.
48. My snowboard.
49. The fact that I have a roof rack to attach said snowboard to!
50. Key West. Especially the wonderful world of the woman-only, clothing optional lesbian bed and breakfast known as Pearl’s Rainbow.
51. Successfully NOT talking to other people on my commute.
52. Designing my ideal house in mine and HH’s heads.
53. Beating HH at Wii Bowling, cause she can’t take it, even though she kicks my ass in every other sport.
54. The $5.25 cup of hot chocolate at Café Charbonnel in Saks Fifth Avenue. Worth every damn penny.
55. Hearing songs that bring up really specific memories.
56. Dreaming of my future children’s names.
57. The mini library that I have accumulated. I’d say I’m well over 500 books at this point.
58. My original 1873 edition of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist.
59. The ring that HH bought for me early in our relationship, which we told the guy we bought it from was to be our wedding ring. I never take it off.
60. The fact that my parents see HH as a true daughter-in-law.
61. Mamasoo and Ruddyna, without whom work would be a truly bottomless pit of hell. They are my sunshine.
62. So clearly remembering instantly falling in love with my brother, the moment my mother put him in my arms. Also, thinking “I need to get me one of these.”
63. Reuniting with old friends and finding that it’s just as easy to talk to them as it was 10 years ago.
64. Every Little Thing She Does is Magic by the Police.
65. 5:00pm, Monday through Friday.
66. The plant that I and each of my cousins still have a piece of that belonged to Nana, even though she’s been gone for 8 years now.
67. Hosting parties.
68. Going out on the porch in the middle of the night and listening to the quiet.
69. I’m going to borrow from Mamasoo here and simply say yes.
70. The knowledge that I will finally hit the slopes on December 12th at Plattekill Mountain!!
71. Seeing other gay couples. Makes me feel like I’m not so weird.
72. That moment of satisfaction right after I have scrubbed my kitchen clean.
73. Alternately, the messing up of my kitchen, knowing that I will be eating something yummy as a result.
74. Vodka Sauce Pizza.
75. Vacations. Of all kinds. As long as I’m on them.
76. When HH and I are cracking up laughing at something, and Chadwick simply MUST come and investigate the source of the laughter. He can also tell when we’re faking the laughs.
77. Wii tournaments with Nick & Jen.
78. When HH surprises me by being outside my work door when I go outside.
79. Having random coincidences work out spectacularly.
80. Witnessing things that, I swear, ONLY happen in NY.
81. Guilty pleasures, such as Otalia and Spashley, and I don’t care who knows it!
82. A Touch of Sea Salt chocolate bars from Lindt.
83. Road trips!
84. My inner compass, which was very upset by the sun being on the wrong side in Los Angeles. I’m an East Coast gal!
85. Music in all its forms.
86. Learning things, all things, and any things.
87. The bioluminescent bay in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
88. Sunday mornings snuggling in bed with the wife surrounded by our kitties.
89. Blu-ray movies.
90. Chipotle’s Vegetarian Burrito bowls! Yum.
91. Reminiscing about childhood memories.
92. Watching the leaves turn colors in the fall.
93. The random days during which all my neighbors end up stopping by and hanging out. Makes me feel all June Cleaver-like.
94. Scotland Road Behr paint. It’s in my dining room and has such a calming effect.
95. Looking at old pictures.
96. The laughing day. That’s the day when you can look back on crappy stuff that happened in the past and finally laugh about it.
97. Heated front seats in the car.
98. Peppermint Bark. Gotta make a batch of that real soon.
99. The fact that I’m now old enough to realize that what I once thought was unfair treatment from my parents was only them teaching me how to truly survive in the real world.
100. Finishing this list!!!

A Giveaway!! Just not from me...

2009-10-23T11:55:00.003-04:00

So, my friend Mamasoo has been a blogging maniac for a couple of months, ever since she completed a month of NaBloPoMo or, National Blog Posting Month. I have yet to be so ambitious, but maybe it'll happen. But anyway, she's running a pretty cool giveaway right now and all you've got to do to enter is comment on her blog. You get extra entries if you link to her site from yours too! It's a $100 gift certificate from "SERRV.org, a nonprofit company that works to eradicate poverty through our direct connections with low-income artisans and farmers." They've got some pretty cool, crafty-like stuff. So go on over and check out Mamasoo! And tell her who sent ya!

Mamasooz Inner Pieces

Freak Out Attack

2009-09-25T11:52:00.003-04:00

So last night, I was watching Grey's Anatomy with the wife and we were just sitting on the couch. We leave the porch door open a lot so the cats can go in and out as they please, since they like to lounge out there so much. We always keep an ear out, since one of them thinks she can fly and has successful navigated her way across to the neighbors porch on more than one occasion. (*We are on the second floor and the neighbors porch is at least 7 feet away, so yeah.*)
So we're sitting there and we hear some sort of commotion from the porch. Then it stops. We call to them but no one comes in. So I get up and go out there and I see both Gia and Tootsley are tracking something. I go to shoo them back inside and they both actually run away from the door and towards the ledge of the porch, like they're going to jump up on it, which they are not allowed to do. So I lean down to prevent them from doing so, which puts my face about 8 inches from the ledge. And as this is happening, my brain registers that what they are looking at is a ginormous praying mantis that is sitting 8 inches from my horrified face. I proceed to run screaming like a lunatic all the way back through the house till I'm as far as I can possibly get from the porch, with my wife screaming "WHAT?? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!?!!"
I manage to squeak out, "Praying mantis" with what must have been a mask of complete and utter lunacy on my face.
Now, as I've mentioned in a previous post, I have an ungodly fear of praying mantis', since having one land on my face while driving on the highway. I'd probably handle coming face to face with an axe murderer better than I do encounters with praying manti. But HH went out to the porch, corralled the cats back in and shooed the offending bug of horror off the porch. She comes back in and looks at me. I'm breathing as though I've just run a 10K, my heart is seriously racing and I'm pacing back and forth. She just stands there for a second before doubling over with laughter so hard that she snorts and has tears coming out of her eyes. I'm feeling a little offended by this and she tries to reassure me.
She tells me that she's not laughing at my for my fear, cause she's well aware what that's like. (*Spiders are her Achilles heel.*) But she's laughing at the manner in which I came running into the house. I say that I don't even know how the hell I came back in, just that it needed to happen as quickly as possible.
She tries to tell me, but gets lost to another laughing fit, through which she's finally able to say "You flew through here completely on your tippy toes, like you didn't even want to touch the floor at all." So now I understand and I can finally join her in laughing at the image of me doing ANYTHING on tippy-toes, let alone running a sprint.
But too bad. I really liked my porch. I'm dissapointed that I can never go out there again. I can't believe I almost kissed the damn thing.

2 in 1 day?!?!?! But I couldn't resist...

2009-09-24T16:43:00.002-04:00

Found this one and it simply cracked me up because I can remember this exactly. Written 3/30/99 at 9:59pm. (I was very precise back then with the dates and times, but I'm pretty glad of it now.)

In my rear view mirror
I saw a man use his
reflection in a piece of
glass at the bank to
replace his combover
where he wanted
it after the wind
had blown it
awry.
And I wondered, silently to myself if he
silently wondered and hoped to himself that
no one had seen him. I feel for him. His
combover secret is safe with me.

My teenage brain leaks out

2009-09-24T16:00:00.004-04:00

Ok, so recently, my good friend Mamasoo posted a poem and admitted to me that it was probably only the second poem she'd ever written. Well, this simply blew my mind, due to the fact that between the ages of 16 to 22, I had a writing book on my person at all times, in which to write my brains out. So this prompted me to go home and dig these out of my bookcases. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I've authored 3 full books of original works! Some were just rambles, some really early ones were rhyming ones and most were simply my own little brand of poems. So, I've decided I'm going to periodically post some of these, to get a glimpse into the person I was, and how she came to be the person I am.
This is the first one. It was written on 12/8/98.

According to you...

I rode my golden chariot
into the center of your life
With flowers embedded in my hair
and the greenest emeralds in my eyes.
I brought the purest light with me
and left it upon everything I passed.
I look around my grim surroundings
at the dark figures huddled
in the corner.
I peer into the blackness
that is only stained darker
by the rain
and try to make out a face.
I catch a movement in the
corner of my eye.
I turn quickly to see you,
afraid, cowering from me.
My gaze softens
and I beckon you to me.
I take your soiled face in my hands
and look.
Look through to your soul.
I see your anger and the darkness
that lives in you.
And I see the fear that you have
of being consumed by it.
I choose to save you
from the toils of this world.
I take you up into my chariot
and slowly bring my lips to yours.
You back away, at first,
not wanting to dirty me.
But I pull you closer,
force your arms around me,
sullying my white garb.
You run your hands through my hair,
and push the flowers to the floor,
like heavy bricks from a building.
Run your fingers across my face,
leaving muddy streaks as you go.
Yet I long to kiss you,
to know your taste.
So I lower your face to mine,
and take what I want.
I feel your lips, your tongue,
your hands on my back
and I love you.
And I wonder how you existed
here for so long,
how no one came before me,
to keep you for themselves.
And I think to myself,
as I memorize your smell,
that according to you,
I was the light.
But when you ask me,
it was I who was saved.

Complaining can sometimes work to your benefit

2009-09-23T09:54:00.003-04:00

So, a little less than 3 years ago, my friend Nick had come to visit the wife and I on the day he was going to propose to his girlfriend. The kid was disheveled, to say the least. His hair was all fro-ish, he looked like crap and he was nervous as all hell. HH and I decided to take pity on him and we fixed the boy up. He was given a nice, neat haircut, a facial, a manicure and many words of encouragement. The proposals acceptance was almost a foregone conclusion since they'd been together almost five years by then, but he wanted to make sure everything was perfect. He had remembered everything, except to take care of himself! After our little makeshift "Man-spa" day, he felt much better and had calmed down some. He went off to propose and the rest is history. He and his wife just celebrated their 1 year anniversary.
So, fast forward to yesterday. Nick was coming over after work to hang out for a bit, as his wife wasn't feeling too good. And I happened to mention during the day that my back had been killing me and that I had a knot that could kill a horse. I told him jokingly that I wanted to cash in on the "man-spa" day favor he promised us. So, lo and behold, he gets out of his car with some large bag and brings it in the house. We eat some pizza and chill out for a bit. He tells me to go put on a tank top and when I get back, he's set up a massage chair in my living room. Oh, did I forget to mention that in the time between his proposal and now, he's become a trained massage therapist?? Yeah.
So I've decided that the most wonderful thing on earth is getting a massage, in your living room, by someone who does this for a living. Bliss. HH and I got about 25 minutes each and we were both in mini-coma's by the time he was done. It was truly awesome.
So thanks, Nick. I'm so glad we waited 3 years to cash that in!

Breaking the silence

2009-09-11T16:30:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I'm not even going to go into why I haven't blogged for like ever, other than to say that work has been REALLY slow and I've been sucked into a damn soap opera. Like, a real, daytime television, soap opera. I'm not making comparisons to my life or any of that. I'm talking Guiding Light. And Otalia from Guiding Light. Cause dammit, they're like the only lesbians on tv right now and stupid CBS won't even let them kiss!!! They can move in together, raise kids, buy a house and run a business together, but they must. not. kiss.
Anyway, that's basically been my serious distraction for the last 6 months or so. I won't be ashamed. I wont. But that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

Today, I want to talk about a commercial that I've been seeing a lot of. It's for a product called Latisse. Latisse promises to give you longer, fuller, darker eyelashes, (which is what I thought mascara was for, but whatever), only uses chemicals to do so. Now, this is just like any of the other stupid things that women do to themselves in order to look like what men want them to. But it's the list of side effects, from this "treatment" that really get to me. The most disconcerting one of these is as follows: "May cause eyelid skin darkening which may be reversible, and there is potential for increased brown iris pigmentation which is likely to be permanent." - taken directy from thier website. But they say this so fast on the commercial, as they do with all potentially harmful side effects, that you barely catch it.
So basically, you put some checmicals on your eyelids, which could cause enough damage so as to seep into your actual eyeBALL and change the color of your eye??? Is that what you're saying, Ms. I-talk-faster-than-an-auctioneer-side-effect-woman?? Yes. I don't understand how any woman in her right mind would even consider this. Ok, yes, you may already have brown eyes, which is perfectly fine. But still, won't some good mascara do the same trick without, oh, I don't know, CAUSING PERMANENT DAMAGE?!?! Last I checked, you apply mascara in the morning, wash it off at night and you're done. The worst side effect of mascara might be "If you forget to remove mascara at night, you will wake up looking like a drunk hooker raccoon", which I can totally handle. Still easily fixed by some cold cream or just soap and water.
So why is there even a market for this product?!?! I mean, it's somewhere in the $150 range. Isn't even a really good mascara only like $20?? Is there some messeup sub-culture of people out there who are secretly competing with each other for how much they can damage thier bodies??? I just don't understand it, same as I don't understand filling your boobs up with fake, saltwater bubbles.
I just don't get it.

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall....

2009-05-06T14:32:00.002-04:00

So I'm sorry that it seems as though my blog is turning into some sort of introspective rant on my part, but I just need to work these things out and this is my blog so this is where I'm gonna do it.

I'm fairly certain that I don't know what I look like. You think I'm an idiot, right? How does a person not know what they look like? Very easily, in fact. And it's not that I don't own any mirrors or anything. I have quite a few of them, actually. I just never seem to concentrate on them when it's my own face staring back at me. And I mean, I look at myself when I get ready in the morning, but I never really notice anything.
I'm not a make-up kinda gal and my hairdresser always has to remind me that "I should really do something about those eyebrows." I've been told that I have nice skin. I like my green eyes. I think my nose is a bit big, but it was taken straight off my father's face, so I can't really do anything about that. I suppose I have an average sort of mouth. But I'm just not sure what all of these pieces add up to as a whole. And that's all just on my head. I only seem to look at myself in pieces. Smallish boobs, bit of a belly, a big puerto rican ass on top of some diesel thighs. But again, what does it all add up to?

I honestly surprise myself sometimes. On the brief walk that I have from my train to my building in the mornings, there's a ton of mirrored storefronts. And on the rare occasions where I happen to catch a glimpse of myself in one of these windows, I'm downright floored to find a full grown woman staring back at me. When did this happen? My minds' eye still sees my 18 year old image, and I seriously need to update that file, cause no way do I look like that anymore.

Maybe this is part of why my brain shoots itself down all the time. Because a part of me thinks that I'm still too young to handle things. But then, I've always been told I've got one of those old souls, wise beyond my years. Perhaps I really was wise at such a young age that no one took me seriously back then. So I censored myself in order to prevent ridicule and I've never stopped censoring. So maybe, if I can get my brain to realize that I'm almost 30, I'll finally think I'm old enough to handle myself.

Geez, I should start thinking about changing the name of this blog to something with "Therapy" in the title.

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

2009-05-04T16:33:00.002-04:00

I'm really sick of hearing it.

- "You're not good enough to do that."
- "You're not cute enough to pull off that shirt."
- "You're not smart enough to speak your mind."
- "You have no right to say what you feel."
- "You're not pretty enough for anyone to notice you."
- "You'll never actually be able to write that book you want to."

It's all very insulting, isn't it? Especially when you take into consideration that all of this comes from within my own head.

I might just be the best self-defeater that I know. And no one else suspects a thing. Becuase no one sees it happen. I shoot myself down before an idea even has a chance to fully form itself. I suppose this could sound like a confidence issue, but here's the funny part. I KNOW that I'm smart enough, good enough. I just don't think that other people will agree with me.
Funny, right?

So, somewhere in my brain is such concern and fear over what others think of me, that you could almost call me conceited. Cause really, THAT many people care about what I say or do or look like?? I don't think so.
So I've got this viscous cycle going around. I'm aware that other people really don't give a fuck, yet I'm so concerned that they MIGHT care, that I prevent myself from doing anything to possibly draw thier attention. Still with me??

And who are these people, you ask? Fucked if I know.
So I'm essentially holding myself, my thoughts, my desires, my wants and my needs back in order to prevent the possible dislike of complete strangers? Check.

My god, I'm a fucking idiot. But I'm really getting sick of being an idiot. My brain (the dumb part, at least) needs to shut the hell up. I want to stop filtering and censoring myself and really be able to say all the things that I want to without giving myself a chance to shoot me down. I want to act on the impulses when they strike. I want to feel pretty enough to rock that shirt, Fashion Police be damned.

So you're done, Brain. I'm shutting your filters OFF, from now on.

Keep a lookout for a more impulsive me. And suck it if you don't like it.

And thank you for enduring this manic meta rant. I'm done now.

What's in a Name?

2009-04-28T12:11:00.008-04:00

Names are really a funny sort of thing. Your parents give them to you, so you don't really have much say in the matter, but you have to deal with whatever name has been given to you for the rest of your life. For me, this has been a bit difficult. See, my mother named me Ryan. And yet I am female. The trouble with this name started on the day that I was born. The nurse who came to get my name, after being told "Ryan Patricia", put a hard look to my mother and asked her "You ARE aware that you've had a girl, right?" to which, of course, she replied Yes. She should've known then.

Ever since then, I have gone through a myriad of problems regarding my name. When I was young, it was just kids being evil kids and making fun because Ryan was supposed to be a boys name. I've been told that my mother must've REALLY wanted a boy, and that's why she named me that. Then when I moved into Junior High, I had the joy of being placed in boys gym three years in a row. I would always have to go and explain at the office that no, I was not, in fact a boy, and could I please be switched to girls gym. It just baffled me that they couldn't figure it out by my third year there. There were also people who, after asking my name and me telling them, looked at me funny and asked "Are you sure?" to which I had no other reply than "Are you SERIOUS?"

Then there was high school, which was sort of alright. I had been with a lot of the same kids since 1st grade by then and most people were used to me. I've since had some of these people tell me that they were taken aback later in life upon meeting boys named Ryan, because I had been the only Ryan they knew! My breaking point in high school, however, came from a substitute teacher in what was I think my freshman year. He was a sub, so of course, we were all slacking off and goofing around and sitting wherever we wanted. He got fed up with us and insisted we all sit in our assigned seats. He had the delaney book out and once we were all seated correctly, he went through attendance, checking us all off one by one. When he came to me, he looked at me, looked at the card again and said "Ryan E-------?" and I said "here". He then proceeded to grow thunderclouds for eyebrows and acidly asked me what I was trying to pull. I had no idea what he was talking about and said nothing. He then demanded that I go to my real seat and stop messing around and to tell him what my real name was immediately. I was on the verge of tears from getting yelled at like that and my classmates began to come to my rescue, telling him that Ryan really was my name. He still didn't believe me. He went so far as to call me up to the front of my class to write my name so he could match the handwriting on the delaney card. With the rest of the class upset with me at this point and shouting at him to leave me alone, he finally told me to go back to my seat and didn't apologize for being an ass.

I went home furious that day, screaming at my mother, asking her why she thought she had to make an example of me by giving me a weird name. I think that was the first time that I got away with cursing at my mother and not getting slapped, because she saw just how upset I was and that it was because of her that I was so upset. I had carried on so much that she actually agreed to let me legally change my name if I really wanted to. Upon hearing that, I was straight away to Barnes and Noble for a baby name book. I searched and searched and tried on different names. Could I be an Andrea, a Rachel, a Sarah? I walked around, poring over that book for three weeks and couldn't come up with a single name that I felt better suited to. So I guess I had resigned myself to a life lived a little more difficult than other people.

Now that I'm older, my name issues are still there, but they're a little more interesting. For instance, when I call my cable company to make changes to my account, they always inquire if they're speaking with Ryan's wife. I assure them that no, I am not Ryan's wife, but Ryan herself. Which often garners profuse apologies which I'm then able to turn into a bargaining chip of some kind. I think I got 3 free months of HBO cause of it once. I've been on several interviews in which the first words our of the interviewees mouth is "Oh, I was expecting a man." And this really baffles me, because I have intentionally put my middle name of Patricia on my resume. I went so far as to point that out to one potential employer and his reply was that he thought it was a typo for Patrick. I really had to hold my tongue then, because I wanted to ask him "And you called me back for an interview even after you thought I spelled my own name wrong?"

The kicker in all this, however, comes when you pair me up with Hungarian Hottie. Her first name is Ildiko, which is a very common Hungarian girls name and is repeatedly butchered by us dumb Americans. It is also often assumed to be a male name due to the O at the end. So imagine my surprise last year when I got a call from the receptionist at my GYN's office, laughing her head off. HH and I had been in for regular check-ups about a month prior. And my company is nice enough to offer domestic partner benefits so we are on the same health insurance. The receptionist said that they had put in our visit to the insurance and it had come back as rejected because they do not provide GYN services to men. The receptionist and I had already shared a laugh over the name debacle, so it was in good fun that she told me that was the first time they had had a claim rejected for those reasons. And you would not believe the hoops I had to jump through in order to get the insurance company to change our status to women! I had to send birth certificates, licenses, everything short of going down to the office and flashing them my tits and it STILL took them 3 more months to correct everything.

I suppose now that I'm old and wise, I don't mind my name so much anymore. Considering some of the names that are out there now, a female Ryan is hardly turning heads anymore. But I swear, if I ever hear "Are you sure?" again, heads will roll!

Introducing my 1006 pets

2009-01-22T14:48:00.013-05:00

Ok, so I know I haven't posted in quite some time now. But life's been crazy and then there were the holidays and a million other excuses that I'm sure no one cares about. But in the last week or so, I've been spending a lot of time with my animals and figured, why not post about them?
So, without further ado, here are my children, in order of acquisition.

Official Name: Chadwick

Time of acquisition: June 2004
Age: 4.5
Nicknames: Fatboy, Chaddie-son, Chunkin, Wet-head, Panda and sometimes, Chunkinfatboy
Likes: Food, water, especially when run out of the faucet and onto his head, beating up his sister, gazing out the nearest available window, chewing on human hands and cheese
Dislikes: Being touched (most of the time), his sister, the vacuum
Special Talents: He has developed a method for conveying his needs to us in the middle of the night, by sitting on the toilet seat and using his powerful little nose to push up on the porcelain top of the toilet tank and letting it slam back down. Repeatedly. Until we get up to see what he wants, which is usually more water.

Official Name: Gia

Time of acquisition: July 2004
Age: 4.5
Nicknames: Mamagirl, Beautygirl, Gia-mummel, Mummels, Squirly and Schitzo
Likes: Rubbing her head on her mommies heads, cuddling, shrimp, Redbug (otherwise known as the laser pointer), sitting on the radiators and trying to trip you wherever you go
Dislikes: Loud or sudden noises of ANY kind, her brothers beating her up, doing anything you ask of her if she doesn't want to.
Special Talents: She is a master of escape. She somehow managed to navigate her way out of our house, onto our second floor porch and down to the ground level without injury. She is also the only one to successfully fly across the seven feet between our porch and the next door neighbors, which are both about 20 feet off the ground. If I didn't see it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it.

Official Name: Tucclli (pronounced Tootsley), Hungarian word for "Milk Sucker"

Time of acquisition: August 2006
Age: 2.5
Nicknames: Tootsala, Tootsie, Toots, Snow Leopard, Purring Machine and Tootsle-butt
Likes: Milk, any dairy product containing milk, playing with his stuffed monkey, purring, rolling on the floor to kill you with his cuteness and milk.
Dislikes: Being cold (he actually shivers), toothpaste, getting told no.
Special Talents: Locating milk. No matter how quiet you may pour yourself a bowl of cereal, or how deeply asleep he may be while you do so, once you sit down to actually eat it, he will miraculously appear next to you, trying to get his face in your bowl.

Official Name: Wormies (1000 of them)

Time of acquisition: June 2008
Age: 1 month to a year, depending on worm
Nicknames: Garbage Disposal
Likes: Eating Garbage, climbing up the walls of their home, and darkness
Dislikes: Onions of any kind as well as tomato skins
Special Talents: Turning my kitchen refuse into "black gold" fertilizer. Yes, I am vermicomposting in my home.

Official Name: Master

Time of acquisition: August 2008
Age: About 6 months
Nicknames: Master-Beta. he he he
Likes: Swimming in circles, eating, creating beautiful bubble nests for his babies
Dislikes: Anytime we disturb his bamboo plants, cause it messes up his bubble nests
Special Talents: Um, bubble nests?

Official Name: Hercules

Time of acquisition: December 2008
Age: approximately 1.5
Nicknames: Goldfish murderer
Likes: Turtle pellets, goldfish, swimming backwards (I swear) and his ceramic turtle friend who lives in the tank with him (though we suspect he might like his friend a little TOO much, if ya know what I mean).
Special Talents: I'm gonna go with swimming backwards

Official Name: Either Tweety or Kid - to be determined

Time of acquisition: January 16, 2009
Age: We're thinking 7-8 months
Nicknames: Baby, Tricky
Likes: Sleeping, being held, purring, cuddling, chasing paper balls and trying to play with the other cats who want nothing to do with him yet
Dislikes: Haven't really found any yet but he will probably not like having his balls removed very much.
Special Talents: Making noises on a decibel level that would make most dogs cry. He sounds like a bird.

So those are my children. They alternately drive me insane and then keep me sane. It's a catch 22, but I love em!

Author's note: I have no idea what the problem with the hugeness of these photos is, but I can't seem to fix it. I guess we'll just have to deal.

There's always one.

2008-11-12T14:23:00.003-05:00

Sometimes in life, there are certain people you meet who you just can’t wrap your head around. Like they are so off-kilter that you’re not quite sure how they’re managing to live amongst the rest of us comfortably. Like, shouldn't they seek out their fellow weirdoes (yes, this is the correct spelling for the plural of weirdo) while having contests to see who can be the most outlandish and eccentric or something, right?

Wrong.

I have one of these at my job. I don’t really have any function to actually deal with her on a work level, but she sits in the same area as me and I just can’t help but notice her. I’m only in this building roughly once a week so these observations have taken place over quite a span of time and I was finally given the inspiration I needed by another coworker of mine when she said to me “She might be the biggest weirdo ever. You might have to blog about her.” The universe biffed me in the head and I thought, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

So that brings us here. Of course we’ll have to name her so I’m going to go with Crazy Cat Lady or CCL for short. (I swear to god, she just burst out into a fit of hysterical giggles as I’m typing this. I hope she’s not psychic.) So CCL is, of course, obsessed with her cats. All four of them. One of which is one of those freaky little hairless things and of course, this one is her favorite. Or, “My baaaayyyyyybeeeeeee!!” as she loves to squeal. Now, I have three cats myself, but I also am able to hold down a life outside of my furry creatures. CCL? Not so much. If you so much as mention an animal in her pressence, you will automatically be subject to a photo album of her babies and thier various personality traits.

I realize that being bohemian and artsy is sort of in style and cool right now, but she’s outside that realm. This woman is somewhere in her late thirties, lives alone save for her four precious shnookums and rides a bicycle with a basket on the front of it to work. I wonder where she parks that bad boy. I’ll have to take a look around the parking lot when I leave.
She has hair that’s longer than any self respecting woman in her thirties should really be wearing it, and she’s recently adorned herself with rhinestone encrusted cat-eye glasses a la Lisa Loeb circa 1994’s “Stay (I missed you)” video. Her desk has been thoroughly decorated with a veritable sea of unnecessary crap including a wooden snake figurine perched precariously atop her computer monitor, juggling balls, a tiny globe, a bamboo lamp, several different kinds of rocks, carpet samples, a silver RV figurine circa 1959 and a pink construction helmet. I mean, we work for an investment bank, not Miss Cleo’s Tarot Card Readings, at which job I would assume this desk decoration would be commonplace. I and a few other coworkers have also witnessed, on several different occasions, her eating honey with a spoon straight out of the jar whilst staring off into space in front of her computer.

She also has several different voices. I have heard her speak in a normal tone of voice on one rare occasion so I know that she is capable of it, but she very rarely uses that one. I really thank god that she chose cats over dogs, because the voice in which she normally speaks would drive any dog in a three mile radius absolutely insane. It’s this extremely high pitched annoying voice that’s normally associated with equally annoying Saturday morning cartoon shows like Spongebob Squarepants or high school girls from the Valley. How she conducts business like this is absolutely beyond me. She also giggles uncontrollably at the drop of a hat in a similarly annoying way. Her giggle actually uses the syllables “hee hee hee” in rapid high pitched succession.

Now today, I’m at the same location as her and I generally keep to myself and just do whatever it is that I’m doing, but I just couldn’t help overhearing her popping up over her cubicle wall and asking one of the guys she works with if he happens to have any lighter fluid. Rightfully so, the coworker asks her what she needs it for. She says, “Oh, I’m trying to get these stickers off of the side of my computer and I just thought I’d use lighter fluid.” I’ll let that one sink in.

So they proceed to have a conversation on what the best method to remove said stickers would be and he’s trying to convince her that maybe Windex or alcohol can do the trick. But no. She’s quite insistent upon the lighter fluid. I’m wondering if she’s maybe finally had enough and she’s planning on blowing up the building using lighter fluid and sticker friction. Thank god no one carries lighter fluid around in their pockets anymore.

Thursday Tidbit

2008-10-23T16:49:00.003-04:00

So I am a walking wardrobe malfunction today.

I think my brain shut itself off and laughed it's ass off at me while dressing this morning.
As my wife was dropping me off at the ferry, I'm getting out of the van and realize that I have left my cell phone home. Strike 1.

So ok, I can live for a day without a cell phone. I'm reading my book on the ferry and it occurs to me that something feels a little different on my body. I for some reason feel like my bra is not doing it's job properly. So I discreetly reach in to adjust my strap only to realize that I have not actually put on a bra at all today. Strike 2.
How does this happen??? I've been wearing a bra pretty much every day of my life for the last 15 years and today, my brain says "Let my boobies go!"

But the bra is apparently NOT the kicker here. I go to the bathroom once I get to work and when I go to zip up my fly, I realize that the zipper has done that retarded thing where you think it's working properly but what should be closed is really not. So I have to have a fight with my fly in the ladies room. I actually utter "Are you KIDDING me?!?" out loud. Thank god I was alone. Strike 3.

And on that note, I'm going home.

I can't believe I've become "That Girl"

2008-10-15T15:21:00.002-04:00

So I remember being in my late teens and starting to notice that "older people" (you know, like, in their late 20's and such. Ahem.) were always listening to the music that they listened to in their teens. Like my parents and aunts and uncles were always rocking out to Pink Floyd, The Doors, Led Zeppelin and even some Grand Master Flash thrown in for good measure. Even older siblings of my friends were all into Debbie Gibson and Metallica and always had that stuff on in their cars when they were forced to pick us teens up from one practice or another. And I remember thinking to myself that I'd never be "one of those". That I would always stay up on whatever the newest cool stuff available was.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Joke's on me. Cause yesterday, as I'm driving home from my oh-so-boring late 20's job, I found myself incessantly pressing skip on my ipod for all the new supposedly cool songs of the present in favor of the stuff I listened to in, you guessed it, high school. I mean, I was bringing out the old school No Doubt, 311, Third Eye Blind, Ben Folds Five, Fiona Apple, Poe, Fugees and Natalie Imbruglia and even some out of the college mix like Jack Johnson, G Love & Special Sauce, Incubus and Stroke 9. Jill Sobule's "I kissed a girl" was even in there and it pains me that the teens of today only know the not-so-homo-friendly "I kissed a girl" a la Katy Perry and not the wonderful original circa 1995 that helped me become the good lesbian I am today.

So it's official. I've become "that girl" I said I'd never become. Now that I am one of them, I feel comfortable in giving my analysis as to why this phenomenon happens. I think it's because those few years between say 16 and 23 are those times where you have the most freedom, yet the least responsibilities, thereby making it the most FUN time in your whole damn life. And fun, in a general sort of sense, is very often accompanied by good music. So therefore, whenever you hear these songs, it brings you back to those good times in your head. And even though we'll never get those times back, we'll always have their music to take us back, at least figuratively.

What do you think? And what are your favorite teen songs?

Letter to my 18-year-old self

2008-09-22T16:58:00.003-04:00

Dear 18-year-old Ryan,

Well, I know you’re sitting home with a stupid broken foot right about now, while your “best friend” just left for a two week tour of Europe and you’re punished anyway for staying out till three in the morning making out on the beach with that boy whose name I no longer remember so I figure you’ve got some time to listen to me, your 28-year-old self. Go ahead, go turn off All My Children. I’ll wait.

I’ll start off by saying that I think you’re doing a fine job. There’s not even too much crap you’ll do that we’ll regret later in life, so kudos to you for that. There are, however, quite a few things that I think would greatly help out if you found them out sooner rather than later so that’s what I’m here to tell you.

First things first: Do NOT dye your hair black. Ever. It does not work for you. You will think it does, but no. It does not. So don’t do it, stupid. You also have a slammin body and you don’t even know it. Start to appreciate it now so maybe we have a better chance of retaining it later in life. All those years of crunches, suicide runs and laps up and down the school steps really do have a purpose. They keep you in great shape. Learn this, and maybe we’ll come out with a better body than the one I’m lounging in now. I assure you, that six pack will not be around forever, so love the shit out of it now, girlfriend.

Speaking of girlfriends, did you know that you’re gay?? Shocking, I know. I think you already kinda know it, since the sadness that is wrapped around your head for these two whole weeks (the HORROR!!) that L will be gone is a little much for just friendship status, dontcha think?? Yes, you’re in love with her. No, it’s not the end of the world. Yes, that’s what those damn butterflies nearly making you nauseous all the time are. You’ve got about three months left before she finally gets up the courage to kiss you. I’m a little disappointed with you on that one. You totally should have kissed her first. And you’re totally an idiot because you’re going to let this happen when you’re so drunk that you’ll only remember pieces of this momentous occasion later on. I want my first lesbian kiss memories back, numbskull!

Also, L will put you through a rollercoaster over the next three years that makes the Scream Machine look like a merry-go-round. I suppose there are good lessons to be learned from this insanity but I really wish you would protect your heart a little more.
Actually, no. That’s kinda what makes us who we are, so throw your heart out there. It’ll get bruised, but it will not break. But just, you know, only throw it out there the first few times. 19 times is really not necessary to learn what you need to learn here. Maybe limit yourself to chucking your heart out like 10 times or so. Learn your lesson, and move on. I know I’m probably talking to the wind on that one, but hey, I couldn’t resist.

You should stop second guessing yourself about going to Wagner too. It really is where you’re supposed to go. It’ll take you awhile to figure it out, but it’s going to bring you good things in life. You will actually get a good education there, as well as make some of the best friends you will have. Some will stay and some will go, but they will all be important in one way or another. One of them will even introduce you to the love of your life, who is teaching herself to speak English in Brooklyn somewhere right now. (We get a foreign chick! How cool is that??)

You’ll meet her in about three years. She’ll be sitting on some steps staring at you with the most gorgeous eyes you’ve ever seen, working at a job you’ll never even believe you’ll have so I’ll just let you find out that one on your own. You will be friends at first, because you will both be with other people. Once you realize that you like her like her, you will make some of the most incredibly stupid decisions of your life and probably the only ones I wish you could take back. You will hurt a lot of people, yourself included. But this blue eyed wonder will love you through it all. She will know that you two are meant for each other quite some time before your dumb ass will, but listen to her. She knows what’s up.

Just a few more things here and I’ll let you get back to your Erica Cane coma. (You need to lay off the soaps, btw.) You already love the hell out of your nana, but do it more. She won’t be around forever, unfortunately. Her death and another rough event will mark the beginning of one of the hardest years of your life to date. You will find yourself a stronger person on the other side of them. Your mother’s insanity is also helping you become a stronger person. Her trials and tribulations are there for a reason. I still haven’t figured out what that reason is, but you let me know if you find out.

You will not have a baby by the time you’re 25, so chill. Go back and reread the 4th paragraph. That gay thing makes babies a little more difficult but you will prevail. When the time is right. So just wait. Also, remember how much you hate math and you wish you could just rid yourself of it?? Hahahaha, that’s the ultimate folly. I won’t exactly spoil the surprise, but don’t go throwing that trusty TI-82 calculator away just yet there, killer. You’re going to need it in your future profession.

Alright, so I think I’ve probably traumatized you enough here. I’m still around so you’re obviously doing something right, so keep up the good work, kid. I love ya.

- Me

Really??

2008-08-25T11:55:00.003-04:00

Really?
15,000 people in California have NOTHING better to do with their time than walk around, door-to-door trying to pass a measure that will effectively restrict the ability to love?!?!
This truly amazes me when there are so many more fucked up things going on in the world. What about starving children, children with no parents, the war, poverty, homelessness, corruption, politicians stumping for "family values" while screwing their interns on the side?? How about putting all your energy toward finding solutions for these things rather than concentrating on specifically taking rights away from a certain group of people when all they want to do is love each other!??
And the reasons they picked to focus on are so stupid it's not even funny.
Here are the "Six Consequences If Proposition 8 Fails". Extra special, huh?

But then, somewhere along the line, I found this gem, a beautifully crafted, well thought out, intelligent rebuttal of each and every point those "consequences" sought to make.
I love it. Well done, Bill!

So, I have to wonder if everything I've ever been told about California is a lie. Like there's so much to do, the nightlife is hoppin, it's the entertainment capital of the world. Because, if they are THIS bored over there, I think I'd rather head over to Delaware for some real excitement. Maybe I can watch the grass grow there.

The Excuse Me People

2008-08-15T12:07:00.002-04:00

OK, so, I'm waiting for the ferry last night to take me on home. I had just missed the previous one so I was pretty close to the front, near the doors, for this next one. Now, there's no real line or anything, it's just a huge waiting room and everyone gets as close to the doors as they can. I'm probably about 10 people deep from the doors, which is pretty damn close.
I'm minding my own business, bopping to my ipod when I hear a loud "Excuse me!" followed by an indian woman in a sari dragging along three snotty kids by the arm which she dragged directly through my body and into the space in which I was standing.
I cannot stand this shit. Happens all the damn time.
And I don't even know why they bother to say excuse me in the first place. It's out of context. I mean, if I were standing in her way and she needed to get past me, she could say "excuse me", I'd move to let her pass on her way and I'd move right back to where I was standing, no harm done. But no, she should really have said, "Hey, get the fuck out of my way because I'm obviously so much more important than you that I need to stand in the exact place where you're standing just to exercise my specialness."
There is no excuse for her.
And I just don't understand it. It's not like this is a blow up life boat with a capacity of 12 we're talking about here. It's a boat that holds 6,000 freaking people! It's not like you're going to get left behind, lady. And there will even be a seat for everyone who gets on! Amazing!
Even though I live in NYC, the rudest of the rude continue to amaze me.

Chicken Woman

2008-06-11T16:53:00.004-04:00

So I was walking out of the library with a friend from work today and we're walking along and talking and I nudge her and say "Did you see that?"

"What?", she says.

Apparently she didn't see the woman walking in front of us.

Just from a glance at the back of this woman, you could tell that she was that special kind of crazy that's really only found in New York. She was dressed very oddly, was carrying many mismatched bags of varrying sizes and had a strange contraption holding her hair up. But to top it off, she was bobbing her head and flapping her arms while bent at the elbow in such a way that the only thought to permeate my brain at this time was: Chicken. She's the chicken woman.

So I said to my friend, quietly and under my breath on a busy midtown street, "The chicken woman."

Right at this moment, the chicken woman stops her walking and flapping, turns around and looks me dead in the face with a four and a half toothed smile. She kept her unwavering gaze on me with that creepy ass smile until we had walked fully past her.

As we tried to stifle our snickers, we looked at each other and commented "Well, that was wierd!"

But here is what goes on in my head. I have just this morning finished reading a book based in NYC in which faeries and trolls and goblins live amongst us and disguise themselves as humans. I'm now wondering if she was a member of the lesser known Chicken Folk and she has super sonar bat hearing and she was just so happy to have been recognized in her true form that she couldn't help but turn and smile.

And now I have to wonder who the crazy one really is: her or me?

Hungarian Hottie gets HOT!!!

2008-06-10T15:34:00.004-04:00

First things first here. On all the other blogs I read, everyone seems to have some catchy phrase to use for thier significant other when they don't wish to share their real name. It's always something like DW for Dear Wife or MM for Pioneer Womans' Marlboro Man.
Well, I've got one of those too. I'm going with HH for Hungarian Hottie.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Now I'm going to tell you what happens when HH gets hot. Not hot as in, "Oh, she's so sexy", but hot as in, "Oh my god, my skin is melting off."

I don't know if you've heard or not, but there's been a bit of a heat wave going through NYC these past few days. Like 95 degrees and over for the last 4 days and humid enough to make you think that you have taken up residence in Satan's armpit and it's NOT pretty. I'll give her this: It's fucking HOT out!

Now, I also have to say that we moved into a new apartment three months ago. It's wonderful, huge, great old details and we love it. The house was built in 1902 and we are on the second floor. Our old apartment had A/C units built in. Needless to say, we did not own our own cooling units. Therefore, if the weather is 95 outside, it's about 115 inside my apartment. My poor cats wearing thier little fur coats look like they have melded with the floor. They're actually all 3 sleeping in the bathtub, cause that's the coolest place. Like I said before, it's fucking hot.

So now, here's what goes down. HH and I go to the stupid Staten Island Pride parade on saturday, (which made me feel anything but proud, but that's another story for another time) and stood in the street for two hours. We go through 3 industrial sized bottles of water. We have some shade to stand in, so HH is ok for the time being. This stupid parade ends off with everybody pouring into a closed building which is NOT air conditioned. Think about this, 300 sweaty gay people and 3 seven foot tall drag queens. We take a lap of the place and we're out.

Now we go home. As we ascend the steps, HH begins her lamenting "Oh my god, it's so hot up here, what are we going to do, why haven't we bought an air conditioner yet?!?" Before I've had time to lock the door and follow her up the steps, she's already stark naked and standing under the fan. (BTW, HH is the quickest strip known to man. I swear her clothes must all have velcro.) Sweat is pouring from her brow and she's got a panicked look in her eye.
At this point, I won't go so far as to say that I was comfortable, but I'm in far better shape than she is. I like the heat. Perhaps its the puerto rican coursing through my veins, but I can totally tolerate it.

She tells me, "Get dressed. We're going to drive around in the van with the A/C on."
I stare at her for a hot sec. I tell her, "You're the naked one. Not me."
HH - "Oh my god, whatever. How can you expect me to function like this?!?! I can't answer questions like this. It's too hot!!!"
Me - "But honey, I didn't ask you anything."
HH - "Well, you just think you're so smart, don't you?!?!"
Me - "Ok, honey. I'm not smart. Let's go drive around in the van with the A/C on, OK?"
HH - "Good idea! Let's go."
Me - "Put some clothes on dear."
HH - "Right. Ok."

These are the times when I know it's better to just go with what she's saying because disagreeing will just be worse. These are the times when I know what a man feels like when dealing with a PMSing wife. Of course, 50% of the time, I'm that PMSing wife too, so I have pity.

So we go out and drive around for three hours with the A/C on full blast**. During this time, she has returnecd to the wonderful woman that I know and love. I'm shivering, but she's normal again so I suck it up.

So we get tired of driving around, and really, we're on Staten Island, there's only so many places to go. So we head home. Thinking back, I really should have just waited in the van, because not five minutes upon entering the house, stripping, getting dressed again and refilling the water bottles, we're back in the van.

So we came home at about 12:30am. It was still hot in the house, surprise, surprise.
So we decide to take a cold shower. And by cold I mean ONLY cold water. Not a drip of hot to take the edge off. So we're in there, squealing like idiots cause it's so damn cold, splashing each other and dying laughing at the faces we're making from the extreme cold. I can only imagine what the landlord heard.

So at this point I was exhausted and just wanted to go to sleep. She decided that the bedroom was too hot and that she was sleeping in the living room. Fine, no problem.

I sleep through the night. Hungarian Hottie, apparently, did not.
She had an asthma attack. She couldn't find her inhaler. What did you do with my inhaler?!? The cats were wanting to sleep with her and they made her hotter. Why did you have to get cats??!?
The couch material is too heavy. It made her hot. Where did you get this couch from anyway?!?!
The fan doesn't go fast enough. It made her hot too.
Her skin, oh god, why does she have to have skin! Can't she just take that off too??!? Why the HELL do I have to have skin!?!?!?!?

So, needless to say, after this barage of things that are not my fault, yet somehow are according to HH, I say, "One minute please."
I dissapear into the computer room, look up air conditioners at PC Richard, jot down the model numbers that I want and go back into the living room.
She looks at me. I look back. "What?!??" she says. "Why are you looking at me?!?!? I'm hot. You're making me HOT!!""
Me- "Ok, honey, get dressed. We're going to drive around in the cold van again."
HH - "Good idea! Let's go."

So off we go to PC Richard, and let me tell you, I have never been so glad to have done my research online before. The A/C section was mobbed. Thankfully, I was able to snag a salesperson, give him my model numbers, pay and get out of there in under 15 minutes.
We bring them home, lug them up the steps, which of course, makes HH even hotter. And now I'm hot and sweaty and annoyed as well. And now we have to work together to safely hang these things out of second story windows. Ha. Ha. Ha.
I'll spare you the details of us nearly killing each other over whether or not the units should be on a 5 degree or 10 degree angle, but we eventually got them in, fired them up and were able to return to normal human beings.

Now she only complains when she has to walk into an un-air conditioned room, i.e. the kitchen. Lord knows we won't be cooking till October!

** - For those of you wondering what on earth would possess us to drive a 15-passenger van around for 3 hours with the A/C blasting while gas prices in my nabe are about $4.19 a gallon, it's this: It's her company work van. They pay her crap for the work she does and don't ever check the mileage. But they do pay for all the gas. We feel they owe it to us.

Two Little Girls.....10 years later

2008-05-28T12:34:00.002-04:00

I remember where we were standing
I remember how it felt
2 little girls growing out of their training bras
this little girl breaks furniture, this little girl breaks laws
2 girls together
just a little less alone
this little girl cries wee wee wee
all the way home
- Ani Difranco

So I guess this one is really just for me.
I made a promise to someone 10 years ago today; a promise that I can either fulfill or not fulfill today. And I’m having some trouble deciding what to do.

10 years ago…..
Lying on her living room floor, listening to music, holding hands. Not speaking, just looking into those eyes and wondering what that funny feeling in my belly was for. She felt it too. I know that now. Just not quite like me.

You woke me up, flipped a switch inside me that I hadn’t known was set to off. You turned me on but didn’t know what to do when you decided that I should turn myself off again and I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t go back to sleep. I would not lay back down and act like nothing had happened. I was done being someone else. I finally wanted to be me.

Those lips and that kiss you tried to ignore. I wasn’t having it. It was so much more than just a kiss to me. It was the light bulb over my head, finally finding its light.
'Just flick it back off; no one’s noticed it’s on yet', you said.
No. I can’t. It’s not right. I won’t.

I wanted so badly. Wanted you. Wanted an us. Just wanted, for the first time.

You tried, I think. Tried as much as you were able. Each time you tried and then pulled back, it hurt me worse than the last time, though. After awhile, I just wished you’d stop trying, because I knew you could no longer come with me where I was headed. But I wasn’t strong enough to turn you away yet. Each time, I let you back in, hoping, wishing for something other than the nothing that you had to offer.

I can still so easily remember the scent of your shampoo. The placement of each freckle. The feeling of you running your nails up and down my arm. How just a look from you could send me over the edge.

I can also feel the rage I felt when you paraded him in front of me, like some sort of prize. Like I was just something to do when you were bored and no one else was around. He was the one that mattered. I was just a friend.

That’s the rocky path we traveled down. Lost sight of each other after awhile. And soon enough, we walked completely away from each other.

Today…..
There are still little strings of my heart that you hold, wherever you are. I don’t think that they’ll ever grow back in again. I’ve tied them up into a little knot, like scar tissue, so I can see where I’ve been. Remember how it hurt, and move on.

I have someone now. She has me too. Her light burns with mine. She doesn’t need me to turn it down, only encourages me to turn it up. She stands right next to me, always. She’s not ashamed. She loves me for exactly who I am, flaws and faults and all. She’s never needed me to be anything other than exactly what I already am.

In my own way, I’ve already fulfilled my promise. I don’t feel as though I need to complete your half of it as well. You’ve helped me grow and learn in just as many ways as you’ve set me back.
I don’t think you’re a bad person, you just needed different things.

There’s always that old saying in the back of my head. “If you love something, set it free.”
So today I am able, to finally let you go…..for good.
I’ll only bear the marks on my heart.
Marks of a person who loved and lost, but found the strength to love again.

Thank you, L.

Goodbye.

Corporate Ladies Room Etiquette

2008-05-14T16:25:00.005-04:00

I just don't understand. I thought it was over. I thought I was free. Free to enjoy a clean bathroom whilst stationed at my place of employment eight hours a day.

I was wrong.

Let me tell you, our bathrooms here are cleaned four times a day. I know this for a fact because I've become friendly with the bathroom cleaning lady. I also know that she does do a very good job. But boy, do I feel bad for this poor woman and what she has to deal with.

From looking around at the women who work on this floor, you'd think that they were all upstanding citizens. They are well dressed, well coiffed and generally look well taken care of. I don't know what happens once they cross the doorway into the bathroom, but they turn into downright animals.
I have walked in there and nearly gagged on occasion. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that it's a bathroom and that certain smells are unaviodable. However, certain smells can easily be minimized by the simple task of flushing the goddamned toilet!! For the most part, they are all automatic flushers, but sometimes, they neglect to flush when you stand up. There is a little backup button that you can push on just these occasions.
It flushes the toilet, people. If you stand up and don't hear the automatic whoosh, don't just walk out. Push the button. Everything goes away and everyone is happy.

But no, this is obviously too much work for these women. They're much too important and busy to press some silly little button. So they just walk out. And leave....thier shit....behind.
I can't stand it. And I just don't understand it.

Now, we also have another little problem. There seems to be some sort of epidemic of pissing on seats. I used to share a bathroom with 4 men at my old job and it was NEVER this bad.
I don't understand this for several reasons.
A) We are graciously provided with paper seat covers at all times.
B) How is it possible that you don't notice that you piss all over the seat?
C) Is it really possible that you just don't give a damn?

There is one woman in particular, who I will heretofore refer to as the Horse Pisser. This is a woman who I have had the unfortunate luck to have shared the bathroom with many times. My theory is that she waits until she can not possibly wait ANY longer to go and pee. She barges in, usually clacking unattractively in some ridiculous hooker heels, slams the doors and proceeds to let out a stream that can ONLY be compared to a horse. I believe that she pees SO forcefully that it actually splashes back up onto the seat. And let me tell you: Girlfriend don't give a damn.

She leaves it. Every time.

Whats up with that, Horse Pisser??

Now I don't mean to sound like the bathroom nazi or anything like that. I've just worked here a year and a half now and I pee every 40 seconds or so (ask my wife, I have the baldder of an infant). So, I mean, I visit here a lot. You get to know the place. And people. And sights, and sounds. And, oh god, the smells. (**shudder**)

Sometimes, I feel like I'd rather deal with this guy all over again.

Please....someone hand me a hammer

2008-04-09T17:07:00.003-04:00

So that I may smash myself in the face with it.

Today has been one of those days. One of those days that make you realize that we are indeed animals at heart, and are capable of performing horrifying acts of violence on others who cross my path. Or at least that's just how I feel. People have aggravated me to such a point today that I'm not even sure what to do with myself. I feel a rage that bubbles deep in my stomach. I mean, it could be the new horrible Starbucks pike street roast that I dared to sample today, but I think it's the rage.

And it started first thing in the morning. The only good thing that happened to me today was actually making the 7:30 ferry. I make it to my 8:30 meeting (why anyone has 8:30 meetings is beyond me, but that's another blog) only to hear my work being criticized in front of all 10 executives in that meeting. He actually called it "flaky", which in turn, is him calling ME flaky. Now, there was indeed a mistake that I had made. I'll admit to that, no problem. It's just that this mistake could have been resolved with a simple e-mail, pointing it out and I would have fixed it. But no, he had to announce it, like he had found some grave error that was going to cause the company millions. The issue was, in fact, a few contract dates that were off. Ridiculous.

Then, I get a phone call from my favorite accounts payable woman. I have unsusccessfully dealt with her before and she talks to me as if I'M the one who doesn't speak english. Her accent is so thick, I can barely communicate with her. She proceeds to tell me that the project that I requested she open for me can't be done because I put it on the wrong form. She needs the new form. I have not been informed that there was a new form. Ok, fine.
Me - "Can you send me a blank copy of the new form?"
Her - "It's on the website."
Me - "Which website?" (My company is a global investment bank. We have hundreds of websites.)
Her - "The accounting one."
Me - "Oh, Ok." I navigate myself to the accounting website to find at least 30 possible forms.
Me - "Can you tell me what the form is called?"
Her - "It's the one you use to open new projects."
Me - "But which one is that?!? I clearly haven't used it before so can you help me out here?!?"
Her - "What are you, new or something?"
Me - "NO! I am NOT new, I just don't use your stupid forms everyday, like you do. So can you just tell me which one it is so we can get this over with?!?"
Her - "Project Accounting Form."
Me - "Thank you." (*in my head - why couldn't you have just told me the name of the goddamed form, you fucking WHORE?!?!?!? Do you ENJOY making others feel like shit? God help you that I don't know where you live or where you park your car.)

See??? See why I need a hammer!??!?

Bacon Update

2008-03-24T10:40:00.002-04:00

Ok, firstly, I just came across a website for Candied Bacon Ice Cream, which I felt the need to share. I'm a little upset that my previous searching efforts did not unearth this little charm sooner. But alas, it's found and shared.
Secondly, this past weekend was spent putting the finishing touches on our new apartment and getting it to feel like home. Then, in a wonderful moment of clarity, I realized that baking something in the new kitchen would inevitably put the proverbial icing on that homey feeling we were missing. So, what to bake, what to bake?
Why, Bacon Baklava of course. To which my wife lamented of course. Now, she loves her some baklava. And she loves her some bacon. She was just VERY unsure of the combination of the two. After going back and forth over whether to make it or not, and should I only do half with the bacon and half without, I finally looked at her and said "When was the last time I made a bad dessert???"
Point 1 for Ryan.
So off I go, crisping up a boatload of bacon, smashing fresh walnuts and spicing them all up nicely. I have to say, Baklava is not a difficult thing to make. It's just time consuming. And tedious. And oh-my-god-must-I-really-butter-each-individual-sheet-of-phyllo-dough??!?!??! My wife can't stand to watch that part. She can't believe the amount of butter that actually has to be used in this recipe.
So I get this all done and off the the oven it goes. Now this really isn't the part that gets things smelling good. It's the syrup that does that. I make my own syrup rather than taking the easy way and just using straight maple, as I've seen in many recipes. I use 2 cups of water, 2 cups of sugar, strips of orange peel, orange blossom honey, a few cloves and a cinnamon stick. Slap that all in a pot and boil it all up and THAT's what smells good, I tell ya.
So this heavenly smell draws my wife over from stapling down all our various electrical cords to ask her standard question: "Is it ready yet?"
Nope. Not till that hot baklava comes out of the oven and you hear the satisfying sizzle of me pouring delicious gooey syrup all over it. A 350 degree pan and liquid make one helluva satisfying sizzle sound, I must say.
And now you're supposed to wait. Overnight.
Pshhhh. Yeah, right.
We usually only take the little corner pieces that are not full sized at this point, but man oh man, are they good. My wife takes her first skeptical bite and I watch, waiting.
She closes her eyes as she chews and I watch the flavors registering on her face. She opens her eyes wide. "It's delicious."
Point 2 for Ryan.
And it is. Delicious, I mean. The salty sweetness of it is awesome. Neither the salty nor the sweet is too overpowering and it balances out just right. I'm used to the crunch from the nuts, but now you also get these little pockets of chewy bacony goodness and you just don't know what to do with yourself.
I brought some in for a coworker and she said something along the lines of "This is crack cocaine."
Point 3 for Ryan.
My work here is done.

A Belated Birthday present for one half of Love and Cyanide

2008-03-10T16:46:00.000-04:00

You are probably familiar with the phrase "bringing home the bacon." But where does it come from, you ask.
I’ll tell you.
*In the twelfth century, a church in the English town of Dunmow promised a side of bacon to any married man who could swear before the congregation and before God that he had not quarreled with his wife for a year and a day. A husband who could bring home the bacon was held in high esteem by the community for his forbearance*. (*excerpt from about.com*)

Well, I’m going to bring home the bacon, baby. And not in that 12th century kinda way either, cause lord knows I’ve quarreled with my wife in the last year. I’m going for the 21st century version in which I bring you, all two of my loyal readers, the goods. The goods, of course, are bacon!

When I began this quest, I really had no idea the amount of bacon related things I would find. I feel like there’s a whole bacon subculture out there, with bacon-loving-people, just like me. It made me feel a little better about myself, knowing that there are others. It’s kind of like that feeling I had when I realized I was gay, and that there were indeed other girls who just “really loved their best friend.” But that’s another story, for another time.

I suppose I’ll start with bacon to eat. My favorite kind, really.
We’ll start off simple with some items that are just bacon, as it is, but in nice little cup or placemat shapes. I think the cups are cute and can be functional, but I’m not quite sure how useful a bacon placemat could be. I mean, aren’t placemats supposed to prevent grease from getting on your table, not be the source of it?
This guy has some serious dedication to his love of bacon and I wholeheartedly commend him for making his own from scratch. I wonder if he hand raised that pig.
These folks have really taken it one step further by hosting a bacon themed party. I fully intend to host one of these in the near future.

Then we have the bacon icing on cupcakes as well as an haute couture bacon chocolate bar.
Now there’s this candied bacon, which is making my mouth water just looking at it. It looks like the most delectable piece of bacon god ever put on this earth.
And I assure you, that as soon as my new kitchen becomes fully functional after the move that I will be churning out trays and trays of this salty sweet treat. It’s Baklava, only kicked up a notch.

I feel compelled to include the good with the bad here and this, my friends, is most certainly the bad.
But the piece de resistance of the edible portion of this blog goes to BaconPig. I don’t think that I really need to explain why.

Now you may think that eating it is the only way to ingest bacon. Not so, says I. I have found bacon vodka as well as maple bacon coffee for your bacon-drinking pleasure. I can personally attest to the wonderfulness that is maple bacon coffee. To be fair, it is more maple-y than bacon-y, but you still get that hearty homemade breakfast feel out of it. And I’m sure you could probably melt down that chocolate bacon bar into some form of hot bacon cocoa, but I can’t be sure without trying it.

Now we move onto non-edible bacon-related goodness. Here is where my surprise really jumped up a level. There are quite a few blogs dedicated entirely to the wonderfulness that is bacon. I’m only tipping the iceberg here with my petty little blog entry. These people are like the Bacon Gestapo. They even have their own BRS (Bacon Rating System). I know.
Mr.Baconpants, over here, has a nifty little list of odd bacon related items as well.

I couldn’t believe the many ways that exist in which you can wear bacon. For instance, we have a bacon costume. For Halloween, I’m hoping. But if you’re looking for more of a daily wear kind of think then we have this lovely bacon print suit that also smells like bacon. This feature, I suppose, is to attract as many stray dogs as possible while walking down the street.
To complete your look, we have bacon bobby pins, a bacon scarf, bacon band-aids and all in one place, believe it or not, a bacon wallet, bacon flavored toothpicks and bacon mints!!

This guy wanted to make his love of bacon oh so permanent. Wow.
And just in case you’re really bored in that staff meeting, we have the What Would Bacon Do? Folder! I’m sure that could just produce hours of entertainment.

Now, we’re nearing the end of my little list here. I know, I know, so sad. But to keep the bacon loving all year round, you can get yourself a fresh copy of “Everything Tastes Better with Bacon”. I know I will be!

But now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. This one is precisely for you, one half of Love and Cyanide (which half are you, by the way?) and I think you’re going to love it.
I bring you the Wake ‘n Bacon. Please let me know where this falls on your scale of coolest time-pieces.
Over and out, folks.

50 Things.....about ME!

2008-02-21T15:56:00.001-05:00

So I saw a post on a random blog I came across and thought it was kind of a cool idea so I’m going to copy it.
Yup, just like that.
Oh, but I’m going to change it to be about me instead of that other person, who’s blog I’m copying.
So ya, here’s a list of little known /random/interesting/not-so-interesting/funny things about me. In no particular order of any kind.

1) My name is Ryan and I am indeed a female. I am not Ryan’s wife, as many a customer service representative has asked, nor did my mother REALLY want a boy.
2) I grew up and still reside in Staten Island, NY. Lovingly referred to as The Rock, Shaolin, the Dump on which people live, home of the Wu Tang Clan and Land of the Mafia Dons.
3) I have had giant dogs for most of my life. Newfoundlands to be exact. I plan on breeding them when I move to my farm.
4) I have a SERIOUS fear of praying mantises (what the hell is the correct plural form of mantis?). I had one land on my face while doing 60 on the highway once. That just about did it for me.
5) I might be a little bit too in love with my car. Finding a new chip in the paint is liable to put me in a bad mood for a week.
6) I love to read. My nerd-dom was instilled in me from a very early age and it’s never failed me yet.
7) I am a lesbian. I secretly believe that my mother secretly wishes this was still a “phase”. It’s not. I checked.
8) Whenever I’m in a situation where there may be a lot of people around, but no one seems to be particularly paying attention to me, I will make weird faces for as long as I can get away with it. Eye twitching, facial ticks, things like this.
9) I also make very strange faces whenever I have to look in a mirror. I just do. I don’t know why.
10) I care FAR too much about what other people think and will actually convince myself that an idea is not good enough even before I can say it out loud to avoid the possible embarrassment of others not thinking that it’s good enough.
11) My brain translates everything into some form of numbers.
12) I believe that I am quite good at accents and imitations.
13) The highest speed I have reached while driving a vehicle is 137mph.
14) I miss my Nana terribly.
15) I don’t think that it’s possible for me to have chosen a better wife for myself. We fight and we bitch and we bicker, but she keeps my ass in line and I love her.
16) I stole a pack of gum in 4th grade. I have never stopped feeling bad about it.
17) For no apparent reason whatsoever, in 1987, (age 7) at Lake George on vacation, I bared my ass inside a pine tree just to see what cool air felt like on my butt. My parents have never let me live this down.
18) The mention of Lake Titicaca still makes me laugh my ass off.
19) I decided long ago, that there are certain words, when repeated enough, will start to sound completely ridiculous. My favorite of these is Snuck.
20) I think I am too smart for my job. But it’s one of those where I’ve gotta “pay my dues” (i.e. suck someone’s ass) in order to move up.
21) Gone With the Wind is my favorite movie. Ever.
22) I have no cool “when I lost my virginity” story because I don’t know when it actually happened. I’m certainly not one anymore, but I don’t have a clear picture of what counted and what didn’t, being a lesbian and all. Very confusing stuff.
23) There is a tiny dinosaur that lives in my living room. His name is Leo.
24) I want to have kids. A whole lot. This lesbian thing and being broke make that a bit difficult, but have no fear, I will prevail.
25) I have a tendency to make fun of others for my own enjoyment.
26) My first kiss was such an embarrassing experience that I didn’t kiss anyone for 3 years after that.
27) My wife and I have a newfound love of ice skating and are learning to “slide stop” like the cool kids do.
28) I have no patience whatsoever for stupid people.
29) I have become a serious coffee snob in my old age. If I ever start drinking Jamaica Blue Mountain exclusively, someone please slap me.
30) I NEVER take my vitamins.
31) I am seriously considering driving 13 hours there and back to Tennessee in June to go to the big four day hippie-fest camping/concert that is Bonnaroo. I figure once I pass 30, I will officially be too old for that kind of crap.
32) I am very weird about setting my alarm in the morning. I am incapable of setting it for any numbers ending in 0, 2, 4, 5, 6 & 8 leaving the only available minutes to be 1, 3, 7 & 9. My wife is baffled by this but I have no good explanation for it.
33) My parents had me when they were 17, therefore I am akin to some comical science experiment on raising children by children. They encouraged me to curse at a young age for their fun and enjoyment, greatly contributing to my current status as a “potty mouth”.
34) I have formed solid internet relationships with people all over the country who have a similar sickness of loving their cars too much. Much love to MitsubishiEclipseForum.com.
35) My inner monologue is not always quite so inner. Example of this: This afternoon, while leaving my local lunch place, I pushed a door that was clearly marked “pull”, firstly, making me feel oh so cool and secondly, actually uttering out loud “School for the gifted, here I come” to which the person behind me had to stifle a snicker.
36) I love the sound of those rumble strips that they have before toll booths. I find it soothing and will always turn down the radio to better listen.
37) I absolutely will not eat a grilled cheese if it doesn’t have syrup on it. This is a requirement.
38) I am giddy right now because we just scored a new apartment. Time to start packing.
39) Contrary to my pasty white skin, I am ¼ Puerto Rican, which is only made obvious by my gadonkadonk bubble butt.
40) I find myself agonizing over the past too much sometimes.
41) Me and high heels, dresses and other girly accoutrements do NOT get along. This shall be made painfully clear when I will be a bridesmaid this summer.
42) I can shoot a target the size of a dinner plate at 300 yards with no problem.
43) I love camping and all its dirty glory. I especially love the moment when the cell phones cease to have any service!
44) I don’t own my own tent. Every year, we buy the biggest, most apartment sized tent we can find at Sears, use it for the whole week, then bring it back and say that it leaked. Their money back guarantee is wonderful.
45) I am a closet sudoku freak.
46) When I was little, I would absolutely REFUSE to low my nose. I would just sniffle and sniffle. I had the sniffles for 6 months at a clip back then. I would sniffle so much that my mother would threaten to blow into my nose and have the boogies come out my mouth. I always thought she was bluffing till I found out that she wasn’t. I’ve blown my own nose ever since.
47) I have an uncanny ability to remember dates and faces. Names, not so much.
48) I still think my 1st grade teacher influenced me the most. Mrs. Sherman, if you’re out there, Thanks.
49) I still feel like I’m 17 sometimes and am amazed that the authorities trust me enough to operate large chunks of metal on wheels at high speeds.
50) I have now reached 50 things about me. That’s enough work for today!

the Sweetest Demon child

2008-02-07T15:21:00.000-05:00

Ok, so our February BBQ was probably the best idea we've ever had. It was awesome. Everything went well. Those charcoals just lit right up like they're supposed to. Like they wanted to be cooked on. There were two beers hiding in the back of the fridge for us to drink while the coals heated up. And it was still warm enough to stand by the grill without a jacket on.
Heaven.
She made chicken and beef strips, potatoes, mushrooms, roasted peppers and yellow squash.
I gotta say, having such a treat in the middle of February is kinda like getting surprised with a vacation or something. Your tongue is just not expecting this culinary delicacy at this time of year. Just wonderful.
So now, after this wonderful meal, we're stuffed and tired and decide to go to bed early. This sounds like a great idea to me too since I haven't been sleeping so well lately. Boy, was I in for a surprise.
I have three cats. One of them looks like this:

His name (phonetically translated from hungarian, my wife's native tongue) is Tootsley. Oh, how sweet and innocent he is. He really is. He's our sweet boy, always purring, always wanting to sit on your lap and just be pet. He's wonderful. He's also very vocal. He walks around, meowing to his tiny hearts' content all the time.

Now you might be asking yourself where this is going. I'll tell you.

Between the hours of 11pm and 6am, I hate him. With a burning passion. Like, ready to kill him with my bare hands, hate him.

So, last night, we let all of them out for the night cause it's warm out and they're nocturnal and all. (Don't worry, I live on a nice and safe dead end street backed by woods. They love going out.) This was about 9pm. We honestly turned right into bed and I fell right asleep. Wonderful.

An undistinguishable amount of time later, I am awoken by some sound. A small, mewling kind of sound. I realize that we have cracked our bedroom window for some of this lovely warm February air. I keep hearing this sound. I'm still half asleep so I'm still not sure what it is. Now it suddenly gets much louder and I realize this as Tootsley's voice. (Yes, I can tell the difference between each of thier voices. Call me crazy cat lady, but it's true.)

So I try to ignore him, thinking he'll get tired of this. But he's getting steadily louder and I' not sure how he's pulling this off. (My wife is dead to the world and hears none of this, by the way. She will tell me I am crazy in the morning and that none of this actually happened.) So I pull back the curtain to reveal that he has jumped up onto the air conditioner that sticks out of the wall directly outside my window and is looking at me now.

Shit. I'm screwed. He's seen me now so he knows I'm awake. He meows louder. I now realize that he's not going to give up, so I haul my sorry ass out of bed and let him into the house. It is now 12:30. I think this is good enough and go back to bed, closing my bedroom door. Silly human.

So he eats his mandatory bits of food that he must consume upon entering the house and goes and takes a nice drink from the sink. I'm starting to fall asleep. Then he realizes that I have shut the bedroom door. Big mistake, according to him. My door has a gap at the bottom that is just large enough for small kitty paw to fit through. He manages to get small kitty arm all the way under and scratch at the inside of the door, while taking up his cat song once again. Meow meow meow meow meeeeeeoooooooooowwwwwwww.

Now my wife starts to hear something. He is her favorite and can do no wrong so she tells me he's not going to stop until I let him in, so just let him in. I huff and puff for a bit, but let him in. He shuts up.

Now he climbs on the bed, looking for a suitable place to knead. My wife tries to keep him on her side, but no. He must be touching both of us. He actually just places a paw on the back of my arm and starts to knead. Now I mentioned before that my cats go out. Therefore that means that thay have all of thier claws and we don't clip them much so they'll be able to defend themselves, should they need to. That also means that he is kneading the back of my arm with eagle talon like claws. He is also purring very near to my head at maximum volume. My wife happens to find this funny at this moment and cracks herself up. I proceed to rip off the covers, take my damn pillow and off to the living room I go.

Now, he looks like this:

Evil Tootsley(Mr. Bigglesworth). I'm convinced he just wanted my side of the bed. I've been outwitted by a 13 lb. animal in the middle of the night. And it was all just part of diabolical plan to make his humans nocturnal as well.

BBQ and Beer....in February?

2008-02-06T16:39:00.000-05:00

So, since it's an uncharacteristically warm February 6th at a whopping 65 degrees, the wife just called and suggested that we pretend it's summertime out and BBQ for dinner. I'm so excited, I can't contain myself.
I hate the godforsaken winter and I would like to kick the person who invented it. This weather is great. However, it's probably an awful tease and I'll most likely be freezing again by the weekend, but a girl can dream, can't she?
So, I'll go into serious pretend mode. My wife will be whipping up something culinarily delicious, I'll pop my speakers in the window and blast me some good old Jack Johnson, while sippin a nice cold beer and imagine I'm somewhere else. Somewhere NOT staten island.
Wish me luck.

PS and off topic: I'm going to make a valiant effort to start posting more and get what's in my brain, out. It needs to go somewhere!

Staten Island's Redeeming Quality

2007-10-12T14:42:00.000-04:00

Well, I wasn't sure that Staten Island had anything good going for it. I mean, we have a garbage dump that's visible from space, a serious overpopulation issue and a virtual epidemic of assholes in large gas guzzling SUV's. Sounds like paradise, huh?

Well, much to my surprise, I discovered a redeeming quality on this godforsaken island that I'm inexplicably still trapped in. A few weekends ago, the wife and I were bored and it was a stunning day out so we decided to go for a walk in the Mount Loretta area. Some of you may know that the church on these grounds is where the baptism scene is filmed in "The Godfather". (This is a movie I have never seen, which causes my father to try and disown me every time I mention it.) I only know this because a website told me. But I digress.

So, we're walking through and it's very nice and serene. We find a path that leads down to the beach so we figure we can take a big loop around and detour on the beach.

So we're walking along, examining shells and crunching in inches deep piles of mussel shells.

Suddenly we look up and there seems to be something strange in the distance. Some weird....formations, of a sort.

It seems as though someone has made all of these rock piles, balanced precariously on each other. Like, hundreds of rock piles. We keep walking through them, and start finding our own rocks to add to the piles and see who can balance them the best. Ours of course, kept falling off, but whoever had done this meant business. Each and every stone was placed in such a way as to fulyl support the ones going on top of it. I feel like I could have thrown my whole body weight against these rocks and nothing would have happened. They were put together EXTREMELY well. And there were hundreds of them. Like, a mile and a half worth.

So, I was intrigued. I wanted to find out who had done this. I went to my trusty website, Forgotten NY and lo and behold, the newest entry was http://www.forgotten-ny.com/YOU'D%20NEVER%20BELIEVE/loretto/loretto.html

Apparently, a slightly off-kilter Staten Island Zoo worker, who takes our beloved groundhog, Chuck, home with him on the weekends to better acclimate him to human contact, does his rock piling as a hobby. Why? Just cause. Read the article here: http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1168607727317060.xml&coll=1

So, I found a redeeming quality for Staten Island. There are still some people here who do things simply for the joy it brings them.

Dear Homeless Man in my Bathroom (10/6/06)

2007-07-25T06:42:00.000-04:00

Ok, so, I work on, by far, not the best block in Chelsea. We have an oh-so-lovely array of lowlife beings carousing about our block all the time. There's the crazy lady in the wheelchair who spews Bible verses all day. There's the red headed alcoholic who can be found passed out in any number of places on the block. There's also the homeless womens shelter on the corner that can provide hours of entertainment, especially when that one dame's got her guitar out. Watch out, American Idol, here she comes! Oh, and we can't forget the LARGE sweat-outfitted woman who carries a live turtle IN HER PANTS. Poor animal.
But the newest member of our circus menagerie by far takes the cake.
This man must be the genius of all homeless men. And his three teeth are so nicely spaced that they give you that warm fall jack-o-lantern feeling.
But I get ahead of myself here. I work in a small office with four guys and I'm the only female. Most of the time, they're out and I'm here by myself. So, the other day was one of these times when I'm all by my lonesome. I feel that I have to use the bathroom so I go without hesitation because I know I'm by myself in the office. Now, our bathroom is directly outside our front office door and is under lock and key. We have the only keys. Now, imagine my surprise when I walk in, unsuspecting, upon a half-naked, six and a half foot tall black man staring back at me. My instincts screamed "RETREAT!" which is exactly what I did.
Now, I go back into my office and lock the huge police bolt that we have on there. Then I flick on my little door camera that I've got to buzz people in. This camera is positioned in such a way that I can see anyone ringing the bell, but I can also see if and when anyone goes in and out of the bathroom.
So I figure I'll just wait for him to leave.
So I wait.
And wait.
Wait some more.
Various indistinguishable sounds are coming out of the bathroom.
Some flushing.
Some water running.
Wait some more.
Maybe a little nose blowing.
20 minutes of my life lost staring at this camera now and I still have to pee! So I start calling people. I call my boss, tell him whats going on. He's uptown, can't help me, but call the super. I call the super. No answer. I call the building owner and get his receptionist. Explain the situation to her. "Well did you call the super?" Yes i called the super, he's not around. "Well, I guess just wait for him to leave."
Ok, so we're back to waiting and watching the monitor. Literally 45 actual minutes have gone by at this point. And then I hear it. A doorknob. The door cracks open. He puts his face directly into my camera and gives me his three tooth salute. Turns around and walks away. Now, I wait an additional 5 minutes becuase i want to make sure that this man is GONE from my floor. Now, I need to go see what the hell went on in there. I take my keys and my umbrella (for protection) and venture into the bathroom.

NOTHING could have prepared me for what I was to see there.

This man had used our little two-stall, one-sink bathroom as his personal jacuzzi. He literally must have taken a shower in our tiny sink. I suppose he needed to after he took the largest shit I have ever seen, which he chose to leave in the toilet for me. He also was kind enough to put the paper that he used to wipe his disgusting ass with in the GARBAGE can. Why, I ask you??>?!? Why wouldn't you put that paper in the toilet like the rest of the world?!?
Now, this is not all that awaits me in our lovely little bathroom. The floor is entirely flooded with some kind of brown liquid. Now, I know for a fact that my water is clear out of that faucet. This liquid is a complete conundrum to me. There are wet handprints all over my marble walls and stall barriers. And here's the kicker. He took all three rolls of toilet paper that I had courteously stashed beneath the sink and used them to alternately drape decoratively around the stalls as well as stuff into both of my toilets so much so that the paper on top was still dry. That's how much paper he stuffed in there.
So, to recap, in 45 minutes, this man managed to take a shit the size of a porterhouse steak, flood the floor with a mysterious brown liquid, redecorate the whole place with TP and mystery liquid handprints and render both of my toilets completely useless.
So, to the dear homeless man in my bathroom, I'm sure you'll never read this, if you can read at all, but I just wanted to say "Go fuck yourself. And go make your own little swampy wonderland in someone elses bathroom." Oh, yeah, and we changed the locks, so good luck picking that now, motherfucker!

It would just be too beautiful

2007-07-19T13:59:00.000-04:00

So apparently my posts are getting gayer as we go along here, but hey, what can I do? It's a part of me. And I guess it's been coming up a lot lately.

But anyway...so....ummm...

I was at the Ani DiFranco concert last night in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. For those who don't know, she attracts a primarily lesbian audience with a few scant emo boys thrown in the mix and a few straight boyfriends who got dragged along for the ride. So I'm there, in this veritable sea of lesbians, basking in the familiarity of it all, when it strikes me: I need another beer.

Off to the beer tent I go, leaving Mary to hold our spot. Being a typical concert with the typical ridiculously long beer line, I return in about 10 minutes or so to find Mary animatedly in discussion with some chick, K. They appear to know each other, so that's what I assumed. A few minutes later, we are joined by K's friend, A. Everyone is introduced and I find that Mary didn't know them, only butted in on thier conversation and made insta-friends.

So, the opening chick is still on stage so we're not really paying any attention and just having a nice conversation, the four of us. Now, K has this earthy, flowy, californian air about her and just seems like one of those generally optimistic people. There was sort of a lull in the conversation and we all were just kind of surveying the audience and people watching.

There was a lesbain couple behind us spread out on a blanket and they had thier baby daughter with them, playing and giggling. They just looked like they were so happy and in love with each other and the baby.

K and I seemed to notice them at the same time. I was looking at them with something akin to longing, because my wife and I want a child in the worst way possible. But K turns to me, and says, "You know, it really sucks what lesbians have to go through in order to have a baby. Why can't they just create out of thier love? Why can't these two people who are beautiful and love each other, just create a life?" I responded that I had often thought the same thing and that it killed me to know that I have to deal with doctors and sperm banks and a hundred other things that make the experience so clinical, and not really about just my partner and I.

So she looks at me and says, "I think that if that were to happen, it would just be too beautiful for words. If people would ONLY be able to create lives out of love, imagine what a beautiful world it would be."

I hugged her on the spot.

And nearly cried, because it was such an amazing sentiment. That if all children were the product of pure love, and not inconveniences and mistakes as so many of them are referred to, what a beautiful world, indeed.

It would just be too beautiful.

I am so not down with hair; or, Thoughts on being gay

2007-07-17T17:25:00.000-04:00

Oh, how I love the time afforded to me to think by sitting in large amounts of traffic each week. I was driving home yesterday and I randomly chose CD number 5 from my player in my car, not really knowing what CD’s were in any of them. Much to my delight, Bob Marley comes on. So I’m driving, I’m singing along:

I wanna love you, and treat you right
I wanna love you, every day and every night
We'll be together, with a roof right over our heads
We'll share the shelter, of my single bed

And then my brain starts off on its own. (Yes, this will be another crazy stream-of-consciousness one.) So I’m thinking about the song and you know how songs can make you think about other things, or make you think about what the song is saying. So I come to the realization that my brain turns everything gay. When he’s singing, “We’ll be together, with a roof right over our heads”, my brain is conjuring an image of two women. Which is weird. Not for me, of course, but Bob was straight. The man had 13 children with 9 different women. I doubt he was thinking about two women. Well, he could have been, but probably not. And even if he was, it was probably from some manly, “we love lesbians” point of view.
But, back on track here.
My brain made Bob’s song gay. But it’s interesting to me, because we only get to experience one brain in our lifetimes. So it’s funny when we tell someone, “I know what you’re thinking.” No, you don’t. You have no idea what goes on in my crazy little head.
My brain made the song gay, because that is what my brain understands. My life is lived between two women. This is my ideal of a happy place. Me and another woman. I understand this inherently.
Then this makes me think of how in the hell straight people get by. I mean, I know how two women work together, communicate together, and have sex together. But it baffles me how women and men can live together. I often find myself wondering how this works out. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know that this is the vast majority of the population, but really? WTF? Men are so different from women. I could even understand how two men could work together, because they are alike in thoughts.

Remote.
TV.
Scratch ass.
Get ass.
Drink.
Yell at TV.
Get more ass.

I can understand this.
But my poor, poor straight women friends. I give you so much credit. You put up with so much. Your beautiful, emotion riddled brains must deal with Neanderthal like beings and act like you’re happy about it. See, I feel bad now, because I know many of you are perfectly happy with your men, and that’s wonderful. I just feel like you’re all missing out on what could be all yours in the arms of another beautiful, emotion riddled woman. Do you have any idea what sex is like with someone who is at the exact emotional, spiritual, passion-filled state as you!??! No. You poor things have to deal with insert, plunge, repeat.
They have things that dangle outside the body. This is frightening to me. All appendages should remain firmly inside the body, as far as I'm concerned.
And the hair. My god, they’re covered in hair. Anyone who denies the existence of evolution need only look at a hairy man. How can we NOT have come from apes? Have you SEEN Robin Williams?!?
I am SO not down with hair.

(*Disclaimer - I mean no offense to any straight/gay or otherwise persons. This is simply what my brain does on its left completely unattended. I swear.*)

Town Naming Drunkards

2007-04-20T10:20:00.000-04:00

So, once a week, I have to travel to good old Connecticut for work. I don’t mind this as much as you might think. First, it’s a day that I do not have to deal with the city. Second, CT people don’t really care what time I get there. And Thirdly, I get to drive my lovely car.

Now this is a decent drive. It takes anywhere from 1.5 to 4.5 hours to get there, each way. (Don’t worry; my company compensates me nicely to offset this ridiculousness.) So, this affords me lots and lots of time to think, sing loudly when I know no one else can hear and just reflect on life in general. Yesterday was one of these days and something occurred to me on the way home.
I was getting onto the Garden State Parkway, way at the tippy top and I saw a sign that read : School House Road, Chestnut Ridge, 1 mile.
I thought to myself, “How cute. Chestnut Ridge sounds like such a nice little quaint place to live. And all those houses along School House Road must be center hall colonials with white picket fences in pristine condition.” (I swear, this is the image my brain conjures all on its own.)

Then my brain did one of those things. Like when it goes off, all on its own accord and I have to start running to keep up. Here was my train of thought:

“How cute. Chestnut Ridge sounds like such a nice little quaint place to live. And all those houses along School House Road must be center hall colonials with white picket fences in pristine condition.” Hmm…. I wonder who came up with the word quaint. What a weird word. Used to describe something displaying a unique sense of old-fashion and charm. But really, what the hell is it? Say it a few times in your head. Quaint. quaint. Quaint. Say it out loud ten times and by the time you’re done, you’ll say incredulously to yourself, “What the fuck is a quaint?!?!” It doesn’t even sound nice after that much repetition. I bet Americans made up that word so they would have something nice to say about the place by the time they got done fucking it up. Like, “Hey, we’re here to kill all these Indians and make alcoholics out of those we don’t kill, but we don’t want to sound like bad guys. What should we do?” Some other idiot says, “Let’s name all our places after Indian names, so it’ll look like we had respect for them, albeit after we killed them all. And yeah, we’ll call the place quaint. Doesn’t that sound cute?”

I believe that this is also the reason we have places with names like Ho-Ho-Kus and Ronkonkoma. These town naming people must have all been VERY, Very drunk.

And I swear, I was NOT drunk on my way home yesterday.

Left Index Finger Epidemic

2007-04-18T14:07:00.000-04:00

Driving used to be my absolute favorite thing to do. I loved it. The windows down, stereo up kind of driving is the supreme treat, but pretty much any kind of driving will do. Now, I’ve grown up a little bit, and, still having a love for cars, have purchased myself quite a nice little sports car, if I do say so myself. Now, I love my car and I love driving. What I do not like is driving anywhere within the vicinity of the Tri-State area, which is unfortunate, considering I live here.

It seems that an epidemic of sorts has spread over the area. I’m not quite sure what the cause of it is. I can only comment on the results.

I believe that there is a mass illness affecting the driving population. This illness affects ONLY the left index finger of most drivers. I’ve heard it can spread to the whole hand, but either way, it renders the driver completely incapable of utilizing that little feature known as “The Signal”.
This affliction seems especially predominant in the large-SUV driving population, the elderly driving population and I believe this affliction comes standard to anyone who has or will be purchasing a Lexus.

These poor souls have had to resort to merely swerving wherever they would like, whenever they would like, with no warning to fellow drivers, i.e., myself.

Now, I seem to have been fortunate enough to have had this plague pass over my house. Maybe my door was painted with lamb's blood that day, I don't know, but I do not have the affliction. I signal when I’m switching lanes, turning or even merely pulling over. I feel that this gives the people around me a sense of comfort. “Oh, look, that nice lady still has use of her left index finger. She’s pulling over and we know it. Halleluiah, praise the lord!” And I signal with nary a thought about it. It’s just second nature to me.

Now, I understand that this is an illness and there is not much we can do to alleviate the sufferers. I try to have patience for those who do have the illness, but its kind of like holding your breath. You hold it and hold it, but eventually, if you are to continue living, you are going to have to let that breath out and it usually comes out in the form of “WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING, ASSHOLE!??!?!”

So, please, get your left index fingers checked out. Or reach the fuck over and use that signal with your right hand. I don’t really care. JUST SIGNAL!!!!!

thank you for not smoking

2007-02-12T17:05:00.000-05:00

ok, so after five years or so of being a ridiculous smoker, i quit. today is my 26th day as a smoke-free human. i am proud of myself. it has not been as bad as i thought but it hasn't really been a breeze either.

See now, I lived in relative bliss while still a smoker because, for a while, my mother never knew I smoked. Didn't live at home, no problem. To make a long story short, my mother found out I smoked about 9 months or so ago. Every single solitary time I have spoken to her since then, she has implored me to stop smoking in one way or another. I tolerated this because I could understand her concern. I did not heed her advice because I was usually pufing on a nice delicious Camel Light while she was talking to me. (Joe Camel makes you feel oh-so cool.)

Recently, a distant but still quite young (52) relative suddenly passed away due to smoke related illnesses. This slapped my ass in gear. I don't wanna die at 52. Hell no, I don't wanna die at 52. I don't even wanna die at 82. And I'd like to be able to breathe through all those years. I decided to quit.

(Note: a near-tears phone call from my father also had something to do with this. Nothin quite says I love you like "You better stop that smoking shit cause I'm not supposed to bury you. You're supposed to bury me.")

So, I go to the wake of said relative. I smoke the rest of my pack that night. I wake up the next morning and I no longer smoke. Simple. I waited a week so I could really be sure and then i told my mother that I quit, figuring that after 9 months of phone call torture, she can finally rest assured that I have quit.

I have figured wrong.

We still have the same conversation every time we speak.
She asks me, "How is smoking going?"
And I say, "What do you mean? I quit smoking."
"Oh, well I just wanted to know how that was going."
"It's not going at all. I quit."
"Well, how is that?"
"IT'S FINE!!!!!! I don't do it anymore so it's non-existant. Why do you ask me this every time?"
"Ok. I'm sorry. I'll never talk about it again."
(*Click*)
End of discussion.

Now, how the fuck did I end up being the bad-guy when all I did was quit smoking, like she asked me to?!?!?
Was I out of line for thinking that quitting smoking could perhaps end the horrific conversations that I was being subject to? How silly was I?

I forgot that mothers were put on this earth to annoy the shit out of you for thier fun and enjoyment.

Harry Potter and His Balls of Fire

2007-02-02T12:35:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I like Harry Potter. In fact, I love Harry Potter. I love the movies, love the books even more. It’s wonderful good fun for all ages. I’ve seen people reading Harry books on the trains ranging in age anywhere from 7 to 75. They really are just completely entertaining and engaging books. But, I think that perhaps some people may take things a little too seriously when it comes to good old Harry.
This week, for instance, the media has been plastering pictures of Daniel Radcliffe (the ACTOR who plays Harry Potter) in the almost nude, promoting the new play he will be the star of in London.

(*I think he looks damn hot, which is crazy praise coming from a lesbian.*)

This play is called Equus, revolves around a young mans pathological obsession with horses and is lauded as one of the most significant plays of the past 40 years. So, a serious play requiring serious actors.
Now, I was a little surprised to see these pictures, not because of their content, but because I hadn’t heard anything about this yet. I think the promo pictures are done tastefully, while getting their point across. Now, from my understanding, the nudity in the play will only take place in one scene and is included more as a reference to exposing his soul than to anything of a sexual nature. However, there are people out there who do not agree with me. There are people out there who are HORRIFIED that Harry Potter should have the gall to expose his magic wand.

Here are some examples:

- “Moral decay at its finest.” (*Yes, Harry's wand is the source of moral decay in the land of titty bars and NASCAR.*)
- “Why can't he use a costume that "simulates" nudity instead of going all-out nude?” (*Of course, why didn't he think of that. He should just act like he was naked. Same crap, right?*)
- “Who is going to explain to the millions of young children what Harry Potter is doing up there in the buff?” (*Well son, Harry's got a different sort of wand in this play. And it doesn't shoot firebolts at Voldemort.*)
- "We as parents feel Daniel should not appear nude. Our nine-year-old son looks up to him as a role model. We are very disappointed and will avoid the future movies he makes." (*Shit, now we have to actually pay attention to our kids, rather than just sit them in front of the TV and hope that Harry will teach them how to be good humans.*)
- “I couldn't believe it! I was deeply shocked, not to mention disappointed! Harry Potter was my idol, I looked up to him but when that news came my heart just sank. I was so sad! I couldn't believe such a shy, loyal heroic actor could ever turn into a nude modeler. I want him to re-think his career. It's a shame he had to waste his life on nudity. I no longer look up to him. I thought he was genuine and sincere, a nice kind boy. But no longer do I look up to him, no way...” (*Waa, waa, waa. I've lost my idol to nudity. I can't believe he's nude. I always thought he took his showers fully clothed!*)

Are these people serious?!?! Do they not realize that Harry Potter does not actually, and in reality, EXIST?? He is a fictional character in a series of books. Harry Potter is not Daniel Radcliffe.

I think this quote, by a person who couldn’t give a crap if Harry waved his wand all over the place, sums it up best:
- “Earth to whining parents: the guy's name is Daniel Radcliffe, an actor. I'm thinking he's probably never been a real wizard. (*What do you mean? Wizards aren't real?!?!*) In reality he has, almost certainly, lost his virginity(*The horror!! Harry Potter can't fuck!!*), experimented with drugs and alcohol(*He would never do that. You must be confused with his butterbeer.*), used profanity, and, at some stage, wished that witless losers like you didn't make up the money-making majority of what has, unfortunately, become his established fan-base.”

Gotta love it.

Also, I think it’s hysterical that there are organizations that are setting up help-lines for depressed and disturbed readers who will fall into a deep and overwhelming depression after the seventh and final book comes out in July. The author has revealed that two more characters will die and these organizations fear that these as-of-yet-unknown deaths will contribute even more to the worldwide depression we are facing.
Fuck global warming. Harry Potter is going to do us all in.

(**) = my add-ins

1

2007-01-25T12:26:00.000-05:00

I'm gonna give this thing a try and see if anyone else thinks what goes on inside my head is as funny as I do. Stay tuned.