Actual Conversation No. 47

Today I had a massage. A looonnnngggg massage.

Now, I really, really do NOT like to be touched - unless you mean it.

I'm not a hugger, not a pat-on-the-backer, practically homicidal when someone invades my personal space.

But DAMN I needed a massage. My shoulders have been hunched up around my ears for two weeks.

So I booked some time with a lovely, effeminate - but strong - boy at the local day spa. Back in December this same boy 'serviced' me during our Annual Anniversary Couples Massage.

Today he spends an hour on my shoulders - all forearms and elbows, nearly making me cry.
In a good way.

But you know me, I can't relax - it is a physical impossibility. So I chatter away the whole time, "Who is easier to work on, men or women?" "Is it more difficult for you to work on fat people?" "Don't you get really tired by the end of the day? Should I have made an earlier appointment?"

Yada. Yada. Yada.

So he finishes with my back and has me flip over. As I'm doing so I ask, "So am I left handed or right handed?" Thinking it is obvious based on which side has more knots.

He responds, "You know, I can't really tell. You could be left-handed but sleep on your right side. Or you could be right-handed but cradle the phone between your left ear and shoulder. It's hard to say."

I acknowledge that I'd never thought of that - he makes an excellent point.

Oh, but he doesn't stop there. He continues:

"So, you know, as far as I can tell, you really don't have a good side."

To which I HAD to respond:

"Oh, honey, you aren't the first man to tell me he can't find my good side."

He didn't say much after that.

Do you think he'll remember me when I go back next month? Bless him.

Hitler's Response to the iPad

Friggin' Brilliant.

USS Hearth and Home

That, kids, is our new multi-multi-thousand dollar furnace.

And it is HUGE.

I know it is difficult to get perspective from a photo, but look to the left... that's a six-foot fence. The top of the unit sits a full foot above the center board, three feet off the ground.

So, you know the heat went out a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, the weather warmed up at the same time and Hub was wishin' and hopin' that even though he knows it's only January, maybe spring is just around the corner?

No such luck. "They" are forecasting ice, snow, blah, blah for the weekend. Also, it's pretty damn cold in here in the mornings and I'm tired of having to elbow cats out of the way to huddle in front of the fireplace.

When I got home last night, the house smelled...weird. Like an old car. WTF?

Hub noticed me sniffing around and said, "That's oil burning off the coil...of our new furnace."

WHEEE!!!!

I ran outside, behind Hub, and knew something was askew (a la Lewis Black) when he stopped me at the gate, got serious and said, "I have to warn you - it's a battleship."

A battleship?

And, viola. As you can see, above, it is indeed a battleship. Destroyer class. Practically an aircraft carrier.

Holy How Do You Hide It?, Batman.

We thought our old unit was big. Pish. That was friggin' petite compared to this bad boy. And our house is only 1,100 square feet! But, I guess when you need an electric/gas heat/air combo, this is what you get.

A battleship.

It's going to take a LOT of azalea bushes to dress up that thing.

Maybe I should paint it pink - like Operation Petticoat?

Some things never change...

Normally, parents raise their children and go through specific stages. Spread three kids out over 20 years and...there's no rhyme or reason to anything.

But some things stay the same. That would be men and boys.

We're driving into town this morning, the 14-year-old Nice Kid in the front seat and the nine-year-old Not Nice Kid in the back. We pass a school bus.

The Not Nice Kid: "Nice Kid, that boy was looking at you like you were cute."

The Nice Kid: "Lurker."

TNNK: "Yeah. He flipped his hair back and then smoothed it down with his hand. You know, like boy birds fluff up their tails."

It's a damn good thing there are ditches on each side of the road...to keep you from running off into the river when you're laughing too hard to see ;)

Just a passing thought...

...culled from all the OTHER passing thoughts that accumulate while I'm driving with the idiots in the morning:

After I'm gone, should you EVER have the urge to memorialize/honor/remember me with a sticker on the windshield of a car?

Let it pass. If you don't, I will SO come back and haunt your ass to hell.

I'm just sayin'.

How do they get around?

These youngsters running the world, who CAN'T be old enough to drive? They're everywhere...government offices, grocery stores, teaching my kids.

I went in to buy facial cleanser...this time of year is rough on over-40 skin. It's a BITCH if you're 53. The young thing behind the counter started her spiel and I explained...I just need the regular cleanser. True to her calling, she began extolling the virtues of "exfoliating." I explained that I am a firm believer in the trusty Buf-Puf. Have been for 40 years. Doing fine, thank-you.

And she looked at me...in my 53-year-old skin and my baggy shirt and my men's jeans and my worn wedding band and, in all seriousness, explained, "We don't recommend Buf-Puf. It can cause break-outs. The bacteria, you know."

I just stood there and looked at her, deadpan. Breakouts? Breakouts? You mean like...ZITS?

She stared back for a minute, and then must have realized that...umm...breakouts...zits...bacteria...umm...well...wrinkles...high blood pressure...ZITS?

Finally, I just burst out laughing. "Honey," I said, "I've never had a zit in my life and the odds of my getting one now are...slim to none. Sure, there's adult-onset acne but...I'm pretty much adult-onsetted. Looks like I dodged that bullet, too."

Zits. I have a husband hopping in and out of the hospital, a dead dog, a spider infestation and a sink full of dirty dishes and now...OMG!! It's the zit fairy.

Good thing Short Stuff was there to warn me...you never know what life-altering threat is lurking around the corner ;)

Friday Funny

Filter Fail - Again

I've finally identified my purpose in life.

My gift.

The reason for my carbon footprint.

I make everyone else feel better about themselves.

Unlike most people, I think things...and before I know it, they're flying out of my mouth. Most adults can control that shit.

Aside: Hub disclosed today that I talked back to the screen during the ENTIRE Avatar movie. Now, I know I talk back to my laptop monitor and the TV at home, but I didn't realize I do it in public. Yeah, apparently I have huge self-awareness issues on top of Filter Failure.

So tonight Hub takes me out for a nice dinner. Like a date. And on the way home, we stop for lattes.

Now, it's a given that - since we keep separate money - when one pays for dinner the other pays for coffees. That's just the way we roll.

So we walk into our local painfully hip, overrun-with-and-run-by university students, and the woolly bearded guy in flannel offers to take our order. Since I'm paying, I get to do the ordering. So I look at Hub and ask:

"Do I want what I think you want?" Meaning coffee. TOTALLY meaning coffee. A triple-shot decaf soy latte.

But he looks at me - like *looks* at me for a fraction of a second and before I know it, I'm saying - out loud:

"If you want what I think you want we'll have to go home."

Woolly Flannel Guy is stunned. Actually sitting on his bar stool, behind the cash, with his mouth hanging open.

Gypsy Dress Girl is standing beside him, ready to exploding-fist-bump me.

So WFG - out of nowhere...most random non sequitur ever - says, "We have cranberry juice."

EEEWWWW!!! Right? Totally worse than what I said.

Except that he has no idea what he said. Cranberry juice means nothing to boys. He apparently picked a cold beverage at random, trying to make a "maybe you'd like a cold drink in lieu of a cold shower" joke.

Gypsy Dress Girl and I look at each other and DIE laughing. Hub doesn't have a clue WFG is still stunned but now equally confused. And Gypsy and I - Double Jinx - say in unison, "Okay, start over" - complete with the Mr. Miyogi wax-on, wax-off jazz hands gesture.

THAT got me the exploding fist bump.

Hub actually thought what I said was funny, loathe as he was to admit it at first, because he's always saying that I'm like a guy when it comes to the hanky-panky and now here I am in public, proving his point.

He was even a tad smug about it.

Woolly Flannel Guy? Totally did not make eye contact when he handed me my latte.

Gypsy Dress Girl? Definitely taking WFG home with her tonight.

My filter loss is WFG's gain. So, yeah, maybe this is my special purpose?

Do YOU feel a little bit better about whatever stupid thing you did today?

Yeah? Well, you're welcome. Feel free to visit whenever you need a little self-esteem boost.

God knows we'll be here. Saying and doing and pointing out stupid shit.

When Bad Things Happen

...to questionable people.

Shit happens.

Hub and I got a pretty good refund on our taxes last year, and were planning to use that money to finish the kitchen project.

You remember the kitchen project, right? Hell, we started it so long ago that I can't even find the old post.

Anyway, Kitchen Remodel 2007, celebrated its second birthday LAST OCTOBER - and it still isn't finished. For various and myriad reasons.

So I finally convinced Hub to pay somebody the hell ELSE to finish this project. And he relented. And I rejoiced. I may have shed a tear or two. I made plans. I was excited.

Until Sunday. When our gas heat failed to click on.

Toothless HVAC guy shows up today and points out a massive crack in the flux capacitor or whatever the hell it is in the heating thingy that gets hot. It turns out that it is actually illegal to run a furnace with a gaping hole in it. I said, "It's just a flesh wound." Toothless guy stared. So we turned off the heat.

It also turns out that, when the heat was running? It was sucking carbon monoxide back into the house.

Well THAT explains a hell of a lot. The dreams, the groggies, the forgetfulness - everything I've attributed to either hereditary mental illness or pre-pre-pre-menopause can ACTUALLY be blamed on the furnace.

The other bad thing that happened today...and I can't decide whether it's worse... is that I have Cracklin' Rosie stuck in my head. Meanwhile, as I type, Hub is sitting beside me on the couch singing I Write the Songs to try to help me purge the ear worm.

Trying to help me. By replacing Neil Diamond with Barry Manilow. I don't know whether to kiss him or leave home.

An obituary...

My dog died today.

Once upon a time, I set a large pot of grease on fire on the stovetop. After I got the baby out of the house, I came back in to throw the breaker. The dog came in after me, and we ended up pulling each other out.

He slept on the floor on my side of the bed every night of his indoor life.

This sucks.

Part II of The Rare & Elusive Meme...

The last ten days have involved a Brown Recluse Spider bite (The Nice Kid), which involves daily trips for IV antibiotics; The Big Boy's VERY impressive impression of a heart attack involving a hospital stay in a foreign city; MY subsequent blood pressure issues which did NOT include a hospital stay because I DON'T HAVE THE TIME; a hormone pellet in my butt; and The Not Nice Kid's 101 fever, with which we're still dealing. When it rains?

Oh. I don't have an iPod.

The Rare and Elusive Meme

First of all, the Spammers have descended and as a result I had to remove the last post.

I don't know how they found us, but I suspect that somewhere in China a geek working the graveyard shift at a remote data center Googled - before it's too late - the term "fellating" and that opened the floodgates.

So today we are playing it safe, and this cuss-free, innuendo-free, practically Disney-worthy post is about me/us playing along with Fab Boy's iPod meme.

Now, you may have noticed that except on rare occasions this blog is a meme-free zone.

However, 2010 is the third year running that Fab has participated in this meme, and every year I feel like I've learned a bit about him after reading his replies. Which is pretty darn cool. And it's about time we played along, as he did ask very nicely.

Here are the first five randomly selected songs from my iPod. I swear to you that I will not tamper with them by skipping over the truly geeky ones. ::fingers crossed behind my back::

I am nervous.

A drum roll, maestro, please....

1. Counting Crows, Children in Bloom from Recovering the Satellites
Ah, reminds me of good times, back when I was young and carefree and living it up in Florida. Although, honestly that entire decade is a bit blurry. Killed a lot of brain cells following Jimmy Buffet's example of drinking "frozen concoctions" on the beach.

2. Charlotte Church, Dream a Dream from the totally-free-of-charge iTunes Holiday Collection
Great. Nice. So much for my reputation. I do not, I swear to all dieties, listen to Charlotte Church. Unless she's singing on the Catherine Tate Christmas Special.

3. War, Low Rider from my 100% Funk CD
It doesn't matter how many movies feature this song, it always reminds me of Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke. Was this song even on that soundtrack? IMDB's servers are crashed because of the Golden Globes Awards, so I can't look it up....

4. Billy Joel, C'Etait Toi, Glass Houses
The story behind the album: Listening to the radio when I was a tiny child, I heard an Allman Brothers song. Except that when the song ended and the DJ came on, he said it was a Billy Joel song. Sounded right to me - I didn't know Billy Joel or Greg Allman from Scooby Doo.

So the next time I was out with the parental unit, I bought Glass Houses, completely in error. But from that fateful purchase - my first music purchase, ever - was born a love for The Piano Man that remains true to this day. Even through his unnecessarily upbeat, and ridiculously bubble-gummy Christy Brinkley period.

5. YoYo Ma, Wapango from Obrigado Brazil - Live in Concert
What can I say? I love 'Da Ma. Saw him in concert three years ago - wanted to throw my panties, but a bunch of women using walkers rushed, as best they could, the stage and I couldn't get close enough.

FYI - The next two selections from the iTouch were Billy Squire and Jimmy Durante...I am sincerely afraid that I may be suffering from multiple personality disorder.
"No you're not!"

Shut up! Yes I am.

CG1, care to join in the fun?

Time to Clean the Filter

This is definitely NC-17, so, Pariss, stop reading right here.

I'm SERIOUS, young lady.

Stop. STOP.

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I am not bragging, y'all, believe me. This is for your entertainment, only.

The following are things that have actually left my mouth lately:

During a heated post-work discussion with a coworker regarding my regard for the modern incarnations of Doctor Who:

Him - "You're probably one of those people who hates the new Doctor Who."
Me - "I LOVE the new Doctor Who! Well, not the NEW Doctor Who, but that's because he's only 14 years old."
Him - "No, you probably think the 1970s Doctors were the best."
Me - "I'm telling you that I would BLOW David Tennant in the middle of this restaurant. I LOVE THE NEW DOCTOR WHOs!"

The new girl from Graphics was wide-eyed and speechless. Nice. Nicely handled, CG.

After a little, smug, Spicoli-wannabe, punk, stoner at Radio Shack CHASTISED me for buying my last power cord at Best Buy and explained to me like I'm four-years-old that if I'd purchased that cord at RADIO SHACK, and if I'd also purchased the extended warranty, he be replacing it for me at no cost:

"That's a lot of 'ifs', Junior. And just for that, I'm not only not buying the cord here, (turning to speak to the video surveillance camera) I'm never coming back, Douchebags."

At a point during the regular lunch conversation/debate when I'd usually say, "yeah, yeah...if 'ifs' and 'buts' were fruits and nuts, every day would be Christmas," I instead was inspired to say:

"If 'ifs' and 'buts' were dicks and nuts, we'd all be making a hell of a lot more money."

That one even stopped me cold. Jeesh.

Time to take my mouth in for the 40,000 mile filter maintenance, I think.

Completely Incorrect

Yesterday, you'll remember, I dumped on you about my super-scary nightmares.

Aaaand then last night I didn't have one. It seems that collectively you wield some sort of exorcistic powers. Somebody call the Vatican!

Yeay YOU! As a reward for helping me (perception is reality) I'm going to tell you about the completely bizarre and...just plain wrong...dream of last night.

So in the dream, it was MLK Day and members of our town's African-American community were marching down our street. Not like a parade, but like a protest. And they were all wearing beards. Even the women.

And for some reason, Hubster and I were supposed to feed lunch to the participants, so we were off...somewhere...putting together chicken or ham salad (I couldn't tell which) sandwiches. Which, in the spirit of the occasion, I thought should be made using pumpernickel bread.

We got to the last sandwich and we discovered we were out of pump, so Hub wanted to put it on white bread.

I said, "Are you KIDDING? Do you know how offensive it would be to serve a platter full of pumpernickel sandwiches with ONE white sandwich on top?! On a HOLIDAY? To people wearing beards?" Flawless logic, have I. Even in my sleep.

We still hadn't decided what to do, when I woke up.

And THAT is a perfectly lovely, normal dream!

Communication Humor

Ar-ar-ar!!

To Sleep Perchance to Scream

Kids, I'm losing it.

Many of you probably think I've already lost it but, I assure you, the mental melee you've witnessed over the last nearly-three years is perfectly normal.

For me.

Sooo...here's the thing. I have bad dreams. A lot.

Aaaand...they aren't really bad dreams. They're nightmares.
Every. Friggin'. Night. Mares.

Sometimes, when I'm really on my game, I get night terrors, which are absolutely charming. I wake up with all the physical symptoms of actually being terrified.

Poor Hub. YOU try sleeping beside that every night.
:: clean it up boys, that wasn't an invite ::

This is where the mildly humorous portion of my post ends and I actually - maybe for the first time - reach out to all y'all.

So... bad dreams are par for the course when you have an anxiety disorder. Which I do. Which nearly everyone in my family does. It's hereditary.

Let's face it, my maternal great-grandfather - WHO, just for fun, died in an insane asylum - didn't do anyone a favor by passing on these damaged genes.

You'd think that after ::mumble:: years of this abnormality a person would give themselves a good case of hysterical insomnia and avoid sleep.

But not yours truly. I usually fall asleep in .0005 seconds and sleep like the dead. Until, ironically, I dream that I'm dying, at which point I am WIDE awake.

Do I take meds? Seriously? You must be new here. Welcome.

The issue...scratch that. The most recent issue is that said dreams are getting worse. A lot worse. Starting to worry me worse.

I had to contact our good bloggy friend Jen today because she starred in one spectacularly bad dream last night. Which is a first. I usually only nightmare about people I've actually met.

So I'm asking all of you: what do I do? I've changed my evening routine umpteen times: Eat earlier. Eat later. Wine with dinner. No wine with dinner. (PS - that's never the solution). No to red meat and spicy food, yes chamomile tea and yoga...yada yada.

Before I subject myself to medical - or mental - evaluation, does anyone else face this particular challenge? What helps? Anything?

Although, commitment to the ol' Loony Bin is starting to sound pretty good right about now. Because, I seriously need some rest. I wonder if Dziadzia's old bed is free....

Image Credit: http://inobscuro.com/gallery/nightmares-81/

Zombies Rock

Hub and I are probably the last two people on Earth to see Shaun of the Dead, but here we sit watching it, laughing our ever-lovin' asses (arses?) off.

Had NO idea Simon Pegg was in this movie.

Zombies. Simon Pegg. Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now."

"Come and get it! It's a running buffet!"

"Can't we just calm. the. fuck. down?!"

Life. Is. Good.

If this was a test of character?

Well then, I'm just gonna write my name on the top line and turn in my paper.

This NotDrinkingInJanuary thing is...random, at this point. I can't remember why I started doing it (which might have something to do with WHY I do it;) but it doesn't hurt anything and is usually a good idea after a holiday season of excess. Those scales with the fat percentage monitor? Kiss my ass.

This year was no different...for some reason, I just do it. It didn't HURT that I had the kid funk, and Alka Seltzer Cold Plus and bourbon are not complementary. So January 1 I drank all the good bourbon ;) and then January 2, I stopped. No big deal. I drank lots of milk, which I do anyway. Didn't have any food that just SCREAMED for wine. Or a margarita. Or cold beer. Things were good.

And then, ALABAMA FOOTBALL teamed up with SNOW and threw me for a loop. If you're not from this neck of the woods? You have NO IDEA about Alabama football. You also would not BELIEVE what three-and-one-half flakes of snow can do to an economy.

Y'all, it was like God said, "You just THINK you're not declaring the National Championship a state holiday!" And then shut down the planet.

The Alabama Crimson Tide played the Texas Longhorns for the national college football championship and honey, life around here came to a blind, screeching halt. People who'd never been out of the state of Alabama hopped on a plane and flew to Pasadena, CA, to attend the single most-anticipated athletic even in the last decade. No lie. Those of us who didn't go? Had parties at the house of whomever had the biggest/nicest/newest television. Cooked massive quantities of food. And...

Drank.

Obstacle #1.

And then... And then... And THEN... No sign of Jones but then along came the snow. To the best of my memory, (and while that's not saying much I DO remember the last BIG snow; we haven't had more than two inches of snow in 20 years. We have ICE, but) the last big snow was when The Big Kid was in the first grade and she's 29 years old so...you do the math. (Not my job.)

For all practical purposes, the planet shut down. The schools closed. All extracurricular events were cancelled. The doctor's office (The Nice Kid has a brown recluse bite and we were making daily excursions for IV antibiotics) shut down. Everyone rushed out and bought milk and bread. People who don't DRINK milk ran out and bought milk and bread because...you live in Alabama and they mention "snow?" You buy milk and bread. It's like white after Labor Day...it's just the way we do things. And this, the snow, presented...

Obstacle #2.

I'm shut up in the house with The Inmates for HOW long?

Official Snow Days were Thursday and Friday. The Game was Thursday night. Coincidence? HA!!! NOT if you're from Alabama. If you're from Alabama? You KNOW that sitting fourth in line for the throne in heaven is Bear Bryant and He decreed...Holiday.

This is particularly funny because do you know why I can't say "The University of Alabama played...whatever Texas school?" I don't have a clue who the Texas Longhorns are. They could be from Bangkok for all I know. Or care.

So here we sat. The Not Nice Kid got up every two hours all night long Wednesday night, looking for snow. It started around ten in the morning and by lunchtime, we had a decent showing. Nice snowfall by afternoon. Thursday night was The Game; and we partied 'til we were purple. It's now Sunday afternoon and I haven't been out of the house yet and...aside from the 13 scarves and one toboggan I'm crocheting for the basketball team?

There is nothing I want to do.

So...hot toddies. Bloody Marys. Cold beer with smoked pork. Chianti with spaghetti and homemade bread. Cold beer with nothing. White wine with salmon steaks. Cold beer with barbecue. Cold beer with nothing. (Remember I told you...I drank all the bourbon ;)

Come tomorrow, I'll get back on track. I might even clean up my bedroom and get all those clothes off the elliptical trainer and...eyeball it. MIGHT even plug it in. And as soon as I figure out how to power the mini-refrigerator off the elliptical trainer? MAKE THAT THING EARN IT'S KEEP.

I'm just sayin'.

Parody of the Year

To quote a modern-day prophet, "I don't care who you are, that's funny right there."

Courtesy of frequent commenter, Baby Boy.

Say Kibbe!

Lunch yesterday was surreal.

Well, the food itself wasn't surreal...it was very real - chicken curry, saag paneer, naan...but the diners at my fave Indian restaurant looked like they'd just jumped out of a video game.

So we walk in, and standing at the buffet are guys in camouflage uniforms.

Nothing new there. Huntsville is home to a huge military installation...hot guys in uniform are just a part of the landscape.

Except that these guys weren't hot. And their unis weren't...right. The cammo was weird.

And when one of them turned around, his name patch was in Arabic.

"Um, do you see the guys in line? What's up with them? Dozens of Arab soldiers?" asked I.

"They have UAE patches on their right arms - you can't see them from there. They're friendlies" says Friend.

"Well, I figured they're friendlies. I doubt they'd be heaping chicken tikka onto their plates quite so casually if this was their last meal before taking us all out in a blaze of gunfire."

"The aren't armed."

"Shut up."

:: I chewed thoughtfully on a piece of naan::

"Do you think they'd let me take their picture? You know, for the blog?" :: chew, chew::

"If you are serious, you're asking them by yourself. I'm having nothing to do with you and a battalion of middle eastern military men who may or may not appreciate your uncovered head and tight sweater" says Friend.

"This sweater isn't tight."

"NOT the point."

With that, the soldiers - who eat like wolves, out of necessity I suppose - paid their bill and walked out.

The missed opportunity of a lifetime.

The weirdest thing? The all squeezed, clown-car style, into a couple of unmarked, white Crown Victorias.

Making a gross generalization based on Hollywood stereotypes, it really, really did look like a scene from a terrorist movie.

Big, American generic cars, packed with dark, mustachioed men dripping in military gear.

And I didn't get a picture. DAMMIT.

It's a legal defense...

...or it soon will be. There's an old joke that the quickest way to a man's heart is straight through his chest with a rusty knife.

I'm stocking up on Clorox.

One of the side effects of having kids is...The Kid Funk. It comes in all shapes and sizes and calibre, but every now and then they bring in some errant germ I haven't seen before and WHOP...I'm down.

My head hurts. My eyes hurt. My ears hurt. My throat is on FIRE. I have snot (not some polite bodily fluid, but SNOT) oozing from places I didn't even know I have. Every time I shift position, the room shifts, too. It doesn't help that it's REALLY cold here and the heat is running pretty much non-stop. I can't keep a humidifier in every room, so I move the one I have around and try to keep water in the bathtubs.

So this morning, I'm sitting on the couch trying to get my feet under me to get these kids to school. I didn't take a shower yesterday, because that would have involved GETTING UP and I'm not moving without an earthquake or major emergency. My nose is still stopped up, my ears are popping, my eyes are swollen and I'm stirring my Alka-Seltzer Cold Plus with the ear piece to my glasses.

Picture: Misery. That would be ME.

It is 6:26 and the kids have to be up at 6:30. PLEASE, Lord, let me get this medicine down and let it WORK. I can't see and I can't breathe and I can't swallow.

And I will be damned if The Big Boy didn't walk into the den, towel around his waist, and announce, "How 'bout a blowjob in the bathroom?"

I calculated the distance between the knife rack in the kitchen and his chest. I did a quick look-see through the room to see if there might be a sharp object within reach.

No such luck.

So I did the next best thing: Turned the small side-table over on his bare feet. Just gave it a little push and...voila!! Never even said a word. Swirled my beverage around to get the last of the little medications floating, and watched over the top of my glass as he stormed upstairs.

Are you CRAZY??

You just better hope I don't figure out a way to stash the steak knives under the couch cushions. It's not premeditated if I don't know when you're coming.

Or not.

Welcome to the first day of WHAT?

Twenty ten. Who'd a thunk it? I was born in 1956 and more and more...when I have to click on a list of years to find my birth date? 1956 isn't on the opening screen. Pisser.

I missed my favorite party of the year today. Domestic crisis. (You made an F in WHAT?) And timing crisis. (You have to be WHERE at 10 o'clock Saturday morning?) My friend M is an oasis in an otherwise out-of-control lifestyle and one of the few places I don't...have to be "on." And I missed the party. Damn good thing there are 364 more days to make up for it.

Had the loveliest New Year's...right here at home. To paraphrase Mz Rachel..."going out for New Year's is for rookies." Had my oldest friends (if you've known me for 53 years and you're still here? You like me!!! You really really like me!) to the Asylum for dinner. Keeping in mind, no one's been in this house for over a year because of the CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) I finally just told them to suck it up and face it...I can cook better than they can. And at our age? How the hell would you KNOW if the baseboards aren't clean? You can't SEE them. We're like a bunch of moles trying to navigate...swapping readers...difering to the person with the best vision.

We're gonna be pitiful when we get old.

A whole beef tenderloin, cooked to 120 at the thick end so that there was something for everyone. Homemade rolls. Roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Salad. Homemade Mississippi Mud Ice Cream Pie. Baked pimiento and cheese for an appetizer. Lots of good wine. Good champagne (did I mention one of these buds owns an liquor store?) Lots of laughing and story-telling and we SO finish each other's sentences.

Thank you, Lord. I have the best friends and the best life and the best place on the planet.

Now if I could just find this awesome DOG a home ;)

Project Better Brain

This morning I finally got around to finishing last Sunday's NY Times.

I know, right? How the hell long does it take a person to read one newspaper? Well, when said person is an information junkie who spends a ridiculous amount of time online and reading magazines, it apparently takes five long days.

So over sunny-side-up eggs and Panettone toast (leave it to the Italians to elevate fruit cake to high art), I dug into the Arts and Leisure section. Two paragraphs into the first article - about the Bauhaus movement - I encountered two subtopics with which I was only passingly familiar.

Instead of just thinking, "Hnugh...I'll have to look that up sometime," I actually put down the newspaper, picked up the laptop, and Wiki'd them. Two hours later I know more about The Weimar Republic and Walter Gropius than I did yesterday - a/k/a Last Year.

Which got me thinking - what if I dedicate 2010 to learning? I mean, really going out of my way to learn about 'stuff' outside my usual...what? Sphere of interest? Information comfort zone?

We all have a limited number of topics in which we're interested, right? Football. Local politics. World War I, muscle cars (thinking of Hub here)...whatever. And every day, every year, we learn a little more about these things, deepening our understanding.

But how much do we broaden our knowledge as we get older? Once we leave college/university, we get locked into a little sphere of interest and have to be pushed into learning about new things.

Sooooo.....What about western philosophy? What about brewing beer? Polar exploration? Doctors without Borders. Fashion of the British Regency period. Marcel Duchamp?

Yesterday I bought a journal. I have no idea why. I was at Target, buying a photo album, when I wandered over to the stationary section and picked up a blank journal. Bought it. I've never kept a journal in my life.

So here's what I want to do in 2010 - this is NOT a resolution...I don't do resolutions - when I come across "stuff" totally out of my realm of knowledge, take the time to learn a bit about it and jot it down.

I think it'll be interesting to look back, a year from now, and review all the new "stuff" I've learned about. Or, maybe not. We'll see. Either way, it seems like a better way to spend my time than reading another SciFi series of books, obsessing over American politics and drinking too much wine.

Of course, there's no way I'm going to let this cut into the time I spend mooning over hot boys who are young enough to be my sons. Hey, you have to draw the line somewhere....