S-E-X-X-Y (x because it's extra, baby)

I am super hot. And at last I have the proof.

In high school, I had a...

75% resemblance to Catherine Zeta-Jones
74% to Jessica Alba
73% to Michelle Rodriguez
73% to Jodie Sweetin (LMAO)
72% to Hillary Rodham Clinton
72% to Kelly Preston
72% to JoJo
71% to Jenna Malone
70% to Katherine Heigl
70% to Sela Ward

Pretty mind-blowingly hawt, huh? Yeah. That's why I was a drama and choral music geek -- everyone was too intimidated by my extreme beauty. But now I have mellowed, grown into my looks. Oh, and apparently become significantly more Eurasian...

72% Hillary Duff
71% Sofia Vergara (Columbian actress)
71% Allison Hannigan
70% Preity Zinta (Bollywood actress)
68% Woranuch Wongsawan (Thai actress)
68% Jenna Elfman
67% Song Hye-kyo (Korean model/actress)
66% Melissa Joan Hart
66% Jolin Tsai (Taiwanese Mandopop singer)
66% Kelly Hu

Nice to know that three things remain contstant:

1) I've retained the teen pop singer market (internationally, it now seems)
2) I'm still in the teen sitcom star demographic
3) I remain just a *wee* bit Scientological

This is of course all courtesy of the MyHeritage.com face recognition software.
Visit. Try it out. Record the results -- heck, if you were to ever wind up
horribly disfigured, maybe they can use the results to sculpt you a new face, a la Kathleen Quinlan in The Promise. And Melissa Manchester can sing your theme song. Fade to credits.

The Sweat Keeps Rolling Off the Tip of My Nose

So the personal trainer has been kicking my ass Mondays and Fridays at 6am -- imagine my ongoing shock that I get up at 5am to work out. LMAO. In addition to the twice-weekly workouts, I am to be getting daily cardio (I don't) and tracking my food in a journal (I do). The food journal is illuminating, to be sure... did you know you can get fat if your daily food intake is 47% fat? Mind-blowing, huh? Next thing, she'll tell me that my cardio-avoidance is sabotaging my training. Oh, wait... she did.

Living in walk-ups since 1998, the bane of my existence is stairs -- bastard things. Heck, in the old-old apartment (the apartment I was living in when I met BFE), I used to call Peapod and have them deliver the heaviest shit I could think of, just so I did not have to haul it up the stairs. Kitty litter, laundry detergent, cases of soda... I'd make big burly Peapod men drag it up three flights, tip them well, and wallow in my lazy consumerism. Bliss. Haven't done Peapod in years now, and BFE and I lug everything ourselves.

But now, more than two score lighter, lugging stuff is not so bad. I mean it's no trip to the Jewel bakery aisle (mmm... crappy Jewel cake...), but it's better. Hauling my own ass up the stairs is easier, let alone with stuff. Recently, I was loaded down with several heavy bags, including my own overloaded purse and my gym bag, and mid-hike I wondered what all that stuff weighed -- as soon as I reached the apartment, I hopped on the scale, still loaded for bear. My burden weighed less than half what I had lost, meaning that I used to carry more than twice that extra weight around ALL THE TIME. Amazing.

Funnily enough, the thing I hate most about the workout is the eliptical trainer -- I have to get on it for ten minutes at the top of each session, to get my heart rate up. Three sessions ago, she had me switch to doing five minutes forward, then five backward -- what fresh hell?! I am not sure what it is I hate so much about the eliptical -- I've tried them at various gyms, and hated them every time. Would rather do an hour on a treadmill than 10 mins on the eliptical.

So now's time to stop fucking around. I am about 1/3 of the way through the 50 sessions, and need to get serious. Yahoo serious. So if you see me bundled up and running the streets this winter, just get out of my way. Please.

There's Always the Lies in the Locker Room

So, on the 15th (two scant weeks from today), I start work with a personal trainer. The current plan is for 50 sessions, which will take me right up to the wedding. It's a chance to finally transform myself in a quantifiable, tangible way -- I watch celebs like Madge transform from waify-feed-me-I'm-a-starving-dancerdom to cute-80s-danceteria-pudge to lean-post-Penn-yoga/jogger-tour-whore. And I wonder how far I can push the envelope myself.

I have always been amazed by transformation. Evolution, aging, makeovers, plastic surgery, drag queenery... watching someone go beyond the limits of what you thought was possible from the raw material they were given. One could say that getting fat is a means of transformation as well, of pushing the (flesh) envelope. But to me, getting fat, the acquiring of fat, is less an act of transforming than an act of obscuring and obfuscating. Transformation is the carving of the elephant from the rock by removing everything that does not look like an elephant. Getting fat is hiding elephant in the rock, like a fossil waiting to be uncovered. Fat is the La Brea Tar Pits.

I'm nervous -- I know I can do it, but am afraid I won't. I'm excited -- the next seven months (see newly added countdown clock) will be an amazing time, en route to becoming a new person... in both name and body, spirit and flesh.

You Shook Me All Night, Long(a Long-Fellow Serenade)

This weekend, I saw Accepted -- that movie about the kids that invent a college, perhaps you've seen the previews? Turned out to be a much better, smarter film than one would have suspected. The benefits of walking into a movie theatre with low expectations, I guess. Plainly put, I loved this movie. Plus, it features a fun punky band -- in a nice, quiet way, like when the Plimsouls were in Valley Girl, or actually more like when The Yardbirds were featured in Blow Up. Yeah, I just referenced an Antonioni film... smell me. Anywho, the band's called The Ringers, and they have a new album coming out, which I'm buying on basic principle. Give them a listen -- you should love them, or at least be a little amazed that I love such chaotic music. Yeah, I'm an enigma.

Accepted features the uber-charming Justin Long, who has this Borg-like likeability (resistance is futile), and whom I've loved in everything I've seen him in. Look at that mug: How cute is he? I even loved him in the otherwise-not-as-funny-as-we'd-hoped Dodgeball, so there you have it. He's also attached to the upcoming Die Hard 4 pic (aka Live Free and Die Hard), and lord knows I love me a Die Hard movie. And a Bruce Willis movie. Heck, if we get Samuel L in this one too, it's like a trifecta for me.

I know now that I'm going to have to go back & watch dreck like Galaxy Quest, and even rent Herbie: Fully Loaded just to get my Justin Long fix. [Sidebar: From time to time I get a random fixation, and have to watch as much as possible from a particular oeuvre. Since I've frequented the same Blockbuster since 1998, I know the staff's tastes and admit to more than a passing embarassment when I bring crap up to the counter. Case in point? When I rented everything Freddie Prinze Jr had made to date, in a misguided attempt to figure out why he gets work. I still don't know why. Is America still trying to make it all better that his daddy died? Yeah, I said it.]

My favorite movie of Mr Long's to-date had been Jeepers Creepers. Perhaps you've seen it at the video store? Just rent it. Don't ask, JUST RENT IT. Again, a much better movie than it let on it was. They had me from "hello" -- more appropriately, they had me from the opening shot. The long, slow shot of the winding road. It gives you that instant sensation of something not quite being right... an otherwise serene shot that you just know is lying to you. And, my friend, it is. So rent it, already!

Me? I'm going to go buy some hobo-stab insurance. :)

Besos a todos, K

You Fondle My Trigger, Then You Blame My Gun

Okay, so to Yes-And my own post about the dirty, dirty whores demographic and bizarrely targeted marketing, I submit the following piece of amorality as evidence:

WHAT. THE. FRESH. HELL?!?

"My hair's limper than my boyfriend after a few drinks"?!? (and yes I know that last bit of punctuation is wrong, but we have a MORAL APOCALYPSE on our hands, people!!! Suck it up!) Why are we degrading our whiskey-dicked mates in the name of HAIRCARE?!? Isn't this the kind of talk we save for after we've broken up with the guy? You know, where you swear you're not going to trash him to your friends because you're "better than that," but one night, after a few too many Belvedere dirty martinis with the blue cheese stuffed olives, you break down and whisper to your friend, "You know, he never could keep it up when he had a couple of beers in him."

Why, in the name of all that is bouncin' and behavin' are we stooping to this?!? What's next, America? A campaign for Champion stating: "Because I want a tube sock that doesn't sag as much as my girlfriend's tits." ?!? (Again... APOCALYPSE) "Secret (TM): So your pits don't smell like your husband's balls."?!? What the fuck?!

Wash Your Face, You Dirty Whore

So I was at Fizz a week or so ago, and went to the ladies room. Apparently Noxzema has a new campaign for their Wet Cleansing Cloths product line, and are using the in-bathroom advertising like Zoom Media or some such to market to dirty, dirty whores. The tagline? "Wherever you wake up, look like you just didn't."

WHAT THE HELL?!?

Now I'm hoping someone down at Procter & Gamble owns a copy of Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, so I will not get into the awkward sentence structure of said campaign. But a campaign targeting women's restrooms in bars, leading with "Wherever you wake up..." amazes me. Wherever I wake up? Why not just cut to the chase and make the campaign "Wash your face, you dirty whore!" since that's what you're implying. You evil P&G whoremongers, you want me to buy these cloths, which need no water to use, and keep them in my wee bar-hopping purselet, so I can use them to cleanse myself no matter which ho-bag flophouse I arise in? Fuck balls.

Gettting Carved-Out Lettuce From People I Don't Even Know

A nice long post, to help make up for my absence.

My best friend in HS, Linda Raisinette (sort of her real name), was the best for misheard lyrics. Both of us loving to sing, it was all about knowing the words... and sometimes Linda would learn them with disasterous results. This post is about two of my favorites.

"Dreams" ~ Fleetwood Mac

Thunder only happens when it's raining
Players only love you when they're playing
They say women, they will come and they will go
When the rain was changed you cleaned your nose


With dear Stevie Nicks' former propensity for the nose candy, I now find that one even funnier. Maybe it was her ass that should have been cleaned -- were the Rumours that she used to have an assistant she paid to put coke up her ass (because her nose was too destroyed) ever proven out? Though when she looked like this it was probably easier to hire them.

BTW, the actual lyric is "When the rain washes you clean you'll know."

But the main reason I bring you all this is for misheard lyric # 2, which is also the title of this post. "Getting carved-out lettuce from people I don't even know." Linda and I would battle over her misheard lyrics, her adamantly insisting these were the words, and me saying "They CAN'T be... that doesn't MEAN anything!" Conceptually, this one blows my mind -- imagine this happens to you. People you don't know giving you carved-out lettuce. WTF, right?

Okay, now imagine you're David Hasselhoff. Imagine you're adored by legions of Germans. You do big music specials on German televsion, and you sing songs like this...




This may be the best piece of television I've ever seen. God bless. Of course, circa 1975, I was *mesmerized* by Glen Campbell and this song. I remember running to the TV anytime he was on singing it, and sitting as close as I could for as long as I could until hollered about me ruining my eyesight.

Glen Campbell was my first crush, back in the days when I wanted to be Toni Tenille. Glen was tossed aside like an old shoe for Donny Osmond, whom I was CERTAIN I would marry some day. See, Donny was 12 when I was born, and somehow I knew when I was seven or eight that although the then-20-year-old Donny was far too old for me, someday I would be older, and the age gap would not be so big. And then I would pounce.

Then came Shawn Cassidy, whose poster adorned my wall for several years. I think it was not much of a leap from Shawn's hairless-chested androgeny to the next (and last) Poster Boy to adorn my wall: Adam Ant. Adam was the apotheosis of my scrawny-white-british-boys-in-makeup phase. Still love his music. Shame he went nutballs, culminating in these recent charges (2002):

Charges of criminal damage, assault causing bodily harm and possession of an imitation firearm were dropped against the 47-year-old Ant, who was released on bail awaiting an October 2 sentencing hearing.

The incident, according to prosecution lawyers, occurred January 12 when Ant showed up at the Prince of Wales pub in north London wearing a cowboy getup. Patrons began to laugh and mockingly hum the theme song from the 1966 Clint Eastwood spaghetti western "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," according to the AP report.

The "Goody Two Shoes" singer reportedly stormed out of the bar and returned later in the day with a WWII-era starter pistol that belonged to his father, then threw a car alternator through the pub's window, hitting a local musician. When patrons began chasing him down the street, Ant pulled the gun, "which they thought was genuine, and threatened to shoot them if they didn't back up," Ant's lawyer, David Tomlinson, told the court in an earlier proceeding, according to AP.

Ant was arrested a half-hour later when police found him trying to hail a cab. The report described Ant as looking "pale and drawn" during the proceedings, during which he wore an understated black fedora and tight-fitting pinstripe suit.

Sad, really. Apparently he's had a long-time battle with depression. Still, it made me laugh til I cried when I first heard. The cowboy outfit, the "Good/Bad/Ugly" whistling, the alternator. It's almost as good as 'carved-out lettuce' IMHO. You can't make this shit up.

Besos a todos, K

Thick as Split Poop Soup

To the drivers on Lake Shore Drive this morning:

Hi guys. I get that it's super foggy, but at road level, visibility is actually pretty clear, so there's really no need to ride your brakes. I know you're probably scared the all the big buildings have disappeared, but guess what? The mag mile is still there. John Hancock? Still there. Navy Pier? Still there.

Maybe you're just startled that the buildings are rising up Brigadoon-like as you approach them... don't worry. They were there all along. Maybe you're worried that *I* might be worried, and are hoping the soft glow of your taillights will comfort me somehow. Again, don't worry. Just concentrate on your driving, and maintain a safe yet comfortable rate of speed so that we can all get where we're going.

Me? Oh I'm headed to a high-rise, and with today's fog there's zero visibility outside my window. But you know what? I know it's still all there, so I'm at peace with it. A warm, calming peace that does not cause my braking foot to in any way press down towards the floor.

Besos a todos, K

Gay for Natalie Wood

I admit it, I am gay for Natalie Wood. Hopefully Milla Jovovich will forgive me for this betrayal, but it's so easy to love the dead -- they can do no wrong. But Milla, everytime you do another comic-book-or-computer-game-based film and kick major cinematic ass, I love you just a little bit more.

But right now, this is not about you, Milla (you cherry-booted vixen, you) -- this is about Natalie Wood. For many years I denied my inherent Nata-lust because of my father, who had worshiped her as the ideal female. And he should know from ideal females. But there was no denying her, not Natalie. One of my favorite movies is Inside Daisy Clover wherein she is brilliant and tortured, and you too just want to drink martinis and marry Robert Redford and make out with Christopher Plummer and have a breakdown and blow shit up, just so you can hang with her.

It's something about the eyes. Those Wood eyes (hairlip). And her slightly squeaky/raspy voice, like she stayed up too late being one of the boys, but still found time to powder her freckles and put on some eyeliner before she met you for lunch that day.

So all of this gayness means that I now have to get off my ass and buy/read the recent bio book -- I know there were men (Elvis, James Dean, Warren Beatty, Steve McQueen) and there was sadness (drinking, rape, suicide attempts), but I want to know more. Maybe it will humanize her for me, and make her less of a pretty picture, albeit one I would kill to look like.

But I do still love you Milla. Don't you worry, I'll gay-out about you all over this blog someday. In the meantime, keep kicking ass, showing your tits like any good former model would, but just one word of advice: If RJ and Chris Walken ask you on a boat ride off Catalina Island, JUST SAY NO.

Big Fat Woman

Okay, so I'm a big fat woman. Regardless of the fat, I'm big -- about 5' 10" on a good day -- but it's still big enrobed in a delicious coating of fat. Sometimes "I'm a big fat woman" is more or less true, and of course it all depends on your perspective, but I feel pretty fucking confident that by all modern standards I am fat. I do not mean this to self-denigrate, but to state the obvious and take ownership. I fit on planes without the seat belt extender, fit in my seat at the movies, but I'm no waif... not by a long shot. Let's put it like this: If I were single, and I met you on MySpace, and your "Who I Want To Meet" said 'no fatties'... you'd be pretty bummed if I got in your Jetta and tooled off to tapas with you. Thwaap.

So when I am out in public, and people off in their own little worlds walk right into my path and practically knock me down, it takes me by surprise. Not in the common, everyday, "Holy shit, someone just knocked me down!" way that you or your mom or the guy that delivers your Chinese takeout might experience... rather, it's in the "Um, how is it possible that you could not see ME?!? I am a big fat woman!" way. If you're not one, get in touch with your Inner BFW, and you too can be amazed when people half your size practically walk right through you.

In my car, I get it. I have a teeny tiny shitty little compact car. Mine is the car that you think is an empty parking space until you get closer, and then you swear at my car for being so wee. But my car can't help it. Maybe it's its metabolism. My car gets cut off at least a couple of times a day, in part ( believe) because it's small and people don't see it in their blind spot. [Side Note: I also have a super-ineffectual (oxymoron?) car horn, so if someone does cut me off or almost hits me or something, and I honk, they're oblivious. It's the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it.]

In person, however, it's another story. I may not be a semi, or a tractor trailer, but I'm at least an SUV, or maybe a 1979 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Pro-fat activists (Fativists?) say that to be fat in modern society is to be invisible... is that it? Have I rendered myself invisible? As I lose weight, is it like the end of Back To The Future where the picture of MJF and Wendie Jo Sperber and Marc McClure fades back into vibrant focus? Will there be a badly-overdubbed and inappropriate rendition of Johnny Be Goode when I hit my goal weight? It's odd to think of myself as being more alive when I'm more compact -- being compact only does so much for my car, after all. At least I'll get an Enchantment Under The sea dance out of it.

Pissing Myself

So I just got my first laptop, from which I am blogging as we speak. Holy craptop, I am so excited!!!

Cocksucker Laptop Thief

Someone stole BFE's laptop Saturday night, off his desk at work.

It's such a horrible thing, that hollow panicky feeling you get when things go wrong -- when you lock your keys in your car, or have something stolen, or almost hit something (a dog, another car) while driving. The sensation as your mind tries desperately to rewind and correct what is obviously an error... and then discovers it can't, because This Is Reality.

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance: The Five Horsemen of Tragedies Large and Small. When it's something like a laptop or cell phone, add to it Raw Panic -- we live in an age of identity theft, so you're left wondering if they just hocked your merch for money to buy Nyquil and Qtips, or if they're busy buying tickets to the Bahamas.

All I know is: I want to find the person, shove the laptop up his or her ass, and then open it.

Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp

Fan of "Freaks & Geeks" or "That 70's Show" much? Looks like their creators had a major flame war.

If you're not familiar with the Trailer Park contest, it involves cutting new, cross-genre trailers for popular movies. The results are usually pretty brilliant -- check out The Shining as the feel-good movie of the summer, and Se7en as a gay love story. IMHO, scary movies turned happy & shiny work better than the other way around, but there are some exceptions -- Big as a child molestation thriller and West Side Story as a zombie flick.

This one kills me -- impeccable delivery. A comedian's 'signed' version of Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn."

That's it for me whoring other people's links for now. Oh and if you're wondering where the title of this post came from...

Dork Chic (or Nice Guys Scream Like Girls)

What is it about dorks that appeal to us girls? I'm sure someone somewhere has quantified it. My last post was in part about machismo -- is it as simple as a lack thereof? My MBA-student client thinks the world owes him a living and I'm just here to serve -- being in a Client Services -type position, I can only bitch about this so much. But the Better-Than attitude is unnecessary, and actually counterproductive to getting what you want from a service worker.

Dorks do not pull the Better-Than -- at least not in this way. There's the competitiveness of a I-Can-Remember-Encounter-At-Farpoint-Better-Than-You initiation, but not a I-Have-More-Worth-Than-You thing. Something about Growing Up Geek that makes them humble.

This is all of course a broad generalization, but there you go. I know lots of IT guys that would normally fall under 'Dork' but are assholes with definite superiority complexes. Of course in my F'ed up head, it just makes them more irresistable. The Moderate Asshole Guy is always more desireable than the Super Nice and Treats You Well All The Time Guy.

And what's THAT about? I remember dating this guy when I was 16-17 -- my mom called him Ol' Black Joe, no matter that he was neither Old or Black. He was Joe, however, and he was the nicest guy ever.

Too nice, in fact. WAY too nice. Like put-you-on-a-pedestal nice. Yucky. Gave me the wiggins. But he was soooo nice, and liked me so much, I could only politely decline the date so many times before I figured "WTF. Maybe I'll see something in him on a date that I'm not seeing at work."

We went to a ChiChi's or some such crap for dinner -- it was not a love connection, at least not for me. That became apparent at dinner, but we were scheduled to see a movie after dinner, and rather than feign a headache or cramps or diptheria, I accompanied him to our intended movie nonetheless. The movie? Nightmare On Elm Street III.

If you're a Nightmare On Elm Street afficionado, you know that III is the Dream Warriors, where the kids of all the Elm Street residents are all nutballs and living in a locked facility. Craig Wasson, king of the sleazy horror flick (rent Body Double if you doubt me), is the protagonist-doctor, and Heather Langencamp is back as Nancy Thompson -- all growed up, with a psych degree, and a fakey silver streak in her hair to indicate age and wisdom. Her specialty? Sleep disorders. Duh. It writes itself.

So, if you *really* know these movies, you know there's a scene in III where our lead troubled-teen (portrayed by Patricia Arquette) dreams she is walking into Nancy's old house on Elm Street. It's all dusty and cobwebby and whatnot, and in the formal dining room is a full formal set up, including a dusty roast suckling pig with an apple in its mouth.

So, seen any horror films EVER? Seen any Nightmare films? You see a roast suckling pig on a table, in a Dream where Anything Can Happen -- what do you think happens? Of course. The pig comes to life. I saw it a mile away, you saw it a mile away, people a mile away saw it, um... a mile away. Joe? Joe did not see it.

Pig comes to life. Joe SCREAMS. Not jumps, not gasps -- SCREAMS. And not a big girly shriek, but a Big Deep Manly Bellow, leaving no doubt in the minds of anyone else in the audience that he was a big Horror Movie Puss. The rest of the audience gasped a bit, and a couple of girls shrieked, but Joe was the loudest and most protracted, and the rest of the moviegoers looked over and laughed. I, meanwhile, tried to disappear.

We walked around for a while after and talked, and he drove me home, but that was it. I did not go out with him again. We could have been friends, but he wanted more, and I did not... and I wanted to see horror movies sans mortification. So I blew him off. I suck.

Lest you write me off as a complete bitch, cut to a few months later, and the Let's Be Friends part of me thought of him fondly and wondered what he was up to. So I called him.

MISTAKE!!!

He immediately asked me out. "Want to go out this Friday?" Busy (legitimately). "Saturday?" Also busy (legitimately). "Sunday?" No, I'm sooo busy (not quite as legitimately). "Monday?" Nooooo!

So annoyed that my gesture of kindness and good will was immediately translated into an overture of Date Me, and that he began giving me the full court press to set a date.

I never called him again. Dork.

The Gender Card

I am not one to play the Gender Card very often, but there are times that I get the distinct feeling that a man would not be getting the same push-back that I am. Usually it's when I interact with people from specific cultures, like... MBA students. And ethnicities with more than a dollop of machismo/misogyny. And it pisses me off more than usual, specifically because I am *not* someone that looks for sexual discrimination in every nook and cranny. If I were, it would probably be status quo -- "See what I mean?" But I tend to work under the dreamy and/or naive liberal fantasy that most people don't discriminate against ANYONE, so I figure that when it's bad enough to set of my WTF bell, it's gotta be pretty bad.

So I punch them. Is that wrong?

Word To Your Mother

So I find that the words 'bowel movement' bug me lately.

Yeah, okay, sure -- "Fun, but where's she going with this?" right? But lately friends and cohorts of mine have been discussing words they hate. My co-workers hate the words 'orientated' and 'moist' -- me, I've always found the word 'panties' to be obnoxious. But lately I find people using the words 'bowel movement' in such a way as to creep me out. Just gave myself the shivers thinking about it.

Now I *get* that it's proper terminology. I *get* that we're not 12, so poo-poo doo-doo caca does not cut it any longer. Fine. What's so wrong with 'poop' these days??? C'mon, America! "We put some castor oil in with the milk in her bottle, because it helps her with her bowel movements" was the sentence that prompted this post. WTF?!? Are you Dian Fossey? It's your CHILD. She poops. I poop. Hell, they wrote a book about it: Everybody Poops.

[Sidebar: "Everybody Poops" always makes me think of the REM song "Everybody Hurts" and leaves me desirous of singing "Everybody poops... sometimes..."]

So here's a compromise: "it helps keep her regular." Voila. After all, you're never too young to be worried about regularity, right?

I realize I am being unfair to my friend here. It's not her, it's not that sentence per se -- that's just the 'bowel movement' that broke the camel's back. It's the combo platter of several people before her using that phrase when something less clinical would be more user-friendly, and the sad fact that I am now 36 years old, and I do things like stand in my childhood friend's big-girl grown-up married-person kitchen and discuss things like her child's bowel movements. None of those benchmarks freak me out in and of themselves, but linked together, they make a charm bracelet of "Holy shit -- this is my life."

Kiss the baby!

Catbox

Weird as it may be, I work in a condo in a high-rise. Literally, my 'office' is the living room, with a southern view and a cut-out in the wall that goes into the kitchen. It's weird. I mean it's a home, but it's work. Like I could get naked, but not.

The unit above 'mine' is undergoing some sort of renovation today -- I'm guessing the walls are being plastered? All I know is it sounds like a very-amplified version of the scratching my cats do on the side of the catbox, after they're 'done' but before they exit. You know, that 'oh, fuck -- I have litter stuck in between my paw pads' noise? It sounds exactly like that... only much, MUCH louder. Like their whole living room is a giant catbox for... well, let's just say that we let *that* fucker loose in the streets, and Daley's dumpster issues are a thing of the past. That and the homelessness. And babies. Delicious, plump little babies....

Too Much Cologne-Wearing Landlord of Co-Worker

It's called restraint -- look into it.

Tulips

I never was much for tulips, but I'm warming to them. In part because I have a vase of them on my desk at work -- makes me feel less like it's gloomy as shit outside. In part because they're so commonplace in Chicago this time of year. I have to therefore consider them for the wedding.

It's amazing to me that I'm planning this wedding. I've always hoped to marry, but never went out of my way to make it happen. And now I'm on that path. I'm happy about it all, and I know we'll have the perfect wedding for us, but I do have to say I wish that money were not an object. I don't want some enorm-o, elaborate wedding with doves and filet and Barenaked Ladies as my wedding band (damn you, Jason Priestley!!!), but I wish I did not have to watch *quite* every penny. Waah waah waah... my golden shoes are too tight and my magical pony doesn't fly high enough.

Sassy Is As Sassy Does

This is my sassy-face picture... Maia took my headshots almost a year ago, and I'm just getting around to turning them into, well, headshots. There are several less sassy ones, but my favorite pix are the sass-face ones... makes me happy.