just swell

Ah goodness. Guess I haven't felt like updating my blog much lately...what does need some serious updating is my flickr account.

A couple weeks ago I was certain that I needed to see a shrink as the funk was taking over. This week I'm feeling considerably better. We shall see how long that lasts. It seems lately that my funk likes to fall by the wayside only to come back with a vengeance in a few days.


So I started tutoring for some extra cash. I tutor math to a brother and sister. The boy is autistic and I, you know, have zero training or experience with special needs kids. However, after the first couple sessions where I was totally freaked out that I was going to do a terrible job, I definitely feel more comfortable with him and I think he does with me, and he is actually easier to tutor than his sister at the moment (and quite hilarious with all the random stuff he says). When he grasps a concept he's pretty much got it down and will work diligently, whereas his sister claims everything is hard and gets easily distracted.

Anywho, my regular job has a lovely vibe of negativity at pretty much all times. Everyone is disgruntled over something or another. We had a co-worker who took advantage of the flexibility here, so another employee complained to HR, and now we have no flexibility. Also, after 8 years of employment and never requesting any time off at thanksgiving or Christmas, I decided to put in a request for the days prior to Christmas this year, thinking that I've put my time in, and I was surprisingly granted my vacation. Oh, what an uproar that created, I think for 2 weeks straight all I heard about was people obsessing over holiday hours, and how I can't get time off next Christmas because I got it this year, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, the people b**ching about it still managed to get practically the whole week of Christmas off. The one that really chaps my hide though is my co-worker who took the whole week of Thanksgiving off, who asked for it off MONTHS prior, and probably mentions at least twice a week, for the past two month how I GOT CHRISTMAS OFF, she is clearly bitter about it. I'm like wait a minute, you obviously wanted Thanksgiving off since you asked for it off in the summer, and now you also want Christmas off?? Talk about a holiday hog!! I know that the fact that I am a spinster and haven't born children makes it look like I shouldn't have any obligations to anyone during the holidays, but news flash, I have a family too. A ridiculous and dysfunctional family that I'm not always keen on hanging out with, but there are some members of it, such as my sister, brother, niece, nephew and bro-in-law that I do enjoy seeing and only see at most twice a year. Even though my sister is bonafide nutso, I still like her and her family.

This same co-worker is the one who feels the need to belittle me by double checking my work because once I made one error and I don't feel the need to do completely unneccessary tasks that she deems important.

Lets see, what else...I had a surprisingly pleasant Thanksgiving with my Pa and stepmom, which I thought would be awkward because I other than my stepbrother, who was there about an hour, I was the only child to come home. It is well known that my dad and I aren't exactly the chatty types...in general, and certainly not to each other, but the conversation flowed with only moderate awkwardness. I was dissapointed to see that our huge maple tree in front of our house had to be taken down, the house looks naked without it.

I recently thought that I had almost lost 10 lbs, but then the next time I weighed myself I had put back on 3, keeping me steady at where I've been for a couple months now. I shouldn't complain since I still weigh less than I did this summer, when I had porked up to my heaviest in probably five years.

Oh, I was recently at a party where the boy who broke my heart was also in attendance (along with girlfriend). He completely ignored me which was super, but then I saw him a week or so later at another event and he told me he had sent me a message just hours before asking if I wanted to get that elusive drink sometime, to which I responded okay, and then wrote him back to set something up and ....nothing. I don't get it, he could have just continued to ignore my presence and I would just have carried on. Instead he claims to want to hang out with me and I have this glimmer of hope for some closure, but alas, it is but a pipe dream. Ah well, he is moving away soon so that's good, his presence is just a lovely reminder of the consistent rejection.

I've also had the pleasure of watching my roommate be asked out men that I also find attractive, while I meanwhile get no advances from attractive men, and continue to pathetically pine for aforementioned boy, even with all his flaws and jerkish behavior, oh, and the fact that he has clearly moved on, like 2 years ago.

*sigh*

dedicated to Susie Q

I am eight years old and it is Christmas Eve. Having endured the long day of anticipation, as well as the torture that is my mother's traditional oyster stew, I was ready and waiting by the lit tree. Like most children of the 80's, I have hope that my coveted talking cabbage patch is one of the neatly wrapped packages under the tree. Being the youngest and most eager, I wait for the rest of my family to join me while sensing that I should try to hide my greed. My parents and siblings take their time at supper, seemingly on purpose just to irk me. Finally, they file in and the opening of gifts can commence. Not wanting to blow my wad on gift one, I begin with the gifts that I know are kinda the filler gifts...barbie, clothes, a board game, etc. Then I get to the one from my parents that I'm certain is my cabbage patch. I open it and become the proud adoptive parent of Susie Q. or whatever I ended up naming her. Dad has batteries on hand so that I could interact with my child post haste. Now, my parents, while well meaning folk, are terrible at expressing love and affection in either a verbal or physical sense. In essence...I was not hugged much as a child, in fact I only remember one instance where I hugged my dad and that was because I was told to by some Tae kwon do master and I felt obligated to, and it was awkward. Actually, I think my dad's love language may be gift giving, 'cause he was sure jovial when he stuck those batteries in my new doll. Everyone was watching as my baby's on switch was flipped and she uttered her first words..."hug me". Huh?, what was this form of affection known as a hug? There my family sat, grinning and staring, as though we sat around giving each other back rubs while watching Family Ties and that hugs were apart of our normal routine. The doll was relentless in its request, so sheepishly, I was forced to give it an awkward and half hearted hug so that it would shut up. Eventually, I would lose its sippy cup as well, so not only was my doll deprived of physical affection, but it would constantly complain of being thirsty. To this day I believe my experience with my talking cabbage patch has directly influenced my lack of desire to have children.

This post is written for the Great Experiment, if you feel so inclined, vote for me, thanks!

lazy is as lazy does

I am trying to get motivated enough to at least accomplish a spot of exercise today. After a long and busy weekend during which I exhausted myself, I finally have a day off with no agenda. Well, I had a few items on my agenda, such as cleaning my ridiculously cluttered room, exercising and attempting to fix my car door handle that I stupidly dented in/broke off by miscalculating my ability to park in a space between two pillars at -you guessed it- trader joes.

However, at this very moment, laying on the sofa and watching this bizarre early October snow fall through the window, I'm finding the prospect of getting bundled up to get to the gym rather daunting. I've become rather adept at falling asleep in bars lately. Let's see, Friday was spent preparing for, and then hosting our Oktoberfest party, which was cold but successful. Stayed up til after 4 a.m., woke up around 9 a.m., did some cleaning, went to breakfast with the roommates and friends, did some more cleaning, watched a movie with the roommates, dozed off for approx. 15 min. during movie, went to attempt to nap in own bed, after 10 min. was woken by phone call from friend asking when we were going to zombie pub crawl, got up to get zombie-fied for zombie pub crawl, picked friend up for pub crawl, walked in the 40 something degree weather with friend dressed as zombies amongst thousands of others dressed as zombies, acquired brain anxiety, consumed one pbr, lost energy, met up with other zombie friend, ate chipotle, attempted to pub crawl to 2 other establishments before deciding it was too cold and exhausting to fight the crowds, went home, showered, debated for several minutes about attending show at beloved local bar that will be closing soon to see local bands that I am fond of, decided to go, ordered a coffee which clearly irritated bartender, sat and chatted with friend on phone so that people who clearly have friends would think that I have friends even though I was alone, waited for an hour for music to start, enjoyed first band while standing in a corner trying not to draw attention to the fact that I was there alone, continued to stand in corner while waiting for second band to set up, started dozing off WHILE STANDING, decided I should probably go to bed, felt dissapointed that I was being lame and going home, but excited to sleep, awoke early to go to work, dozed off while sitting at desk, debated on going to church or napping after work, chose napping, went home, napped, went to friends house to watch Twins lose to the Yankees, ate copious amounts of soup, watched mermaid girl after Twins defeat, started to doze off, went home, watched dude from Korn on the christian station talk about his conversion, fell asleep prior to hearing about actual conversion, woke up at 3 a.m. and went to bed.

So that was my weekend in one long, hard to read nutshell.
Gah! Soap opera's or gym! I'm also slightly sniffely which is making me even more lazy, justifying that I should rest so I don't get full blown sick, but I also don't want to get full blown fat! Blast!

Uggh, my computer is so ridiculously slow. I was going to attempt to wipe my hard drive, but after some research I got scared to attempt it myself. Some computer tech I contacted said an increase in RAM would help also, and is cheaper, so I think I'll do that instead.

whoops

I'm pretty sure I missed my blogiversary again.

So, after spending 6 hours on Sat. looking for appropriate flapper style attire to wear to the 1929 party I was attending at which a young gentleman that I have a slight crush on was supposed to also attend, well, it was a major bust. Not only did I not find a suitable dress, but the object of my affections was not in attendance at said party.

Man, costumes totally stress me out. We are having an Oktoberfest party on Fri. and my pal is trying to convince me to be a slutty German bar wench. I'm not really too keen on this idea as I don't want to fear folks getting an eyeful if I bend over slightly. Nor do I have any motivation to try to come up with a costume for Halloween. Besides, I don't think I can top my boy george costume from last year.

It has been horrible weather here...cold, rainy, for like 2 weeks now. We are trying to be hardy and thrifty and have yet to turn on our heat also, so it's freezing in our house. Sure makes one excited for winter.

Thanks to those who voted for me in the blog contest that I wrote the previous post for. I think all but one vote that I got was from somebody that I did not coerce into voting for me so I'm encouraged by that. Nor have I seemed to gain any more readership than I previously had...oh well.

The floodgates

It happened the summer following my freshman year of high school. My two sisters, brother and myself were on a sibling camping adventure. On our agenda...whitewater rafting. I'm neither athletic nor adventurous, therefore the prospect of whitewater rafting sent my heart a-palpitating. When we found ourselves running late the morning that we were to embark on this endeavor, I felt hopeful. The frenzy to arrive at our destination had left no time to pee. Noelle sped the car along and barked at me to change into my swimsuit, she'd glance furtively at me in the rear view mirror with furrowed brow to make sure I was complying. Sweaty and terrified that my brother might look back and catch an eyeful, I attempted to shimmy into my suit in a manner that showed as little skin as possible. Much to my chagrin we made it just in time. Of course, by this time, the urge to pee was steadily increasing. The rushing water, jostling, and gripping fear of our raft flipping, consequently sending me downstream to crash into sharp objects, was not helping. We managed to make it through unscathed.

Afterwards, Romaine wanders off to relieve herself in some disgusting latrine in the woods. By this time I had to pee something fierce, but I'd be damned if I'd subject myself to a stanky biffy. I was certain I could hold it. We waited what seemed like a millenium for the crew to load the gear, and I felt a trickle run down my leg. Seconds later the floodgates opened and and no amount of clenching could close them. I stood there as the urine escaped my bladder, seemingly in slow motion, while I looked at my siblings with desperation and embarrassment. At the age of 13, I had wet myself.



This post is written for the Great Experiment, feel free to vote for me, topic is embarrassing moment if you couldn't tell.

ready to drop

I am pert near exhausted...I do believe I have been "out" practically every night for easily the last three weeks, if not five or six. I haven't been this social since I was in my roaring 20's, and I'm beat. In fact, after I finish work this evening I plan on taking a power nap and then possibly attending bar trivia. The rest of the week, however, looks to be a bit slower then the previous few...thank god.

In other news I had a rollicking good time with my co-workers while in attendance at another co-worker's wedding. Funny how fun it can be cutting a rug with those ladies, especially the one's who are henious, condescending wenches when we are at work. Actually only one nurse that was there last night is in actuality a wench to me at work, the rest are all very pleasant to work with (okay make that 2 nurses). I managed to not rip the dress that was a tad too tight for me. In fact the scale has made a downward turn instead of up! Encouraging! I must say I've been pretty good about cutting back on the sweets and unhealthy stuff as of late, and feeling slightly more svelte as a result. I also just ordered a kettlebell dvd, and will be obtaining an actual kettlebell for myself in the near future, then I'll really be in business. I plan to find muscles that were not previously in existence. I will be a toned goddess.

A boy that a kinda have a little crush on will be in attendance at a party that I have also been invited to. He is a friend of my roommate's friend and earlier this summer we all hung out at this outdoor concert, during which I got, you guessed it, pretty wasted. Granted I'm sure he was in a similar state but I left that event thinking I had made an enormous ass of myself and had left him with a horrible impression of me. Case in point, a couple months later I invited him and the mutual friend to join us for trivia via facebook and received no response whatsoever, even though he was clearly active on facebook. Of course I concluded that he hated me. However, this past week the roommate and I ran into him at a show and I managed to say hello and engage in small talk without looking like a complete fool, and he did not seem put off by my presence. So I may make an attempt at flirtation at the party...and will likely fail miserably.

I am continuously baffled that dudes continue to pursue me when A. I was not in top form around them because of a lack of attraction to them and consequently B. there was clearly zero "spark" between us. Yet they persist and I have no idea why, I could not possibly have come off as that attractive, so I clearly attract desperate and lonely dudes. Meanwhile, the boys that I do find attractive, who are certainly not Abercrombie models and seem well within my league, do not give me the time of day despite my efforts to be outgoing and witty and charming and intelligent and such. Those dudes usually end up with another average looking girl who is probably cool and all, but I have to wonder what those women have that I don't.

Well, I seem to have evaded the full on funk for now...am currently just in my usual state of dissatisfaction and slight melancholy. I've been tossing around the idea of asking he who broke my heart if he wants to get a drink sometime, to which I will likely get no response.

hello blog

Oh blog, how I have abandoned thee.

Well, last time I posted I had just turned 30, felt the loss of my friend's band and had a falling out with a friend. The friend and I made up a couple months later, and I am still 30 and still a little heartbroken over the demise of my friend's band.

But man, has it been a busy summer. Lots of weekends out of town, a trip to Philly, and attendance of goings on in my lovely city. Minneapolis is pretty great in the summer, but I'm plum exhausted. My old roomie has been in town a couple months and we've been out and about, hearing music and playing pub trivia.

I also decided to try my hand again at online dating, which, I kinda wish I would have just let sleeping dogs lie. I guess the idea has been bouncing around in my head and my roommates and I have been joking about trying it and making a documentary. Then my bro in law was obsessed with me giving it a go when I visited them a month ago, he is clearly concerned by my spinster and childless future. However, I believe what really spurred me on to take the plunge was knowing that the guy who broke my heart was moving back. So I went the cheap route and posted another craigslist ad, which garnered me a slew of responses and I had dates lined up for every night of the week. My experiences ranged between horrible and definitely passable, but nobody that really rocked my boat. The horrible experience was with a guy who I for some reason had thought was close to my age but ended up being well in his forties. Mind you, I have no issue with dating an older dude, there are definitely some attractive dudes in their middle age, but this guy was schlumpy and clearly never left the 'burbs and we obviously had nothing in common. Even though my instinct was to turn tail and run when I saw him I perservered. We had plans to go to this event at the gallery I volunteer at, during which there were going to be presentations. The worst part of the evening was during the last presentation where one of the woman stripped naked and showered in front of everybody...can one say uncomfortable. I felt like I was with a creepy uncle.

So yeah, no love connections from my foray...there are a couple guys that I have plans to see again but don't really envision anything happening beyond friendship.

Then of course I run into he who broke my heart at the state fair of all places, which is frakking huge and so not where I expected to run into him. I did think I might see him at some point since we have mutual friends, but definitely not there. He (and his girlfriend) pretty much turned tail and ran while me and my friend chatted with our mutual pals that he was with. Unfortunately for him when we left we only popped around the corner and promptly came back the way we came so he was there when we passed by again. Of course I didn't care if he felt uncomfortable, so we went over to say hello. He was clearly uncomfortable.

Then, this past weekend my friend and I went to her college town's festival as I have been the last couple years. This time I was expecting to run into said guy, since it is his hometown. In any case, we ended up hanging out with him and his pals (sans their girlfriends) for the evening, very little of which I actually have clear remembrance of since I was extremely intoxicated. No doubt I was obnoxious at some point. Yeah, I feel real great about that experience.

I may be heading into a funk..or it may be a temporary lapse, haven't quite detemined that yet.