Last week, we discussed my favorite fruit (Bosc pears, not, as I might previously have intimated, apples. Sorry). This week, we shall discuss my least favorite fruit, which is probably durian, although I’ve never tasted it yet. I have heard that it is reminiscent of corpses, or smelly feet, and I’m just not with that. My least favorite fruit that I’ve actually sampled is probably raw papaya. It hurts my mouth. I still like it … just not as much as pretty much every other fruit.

If I won a $5,000 shopping spree to any store, I think I would pick Amazon. That way I could get a bit of everything.

I don’t have a particular brand of sports apparel I wear more often than any other, mostly because I don’t tend to wear sports apparel. I work out in sweatpants or shorts, and an extremely tatty t-shirt advertising a shipping company whose trucks are chocolatey-brown and who pays me not to mention their name in my blog, even about my tatty t-shirt. I believe I own a Nike hoodie, somewhere, but it’s not because I purchased it. I think That Man of Mine got it with Coke Rewards points.

I was a rubbish student, in the sense that I hated to study and was bad to procrastinate, homeworkwise. However, I was an excellent student in that I read all the textbooks the first week of school and was good at churning out great homework at the last minute. Also, my teachers tended to love me, even when I was going through my badass stage.

Amongst my friends, I believe I could arm-wrestle, and beat, a few of them, because I have been working out with wrist weights and I think some of them don’t work out at all. However, the only one I’m sure I could beat is MommaJ, who just retired. She’s two years older than baseball. I could kick her arse, if she weren’t so freaking sweet.

If I had to choose a branch of the military to be in, I’d pick the Marines. I reckon that’s the branch that would kick me out the fastest.

I think my best feature is my brain, but for people who have to have something to look at, I guess you could do worse than looking at my eyes. They’re light brown. They used to be darker, but I appear to be losing pigment with age. Anyway, I’m told that they twinkle. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

If I were to win a Grammy, I’d probably win it for Best Performance In the Shower, Without Actually Knowing All the Words, and With Air Guitar. Not a category, you say? Well, it should be. If I were to be nominated for an actual Grammy, for the kind of stuff I actually sing most often, I guess it’d be Rock.

If I were to win an Oscar, that would be for Best Performance by Someone Who Actually Can’t Act. Oh, for pizza’s sake, you want a real category again. Fine. Is Comedy a category in the Oscars, or only the Golden Globes? I guess I could manage a screenwriter’s nomination, but it would have to be for something lighthearted.

My favorite season is paprika. Oh, season. Not seasoning. I like autumn. It’s a nice relief from the agony of summer in the desert.

What counts in your immediate family? Is that the person to whom you’re married, and your offspring, or is it your parents and siblings, but not your offspring? Probably a moot point, since I’ve never offsprung. Anyway, counting it off: I have the Mom, and my dad, who are still married to each other, and I have a brother, who has two daughters, who are also related to me by blood, so do they count, even if his wife, whom I adore, isn’t? I have-ish a sister, whom I am not close to, and she recently married, and I like her husband quite a lot, but he’s not related by blood, so he’s not immediate family. He’s more of eventual family. And then there is my That Man’s twin sister, whom I am extremely close to, and her kids, which still don’t count as immediate family, so I guess that’s four immediates. If we’re counting. I’d just as soon not.

I think, of the five main senses (I think there are more), I most value my eyesight. I’d be annoyed if I couldn’t smell anymore, devastated if I couldn’t taste anymore, pissed if I couldn’t hear anymore, and relieved if I couldn’t feel anymore (no more pain? hell, yes). But if I couldn’t see anymore, I’d miss the lightning. No.

I would be a more successful singer than a painter. Most people can tell what I’m singing when I sing. When I paint, I get a lot of, “Wow, that’s a nice dog,” and then they have to backtrack when I explain that it’s supposed to be a lion.

I have a degree in Business Admin. Given the time and the money, I’d go back to school and do four years for my BFA in writing, another four for my MFA, and stop if I were too old or too tired. If I weren’t, I’d go back for another four for my BS in astronomy, and possibly another four for my Master’s if I hadn’t dropped dead of exhaustion. I’m tired (and broke) just thinking about it.

The only surgery I’ve ever had has been biopsies, unless spinal taps and colonoscopies count. I’m supposed to be having another surgery for a spinal cord stimulator, to cut my pain, but there have been a few communication snafus between the psychiatrist and the pain specialist. I don’t expect them to sort their shit out anytime soon. In the meantime, I have Percocet, and Australian ginger beer. I’ve survived on less.

I would rather be a professional figure skater than a professional football player. I would have loved to be a professional figure skater anyway. They look so lovely. Unfortunately, I am full of ecarg, which is the opposite of grace.

If I could collect anything, it would be first-edition books. This sort of collection doesn’t fit my budget. I content myself with collecting penguins, in the sense that I never actually have to buy any. I just mention that I like penguins and then everyone buys me some, or sends me pictures of them, or makes sure they’re on my birthday cards, et cetera.

As far as how many valuable collectibles I own, I think that number is zero. However, there are a metric fuckton of baseball cards in my home, and I think I paid for some of them, so do they count?

The final question in that hundred-question survey was: “What one question would you add to this survey?” Really? Don’t you think you covered everything? Sometimes dividing it into two questions? Here’s the question I would add:

Do you feel you learned anything about yourself by answering all these questions?

And my answer would be: I don’t know if I learned anything I didn’t already know, but I’m pretty sure I remembered stuff I thought was long since forgotten.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: Ne-Yo, Let Me Love You
betting: you’re thoroughly sick of this meme

If I were driving a car, I’d prefer to be in a sports car, because they look cool, and they use less gas than SUVs. However, if I were a car, I’d probably be a Smart Car. Small, not particularly fast, more intelligent than the cooler cars and, as a consequence, just way too dorky to hang around with.

The only items I have ever taken from hotels accidentally (whether staying at them or working at them) have been pens. I tend to stick them in my pocket or drop them into my purse without thinking about whether or not they actually belong to me. This is not to say that pens are the only items I have ever taken from hotels. I have taken ashtrays, towels, matchbooks, sugar packets, Danish that was only going to be discarded anyway, and, on one occasion, a lampshade … all from hotels at which I worked, and all completely and totally deliberately. I reckon the statute of limitations is up on all of that stuff. If not, they can have back the ashtrays and matchbooks. I already used the sugar packets.

I have fallen twice whilst showering. The first time, I was home alone. Thereafter, I stopped showering unless That Man of Mine was home. I did not tell him, because I am a fool. He found out the hard way, the second time I fell. I have a shower seat now, but I use it more for balance than actually sitting in it to shower, anymore. My equilibrium has gotten a lot better now that my health is more under control.

I do not use deodorant soap. I don’t like how it makes my skin feel. I use Bain de Luxe foaming body scrub, which smells like oranges and vanilla, and follow it up with hypoallergenic crystal deodorant. I can’t afford my favorite perfume, Very Irresistible by Givenchy, most of the time, and thank gourd, because I always misspell “irresistible.” (I put in an “a,” every single time.) So I have some, but I only use it on special occasions. For everyday, I wear Bath and Body Works Forever Red, including that I have a pomander necklace that I use as my badge lanyard, and in the little pomander holder thingy is a wodge of cotton moistened with Forever Red. Not only do I smell okay without the use of deodorant soap, my badge is probably the best-smelling one at the company of the chocolatey-brown trucks.

I have never locked myself out of the house so badly that I couldn’t get back in. We all got locked out once when I was a tiny kid, and the GolfBrother got us in. I can’t remember if he broke a window (probably the cellar or the garage, if he did), or if he just cut a screen. He was even tinier than I was at the time, so it’s no good asking him. Anyway, I locked myself out of my first house twice. The first time, I went to the neighbor’s, used their phone, and called my roommate, who worked about two miles away and came home to let me in. By the second time, she and my other roommate were working in Milford, which was a longer haul, so I went around to the side and pried open the basement window. It was undignified, but it worked. Better than I cared for, since my stereo and things were inside. I wasn’t thrilled that it was so easily accessible.

I would not want to make a living as a singing cowboy. There’s only one I even know of anymore, and he sings in tighty-whities and a Stetson on a street corner in New York. I don’t imagine he’s making a living at it, or he could afford britches. I’d far rather make my living as a voiceover artist on The Simpsons. In fact, I’d rather be a writer for The Simpsons, but I do what I do.

I suppose you think that, if I could invite any movie star to dinner, I should invite Liam Neeson. That would be foolhardy. That Man of Mine eats dinner here too, you know. I think I would invite Laura Linney. She seems very cool. She’s also, unbeknownst to That Man, one of Liam Neeson’s closest friends, so, of course, when I was walking her out, I’d whisper to her, “Tell Liam Neeson I made really good spaghetti sauce.” It’s far less harmful, and less stalkeriffic, than saying, “Tell Liam Neeson that I’m wondering if the rumors on that Tumblr page are true.”

I have to go to the ophthalmologist. I have reading glasses, but lately I’m noticing that everything has a lovely fuzzy halo around it. I guess my prescription ran out.

I have, in my travels round the axis, hung out with and/or dated plenty of people my other friends didn’t like. In fairness, most of them have done the same thing, more often even than I. While I refused to pass judgment on their choices, taking their sides even when I didn’t agree with them, because that’s what BFFs do, they generally did not return the favor. Most of them are off living their own lives now, and I don’t hang out or date anyone, because I am married, and we only have the one car, which he drives. I hang out with whomever he fancies hanging out with.

I have also, in those same travels round the axis, been obligated to hang out with people whom my friends liked, but I didn’t. This will continue to be true for the rest of my life, I am afraid, because That Man of Mine likes golfers and card collectors. I couldn’t possibly be more bored.

I myself have never returned a gift to the store, but my gramma got me a shirt once that didn’t fit, and she exchanged it. Since she worked at the store, it wasn’t a difficult thing to do. I had the new shirt the next time we went to visit. As far as other gifts I’ve received, I have either really, genuinely loved them, or not liked them but not had the receipts, so I kept them or regifted them. I don’t regift capriciously, incidentally. For instance, when someone gave klutzy old me a pair of spun-glass ballerina slippers (meant as a wall hanging, not for actual wear), they were one of the more useless (and, potentially, short-lived) gifts I have ever gotten … but I do happen to be friends with a dancer who thought they were a lovely gift from me. So I did get some satisfaction from them, after all.

I don’t care for the Olympics. I’m not interested enough in athletics, and I have seen too many instances of cheating and/or rigging of the judging in the past few games. If I were being forced to attend one event, I would probably pick women’s basketball, since it would likely include at least one UConn alumna whom I would recognize.

If I had to participate in an Olympic event, I’d pick some sort of race, and then, at the starting gun, I would move to the side, sit down, and read my book, which is what I do when the Olympics are on telly, anyway. They wouldn’t know what to do with me.

I own, for me, a lot of shoes. Five years ago, I owned two, and I hated both pairs. They were ugly, but they fit someone whose feet and ankles were terrifyingly swollen. Then my meds got fixed, my size went back to normal, and I made a deal with That Man of Mine that, any time another packet of baseball cards entered the house, I would be buying another pair of cute shoes. He’s been more prudent as a result, but every so often, cards just need to be owned. I have gone from one pair of horrible black loafers (which were my dress shoes) and one pair of white canvas sneakers with a coffee stain on the right toe, to two pairs of sneakers (one of them high-topped and patterned after the Union Jack, possibly my favorite sneakers I have ever owned), five pairs of heels, seven pairs of ballet flats (two red pairs, because red shoes just put me in a really good mood), two pairs of sandals, one pair of regular flip-flops, and a pair of Swap-Flops, with five interchangeable vamps so I can color-coordinate. I have my eye on another pair of flats, but I won’t get them until That Man really needs more baseball cards.

When my gramma was alive, I would never have told her if she got me a gift I already had. I loved that woman. I would not knowingly hurt her feelings. However, my gramma was also the sort of person who, if she got something for you a second time, she’d say that she didn’t know you still had the first one, because she certainly didn’t see you using it. You think I’m snarky. My gramma invented snark.

I no longer sing in the car. That Man does all the driving, and he picks the listening. Either we don’t listen to anything at all, or we have sports radio. We take the occasional side trip into Yawny — I mean, Yanni — or Andrea Bocelli. I cannot bring myself to stay awake for Yanni, let alone sing along. I don’t sing along with Andrea Bocelli because I’d ruin it. All of that having been said, I sing in the shower, and when I’m alone in the house, you’d better watch out, because music is on, and I am singing along at the top of my lungs.

My favorite breed of dog is probably the beagle. They’re not so big they destroy the house or drag you at the end of their leads, and they’re not so small they yap incessantly and bite your ankles.

If I had money to spare, then yes, I would donate money to feed starving animals in the winter, if it were an organization for which it could be proven that that’s where the money was going. Be fair, if I had money to spare, that’s not the first charity I would choose, but I can’t deny that it’s a noble cause.

My favorite fruit is probably the Bosc pear. I think, in a previous post, I might have said apple. I do love apples, but I prefer Bosc pears, and I just forgot, that’s all. It’s a blog. I didn’t chip the shit into my tombstone or something: “Here Lies Golfwidow, Lover of Apples to the Exclusion of All Other Fruits.” That’s a rubbish epitaph. Pears. They’re yummy.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: Dave Mason, We Just Disagree
craving: curry. which means i have to defrost some chicken

Well, I skipped last week ‘cos it was a choice: write a blog for free; or get eight hours overtime.

We’ve established what I am. We’re just haggling over the price.

I have visited exactly one foreign country. Which, if you’re rounding things off, is nearly zero. Plus, the foreign country I visited was Great Britain, where they mostly spoke the same language I do, only sexier, and with some weird expressions thrown in to confuse me (did you know, for instance, that a fart can be a “trouser cough?”), and the Customs bloke wouldn’t let me pay customs on my imports because I was traveling with The Mom, even though I was over twenty-one and didn’t live under her roof anymore. So I’d like to try that again sometime, perhaps in a more confusing country, and with customs charges.

One of the more bizarre questions on the “mostly useless questions” meme asks, “If you were out of shape, would you compete in a triathlon if you were somehow guaranteed to win a big, gaudy medal?” Here are my answers, in order: I’m not in the best of shape now, but I’m in better shape than I was, and I still don’t want to compete in a triathlon. However, if I’m guaranteed to win, then I’ll be happy to show up at the starting line and collect my big, gaudy medal, which I will then give to my office girlfriend, because he is a darling, but a bit of a magpie, and shiny things make him ever so giddy.

I would rather be poor and happy than rich and unhappy. That having been said, I’d rather, given a choice, be rich and happy. I don’t believe money can buy happiness, but I’d sure like to have the peace of mind it can bring, and then I’ll have time to make my own happiness.

If I fell into quicksand, I believe I would probably try to swim. I wouldn’t mean to. It’s just that, when nothing’s supporting me, I flail. You’ll just have to accept that about me. And so, I imagine, will the quicksand.

We got lost quite a lot today. I didn’t so much want to ask for directions as to say to That Man of Mine, “Can’t you just pull into that Starbucks’ lot? I’ll get a WiFi connection and get you directions.” And he said, “I like to drive around. This is how I learn the area.” It was also how we used up most of our gas and about two hours, looking for a place we never actually wound up finding. Poor and happy, did you say?

I never held a Mexican jumping bean. The girl down the street had some, when I was a tiny kid. She was too, come to that. Anyway, she wouldn’t let me hold them, but she let me watch whilst they wriggled around in the box. Later, the Mom told me they had bugs inside, so I’m glad I didn’t hold them. Ick.

I think I’m more like Alice in Wonderland than I am like Cinderella. I don’t sit around crying and waiting for some old broad to wave a wand and send me to prom. I drink out of the little bottle, and eat the cake, and try the mushrooms … whatever I have to do to get the key into my hand and get myself small enough to go through the little door into the beautiful garden. My problem is that Prince Charming keeps putting baseball cards in front of the door. And I think I’ve screwed these metaphors into an unsolvable knot, so I will stop now.

Given the choice, I would rather have a box of crayons without points than an ant farm without ants. Even without liking bugs (see above), an empty ant farm doesn’t do anything. Broken crayons? Don’t be silly. Peel the paper back and start coloring.

Frankly, I’m not fussy about bread. If white Wonder Bread is all that’s available, I’m still going to eat the hell out of it, because I am a bread ho. But even when I seek out light bread, it’s got to be interesting — challah is fine; I also like potato bread, or Portuguese sweet bread, for sandwiches. French bread is good because it’s got a crust one has to commit oneself to. Most of the time, though, I’m looking for a dark, chewy bread, with lots of seeds and texture mixed into it.

I will pretty much eat eggs prepared any way at all, except if the whites are still clear. I — ugh. Yeah, no. Whites should be white. Golf Widow Law. Anyway, if scrambled is what’s happening, eggwise, fine (can you at least toss a little parsley into it, please?), but I order my eggs over medium well, so the yolks are, not runny, but crawly. I like to dunk my (dark bread) toast into the yolks. When I’m home, I fry eggs and break the yolks, the way my daddy used to make them for me, and put them into a sandwich (light bread for that preparation, because Daddy didn’t want any of that whole wheat crap).

When I was a teenager, my friends and I were coming home from a party and my friend’s car ran out of gas. We pushed it to the side of the road and walked to a pay phone, because the dinosaurs had eaten all the cell towers. Anyway, it was about a half mile walk, and my friend was terrified because her dad was going to kill her, for being out that late, for being irresponsible and running out of gas, et cetera, et cetera. I had a dime in my shoe, because my daddy said I always should, just in case I lost my purse. I had my purse, but the only change I had was that dime. Fortunately, a dime was all we needed, because that was all a phone call cost, when Lincoln was president. We didn’t call my friend’s dad. We called mine. Yes, he swore up a storm, because he was watching The Honeymooners and he had only seen that episode a few dozen times before, but he did show up, with a can of gas, and followed us to the nearest gas station, where he put another $5 into the tank, which, in those days, filled it about halfway, because gas was a very new fossil fuel and we still had plenty. The part of this episode that stuck with me, more than the fact that I never ran out of gas myself after that, ever … was that my friend cried on the way home, and said, “I love your dad more than I love mine.” I thought that was incredibly sad. My dad could be an embarrassment (he showed up in that gourdawful fruit-covered shirt, for instance), but I adored him. No one else’s dad could compete.

I already answered the question about talking in my sleep, because they asked if I ever sleepwalked. I feel like I ought to throw something else in here for you. Oh, I know what. I have out-of-body experiences sometimes. I can’t usually control when or how, but when I feel one coming on (usually when I’m dozing off), I can sometimes steer myself to certain places. It was unnerving the first time. It’s kind of cool now that I’m used to it.

I would rather shovel snow than mow the lawn. Our sidewalk was short, even with all the stairs to the front entrance. Our yard was vast. Fortunately, I live in the desert. We get maybe two flakes of snow per year, and our front lawn is dirt. My shoveling/mowing consists of picking up the occasional discarded wrapper and walking it over to the Dumpster.

I used to love to play in the rain. The world was more interesting (and more abandoned) when water was spilling onto it. I don’t get as much rain anymore, and I’m arthritic as hell, but I still like to park a chair outside for a little while and turn my face up toward the downpour. I’m not sure what that says about me, and I’m okay with that.

I didn’t make mud pies when I was a tiny kid, however. There was a tree in the park across the street that had had a double trunk, but one of the trunks had been cut off, leaving a trunk with a stump poking out. The stump was hollow, and I used to fill it with sand and soil on sunny days, just so I could go to the park when it rained and stir it with a stick. I called it “deer soup,” and I imagined how happy the deer would be, when they came to the park and saw I had cooked for them.

I have broken my left big toe, twice, and my right pinky. I never went to the doctor on either of those. For my toe, the pharmacist where I worked told me the E.R. wouldn’t even splint a toe, and to wear sneakers and white socks till it healed. When it broke the second time, I did the same thing. For my pinky, I bought a splint at a different drugstore (I was way past that first job by then) and it healed all right, too. I reckon I’m all set if I break a bigger bone, eh?

I would not climb a very tall tree to save a kitten. A kitten, no matter what you think, will come down on its own. I’ve seen them do it. However, I would climb Everest to save a child. Although, if it were my own child, there’d be serious trouble for them having climbed up there in the first place. They’d be so grounded that the light from being off-punishment wouldn’t even reach them for ninety-six billion years.

An alligator’s snout looks pointed. Think the letter V. A crocodile’s snout is blunt. Think the letter U. Now remember that you will never need to know the difference, because if you’re near one, and it’s hungry, you’re fucked either way.

I honestly don’t have a preference between Pepsi versus Coke. I drink very little soda as is; when I do, I’d rather have Sprite, or ginger ale. When I’m drinking cola, my first choice is Mexican Coke, which is made with sugar cane and is far more refreshing than any cola that’s been sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. If domestic is all there is, give me whatever. I’m not sure I can tell the difference. I’ve never really tried.

My favorite number is 42. It’s my date of birth, 6, multiplied by my luckiest number, 7, and it’s my age, and it’s the Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Everyone’s favorite number should be 42.

We’re almost done with this list, kids. Gimme a couple more weeks.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: Van Morrison, And the Healing Has Begun
into the music: because my cousin was listening to bright side of the road and i got jealous

The first time I cut my own hair would have been just fine if I hadn’t chickened out halfway. I was in fifth grade. I was trying to feather my own hair. Oh, calm down. It was the ’70s. Anyway, I had the concept down, but when the first chunk of length came off, I freaked. The Mom came in and evened me out. No feathering. I didn’t get trendy hair till about two years later, and I think it was only because the Mom was tired of me being so depressed about my looks.

As I grew older, I always cut my own hair, up until fairly recently, when I went to Supercuts so I could get my eyebrows waxed, and when the girl said, “Can I help you?” I heard myself saying, “I’ve been cutting my own hair for years, and I think it needs to be fixed.” She did an awesome job. Supercut turned into Supercute. Now that I know exactly what to say to the person with the scissors (#7 clipper around the ears and back; follow the same cut guidelines for the rest, tapering up from the back, wispy bang, square off the back, please), I have control over my hair without having to cut it myself. Yay me (and about damned time).

I have never sleepwalked, to my knowledge. (I lived on my own for years; who knows what I did in those days.) However, I once had a sleeping conversation, with motions, with a relative, who came into my room asking to borrow my gray skirt. I told her yes, and when she asked where it was, I allegedly handed her my teddy bear. Which is only right, because, had I been awake, I probably would have said no to the skirt-borrowing.

I have never had a birthday party at McDonald’s. I was a grown-up before I ever had a birthday party at all. It’s actually my birthday today, right now. I am forty-two. The meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Logic dictates that I will, therefore, be ragingly ill, and That Man will be sleeping off his previous shift so he can go have another one in eight hours. The concept of a talking tree and a sundae are therefore making me incredibly jealous, at the moment.

I taught myself, millions of years ago, to flip my eyelids up in order to prove to the boys who were trying to use that move to gross me out, that they were going to have to try harder. I haven’t had to do it in years. Can I still do it? No. I have lost the knack. Fortunately, I have also lost the need for it.

There is no such thing as actual double-jointedness. However, I can bend the top joints of my fingers whilst keeping the second joint straight. This kept the kids in the cafeteria line fascinated for minutes on end.

If I could be any age, I wouldn’t go back to one I’ve already done. I’d pick a really old one, like 122, and shock people with my potty mouth and my fondness for penguins, cupcakes, and Doctor Who.

Not to mention Liam Neeson. Ahem.

One summer, when I was fairly tiny, we went on one of those Park Rec picnics to a lake somewhere, and I had gum in my mouth, and they were going to be serving lunch (hot dogs, one of my favorites), and I stuck my gum behind my ear like Violet Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. By the time I got to the front of the hot dog line, it was in my hair. One of the grown-ups got it out with suntan oil. (Which was probably SPF negative 1000 since, in those days, we considered a super-dark tan to be the best protection against the sun.)

I’m still mad at Roald Dahl about that. How incredibly irresponsible. And yes, there was a logical reason for me to believe the bit about the gum despite the fact that the original chewer, in the same story, turns into a humongous blueberry. I just can’t remember it at the moment.

I love roller coasters. They are my favorite carnival ride (because, apparently, beer and fried dough don’t count). However, most of the people I love, hate them. I’m not sure what that says about me.

My dream car is the Bugatti Veyron. Red and black, please. It’s a beautiful car. I know Jeremy Clarkson thinks it’s silly to want a Veyron when one can just use the money to buy a mansion, but he also thinks that that blazer he wears is fashion-forward, so we needn’t listen to him all the time.

My all-time favorite cartoon series is probably the classic Warner Brothers stuff (Looney Toons, Merrie Melodies, et cetera), but my all-time favorite cartoon, ever, is Bedtime for Sniffles, when Sniffles the Mouse is trying in vain to stay up all night to see Sanny Claus. Aside from being a showcase for Warner Brothers director Chuck Jones’ facility of realizing character through facial expression, it’s just so fucking adorable.

I have never eaten a dog biscuit. I tried dry cat food once. It tasted more like cereal than like meat. These days, with all the organic pet food commercials complaining that the standard foods contain too much corn meal gluten or whatever, I guess it was supposed to taste like cereal.

Having said that, and despite the fact that I do enjoy cereal, I’m not planning on having any more cat food.

I think that, if I were in a car sinking in a lake, the first thing I would try to do is open the door. If it would not open, I would try to open the window. Yes, the water will rush in, but I need to rush out. Assuming I ever got the window open (or broken), I would then get stuck in the window whilst trying to get out, and drown. The moral of the story is: don’t eat those fries, foo.

I have never ridden in an ambulance as the person needing the ambulance. I have, on two occasions, ridden in the ambulance, sitting up, with the person who went in on her back. (No point saying “his or her.” It was a female both times.)

I am pretty good at picking stuff up off the floor with my toes. That Man thinks I’m wrong to walk round barefoot all the time, but he can’t pick up anything with his toes, so bang goes his theory, then. Anyway, I freely admit that, for a split second when I’m transferring the pen from my toes to my fingers, I feel like a superior life-form. You’re just going to have to accept that about me.

We have two remote controls in our house. One of them is universal, so we only ever use that one. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure where the other one is. If I had clicker control last, then it’s in a kitchen drawer. If Himself had clicker control last, then it’s anywhere but the kitchen drawer.

I sometimes sleep with my eyes open. I have a relative who used to tell that to people in order to embarrass me. It didn’t turn into a talent till high school, when all the kids who used to laugh were suddenly jealous that I could do it in class whenever I liked. It didn’t hurt that I used to read the textbooks the first week of the class, so if the teacher did call on me/wake me up, I’d still know the answer. I never had a teacher know for sure if I was napping, although I imagine one or two did suspect it.

I have not been in an airplane since 2010. Since that particular time, I was riding back to New England for my mother-in-law’s funeral, I’m not so much looking forward to my next plane trip.

That was, really, twenty more. Some of the questions were follow-ups to previous questions (such as, “have you ever cut your own hair?” and “how did that turn out?”) so I answered them together. You’re welcome.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: Maroon 5, One More Night
mainlining: alka seltzer plus

So, the Mom credited me with giving her a meme to do, the other day.

Only, I’ve never done that meme.

I feel bad, that she gave me credit for something someone else did. I hate that.

I reckon, the least I can do is get the meme out of the way now, so she can go round telling everyone she’s psychic, borrowing a meme from me a couple of days before I actually did it.

As usual, I’ll be answering the questions in complete sentences, paragraph form, so you can follow along without feeling you’ve been made to read a list.

Also, as usual, you are not tagged. Do, or do not. There is no tag.

(My unborn children are thanking their lucky stars not to have been born, because their mother is a big old geek.)

Anyway.

I do not currently have a cell phone. If you had lost your lucrative job and your home, and your new job is still, after four years, only paying you a fraction of what you used to make, and you had an empiric shitload of medical bills, you’d do whatever you could to avoid another bill. So, in all honesty, the last text I received was from That Man of Mine, and he wanted to know if I needed anything at the store, and it’s way too late for me to respond now, even if I had a phone, because the store he was on his way to was in Connecticut, and we haven’t lived there since 2008.

I never close my bedroom door, neither to sleep nor otherwise. There’s no point. This apartment is miniscule, and closing the door just makes a small space seem smaller. As regards the clutter in my bedroom, no one ever comes inside who does not already live here.

I drink mostly ice water, with coffee a close second, but I do drink an awful lot of tea, both iced and hot. I like my iced tea lightly sweetened, with lemon. I like most hot tea the same way, but I like chai with non-dairy creamer or soy milk, because lemon makes it taste a little bit odd.

My plans for tomorrow include, but are not limited to, going to le Mart du Wal for new shorts that don’t fall down, since it’s getting pretty warm outside; counting out my pills for the week, which I normally do on my days off but was feeling rather lazy; trying out some of my new makeup; washing off the new makeup and going to sleep for a few hours; then putting back on some of the new makeup and going to work.

I hardly know what’s worse to me: dry skin or chapped lips. I have appallingly major troubles with both. However, by making exfoliation my watchword in everything I do, I’m able to keep both problems more or less at bay. Having given it some thought, I’ve got to say that, while I can ignore the scaliness on my face and elbows if nothing is touching them, I’m pretty much always conscious of how badly chapped my lips are. I buy tinted lip balm by the bucket. People just assume I’m super vain, and I let them.

I’d be somewhat surprised if Facebook suddenly started charging for their services, mostly because I think they’re aware that they’d lose a good portion of their users, including me. I’d find some other, free way to communicate with people. As to playing games, I have lots of free apps on my Android, and That Man of Mine plays chess with his dad via email. Facebook has to understand that people would do a lot more of that sort of thing, faced with a choice. The ones who would be willing to pay for the service would soon drop it once they realized that the only thing they had in common with the remaining paying users would be the lighter wallets.

I would rather go to California than Canada on vacation. I have friends and family in California. While I do have a few relatives and friends in Canada (and have never eaten a Nanaimo bar), what I mostly have there are incredibly rude and demanding clients, and I’d just as soon vacation whilst I am vacationing, thank you.

I have not touched my MySpace account in years. I use Facebook and Twitter regularly. I think I have a Tumblr account, but I think I only registered there to post one comment, and I can’t recall having logged in there in years, either. I have a LinkedIn account. I log in once in a while to approve other people wanting to link to me. I don’t remember ever having actually used it to network, myself. I have Klout, but I keep forgetting to check my standings. I use Mindbloom for myself, but, although it’s considered a social medium, none of my friends are registered in it, and I don’t see the point in making friends with any of the other users.

I am currently wearing neither jeans, shorts, sweatpants, nor pajama pants. I’m wearing my Black Knightshirt. It says, quite specifically, that it’s only a flesh wound … my favorite line both from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Taken.

If I were to change lives for one day with the last person I texted, there’d be a whole lot of baseball card throwing out going on.

I’m trying to think to whom I last told a secret. I don’t keep secrets from That Man of Mine, as such, but I don’t tell him secrets about other people, either, because he can’t keep a secret. I’m thinking it was probably Andy, but I don’t remember what the secret was, so if he tells, I’m guessing it’s no big deal.

At the moment, I’m listening to a playlist I put together at the casino last week. I was too broke to play, and it was too early for the lunch buffet, so, for fun, I used my Android notebook app to make a list of the songs that were playing on the casino sound system. When I got home, I looked up all the songs and put them in one playlist. I do what I can to amuse myself.

The last place I fell asleep, other than my bed, was in the car on the way home from work the other day. If you’re wigging out right now, that means you aren’t paying attention, because we’ve only got the one car and That Man was driving. All my napping took place in the shotgun seat.

I think the one person to whom I will always be attached is my grandfather. I lost him thirty-five years ago, and I only had him for about seven. I still feel he knew me better than anyone. He certainly loved me madly, and I him.

I will almost certainly not be attending any concerts this year unless someone other than That Man is driving and paying. He hates the kind of music I love, and when we do agree on music (opera, for instance, or chamber music), we cannot afford tickets.

I always wanted to believe in karma, but the first (and so far, only) time I’ve ever actually borne witness to it in action, with relation to myself, was the time that the HR woman who screwed up my unemployment wound up getting laid off herself. (While I would never have wished that upon her, or anyone, I was still angry enough about her clerical mistake that my first thought was “neener.”) However, I will always love that line from the movie Dead Again: “It’s the Karma Credit Plan. Buy now, pay forever.”

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: Ke$ha, Die Young
next question for the mom: can you pick me some lottery numbers?

So I have to go have a psychiatric evaluation before my insurance will even look at possibly covering me having a pain pacemaker implanted into my spine.

Fortunately, I have a lifetime’s experience in hiding the crazy, so I think I can pass myself off as sane (if a bit quirky) to a medical professional.

Are you mocking me? I feel I’m being mocked.

So I don’t have much else going on. Labs, more labs, a trim of the Incredibly Supercute Haircut™, and something like eighteen hours of overtime next week, which means I’ll have a little extra money to spend on myself till something breaks and I have to pay for a repair.

Such is my life. If I’m crazy, it’s just a reaction.

At any rate, let’s see if I have anything else to talk about; if not, I can certainly gank something from someone else.

When I draw a heart, I start with the aorta and work downwards: right atrium, right ventricle, left ventricle, left atrium. (This is, mind you, assuming that I’m drawing the front of the heart, such that it is facing me; meaning that I start from my left and the heart’s right.) When I draw a valentine, or the heart-shape familiar on playing cards, I draw it in the same sequence, much as I would write the letter O, only with an indentation at the top and a point at the bottom.

I am not a fancy diver, and I’ve never dived off the high dive (though I cannonballed off of one once, and bruised my arse in the doing of it, but impressed the onlookers, who told me that the splash I made was beautifully symmetrical, and there I go, off on a tangent again), but I can do a serviceable racing dive off the side of a pool, and a rather clumsy-looking dive off of a standard diving board, a dive that resembles a swan in much the same way that Woody Allen does. When I dive, I exhale sharply through my nose, and thus do not have to hold my nose or use one of those silly noseplugs.

I do not shave. Don’t get grossed out. I cut myself rather severely on my ankle once and used an electric razor thereafter until I got sick, when all the hair fell off my legs and didn’t come back for years. It’s back now, with a vengeance, and I use Veet for Sensitive Skin, which is smelly and messy, but it does what I want it to do. Much like That Man of Mine, without the baseball cards.

My blood type is O positive, like my daddy. This is the most compatible blood type, so my blood was always in high demand when I was a donor. When I first got sick, I was permanently deferred by the Red Cross. In this town, they use United Blood Services, but I’m on too many drugs to check with them just for the purpose of seeing if they have me on the deferred list, too.

If I absolutely had to be tied to one person for twenty-four hours, I think I would pick the Mom. She’s the only person I know who would tolerate me for that long.

A girl I know told some people I started a rumor about her having a gambling problem. The thing is that this is the first instance I know of wherein a rumor was started about a rumor. The people she told came back to me and said, “Yeah, I heard that rumor about her gambling problem, but I didn’t hear it from you,” and one person told me that he had heard it before I even moved to Vegas. So that is at least one, and possibly two, really awesome rumors.

I know the Mom can take carrots or leave them, but I really like them a lot. My preferred serving method is cut into sticks and dunked into something (it doesn’t have to be anything fattening; I’ve dunked carrot sticks in mustard and enjoyed them. I just like dunking). I will eat steamed carrots, but overcooked carrots I only like in soup. I do grate a carrot into the Spinach Dip that Wins Friends and Influences People. It’s a good source of Vitamin A and beta carotene, and the orange looks pretty with all that green.

We only have two chairs at our table now, because it’s just us and we don’t get visitors. They don’t match. We got them from Goodwill on the basis of affordability and the ability to fit them into our tiny car.

I never see any Spice Girls anymore, except for Posh Spice, whose value tripled once she married David Beckham, one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, and I am being objective — he doesn’t do it for me, as such, but he is genuinely exquisite. I feel sorry for any Spice Girl who isn’t Posh, because if they had such a pretty partner, they’d still be visible as well.

The current time, as I type this, is 0747 PST, and I know this because, hello, it’s a computer. And 39 seconds, because this is WordPress and my draft just autosaved, posting a cute little timestamp at the bottom of my text window.

I only ever watched a couple of episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, so I don’t know all the lyrics to the theme song, but I do remember one line that always tickled me, that he said goodbye to the cabbie as follows: “Yo, Homes, smell you later.” I have no idea what that means, and I don’t care. When words take you by surprise (“smell” instead of the traditional “see”), that’s good verbiage. Go you, Will Smith.

I worked for a hotel where the elevators got stuck all the time. I am an old pro at this, although I’m not as spry as I was when this used to be the norm. If the power is on, use the call button or the phone, and maintenance will come get you out. If the power is out, in an Otis Elevator, pull the Stop button so you won’t get hurt if the power comes on again, pry the doors open a couple of inches, and find the emergency door release (usually at the top of the door, on the right). It’s a little latch. You have to use a pen or something to push it, but since I was on duty every time I got stuck, I always had a pen on me. When you get that latch mashed in, the outer doors will open, and you can very carefully climb up or drop down to the closest floor. It’s almost never more than a foot to one or the other; at least, not that I’ve seen. By the way, if you’re not in an Otis Elevator, I’m not sure how to get out, so if you’re stuck in a non-Otis elevator right now, stop reading this blog and make a fucking phone call. Jeez.

I usually buy the gum with the most attractive label, but my tastes have changed. When I was a kid, the best gum came in fluorescent pink wrappers with puffy fonts declaring the immense bubble-blowing properties of the contents. The gum I chew most often now is 5, which comes in a sleek black box with just a shimmer of color indicating what flavor. My favorite of these is Cobalt, with a cool blue design, and peppermint-flavored gum inside.

I do not believe that all is fair in love and war. I believe that the first person to say that, and everyone else after him or her, said it because it was a good way for them to get what they wanted at the cost of what was right. I feel the same way about anyone who says possession is nine tenths of the law.

I do not have any crushes on real people at the moment. I have a terribly crushable crush on Liam Neeson, but he is not real.

Before I had an Android, I read books made of paper, and when I did not have a dictionary handy, I could guess at the meaning of unfamiliar words by context, and then use them in writings of my own. I wouldn’t try to use them in a conversation unless I was fairly sure I could pronounce them without embarrassing myself. Now, I am reading voraciously on Google Play and a Kindle app, and when I’m not sure of a word, I touch it and hold, and a popup from the Oxford English Dictionary will tell me what I want to know, unless it doesn’t recognize the word (which is happening a lot lately, since I’m currently reading Les Misérables, a book fraught with archaic words and references). However, if I’ve got a Wi-Fi connection, I can go to the top of my screen, touch for a dropdown menu, and search the same word on the ‘net or in Wikipedia. If I’m relying too much upon technology for your tastes, I assure you that I don’t give a rat’s arse, because I’m improving my vocabulary.

Except for the bit about the rat’s arse, but, again, I like words that sound like what they mean. “The posterior of a rodent” may mean the same thing, but it doesn’t sound as if it does.

However, I can improve upon it, because I shore do like me some words.

Of your opinion, I care less than I do for the south end of any given member of genus Rattus who is headed in a northerly direction.

I love to sleep. However, I hate lying down and not being able to fall asleep. Which is how I begin every single sleep session of my life except the ones I don’t want. I put on The Dead Pool the other day, a film I enjoy the hell out of because it contains both Clint Eastwood and Liam Neeson, and I dozed off before the bit with Jim Carrey’s funeral, when Clint Eastwood thinks Liam Neeson is the murderer. It’s a good bit. Fortunately, I’d seen it before, about a hundred times (and at least ninety of those with my daddy, who is a big Dirty Harry fanatic), and I know I needed the sleep, but I was still miffed at having missed that bit.

Many people don’t know, or care, that Hawaii and Arizona don’t use Daylight Savings Time, but I need to know it, or I cannot accurately tell my clients when to expect their deliveries. Hawaii, I always have to count. Arizona, I know that, right now, they’re an hour ahead of me, and in springtime, we’ll be the same time, because Nevada will spring forward.

Not only do I know all the words to Total Eclipse of the Heart, I know all the words to the second verse, the one that gets cut out of standard airplay for length. This has been known to trip up many a drunken female on karaoke night.

I have no desire to own a bright yellow ’06 Mustang (otherwise known as the screaming yellow ‘Stang). Not the color I wanted, nor the year. By ’06, the Mustang was starting to resemble the Oldsmobile too much for my tastes. For models, I like the 1968 Mustang, and the paint job I liked most from that year was blue and white.

My memes. Let me show you them.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: Iz Kamakawiwoʻole, Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World medley
number of sticks: two. they’re never gonna find a vein on me first go

This time last year, I began the 2011 post by saying, “A new year is dawning, the one wherein we all go foom, assuming that the doomsayers are right and not just that the Mayans ran out of space when they were making their calendar.”

Here we are, at the twilight of that year, looking back at our silliness and laughing, except for those of us who are already calculating the “real” Apocalypse, so that they won’t feel like idiots trying to spend the rest of this existence using up the Mayan pyramid of toilet paper they had already stored so that they, unlike any less-prepared survivors, would have lovely clean bums.

They rather remind me of the people who buy up all the milk, bread, and eggs before a blizzard, only to get two inches of snow and be obligated to make ten thousand pounds of French toast the next day.

(l always wonder: did they remember to stock up on cinnamon and vanilla as well? Because, you know, a blizzard.)

Speaking of blizzards, we got a few flakes of snow in Paradise (the city, not the afterlife) yesterday. It wasn’t the end of the world.

Heh.

Anyway, without further ado, the post.

And again, I’m not tagging anyone, and if someone else tagged you, reading mine through completely renders you immune. Golf Widow Rule.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before? Went low-sodium on purpose. It didn’t help anything. I’m still sort of watching my sodium, but not avoiding it, which, thank gourd, because nothing tastes right without it.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more
   for next year? Yet again, I didn’t start the year with resolutions, so as not to set myself up for failure. I did take a different tack: set tiny goals for myself for the day — never more than I thought I could handle — and gave myself propers for meeting them. I think I’ll be continuing that method, and if saying so constitutes a resolution, I’ll own it. I also lost quite a bit of weight, still not enough; and I didn’t start smoking again. These facts ought to make up for the fact that, while I always try not to be so much of a bitch this year, I failed again. I’m nothing if not consistent.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No one right close to me, but a woman at work did, and my Friend Formerly Known as Boyfriend, W, just announced that his daughter is expecting next year, which is cracking my shit right up, because that means he is old.
4. Did anyone close to you die? I didn’t lose anyone close to me, but I damned near lost myself, what with the drugs taking away my mind, bit by bit. Which means that it is entirely possible that someone very close to me did die, and I just can’t remember.
5. What countries did you visit? Please. Unless you count the Land of the Doctors and the Realm of Working Too Hard, I didn’t go anywhere beyond the supermarket.
6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
   Peace on earth and peace of mind, as usual, and a little less pain in my legs would not be amiss.
7. What date from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
   It’s never anything good. December 14th, 2012, when some shit nobody decided that the best way to end it all for himself would be to end it all for a lot of little kids as well. I hate remembering that date.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I finally got up the bottles to tell someone higher up to let me at least try to do something in a management capacity for the company of the chocolatey-brown trucks. Nothing came of it, but having sufficient courage to even mention it is a big deal for me.
9. What was your biggest failure? Oh, you mean, aside from nothing coming of it? No, I got nothin’.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? My health is actually improved from where it was this time last year, but that’s not saying I am anything remotely like healthy.
11. What was the best thing you bought? Four pairs of jeans, in sizes that did not come from a special section of the store.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? My niece told my sister-in-law, “Mom, when you tell me you love me, I can hear it in my heart.” I have very high hopes for that particular tiny person.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Kevin Clash. There are ways to be gay without behaving churlishly or putting children into compromising situations.
14. Where did most of your money go? Bills, as usual.
15. What made you really really really excited? Although I’m not even close to being properly started, let alone close to finishing, whenever I got into a serious roll with my writing, I was practically bouncing up and down in my chair. Okay, not practically. Actually. I may or may not have also squeaked once or twice.
16. What song will forever remind you of 2012? Call Me, Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. I do not mean that in a good way.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
    1. happier or sadder? Happier, I think, except for being homesick for Connecticut. Not the place so much as the people.
    2. thinner or fatter? Thinner. Much thinner. But I still look like a Before picture.
    3. richer or poorer? Poorer. We’re still catching up from That Man of Mine having been out of work for a few hellish months.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Exercising. I worked out frequently, but I had a lot of guilt any time I skipped it.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Taking controlled substances. Or, rather, needing to take controlled substances in order to get through my workouts.
20. How did you spend Christmas? After I got out of work, we went to the buffet. This was not my choice. I would far rather have gotten some Chinese food and hung out at home. We went because That Man said he wanted to, and then, afterwards, when I said I’d have been happier staying home, he said that he would have, too. Boys are really fucking stupid.
21. How will you be spending New Year’s? Working, which is not a problem. While I do have a new, unworn party dress and shoes, I am not an awesome dancer, and my drinking-champagne-till-I-pass-out days are far behind me.
22. Did you fall in love in 2012? New love? No, unless you count my new flip-flips, which have rhinestones on.
23. How many one-night stands? I never get to go anywhere without That Man of Mine, and I imagine that, even if I had another man in mind and said man had an interest, we’d have to deal with That Man hanging about and watching golf whilst we were trying to bust a move, as it were.
24. What were your favorite TV programs? Doctor Who, of course, and who knew snowmen could be scary, even if they were voiced by Sir Ian McKellen.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
    I hate situations, not people, but I have at least one person in mind who created a pretty hateful situation, and there are probably more.
26. What was the best book you read? I should say Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, and I would, if it hadn’t been so confusing. I think the book I enjoyed most was An Order of Coffee and Tears by Brian Spangler.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Savannah Outen. I’m just waiting for everyone else to discover her.
28. What did you want and get? An Android. It is not just one of the all-time best gifts I’ve ever gotten (thank you yet again, GolfBrother!), it is one of the all-time best items I have ever owned.
29. What did you want and not get? The Narnia Box-Set for Kindle. It’s not coming out till next April. I can wait.
30. What was your favorite film of this year? It most certainly would have been Taken 2 if Liam Neeson hadn’t had ice cream sundaes with Famke Janssen at the end. Lincoln, however, was properly badass, and the only reason I’m not saying The Hobbit is that we’re not seeing that till tonight.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
    I turned thirty-nine version 3.0, otherwise known as forty-one. I got a manicure and didn’t have energy for anything else. That Man got me a Greek salad from Grimaldi’s, and let me tell you, if you’re not going to have pizza at Grimaldi’s, what the fuck is wrong with you? Sorry, didn’t mean that. What I meant was that, if you’re not going to have pizza at Grimaldi’s, I strongly recommend the Greek salad. Olive Love.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
    It would have been nice not to have so many bills, but I think that’s just how my life is going to go, for all eternity.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
    Hello, did I mention I got four new pairs of jeans? I wear jeans with cute shoes all the time, as opposed to sneakers, in order not to look like I gave up. I did, however, buy two new t-shirts featuring Daleks, so whatever actual fashion-sense I have pretty much flies right out the time-vortex.
34. What kept you sane? Books, music, and movies.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Haven’t you been paying attention? PSY and his Gangnam Style. (Seriously, Liam Neeson, except for the sundaes, you are such my boyfriend, and if you were having sundaes with me instead of with Famke Janssen, I’d let you have mine, since I’m allergic to dairy anyway.)
36. What political issue stirred you the most? Not one issue so much as the entire presidential election. Why is it that those who are most suited for political office are least inclined to have the necessary sliminess to get involved? and vice-versa?
37. Whom did you miss? The Mom, and my dad, whose health can’t be getting any better as time passes.
38. Who was the best new person(s) you met? I met a charming eighty-six year-old woman at the buffet last spring. She was tiny and feisty, and I would like to be her when I grow up.
    

    (Side question … whom would you like to get to know better?
    I want to meet all the Blogging Buddies in person.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012: If you pretend to believe in yourself, that’s often enough to get you through.
40. Favorite memory of 2012? This just happened, and it was classic. A bunch of us were sitting in the breakroom at work, watching the news, right before the holidays. They were doing a story about one of those inevitable houses that is so tastelessly decorated (and playing cheesy Christmas carols at full blast) that the neighbors complain. This particular house took poor judgement to new heights (or depths) by having a light-portrait on the roof of the homeowner’s late husband. My coworkers and I were thoroughly disgusted, and we were all making comments such as, “That’s creepy” and “Not in my backyard, thank you,” when one of the neighbors told the reporter, “This is more suited to Las Vegas,” and we all shouted, “Hell, no.” I will treasure that memory.

So now I’ve brought you into (nearly) 2013. I apologize for not being able to bring Twinkies along with us.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: Gotye, Eyes Wide Open
today’s nail color: haven’t picked yet. possibly green. never had green fingernails before

(On account of it not being Sunday, and one cannot consider it stealing when it is being offered freely.)

I made my WordPress gravatar/profile picture some eight years ago, on a website that allowed me to generate a Powerpuff version of myself. I named it Golfwidowpuff: Champion of Truth, Justice, and Abolition of the Word “Irregardless.”

Which did not stop some people from assuming that it is a bumblebee, which, really? Really? I don’t like bugs who don’t sting. Picture me selecting one that does as my profile picture.

The first person to make me laugh today, and in everyone else’s defense, it was really early in the morning when I read his comment, was Spritopias. I had posted a picture (on Facebook) of a bunch of guys with really ugly mustaches. Sprite replied that he believed one of them (a man in the front row whose mustache was only slightly uglier than his argyle sweater) was wearing his shirt.

I guffawed.

Sometimes exes can be friends, but sometimes, the friendship tends a bit skewed.

For instance, I am still friends with W, years after we found out that being a couple was a seriously bad idea, but there are times when the only contact I have with him is his posting spider pictures on my Facebook.

(See above mentioning of not liking bugs, and for those of you who insist spiders are arachnids, not insects, and should therefore not be lumped in under the subheading “bugs,” permit me to scream and stand behind you while you kill the fucking things with your semantics.)

I think it’s quite fortunate that Doctor Pepper (the pharmacist, not the soda) was such an asshole to his daughter’s suitor, Wade, whats-his-name, or we wouldn’t have Dr. Pepper (the soda, not the pharmacist) to order at Sonic, where I, personally, get it diet, and pay the extra 60¢ to have them add cherry and vanilla to it.

Because life without diet cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper is a life not worth examining.

I truthfully cannot remember the last person I took a picture of. I never get to go anywhere by myself and, when That Man is with me, he takes the pictures.

You may think this is because he is a big ol’ control freak, but bear in mind that I do have arthritis in my shoulders, arms, and hands, which makes taking clear pictures a bit iffy.

Even bearing that in mind, however, you may as well know that he is, in fact, just that big, and that ol’, of a control freak.

Stuff about which I am upset:

1. I can’t get penguins airbrushed on my fingernails for the holidays anymore. Apparently, my salon does not subscribe to the Golfwidowist Christkwaanzukahsticestivuseid carol lyric, “It’s the time … of the see-eason for penguins,” and have done away with their airbrush machine in favor of this thing for setting gel polish, which I can’t afford anyway.
2. I am in a lot of pain and I can’t have my steroid injection till the 6th, assuming they don’t change my appointment and push it even farther into the future.
3. I am having a lot of trouble exercising on account of being in pain, and I have to do it anyway.
4. Other stuff, but I’m concentrating on the above, because it’s less terrifying than the real stuff.

I believe that some relationships are worth it, if by “it” I actually mean “getting out of at the first opportunity, running like hell, and not looking back.”

I spent a lot of time, in my youth, trying to be a bad influence. I think that, for the most part, it backfired.

It’s not easy to convince people to behave as badassed and as punk as possible when you yourself are a cute-as-a-button bookworm.

Lately, now that my health is less of an impediment on my having a good time, I have preferred a night out to a night in. However, the amount of physical pain I’m currently experiencing means that a night out is going to exhaust my energy reserves.

Also, I’m a crap dancer, but I cannot in good conscience blame that on pain. The years I ought to have spent learning to shake my money-maker, I spent diagramming sentences. In essence, I traded having rhythm for knowing how to spell it.

No one has ever called me “perfect” in a complimentary sense of the word.

I have, once or twice, been told I was a perfect asshole, but I have always replied that nobody’s perfect, and that seems to shut them up.

The song currently stuck in my head is Tainted Love by Soft Cell, predominantly because it’s also the current song in my playlist.

I only blog to earbirds when I can’t get Spotify or Pandora to work.

I know you think that, if I were going to wish someone would knock on my window at 2 am, I should be wishing it would be Liam Neeson, but I rather hope that doesn’t happen. I work overnights. If Liam Neeson knocks on my window at 2 am, I won’t be home.

Which translates out to that the person whom I would most like to knock on my window at 2 am is probably the Boston Strangler.

I smile a hell of a lot. More often than not, over something that no one else finds amusing.

I’m very comfortable with that aspect of myself.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: The Baby Animals, Painless
truth be told: i wouldn’t want liam neeson banging on my window on my night off, either. first of all, my hair’s terrifying when i’ve been sleeping, and second of all, that man of mine has the same nights off as i do.

If I had to go somewhere in the US where I hadn’t been before, assuming I won an all-expenses-paid trip and got the time off of work as well, I originally thought I’d go to Alaska and see where The Grey was filmed; however, I changed my mind for two reasons:

1. The Grey was actually filmed in Canada.
2. I think Sarah Palin is still lurking around.

I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I think there’s a law that says I have to wear a bathing suit, which, again, yeah, no.

Oh, I know. I’ve never been to Austin. I’ve been to other parts of Texas, but it’s big enough that a separate city ought to count, especially if it’s an island of blue in the middle of a predominantly red state. Good beer, good music, proper barbecue …

… I’ll see you in a month.

I have more than three guilty pleasures, but the three that most truly shame me are: Spaghetti-o’s, Investigation: Discovery, and Grease 2.

Shut up, shut up, and shut up. Thank you.

The best kind of Girl Scout Cookie is a low-carb, low-fat, low-calorie one.

Since that doesn’t actually exist, I’m going to go with Samoas (known as Caramel Dee-Lites in some parts of the country) even though they stick horribly in my teeth.

Their deliciousness outweighs the number of times I have to brush afterwards.

I have become a horrible cynic. At this point, all I value in others is that they at least care enough to say “‘Scuse me” if they ram into you with their shopping carts.

You have no idea how valuable that becomes after you’ve been rammed fifteen hundred times with no acknowledgement save a dirty look for having the nerve to be standing still, on the side, out of the way, when they want to be pushing their carts right there.

I will be absolutely honest. When I am baking cookies, I never sneak raw cookie dough.

Ever.

I leave about two cookies’ worth of dough in the bottom of the mixing bowl and scrape it clean, quite openly and happily, while the pans are in the oven.

If I were ashamed of it, I’d have listed it as a guilty pleasure.

As to whether or not it is safe, my conglomerate of doctors got on my shit for a whole lot of things being wrong with me, but never once did they say, “Oh, and by the way, all of this could have been avoided if you’d laid off the raw eggs.”

Just sayin’.

I have this ridiculous pain in my legs. Right now, it’s worse than it’s been in a long time, because I won’t be having another epidural until they’re sure I won’t get meningitis from it.

My pain specialist wants to put one of those pain pacemakers in me, and I’m seriously considering it, even though getting time off of work for medical leave has become incredibly difficult for people who are actually sick (whilst the hypochondriacs are taking all sorts of long weekends and extra vacations on the company dime; yay, them).

Whereas I always thought of this pain as being annoying, then inconvenient, then excruciating, then unbearable … if I hadn’t finally broken down and gotten That Man of Mine to take me to the hospital to see if they could make it go away, I probably would have died from the pericardial effusion I wasn’t noticing on account of my legs hurting so much.

Whether or not that’s a blessing in disguise more or less remains to be seen.

I think that the most beautiful place I have ever visited was St. Thomas. Where it was beachy, it was white and expansive; where it was green, it was the most luscious green I have ever seen up close; the water was that shade of blue you picture in your mind when you picture the ocean, and it was as clear as glass when we scuba-dived in it.

St. Thomas was kind of like David Beckham, actually — I wouldn’t want to be around something that beautiful all the time, because it would reflect badly on someone as ordinary as I … but it sure is lovely to look at.

I believe I’m more of a thinker than a feeler. I feel incredibly deeply, which just lets you know how much more extreme of a thinker I am. Every feeling I have, I think about it a lot. I don’t have to put a lot of feeling behind my thoughts. (I do, a lot of the time, but I don’t have to.)

Three things for which I am thankful right now:

1. My Android.
2. Gainful employment.
3. Percocet.

I have never participated in a three-legged race. I was never fast enough by myself to be chosen.

Also, at the time of my life when three-legged races were considered important, no self-respecting boy wanted to put his arm around me, even for a race.

By the time I outgrew that bit of nonsense, we had better things to do than tie our legs together and try to run.

When I am at an event where they are playing the National Anthem, not only do I place my hand on my heart, I sing.

It’s not that I’m all that patriotic. I’m just showing off the fact that I can hit those ridiculous notes.

And that’s all I’ve got, for now, which is a relief to all of us, I’m sure.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: The Rolling Stones, Memory Motel
why i’m looking forward to election day: no matter who wins, gas prices will drop for a while

If only I had believed in myself more than I believed in The Almighty Omnipotent Guidance Counselor when I was a junior in high school, I would have gone to college right away, majored in English and minored in Creative Writing, and written my book, and a hundred others, by the time I was thirty.

As things stood, my guidance counselor told me I needed something to fall back on, although I had straight As in English and noticed immediately that the sentence “You need something to fall back on” ends in a preposition and she was therefore wrong about grammar, anyway; nevertheless, I believed her, and went to travel school instead, so I could have a career.

Later, I got my degree in business, so I could have a better-paying career.

The first company that hired me after I got my degree, kept me for seven years, then told me they were eliminating my position due to budgetary constraints.

Fortunately, I knew how to write, so I sold guest-blogs at $2 a pop and freelance articles to websites and magazines, and earned enough money to carry myself and That Man of Mine across the country to Las Vegas, where we were able to find other work.

Fall back on that, bitch.

At this particular moment, the one celebrity with whom I would really like to have an in-depth conversation is any one of the Kardashians. Someone needs to explain to them that not everyone thinks they’re as fascinating as their daddy did.

If I could make a living doing anything, assuming I didn’t have to work for the chocolatey-brown truck company anymore, or that I wouldn’t be writing full-time (my obvious choice), I’d still want to be doing something with words. Maybe I could be a stand-up comedian, or a game show host.

My all-time very favorite dessert is this cake The Mom used to make called Hot Fudge Sundae Cake. We usually didn’t have it on my birthday, which fell too frequently during Passover (an excellent part of the reason I gave up organized religion), but there was usually an alternate birthday for which this cake would appear, and it was exactly as amazing as it sounds.

Of course, I am allergic to both chocolate and dairy, so I shouldn’t be eating that thing anyway. Fortunately, I live across the nation from The Mom, and she no longer bakes that ridiculously good cake, so there is no danger to me anymore.

Leaving chocolate and dairy out of the equation makes dessert really difficult. However, The Mom, who is more or less of a dessert genius, in case you hadn’t guessed, also makes this apple pie around Thanksgiving — spicing it up all medieval-like, as if it were mulled cider. It is, without question, the best fucking pie in the universe, which is why, when it comes to making apple desserts myself, I tend to stick to crisps or tarte tatin, which do not even try to compete.

For the past four years, I owned exactly one pair of jeans, and said pair got alarmingly more and more droopy, the more and more I worked out, and then more droopy yet as I lowered my carbohydrate intake in solidarity with That Diabetic Man of Mine.

When I nearly had an America’s Funniest Videos moment in the middle of the patio at work one Casual Friday, I made an executive decision to find out what size jeans I actually needed to wear, and went to le Mart du Wal. There, I tried on Lee Jeans, an actual brand, and found that I needed something like ten sizes smaller than the Droopy Drawers. I therefore bought two pairs of Lee Jeans that very day, a pair and a spare.

Hey, if they’re good enough for Mike Rowe, they’re good enough for me.

The next Casual Friday, I wore one of my new pairs of jeans, and male coworkers who are known only for talking to the pretty girls unless they have a technical question — well, they talked to me that day.

So I bought two more pairs of jeans, different brands but the same size, on eBay, and I look hot.

Every woman should own four pairs of hot jeans.

Furthermore, I never wear sneakers with jeans anymore. On me, it looks like it gave up. I wear heels, ballet flats, or boots.

As I said, hot.

My favorite flower, visually, is the rose. It’s complex, and soft, but with thorns … kind of like being in love.

I’m not crazy about the scent, except wild roses.

For scented flowers, I tend to like gardenia, which I find soothing. I don’t mind patchouli either. I prefer either of the above combined with something citrusy, or they seem cloying.

I think that the book that has most changed my life is probably Triple Jeopardy by Rex Stout. It’s just a collection of three mystery novelettes, and they’re not even Stout’s best work, let alone his best representation of Archie Goodwin or, by extension, Nero Wolfe.

But.

When I was a tiny kid, I was afraid of that book because the cover had a dead man and a gun on it, and I assumed that the story inside would be equally terrifying.

When I got old enough, and the day was sufficiently rainy to warrant a completely new read, I took Triple Jeopardy off The Mom’s bookshelf, found a blanket and a cat, and settled into my special reading spot (behind the big chair in the living room, which was the closest thing to privacy I could get on a rainy day).

When I emerged a few hours later (the cat stayed behind; it had been bored by the book and began a marathon nap on the end of my blanket which, by necessity, also stayed behind), I wanted to be a writer like Rex Stout.

I’ll let you know if I ever achieve that, by the way.

My least favorite vegetable is canned peas, closely followed by peas in any other incarnation. However, I have found that I can tolerate frozen peas if they are combined in a recipe, though I would prefer to pick them out, and I actually like fresh peas and peapods.

Say again that I’m not openminded enough.

If I could take a nonstop first class flight to any destination, it’d probably be New Zealand, for the holidays.

I want to go to the beach at Christmas, just to see what it’s like not to be freezing that day.

I want to toast the New Year with cold beer.

I want to listen to tall boys talking with cute accents.

I want to go to Christchurch and Auckland.

I want to see what Peter Jackson sees.

If my fifteen minutes of fame included a stint on American Idol, I would probably sing Danny Boy as my trademark solo. I sing it well (at least in the shower), and one of the aspects of American Idol which I like the least is that it’s basically karaoke with delusions of grandeur. So I’ll be singing a capella.

They won’t know what to do with me.

Which is not at all unusual.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: Savannah Outen, Fairytales of L.A.
nail color: royal blue with blue and white marbling. two incomes = professional manicure = yay