Tag Archives: postaday2011

Mama Needs a New Pair of Shoes!

17 May

There are some weeks that Lollipop Tuesdays sneak up on me like the Hamburglar.   And it’s usually those weeks that I find myself doing something ridiculously late and in a ridiculous location, which is why last night at midnight you could find me playing the slots at the casino.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday, friends.

I have to admit that when I thought I’d mosey on over to the casino, I had a few concerns.  Well, really just one concern: addiction.  I read all the tips and I had a good game plan.  I took a hundred bucks and split it off into five 20’s.  I would play a 20 at each game, and if I got a big win on it I would immediately cash out, pocket the ticket with the winnings, and moved on to the next 20.   It was a good plan and I felt confident it would do me well.  

Until I remembered the World of Warcraft addiction of ’06.  

Not so long ago in a land not too far away, I was huddled up on my desk chair, 3-days-unshowered, with pizza boxes piling up on my bed, running around the land of Azeroth as a Night Elf  Hunter, raiding over and over again until the epic shoulder pads I needed would drop in the dungeon. I wasn’t sure how big the difference was between gambling and WoW, but last night I was a little concerned for my well-being.

I have to admit that when I first walked in, I was pretty disappointed.  Well, actually I was shocked that casinos are open 24/7, was baffled by the variety of machines, and I was pretty darn overwhelmed by the size of the place.  But then I was disappointed.   Pretty much everything I know about casinos is based off movies that feature casinos.  You know, like Sister Act, Ocean’s 11, Rounders…  I was expecting people to have cards at the table and levers for the slots.  

As it turns out, it’s all digital.

Call me crazy, but if I’m going to stick a twenty in a machine and lose it all in 10 minutes, I’d really like to be pulling a lever.  Clicking a button 100 times per bill is incredibly lame.  And even if I could have afforded a buy-in at a table, I wouldn’t have done it.  Because there’s something so unsatisfying about watching a bunch of cards flip up on a screen instead of holding them in my hands.  Illogical, perhaps, but true.  So I stuck to the slots for the evening.  At least there I could click more times.

Apparently people must find slots to be very straightforward and in no need of explanation because aside from a few cryptic images above the machine, there was never any indication as to what you were hoping for when you clicked the button.  I, for one, could have used a bit of help.  Because half the time I didn’t know whether to get excited or whether to sit there clicking until my eyes glazed over.  There were two times that my screen said “Big Win!” and had a bunch of coin and cash images on the screen, but I didn’t know what my “big win” was relative to.  I mean, when we’re on penny slots, big wins could be 10 bucks.

And as it turned out, they were.

For the most part, I found them uninspiring and wished I could go over and lay down my black jack prowess. I hated not having any control whatsoever on whether I won.  That was, until I found the Wizard of Oz slots.

There were only 5 of them and they were tucked over near the bathrooms, but there were folks filling every single seat.   I had a friend that was willing to come along with my for the night and she suggested that they were the best because “there was actually a chance of winning something.”   That was really all I had to hear to wait around awkwardly mouth-breathing behind folks as I waited for one of them to rip their sweaty backs of the seats.  

I got myself a seat and finally found the magic fun of the slot machines.  It probably had a lot to do with winning a big bonus where a bunch of flying monkeys came and ripped my images off to reveal wild cards.  Then something about a “big win” came up on the screen, my machine got real loud, everyone grumpily stared at me, and I sat there for 2 minutes while my winnings piled up.  I made 40 bucks.  Not bad.

I pocketed the ticket and stuck in my next 20, waiting to see what the Emerald City had in store for me next.  

I think the real appeal of the game was that the seats had speakers built right into them.  The biggest wins came from matching three bonuses across the board, and every time one came up in the right place, a huge drum sound would rattle the bejeezus out of your seat and make you pee yourself with anticipation.

Or maybe that was just me.

At any rate, I spent the rest of the evening on the Oz slots, hoping that Glenda the Good Witch would pay me a random visit and switch my rows to wild cards, or that I would link three bonuses together and get some flying monkeys to come give me a big win.

But alas, I stuck to my plan.  And though I went through the hundred I put aside for the evening, I had pocketed 70 bucks of winnings.  It  may sound like a lose-lose situation, but believe me – if I didn’t have a plan beforehand, there would have been no tickets in my pocket and I would have walked out at 100 in the hole instead of just 30.

All in all, it was an enjoyable evening.  You know, in comparison to someone just coming up and mugging me for 30 bucks.  If I were a baller, I could have sat down and used some of my card-playing skills to see what I could rake in.  Because let’s face it: the slots are a total ripoff.  Unfortunately, the lowest buy-in at a table game was 10 smackos.  And since I only came with 100 to gamble, that didn’t seem like a wise way to spend my evening.  

Apparently, clicking a button 100 times and waiting for flying monkeys to descend upon me was. ♣

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The Mystery of Apartment #19

16 May

I have developed a bit of an awkward relationship with the folks beneath our apartment.

I make them sound like bridge trolls when I say it that way.  I mean the people who live in the apartment below ours.  

It all started on a night when Dave was playing music rather loudly and we heard a loud thumping, as if someone was pounding something on the ceiling.  Worried that he was probably playing too loud, too late at night, Dave immediately stopped and wondered if the pounding was an indication of anger from the neighbors.  I encouraged him to go discuss it with them and ask if it really was them doing the pounding.  If so, perhaps we could work out a time that they’d like us to consider the cut-off for Dave’s rehearsals.  

He went downstairs, was charming as ever, and came back to report that it wasn’t them and that we must have misheard something.  Then something about girls and dog and so on.  I don’t take much interest in neighbors.

We didn’t have any other excuses to connect with them until I started noticing a distinct heavy tobacco smell in the bathroom.  It turns out there’s a vent that runs up from theirs to ours, and it was my assumption that they were smoking inside.  Though it’s against the rules of the lease, I didn’t really care.  They’re adults, can do as they please, and can happily pay whatever smell it leaves out of their security deposit.  Unfortunately, I didn’t want to sign up for the same thing and the smell was really quite overwhelming at times.  

So Dave went downstairs, was charming as ever, and came back to report that it was them and they would turn on a fan/blow it out a window/stop smoking in the bathroom. 

All was quiet on the home front until one night when one of them came rapping at my door. 

I make it sound like they’re rappers when I saw it that way.   I mean they knocked on our door,  Edgar Allen Poe style.

I don’t answer the door.  I should just say that outrightly.  I never, ever answer the door.  I don’t like to be confronted by the unknown that stands behind it.  I don’t like the idea of dealing with whatever it is, and more importantly, I don’t like to deal with people.  My assumption is that if it’s knocking, it’s probably a human.  And if it’s a human, I’m not interested.

I’m pretty serious about my commitment.  On the night of topic, I sat on my couch browsing the magical Interwebz as they knocked three different times.  I’m sure they saw the light on inside, but for all they know I could have been pooping.  They can’t expect me to answer the door when I’m pooping.

The next morning, I left for work and upon opening the door found two boxes of Girl Scout Cookies and a note written in bubble letters.  Bubble letters are the kind of letters girls write in third grade when they pass notes to each other.  It said something or other about her sister being a girl scout and something or other about thinking “I” would enjoy them.   And then something about considering it a welcome-to-the-building gift.

The note was obviously meant for charming Dave, who was the only one with whom they’d had contact.   He, however, was away visiting his family and I was left to my own devices for quite a few days. I promptly ate the thin mints, put the box of berry crunch whatevers on the fridge to never be touched, and drafted a thank you note.  It was something to the effect of thanking them for the cookies because I’d had a rough day, and then saying we’ve been in the building for two years so I’m not sure if they were intended for us but I sure hope so because they had already been half-eaten.  I was sure to write it in my best impression of bubble letters so that they would get the idea there was a human of the female persuasion upstairs with the charming Dave.

Today I was in the restroom and smelled the overwhelming stench of tobacco coming up through my vent.   The two situations may not be related, but since I’m a hermit with too much time on her hands, I’m gonna go ahead and say they are.  If Dave appears available, they’ll stop smoking in the bathroom and give him cookies.  If he doesn’t, they’ll smoke us out.   Seeing as how I don’t have anything better to do with my life, this presents an opportunity for amusement. 

The challenge, however, is to come up with an idea that doesn’t involve whoring out Dave’s charm.

This next move might take some time to consider. ♣

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Next Stop: Appalachian Trail?

15 May

File:Appalachian Trail.jpg

Something big is in the works.

For a while I’ve had the nagging feeling that I should be doing something bigger.  I’m not sure what bigger means, but I seem to associate it with important, relevant, and life-changing.   You know, no pressure on myself or anything. 

It could be that I’m itching to get outside my comfort zone again.  I have knack for getting my life shaken up every couple of years in a big way and I’m about due.  The mind races with possibilities, but almost all of them involve travel.  I’m not quite sure what that means either.  I’ve longed to go to Europe forever.  I have a change jar that I tell myself with be the key to my escape, even if it won’t be fat enough to do so until I’m 70.    But I suppose I’m going to need something a little more immediate.  

I’ve considered RVing across America.  Because hey – I’m pretty sure selling all my junk and moving from RV park to RV park selling kooky little wares and putting Dave’s music on display would be a pretty sweet way to spend a summer.  But when I consider the price of gas, that’s not so doable these days.  We’d make it to Ohio and have to turn around.  And then where am I supposed to put the RV when my plans to drive westward have been socked in the face?

But then I saw a documentary that chronicled the Appalachian Trail.  It talked about the history, the technique, and the people who come to conquer it each year.   And though I’m not a hiker by any stretch of the imagination, I fell in love with the idea of walking through the woods for 9 months straight.  After all, I’m sliding down a slippery slope of allegiance to corporate America and I could use a shock to my system.

Think about all the awesome things that will come out of this.   First, I’ll be able to say I hiked the Appalachian Trail.   That’s a pretty cool one.  Second, I’ll be super fit by the end.  Awesome.  Third, I’ll reconnect with nature, quiet my mind, and see what happens when I’m left to my own devices to hike 2100 miles.

Of course, there are downsides to consider.  Like how I’m going to maintain a decent underarm shave method for 9 months.  And ticks.  And getting mauled by bears.  And I guess the hiking 2100 miles thing.  That’s a doozy.

I don’t know.  I should probably take some time to consider this.  I successfully grew my nails out not long ago, which is a feat I’ve tried to accomplish since birth, and ever since the huge win I’ve felt like I can do anything.  Apparently the next natural step is hiking the Appalachian Trial.

So, when I lay out what my life accomplishments will be in the next few years, it looks something like this:

2011: Updated every single day on thejackieblog.com, which became instantly famous and had such a swollen subscriber base that freelance writing offers were hurled at me from top publishers (still working on a few of all those details.)  Also, sported a nice manicure.

2012: Hiked the Appalachian Trail

2013: ….

Well I guess I can just stop at 2012 because the world will come to an end and things.  Which makes hiking the trail the last major accomplishment of my life.

Unless my change jar tops off soon. ♣

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The No-Sleep Cycle

14 May

Okay, so some of you seem to be concerned about my lack of sleep.

It’s going to be all right.   Again finding myself in a “stare at the screen” situation last night, I decided to read through some old posts.  And when I say old, I mean old.  Like, back when I was hosted on Blogger.   A lot of those posts are back from my early college days, when I was managing a ridiculous schedule.   Absolutely ridiculous.  I was a full-time honors student with a 4.0 GPA, worked part-time, put in 10 hours a week in volunteer hours, and had a lead role every semester.  My posts from these days have titles like  “How to Manage Time You Don’t Have“, and “Hell.  Pure, firey, raging hell flames.”  They chronicle the ridiculously large amounts of work I was doing and the very few hours of sleep I was getting.   I powered myself through work nights on Ben and Jerry’s, cheese steaks, and pizza and pumped out papers of all shapes and sizes, back in the day when I was an English major.

Needless to say, my early college career was a fat one.

In one such gem, I detail the amount of work I finished in one evening:

…At 8pm I had a Philosophy paper (2-3pgs.) on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as it related to my college experience, 3 English journals (1-2pgs each) on Lysistrata and two plays in the Orestia, a Media Paper for Adolescent Development, and (get this) a 10 page research paper on Theatre in India and China, for which I hadn’t even the slightest formation of a thesis yet. You’d think the walls should have caved in on me, or the universe might have come to a gigantic collision in my bedroom. Instead, I wrote them all on the brink of insanity (and aided with the proper motivation tools) and got A’s on them all. …

Look at that! I was a champ.  I pounded out to-do’s like a pro.  At least back then when I stayed up all night I was doing productive things, like comparisons between Chinese and Indian Theater.   Now I just glaze over on websites.    

I should be embracing this new phase in my life.  Instead of lying awake in bed for hours and not being able to sleep, or taking pills (two words: Heath Ledger) I should just accept the situation and resolve to do productive things while awake at night.   I’ll live my life as a zombie for a short while but when I return to my healthy habits, I will praise the knowledge I gleaned during my no-sleep period. 

Actually, that’s probably the worst idea I’ve ever had.  Ending post, getting sleep. ♣

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Only You Can Save This Blog.

13 May

I have gone to bed so late, so many weeks in a row that I might just start skipping sleep altogether in order to avoid the awful process of waking up.  I keep telling myself I’m going to go to bed early on a weeknight or sleep in late on a weekday to hit the reset button but I never do.  I tried it a few nights ago but couldn’t get to sleep (very unfunny) and I ended up wasting 3 hours of my night just lying awake in bed.

So I just stay up doing frivolous things, trying to make my day last longer so that I feel like I work and have a life.  I don’t – it’s a facade.    I don’t stay up doing anything important; I just stay up.  I eat peanut butter toast and watch entire seasons of shows on Netflix and spend an hour on StumbleUpon and read people’s Facebook updates.  I’m so lame that it’s becoming painful.  

I have gone so many weeks on four hours of sleep a night that I have to peel myself out of bed in the morning.  There has never been a better display of man’s willpower than my waking up each day.  I set three alarms – each 15 minute apart from each other.  The first is the time that I would like to wake up.  It’s my ideal.  If I get out of bed at the first ring, I’ll be 5 minutes early for work, freshly showered,  have eaten breakfast, will have an outfit I’m not miserable in, and will be sporting a fine face of work-appropriate makeup. If I get out of bed at the second alarm, I will have to choose 3 out of 5 of those options.   If I get out of bed at the third, I will have to forfeit all but one.  

But lately I’ve been so tired and miserable that when the third alarm goes off, I snooze it for another 15 minutes.   When I wake I will accomplish none of the above tasks, but the jump start I get from knowing I will be late for work if I don’t wake up immediately and bolt out the door in 10 minutes or less is the only thing that will get me up.

I’ve been doing this over and over again.  Yesterday it got so bad that I couldn’t possibly leave for work unshowered again so I still slept in and resolved to be late.

This has to stop.

I’m a good worker.  I really am.  I usually work right through my lunch break and stay late and break lots of labor laws and things.  But lately I’ve been so absolutely zombie-like that I can’t bring myself to get up and at ’em in a timely manner.  I recall having to peel my eyes apart and splash my face with freezing cold water a few days ago just so that I could see straight enough to put my clothes on.   Once I get there I only make it to 11:30 before I need to go order the the tallest, tastiest, non-coffee but coffee-like drink I can stomach in order to get myself to have enough energy to type an email.

I look like death.

When I go outside, I’m as a member of the underworld visiting the surface for the first time.  The light disgusts me, the bird chirping echoes through my weak, soggy brain, and my limbs are all worn and jagged from being jolted into performance from a dead sleep.   I suddenly find myself absolutely incapable of effective communication.   If I attempt to string more than two sentences together, my brain goes into a total meltdown and my eyes travel up and to the left, where they sift through the soft, gooey, deteriorating pockets of my mind for the right word.

It’s usually a simple one.  Like “pants”.

I only have two options from here.  I can either find a way to restore sleep to my body by effectively going to sleep earlier, sleeping in later, or just giving in to my urge to conk out at my desk instead of guzzling caffeine.   Or I can keep going on as I am and become a fully-fledged, certifiable whack job.  Unable to find the words for anything at all, my sentences will deconstruct themselves into incoherent babblings.  My eyelids will sink down to allow only a sliver of light into my eyes.  My face will become pasty, droopy, and inspire fear.  No longer able to force my body to function without allowing it to recharge, I will ooze from place to place on the floor like a slug.

A decomposing, incoherent zombie slug.

I will be unable to keep my promise to write a blog every day because I will no longer be able to comprehend language.  Already, I find myself staring at my screen wondering what to write.   Not because I have no idea, but because I cannot navigate the idea.  I compose entire paragraphs that seem to be written by a 3rd grader who speaks English as a second language, delete them, and upgrade them to that of a 6th grader who speaks English as a second language.  I stare at commonplace words for several minutes, suddenly questioning if they’re really words at all.

My lack of sleep is threatening thejackieblog.

If I don’t post tomorrow, come to Pittsburgh and search the streets.  You’ll find me there, oozing my way through the masses and hissing at daylight.

If you spot me, stick me with a bear tranquilizer, put me on a park bench, and force the regeneration to begin. ♣

The High Hurdles in Slug World

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Rodeway Inn Owes Me a Coffee

12 May

COFFEE 

Last night I intended to be a responsible adult and go to bed early so that I didn’t need a mid-afternoon caffeine kick to get me through my boss’s ridiculous, unending demands.   Unfortunately, my plans were spoiled by a little hotel about 45 minutes away from my humble apartment, where a group of morons were working the desk as my parents attempted to check in for the night.

I’m not really one to blast companies for bad first experiences because I understand that things happen and people are human.  In fact, I’ve been on the other end of customer service at several establishments and know it’s a living hell so I do my best to make things as painless as possible for the other party.  I learned the Military Phonetic Alphabet so that they know what letters I’m spelling out for names (really), I always begin my call by asking for the correct department for my inquiry and then immediately offer up my confirmation number for reference.  I mean, I’m kind of a pro at it.

But last night I was tired, and the Rodeway Inn in Greensburg, PA did more than test my patience.

My parents attempted to check in at this cheap hotel just outside city limits because they love me and want to spend time with me and they don’t mind staying in a modest place to do so in order to spend money on touristy things instead.  Usually it works out really well.  Unless, you know, you have complete imbeciles running the place.

Having already made a reservation online without submitting card information, my darling mother checked in happily to The Rodeway Inn at about 10:00pm.  I attempted to call the hotel earlier to have them make a note that she would be checking in late and had a conversation that went something like this:

RI:  Rodeway Inn.  How can I help you?
Me: Hello – Reservations please.
RI: How can I help you?
Me: Oh, okay – can I give you my reservation number for your reference?
RI:  What for?
Me: So that you know which reservation I’m referring to for this call.
RI:  Well what do you need?
Me: Okay – well my parents are running a bit behind this evening and I was hoping you could make a note on their reservation record that they will be checking in late tonight.
RI: They can just come.
Me: What?
RI: It will be fine.  Like, whenever they come they can check in.
Me: Oh – okay… I just wanted to make sure that they could still have their reservation held. 
RI: Yeah.
Me: Great, thanks. *click* Right.
 

I have made similar calls to pretty much every hotel everywhere, as the front desk likes to have an idea of whether someone is checking in late or simply a no-show.  In addition, some hotels have a policy that if you don’t check in by a certain time your reservation is no longer held.

Their lack of familiarity with this polite process should have been the first indication of trouble.

So my parents finally made it to the hotel and because my mother is kooky about the way she budgets, she needed to put part of the reservation on one card and the rest on another, but was promptly informed that it was not possible.    She then asked if she could pay part in cash and the rest on a card and was informed that that, too, was impossible.  So she decided it was no big deal and that she would just cancel her reservation and come stay with me.  The front desk told her that would be fine but that she had to cancel the reservation online.

That’s stupid, but okay.

My parents left the establishment and I got online (because my mother is a baby boomer, after all, and doesn’t take the Internet with her everywhere she goes) to cancel her reservation.  But when I brought up her record, it indicated that she was outside the cancellation period and couldn’t cancel her stay.  She would be billed the full amount.  So I called her back, told her to turn around and go get the front desk’s advice – if they couldn’t split the payment and they couldn’t cancel her reservation, what exactly was she supposed to do?  Was she supposed to be billed when she goes home for a reservation that she was unable to check in to? Apparently the answer was yes.

So they left again, frustrated and tired, and headed back to their home 2 hours away.  Finding the entire scenario ridiculous (my mother’s strange payment methods, the front desk’s lack of customer service), I called my brother.   To solve the problem, he called to authorize a payment over the phone for his card (something I do every day at work without fail for hotels that are 5 times classier than this) and was told he couldn’t.  Instead he had to send a fax with his card information and write out a statement that he was okay with the charges.

My brother is a Senior Software Engineer and Systems Analyst.  He spends his days developing the most efficient, cutting-edge methods to solve problems.  He’s not really down with obsolete technology and asked if he could email it instead.  The front desk said they didn’t have access to email at night (what?) and that the only option was faxing.   

My bro has no patience for nonsense or stupidity (sound familiar?) and insisted that they accept an email, which they agreed to after a lengthy discussion that resulted in a call to the manager.  The manager required that before my brother could send the email, my parents return to the building (…what…).  When my brother inquired as to why, he was informed that my mother seemed upset at the front desk and they were afraid that after processing her payment my parents would go to their room, be upset with it, and want to cancel again.

Dear Rodeway Inn:  Even if my parents were difficult customers, you can’t just assume that they will continue to be difficult.  You certainly can’t say to another member of the family that they seem like the kind of people who wouldn’t be happy with anything.  And actually, if you were paying attention, all they wanted was to get in the room.  That’s what all the fuss was about so why would they say no after they got inside?  What could they possibly expect from a budget hotel named “Rodeway Inn”?

So my brother flicked on his switch that allows him to have the patience of Job and called my parents to tell them to go back to the hotel.  Once they arrived, he sent the email.

But it bounced back.  Turns out the front desk girl didn’t really know the address (WHAT?) and wasn’t sure of anything in her life whatsoever.  Finally, her will broke and she allowed my brother to make the payment over the phone, we rewound to half an hour earlier when he asked if he could do that in the first place, and joy was restored to all.  

My parents went to the room, saw no problem with it, and promptly fell asleep.

And I, having a blog topic after a night of struggling (and failing) and content to blast a poor excuse for an establishment, did the same. ♣

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Blue Tiger Swimsuits: A Lesson in Common Sense

11 May

Every year around this time, I begin to swim through pages and pages of bathing suits, looking for one that will lift my boobs, flatter my bum, draw attention away from my legs, be gentle on my neck, stay on me when I cannonball, and make me look like a classic beauty.  

It never really works out.

I’ve tried to get around the problem(s) by working out the rest of the year so that when swimsuit season finally rolls around, I can wear whatever I like.  Each January, I have visions of me piling my arms high with every cute little something, trying them all on and not knowing which one to get.   I think of how I’ll be so hot and so carefree that I’ll have swimsuits of all shapes, sizes and colors.  I’ll wear them casually, as if they’re pajamas.  Everyone will wish they were so confident.

That never really works out either.

So yesterday I started my official swimsuit hunting season.  I began to browse through the Victoria’s Secret website (because their tops actually support you instead of making you feel like you’re made out of biscuit batter) and was affronted by a home page with plump, plucked vixens.  The company is pushing women to “make it a bombshell summer” and slathering their site with tan, beach blonde, curvy women.

Well, curvy for size zeros.

I began to sift through page after page of pink push-ups, lace, frill, and other sex traps.  I like to think that all the women I’m looking at are airbrushed so that the pixels from their waists get put on their chests, but I’ve seen the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on TV and airbrushed muscles aside, those ladies don’t have much need.   Then, just as I slowly sank further into my feeling of sad, fatty-fatness, my eyes were struck by this swimming tribute to the 90’s: 

Image is property of Victoria's Secret photoshop wizards. Click to view their summer collection.

Um, I’m sorry – is that a wildcat?   Okay.  You took animal print, made it blue, and then actually put an animal on it.  Not even on the back or anything, just right there on her stomach, staring at God and everyone.  

There is absolutely no amount of photo magic that can make me appreciate this swimsuit.  I do not find this attractive.  In fact, it insults me that you’re trying to pawn this off amongst the rest of your line.  WHAT IS THIS?! It reminds me of wolf moon shirts.

As if pulling off a swimsuit at all weren’t hard enough, you actually expect women to be able to wear an animal on their stomachs at the beach?  My gut would make it look like the cheetah is leaping out at you.  Beach-goers everywhere would run from the gelatinous wildcat in sheer terror.

It doesn’t even look that good on the model.  In fact, she just kind of looks confused.   Maybe she’s trying to figure out if it’s just a joke or if they’re really going to take her picture of her in that mess.

Victoria’s Secret’s site refers to this swimsuit as “Tiger Print One-Piece”.   I thought they could get away with it because there are a few tiger stripes woven into the pattern.  But the bullet points describing the garment say “bold tiger graphic on front”.

I don’t see a tiger anywhere, actually.  Even if I could mistake that face for a tiger’s, I certainly can’t mistake the lack of stripes.  That’s not a tiger.  It in no way resembles a tiger, aside from the fact that a tiger also happens to be a wildcat.

Entirely disenchanted, I scrolled down the page to be greeted by a “Might We Also Suggest” section, which highlighted items that might compliment the suit well.  The signature piece: A long, solid white cover-up tunic that makes it so no one can even see the suit.  

Yes.  Yes, that’s an excellent suggestion.  Thank you.  ♣

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Neon Toast: An Original

10 May

Last night I went to an art auction benefit.  An art auction.  Like, a silent one.  With paddles.

Okay, they didn’t really have paddles.  And quite frankly, I was disappointed.  But there was art and there was auctioning and apparently these days people are just running around pretending that you don’t need paddles to make it official.

You do.

So there I was, mingling with community folks and pretending I thought things were funny and holding a drink in my hand so I only had to think about to do with one arm and not two.   I walked around, I looked at poorly displayed art, and I looked at silent auction items for which I didn’t even have enough money to start the bid.   Not just on my person, but in my bank account.   

Did I mention that this was a benefit for the LGBT community?

I was there for only two hours and my coworker was invited to a naked party, I saw a man very disappointed with the state of the flowers in the table arrangements, and I’d seen enough amusing outfits to make even my third grade self look bland.   Also, the auction opened with a belly-dancing act.  Which I thought strange.

I also thought about how I’ve never seen a fit belly-dancer.  And then I thought about how it is that I’ve come to know so many belly-dancers.

There was food, but it was for the most part ridiculous.  There was a table with a chef that put a packaged, unlabeled confection out for the taking, but I stayed away from it because it looked like a moldy Nutter Butter.   It was slightly longer and slightly more rounded, but it was most certainly a moldy Nutter Butter.   I got really excited when I saw a whole room of free sushi from one of my favorite fish restaurants, but somehow the Event Coordinator didn’t think of the fact that it was on the top floor of an enclosed, unairconditioned room that was going to be chock full of people that evening.   So by the time I’d pushed myself through the moist bodies to the tail of the food line, I was so disgusted by my back sweat and other people’s dewy skin that the idea of raw fish suddenly wasn’t so awesome.

I’m not convinced the auctioneer was any good.  Actually, I feel safe saying he kind of sucked.  Without any certification or training in the basics of Auctioneering, I declare him to be of little worth.    He was heckling the audience for not bidding generously.  In fact, he called out one of the sponsors of the event, which happened to be a well-known financial company, as if the folks that were there were supposed to be bidding away the company’s fortune.  I was pretty nervous.  After all, I was there representing an 8 billion dollar company and if this guy thought I was walking around with a portion of it in my pocket, he was sorely mistaken.

The auction took place in an auditorium with a balcony and at one point he suggested that all the people who intend on bidding come downstairs and everyone else go upstairs.  You know, a sort of a separation-by-class thing.  No big deal. 

The truly preposterous part of it all was that there was not an overwhelming sense of labor put into providing backstory for each piece.  At one point, when reading the notes on a piece from a Latina artist, the speaker couldn’t pronounce it and clearly didn’t look at the cards before she came that evening.  She literally said “(Insert Artist Name Here) studied in Blah blah blah and blah blah blah.  Sorry folks, I wasn’t paying attention in Spanish class.”

WHAT?!  I’m sorry, excuse me.  WHAT?! 

People’s idiocy, not to mention lack of respect, is sometimes astounding.  

I kid you not – they followed up that beautiful linguistic display by putting up a decent looking oil painting in a magnificent frame and saying “Well, to be honest we don’t really know anything about this one but we are sure  it will make a beautiful addition to your home Retail value, $3,700, We’ll start the bidding at $350.”

No one bid.

No one bid because after watching you heckle the audience, put on a witch hunt for any members of financial firms, and mock people who passed on an item after a few bids, they weren’t exactly prepared to drop a couple thousand on something YOU DIDN’T EVEN RESEARCH.  I could have made up something that would have at least made it interesting.  I could have whipped up a backstory for that sucker so super cool that even though no one believed it, they would bid on it just to be a part of the saga.

It got really awkward after a while.  One item had to start at 5 dollars.  That’s embarrassing.

So after I felt I’d endured enough of the misery, I left.  Though I’d been there for 2 hours, it was going to go not-so-strong for another 3 and that would have been certain death.

There was certainly a strange feeling that overcame me while I was there.  It was kind of like the feeling I get when I want to jump off a bridge for the thrill of it and not to kill myself.  Every time a ridiculous item came up that was within my bidding range (you know, if I dumped my entire checking account out at once), I’d fantasize about raising my number.  I’d think, What if I pretended to be a mysterious rich socialite tonight and bid on something? What if I went head to head with this guy on this bright neon painting of toast?

I didn’t get the toast.  But I did recreate it for you here:

Happy Lollipop Tuesday. ♣

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The Most Important Thing I’ve Learned from Blogging

9 May

Last night was one of those epic nights.  You know, the ones where I’m laying on the couch, unshowered, staring at a YouTube video of a kitten eating with chopsticks.

The video was quite misleading – though the kitten eats with chopsticks, the chopsticks are being operated by a human.

I’d had a good day.  With Dave at his parent’s to celebrate Mother’s Day and myself at the apartment to celebrate Adventures of an Antisocial, I set out to clean the entire apartment from top to bottom.    I took down Easter decorations that were eyeing the place up like they owned it.  I cleaned the furniture, the molding, the shelves, the insides of drawers, and anything even slightly suspicious of clutter.  I attacked my carpet with a ferocity reserved for wartime, spot treating, scrubbing, and covering the area twice with the vacuum.  

I was a force to be reckoned with.

When I had finished, I looked out happily over my lair, calculating the likelihood of my messing it up within the next two days.  I wanted some chocolate for my reward but was out.  Having eaten the last two ice cream sandwiches on the same day last week so that “I would be out of them and wouldn’t eat junk anymore because it wasn’t in the house”, I was fresh out of anything delectable.

But then I remembered this post I wrote on being so ravenous for chocolate that I ate Dave’s chocolate Easter bunny.    In the comments section, I was flooded with ideas to combat cravings such as those.  And I was given advice by my faithful readers to buy a few chocolate bars and hide them around the house.

I looked up to the bread basket, wondering if I had actually taken the advice.  I couldn’t remember whether I just intended to or whether I actually did it.  Until lo and behold I pillaged the bread basket for one solid milk chocolate Dove bar, which had been quietly hibernating there for over a month.  Forget all the things I learn doing Lollipop Tuesdays – hiding chocolate has been the best thing I’ve learned from keeping this blog.  

 

Even better than kittens eating with chopsticks. ♣

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How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?

8 May

Photo by smemon87. Click photo to check out their Flickr Photostream.

I want a dog so badly.

I do – I can’t get them out of my head.  I used to have limits: I couldn’t admire any dog that was smaller than my runt of a Labrador retriever I had several years ago.  But lately, I don’t care – I’ll take anything.  Poodles, Bulldogs, even Pugs – the ugliest of the ugly are adorable in my fantasy world of being a dog-owner.

I can’t possibly take care of a dog at this point in my life.  Let’s face it – it’s all I can do to feed and bathe myself every day, let alone throw some food in the cat dishes and give them both a little pat and some laser-pointer-funtime-extravaganza.    I couldn’t possibly have a puppy – I’m gone for too many hours of the day and with my inconsistent theater schedule, it’s absolutely impossible to set up times to care for said puppy with any degree of regularity.  So I can’t have a dog.  I’ve mused about ways to get around this fact in my post Puppy Amusement Parks, but I don’t know that I’m in a position to throw all my hopes and dreams on a theme park for pets. 

 As a result, I’ve begun to stalk them. 

One of my favorite things about springtime is all the dogs that are out.  After a stressful 5 o’clock rush, I can always trust that when I make it to my neighborhood, everyone will be out getting their dogs some fresh air after being cooped up inside all day.  There are pups of all shapes and sizes and I’ve grown to love them all.  

Yesterday I went for a walk and found myself behind a beautiful, super excited dog and I got out my camera and recorded it.  Like some kind of pet paparazzi.  I don’t know what I thought I was doing.  They just give me so much joy and I was so incredibly amused by him that I thought I’d take a video of how adorable his wagging tail was.  

I think he felt dirty because he stopped and sat shortly thereafter, staring at me. 

I don’t think I can satisfy my dog lust by going around and recording run-ins with other people’s pups.  I’m going to have to actually find a way to satiate this desire so that I don’t become some sort of strange dog stalker.

I guess since I have one on video, I’ve already crossed that line.

I thought I might be able to fill the void with another cat, but my cats are crazy enough and two is plenty.  They won’t keel over until I’m about 35, so I’ve got a while to go before I go commit to another.  I wouldn’t want to start a collection or anything.

There’s gotta be some way to deal with this without acquiring another animal.   I’ll figure it out.  If I can’t get anyone to buy in to my Puppy Amusement Park idea, I’ve gotta come up with something fast.  Like dog-sitting perhaps.    Actually, that sounds stressful.  Maybe I can just move to a ranch and have all the animals I want.  I’ll work the land and live the good life, free from the soul-sucking chains of corporate America.  Yeah, that sounds awesome.  I’ll get on that right away.

One ranch full of dogs, coming right up. ♣

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