Been tagged

Here ya go-----

Four jobs I've had:
Curator of History
Librarian
Violinist, Maui Orchestra
Editor in Chief

Four movies I can watch over and over:
Malice
Waiting for Guffman
Clueless
Caddyshack

Four places I have lived:
Kansas City, Missouri
Grinnell, Iowa
Maui, Hawaii
Virginia Beach, Virginia

Four TV shows I love to watch:
Seinfeld (it's gold, Jerry, gold)
The Office (both UK and US)
Law & Order (all of them)
Real World/Road Rules Challenge (love that bitch Coral)

Four places I have been on vacation:
New York
London
Hong Kong
Bali

Four Web sites I visit every day (that I'm going to tell you about):
Hotmail
CNN
News.com
Google

Four favorite foods:
PEANUT BUTTER (chunky, of course)
Cheesecake
Quesadillas
Man jelly

Four places I'd like to be right now:
Getting a hot stone massage
Al Green concert
Seneca Park
Asleep

Who'm I tagging? Whoever.

Chung chung

For my Law & Order-loving readers.

Hi. How you doing? Me? I'm good.

Watch this. Don't miss the end.

Keep trying

A friend made a comment recently about acquired tastes. How the concept just doesn't seem right. But I'm not one to take advice.

I went to a Bourbon dinner the other night, where three Bourbons were paired with three courses. I've been to wine dinners and beer dinners, but this was a first -- because I'm not a Bourbon fan. I was just going to let my friends have mine, but when the time came, I took it as a challenge. I knocked them back. I'd had the Woodford Reserve and the Basil Hayden's before. Still not a fan. But the Jefferson's Reserve was quite nice. Of course, I have to like the one that is over 50 bucks a bottle.

Our state economy (and the population) lives and dies by tobacco, booze and gambling. I like a smoky treat when I'm stressed and now I've got my Jefferson's. Maybe I'll head over to the boat, place some bets, and complete my trifecta.

Ooooo, burn!

At the halfway house tonight, one of the guys who's always talking my ear off showed me his new tennis shoes. They were garish and obviously expensive. Yup, he proceeded to tell me they were $300. I praised them and said he must be rich. He said, "something like that," and asked me if I'd wear them. I sniffed, "I wouldn't wear $300 shoes."

A little later, he pulled out a receipt for the gold teeth with diamond chips that he bought today -- about $800 worth. I said, wow, is that something you really need? Gold teeth?

He said, yeah, to keep the girls interested. I raised my eyebrow. Ohhhh? Hmmmm.

Then he hit me with, "hey, how much was that Lexus you drive?"

Point to hoodlum. I gotta be better prepared next time.

The terrorists have won

...when I have to fly to KC and back without my Warm Vanilla Sugar lotion and my Lip Venom, amid slews of scaly-skinned and dry-lipped people. Not to mention the dudes who had their deodorant confiscated. Well, I weep for this nation.

It was disgusting.

That said, what a fun weekend in my old stomping grounds. The 'q was superb. In fact, I had quite a lot of meat there -- when in Rome. Got my friends married off and it was such a simple, classy, sweet ceremony, complete with their cute Lab barking to cap it off. And thank god for people who don't play Old Time Rock and Roll or make us do the Chicken Dance at their receptions. That's why I love these guys.

I do miss the real Midwest and my old peeps. Wish I could have stayed longer, but I'm lucky that I was able to go. I'm a lucky girl and it was a special weekend. I'm not going to jinx it by saying that, am I? Pinch me -- life is so good!

Ain't no white man eat no 10 slabs

I've got a powerful hankering for some Arthur Bryant's and Kansas City blues, so I'm heading to KC.

Peace out!

Doing my part for anarchy

Why is the man trying to keep me down? There is a parking "situation," and the people are rising up. Couple weeks ago, the garage people got all professional and painted directional arrows on the pavement, which instruct one to drive the long way when going up in the garage, and the short way when going back down. Now, I have been taking the short way both directions for over two years. I don't intend to stop now. So I didn't. Then they started putting orange cones all over the place, trying to stop the scofflaws. And Tooth (he only has one), the 125-year-old security guard, would stand in the lane to force us to take the long way.

For awhile, I did okay skirting the cones, and then darting away when I saw Tooth at the upper floor where there were open spots. Every morning, I'd commiserate with the other drivers about how the whole situation was making our blood pressure rise.

Yesterday morning, I was taking the nice short way up, and I saw another woman who was taking the long way up look over and the light bulb go on in her face. She started taking the short (smart) way -- but then the little parking car came out of nowhere and stopped her. She got a talking-to, I believe. I took off. I did feel bad for a moment.

This morning, I got accosted. Okay, I did run over a cone. Little miscalculation. But did the parking nazi have to chase me down in his little bug car? He was quite polite when he stopped me to explain the "procedure," but he also offended my friend, who thought he was talking to her, but she hadn't gone the wrong way, yada, yada, yada.

I can see that this is about to come to a head and I'm probably going to have my parking card taken away. But right is right. Right?

It's a'ight

I was nervous about going to tutor at the halfway house tonight because of the creep. I skipped last week because I just didn't want to deal with him. And no, it's not one of the inmates. It's the teacher. He won't leave me alone -- tries to keep me from working with the guys so he can monopolize my time with his blah, blah, blah, and even though I've shot him down every time, he's progressively getting weirder with his inappropriate comments (I miss you, I don't get to spend enough time with you, I need to take a picture of you. Uh, hell to the NO.)

I don't want him to force me out of this setup because I think I'm doing some good with the guys. I planned to give it one last try tonight, and if he acted up, I'd report him and try to find somewhere else to volunteer.

It turned out to be the best session ever. Soon as I got there, he had to go meet with some muckety-mucks (he did touch me several times before he left, on the arm and back -- grrrr). I got to stay with the class, sans teacher, for the evening. As soon as he left, they relaxed, I relaxed, and we had a great time and got some work done.

I think they think that I am nuts for being there. They're constantly asking me why. I told them I cut a guy for dissing my mom and got community service. They seemed satisfied with that. Other comments/questions I got tonight:

Where did you get your car?
Can I drive your car?
You need some 22-inchers on your car.
Somebody's breaking into your car! (I get this one every time. They seem to think it's hilarious. Or they are trying to get me to go to the window so they can look at my booty. Not sure.)
You have the smallest hands I've ever seen.
Why are you being so nice to me?
Can you come back tomorrow?
Can you be the teacher?
I like the way you explain it to me.
We won't let anything happen to you. (Somebody was messing around at the door and I guess I jumped, though I wasn't scared.)
The teacher tears me down -- you boost my self-esteem.

Awwwwww, ain't they sweet?

Me, me, me

After a draining day, emotionally and physically, I HAD to get out tonight and I HAD to make it all about ME. It is all about ME, after all. Here's what did the trick. I went out with a couple of guys to this Painted Alive event. (I did inform them pre-outing that this evening would be all about ME. They had no problem with it. Ladies, listen up. All you have to do is tell them so. Speak up.) Body painters were working away, and hot, naked, design-covered bodies were strutting everywhere. They were already hot, but it was also about 110 degrees in there. Hot: a guy covered in body paint and a sarong. Hotter: no sarong. Mercy ME.

After my friend The Hawk rocked the house, I wanted body paint all over ME, but I was fading fast from the heat, about to faint. (Where the hell was the AC??? Or were there just too many hot bodies???) My guys yanked ME out of there. (All about ME.) We closed out the night at The Back Door (MY choice), where they pour stiff drinks for little dinero, and where all attention remained on ME. But nobody hipped ME to the apparent 80s night! I haven't laughed so hard in ages. The minis! The big fried hair! The neon green hoop earrings! The white anklets! The hot pink dresses with cutouts?? Holy crap, I miss the 80s.

Thinking

You know when you obsessively think about one thing and you can't get it out of your head? You're staring off into space, you shake your head, as if you can physically knock the thought out. Even slap your cheek, but that doesn't work either. You think, I have work to do, places to go. I should do the dishes. But you don't. Maybe some music will push it out...but no, you're sick of all your music. A book, but no, one page is as far as you get, and what did it say? Who knows? Put it down. Walk around a bit. Try to think about what's for lunch. Nope, still there. You file your nails, put some lotion on. That killed five minutes. Still there. You "watch" TV, but not really. Still there, still there.

Boy, I'm glad that never happens to me.

Too much summer

What was I saying about not eating much?? Last weekend, I went down to the truck guy. The guy who parks his truck across from the welfare mall and sells the most beautiful fruits and vegetables. He's not too clean, but I'm not bringing him home, so there ya go. I bought, among other things, huge bags of peaches and yellow tomatoes. Giant yellow tomatoes. Not huge like they were full of chemicals, just perfectly big and round.

I made a too-yummy cobbler with some of the peaches for the pool party on Sunday. They could have been a bit riper that day, but I HAD to have cobbler. I would have eaten the whole panful myself if I hadn't taken it over there to share.

Today after work, the rest of the peaches and the tomatoes were ripe. RIPE. I stood over the sink and ate one peach. There was no other way -- too full of juice. Then another. I couldn't stop eating those juicy pinky-yellow fruits and I couldn't bear the thought of them passing their prime -- uneaten. Then I started on the tomatoes. Just bit in and let the juice run down my arm. I honestly don't even know how many of each I had. A produce frenzy, is what it was.

Now I have a belly ache. And a few more tomatoes and peaches must be consumed before they age too much more. It is my mission.

Baseball has been very, very good to me

I love going to a baseball game. I'm very, very good at looking away at the most exciting, crucial moments, but I keep trying. Today was the first day here that it hasn't been hell hot and my Pinkie T had her company's suite. We slung open the sliding doors and had a cool breeze blowing through all night. Okay, so I'm a bad fan and I was watching Supernova on the TV (never seen it before -- it's crap and Dave Navarro is an idiot but I already knew that). But I do know that we won. And I had my girls with me. I also saw a guy catch a foul ball, give a big smile, and hand it to his adorable little curly-haired boy, about three years old. Who was so excited he promptly threw it over the balcony. Maybe he thought it was a Cubs game? Easy come, easy go!

Another win: I haven't been able to eat much for quite awhile, but for some reason when I got there and smelled the hot dogs, I got so hungry. I stuffed my little belly with dogs, chili cheese fries, popcorn and beer. Ah, satisfaction.

Uh, I need that back

The other day, a coworker was sobbing all day over her boyfriend breaking up with her, so I gave her some nice chocolate. Chocolate is always appropriate in these situations and it seemed to stem the tears a bit. Then, a couple days later, Mr. Man came crawling back. Happy happy joy joy and all that.

Question: Can I ask for the chocolate back?

No big whoop

At a bachelorette party the other night, the topic of swallowing came up (ha). Not such a surprise; the conversation is always good and raunchy at those things. I did get some good tips (ha). Then it came up (ha) again today at the pool party. I thought back and realized it's been a part of several conversations lately. Seems to be a lot of angst over it. Why? Dag, don't people have anything more explosive (ha) to worry about? I've had to swallow a lot of hurtful words lately and I'm here to tell you that's an experience worth worrying about. I'm trying to let them come in one ear and out the other, but sometimes they get stuck in the middle for awhile.

It writes in color

I ran across this quote, "Happiness writes white. It doesn't show up on the page."

What crap.

Yes, unhappiness and drama can make for exciting movies, novels, gossip, schadenfreude, etc. but I see a lot of happiness out there and right here in my life. Why not embrace it? Life's too short to waste. When it comes down to it, people who are constantly pissing and moaning about how they hate their job, their family, everybody who's out to get them, themselves, are so tiresome.

Like my bloggy friend says, life is good. And beautiful.

Why are you being so nice to me? Are you dying?? Oh god, am I dying?!?!

One thing I'll show up on time for is a massage. The other night, some of my girlfriends got together for a spa night and you better believe I was there with bells on. Not only do I love to get rubbed, I need all the girly help I can get. To illustrate, I told them the story of how one time I was so pleased with the results of the pumice stone I was using on my feet that I thought, "hm, what if..." And that's how I ended up with a raw, scratched, bleeding fanny. Queen of the dorks. They helped me out as much as they could, but then again, maybe I didn't learn anything. I was the only one who used both the microdermabrasion and the chemical peel on my face in one night (not supposed to use them within two days of each other). I'm such a risk taker like that.

So I'm massaged, buffed, peeled and moisturized. But I followed up the spa fest with two wild parties and I'm beat. Maybe now that I'm back at work, I can get some rest.

I like a little contrast

I had to laugh today when a colleague told me that I'm "all business" -- but I'm getting a sexy Southern accent. Well, well. Yes, I'm all business when the time is right, and let my hair down in equal measure.

I laughed again tonight when after hanging out with some girlfriends and two of their two-year-old girls, playing two-year-old girl games involving tea sets, pink puppies and baby dolls, we put the babies to bed, drank some more wine, and then shared our personal favorite stripper moves -- like the bam and out, the dizzy slut, and scratch that itch (no, not the bad kind of itch) -- and planned a debaucherous party.

Oh, and I told him I'm not getting a Southern accent. I'm getting back a Southern accent. I was born in the South, transplanted to the Midwest, then moved back. I'm a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Just getting in touch with my roots, y'all.

Grateful

My heart is full tonight. I'm so grateful and lucky to have so many real friends surrounding me, sharing their lives, loves, triumphs, laughter, fears, drama and secrets with me, and carrying mine. No games, no judgments, just genuine openness and caring and acceptance in good times and bad. To know that they care about me the way they do... there are almost no words, but I found the best I could. I took the opportunity this evening to let these people know just how deeply I care for them and how they've made my life richer in every way. I don't know how articulate I was but that hardly matters. I didn't do it for myself but I got more out of their responses in kind than I could have dreamed and the gorgeous smiles on their faces were priceless to me, and unforgettable. I hope they're still smiling. I am blessed.