Two little sounds that mean a lot to me

1) It's currently nighttime. I can hear the little froggies singing. It is (in my mind) officially summer.

2) In the morning, there will be those birds singing. I don't know what they are but they're the ones that go tweet tweet tweet tweet TWEET. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. Stop rolling your eyes at me. Seriously. At any rate, those too mean that its officially summer.

Let the rejoicing begin.

End of the week Peeve Purge

1) I am a salesperson. If I just say "hi", don't look away and not speak to me. Not all salespeople are pushy. Don't be rude. Please just acknowledge my existence.

2) If you are in my lecture of 400 people and the professor tells us 14 times to turn our cellphones off...JUST DO WHAT THE WOMAN SAYS. To hear it ring after being warned is a hundred times more annoying.

3) I know it's warm out. I know you're excited. But don't wear shorts with your black tube socks and converse allstars. Especially when you're a 500 pound, 45 year old man.

4) I know it's warm out. I know you're excited. But don't wear your hooker skirt and tank top out in public if you're not working a corner. Especially when you're a 500 pound, 15 year old girl.

Now that I've cleansed my soul, I can enjoy my weekend:)

Henceforth there shall be no calling down the fury of the Plague deities

I asked for it.

I poked the Plague with a stick. I called it a sissy. I told it that it had produced nothing blogworthy.

It laughed in my face.

This morning I woke up with my eyes swollen shut. Luckily, old Righty was a little more manageable but Lefty required extensive makeup and a change in hairstyle to cover its horror. I took some benedryl and some of the swelling went down but I'm still rocking the Jessica Rabbit-bangs-over-one-eye look.

The lesson: Don't ever call your illness boring.

Damn you, dear Plague, you've let me down.

One of my favoritist (totally a word) things to blog about is getting sick. I only say this because it seems like everything in the world decides to go cosmically stupid when I get ill. Such as the time where I went to buy cold medicine and had a problem with my identity...apparently I have a doppelganger methcook in Kansas City. Totally sweet. At any rate, yesterday afternoon, my dear Infectious Friend decided to come around for a visit. Since then, I have been waiting for the impending hilarity. So far, there hasn't been any. All things considered, this has been the least Blogworthy episode of illness that I've had! No bizarre nightmares, no armwrestling little old ladies at the pharmacy, no comical chart mixups at the doctors office ("you mean you're not here for a prostate exam?"), nothing! I'm wondering if this is just one of those weird moments in history where the planets align and decide that maybe, just maybe, being sick is fun enough as it is. One can only hope.

One of many reasons why I love Rilke*

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me-- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house--, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back
my too-sudden image. Who knows? perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...


*Yeah, okay, so I have a sappy, girly side. Let the mockery ensue.

A commentary on the holiday I was built for

I am Irish.

Red hair. Paler than death. Smartass to the marrow. Wise beyond my years.

Or at least I think I am.

One of my main complaints about being a redhead is the expectation that I should always wear green. I own only two items of clothing that are green and I don't really wear them that often. I know a little old lady that constantly hounds me about my neglect of green.

"You would look so lovely in it, really! It was made for you!"

She chooses to wear hot pink dresses and neon green sweatshirts. I don't place much value on her fashion opinion.

I've talked to other redheads about this phenomenon. A girl I know loved to wear it, it was the equivalent of a girly girl wearing pink, in her mind. She was a total sellout to the redhead establishment. A friend of mine in Florida chose to never wear green either. He also constantly wore baseball hats to keep his hair covered. He preferred to deny its existence at all. Another friend of mine just didn't give it much thought. She would wear it but typically it was in camoflage or some other non-girly interpretation of the color.

I guess my whole thought on the matter is, I don't try and pick out your clothes, don't try to pick out mine. And so help me, regardless of holiday tradition or not, if you try to pinch me for not wearing green, you will be donning a new black eye for St. Patrick's Day.

I'll give you $5 if I don't drown

Ok, I'm a little anxious. Today is my first swimming lesson. Got the suit, the goggles, contemplating the arm floaties...I think I'm set. But still, my stomach has been twisting in little knots all day. I know I should be a grown up. This is something simple. This is easy. It's just swimming, for cryin out loud. I've dealt with far worse things in my life.

I wonder if you can hyperventilate while swimming...

Update: Managed to not die. Had pretty good time. Planning on going back.

It's...so...powerful...

For years, I have been a skeptic. I had heard from many a woman and magazine how fantastic this thing was and yet I had stayed away from it, merely because it didn't seem like it would fit my personality. Today, I decided to purchase one and let me tell you, they are amazing.

I speak of the LBD. (What did you think I was talking about, you pervert?)

In common language, the LBD is the Little Black Dress. It comes in many forms, fabrics, lengths, yadda yadda yadda. Now, personally, I'm not typically much of a dress person. Don't get me wrong, I love skirts...but dresses rarely fit me properly due to my height. I'm so tall that the waist typically ends up at the middle of my back and it looks like I have a weird lumpy growth. Never supercute, in case you were wondering. But...this Dress...rocks. Slinky fabric, halter neckline, lowcut in all the right places, short enough without looking like a hooker. A girl really couldn't ask for more.

For all those men that are staring blankly wondering how the hell a chick could be so entranced by a new dress, it would be like finding a sports car that has the perfect engine, in a sweet color, and that totally doesn't make you look like you're gay or trying to compensate for some inadequacy. Hard to do, yes?

And so...I have this wonderful gem of a dress. My next dilemma: Where the hell to wear this piece of raw hotness? I'm open to suggestions...

Adventures in multiple personalities

Rather than go off on a long pissy rant about a particular highlight of my day, I thought I’d try to look at the brighter side of life.

“Nonsense!” you say…

True, I’m typically more comfortable being a cynical, sarcastic wench but I figured whatthehell…its almost spring. I really should cheer up a bit. So here are some bits from the last couple days offered in two-part harmony.

GrumpyEm: Alarm went off at 6:30 am. Considering I got to sleep at around 1:30, it was a tad too early.

CheeryEm: Fell asleep the night before laughing about the little old man with a fauxhawk I saw on TalkSoup. Way to rock it out, old Sid Vicious. It was still making me giggle at 6:30 am.

GrumpyEm: In class, uppity British professor from other section talked…and talked…and talked about our projects in the mass Review. I nearly fell asleep. Along with the other two instructors, sucked away my will to live through the repetition of the same material (i.e. beating the proverbial dead horse).

CheeryEm: I got to hear the aforementioned British professor say “Drawr-ring” (translation: Drawing) over…and over…and over.

GrumpyEm: Went to the blood drive yesterday. After answering the same 3 questions over and over (have you ever been paid for sex since 1977? Have you been in the UK for a period adding up to 5 months? Do you have the West Nile Virus?...Oh my god, what if I was paid for 5 months of sex in the UK with vials of the West Nile Virus?!) I had the pleasure of getting the “Funny” technician. Upon hearing I was a first time donor, he proceeded to tell me how that turned him on…and how he liked my hair…and I smelled nice. Okay, maybe not the smell-nice-part but you get the idea.

CheeryEm: Sucked it up and gave blood. Hadn’t given it much thought before until someone in particular put a face on the purpose. It makes a lot more sense now. I’m definitely doing it again.

GrumpyEm: One of my professors had decided that we would only be meeting one day a week (vs. two days) starting this week. Yesterday, he decided that he was gonna wait one more week and we had to come to class on Thursday. It took every fiber of my being not to run to the front of the lecture hall and flick him in the forehead. That’s an hour of my life I was looking forward to getting back, you ass.

CheeryEm: Really. You expect a good thing out of this? This is the guy that repeats everything we learn in studio only a week late. There is no good side of this one. He’s still alive. Maybe you can consider that the good side.

GrumpyEm: I’m going nowhere in particular for Spring Break.

CheeryEm: I’m back in school so A) I get a Spring Break again…B) by going nowhere, that also means CLASS…and C) I may get to actually do something FUN for Saint Patricks Day.

See? I can do Ray-Of-Sunshine just as easily as Sarcastic-Bitch!

May I suggest a muzzle and a sedative?

Throughout my life, I have known there is something that separates me from the general female population. I mean aside from the horns and tail. I don't really have that mothering instinct towards children. They say that women are attuned to hear a child crying. The only attunement I have is to yell "shut that damn thing up". Now granted, every once and awhile I meet a child who seems to be acceptable. They're quiet, well-mannered, quiet...and typically they go home at some point. If every child were that way, I could see the appeal but alas, when they 'go home at some point' it typically means your home if they're yours. That seems like the crappy part of the concept. But on the flip side of the quiet, well-mannered child idea, there seems to be an overabundance of the evil, bratty, loud kids running rampant.

Take a half hour ago. I am minding my own business at work (i.e. trying not to fall asleep) when a snot-encrusted creature practically jumps on the counter. It starts speaking in some caffienated language and I'm trying to avoid the chocolate/crumby/mystery flecks that are being flung in my general direction. My first instinct is to grab the lysol and spray the little goober into the next store over but it typically doesn't fly with the parents. Speaking of which...where is the parent? Yeah, no sign of mom/dad/braindead nanny. So I have to watch this little thing, trying to keep the look of horror off my face, and praying that the security guard will walk by so I can pawn this thing off on him. Instead of Incompetant Bob, the Dad of the Year comes around the corner...towing two more of the sticky, gibberish-speaking mutants. He is (of course) all smiles (that idiot) and ohsoproud that little*Insert whatever kind of name you give a kid here* made it to the glasses store all by himself (and not one single run-in with a pedophile!). After Dad translates what alienspawn is speaking, I find out that I get the pleasure of adjusting the glasses of all the little monsters. Did I mention the whole snot-encrusted thing? Yeah...the first thing they needed was a dousing in bleach. So I do my job...adjusting glasses on children is like trying to put a unitard on an epileptic speedfreak with ADHD...and they finally leave. Icky fingerprints on everything, trails of cookie crumbs smashed into the carpet, and my steadfast belief in mandatory sterilzation intact.

Don't even ask me about the rednecks that came in after them...

Still dreaming of tidal waves

Ocean To see an ocean in your dream represents your emotions and feelings. It is indicative of some spiritual refreshment, tranquility, and renewal.

One of the things I consistently post about is my dreams. I have them frequently and they’re always (in my opinion) bizarre. I’ve dreamt of my teeth slipping from their sockets and trying to talk with a mouthful of bleeding toothbits. I’ve dreamt of the last hours of my life before I died of an accidental death. I’ve dreamt of people I know being serial killers trapped in the form of a small cardboard box. Aside from their weird nature, I’m also one to have recurring dreams. I had a lengthy post about my recurrent dream of my old ex-boyfriend-turned-psyche (Turns out, I haven’t seen him back since he decided to get hitched. Go figure.). One of my other recurrent themes is the ocean. I’ve only been to the ocean a handful of times so it’s significance in my dreamscape is beyond me. Sometimes, it has been a threatening tidal wave where I’ve had to escape into a tree so enormous it is beyond the realm of nature. Many times I just stand watching it, barefoot. The water is warm as it slips over my feet.

I’ve been thinking more about my ocean dreams lately. I’m never out in the ocean, but watching it from the shore. It seems to have some significance. Supposedly, oceans and waves in a dream are representative of emotions. I don’t consider myself an overly emotional person so perhaps my standing on the shore supports that in some way. In some superstitious way, maybe I don’t want to go into the water. Who knows what kind of havoc that would wreak on my psyche. Wonder what aspect of my dreams represents me thinking about random stuff too damn much…