Moody Meow

I’m going to be phone-scarce for a while. I smoke when I:

• play video games
• talk on the phone
• am stressed
• am manic
• am depressed
• need a break from the beagles
• hear other people smoking
• see other people smoking

You get the picture. Have patience. I need this to work

You tried to guide a store full of drug addicts, fuck-ups, and lost children. You did well to get out of the business of taking care of us, little gentle woman.

Thwap - that’s what this would sound like. When I was half asleep, trying to wake up and uncurl myself from around a particularly cute pile of beagles, I listened to the morning talking heads chewing on this story with a kind of sick relish.  What do I think about this?

Fucking duh!

But I am now interested in reading the book. Not because it Bush bashes, because Mr. McClellan was on of Bush’s chums. I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of overt criticism of the president But Rice, and Powell, and Rove - those stories still interest me, although I know they will royally piss me off.

I never finished my weekend recap.

Read the rest of this entry »

That was the first thing I thought this morning when I woke up. How vile? How nasty? How could I smell or taste anything beyond that stench? How in the fuck am I going to get through residency without smoking? But my friend from work is quitting and I am trying to be supportive. And I’m tired of not sleeping with D because I snore (which is equal parts smoking and my weight gain), or not sleeping at all because I smoke. And now, I’m quitting again. Chris is taking some drug. So is Lex (come June 1), and so was my Mom. I’m the only one out of the bunch that doesn’t have insurance. But I do have this near-crippling sense of competition. Not with the women in my life, but with the cyclists I see on the road. I can’t ride fast if I’m still smoking. And if you’ve ever seen a casual cyclist, they don’t haul ass, they putter. I got smoked by a chick in flip-flops puttering down the road, and it still pisses me off. So, she’s a part of the reason I’m not going to smoke anymore. That, and it would be nice to see if my food tastes as good as I think it does.

And now to the weekend recap.

Read the rest of this entry »

My favorite uncle, talked to me like an adult and never understood why I didn’t “get” the drinking. I was horrified when I found out you used. It still bothers me.

Pronounced with a G, Chinese/Cuban, we kissed in the rain. I always wanted you as a friend because I knew I would destroy a relationship. You left anyway. Enjoy the silence.

So named for the gifts, not the drug use. My first geek admirer, too bad you were a creep and made my life hell. I traded in those D&D books asshole..

You cried at my wedding and loved our children. A division grew, and I don’t know if it was your fear of my judgment or just inevitable distance when things change

I worried, because you drank. You introduced me to D, when I still looked good in a skirt. If I saw you tomorrow, it would be as easy as it always was.

Photographer, poet, friend, dreamer, lover of beagles and kitties, One day you will realize that your wings are perfect; all you need to do is believe in yourself enough to fly

Happy Belated. Great friend, separated as we are by a vast country, know your wisdom and encouragement always touch me. We drink too much, smoke too much, and laugh too hard.

When we moved into this house, we were excited. The pictures didn’t do the kitchen justice. It’s quite large. The granite counter tops, lovely. But once you live in a space, you find the dangerous bits, the areas where you should tread lightly for fear of rabid opossums or low-hanging ceilings just waiting for a cute, bald head to scrape. Our counter tops extend too far over the cabinets beneath them. The same goes for the dishwasher. They aren’t flush with the edge, or even close to being flush, so all kinds of annoying shit happens. Like I open the top drawer all the way and I can’t get the box of plastic bags out without denting it because it’s partially stuck underneath the overly large counters. But last night was the worst. In my preparations for dinner, I yanked open the dishwasher door. There’s a lip, a nice finger-deep space where my ring finger caught - and

THWACK!

Finger, dishwasher door propelled at 60 mph, and the counter all collided. And it hurt. But not in the “ouch” kind of way. Nope, it throbbed with the promise of more nausea-inducing pain because most of the pain nerves in the tip of my finger were whirling around going “what the fuck? Did we just get hit? React? Oh yeah, we are supposed to react!” And so began the rising tide of agony. For the record, my finger still hurts.

And Puck, ever the scavenger, just stood there - tail wagging, tongue lolling, waiting for me to drop the chunk of parmasean in my other hand. Dogs….. if they weren’t so cute, I’d scream.

I did my civic duty yesterday. I voted in the Democratic Primary, and contributed my voice to the loacl elections. Happlily, everyone I voted for won. Our new mayor, Sam Adams, royally spanked the competition, and I can say I am pleased.  But I do have an inkling of fear. When Glenda (clit) Hood left the Mayoral spot in Orlando, I voted for Buddy Dyer. I should have known, with those cheeks and that laugh, that he was as crooked as she was. But I voted my heart and my heart was wrong. I hope I’m not wrong about Sam Adams. The press here is quite diligent in digging up dirt, so I I think I made an educated decision.

And I have to say that Oregon has the voting system down pat. No polling places, no lines, no bullshit. Register to vote, they send your ballot in the mail. You can do all your research at home, and then mail the fucker back in. D, of course, sent his off early. I waited until the last minute. Why? Cause that’s how I roll….so I dropped my ballot off at the local libarary. With ballot in hand, I walked in, fearful when I saw the line. But everyone else was in line to pay the fines or check out books. The blue box, with like 15 locks, sat there waiting for me. I dropped it off and went on my merry way. That, my friends, is how voting should happen. My Mom told me that Colorado does the same thing. Good good stuff.

While I could have spend my evening watching the talking heads yammer on about how the voting ran, I took 3 Benadryl, had two beers and passed out on the couch. I got NOTHING done last night. But I slept, and sleeping is good.

Today, I’m heading up to the NW side of town for a little coffee talk with C. And then I will head to Moosey with D for our ritual Wednesday night veggie dinner. The rest of my week goes as follows:

• Thursday - Work, Indy, go home, try to sleep
• Friday - Work, have lunch with the bossy and the rest of the group (his wife had her baby on Sunday), go home, clean the casa, head to Mississippi Station for a portabello sandwich that could make your toes curl (and we will bike there, so I can’t drink too much), and then head home. No Battlestar this week….sigh.
• Saturday - Drop puppies off to be cleaned, pack up the doggies and head to Lex’s house. D’s bringing his bike, and mine, so we can get a little ride in for fun, party.
• Sunday - big BBQ with Lex’s neighbors. Party.
• Monday - head home 1st thing in the morning, trying to beat the traffic back to Portland. Upload all the pictures from the little trip. Sleep

And that about does it folks. I should get back to work.

I was negligent in linking back to Claire, who began this thing. Sorry

And now, to the silliness….

What were you doing five years ago?
May of 2003:
1) Living in the duplex in the Delaney Park neighborhood of Orlando.

2.) Still able to drink a gallon of wine with D without getting wicked hung over.

3.) Going to Southern Night with David July on work nights.

4.) Planned on starting college??

5.) I have a shittastic memory, so that entire section could be untrue

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
1. Clean the litter box…my basement reeks
2. Vote
3. Try to cheer the world up
4. Poop
5. Read more of Bird by Bird - by Anne Lamott (I miss Dr. Laws, and her writing classes)

What are five snacks you enjoy?
1. Chips and salsa
2. Hit cookies - they are a kind of cookie, not what you should do if I have one and you want it.
3. popcorn - no butter just salt
4. chips and salsa
5. Dry roasted almonds

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Buy a house with a big porch, a big backyard, two offices (So D and I don’t have to share), a library, with a well appointed kitchen and an indoor grill.
2. Put money into college funds for my sister’s spawn, and my birthdaughter
3. Take D to Rome
4. Buy a vineyard
5. Spend the rest of my life writing, and not working for the man

What are five of your bad habits?
1. Smoking
2. Speeding
3. Road Rage
4. Not picking up my socks from the living room
5. The internet (it’s a habit)

What are five places where you have lived?
1. Miami, FL
2. Geaukonighshaufen, Germany
3. Egenburg, Germany
4. Fayetteville, NC
5. Portland, OR (home sweet home)

What are five jobs you’ve had?
1. Professional office monkey
2. Bitchy bartender
3. Food Server with chip on shoulder
4. Bookseller (one of my favorite jobs)
5. Bath & Body stock girl (with a fully pierced face, so they kept me in the back room, trying to kill me with all of those over-powerful scents.

Which five people do you want to tag?

1.) Topsy

2.) Amandapants

3.) Cat

4.)D (although I know he won’t because he just trolls the blog hehehe)

5.) Someone from school (I see you, you Seton Hill lurkers!)

Old roommate, scarred, scared,  victim and victimizer. You never bathed,  and were certifiable. I think you attacked Derek. I still don’t understand why you hated me.  Suicidal, silly, writer, now what?

I wounded you, trounced on your feelings and you ignored my apologies. I respect your silence. Mom stopped asking about you years ago. I think she knew how shitty I was.

• Slept like shit
• Woke up and used the elliptical
• My girly bits are sore from yesterday’s ride. I decided not to wear bike shorts underneath my spiffy pants.
• Our home improvements from the weekend have made the house look better.
• We still have to put another screen door up on the back door.
• If it looks nice - D wants to replace the front door.
• I never made it to the gardening stage of my weekend.
• We bought, and then returned two air conditioners.
• I love Lowe’s and will never shop at Home Despot again (typo intentional)
• Edwards endorses Obama. Yes, I am part of the Obamanation, and I love it here. It’s a good place to be. Let’s see if the dems solidify behind him now. She’s just too angry for me. I’m a pathetically hopeful liberal.
• I bought GTA4. With the deadline for school and all, I held off. I still have to register for my classes and get my submission in by the 23rd. My goal is to turn it in early (it’s the piece that will be critiqued next month during residency).  But I finally got the game. Now it’s time to go kick around some prostitutes. It’s gonna look sooooooooo freaking good!
• The weekend plans are faring up nicely. think the fam is coming into town.
• I will be working on my garden throughout the week because I know Alexis will poop herself if she sees the yard as bad as it is right now.
• I have to kill a blackberry bush. That doesn’t make me happy.
• I think V8 Fusion - Strawberry/Nanner is the shit.
• I get to make salsa this weekend, and I’m using my nephew as slave labor. I get all the benefits without having to feed him more than once a month.

I’m very cheerful today, and I realize yesterday’s blog post was written like poop. I would go edit it but I was very excited. D and I watched American Gangster last night. Made me sad. I didn’t like it at all. I finished it saying to myself  “What in the hell was the point of that?” Oh well.

D and I are planning on seeing Indy this week. Yeah, cause it’s going to kick mucho asso.

And now, back to chipper mornings and coffee.

I haven’t taken a shower yet. I’m still covered in sweat, but my heart is full of joy. Why? D and I rode down to the waterfront and saw Obama’s speech. Okay, honestly, we heard it. There were an estimated 75k people down there, and I wasn’t about to beat people up for a good seat. We found a perch, in the shade, and listened with about a bajillion other people. He’s an amazing speaker.

D and I got some breakfast, and decided that we had to go down to the rally. I honestly don’t know how many people are going to vote for Obama on Tuesday, but if this gathering was any indication, he’s going to do well. After breakfast, D and I shimmied throughout some of the amazing neighborhoods I love to ogle, and when we got to the bridge, we were stopped by a wall of people. All of the white on the bottom of the bridge - those are all people (and bikes and puppies too) walking to the ralley. D and I had to get off the bikes and walk with the crowd. We honestly could have been total dicks about it, but I’m kind of into being polite since I’m not a fast rider yet. Let’s see how much of an ass I become when I get a little speed going.

Anyway, it took us a while to traverse the short distance from where this picture was taken, to the rally itself. Security was tight, and avenues that are usually open to traffic were shut down. I needed to eat. I was hot and sweaty and getting pissed that the normal route to get near Waterfront Park had been shut down. But we progressed.

D and I were going to just park the bikes and get into the line for the main entrance. But after locking the bikes up, and walking a few blocks, we noticed that the line wound all over the place. After a quick discussion of options. one included FINDING the back of the line and just following everyone else in, we decided to use D’s knowledge of the city to our advantage.

We unhooked the bikes, played in a little belligerent traffic, and found a spot on the back end of the park, near some shops. They opened up another enterance to the rally close to where we were sitting, but we decided that sitting in the shade was far more important than actually seeing the tiny spec that would have been Obama on the stage. Besides, the audio traveled perfectly to us. We waited it out, marveled at all the funny shirts, and interesting bike stickers.

The speech gave me chills. He knew his audience, and he spoke to us. Portland is very progressive when it comes to transportation and he held that up as a thing that other cities should strive for. He mentioned how important teachers REALLY are - TWICE. He talked about everything he should have, and more. But he also recognized the sheer size of us - his Portland Obama supporters and thanked us. And I realize that I’m kind of dragging this out a bit, but I have a sunburn. So, my nonsensical rambling will be blamed on heat stroke…or something.

Here are some images from the rally. There are more on my flickr thingy.

I have more to write about, I really do. It was a great weekend, except for the heat. We discovered a new place for food and good conversation, I had too much wine, laughed so hard my face hurt, and discovered new things about who I am and why I do things the way I do. But most of all, I got my fat ass BACK on my bike, and it felt fantastic.

And now I’m going to pass out and sleep for 100 days.

My crush lasted years. It was hard when you said “friend.” When I left for Orlando, we had that conversation about the past and the future. I still wonder, are you gay?

You let me get away with so much, and forgave me for everything. I still owe you a phonecall. True caretaker of the world, I’ve always looked up to you, Bookend.

Taught me how to love fiercely, and to fear alcohol. Best friend, confidant, understanding keeper of secrets. There are things about me you will never accept, and that’s okay. I understand.