Frankly

I want to be the type of person who doesn't badmouth someone to make myself feel better.

I want to be the type of person who really, truly accepts people for who there are, where they are.

I want to be the type of person who doesn't need to understand why someone does something, just that they have the right to do it.*

Tropical Disease

Happy 4th of July weekend. I was supposed to be out and about smooching on a boy and hanging with friends, but instead I'm home nursing what can only be described as the tropical disease that will likely kill me.

Or a flu-type bug.

I spent last weekend in Nags Head, NC with two couples and their kids. It was a wonderful weekend of beach time, boat time, and silly time with kids (and adults).

The kids ranged in ages from 3 to 15 and ranged in enjoying me and my attempts to connect to kids about as widely as well.

#GoHugo

I've written about meeting my friend Katie in an online forum. That forum has grown, shrunk, exploded, expanded, moved, and imploded. I have made lifelong friends through the various incarnations of the original Jane Magazine message board. Relationships I wouldn't have found had the internet not brought us together.

In my 20s I spent countless hours on this string of message boards meeting people I otherwise wouldn't have had cause to know. We've grown up. Gotten married. Had babies. We have helped each other through break-ups, family deaths, job dilemmas, and lots and lots of silly nonsense. And we lost two people in the last year... life passing before comprehension.

Oral Exam

I bought a new toothbrush the other day. I'm not very discerning when it comes to a toothbrush. It must adhere to the following criteria:

1. Be Soft. My dentist says Medium bristles are bad for your gums.

2. Not have cartoons on it. I'm a grown up, dammit.

3. Be unused. I have zero tolerance for used toothbrushes when I'm in the market for new. Zero.

Burning Mouth

I've had many distracting things keep me from blogging regularly since I started:

• Work
• Friends
• Travel
• Awesome games on my phone
• Work
• Laziness
• Cats

The compromise is that she's on my gut... otherwise she
insists on being on the keyboard. Even harder to type that way. 

Lately, it's been macarons.

Secrets

I just wanted you to see my TARDIS tea diffuser, I use it
with pride behind closed doors

Sex and the City had an episode about Secret Single Behavior. Things they did that they were ashamed of and missed doing once they were living with their significant other. I haven't lived with someone for nearly 13 years. That's... well, that's a teenager is what that is.

Here are things I do because I think no one is watching even though some of these are in public:

1. When I walk by a window I check myself out. I like to believe people think I'm just looking THROUGH the window, but what I want to know is if I look fat or how my ass looks in these pants. But I truly believe people think I'm just window shopping.

Buy Two, Get One Free

It started off like any other week. Monday morning I was depressed about being in the office. By Tuesday I'd gotten into my groove. Wednesday I had to take Emma in for a teeth cleaning and extraction and I'd conned my real estate agent into coming down to look at a property with me that I wasn't really interested in.

In Real Estate, like in online dating, if there are no pictures, I won't even open the listing. It's not that I'm superficial, but if there aren't pictures, I feel like there's something that's being hidden. Like a lack of teeth. Or signs of a meth related explosion.

Origin Stories

I went to see Thor: The Dark World the weekend it came out because I need reasons to leave the house when there's work looming. The original Thor (in the current reboot) was kind of boring because they spent SO much time on the origin story that you didn't get much meat. (FYI: I loved the Dark World for it's delicious meaty center... aka Loki.)

Plus, I was annoyed by the Jane-and-Thor-love-at-4-hours-of-knowing-each-other, MFEO bullshit. At 36.5 (I'm counting half years again), and still very very single, I find this obnoxious and lacking in realism. I'll believe in semi-gods of Thunder coming from the sky with giant hammers, but love at first site? Ridic and insulting to my intelligence.

Can you imagine them at a dinner party? "So how'd you guys meet?" "Well, my father took my hammer, banished me to earth, and while there I met this tiny little scientist with whom I fell madly in love.  And while I vowed to return I got distracted by alien invasions and whatnot. When I did come back like 2 years later she was still single and I took her to meet my parents who weren't impressed. Also, it's pretty much her fault that a bunch of people died. No big." 

What the fuck, Charlie Brown?

So I was settling down to paint by numbers and enjoy a bourbon spiked cider when I stumbled upon a Charlie Brown special on the Family Channel. It's the one where Charlie Brown goes to the national Spelling Bee.

What the fuck is wrong with Charles Schulz? I mean, this cartoon is terrible. These children are terrible! Everything is always terrible!

1. Why is this kid essentially bald? I mean, he's got to be somewhere between 8 and 10, right? Why is he bald? Does he have alopecia? Alopecia isn't funny. I guess it's a little funny to say.

2. What the hell is wrong with Lucy? Why is she such a cunt? I mean, Charlie Brown is boarding a bus to the national Spelling Bee and she's all "Don't fuck it up, loser!" Or she said "don't mess up," but it was still really shitty. And what's with the football thing?

The incredible shrinking women

From http://transcendboundaries.tumblr.com

I graduated from college with a minor in Women's Studies and worked in the Women's Studies office for two years as part of the Work Study program. (My mom was worried I wouldn't be able to get a job because my resume would scream "FEMINIST".) Probably needless to say, I left college incredibly riled up and jaded about the state of the world for women. Up with women. Down with the oppressive man. DOWN, I SAY!

Sowing Oats

My dad’s folk/rock/blues/bluegrass cover band had a gig last night so I didn’t take my normal highway to highway to concrete jungle leaving the office. The road between my office and the venue is along a back road that used to connect two very far away towns and now just connects one suburb to another. Along this road there are the remnants of old ranches, farms, and homes that used to be in the middle of nowhere and are now just out of place in their not-quite-somewhereness.

When I drive by ranches (places with horses = ranch), I always wish I was a farmer. Someone who tills the soil. Feeds some chickens. Sows some oats.

And now I want to learn to ride a horse. And become an equestrian.

It must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

It's my blogiversary. Or it was on the 5th. The fact that I wrote "blogiversary" makes me angry. Why did you let me write that?

In this anniversary special, I'll just link back to my favorite posts of the last year so all your clicking around makes my view count look better and I can feel good about myself.

Or, I'll just tell you that aside from my West Nile Virus (unconfirmed although still suspected) I've been blue this week. Just a general malaise that has only gotten worse as this rather mediocre week has progressed.

Severely Mild Cause for Alarm

I have West Nile Virus.

Or so I thought at 6:30 a.m. this morning when I started planning my own eulogy and what it would be like to be admitted to the hospital. Death and hospital admittance both experiences I have thus far not experienced personally (*knock on wood*).

What I do have is a mosquito in the house with a fucked up sense of humor and a severely mild case of hypochondria. (I have the hypochondria. I don't know if the mosquito is also crazy.)

BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL...

The "k" on my laptop is failing. I'm sure it's just gummed up with years of eating food over my laptop and the cats sleeping on the keyboard. One time, 4 computers ago, I spilled soda on the keyboard and I lost the "d" key. I would find a "d" somewhere on a page and then just copy and paste it whenever I needed it in a sentence. It's amazing how fast your brain trains to do ctrl-v instead of "d" when you get moving. Also, spellcheck helps. And learning words without a "d" in them... That's actually really hard.

Eyes Wide Open

Dear Bruno, 
I didn't know I knew you until I was forced to Google "you tossed it in the trash" because my stupid fitness instructor keeps playing your song while we cool down and it's catchy. The trash part.  I like when people throw stuff away... 
As your target audience likely isn't as savvy as I about matters of the heart (being that they're all 12 year olds), I wanted to make clear some concerns I had since you are, in fact, not 12.

I get it. It looks a little like an anatomically
correct heart... and a grenade. Neat. 

You are, actually, almost 28 years old. The internet told me so. That means you released this song when you were 26. Now that I'm 36 I can see the difference in how love looks between 26 and 36, but unless you're 16 this whole thing is just weird. 

Easy come, easy go, that's just how you liveOh, take, take, take it all but you never giveShould've known you was trouble from the first kissHad your eyes wide open, why were they open?

Financial Planning

I apologize in advance...

I wore some old yoga pants/shorts on my jog tonight and they kept falling down because the elastic is kind of shot. Also, yoga pants aren't running pants. At one point, as I was struggling to just grab the shorts and not the underwear underneath (thus giving myself a wedgie if unsuccessful in the separation), I realized how incredibly unsexy I must look. Cell phone protruding from my sports bra. Red faced. Sweat pouring (it was really humid today). Face scrunched into some weird clenched teeth, squinty eyed frenzy to pull my pants up and over my belly... which I'd been trying to suck in on the run because, unlike my good yoga/running shorts, these did NOT hold in the flopping lower belly.

I then thought about all the other times when people probably don't realize how unattractive they are. Like yawning. For god's sake, People, cover your mouth and nose because your nostrils flare, your lips curl up into some weird look of horror and your eyes start to look like bees are flying at them.

La La Love You: An Introspective

I discovered the Pixies in 1992. And by "discovered" I mean that one of my cooler friends, Kelly, introduced me to them and I fell in love. The third CD I ever purchased was was "Come on Pilgrim." (The first CD I ever owned was Rico Suave. Shut. Up.)

They broke up in 1993.

Getting a life

My friend posted this on my wall on Facebook. It came from here. I don't know where they got it. The point is not that I don't know who the genious is who made this (either the meme or the sweater).... wait, the point IS the cat in a sweater.

Nobody is gonna rain on my parade. Except me.

Yesterday:

And I'm full of grand declarations of love for the world.

Today: 

It goes "ding" when there's stuff

When the 10th Doctor gets super excited about something I want to hump his leg. I don't know why someone else's excitement gets me going, but it does. WC talking about Tough Mudder? I want him to not run through fields of live electrical wires, but he gets so excited that all I can say is "RUN, MY FRIEND! RUN!"

So here's what I'm excited about in no particular order: