No pictures yet...

Because, um, I enjoyed myself a great deal at the party, and couldn't work my camera phone, (although I didn't get half as effed up as I did at my LAST house party!) and no one stood still for pictures anyway, (and with the amount of trouble I was having with my camera phone, they would have needed to stand still until they aged) and the light wasn't very good and I was too involved changing music, re-filling the jungle juice bowl, and talking to people!

Highlights: My parents came, and even stayed for a little while! They weren't scared of my friends!

All my B----- peeps carpooled down from Everett! (For the record, that's about an hour and a half, one way. Three hours round trip.)

One of the B----- peeps brought Everclear, from his home state of Montana, and I made some excellent and very potent jungle juice with it.

One of my friends passed out, not once, but TWICE.

Another one of my friends passed out only once.

The Dogs were a little crazy, but good. Lots of laughter, lots of fun, lots of drunkeness, and I didn't even take my shirt off, this time! (Yes, the last house party I had, I did.)

Woo!

I really hope y'all appreciate how much work I do for you...

But you know I love it anyway!

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my honor to bring you the long-awaited and much-requested PICTURE POST of my BRAND NEW SPACE!

First, the street view:




And then, the living room:


Note the boxes.

And the kitchen, taken twice from the same angle (hey, I'm an engineer, not a photographer):






Hey, the pictures look SORT OF different, right? Did you note the blue covering on the microwave?

The adorable breakfast nook:




No bedroom pictures. Hey, I gotta respect my younger readers!

But we DO have a PARTY BATHROOM:


Note the shower curtain is not yet fully hung in this picture.

The Frighteningly Large Mudroom:





Again, taken twice, but from different ends. I promise.

And the backyard! Once from our "back porch":




And once from the alley:


Note the lack of curtains in that window by the shed, which is my bedroom window. I'm surprised I don't have teenagers camping outside that window at night.

And there it is, folks! My adorable house! Yes, my kitchen is turquoise, my mudroom is lavender, and my bathroom is red. And there are boxes everywhere. But this weekend will be different--oh yeah, I'm having a house party! Everyone is invited! If you read this blog, consider yourself invited! Comment to me and say you'd like an invite, and I'll send you one with the address. You can see my house in it's finished, fully occupied state--but assuming you can't make it, you know there will be pictures come Monday.

Really Short Post

I will eventually fill out this blog by including some hysterical dialogue between BestFriend and myself, but until then, here's an ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS LINK!

Holy Shit!

Procrastination = Me!Me!

ramblin' girl (or, as those of us in "the know" like to call her, RG) has officially tagged me with the following, and as I worked super hard yesterday and am therefore casting around for things to do today...what could be a better time than this? (Note: do not believe for one second that I worked too hard to read the brand spankin' newly updated Best of Craigslist yesterday.)

Pick 5 of the following questions and then complete the sentences. Then pass it on to 3 more of your blog friends! (No tag backs allowed.)

If I could be a scientist?
If I could be a farmer?
If I could be a musician?
If I could be a doctor?
If I could be a painter?
If I could be a gardener?
If I could be a missionary?
If I could be a chef?
If I could be an architect?
If I could be a linguist?
If I could be a psychologist?
If I could be a librarian?
If I could be an athlete?
If I could be a lawyer?
If I could be an inn-keeper?
If I could be a professor?
If I could be a writer?
If I could be a llama-rider?
If I could be a bonnie pirate?
If I could be an astronaut?
If I could be a world famous blogger?
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world?
If I could be married to any current famous political figure?

In no particular order, here are my choices:

If I could be a bonnie pirate, I'd wear Anne Bonny perfume, drink spiced rum, dye my hair red, and get lots of ink, which would go nicely over my pirate tan. I'd sail to the South and attack cruise ships, dispatching all the squabbling fat-cat guests to the bottom of the ocean and pressing one cute boy from each ship into my sevice--probably from the wait staff. The rest of the staff (hey, I have a soft spot in my hear for service staff) would be paid a little something and left on the nearest island.

If I could be a world famous blogger, I'd die happy.

If I could be married to any current famous political figure, I'd be married to Dubya (really!) and undermine him from within. Can you imagine what a really evil woman could do as the First Lady? I'd sleep with the vice president and all the Senate, pit the Republican party leads against one another, make them fight duels, get the president thrown out of office and make the entire party implode.

If I could be a librarian, I'd fight for free speech, start aggressive reading programs, secretly pass out revolutionary material to liberals, allow revolutionary elements of all kinds to meet in the library, and start a propaganda war against Bush from which he would never recover.

If I could be a doctor, I'd work in impoverished countries with kids--I'd try to keep them well and fed, try to give them a better life, and hope they do good things with it.

Whew! Good thing I'm slacking off today.

AND...I tag...

The World Against Me, and
They Call Me Lizzurd, and
Julie (In Toronto!)

because all of these people are awesome, and I selfishly want more from them. Isn't that the whole point of tagging?

Titan did NOT get better right away.

And I was a basket case, during which my boyfriend was not the most supportive of people. Thursday night, as I'm watching my dog throw up every hour, he calls: "I really want you to come over! Titan will be fine by himself for an hour or two! I'd just leave him in the backyard with all the food he can eat and let him puke it out of his system. But I admit that I don't know anything about dogs and it's probably not very good advice." I resisted the urge to insult him, reminding myself that I was tired and stressed and emotionally twisted.

The interesting thing is that I really didn't WANT a lot of support. At other, similar, times in my life, I've been all about being on the phone constantly, crying on other people's shoulders. This time, not so much. I called my two close friends who also have dogs--Jess, and Rachel--and they comforted me over the phone. (Jess brought over cooked rice in case Titan could hold food down! Awwwww...) And that was helpful. But beyond them--I didn't feel like outpouring to others, I felt like drawing inside myself and spending all the energy I had on my dog.

Friday he got worse and worse, not even being able to hold down ice cubes, and finally at 2:00 pm I took him into the vet's office for IVs, worried I'd never see him again. Then a second interesting thing happened: I picked up the phone to call my boyfriend and really didn't want to talk to him; I didn't think he would care and I didn't want to hear him pretending support just because he thought he should.

So I called an Ex instead, who I hadn't talked to for almost a year, and who had just begun text messaging me a few days before, and we talked for half an hour while I drank a cup of coffee, sitting in my Jeep with the doors open in the sunshine in the vet's office parking lot. Very calming.

I head up to Seattle, because I have to go meet a guy to tutor him. He's an adult, which I don't find particularly funny--he's studying for the GREs to go back to grad school, more power to him--except that I'd forgotten how much harder it is to tutor adults than children! ARGH! As a child, I hated asking for help--I wanted to pretend to myself and others that I knew everything already. This adult guy, C, at least doesn't have that--he's probably twice my age at least; plently old enough to know what he doesn't know. The problem is, he's very exactly sure of WHAT he doesn't know. He didn't give me a chance to talk at all--he had very specific ideas of what he wanted to do, and what he didn't want to do, and how he wanted me to spend my time--that's great, but honey, I'M the tutor. I know more about math (his subject of need, why is that always the case?) than he ever will, and he's trying to tell me how to do my job! Adults are like that--he's hiring a specialist, and he wants to get the most for his money by telling his specialist exactly what do to. Would he hire an interior decorator, or a heart surgeon, and then tell them exactly what furniture he wanted where, and how many valves he wanted replaced? (Actually, now that I've spent some time with this guy, I think he probably would.)

No matter. I swallow my pride and move on to meet my girl Shrewsbury at The Melting Pot, which has a great early happy hour, and on the way the vet calls and says they want to keep Titan overnight for more IV re-hydration, which is actually a big load off my shoulders--I know they can give him better care than I can, and once he's already at the vet's office, the trauma of being there is done--he might as well stay until he's 100% better. Rolling home after two glasses of wine, I send good thoughts to my dog and head over to the boy's house, where we talk about nothing that is bothering me (sigh) and then to a house party, where I see tons of people I went to elementary school AND middle school AND highchool with. God love you, Tacoma.

This morning I got Titan home and he seems to be doing fine--he's eaten twice, now, and is holding his food down just fine! YAY!!!!!

Thank you, everyone, for your good wishes. I love you all.

Notes to Self

A piece of sushi rolled under your car seat yesterday after it jumped out of your hands while you were driving like a maniac because you were late to an appointment, which you were too late to make and the receptionist yelled at you, AND trying to eat (remember how you cursed and screamed, because you love that sushi roll?) and it's still there. Pick it up before it spawns a whole colony of Snakeheads, or something, and you're eaten alive in 15 seconds flat.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program!

Titan is sick. Sick-to-his-stomach sick. (Let me tell you what a pleasant sight THAT is to come home to after a long day, see above.) And, worse, he's drooping around all mopey and uncoordinated--I'm worried! Or, I would be, if I wasn't under such bone-crushing, brain-liquifying stress at the office that I can't think about anything else except coffee and the cheap (3.50) bottle of wine waiting for me at home. I called the vet's office and they recommended I take him in, and he's due for his shots anyway. This happened once before, a year ago, and I put him on a starvation diet for 24 hours and started him on bland food, which he enjoyed--it's people food!--and then he was fine. I'm hoping the same thing will happen here--but at the same time, he's seven now, and he's a German Shepherd--he's not a long-lived dog. My last dog went from fine to cancerous and having to be put down inside two weeks--very sudden--so I'm worried about that possibility. But odds are that he's fine, and I'll get to walk him and love him when I come home tonight. Sigh. What a cutie.

And The World Against Me is right: EVERYONE who powers blogger needs this shirt. I already have it. Boo-yah. (However, I also agree with TWAM that everything on this site is cool and worth buying, especially ALL of the CUBE GOODIES! I would have the best-decorated cube in town!

And speaking of that, who wants to build their own office cube? The Cubes are awesome!

And one more note to self: it would figure that the one day you decide not to stop for coffee on your way to the office in a burst of self-righteousness and responsibility, figuring that you might as well wait for the free coffee at the office than get a cup of coffee for 1.75 at Starbucks, even though the drive is 45 minutes and it would sure help to get those brain waves going...and because you want to be at the office early...

...well, that would be the one day when there's an accident on the freeway and it takes you ONE AND A HALF FREAKIN' HOURS to go 25 miles. AND you've forgotten the lunch you carefully packed for yourself, which includes half a sandwich, two string cheeses, a salad, and JUNIOR MINTS, which you were looking forward to, and so of COURSE you're forced to get off the parking lot (freeway) and pull into a McDonald's drive thru because you're so weak from hunger you can barely drive, and what's a girl to do?

On the plus side, I successfully avoided sugary coffee. And two days ago I bought lovely knickers, as Belle Du Jour would say. (Google her--I'm at work!)

I'd Like to Thank This Blog...

And indeed all blogs, for connecting me to the human experience and making me fully aware that the injuries and indignities I suffer are just part and parcel of the human experience, and so therefore, I should NOT obsess about them, but simply treat them as pimples on the ass cheek of life and travel on my merry way.

Because this morning, when I was not quite awake and I stepped in to my shower, left foot first this time, it slipped sideways down the tub, I simply blocked my slide with my right shin, felt the sharp pain of the tub edge meeting the middle of my shin, thought, "Heh...I've read stories in SheWalks' blog MUCH worse than this!"...and went on with my shower. No slowing down, no crying and rubbing the shin, nothing!

So, question of the day is: does the navel gazing that is blogging actually make you LESS self-obsessed, not more? By forcing you to realize that there are other people out there?

And am I a very strange person because my second thought after "OW!" was "Hey, I can put this in my blog!"?

Blog Shout-out!

To kiwi, who I sadly missed a week ago when he traveled the distance between Eugene and Seattle and had dinner with Super-Stud Landon. (Not to say that Kiwi is not a super-stud. In fact, I happen to know that he's particularly HANDY around the house, if you know what I mean. He's just taken.) I was pleased to be invited and sad I couldn't go--the Upstate still had its hold on me.

*As you may have noticed, kiwi's blog link doesn't actually work, per se. No, I don't know why. But he's in my comments somewhere--go find him!

I'm posting a ton in other people's blogs...

So, as an alternative to thinking up new things to say here, I'll simply cut-and-paste. Because laziness is the key to...um...repetition?

How I Practically Busted Off My Own Butt:

Just a few short weeks ago, I came back from kickboxing exhausted and not fully in control of my leg muscles, and my parents' shower is always kind of slidy, so when I stepped into the shower with my right leg first (because I'm right-handed) it slid out from under me immediately, and because I had no reaction time whatsoever (since my muscles resembled jelly) I forgoed anything like flailing or grabbing the shower curtain rail, and simply sat down, very hard, on both the edge of the tub AND the washcloth rack IN the tub. You know how you get a bump on your head when you hit it? I actually had a bump on my ASS. (You couldn't see it, thanks to fat, but you could feel it, as my boyfriend discovered.) The bruise was less like a bruise and looked more like a blue flesh-eating virus had attacked my entire left ass cheek, with concentrations of black and red in the center. Once again, thank God for fat--I would have cracked my tailbone.

My New Addiction:

Okay, so I had some Starbucks today, so sue me. The two places that sell the Liquid Crack that is MarketSpice Tea in Tacoma aren't open early enough to serve me--I'll have to buy some! (Damn, more shopping.) So I had Starbucks this morning, instead, but I didn't have Starbucks for FOUR out of SEVEN days last week. For me, that's incredible.

But back to MarketSpice Tea. Liquid Crack, I tell you. It's wonderful, amazing stuff, with or without a tad bit of honey for sweetener. The two places that sell it close by, which everyone in Tacoma should visit: The Mandolin Cafe, which is about 100 times more incredible than it looks on their rather amateur website, and the Shakabrah Cafe, which is totally incredible and has no website. (This is what I love about Tacoma. Although I love the Internet more than I love air, even I can recognize the coolness of these places, which are SO COOL in real life that they don't even need a website. They don't even want one. They have no need to prove to Seattle-ites how cool they are, because everyone who needs to know, knows. That's just how cool they are.)

Sigh. MarketSpice Tea. I could really use some of that. But until that happens...I'll make do with my rather flavorless Stash "Premium" Green Tea. Right. Stash. (Okay, Stash isn't that bad, but they aren't as good as MarketSpice. For those of you who are confused, MarketSpice is both the name of a Seattle Tea Company, based in Pike Place Market since 1911, and the name of that company's signature tea. They also make many other kinds of tea. All of which are completely awesome.)

New House!!! New Life! (sort of.)

I have more fans! And more people to blog-stalk! This is AWESOME! Soon, though, I'll get to the point where I won't be able to remember what happened in my real-life friends' lives, including TheBoy. I'll be entirely consumed by IIFs, and if my real-life friends want to become my friends again, they'll have to get blogs and become IFFs. And that is the day, my friends, the day in which real people must become imaginary to be real, in which the Apocalypse will arrive.

Notice the change in subtitle and profile. I live in a house now, my very own space (rented, not owned, sadly) with Titan, and it's wonderful. Yes, pictures will be coming soon--lots of 'em.

Has anyone ever thought that suits have a smell?

Suits, as in, the fancy business dress that you wear. I'm sitting in a hotel room in a CASINO in UPSTATE NEW YORK (capitals emphasize things I DON'T like) and am sprawled out one of my huge beds, and for a second I swore I could smell my mother.

It's hot here in Syracuse, and I smelled hot polyester shirts and hot wool suits and my mother's skin, like she used to smell when she picked me up from school, the car smelling like warm skin and her pantyhose tossed off and crumpled up in the back seat, her shirt wrinkled in the back where it'd been creased from her sitting all day, and her jacket hanging carefully over the back of the car seat. I smelled all that.

And then I realized that my nose was against my own legs (shut UP, I get in weird positions to type) and that my warm polyester shirt had been tossed on the bed not far from me, and my legs smelled like, yes, warm polyester, and lotion--of course, since I'm my mother's daughter, it's the same kind of lotion my mom uses. I wasn't smelling my mother, I was smelling myself!

In other news: has anyone noticed that casinos have the absolute WORST food on the PLANET??? I'm so hungry that my stomach growls are audible 12 floors down, in the casino, over the noise of the slots, and even with this incentive not ONE thing on the menu looks good. Of course, I'm going off the room service menu, and I'm in UPSTATE NEW YORK--there ain't nothin' here, y'all, except golf courses. I wanted to take a walk around the grounds yesterday--because this Casino And Connected Buildings Resort is HUGE and has NINE GOLF COURSES, or some such ridiculousness. I mean, this resort complex covers half of the state. (Probably.) So would it be so unusual to ask if, on this rather large slice of paradise, there might somewhere be a nature trail?

If you're thinking, 'Obviously not', you're not good at reading comprehension. Apparently there IS something DRASTICALLY wrong with asking if there's a nature trail. The girls behind the desk at the Health Club (and, y'all, I am not skinny at all, but I was skinner than either of these girls--behind the desk at the HEALTH CLUB) looked at me like I was a crazy person.

"A what?"

"A nature trail, you know, or anything besides the concrete paths that lead to and from the damn parking lot?" (And I'd like you all to know that I'm not joking when I say there are shuttles. Yes, shuttles, to ferry people who are too sick to walk the few blocks between the parking lot and the casino--because god forbid they not get to the casino.)

"Uh...we've got...golf courses..."

Right. So I went out and walked the golf courses, and it was lovely, and I didn't see a single damn soul for an hour. I ran the sand traps, because they were the only hills I could find in Super-Flat Upstate New York. Yes, I did. Shut UP. And I didn't rake them down after myself either. (Although, in my defense, I had no idea you were supposed to. I saw the rakes, but I assumed they had been left there accidentally by the groundskeepers.)

I have decided on the mozzarella sticks and the chicken tenders, both appetizers. I figure they come frozen and the casino kitchen can't screw them up TOO badly. No, I don't want to leave my room--I've been on my feet in stilettos all day at a business exposition (thank you, B-----) and I'm sitting still in the air conditioning. Thank you.