Friday, June 30, 2006

Dear little mosquito,

I understand that it is your lot in life to suck blood for a living (much like lawyers). It isn’t your fault (unlike lawyers, who have a choice). However, I have one small request… If you’re going to suck my blood, fucking bite me already and be done with it, and quit the buzzing around my ear all night!

What is it about the frequency of a mosquito’s wings that just stays with you? I keep thinking I hear it… but maybe it isn’t really there. It isn’t until the damn thing does another little fly-by that you realize you weren’t hearing the the hum after all, it was in your mind. I end up throwing the blanket over my head to make it stop… which doesn’t really work for me when it’s 85 degrees. And I can’t exactly turn on the light and hunt it down because first of all the light blinds me, and when I finally adjust to the light the damn thing has disappeared like a roach.

Damn you mosquito. Go find a lawyer to annoy.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Wiki-meme-a

I knew this would happen. I did a meme, tagged others to do it, and now I’m getting tagged again. Stephanie decided to exact calculating and retaliatory revenge return the favor by tagging me back for this new meme. This one is kinda different though, so I’ll be a sport and do it. What I’m supposed to do is go to Wikipedia and look up my birthday (by putting my birth month and day in the Search box), then list the events and other things of note, specifically…

• List three events that happened on your birthday.
• List two important birthdays and one interesting death.
• One holiday or observance (if any).

So wheeeee here we go…

Events:
1. 2006 - At least 1 million union members, students and unemployed take to the streets in France in protest at the government’s proposed First Employment Contract law.  (*gasp* They might actually have to work for a living!)
2. 2005 - The 2005 Sumatran earthquake rocks Indonesia, and at magnitude 8.7 is the second strongest earthquake since 1960. (Glad this wasn’t in Califonia.)
3. 1979 - In Pennsylvania, a pump in the reactor cooling system fails at Three Mile Island, resulting in the evaporation of some contaminated water causing a nuclear meltdown. (Ah yes, my birthday is the anniversary of 3-Mile Island, good times y’all.)

Birthdays:
1. Reba McEntyre
2. Julia Stiles

Death:
1. Virginia Woolf

Holiday or Observance:
It’s, um, Teacher’s Day in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Yay. Send me chocolate. Thank you.

So now we get to the tagging part. This is where I say nuh-uh. I only tagged people in the previous one as a celebration of being tagged for the first time ever. The tag stops here. If you like this thing, you can take it and do it yourself. It’s a free country. And if it isn’t free where you are, well, I won’t tell.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Memory... all alone in the moonlight...

Come on, you know it, sing with me! Music is an integral part of our lives. If something important was happening in your life, there was most likely some kind of music playing in the background. Just like how smells can trigger a memory, so can certain songs. It doesn’t even have to be anything monumental, like a wedding song. It could easily be some everyday thing that somehow got associated with a song.

For me, every time I hear “Break Out” by Swingout Sister I am immediately reminded of the school project I was working on. It was some group craft project. I was in a group of slackers except for this one other girl. So she came to my house and we worked on it ourselves. Screw the others. We were building something out of sugar cubes. I can’t quite remember exactly what we were building, or why we even chose to use sugar cubes. All I remember is that it was quite heavy when we were done. Whenever I hear that song on the radio, I think of a heavy pile of sugar cubes. And glue.

What songs trigger specific memories for you?

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

I would've made an awesome Mad Max movie character

On my way to work, as I leave my neighborhood, I often see this little girl walking to school. I guess we both leave around the same time. She’s super skinny, wears glasses, is always alone, and always walks with her head down. It kinda gives the impression that she isn’t happy with who she is.

It reminded me of my childhood.  I don’t think I became unhappy with who I was until about 6th grade. You know, when you start becoming more aware of social stuff. I think I walked around a lot with my head down too, but not because of the esteem issues. As long as I could remember I always walked to school looking down because I was always looking for things to salvage, like a scavenger. I was attracted to shiny objects like a packrat. I would pick up M&Ms (and eat them), pennies, scarred Hot Wheels cars, broken action figures… anything that my little mind could find a use for, I would pick it up.

Pencil fighting was huge. The boys would buy packs of cool-looking pencils with all sorts of neat patterns on them and smash them against opponents’ pencils. There were shattered pencils everywhere. I would retrieve the ends with the eraser still on them and re-sharpen them, adding them to my little collection of pencil stubs. I used them too. I was proud of them. On rare occasions I would find an entire cool pencil just laying on the ground, unsharpened and unused. I would hoard those. I think I still have a few (with erasers as hard as plastic now).

I would’ve made for an awesome character in one of the Mad Max movies. The funny little scavenger person, adorned with all sorts of necklaces made of polished soda can tabs and random teeth… always dirty because I’m always digging through trash… outfits that never match… I can totally picture it.

So now I wonder, is this little girl I keep seeing really sad, or is she just looking for things to scavenge on the ground?

Monday, June 26, 2006

What made me buy this?

Ever since I discovered MP3s, I’ve all but ignored my store-bought CDs. I still have about 100 that are probably worth about a dollar each now. (Though if I were to sell them all, I’d have a 100 bucks!) The other day I was feeling like listening to something mellow, and I wanted to dig through my neglected CD storage thing.

After some brief perusal I pulled out Lisa Loeb’s Fireworks album. I recalled she had this sweet little voice and the songs were either mellow or catchy. So I popped it into the CD player and started to wash dishes. The first song was as I remembered. The rest of it… well, let’s just say they weren’t. What a bunch of depressing, whiny, please-kill-me-now drivel. Why did I buy this? Was I that depressed? Yes I was single and lonely at the time… but was I that sad?

I’ve had this CD listed on Half.com to sell for about 3 years now. It’s priced at $1 and nobody wants it. Gee, I wonder why.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

PMS is nobody's friend

Ever have one of those days where everything you do and everything say just falls flat? You didn’t make the coffee strong enough, your jokes don’t incite a single smile, and your suggestions are found annoying. Multiply this by the fact that your sweetheart is battling the ugly PMS beast and you have yourselves quite an uncomfortable place to be in.

On the bright side she said that the french toast this morning was the best I’ve ever made! I’ll just cling to that as I walk wide circles around her today.

Friday, June 23, 2006

Scatterbrain

I like to think of myself as a person who keeps her promises. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it. However, on occasion, I’ve been known to not follow through. As much as I hate breaking promises, it happens sometimes. And never intentionally. It’s always for the lamest possible reason: I forgot.

Two weeks ago when I was trying to decide on a renter, I went with Stephanie. It was a tough decision between her and one other. So after choosing hers, I promised the other I would rent to them when it was available again.

I didn’t. I totally forgot. I rented to the first blog that bid. Afterwards I realized what I’d done and again said, “I’ll email you when it’s available again!” I had the best of intentions, really I did. Unfortunately I’m so scatterbrained that it would’ve been a miracle if I’d actually remembered. I could never be any kind of corporate executive. I’d forget everything and drive the company into the ground. So yeah, yesterday my blog was up for bid again and I did not even think about notifying as promised.

Lucky for me two wrongs made a right. After putting up my blog for bid I forgot to check later that night to see what bids I had. So this morning I see that Paranoia and Other Pleasant Things placed a bid! I saw it and suddenly thought, “Oh! I was supposed to email her!! Doh I forgot again...” She got in despite my scatterbrained efforts. Reward her by paying her a visit. I like her writing and there are usually interesting tales to read about. It’s a quick trip to Romania that won’t cost you a dime!

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Irrational Fears

Irrational fears are weird. There’s usually no personal history to have caused them and no real reason behind them. (That’s why they’re irrational. Reason has nothing to do with it.) Tyra Banks admitted to having an intense fear of dolphins. Dolphins? But… but they’re so cute! They’re not eating machines like sharks. She couldn’t explain why, she was just terrified of them. She had this other freak on her show- okay that’s not nice at all. These people can’t help it. Let me start again… she had this other person on her show who had an irrational fear of pennies. Not dimes. Not quarters. Pennies. I don’t know what to say. It’s bizarre.

I can only think of two irrational fears that I have. One is fairly common… spiders. I won’t kill them on sight because, well, I’m a tree-huggin’ hippy and I don’t like to kill anything. I can even have the presence of mind to use a cup and a piece of paper to scoop up the spider and take it outside. But I CANNOT have one of them things crawling on me. I can calmly hold a jar with a spider inside, but as soon as he gets on me I’m flailing and brushing myself wildly, frantic to get the thing off.

The other one is seaweed, the really long ones. I discovered this fear one day as I was snorkeling around a bay. I paddled around, fascinated by fish and rock formations. Then I saw this large patch of enormously long seaweed, growing out of the ground. I was kind of far from it, maybe 50 feet away. I started to breath hard, for no apparent reason. Almost like hyperventilating. I paddled farther away from it and my breathing went back to normal. I did not want to be close to that seaweed. It was so weird.

What kind of irrational fears do you guys have?

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

They still make Tab soda?

At the office we have communal refrigerators in the lunchroom. As I was putting my leftovers in there, I caught sight of a can of Tab in there. Tab? They still make that shit? I looked closer and noticed that the label said “Energy” on it and the can itself was shaped like a Red Bull can. I haven’t seen tab in decades, yet here it is, resurfaced in its new form.

In a ziploc bag. Um, why? To keep the germs off, I guess? This person must also spray Lysol on the lip, just in case, before opening it up and drinking from it. I know there are a lot of germaphobes out there, including many of you readers. But some of the things they do are just weird.

This Tab sighting reminds me of a little story from my childhood. We were on some family trip. My younger sister (only 1.5 year difference) and I were laying out in the back of the Pinto station wagon (can you picture it? Yeah, lovely. I’ll have to tell you more about it sometime.) Our mom passed a can of Tab back to us. I took one sip and said, “Eww! This tastes so gross, here!” My sister took the can, sipped it, and sputtered with distate as well.

Her: That is gross. Here, you take it.
Me: I don’t want it, you drink it.
Her: *takes another little sip* No, it’s yucky. I don’t want it.
Me: Drink it.
Her: But-
Me: Drink it!

Yeah I was a bully. I’m not proud of it. I can’t remember now what happened to the icky can of Tab soda. My mom’s biggest peeve in the whole frickin world is to waste food. It didn’t matter if it didn’t taste like food. We likely gave the can back to her. At least I hope so. That was some nasty shit.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Is it stinginess or just resistance to change?

I’ve been using the same cell phone for the last 3 years. The last time I upgraded it was only because I had dropped my phone one too many times and it was starting to act a little wonky. Is this unusual? How often to people change phones anyway? When something works for me and does everything I need it to do, I’m satisfied with it. I won’t want to exchange it for another no matter what newfangled thing is on the market.

Oddly enough, the same goes for my home computer. As long as it’s able to do everything I need it to do, I have no desire to upgrade to the latest greatest model, even if it will mean faster speeds. I don’t like rocking the boat when everything is working great. Why get something newer when the older thing is still doing its job? I can’t tell if it’s because I’m a tightwad who won’t spend money unless I absolutely have to, or if I just hate dealing with change. Could be either, could be both.

How often do you change your household technology?

Monday, June 19, 2006

What is it about guys and cars?

One of my coworkers is your typical guy, he loves cars. He could ramble all day long about cars if you let him. Now, I can appreciate classic lines and impressive performance as much as the next guy, but car buffs like him… it’s a bit much. Just this morning he spent 20 minutes yammering about cars with another coworker. It sounded a lot like this to me:

I saw this article about blah blah blah, a lot like your Mustang. Oh yeah? Blah blah blah classic blah power blah torque. Porsche blah blah hugs the road blah blah suspension. Blah blah torque blah reliable blah blah blah funny. Ferraris and blah blah blah the Japanese blah blah research blah don’t get it. Blah blah engine blah blah Mustangs blah good old American blah.

This went on for 20 whole minutes. What is this fascination with muscle cars? They’re old clunkers that use twice as much gas as as new cars, what’s so great about ‘em? To each his own I guess. I just don’t get it.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Sometimes I'm good for something

I finally got around to throwing a few things out of the fridge that were “past due”. By the way that mystery liquid was chicken stock, or beef stock, or some kinda stock. Not livestock, I know that. It’s in the garbage now. In the crisper (the veggie drawer) there was this huge leek that was beginning to rot. (If you’re not sure what that is, a leek is kind of like a mutant green onion.) It was slimy and gross, and one of the largest leeks I’d ever seen.

Then an idea popped into my head. My sweety was cleaning the house at the time, so I headed in her direction holding the green-turning-brown vegetable (with gloves of course, ew). Before reaching her I said loudly, “Sweety, we have a huge nasty leek in the house!”

“What?? What leak? Where?” she demanded and rounded the corner. That’s when she saw me holding the rotting stalk of grossness. She rolled her eyes and went wordlessly back to sweeping. But I saw that beautiful smile.

Mission accomplished.

Friday, June 16, 2006

5 Things

Would you believe that in the half year I’ve been blogging, today is the first time I got tagged? For anything? I’m not peeved or anything, because I’m not really into these tagging things. It’s the principle of the thing, you know? Am I invisible?? Heh, I’d better quit whining because people are going to start crawling out of the woodwork trying to tag me with weird shit. Some of them I don’t mind because it’s actually asking for information that might be of interest. And if you ever tag me with something like “List 50 things you did yesterday,” really, don’t hold your breath waiting for me to answer. I’ve got better things to blog about.

So anyway, Vixen snuck up behind me and said, “Oh by the way, I tagged you.” I was both elated and annoyed. I was thrilled that somebody picked me for something (believe me, years of being one of the last kids picked for a team does this to you.) Then I was mildly annoyed because, oh man, what if it’s one of the boring ones?? Lucky for all of us it isn’t too bad. Maybe you’ll learn something.

5 things in my refrigerator:
1. A bottle of cheap nasty Ranch dressing, for guests
2. A bottle of more expensive not-so-nasty Ranch dressing, for me (But I’ll be making my own soon now that I know the secret!)
3. A bag snap peas that really need to get used because they’re turning colors
4. Organic soy milk
5. A container of mysterious liquid that needs to be opened and identified. I’m scared.

5 things in my closet:
1. The original box that my Xbox came in. For some reason I like to keep those things for moviing or when I want to sell the thing.
2. My shoes, but it’s only a tiny fraction of the number of shoes that my sweety has, heh.
3. A box of “desk stuff” from when we moved that never got unpacked because we had to switch to a much tinier desk for the computer.
4. A box of hats that I hardly wear because I look weird in hats.
5. A comforter that isn’t really mine but it had noplace else to go.

5 things in my purse:
1. A tiny deck of playing cards that I got from Las Vegas. They’ve actually come in handy on multiple occasions.
2. A dragon torch lighter. I don’t use it often, but it’s impressive to light birthday cakes with it!
3. An inhaler, because I’m an asthmatic geek who occasionally needs it when laughing too hard.
4. A checkbook for those few retarded places that won’t take ATM or credit.
5. Some crushed, faded, unidentifiable pieces of paper at the bottom - likely never-thrown-away receipts.

5 things in my car:
1. A jumper cable for helping damsels (and dudes) in distress
2. A small pile of papers that for some reason I haven’t removed because I’m afraid of losing them, yet I don’t really need them. Weirdo.
3. A pair of sneakers for lunchtime walking at the office
4. A pair of nasty old sunglasses in the glove compartment for when I forget to bring my cool ones
5. ME! (Well, maybe now right now.)

5 people that get tagged:
I fully don’t expect anyone to actually follow through with the tagging thing. Normally I wouldn’t bother because I don’t want to “burden” anyone with it. However since it’s my first time being tagged ever, I’ll celebrate the occasion by dooming others to my fate. Nyaahahahahaaa! (And you’d better not get offended if you’re not one of the five. I’m trying to pick people who might possibly have some inclination to do it. Doesn’t mean I don’t like ya!)
1. Mar
2. Zoe
3. Maggie
4. Sarah
5. Stephanie

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Giving Advice

A few people have told me that I seem wise for my years. I don’t know if that’s true or not, because nobody ever comes to me for advice. Therefore I’m not sure how they came to this conclusion, maybe from some of the things I write? I guess this is a good thing because, well, the pressure of giving someone good advice can be a little uncomfortable. I could so easily be wrong. But in the end it’s only your opinion, right? Can opinions be wrong? I dunno, I guess it doesn’t really matter since no one asks me for advcie anyway.

Advice columns make for some interesting reading though, don’t they? Take Consult A Goddess for example. All sorts of problems (often makes you feel better about your life) and all sorts of answers. I like the different viewpoints people have and how they approach things. Good stuff!

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Rocking out

I was at a stoplight on my way to work this morning, waiting for the light to turn green. I tend to look around during the longer lights (I hate doing nothing, just waiting.) I saw this lady in her little Rav4, totally rockin’ out. I couldn’t hear the music, but it must’ve been one of her favorites because she was full on waving her arms and swinging her head around. It made me smile. I like seeing people rock out in their cars. It means they’re happy, and for some reason, that makes me happy too.

Right at the moment that I happened to glance in her direction, she had turned towards me and saw me. Even though I was smiling and totally not staring (we both happened to glance at each other by accident), she stopped. She was no longer belly dancing in her car, or whatever she was doing. I was thinking, “Aw, I didn’t mean to spoil her fun.” Then again I’m the same way.

Sometimes I like to rock out in my car too (in my usual white-girl-pretending-to-have-soul manner. Even though I’m only half white, my other half doesn’t help much.) However if I see someone watching me I’ll stop, or at least tone it down. It’s that whole self-conscious thing. Often if I feel like I really wanna rock out because I’m in a super good mood, I’ll do it without looking around. At stop lights I’ll close my eyes and just feel the music and the movement. If I don’t know people are laughing at me, I won’t care. But I really need to focus because I’m constantly thinking, “Are people looking in my direction? Hmm… am I any good?” It’s bizarre.

What are you like when you’re in a great mood in your car with good music?

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