My mom is of the attitude that you need a man to have a good life. I’ve fought her for 31 years, saying that you need a great career, good friends and enough money to buy fun stuff.
Notice that I’m 32 and while I’d rather be alone than with someone who makes me miserable, you read stories like this about people celebrating their 78th wedding anniversary and, well, it makes you wonder about your own remaining years and what they will — or, *gasp,* won’t — hold.
I find that most of the people in my life are Geminis, and so I have a lil something for those of us camped out in the birthday rut, not to mention any girl who gets a little sad from time to time but who, overall, is doing fine.
I saw this in the Town Courier during a stop at a restaurant after work last night. And I think I need to buy this woman’s poetry book post-haste.
At Twenty-Eight
It seems I get by on more luck than sense
not the kind brought on by knuckle to wood,
breath on dice, or pennies found in the mud.
I shimmy and slip by on pure fool chance.
At turns charmed and cursed, a girl knows romance
as coffee, red wine, and books; solitude
she counts as daylight virtue and muted
evenings, the inventory of absence.
But this is no sorry spinster story,
just the way days string together a life.
Sometimes I eat soup right out of the pan.
Sometimes I don’t care if I will marry.
I dance in my kitchen on Friday nights,
singing like only a lucky girl can.”At Twenty-Eight” by Amy Fleury is reprinted from “Beautiful Trouble,” Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. The poem was originally published in Southern Poetry Review, Volume 41:2, Fall/Winter 2002.
Also in the same newspaper, I saw that Frommer’s has named a metro D.C. city, Gaithersburg, Md., No. 2 among “Best Places to Raise Your Family: The Top 100 Affordable Communities in the U.S.” Considering it’s in the most affluent county in the nation — where they charge you to drive through a freaking park ($9 for three people in a car! The hell?), that’s quite an achievement.
Behold a sneak preview of the dog’s-breath days of summer. Sweet sweltering Jesus, we’re *down* to a temperature 86 degrees, which would be fine if we weren’t situated in the former swampland-turned-cesspool known as the nation’s capital.
I finally broke down and turned on my A/C Monday night, after lying inert in a puddle of my own drool throughout the day. It’s great now — the cats have stopped whining, although I hate not having windows open because those kids take some epic shits, I tell you. The kalidescope of cat funk is intermingling with my La-Tee-Da effusion lamp (currently burning Now & Zen) and making me ill.
But boy howdy, I dread the gas bill now, as I have the thermostat set just below 80 degrees and the A/C, in two days, has yet to automatically shut itself off because the house can’t stay cool. And it’s in the shade, too. Splendid.
Because we need a little bit of lightening up around here, who didn’t love the episode of “The Office” when Dwight went to Toby the H.R. guy — this after Toby encouraged the employees of Dunder Mifflin to come to him with any concerns — and asked where to find the clitoris?
I was having this discussion with someone and noted that I only wish more men would ask. I tell ya, some of these guys need a TripTik and a miner’s hat (with the spotlight) to even find the neighborhood, half the time. I guess it didn’t occur to Dwight that Toby probably needed a roadmap and a searchlight of his own in that territory. 😉
Forgive the title, but after a whole weekend without blogging, there are 40 billion thoughts clamoring to be acknowledged in this entry. Bear with me. Or spare yourself and find someone a little less schizo on your blogroll to ease into the week with!
*updated*
It’s weird when you work on your birthday, in a world in which you’ve become accustomed to giving your birth date and Social Security number for practically everything. I work with a lot of time-sensitive, dated material. And I cannot tell you how many documents on which I wrote “1974” after yesterday’s date. The first sign of getting old, I guess!
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Unrelated, I was telling my best friend about this bizarro dream I had Wednesday night. I described it in ridiculously minute detail, as that’s how I dream. She paused and said that it sounded like it could be a storyline out of “Grey’s Anatomy.” LOL. The funny thing is, I tend to write in very much the same style as “Grey’s” is, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it appear somewhere next season, as I’ve already seen two of my storylines (roughly) appear on the show. But holy crap, if that dream were meant to be symbolic, let’s just say I got the damn message, and since then, I’ve been thinking of little else.
MIDDAY UPDATE
Jobs you don’t envy: anyone who works with me.
My bookcase has developed a mold problem. I mean, a bad one. I’m allergic as all hell to mold, too. I was telling our department assistant about it, and to prove it, I made her smell my cute stuffed frog’s ass, which had sat atop the bookcase and now smells like dry-roasted ass. And just that visual of me shoving a frog’s ass into the face of someone I love and respect, well, says a lot about my day. “Smell my frog!”
The good news is I’m not the only one with a mold problem. I just hope I can finally get a new office — preferably one with a window — out of it, but I doubt it. But hey, can’t blame a girl for asking!
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I’ve graduated from eating ramen noodles to eating Lean Cuisines for lunch. But I’ve noticed that within an hour of snarfing down whatever horrid delicacy I’ve chosen for lunch (which I usually eat at 3 p.m.), I’m never really satisfied and always hit the vending machine for HoHos or something equally disastrous. Yup, I’m all about the balance. Hey, at least I’ve had *something* healthful in me!
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I need to send a special shout-out to Sabre for giving me my only birthday hug. Seriously, that was what was missing all day yesterday — human contact. Well, that and her scaring some folks I’d been talking to by offering me a birthday spanking and me scaring them further with an enthusiastic response to the effect that I’d never miss out on a spanking. 😉
But first, a housekeeping note.
THE SUCKIEST BIRTHDAY ON EARTH, INTERRUPTED BY NON-SUCKITUDE
I received flowers today.
*gasp*
Like, holy crap and no shit, someone thought of me today. No one was more surprised than me.
I got a call from the receptionist to come pick up a package at the front desk. No big deal — I’m always ordering shit off the Internet, so I didn’t even think about it. For a minute, I did wonder because I’d thought I’d received everything for the time being, but enh. Whatever.
So I went to the front desk and saw this big thing o’flowers. I looked right past it and asked for my box. Whereupon I was told duh, you old-ass bitch (OK, not in those words!), those flowers are yours.
I was stunned. Seriously, just wowed. Everything was vibrant, in pinks and purples. I especially appreciated the pink hydrangeas in it. In any event, though, I was floored that I’d actually told someone where I work, because that’s not info I’m apt to share because that’s the one place I can count on being completely disassociated with things like reality!
PITY, PARTY OF ONE
In any event, thank you to all who stopped here or in person to leave a birthday wish and/or say or do something nice today. The funk that fell upon me this particular year was more vicious than most, although perhaps it was just pent-up from years of just plain old disappointing days. One of my favorite songs is Don Henley’s “The Last Worthless Evening,” no doubt because you just hope that you’re going to wake up and all your dreams are going to come to fruition.
And maybe mine don’t because my faith just slips away like sand through a sieve, just like my youth seems to be. But I do feel like these wonderful days should be celebrated. And I guess I do, in my own ways. When I get around to it. Someday.
NOW, WE RETURN TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED NAVEL-GAZING
Joy of joys, Taylor Hicks won “American Idol”! Yay! Katharine McScreechy, the stuck-up, obnoxious brat who competed against him, got her stupid ass sent home. You know, I have one word for McFuckhead and McMother — VPL. Yes, boys and girls, you can wear your skintight hoochie-mama dresses till the cows come home, but I don’t care if you’re a size 4 or not, if your panties don’t fit, your dress becomes a mess. Seriously. Bikinis don’t mesh with $500 evening gowns in a size 0 when you know you need a size 6.
Taylor Handled his win with such class. In the midst of his song, he thanked the band, the producers, the judges and America. I’m sure Katharine would have hogged the spotlight all to herself. GAWD, when she was onstage with Meatloaf — which would be a fucking HONOR — she acted like she was the only one there. I mean, he’s a LEGEND … a freaking ICON, and there he was singing his amazing, amazing “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” with all the passion he could muster.
And in her usual fashion, she oversang it and sang over him, just happily belting the shit out of the song. That was her whole problem all season — she and Paris loved to do their songs at full-decibel level. Thank god she scaled back and was all sensitve and shit with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” — that was her ticket to the finals because she finally made you feel the melody without walloping you over the head with it.
I had signed into iTunes to buy Taylor’s song on the new “AI” CD. And the service shows the most-downloaded songs from that album. No joke, in order, Chris Daughtry’s song was the best-seller, followed by Elliot Yamin’s, then Taylor’s and then the hoebag’s. I had purposely waited till that day to buy Taylor’s — I figured some other Mac nerd would be taking the same inventory to show that if America had its way, the recent outcasts would be the true Idols. But more importantly, the finalist whose song was selling better would be the winner, statistically speaking. And I was right! Woo hoo!
And yes, this is the first time I’ve voted for the winner. I still think Clay Aiken should have won season two, and wow he rocked socks during the finale. When he appeared onstage while they were letting that reject sing, I had to laugh because the non-talent kept trying to sing to compete with Clay. I was so happy when Ryan pulled up a chair and seated the kid and encouraged him to rest his mic so that Clay could finish the song and do it justice.
The highlight of the show for me, other than a very deserving Taylor walking off with the title (but did I hear it right that McScreechy’s dad is a record producer? The hell?!?!), was when Chris Daughtry was performing with Live. I *~*heart*~* Live. I heart Live even more now that I’ve seen Chris and Ed Kowalczyk sharing a stage like old friends. (Lord, those two looked like they were separated at birth — I suddenly found myself quite attracted to Ed!)
And Mandisa. Ah, Mandisa. Even though she was pretty much relegated to the chorus of contestants who hadn’t finished in the top five, she still stood out. Everyone else pretty much just sang their little parts. Not her — she personalized every single moment of the few she was afforded to show the nation her originality and scope and just plain ol’ fabulosity.
I was sort of bummed that Taylor’s performance with a star turned out to be “In the Ghetto” with Toni Braxton. It was great, don’t get me wrong. But I have been waiting for Michael McDonald to get his ass on the show and do his thing with Taylor. Seriously, a nice rendition of “I Keep Forgettin'” would have melted the damn stage.
In any event, my girlfriend called from the West Coast to ask who the winner was so that she didn’t have to watch it, and I insisted that she watch the show because it was fantastic — especially the awarding/bringing back of several rejects. I mean, who didn’t love seeing “Brokenote Mountain” again? Those poor boys were so serious, singing their widdle hearts out. This was their chance, and they knew it — their one shot to be *discovered.* I thought they did well, but I don’t see any recording contracts in their future.
I, however, see myself going to a summer “Idol” concert when they come to D.C., and I don’t care if I have to go by myself. However, if any of y’all are psychotically addicted to the show like me and want to come with, you bring the wine and I’ll pack a pickanick basket and our beloved contestants will supply the cheese. … 😉 Who’s with me?!!?
In honor of Karma’s slight wardrobe malfunction, I feel compelled to share one of my own.
I got out of work early last night. By early, I mean at what normal people call a reasonable hour, but bear with me. Anyway, I went shopping for a purse, but never did find a purse but saw a cute shirt in the same shade of green as my eyes and, on a separate rack, found a cute itty bitty little sweater that would go over said camisole-type shirt.
So, at this particular store, you need to fill a urine specimen cup and dance the Horah before anyone will give you permission to inhabit a dressing room (that’s surprisingly mirror-free, which is oh so great if you are brave enough to venture beyond the permanently locked dressing room door to
A) Be seen looking like crap by other women in the dressing room (because you KNOW you never have the “right” type of underwear on for the item you’re intending to buy), or
B) Be OK with the door swinging shut and thus locking your belongings in the dressing room, at which point the whole store gets to see the fat ass you squoze into the item you are never in a million years going to purchase.
Whew.
Where was I?
Oh yeah, the store.
So anyway, my phobia of the dressing room odyssey made me just try on the clothes right there at the rack. No big deal — the shirt and the sweater both fit over what I was wearing at the time.
But …
So I was wearing this new bra, and to say it had been an unsuccessful purchase was a bit of an understatement. Meaning, if you move the wrong way, something pops out somewhere. I wore it on Saturday night and noticed it had peeked out of my shirt (think shiny creamsicle color — yeah, ORANGE) because one of the girls had freed herself and gone beneath the wire and thus the fabric was all hiked up practically under my chin. Fucking whee.
And in the store, as I was pulling off the shirt I was thinking about buying (which I did, which why the hell not at that point), both girls popped out of this crap-ass push-up bra. Let’s just say one got pushed up and over, and the other popped out under the wire.
And yes, something else fell out that I’d forgotten about because I didn’t need it after all. Kill. Me. Now.
I was standing there under all the fucking surveillance cameras, trying to adjust the girls and, oh hell, while I was at it, I made sure that once they were situated safely within the fabric, that they were, uh, standing at attention as much as they could after that occurrence of defeat from all angles, literally. Even in line at the cash register, I was fussing with the straps and trying to make sure the girls were secure, the way they had been when I’d entered that vortex of despair.
I don’t think women burned their bras as any kind of political statement — rather, I think they just really liked the thought of igniting the boulder-holders that they spent good money on that did anything but prevent falling rocks!
Was I the only one who cast 30 votes for Taylor Hicks? I think last night’s frenetic text-messaging reignited my carpal tunnel although, arguably, I did that while Chris Daughtry was still on the show, for myriad reasons. 😉
