Archive for March, 2008

…and tomorrow I will tell Whoorl about my hair

March 20, 2008 | Filed under: Humdrum, Oh The Stupidity You'll See

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Susan is one of my very dear friends. She has many good qualities including getting up at 5 AM and having coffee ready and allowing me loll about in her living room for days on end while providing me with Sonic and white wine. Of course there are less superficial things but I will save those for another day. It is no secret that that woman can dress and will tell people how to dress and people search her out to get an honest opinion as to whether these shoes go with this skirt. And I’m sure she’ll be the first to tell someone that their boobs look smushed in that top. As that is her way.

The first time I went to her house though, I wore silver crocs. It wasn’t until much later when I pointed out the crocs that she said to me “Yeah, I wasn’t going to say anything…” her voice trailing off. I could tell form the look on her face that if I ever wore crocs in her presence again and I wasn’t wading in a pond, then she would tear my feet off with her bare hands. Sometimes she needn’t say much for one to understand that leaving the house like that, ever, is unacceptable. Point well taken. And so far I still have my feet.

For now. But here’s the part where she makes a special trip to New York just to remove them because of such offensive behavior:

Yesterday morning I was about to leave the house and it was raining. I was wearing a skirt, with Parisian tights and let me digress and say that if you ever go to Paris, get yourself some tights because they will change your life and you’ll start skipping and the Heavens will part because you will find what you’ve been missing for so long when it comes to fall and winter wardrobe. </digression> So, the skirt with black tights. I was wearing brown socks because I haven’t done laundry in like three weeks and no one ever sees my socks. The boots I had been planning to wear were at my office and they would complete the outfit but I needed something to wear to the office. My black crocheted Uggs were in the trunk of my car and I found myself on my hands and knees trying to find shoes to wear on the wet slushy streets. And lo I found some Birkenstocks! Birkenstocks I had long forgotten about. A March Madness Miracle!

When I put my look together, I saw this and immediately thought I MUST SHOW SUSAN:

She might die a little inside and she might kill me with her bare hands but I just HAD to show her that I walked out of the house, up the street, drove to Dunkin Donuts, got out of the car, waited around for some hashbrowns and coffee, drove to work, got out of the car, walked the 487 steps into my office building, waited around in the lobby for the elevator, and walked upstairs into my office with this offensive combination on. The entire time thinking of the number of occasions that will allow me to wear these shoes between now and Monday. My Easter outfit is bound to be these shoes and my black tights and nothing more for clearly, with my stupid boots with the god damn three inch heels, I’ve been missing out for several months. Thank God, Susan and I have such the friendship that even though I would rather look like hell than be uncomfortable, she pats me on the head, tells me about how awful it is, and loves me anyway. Or at least I hope.

Acts of Drama

March 19, 2008 | Filed under: Comes And Goes, Oh The Stupidity You'll See

“There’s a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside.”  ~Pearl Bailey

During lunch, someone made passing reference to the current Presidential election. I looked up startled and realized that that moment was the first time in five days that I remembered that there was an election going on. I could feel my face contort to a look of visible surprise when Barack Obama was mentioned as if I had never heard of him ever in my life. And obviously I had forgotten all about my pseudo-infatuation and that time he remembered my name. Every conversation in regards to politics that I have had in the last five days has been solely about the activities in other people’s marriages. It seems that everyone has a ‘roving eye’. I say that I don’t care but I listen intently and sucked into it anyway.

Later in the afternoon I would relay to Susan the facts behind my day. Done in great detail and dripping with inflection to show that I meant business. That rush that comes when so much has happened in such a short amount of time and it just layers and layers until inevitable explosion. It was one hour of drama that reminded me of an episode of “24” but with less Chinese torture devices and more of my threat to ‘choke that motherfucker’ and feeling so goddamn pissed off that I literally walked around in circles muttering to myself and kicking little cherub statues.

In the evening I couldn’t wait to tell Metalia about something that had absolutely nothing to do with me. Of this I am more than well aware. But I still couldn’t help but want to say, “You will NEVER believe what was just said”. I realize that the current drama threat level of a situation is at orange and I give it a gentle nudge towards red. For no other reason than procrastination and boredom and it is far better than watching grass grow.

I am now up to my eyeballs in drama. Ensconced by so much of it  that I can’t tell my head from my ass hole. Every other minute it is something new or someone else has said something. My gut reaction to be an enabler and claim that I don’t want to hear the latest and greatest most shocking thing only to lean in closer as if saying “But test me! See if you can shock me just a little bit more today than you did yesterday! Go on, TRY.” There is that natural inclination to want to know even if there is no reason to know. To dig and find out the details. To discern the fact from the fiction and then circulate the ‘truth’ or what is perceived as truth to the masses. For clearly, everyone and their brother should be in the know. Meanwhile, in the back of my mind, I realize that I shouldn’t care and I should stop enabling people and employ the ignore method but my inclination is to want to hear the story. So instead I employ the rock/hard place metaphor because while I shouldn’t care, I do. And while drama makes my head spin and there are way bigger things going on, I am still intrigued by the most mundane bullshit.

In the morning I wake up and write it all down for myself only to realize that more than my ass, this – not giving a shit - is something that I should be working on.

Aim low

March 16, 2008 | Filed under: Gruyere With That Wine, Humdrum

“In minds crammed with thoughts, organs clogged with toxins, and bodies stiffened with neglect, there is just no space for anything else.” ~Alison Rose Levy

Each day my sinuses wake up temperamental and fickle. Their only goal is to cause torture somewhere on par with forcing me inside of Circus, Curcus for 19 hours surrounded by clowns. Because I find the act of breathing to be a chore, I’m limited in my vocabulary because after each word I try to inhale and find myself light headed since the oxygen has no way of getting to my brain. So I leave you with photos from both SXSW and St. Patrick’s Day this past weekend. I’m also reluctantly showing this photo just because I’m a generally cruel person who thinks that all people should suffer at least once in their lives. Your turn! View if your eyes can stand to be assaulted by such an onslaught of terrible images. Neither set is particularly exciting but neither is my constant internal debate of when it is time to invest in a neti pot.

Later this week I start boot camp and then my friend, El and I will be going on a photo adventure. I’m aiming really low with my hopes and dreams right now. I hope that the boot camp makes me a little less pool ball in shape and that the photo adventure will keep my pictures from looking like they were taken by a blind woman with webbed hands. My dream is to breathe without feeling pressure in my eardrums that causes my eyeballs to bulge out of their sockets. The latter will determine much of the course of this week.

No more sauce

March 14, 2008 | Filed under: Just Add Alcohol

“And then he goes off on one of those run on sentences that little kids often do. Sometimes little kids are every bit as good as William Faulkner” – Jonathan Kozol.

Last night Jonathan Kozol was in town, which caused several individual bits of brain matter to have repeated orgasms. As they were unable to believe the fortune that had fallen upon their laps with the opportunity to hear the God of Pedagogy speak in the flesh. So they did what any obedient brain matter would do, they soaked up every bit of information and laughed heartily at anecdotes of the failures of education policy.

And this is how a week of complete nerdgasm ended. With my final, “Guess who I saw?!?!” and everyone surrounding me giving their best “I could give two shits” look of complete incredulity. It’s been fun to be bouncing off the walls because Anil effing Dash was three feet in front of my face and Jon and I had a nice chat about my shot put abilities and I knew David Paterson before he was famous. And yes this is all so very titillating (apparently it’s sexual innuendo day in these parts) to like 17 people. The rest of the free world questions if at any moment I had had more than three drinks. Funny! Because 90% of my OH you think I’m a complete DORK? I’ll show you complete DORK to the 89th power, week of fun was not so proudly powered by grey goose. In fact Tuesday night, when the BFFE came to town, my main and only course at dinner was vodka.

This my friends is the week that I realized that a) I will get sick of drinking. So sick in fact that if anyone at anytime in the next 24 hours presents me with any sort of alcohol, well, I cannot be held responsible for what I might do to that person. And b) Holy shit, I am such a flaming dork. So flaming that one might think that pocket protectors are going to shoot out of my ass.

I now need a nap. A very, very long nap. And if anyone feels moved to ask me about wine, then be prepared to lose an appendage.

Quick! Change the subject

March 12, 2008 | Filed under: Oh The Stupidity You'll See, This side of the Hudson

“Now that it’s all over, what did you really do yesterday that’s worth mentioning?” ~Coleman Cox

Don’t think I didn’t hem and haw over titling this “And Ho Jinks*Ensue” or “What would I do for $5500”. But I think being good and mature and remembering that I have a job I would like to keep for a few more years has trumped my eagerness towards immaturity. It is different when something of this nature occurs several states away or across the country but when you’re standing in line for a breakfast taco in Austin and you see your Governor’s face plastered all over CNN with the word PROSTITUTION in 47 point font bold, well then you kind of want to curl up in a ball and contemplate moving four hours north. I hear Montreal is lovely in the spring. My tagline would have to be “Smarties for all!”

It’s been information overload on top of the usual debauchery as of late Obviously I don’t know what it’s like to watch things unfold in places outside of Albany but here it went from “No EFFING WAY” to “mind numbing”. I’d like to get back to the regularly scheduled programming of snow and wait, yup, more snow and oh wait, is that rain? Nope, it’s snow. Alas not.

I am certainly not about to climb upon my pedestal and debate the merits of extracurricular activities outside of the marriage (I’ve never been married) or where my taxes have mysteriously gone off to (seriously, I don’t care). I am actually going to sit here and revel in the miracle that was surviving four days in Austin without anyone kicking me in the face or an incident of tears. In fact it’s been several weeks since my last sob fest and I’m feeling back to normal. ‘Normal’ of course being powered by Grey Goose la poire, patron and guacamole for four days but normal nonetheless.

*Sarah is so effing brilliant. It kills me.