a line has been crossed

That could apply to a lot of things this week, but Ima just discuss one.

I don't know whether I discussed it in the blog or not, but in debating the pros and cons of getting a kindle, Mr Indemnity and I mused that one of the pros was the ability to bring pr0n--excuse me, EROTICA--anywhere and read it in public without embarrassing oneself. A small point in the kindle's favor, but a point nevertheless. Well, yesterday, after owning my device for six months, I broke down and for $1.99, bought myself a piece of literary smut. As an experiment. And because I needed a little inspiration last night, if you know what I mean and I'm sure you lot do. And this is my reaction:

Are you fucking kidding me?

People buy and sell this stuff? I am very sure that with the right amount of effort (i.e. barely none) I could have found for free, on the internet, "erotica" of similar literary merit (i.e. absolutely none.) [But it got its job done in the inspiration department, so what the hell am I complaining about?] The idea that I could, if I were the enterprising type, just write down a bunch of my sordid sexual fantasies without any attention to plausibility, plot, characterization, or for godsake, spelling, slap them up on kindle self-publishing under a pseudonym and get people looking for wank material to pony up $1.99 for them is both tantalizing and upsetting. As you all know, I have written smut, but it was smut that was labored over with as much care as any other piece of fiction I ever wrote. They were actual stories***. I couldn't write one in a couple of free hours, is what I'm saying.

But, having crossed the self-respect line far enough to purchase this shiz for my kindle, could I cross the self-respect line a little further and bang out (unintentional pun, I swear to god) this dreck for money? Lord knows, extra money for very little effort would be awesome. You kids know I like to buy stuff and I don't use credit. But this is the writing equivalent of prostitution, I fear, and more the crack ho than the high-class escort type. I'm really tempted and yet horrified by being tempted.

xoxo

***my very favorite review of anything I ever wrote was by a somewhat well-known genre writer who, in his blog, said the story I had published in the erotica webzine his also somewhat famous author wife was editing was so good that it wasn't until after you finished it that you realized that it was kinda, technically, furry pr0n. Heh. [It was a takeoff on Goldilocks and the Three Bears, dudes. Papa and Mama Bear were status-conscious yuppies and Goldilocks was their internet sex slave. It was hilarious. But with dirty parts. It took a while to write. There was a lot of pointed satire in with the wank material. That's all I'm sayin'.]

step on a crack, break your mother's back

Would you like to hear the latest excuse reason my yard isn't finished? Justin has had to take his mother to a couple of doctor's appointments. You have to admit, as excuses go, this one is pretty much unassailable. Despite my fairly strong suspicion that Justin is, in fact, a lying liar, I really have no rejoinder. I mean, what does one say? "How dare you put your mother's biopsy/hysterectomy/colonoscopy/tummy tuck ahead of my mulch, Justin"? Because of the continued delay, however, Justin has informed me that he will haul the yard waste away for free, waiving the $25 charge. Luckily for me, since Justin and I now communicate entirely by text message, I have this in writing. Well, sorta writing. Missing vowels n' such. But, yeah, I have proof, is what I'm saying.

Meanwhile, my superior immune system has also grievously failed me. I have a chest cold. Since--and this is only a minor exaggeration, if it is an exaggeration at all--every single patient who came into my office last week was coughing, this is not too terribly surprising. One of the little bastards apparently spewed enough virii in my direction to overwhelm my defenses. The upshot of this is that I was feeling just crappy enough today that I could not force myself to take advantage of the stellar weather and go for a nice long walk. Made it only as far as the CVS to pick up a prescription. On the plus side, I was wearing my new shorts that I bought 3(?) weeks ago for the first time whilst doing that, so my knees did get their inaugural airing. But, seriously, after not being sick the entire winter, the suckage of being an aching phlegm factory on the first really hot day of the year must be remarked on.

Also? I got a catalog in the mail today that has an even nicer Buddha garden statue than the one I just ordered. More expensive, though, so I guess it's good I bought the first one.

Okay, that's my Tuesday. Peace!

xoxo

one more picture for today, then i am done

I was screwing around the other day, trying to immortalize on (digital) film how my rear delt is coming in. (Very fuckin' nicely, thank you.) And I had a realization.



If you scroll past that really fast, my armpit looks like butt crack. I never thought I would use that phrase in a sentence, yo.

Obviously the transfat in those biscuits has put me in a very good and/or silly mood. Or maybe I've already stroked out from them and I don't know it!

xoxo

evil kitty (RIP) clone meets bowie

Now, of course, I can't get that song out of my head. And neither can you!

xoxo

sucker born every minute, fashion edition, plus updates

Shall we do updates first?

Popeyes biscuits are indeed as good as I remembered. There is nothing in them of any conceivable nutritional value. In fact, they are so extremely full of everything bad for you that every bite probably takes 3.2 minutes off your life expectancy. It is worth it. Total mouthgasm. The spicy chicken was delish as well. I brought two pieces home for D, carrying them around in my purse for the whole of the ballgame (with the net effect that my purse will now smell like chicken probably forever, but oh well), predicting that he would like it, being predisposed by its presence in my breastmilk all those years ago. And he did!

Also, our seats were not behind a pole, we saw a vintage Wake pitching performance--not some minor leaguer's, it didn't rain, and we were out of the park by 11. That part of the weekend was just lovely.

Now let's talk about the less lovely aspects of the weekend. Friday afternoon my good friend "Justin" texts me to say that he is working late and will not be at my house to finish up the 1/3rd of my yard project that isn't complete. However, says "Justin" (I'm sorry, putting it in quotes is just cracking me up), this is actually good, because he can come over the weekend to finish it and that will afford him time to pick up the crushed stone I want, rather than come back and do that at a later date. Fine, I say. Just let me know when you will be coming, because I'm working Saturday morning and early afternoon, and Sunday I will only be home between 1 and 4:30 pm. (i.e. if you want to be paid when you are finished, make sure you are getting finished at a time I will be there). I hear nothing on Saturday. Quelle surprise. Not terribly upset by this, because it allowed me to go running after work on Saturday, since praise Jesus, not only didn't the world come to an end, it was a nice day! Sunday morning I hear nothing either. Quelle surprise, again. I figure my man "Justin" has overbooked himself again. I am not terribly upset. As I may have mentioned, the fact that the front looks presentable from the street and I do not have to duck the neighbors anymore is enough to keep me mollified till the work is complete. I decide to head into town earlier than planned so I can do an errand before the chicken and alcohol pregame festivities commence.

On my way (3:45ish) Justin texts me and says that perhaps he will come by and put the six bags of yard waste that he hasn't yet removed out at my curb for trash day, so that he will not have to charge me for removing them. Keep in mind, I specifically told him that a.) I absolutely was not going to be home after 4:30 and b.) that there is only one week this month that yard waste will be picked up by the city curbside and that week has come and gone. I text him back and say, don't bother, because I know that if those bags are identifiably branches, hedge clippings, etc--and they are--the trash guys will leave them on my curb. Fair enough, Justin texts back, he just thought it might be worth a try. (And here is where this devolves into me wanting to bang my head against something hard, or at least solid.) We'll "just go with the original plan" and he'll be by Monday at 2pm. Sweet jumping Jesus on a pogo stick. How that is the original plan, or anything close to the original plan, I do not fucking know. Sigh. I don't even.

Enough of that. Here's our fashion item.

I get emails from Madewell. Madewell is a division of Jcrew, I believe, and since I get email from them, I get email from Madewell, despite never having been been in a Madewell store. I never open these emails. I just delete them. This morning for reasons that are totally obscure, I actually did open the one in my inbox. Madewell is hawking chambray. I have nothing against chambray. In a twist of fate, I am even wearing my chambray cowgirl shirtdress today, over black leggings and a black beater. I look cute, even though this dress is kinda too big for me now. So, yeah, I am not a hater. However. This is one of the chambray items Madewell would like me to purchase. For $98, I might add.




Seriously? A below-the-knee, full, button-front, *fucking pleats at the waist* skirt. This is not "equals parts laid-back and impossibly chic", Madewell. This is a garment that a nice 62 year old Methodist lady buys from LLBean to wear to her garden club meeting. You cannot fool me, despite your clever ad copy and your 17 year old 5'11 112lb model. This is (and all y'all may remember me referencing this type of garment before) clothing that shouts out "I do not ever want to have sex again." You cannot make that chic no matter how high a price tag you snap on it. Are people idiots?

Know what I did order online Friday? Not a hideous skirt. A statue for my garden that will go where my crushed rock is going (should Justin ever buy and spread it).



It will help me meditate when flaky landscapers and fraudulent fashion designers spike my blood pressure!

xoxo

it ain't a madeleine, but...

Back when my son was a wee little newborn who only slept when he was attached to my body in some way, preferably by the nipple, and I was sleeping four hours a day in 45 minute snatches, his father was the manager of a Jiffy Lube kind of store. It was not a Jiffy Lube, it was some other chain which I believe is out of business, probably because their name wasn't as catchy as Jiffy Lube (which it wasn't, 'cause I'll be damned if I can remember it). ANYWAY, this pseudo-Jiffy Lube was located in a strip mall where, among other assorted businesses, there was a Popeyes.

You may or may not remember this, eastern Massachusetts Adventurers, but in the mid-late 80s, Popeyes were popping up all over the place in our environs, before they all failed. Much like Krispy Kreme did twenty years later. I guess some things are not meant to be exported from the South. The difference, however, boys and girls, is that, unlike Krispy Kreme, Popeyes is fucking delicious. While in my uber-sleep deprived and burning 8 billion calories a day milk-producing state, my ex-husband would bring me home spicy fried chicken and biscuits for dinner. To this day, probably twenty years since I last tasted one, I still involuntarily drool at the thought of those biscuits. The combination of bad carbs and (probably trans)fat was a thing of beauty. In fact, when I tally in my head the things that were not douchebaggy about my then-future ex-husband, his providing me with those biscuits in my hour of need is right up at the top of the list. (Although, I'm pretty sure he was having an emotional, if not physical, affair with a girl who was the manager at one of the other strip mall stores, maybe even that Popeyes, though I've mercifully blocked that out too, much like the name of the faux Jiffy Lube, so I'm not sure my chicken and biscuits were totally without ulterior motive. Nevertheless, those biscuits were worth even infidelity if so.)

What brings this up today? Well! At some point, some year, in relationship to something, Mr Indemnity and I discussed Popeyes and our love thereof and the fact that there aren't any around here anymore. And our great great sadness. However we then at some point independently discovered that--holy shit!--there's one in Kenmore. And we have, for some period of time, discussed that goddamn it, we ought to go there. Well! The other thing we decided we ought to do is get Sox-Cubs tickets, because how often does that come around? And thus it will come to pass that this Sunday evening, we shall have Popeyes followed by Cubs baseball. The only thing that can spoil this is if our seats turn out to be behind a pole. Or whatever newly-promoted minor leaguer the Sox have pitching makes it a 23-4 game. Or the fact that it's an ESPN game means we'll be in the 7th inning only at 11pm (12am, if the score's high double digits). Or if it's freezing cold and raining like it's been all week. Or if those biscuits aren't as good as I remember.

A lot could go wrong, actually! I'm still really looking forward to it! It'll make up for all the agita Justin's caused me this week. (My yard is 2/3rds done, if you're counting.)

xoxo

me n' justin

The only one who's heard any of this is poor M2, and even she hasn't heard the (for now) denouement, so I don't feel bad boring you all with it. Like that's ever stopped me anyway.

Justin (or "Justin") is, you may remember, the dude I hired off Craigslist to do my yardwork. Two weeks ago this past Tuesday, to be exact. Justin was supposed to get in touch with me that Friday to set a date to do my work. He knew it wouldn't be that weekend because he already had a job lined up. Monday Justin emails me, apologizes for not getting back to me sooner, and says he'll do my job the next weekend, with details of exactly when later in the week. Later in the week (i.e. Friday) Justin says he'll come work on my yard Monday and Tuesday afternoon. Monday and Tuesday is not exactly "the weekend" but whatever.

In the meantime, the wet weather has made the grass and weeds in my front yard about a foot high. I am totally embarrassed and, also, worried that despite our apparent new neighborly togetherness on the street that occurred during all the snow clearing last winter someone's gonna be a douchebag and call the city on me. I swear to god, I take to sneaking out of my house when no one is around in order to avoid any disapproving neighbors. Justin tells me he will be at my house a bit after 2pm on Monday. I say the earliest I'd be able to get home would be 2:45. He's fine starting without me. He knows basically what I want and need done and if he has any questions, he'll leave that till I get there. So I do not hurry home. I head out of work at 3. On my way home I am texting D to ask whether Justin is in the yard or not. He is not. At three thirty I text Justin and ask whether he is coming. He says he is on his way, that he got stuck in traffic leaving Boston blah blah but he will see me in 15. I go upstairs to check my email and five minutes later, I get email from Justin, saying he cannot get a truck today and he'll come Wednesday when he's sure he'll have a truck to do the haul away. "You're not coming at all today?" I email back, incredulous. He'd just told me he'd see me in 15. W.T.F. I do not get a reply email for 5 hours, at which point Justin says he promises to be there Wednesday and I say he had better, because I am getting desperate. There is an implied threat in there, which Justin is apparently bright enough to pick up on. He says if he can, he will come Tuesday, but definitely Wednesday.

Tuesday I am leaving work and on my way to the gym. Justin texts me that he is heading to my house "to finish up" and will I be there? I text back that I'll be home around 4:45 and he says cool, he'll still be there. I am confused. Finish up? Had Justin had the whole day off from his other job and come to my house in the morning? Is this what implied threats get one?

I round the corner of my street at 4:40 and oh, there's been no work done in my yard. Justin is not there and has not been there. It dawns on me what is going on here. Justin screwed up and promised two people that he would be at their house on Monday. When I texted him, he thought I was the other customer. Hence the "I'll be there in 15" text and then 5 minutes later "I'm not coming today" email. He didn't think he was talking to the same person. I text Justin back and ask whether he has my phone number confused with another customer's and ask whether I can count on him being at my house Wednesday. Oh, Justin. Yes on both counts.

I get home yesterday afternoon to finally see Justin in front of my house attacking shit with his powerful weed whacker. He gets a lot done in the 2 1/2 hours he's at my house and promises to be back today to finish up and then haul away all the yard waste. I am mollified. Even with the waste not hauled away, I can walk out my front door and down the street without cringing and hoping none of the neighbors are out.

Moral of the story: when you hire someone off Craigslist, you needn't worry they will rape, rob, and/or murder you. They're too flaky and disorganized for that. But eventually they will show up and do a good job on the work you need done. Side moral of the story: you can count on any tradesperson you hire to not come when they say they are going to come and then lie like crazy about it. When the rapture comes this Saturday, ain't none of them floating up to heaven. The baby Jesus doesn't like liars, you know.

xoxo

just call me jillian

The five other ladies in my office (Townie Girl, Led Zep Girl, M1, Receptionist Without Colorful Nickname, and Nurse Practitioner Without Colorful Nickname) are doing their own version of the Biggest Loser. They each put up $20 and at the end of four weeks, whoever has lost the most percentage-wise gets a hundred dollars. Since I am the only one who doesn't need to be dieting, I was drafted into being the person who does the weigh-ins (behind closed doors), records the weights, and holds on to the cash. "Just call me Jillian," I said. I hope that means I get to yell at people and make them cry. (Oh, just KIDDING.)

This has put me into the semi-uncomfortable position of now knowing what all my co-workers weigh, especially since they don't know what each other weigh--no one wanted to make this info public. I gotta say, I would make a very bad carny. My guess would have been about 40 pounds off in a couple of cases. But it was nice to be told that I was the perfect person to be doing this, that i.e. everyone knows I can be trusted to not go blabbing confidential shit around and that I'm not all Judgy Mc Judgerson.

Well, much. I did have to bite my tongue to keep from asking whether if none of them lose any weight, *I* get to keep the hundred bucks. But, seriously, you don't know these chicks. They're all on a new diet every Monday and eating chips and cake again by Thursday. Except M1. I've seen her lose hundreds of pounds in the 25 years I've known her. And I've seen her regain hundreds of pounds + forty. Poor M1. It comes off but it never stays off. But when she gets it into her head to stick to a plan, she sticks to a plan! She'll probably win this thing.

xoxo

bits n' pieces updates

1.) I learned the other day that the female half of Inappropriate PDA Weightlifting Couple is called Courtney. Remember how I said she could be in her early 20s or her mid 30s? Well, now we know she's probably somewhere between 23 and 26, because there were a whole plethora of Courtneys born circa 1985-1988. It's the "Lisa" of my son's generation. So there *is* a significant age difference between her and Mr Fist-bump. Just another piece in the puzzle, bitches.

2.) Guess what came in the mail yesterday? A check for $54.28 from the feds. Go to jury duty Monday, get paid Wednesday! I am so sorry I was badmouthing them, yo.

3.) More frightening evidence that I am mentally falling apart. Right before I was going to leave for work this morning, I decided to file away my bank statement that had been sitting on my kitchen table for three days. I also had a bunch of paid bills on the desk in the former catbox office that I had thrown there without filing, so I figured whilst I was filing... And in filing those bills, I realized I did not have a stub for my water bill, which I can almost clearly remember getting, opening, and paying immediately. So then I looked at my bank statement and no check to the Water and Sewer Commission. I call them to see if I owe them money and the nice lady says my last payment received was for February, the next bills were sent out in April and are due in May. She gives me the amount I owe and assures me that as long as I write my account# on the check, I will be credited even without the payment coupon. So I panickedly write a check, address an envelope and go mail it at the post office before I go into work.

There are no unpaid bills languishing in my unpaid bill file. There is no evidence that I paid that bill--no cashed check, no bill stub. WTF did I do with it? I swear to fucking god, I can almost visualize myself opening it and thinking, oh, good, it's less than last quarter. Did I then just throw it in the recycling by mistake or something? How could I do that? It really scares me. Or, alternately, is it possible I didn't get the bill and I am hallucinating opening it up? I don't like my brain not working, all y'all.

I think that's all my present updates. But AS YOU CAN SEE, we cannot rely on my memory.

xoxo

"turn your calves into cows"

Oh, it's a sad day, Adventurers. I'm sure you've heard--it was all *over* the news at 5:30 this morning and that was over seven hours ago--that The Governator and his Kennedy wife are splitsville. Why this is a major news story of epic proportions, I dunno. Long-married people their (our) age reach the point where they are so thoroughly sick of each other's shit that they cannot take another minute of it quite often, don't they?

I, of course, choose to (in the fictional version of their lives I've made up!) paint him as the bad guy. Despite the quote in this blog title (which I do not for a second believe he wrote himself) and despite the fact that his movies were always guilty pleasures (and brought the world "Linda Hamilton Terminator 2 arms" after all), I have never liked him since I read or heard years ago that the reason Maria S was so skeletally thin was that he demanded she diet and exercise herself into that condition. That could be a baldfaced lie and slander, but I choose to believe it. Why *she* would acquiesce to it is a thorny problem of its own, of course. I mean, I'm sure he didn't chain her to the treadmill or put locks on the cupboard doors and take away her money so she couldn't sneak out and buy Yodels, so she HAD to acquiesce. In a best case scenario, she just lurved him and wanted to please him. In a worst case scenario, he emotionally abused her such that she was convinced she looked like a whale if she weighed over 104. Who knows? In any case, I never had a positive view of him or their marriage since the whole thing was planted in my head.

Which is silly. Because you know the truth is probably as far from the gossip as the truth about Inappropriate PDA Weightlifting Couple is from my suppositions about them.

I was going somewhere with this and I seem to have lost the thread. Shut up.

xoxo

it's 2pm

Guess who's home from jury duty? I been sprung, all y'all, and DO NOT, repeat do not, have to be on call for 14 more days. So, mollified, I can cease with the plans to become a Libertarian. Whew.

Let me tell you a couple things, which hopefully will be of use to you if you are among the .5% of the citizenry called for federal jury duty. (Real figure--they told us. We're speshul.) First of all, I could have brought my phone. They do not advertise the fact, but they will check your electronics in a lock box if you bring any to court. Secondly, you can smuggle them in, actually, because before we were brought up to the courtroom, our court officer told us, "If you somehow happened to have made it this far with your phone, make sure it is off!"

Oh, also? That federal courthouse is lovely. The juror waiting lounge, where they did provide us with a nice selection of beverages (your tax dollars at work!), was a glass walled atrium looking out at the harbor and Rowes Wharf. Very pretty and pleasant. The ladies room was equivalent to that of a nice hotel. And all the feds were very nice. Plus, they are going to send me a check for $40 + mileage to the courthouse.

The reason I got sprung is this. We were told they were impaneling 4 trials today, 1 criminal and 3 civil. The first group of jurors called to go to courtroom #1 comprised more than half the total jury pool. We all surmised correctly that this was the criminal trial. I was not in that group. Then we were told that two of the civil trials weren't happening, which meant there was a whole lot of us left to fill eight seats on that one civil trial. See how good this was looking for me? I believe I was juror #34 in my pool. They only got to juror #18 or so before filling the jury completely. The rest of us still had to go downstairs and wait for awhile to make sure the criminal case wasn't gonna need extra jurors, but eventually we were dismissed and told we are now free of jury obligation for the next three years, whether federal or state.

But now we come to the amusing part of our story. While waiting to be dismissed in the glass atrium, one of my fellow jurors struck up a conversation with me and ultimately ended up asking me out. For real. On a date. Huh. I must have forgotten to put my bitch face on this morning. Amazing. I made up a fictional boyfriend in order to turn him down, because I really was not in any way physically attracted or feeling any, y'know, sparks, but I have his card. He's like president of a company that makes a pretty well known food item***, so he's probably rich. (Plus, he totally got the joke about the book I chose to take with me, so at least I wouldn't have to be explaining "tutorial" to him, right?) I shoulda sucked it up and went out for lunch with him, huh? Sigh. This is yet another example of how I'll never get anywhere in life. But, seriously...who picks people up at jury duty? I am so sheltered.

***When he told me what it was and gave me his card, I said, "Oh! My dad used to use that." And he said, "But then...?" "Oh. But then he died. He didn't stop using your product specifically, he stopped using, y'know, all products." "It didn't kill him, did it?" "Not that I know of." Heh.

Okay! Now with the feds out of the way, I can plan on enjoying the rest of my month. Especially after Justin comes next weekend and fixes my yard.

xoxo

important questions before my date

...with the feds.

1.) Do you think i could smuggle my phone into the courthouse inside my bra or something? Would it set off the metal detectors? Would I then be frisked and/or strip-searched by men in uniforms? Would they be handsome? Would I like it? Sigh.

2.) Did you know I got a reminder phone call from them? Be there, be square, bring your summons and ID, no electronic devices, no beverages. But beverages WILL be provided in the jurors' lounge. As I *just* told Mr Indemnity in email, my federal government wants me to be hydrated. Fuckers.

3.) Since I apparently cannot bring my kindle, I must bring an actual paper book with me. Do you think Black Mass, the true story of an unholy alliance between the FBI and the Irish Mob is a good choice? You do know I'm not going to be able to resist, right?

4.) Do you think my distaste for this whole matter is going to push me over the edge into becoming a Libertarian? (We'll rule out "Tea Partier" just 'cause I'm crazee, NOT stupid.)

5.) I need a massage. That's not a question. Deal.

xoxo

in which someone's having way too much fun at work

This is one of the story teasers on my AOL mail screen:

Not Really a Morning Person?

If you struggle to get going every day, making a few changes to your routine will help you feel and look more alert.

and then *this* is the text on the click-thru link:

Body part that needs extra attention

Oh, c'mon now. You are NOT telling me someone wasn't laughing their ass off writing that and then watching it zoom right over the head of whoever was approving the copy. Please.

Or maybe I just have a disgusting, filthy mind. You make the call.

Happy Friday, bitches. Hope you're having fun at work.

xoxo

in which there is more y intrigue

So! Last week Inappropriate PDA Weightlifting Couple were working out together again on at least two occasions. I was somewhat confused by this, but I figured they must have, whatever the sad and/or sordid story of their previous relationship, come to a truce and decided they could be friends again. Gym buddies, at least. Give each other a spot. Whatev. Well, confusing or not, I thought it was kinda nice. So much less awkward than those semi-stilted conversations they'd been having the couple weeks before.

This afternoon they were in the weight room together again, pretty much the entire time I was up there. And--for once I can say "fortunately"--I had forgotten my iPod at home, so my eavesdropping chances were WAY up there. My ears first perked up when I heard her call him "hon." Now, admittedly, I myself call many people that I am not banging hon, sweetie, darlin', and the like. In fact people I am banging usually find themselves bestowed with a more unique and personal private name at some point, precluding the usual run-of-the-mill endearments. But, I dunno, just the offhand way she said it implied a certain level of intimacy. So, as I said, my ears perked up. And I was rewarded soon after by his telling her, "You looked really beautiful this morning. You had your sexy going on."

Okay! So apparently "giving each other a spot" can again be taken to mean a whole nother concept, wink wink. I am back to being totally confused, but the person I feel bad for is mysterious cake-baking girlfriend. Has she been summarily dumped soon after showing her growing devotion through baked goods? Or is she (now? again?) being cheated on? I wish, if these people were going to do and say things that drew my attention, they would do and say things that fitted more neatly and in a linear fashion to the fictional lives I am constructing for them. God.

xoxo

in which there is a societal conspiracy

I use fitday.com. For those of you blissfully unaware, fitday is a website where one can track the foods they eat, the calories they burn, the exercise they do, their weight, and all kinds of related stuff. And then you can get all kinds of little graphs and pie charts and shit like that which lulls you into thinking this is all very scientific and you Have A Plan. Or something like that. Mainly it's awesome for people like me who have a bit of the ol' OCD and love keeping records.

I dunno if I have mentioned it to all y'all, ha!, but I'm bulking in an attempt to put a wee bit of weight back on in the form of muscle and minimal fat. Theoretically. I've been slowly increasing my calories till now I've been at an average of 2200(!) a day for the past three weeks. I have perhaps gained a whole half a pound. (It is to laugh. No one told me *gaining* weight on purpose would be this difficult. The human metabolism is a weird and wonderful thing, y'all.) After weighing 113 on my scale this week for the third week in a row, I decided to update my stats on fitday, since I hadn't logged weight since January. And in the process of doing that, I saw my old goals from last year. I had wanted to be 120 by 6/30/10.

Fun! Well, since I'm now attempting to go in the other direction, I figured I would put in a new goal--118 by 8/15/11. When I did this, fitday gave me a big red warning message that my goal weight is higher than my starting weight. Thanks, fitday, I do know that, but thanks for alerting me to a possible typo. I pressed save again. Same big warning message. It wouldn't accept it! In the world of fitday (and by implication, America as a whole), there is apparently no situation in which one would WANT to gain weight. Fuckers. So, needless to say, I cannot have a pretty graph congratulating me on successfully packing on the pounds. If I ever do pack on the pounds. 2200 calories! More than my body weight in grams of protein! Sigh.

xoxo

in which andrea hires someone

...off of craigslist and does not get murdered, raped, or robbed. YET.

In a fit of panic, which is pretty much the only state in which I actually get anything useful accomplished, brought about by the fact that my yard is looking worse by the millisecond and next week starts my prospective three weeks of jury duty with the goddamned feds (thus making me unable to make any plans at all for that three week period, THANK YOU FEDERAL GOVERNMENT), I broke down and emailed someone in response to their landscaping ad on (the possibly evil) craigslist. "Justin"--we'll put that in quotes because how do I know that's his real name? I did not demand to see proper identification--is a "nice"--ditto--young man from Peabody with five years experience in landscaping and a day job, who is doing side work on his own in order to save up money to go back to college.

I decided to contact him because a.) he's very local b.) I am always willing to give my business to people who are out there hustling to make money c.) especially for a good cause like tuition d.) not least because, besides admiring it, I think they're more apt to give you a fair price and e.) his ad was nicely done and fairly grammatically correct. So, yeah, I emailed him on Monday and almost immediately got an email back, sent from his phone, in text-speak. Sigh. That almost erases e.) but I had to remind myself that this is how these kids communicate these days and that when some 22 year old takes his first job in investment banking or whatever someone probably has to take him aside and let him know that emailing a customer "Yea I can come by tom afternoon" is not copacetic, so what do I expect from a landscaper?

Anyway. Justin did come by "tom afternoon" to give me an estimate and for the entirely reasonable sum of $250 (or $275 if he rents a dumptruck to haul away the yard waste) he's going to clean out my entire sad yard and I, and the effin' neighbors I am sure, will be so happy. He's going to email or call on Friday to let me know when he can do it (depending on the weather forecast and whether the other job he has lined up needs to be pushed back due to rain). Also, he reassuringly did not look like a thug, but if something bad happens to me, y'all know who to sic the cops after, 'k?

Um, happy Wednesday.

xoxo

i r getting stupider...but maybe not

Most recent episode of gross idiocy occurred on Saturday. Let me backtrack. You know that communal mailbox of ours that I have bitched about shoveling out, oh, once or twice? Well, we have one key to that mailbox. My dad always kept it on his keychain, because one of his OCD control-freakish thangs was that he *had* to be the one to fetch the mail every day. Since his demise, I have kept the key on his keychain. Feeling like that precious mailbox key, which I am sure would be a bitch to get the US Postal Service to replace should it be lost (those fuckers left my new computer out in the rain, remember? they don't give a crap about my mail!), is safer in the house than in my purse (though I have never in my adult life lost a set of keys, but there's a first time for everything), I keep them in the "junk drawer" in my kitchen. Occasionally I'll throw them in my purse if I'm checking the mail on my way out, but usually they live in that drawer and I need to come into the house and get them, then go back out and check the mail.

You're fascinated already, huh? I'm SORRY, you need to know this. So, anyway, I came home Saturday, went into the junk drawer to get the keys and they weren't there. I tossed the drawer looking for them, but no. No keys. I then dumped out the contents of my purse looking for them. No. I distinctly remembered coming in on Friday, putting down my purse and gym bag and then going out to get the mail, so I searched the pockets of the coat I wore Friday. No keys. I looked all over the kitchen and the living room to see if I had put them down somewhere when I'd come in with Friday's mail. No keys. I was starting to feel slightly panicked. I re-looked everywhere I'd already looked. Then, for some reason, I opened the drawer next to the junk drawer. And there they were. Why I would have put them there is a complete mystery.

But, to redeem myself! Yesterday morning, the battery on my food scale died. I opened it up to see what kind of battery it was, and it was one of those flat, round, button types. D and I were going to an appointment, so I asked him to remind me to look for a new one when we went into the market afterwards. Well, they didn't have any of those round flat batteries. Their battery selection was limited to your AAAs and AAs, etc. However, I was pretty sure that when I went to CVS later, they'd have them. They did. They had at least 5 different sizes of round flat batteries. Damn. Who knew there were so many different, but almost the same, ones? Well, perhaps the prudent thing to have done would have been to wait until I brought the old battery back to the store w/ me so I could see exactly which one was right. But that would mean being without my food scale for another day. Horrors. So I looked at them carefully and using all the brain cells I have left in my rapidly deteriorating cortex picked the one that I was sure was the same size as the one in my scale.

And I was right.

Score one for the old n' stupid.

xoxo

okay, kids

I know that a.) nobody is reading and b.) even if you are, you don't give a flying fuck, but I am having an existential crisis. I do not know what the hell to do. I am completely lost.

UBALDO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO PITCH ANYMORE.

What in hell am I supposed to do with him? Sit him for the rest of the year till he remembers what a baseball is for?

And of course if the Red Sox had to win one game this weekend, it would be the one my pitcher pitched. (It's okay, Felix, you struck out 10 guys in 7 innings and had an even 1.00 WHIP. I still love you and will never compare you to James Shields again, I promise.)

Seriously, though, I don't need this agita. Real life is fucking stressful enough right about now without my baby Hispanic power pitchers breaking my poor abused heart. Straighten up, hijos.

In other news, I benched 30 lb dumbbells Friday and today. I am a *beast*. In other, other news, I haven't cut my grass yet this year. And it looks like it. I would like to hire someone to do it, because I have had it just about up to here with yard work and because I think my crappy lawnmower is on its last legs (er, wheels) anyway, but trying to find someone to do it is stressing me out too.

I R done complaining. I may not be done bragging, however. If I think of something else I am a beast at, I'll let you know. It'll cheer me up.

xoxo