May 02, 2008

Kid stuff

If you have kids -- especially girl kids -- I cannot imagine how hard it would be to find appropriate movies and TV shows to watch with them. Especially for the tween-age girls. So I am about to admit to how much of a dork I truly am while doing so under the guise of being helpful to moms who have daughters.

You see, I don't do your Netflix or your DVD-watching or general admission movie watching pretty much ever, except on the rare occasion that I need to see a gem like say The Bodyguard, and when urges such as that come over me they are all-consuming I have to see said movie rightnowrightnowRIGHTNOW. But in general I don't have a lot of free time for moviewatching. I think the last time I sat my butt in a real movie theater was when the last Bourne movie came out and before that it was... uh? Probably the Bourne movie before it. I love me some Jason Bourne.

But sometimes I get a window of opportunity and a sleepless night and they collide when the planets align and the stars get twinkly and for that brief interlude I am forever grateful to the human who invented Movies On Demand. I am certain this clever person was an insomniac herself, and she spent many a sleepless night wanting to get wrapped up in some relatively-new-release movie and yet it was 3:25 a.m. and all the stores were closed and like some people we know, mail order is TOO DAMN SLOW to fulfill the one magical window of opportunity.

Movies On Demand is pretty much the best insomniac invention since the Tivo. Or with the Tivo. Tomato, tomahto. While I am trying valiantly to cut back on my TV viewing (and I have) there are still times when it's 3 a.m. and you can't sleep and none of the books on the nightstand seem appealing and your neighborhood is too ghetto to go out and go for a walk or anything productive and you really just want to watch a movie and forget you have to be at work in three and a half hours.

You know?

With Movies On Demand you just scroll through whatever your cable company has on tap (mine has bazillions of movie titles and TV shows and all kinds of stuff) and with a press of the B button (for BUY! Buy!) you get your selection right then and there, delivered to your teevee through the modern marvel of technology. No gas was harmed in the delivery of your movie! The fee shows up as an additional charge on your cable bill and it's usually between $1.99 and $3.99 for a movie.

And that is how I managed to see "Waitress" (cute) and "Michael Clayton" (very good, love you George!) and that is how I found myself one night not too long ago watching a tween movie called "Sydney White."

Sydney White is a modern Snow White re-telling, with that frothy cute Amanda Bynes as Sydney White who goes to college to pledge her dead mom's sorority (I'm surprised it wasn't a Disney film ... there's always a dead mom in the story somewhere!) and the sorority girls are meanies and Sydney is banished and ends up in a house with Seven Dorks. And it's actually (and surprisingly) a really charming and cute movie and even I wouldn't be afraid to show it to a kid-sized girl, and I am notoriously fickle about what I think kids should be allowed to watch on the magic screen. (Have you heard of that book, "I was the perfect mother until I had kids"? That's me in a nutshell. Yup.) But it's a cute movie, so even though I'm unmasking myself as the lamest old lady on the block it's for a good cause. So you can thank me when you have one pretty good movie to watch with your twelve-year-old.

That's right, thank the middle-aged insomniac with three cats. There's nothing weird at all about that.

Posted by laurie at 04:17 AM | Comments (71)

April 24, 2008

Dang

Now obviously I'm not talking about MY job, since I don't do that, I'm just speaking hypothetically here...

It's not THE most embarrassing thing to happen to me in a workplace, because this is me I'm talking about and I have done things like staple my skirt closed at the gaping hem, and say "porn" in a meeting of conservative suits and more suits, and also I once sat on my boss' lap at the Christmas party but that was back when I worked in entertainment and he tried to French kiss my ear. Then I think later he threw up on an ice sculpture. I guess actually in comparison to that last one what I am about to say is sort of boring.

BUT it always kind of sucks when you compose a really good business-etiquettey letter with stuff like "per your request" and "advertising objectives" and on and on, maybe even you add some rockin'

• bullet points!!!

And then you say, "Please refer to the attached documents and files and images for your review." And then you FORGET TO ATTACH THE ATTACHMENT.

Because you're sitting at your desk all, "I should totally get an assistant named Bryan or Jake who will bring me coffee... I am so professional and all ..." and then you get an email saying, um, hello? Can you please attach said attachments dumbass?

Then you have to send a follow-up letter that says, "OMG!!! Wouldn't that crazyass professional side of me ROCK if I remembered to attach my attachments? Ha ha! Just keeping you on your toes!"

Which SO adds to your Professionalism Quotient.

Hypothetically.

Posted by laurie at 08:13 AM | Comments (99)

April 15, 2008

You're a vegetable! You're a vegetable?

Normally I know when whatever misheard lyric I'm belting out in the privacy of my own mind is well, misheard. Like I'm pretty sure I have no idea what the joker, smoker, midnight toker is doing in half that song. And we already know about Harry Dupree.

But there is one song that I have listened to most of my life which I loved and I knew I was maiming the lyrics something awful but I sang it loud and proud all the way: Wanna Be Startin' Something? You gotta be startin' somethin!

Because ya'll I LOVED Michael Jackson back in the day -- that cute little Michael with his fuzzy yellow sweater, that feisty little Michael when he was BAD. I just loved him. Poor thing. Bless his little heart.

Anyway, one of my favorite songs of all time is "Wanna Be Startin' Something?" and there are two lines I knew I had all wrong:

To high to get over (yeah yeah)
Too low to get under

You're a vegetable ... you're a vegetable
You're a hee-eey
You're a vegetable....

Because Oh My God I Mean Really Now. Who would write a song like that? Who would think calling someone a vegetable was a well and very insulting thing to say in song form and possibly while moonwalking?

Then I went on the internet to look up the real lyrics because what on earth is the internet for if not song lyrics, travel deals and Web MD? And did you know that apparently the real lyrics are..

YOU'RE A VEGETABLE.... YOU'RE A VEGETABLE.

Listen (around the 2:40 mark):

And yet another (listen for it at the 2:07 mark):

Amazing. Next time I get mad at someone and I wanna be startin' somethin, I'm gonna call 'em out. YOU'RE A VEGETABLE! You hear me! A lowly old vegetable!

Posted by laurie at 08:55 AM | Comments (76)

February 28, 2008

Harry Dupree

Yesterday I was driving home from the park 'n ride and listening to one of those "oldies" stations that play music from the 1980s. As if anything from the 80s can be classified as oldies! Because people, that is not old! I mean really now.

Anyway, while I was listening to this so-called "oldies" station, they played that song by Billy Ocean which today I know is titled "Caribbean Queen."

But back in the day when I was living out on the bayou and me and my friends would listen to the radio all day long and sing along with all the songs and there was no internet where you could go look up song lyrics and so on, I was certain the song was called "Harry Dupree." Harry Dupree! Now we're sharing the same dreams! And our hearts they beat as one, no more love on the run!

It must have been before my friend Suzanne and her family got that bigass satellite dish and we could go to her house and watch MTV all day because I never had any reason to think I was off-base on my song lyrics. Also, in my defense I have to inform you that in Cajun country "Harry Dupree" is not a stretch as far as names go. We often listened to songs informing us not to mess with so-and-so's toot toot, or instructing us on zydeco lovin'.

However, I was singing this song one day with one of my equally well-dressed friends (I am certain we were wearing something neon, or adorned with three belts or we had our socks up over our pants legs) and it dawned on me something was wrong with the song.

And so I asked my friend, "Why do you think he's singing this song about Harry Dupree? Singing it to another guy?" and we sat there for a moment with our thinking caps on. They were probably thinking caps from Rave.

"Well, maybe we have the lyrics to the song all wrong," she said. "If you listen real close it sounds more like he's singing it to Carrie Dupree, which makes more sense because that's a girl's name."

Indeed! THAT MADE SO MUCH MORE SENSE. And so that is how I spent the entire length of the 1980s thinking Billy Ocean was in love with Carrie Dupree.

And just for fun, on the ride home yesterday I sang it like in the good old days:

Carrie Dupree! Now we're sharing the same dreams! And our hearts they beat as one, no more love on the run!

Posted by laurie at 10:08 AM | Comments (215)

October 23, 2007

Airport Terror Level Threat Color: Waterproof Barely Brown

The fires scorching across Southern California are scary. I don't want to talk about them. I have to leave my house tomorrow and fly to Minnesota and I am scared to leave the cats with poor air quality and a state that is on fire. So I am not going to think about the fires this morning.

Nope. Instead I am going to tell you about an even scarier thing, one that should put the fear of God and also cosmetics right into you the next time you fly. I am talking about what is clearly the greatest threat to our national security at this time:

Yes. It is the Mascara of Mass Destruction.

I would like to formally apologize to the people who were nearly tragically harmed by this obviously killer cosmetic. It had escaped my makeup bag and somehow in the madness of the past few weeks ended up at the bottom of my handbag, my vast labyrinthine handbag of fabulousness and apparently, terror.

I tried. I tried so hard to assure the TSA screener at the airport that it was an oversight, not intended to divert my plane from its destination, merely a way to get my stupid blonde eyelashes to show up in public.

The TSA man searched my bag for a full twenty minutes for the offending terror tool, and when he emerged, triumphant, thoroughly exhausted and also suspicious of me, The One Who Was Obviously A Terrorist, he held the nuclear mascara of death in his gloved hand and said, "This is unacceptable."

And I said, "Dude, it may be from the drugstore but in consumer ranking reports it is always the clear winner in the mascara trials. I have the Bourgeous Brown Velvet mascara that I got from Sephora for $22 when I though I could buy happiness and let me tell you. It does not work. I need Maybelline."

And he said, "That is not what I meant."

And I said, "Please don't arrest me. Not all of us have naturally velvety brown eyelashes."

Unfortunately, as it turns out, while the TSA has many things such as blue plastic gloves, big x-ray machines and trashcans filled with water bottles, it does not have one crucial component and that is ... sense of humor. Do not joke with the TSA about your eyelashes. You will be pulled aside into a personal screening area where you are fondled and well, actually he was kind of cute so that wasn't too bad, but it really does put a crimp in the time you can spend drinking at the airport bar. I am just suggesting. If it happens to you and all.

But this story has a happy ending because along with the help of a supervisor and another be-gloved TSA screener (plus let us not forget the cute guy whose sole job it is to fondle the mascara-weilding passengers) we were all finally FINALLY able to neutralize the threat by safely encasing it in a ziploc baggie.

I wasn't sure we would survive, but as it turns out what stands between the human race and total thermonuclear annihilation is... the ziploc baggie. Quart size.

I apologize, America. I did not mean to raise the terror threat to Waterproof Barely Brown. I'll be calling a press conference later next week and explaining why I was caught next Friday in the bathroom stall in Minneapolis sluttily applying said mascara to my eyelashes and when doing so conveyed that I was a gay senator from Idaho. Or Iowa. Or somewhere definitely not on fire. I did not even seek counsel.

I have shamed my constituents, my family, and most of all my blonde eyelashes.

I beg for forgiveness. And thank God for the ziploc baggie.

Posted by laurie at 09:55 AM | Comments (168)

May 30, 2007

Perils of mass transportation revealed!!!

Since I went out on a limb and recommended the online shoe store Zappos.com to all ya'll, I thought that the most honest and morally upstanding thing I could do would be to place an order and MAKE SURE that this establishment was the quality, service-oriented place I said they were. Just in case, you know, they had maybe stopped being a good shopping experience since my last Zappos.com purchase of two-point-five weeks ago.

So I did what all extremely dedicated journalists do and I posed as an Average Jane Consumer and went undercover and searched through pages and pages of boots and sandals and wedge-heeled pumps and made some purchases. As a quality control experiment, of course.

Because I am a giver, you know. I got your back. And your shoes.

So, in the name of "journalism" and also "poor fiscal management this whole month long" I got a GIANT box delivered to my office, full of shoes and love and goodness and I was so! freaking! excited! because even though I totally do not have the money for these shoes, I am going to try writing them off as a business expense since ... since everyone knows you need shoes for... like... if you don't have kids or something it counts, right? when you buy shoes instead of children? anyone? Bueller?

And I tried on my shoes in the office and made my boss tell me if he thought my sandals were too Zena Warrior Princess for the office, to which he replied, "Are we really going to have a conversation about your shoes and also where is that logo I asked for ten minutes ago?" And I said something about "but you have a WIFE, you should understand the IMPORTANCE of shoes." And then I got back to work because getting fired is so not good for the zappos, and then I forgot all about my Giant Box until it was time to go catch the bus.

Um, oh yeah. I take the bus ya'll.

I like taking the bus. It is the biggest bullet point on my "I Will Marry Al Gore One Day" resume. So taking the bus has its merits (Hi Al, call me!) and I usually have no big issues with my bus because I am not, say, carrying the box the size of a Toyota Prius. I only ordered three (gasp) pairs of shoes, but one pair came in a bootbox and three is an odd number so they shipped everything together in one HUGE-O box and I tried to find some other method of transport for my footwear other than the GIANT Zappos box but there was nothing close by and I was about to miss the bus so I just decided to pretend it was the most normal thing ever to hoist an enormous cardboard box of shoes on the bus.

It doesn't look that big here, but trust me. Big.

Yes. Well. All was fine and dandy until the people at the bus stop saw me and started laughing. And pointing. And making jokes. Everyone's a comedian, I tell you what. "Hey, if you go broke and homeless from all the shoe-shopping at least you can live in the box!" and "How many feet do you have at home?" har har. Ya'll are just SO DAMN FUNNY.

One of the guys was totally perplexed.

"WHY would you buy so many shoes? At one time?"

"Because they were on sale and cute and I love them and they make me happy."

"But you only have two feet." Clearly this guy did not have a wife or he would know this was a futile conversation. I humored him.

"Yes," I said. "I only have two feet, but I use them all day and must clothe them 365 days a year or else I'll end up like Britney walking barefoot in a gas station. I'm Southern for goshsakes! You know how hard it is to get folks to take me seriously as it is? So I have to stay vigilant on the footwear front at all times or I'm five minutes from pulling a Britney. Do you want that? I mean really? Is that what you want?"

And he just stopped that line of questioning real quicklike. Hee.

So then I got on the bus and the bus driver, Comedian #47, said, "Oh! Maybe I will have to charge you extra, a whole seat for your SHOES young lady!" and we all laughed, har har, except I was sort of wishing I had driven that day, Al Gore and all.

Finally I got to the bus stop and got in my Jeep, and my box was on its way home, where it belonged, where the cats got to appreciate its enormity and I got to try on all my shoes and once and for all again bury the notion that a redneck is contractually obligated to be barefoot or pregnant. We are often sans kidlets and quite well-shoed, thankyouverymuch!

It was dark by the time me and all my shoes got home.

Posted by laurie at 07:05 AM | Comments (148)

May 28, 2007

It's kind of a Southern thing

My friend Faith and I are on the phone, talking. She had just been in a fender-bender in her Honda, a car which is the same age as my Jeep.

"It's ok," she said. "I'm getting a new car soon anyway."

"Ooooh," I said. "Really? What kind?"

I live vicariously through other folks' new car experiences. I am so happy for other people getting new cars because it is not an experience I want to go through. A new car is too much responsibility, keeping it so clean and perfect, and anything that expensive makes me nervous. I like my big, metal, clunky Jeep with all it's pre-disasteredness. That vehicle has been through thefts (plural), a high-speed chase, two fender-benders without a scratch, one hailstorm and a tussle with a concrete divider and so it's now been pre-disastered, making it one of the safest cars on the road. (Do you see how my mind works?)

About six months ago my Jeep had some ailment or other and had to be taken in for another many dollars worth of repairs. I called Jennifer from the repair shop to chitchat while I waited. I told her I might get a new car, maybe one of those Toyota cruiser things. One day.

"Laurie, you might as well give up the act. You know that if -- IF -- you ever let go of that old Jeep you'll just get another Jeep. Probably a red one. The only difference will be that it will have air conditioning this time."

"What makes you say that?" I was kind of offended, am I so predictable?

"Well," said Jennifer, "you hug your car before getting into it."

"Lots of people hug their cars, right?"

"Nope."

"I see."

The truth is that I am in love with my old, battered Jeep and perhaps it is not healthy or sane ... but love is not always sensible, ok?

So anyway, back to Faith and her fenderbendering. She was telling me how she wasn't too concerned about the recent run of bad car luck with her old Honda since she was getting a new car eventually anyway.

"What kind of car?" I asked.

"A Prius, a hybrid," she said.

"Ooooh, that is so awesome! One of the main impediments to me marrying Al Gore is the fact that I won't give up my Jeep unless someone can convert it to run on cat poop or something," I was very excited. "Plus, you do most of the driving whenever we hang out so that's almost like I have a hybrid."

"Uh, okay," she said. "That Jeep impediment ... and you know, he's already married."

(One night at Stitch 'n Bitch I said something about marrying Al Gore and someone pointed out that he is already married. And I said, "Yeah but Tipper can't live FOREVER." and Sara said, "Oh, reeeeeeaaaaally, Laurie, do you care to tell us how she meets her end? And when exactly?" and everyone thought this was SO funny but me. I just hoped no one told the CIA because that would be bad for the Marry Al resume. You know?)

"I'm already recycling," I said, ticking off the ways I can earn points with Al. "And the lighbulb thing. Oh, and I got one of those re-usable bags at Trader Joe's."

"I keep meaning to buy one of those," said Faith.

"Well," I confessed, "I've only used it once so far, the day I bought it. I just keep forgetting it because I only go to TJ's on the way home from work and I never seem to have the bag with me, and on the weekends when I'm in closer proximity to the re-usable bag I always shop at Whole Foods so I can't use it there."

"Why not?" she asked. Perplexed.

"Uh, duh! Because it says 'Trader Joe's' on it!" I might have sounded exasperated. I mean really now.

"So?" asked Faith. "Why can't you use a Trader Joe's bag at Whole Foods? What's the problem?"

"That would be rude!" I said. "I just couldn't!"

"So let me get this straight," said Faith. "You're afraid of hurting the feelings of the grocery store?"

I paused. Of course when a person says it like that it seems crazy. But.... ya'll know. There are some lines I just cannot cross in my mind. It still seemed rude.

Finally I realized what the problem was.

"This must be a cultural issue," I told her. "It is a perfectly normal reaction, in my eyes. So the problem must be that you are not Southern. If you were Southern you'd understand. Bless your heart."

"Recycled" image, kind of stolen from the internet.

Posted by laurie at 07:08 AM | Comments (140)

April 16, 2007

Really professional.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are forever and always dividing things into categories and those who are not.

Ya'll know what kind of people I am.

And there are two kinds of families in this world: those who feel just fine and dandy talking about poop and those who do not.

I am not from a family that talks about poop or even acknowledges that people do such vile and uncouth things, unless of course they are in diapers and not formed yet, and not Southern and well-bred enough yet to know that poop is a private and personal issue never discussed with other humans. Talking about poop in my family would be akin to just sitting at the dinner table and discussing armpit hair. In fact, you would be more likely to hear that subject analyzed at length (hee, length) than ever hear a single whiff of poo conversation.

Other families talk about poop. Other people talk about it, and some people even actually poop, which of course I wouldn't know a thing about. Being Southern and dainty and all. (By the way, discussing a sturdy Southerner such as myself with the word "dainty" is like calling Hillary Rodham Clinton "a sweet gal who married a boy from Arkansas.")

Anyway. Where was I?

Back in college Stefanie, my best friend and co-conspirator in all college-age crime, would start talking about some ailment or other concerning the lower half of human bodies and I would just go all squirmy and red in the face and squeamish. Stefanie and I worked at a little children's shop in the mall and we'd spend slow nights dusting the displays and re-doing our hairbows in the mirrors and chitchatting. One night the owner, Miss Judy, was there, too.

Miss Judy was one of those incredible Southern beauties I always hoped to grow into (it hasn't happened yet BUT I AM STILL HOPING) who have perfect hair and expertly applied makeup and everything about them is scented with Shalimar or something delicious, and they wear perfectly put-together outfits and play tennis. Her husband was a well-known judge in our little town and they lived in a large and warm and inviting house with a wrap-around porch. I still to this day remember how she would hug you and you'd smell her perfect smell and feel like she was warm and steel-strong and yet fragile all at the same time. It's a thing about Southern women.

Anyway, she was there at the shop one night doing the books and Stefanie started telling me some story about someone, Lord only knows who, and it had to do with something gastrointestinal and I went all squeamish and embarrassed and all "I do not speak of souch uncouth things!" Miss Judy'd had her nose in the books at the time and didn't see my total shame and discomfort at the subject matter and started telling me and Stefanie how she and her four best friends from school would go to New York every year for their girls' trip (I always thought this was the most glamorous thing I had ever heard, a girls' trip in New York City! with lifelong friends made at Vandy, or Ole' Miss or maybe a sorority at UT) and while they were off on their vacation watching broadway shoes and shopping and being glamorous (my interpretation, not hers) they never could poop the whole time, all four days. There she was, Miss Judy (!!!) saying how traveling could just disrupt your whole system, stop you right up, plumbing problems like nobody's business.

I ABOUT DIED.
MISS JUDY THE PERFECT SAID "POOP."

And she finally noticed the abject horror on my face and she reached her arm around me, comforting, like a mom.

"Oh sugar," she said. "You must not be from a family that talks about such things."

"NO I AM NOT," I said. "OH MY GOD."

"Well," said Miss Judy, after some thought. "You know, it's very natural, we all do it, there is no shame in such a thing." She could see I was unconvinced.

"I can't believe ya'll just talk about this!" I said. It was the Divide, I knew it even then, how some families can talk about politics and crazy old Uncle so-and-so like it was as easy as discussing the weather, others sweep all that under the rug. Some folks talk about the future, and some families are discussing the War of Northern Agression like it happened yesterday. Some folks never speak of money, or holy-rollers, or who makes the best dumplings, or poop.

And I just never imagine Miss Judy (!!!) was from a poop family. She seemed so well brought-up! I tried to explain, all tongue-tied and flustered in that way you do when you're the one embarrassed to talk about sex or admit you don't know how to pronounce a certain word.

"Oh, sugar," said Miss Judy. Always the Southern lady. "There is not one single thing to be ashamed of. Even Princess Diana poops."

I hadn't thought of these words of wisdom until recently, when I was in the ladies room at My Job, Inc. It is a very business professional place where women wear pantyhose and suits with princess seams, and closed-toed shoes and they have expensive degrees and know how to sit through a meeting without excitedly interjecting some crazy thing like I always do. It is the sort of place where people follow Robert's Rules Of Order and I love it, I love its sameness, I love how polite a place it is to work, I love that the people there seem well-heeled and well-behaved and I often hope desperately it will rub off on me. That I will someday be the sort of person who doesn't show up to work in black pants that have a fine sheen of cat hair from the knee down. The sort of person who doesn't get so excited she has to interrupt, the sort of person who can be trusted to speak to the board members without saying the word "porn."

I am not that person. But I have my hopes, ya'll know.

Anyway I was entering the ladies room last week at my very Professional and Proper Job and a couple of ladies came in right behind me, I didn't recognize them, they had on those stick-on Visitor badges and I assumed they were with the group of vendors doing some kind of demo in another part of the floor.

Anyway, I ended up in a stall next to one of the strangers who ... who made a noise. A bodily noise. A gastrointestinal noise. And I happened to finish my business and be washing my hands, and you know I have germ issues so I have to do the full 60-second wash, and she came out of the stall and we were standing right next to each other washng our hands and she looked a little embarrassed and apologized.

"I think I had something that didn't agree with me."

And I just smiled, because even though I used to be someone scandalized by such a thing, I knew exactly the Business Professional way to handle it. And I wanted very much to put her at ease and let her know I am also Well Mannered and a good representative of My Job, Inc.

"Oh gosh!" I said, "Please! No worries! I mean really ... even Princess Diana pooped!"

And with that I left the poor startled woman at the sink and tra-lala'ed right out of the restroom.

While it was awkward, yes, all I can hope is that one day she will pass this amazing information along, and it will free her as it did me. So thank you, Miss Judy, wherever you may be. You were right. Even Princess Diana pooped.

Posted by laurie at 09:22 AM | Comments (123)

March 09, 2007

Spring forward (but with CAUTION)

So, my folks are arriving some time late in the day on Saturday and I am So! Excited! and perhaps stayed up a bit past my bedtime trying to mask the clutter and do laundry. It sounded like:

Me: Bob, are you clutter? Then perhaps you should make yourself useful. Go clean the catbox!

Bob:

Me: Why do I have dust in my house? Cat hair I understand, dust not so much. Soba, you're fluffy! Can you lay on top of the TV and roll around for a while and dust it?

Soba:
Soba, behind my back: Watch that tone of voice, human. I am compact and deadly. And my luscious fur shall not be taken in vain.

So, anyway, they are finally coming to town! If you never hear from me again it is because I have hijacked their motorhome and taken the felines and my poor kidnapped parents on a tour of Mexico. Viva la fish taco!

- - - - - - - - -

Now for a new topic. Also known as, "Another time I display my total professionalism in the workplace."

My place of employment.

So after staying up a bit past my bedtime, I woke up this morning at my normal Armpit of A.M. slightly askew and tired and in desperate need of coffee. Now, I tend to wait until I arrive at the office for my coffee since I am a paranoid freak and will worry all day long that I left the coffee pot on at home and the house is smoldering into fire while I'm stuck downtown doing magical and perverse things to powerpoint.

I arrived at work and in my head the chatter sounded something like, "Coffee coffee coffee love you so pretty coffee, coffeemmmm..." and I walked into the office and I passed my boss's open office door and turned my head just a teensy bit to see if he was in there, and he was, and he is so cute, I love my boss. He looks like a model, except he's got an MBA. And I was all, "Hi, Bossman!"

And then I ran smack into the large metal filing cabinet.

And if you don't know what a five-foot-three-and three-quarters human smacking into hollow metal sounds like, let me just tell you. IT IS LOUD.

Also, in unrelated news, my boss pushed my performance review back until the latest possible appointment time on Monday. I can only imagine this is because he needed extra time to write more about my copious gracefulness and ability to bounce back from trouble.

Really, literally BOUNCE back.

Posted by laurie at 08:49 AM | Comments (136)

November 22, 2006

My Hairstory: The Final Chapter

When we last left off, our hairoine (HAHAHA!!! HAIRoine!! Yeah I may have been drinking when I came up with that gem) was sporting one somewhat poufy flat-top haircut, a move that may not seem particularly daring in this day and age when young people do things like "hard drugs" and also "try to be Paris Hilton and make a sex tape with kids from their 9th grade Spanish class," but trust me. When I was 13 and living way out on the bayou, it was a big deal.

My parents saw the demonic gleam in my eye of pure, unadulterated rebellion. They sighed. Then they said, "Well, she has always been a little different..." "Unusual!" "A real original, that is for sure." My father said, "Let the girl do what she wants to her hair. It's her hair...." My brothers said, "You're a dumbass!" and sometimes, "Oh my God, sis, what the (bleep) did you do to your HAIR?"

And the thing about a poufy flat-top? It grows out. Really fast. Especially if you have freakishly fast-growing hair anyway. But at first it wasn't too bad:

In fact, my fashion was worse than my hair. I kind of thought I had a Nick Rhodes thing going and since I was secretly planning to marry Nick Rhodes when he finally came to Middle Of Nowhere, Louisiana looking for me, BECAUSE I LOVED HIM THAT MUCH, anyway ... I was okay with my no-longer-flat-top.

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But then... ya'll know.
My hair got as bad as my fashion REALQUICKLIKE.

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Now, I'm posting this next picture just because it may be the funniest get-up I (or anyone on the planet) has ever deemed "fashionable" and also "worthy to wear in public while thinking I AM SO HOT." Hee hee. I saved allowance for WEEKS for this outfit! That is an ESPRIT bag, people, genuine cloth ESPRIT! Notice I am also rocking the partial side-ponytail:

As you can see, I was all about the fashion.

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But I was at a crossroads from a hair perspective. What could I do with my basically normal, wavy bob? I mean, sure, I had the side ponytail with colored scrunchie to jazz things up. I had my pegged jeans and colored Converse and thirty-two pairs of socks on over my pants legs, but what could I possibly do to make myself even MORE FETCHING?

PERHAPS A WHITE GIRL 'FRO?

Yeah. That is the only existing picture of this hairstyle, taken on the day I got the actual perm. Three days later, I washed my hair and I lost all my beautiful curls. I cried. I moussed to no avail. I cried some more. How could I ever make my hair truly incredibly glorious?

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And the answer, darling innernets, was clear:

The side-part mohawk. My greatest accomplishment in Freaking Out The Parents. God, I was so cool. I was so awesome. I was ... so grounded.

After I managed to get un-grounded, I found my way back to the very person who had helped me with the side-mohawk bob, and we remastered it for Version Two: The asymmetrical side-part mohawk bob.

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Of course, as time went by, my hair began to grow out, my summer dragged on, and suddenly I woke up and realized that as much as I loved my crazyhair, it would not ever win me the affections of one Martin Daniel, who I was Now In Love With and Must Marry.

So, all summer I let my hair grow and ditched my SO SO COOL neon pastel clothes in an effort to become Pretty, and also, Mrs. Martin Daniel. At this time in the South, it was very important to have big hair (or at least a big wall of bangs) to be considered Pretty. I practiced in my bathroom with a curling iron and a can of Aquanet until flies were literally stuck in mid-air. My family coughed dramatically each time they passed the bathroom door, but deep down inside you know they were happy because perhaps we had at least reached the end of the WHAT THE HELL HAS SHE DONE TO HER HAIR?? years.

Achieving greatness in the bangs department was really hard for my small, flat, pathetically straight hair. I began with the side-wall bangs:

Check out the acid washed skirt! Hot!

Eventually moved on to the Basic Front Curl:

(You know my parents were like, "She wants another watch for her birthday? Fine. It'll be dead in an hour. Serves her right. Throwing away money. Kids these days..." etc. etc.)

Got some leverage on the Updraft:

AQUA NET, how I loved thee. Sorry, Ozone layer.

Discovered hot rollers for the sides:

Hi, blue eyeshadow!

And finally, after years of hard work, I made it in the Wall O'Bangs world:

And so concludes my Hairstory. That inpenetrable mountain of hair fabulosity was to this day the hardest and also most rewarding thing about high school. On a good day I was closer to heaven... on a bad day (read: rain) I would literally cry in anguish. I carried a butane curling iron with me everywhere I went. I had travel-size cans of hairspray in every strength lining the shelves of my locker, my vanity at home and the glove compartment of my car. I carried a pick, a teasing comb and a brush. I was perhaps more committed to that hair than any other thing either before or since.

Since reaching the dizzying heights of greatness in my bangs, it's all been downhill in the hair department. Boring, basic, straight, blunt-cut hair. It takes approximately 1/1000th of the time to style my hair these days, and for that I should be thankful. But you know deep-down inside I kind of miss my big bangs. Just a teensy little bit.

Happy Thanksgiving, ya'll! Hug the family, eat some turkey and stay away from the AquaNet! And if you just can't keep away from the spray, be sure to at least take some really embarrassing pictures... for posterity's sake.

Posted by laurie at 11:06 AM | Comments (102)

November 21, 2006

My Hairstory: The Ugly Years (Part 1)

Ah, the awkward teenage years. Mine were so awkward that they in fact started at age twelve!

As you may recall, at age twelve I was permed and certainly fond of the frosty blue eyeshadow, but aside from the occasional trampy overstep in the makeup category, I was still not horribly embarrassing:

That's me and my little brother who was my constant companion from the gitgo. He was unbearably adorable, except for the part where he cried 23.5 hours a day. But that's how God works ... He makes the really bad kids so incredibly cute! And you love them even though what you really want to do is put a muzzle on them or tell them to please go play with matches near the freeway. And people wonder why I never had kids, hmmmmm.

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Notice how my older brother, Guy, is really getting hotter by the minute while my cuteness is being completely eclipsed by perming, makeupping, and braceface. Still... it was the 80s. I was well within the normal range for an awkward teenager.

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THEN OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ME?

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Hello world! Big eyebrows? Check! Braces? Check! She-mullet? Check check!

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Honestly. Is there anything that can be said?
Do not these pictures speak for themselves?
Except... hello baby! You are so sexy ... IN YOUR PURPLE NIKES!!!!!!!
WITH YOUR JEANS THAT HAVE A 24-INCH ZIPPER OH MY GOD.

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Then... the side-wave happened. The side-wave bang was a precursor to the Wall O'Bangs, which wouldn't be fully realized in all its superglued glory until much, much later in my female development.

By the way, I am including this picture because notice how I was rockin' the pink plastic star earrings? Do you have any idea how long I searched for those earrings so I could be the pink version of Madonna in the Lucky Star video, from which by the way I memorized the entire dance routine and would practice it every night in the living room? Also, the classic round-neck pink mohair sweater? STUPID PARENTS WHO WOULD NOT LET ME WEAR FISHNET AND TORN T-SHIRTS LIKE MADONNA. HATE YOU. HATE. Heh. I was sooooo mad at the folks for that one, BUT I WORE MY STAR EARRING TAKE THAT STUPID PARENTS MEAN MEAN HATE.

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Then... the Sun-In Incident happened.

I am including this close-up, rather grainy but still somehow I believe you can hear the hairs on my head actually crying out in pain from the combination of Sun-In and perming solution:

Nice eyebrows! Awesome metal mouth!

The Sun-In Incident sizzled every last hair on my head. Which may or may not be why I decided one day to go to the mall, carrying a picture of GRACE FREAKING JONES, a large Amazonian-type goddessy woman with a flat-top haircut, and I paid the horrified lady at Regis Hair Care to give me this:

... one very poufy flat-top haircut that gave my parents a near heart attack, better preparing them for the trauma to come in the 9th grade, when things went horribly more awry-er in the hair department. Also, see my dress? My striped monstrosity of a dress? And my poufy flattop hair? And see my 1980s Teen God of a brother, so cool that objects literally froze when they got too near him?

Even his coolness could not save me from myself.

Tomorrow: The Final Chapter of Hairstory in which I show the world the neato-est haircut ever, the side-parted mohawk bob.

OH YES I DID.

Posted by laurie at 10:16 AM | Comments (92)

November 20, 2006

My Hairstory: The Early Years

Obviously, the early years of my personal hairstory are the best years, because kids are kind of cute even when they're ugly, and because I can blame all early hair transgressions on my parents. Blame is a powerful and liberating thing. Let's get started!

As a child, you can see I was unusual not only for my fabulousness in the highchair department, but also because my eyes were far too big for my head, and my head was far too big for my body. And for a baby, I have to say I was a little on the serious side. In this picture it looks like I'm about to launch forth on a lecture about the unfairness of subjecting children to strained peas, or perhaps my perspective on the energy crisis. I was weird from Day One. But my hair: cute!

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The Pigtail Years began in earnest once my hair was actually long enough to enclose in rubber bands. My family LOVED PIGTAILS. They must have thought that the whimsy and cuteness would offset my still very droll, serious expressions. My head hasn't gotten any smaller, either. Also: My brother Guy appears to be channeling Timothy Leary in his Haight-Ashbury height of popularity. Could we be any more different?

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I tried to break free of the pigtail as often as possible.

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Yet my family was determined that I should be bepigtailed at all times. I love this picture of me and my brother ... at this stage in our lives, I was cuter and I plan to berate him with this for the rest of our days. It doesn't make up for the fact that he was Studly Mc HotOne in high school while I had braces and a bad perm, but whatever.

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Then... there was an incident. A really sad, tragic incident involving me and bubble gum and the wind, more photographic evidence of which can be found here. In this photo I am not only as country as you can get, I also look like a boy who's just gone fishin' for supper. But if you think that's bad... just imagine how I must have smelled. Kids!

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Then when my hair grew out, the goddamn pigtails returned. Also, note to my parents who I love and adore ... I would like to say NICE JOB ON THE HAIR BARETTES THERE. My therapy bill will be in the mail this week. Love ya'll!

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As the awkward pre-teen years approached, I managed to somehow be basically normal-looking for a period of several years, rocking some variation of this look:

As you can see, my brother has improved in cuteness. If only I had known then what I know now, that he would become a chick magnet and I would become ... well, terrified of magnets, what with the 37 tons of metal in my mouth. Whatever. Anyway, I would braid my hair at night when it was wet to give it a little body. Notice the super-cool side ponytail braids... my signature touch!

Then my mom discovered the "body wave." I still preferred collecting rocks and crawfish to getting my hair did. I was kind of a tomboy. The eighties hadn't reached all the way out to the bayou yet....

... AND THEN THE LONG ARM OF THE CURLY PERM CAME TO TOWN. Also, so did glitter blue eyeshadow. I don't know what I'm doing in this picture, but probably I am contemplating what would be the last semi-decent hairstyle I would have for about ten years.

And thus concludes today's hairstory. Stay tuned for tomorrow's Hairstory which includes dramatic brace-face, sun-in gone horribly wrong and the she-mullet! I'll be bringing Paxil for those of you with 80s Hair Related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. My brother won't need it, of course. Stupid butterfly-emerging-from cocoon brother. THANKS A LOT.

Posted by laurie at 12:03 PM | Comments (89)

November 17, 2006

I Declare Next Week "Hairstory Week"

Over at Citizen Of The Month, Neil is always making proclamations and getting people to send him sex and money and perform tricks. (Ok, maybe he just has a way with getting people to photograph their laptop computers or videotape themselves singing songs and stuff. But, I'm sure he wishes it were sex. His wife Sophia, is maybe not so much wishing this same thing.)

I like Neil and he has invited me to come to lunch and meet him and Sophia but I haven't yet because I am a hermit, and I do things like "stay home" and "watch Tivo" and "drink wine." Perhaps that is what makes dating so hard ... you have to leave your house. And ya'll may suspect it already, but allow me to confirm that I can take reclusive to new levels. I'm like Emily Dickenson without the talent, or Howard Hughes without the money... or the fingernails. Because, eeew. That is just nast!

I have always, always been shy and reclusive. People laugh when I say I'm "shy." Sometimes they laugh so hard they fall over, and almost pee themselves. But by "shy" I mean: I am painfully, horribly terrified of saying stupid/awkward/ridiculous/offensive things, so in my effort to NOT DO THAT, I in fact do a whole lot of it and talk too fast and sometimes perspire. Nice.

You wonder why I do not want to leave my cave.

As a young person, one who was not perhaps all the time firmly grounded in reality and the notion that "photos are for a lifetime..." one of the ways I branched out with the awkwardness was to take rather daring and adventurous risks with my hair. This drove my parents almost literally insane. In retrospect, I can see their point. Why would a serviceably coiffed young lady decide to cut off all her hair only in one spot, creating a side-part mohawk? Why?

My answer: BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE NEATO.

So, while the Wall O' Bangs was fun, and certainly funny in its death-defying grip on gravity, it was not even CLOSE to being the worst of the worst of the funny of my Hairstory. And my parents, who perhaps suspected I would one day grow up and try to deny all things such as "mullet" and "sun-in incident" and "perm of death" took plenty of photographs and love to make fun of me to this day about my "adventurous spirit" or, as my brothers put it, "fool ass haircuts."

So, in a Neil-esque "I Declare!" manner, I hereby declare next week, which is a short week because of Thanksgiving and because of my wine-drinking that will take place as soon as this project ends, The Week Of Hairstory.

And I will post my pictures which shall shock and guffaw you. And I encourage you to do the same! I may not be able to leave my house sometimes, but thanks to the innernets my awkwardness and fool-ass haircuts will be able to warm hearts everywhere, mostly because you can be thrilled your parents never allowed you to get a SIDE-PART MOHAWK. It was really... uh. Neato.

Posted by laurie at 09:19 AM | Comments (70)

October 27, 2006

I tried a Freudian slip but it was a size six and would not fit over my behind.

Dear Inner Fat Child,

Hi! How's it going and everything? And also, as soon as I decide to lose five pounds with ardent maniacal fervor, why the HELL did you make me watch that one episode of Anthony Bourdain where he goes to Mexico and the Texas border, and I was all like, "Look! It's my people! Love ya'll!" and I was so excited and happy and then WITH THE CHICKEN THAT HAS CHEESE STUFFED INSIDE AND IS WRAPPED IN BACON AND GRILLED.

I hate you, Inner Fat Child.

Because every single night this week I have had some form of the cheese-chicken-bacon rollup, as if I have made the new sushi and it has a lovely bacon exterior instead of that icky-tasting seaweed stuff.

But I digress. Why mention something as grossifying as seaweed when there is chicken wrapped in bacon to rhapsodize? Oh, what's that? You want the recipe, Inner Fat Child? YEAH. YOU WOULD.

It's so easy, even for a cooking-challenged firestarter like myself. Because really it's just like making crafts, like those fimo clay beads I was nuts about a few years ago, or the Play-Doh creations of my (your) youth. And you get to use bacon to glue everything together! Bacon tastes WAY better than Play-Doh and I know that you, Inner Fat Child, fully understand why it is I can speak on that matter with some authority, ahem.

There isn't really a whole recipe or anything. First you make the chicken breasts really thin by beating them into submission with a special meat-pounder mallet thing I purchased specially for this very dish. Yeah, I made a trip to Target at 8 p.m. on a school night to buy the special meat hammer. (Ha ha!! Meat hammer!!)

Then you make the flattened chicken wonderlicious by putting cheese on it, and other stuff to taste, and rolling it into a little yule log of meat-cheese-stuff. Then you wrap BACON yes I said BACON around the whole thing, secure with toothpicks and put on the grill over low heat until your are drooling with anticipation. If it doesn't cook the chicken all the way through (like for me on the first night when I didn't hammer the chicken thin enough) (ha!ha! hammer the chicken!!) you just put it in the oven on 350 degrees for a few minutes to cook through.

This has been my week. No, really. THANKS A LOT, INNER FAT CHILD:

The Filling, Night One: Neufchatel cheese with fresh minced jalepeno pepper and garlic. Spicy! Yummy!

The Filling, Night Two: Leftover filling from night one, plus a tiny bit of cumin and a dallop of salsa.

The Filling, Night Three: Goat cheese with sun-dried tomatoes and fresh garlic.

The Filling, Night Four: Cave-aged gruyere and thinly sliced cherry tomatoes a piece of ham lunch meat, YES I AM PUTTING MEAT INSIDE MEAT. And wrapping it in what? Guess! Really, guess! MORE MEAT.

Boy, the losing five pounds is going awesome!

Actually, though, it is going awesome, NO HELP FROM YOU AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. In a fit of cholesterol-saturated horror, I looked at my diet for the past few days (read: bacon chicken yule logs and green salad, as if a green salad could balance this out? really?) and I dicovered I was eating THE PERFECT ATKINS DIET.

Ergo, I am now totally fully on the Atkins Diet! Doesn't that rock! Like I planned it all along!! HAH HAH TAKE THAT INNER FAT CHILD. Sure, my version is more the "Chicken Yule Log Atkins diet" but whatevs. You say Play-doh, I say Play-Mah-Doh.

Sincerely,
The one who has a meat hammer

 

Posted by laurie at 08:38 AM | Comments (107)

September 11, 2006

Good morning!

So I wasn't going to write anything today, because what do you say? And also, have I mentioned I was away from work for many, many days and now I have literally a pile of paper almost as large as my whole DESK waiting for me? Hello, work!

But. I had a very awkward patriotic-related incident in the breakroom. And ya'll it is only nine a.m., think of the possibilities this day holds.

It started out innocently enough. This morning when I came into the building the security staff was handing out little Lance-Armstrong-ish rubber bracelets, only these are blue with white stars and there's a little panel of red and white stripes on one side. The bracelets must be one-size-fits-all, "all" being a relative term for "giant huge tree-trunk wristed people" but I am not complaining, I love free patriotic bracelets! I put it on my wrist and came up to my office and placed my handbag on the floor and almost fell over from just looking at the large pile of stuff/brochures/memos/etc. on my desk, and I thought to myself, "I should begin attacking this pile of work!" Then my true more slovenly nature kicked in, because I immediately said out loud to no one in particular, "I should get coffee first! For fortification!"

And I poked my head into my co-worker's office next door to see if he wanted some coffee, too, and he was putting on an American flag pin.

"Hey, where'd you get that?" I asked.

"It was on my desk, you should have one too," he said.

"HAVE YOU SEEN MY DESK?" I asked, politely as one can while still conveying ABJECT HORROR.

So we looked all over my desk and finally discovered a flag pin beneath three United Way contribution forms and a last Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. I KILL TREES, PEOPLE. But, still, so exciting! Like a treasure hunt, and we found a flag at the end of a multi-colored paper rainbow (half of which is now on the floor, I might add.)

Finally, with all my patriotism I could GO GET SOME DAMN COFFEE.

So Co-Worker and I go to the breakroom, where we chitchat and so on and I am maybe perhaps talking and not paying attention as I am getting the little individual half-and-halfs out of the bottom fridge drawer (why do they store it there? workplace mystery!) and somehow my patriotic bracelet got caught on something and I was, like, attached to the refrigerator by my arm, and yet I just yammered on, as is my way, one arm immobilized by something inside the fridge, and Co-Worker finally said, "Are you OK?"

"I think I am attached to something." Pause. Whimper. "I am so far from the coffee!"

I couldn't see where I was tangled up exactly, so Co-Worker came to investigate and I moved closer to the door which is when my shirt, with my patriotic metal magnetic flag pin became attached to the refrigerator door and CoWorker began laughing at me and ran back to his office to get the digital camera BECAUSE OH YEAH THIS IS SO FUNNY, and luckily some nice lady from the lending department freed my arm before he could return. Also, it was COLD standing inside the fridge at 8 a.m. So I drank the last cup of coffee and left none for Co-Worker.

And that is my morning so far! And the day is still so young! I have my patriotic gear intact, and I have been freed from the refrigerator, and I have coffee.

But I do plan to avoid all major appliances for the rest of the day.

Posted by laurie at 08:48 AM | Comments (82)

August 29, 2006

Wherein I have a bread-related epiphany

I never realized how hard it is to find a perfect foundation. This is exactly what the scientists who mapped the structure of DNA must have felt like.

Foundation is one of those things I use when I'm 1) going out somewhere special or 2) having a Zelda day or 3) want to spackle something on so I can indulge my Nora Charles fantasies.

Ya'll, I am not right. The Nora Charles issue is almost exactly like my Kitty Carlisle obsession. It involves wearing evening gowns around the house at all hours, and having a floor-length nightgown and robe with marabou feathers on the sleeves. In these outfits I would banter with my cosmopolitan paramour (Nick, of course) in continuous snappy dialogue and tote around a dog that never seems to poop. And solve mysteries that all end in hijinks.

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Conversations in my crazyhead, #72:

Me: Pass me a drink dahling. I feel positively parched.

Imaginary Nick:

Me: Oh this old thing? Just my dressing gown...
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If none of this is making a damn bit of sense to you right now, I insist you back away from the keyboard and run -- do not walk -- to the nearest video store and rent The Thin Man. It's an old black-and-white movie from 1934. It is one of my favorite movies of all time, even though I discovered it by accident (some sixty-odd years after it was actually popular, but whatever).

The Thin Man is basically a detective caper with a hipster cool couple named Nick and Nora solve crime and drink a lot, and they had a dog that became famous. (Notice I'm putting the movie title in bold, but only the first reference. Then somehow switching to italics. I don't know why this is. Perhaps I need to brush up on my AP style book. Moving along.)

Nick is this tall, dashing guy in impeccable suits who used to be a detective until he married the adorable Nora, tall and sophisticated in impeccable dresses, who is very rich and elegant but kind of goofy and sweet. The swanky pair drink a lot and get hangovers and have that snappy dialogue that movies from the thirties always seem to have. "Ah, you don't say!" and "Nick, you're a terrible cad!"

There's a whole series of Thin Man films, one of which taught me some monumental bread-related history:

In the second installment, The Return of The Thin Man, Nick is in his twin bed and Nora is in her twin bed (because of course they had separate beds in the same room like all normal married people) (anyway) and there she is in her floor-length nightgown and he in his striped pajamas as she cajoles him into making her some eggs and toast.

So they troop down to the kitchen (he wears slippers, she's wearing mules with a kitten heel). Once in the kitchen, Nick tells Nora, "I'll get the eggs if you'll slice the bread."

You see, she has to slice the bread for the toast. Slice the bread. Because there was no pre-sliced bread.

This totally stumped me. I had to rewind the scene about four times and savor it all over again. I'd heard all my life that little saying, "Oh this is the greatest invention since sliced bread!" or "Well, that's as clever as sliced bread!" but I thought that buying bread already sliced was something people invented right along with electricity. I had no idea that in the 1930s people could make actual talking movies but hadn't yet gotten the wonderbread pre-sliced concept down pat.

Who says you can't learn anything from TV?

Posted by laurie at 11:07 AM | Comments (118)

April 26, 2006

The Bubbleheaded Bleached Blonde Comes On At Five

I was at a party recently with a room full of very educated adults, and we were doing what all Decent Income Earners with College Educations do at parties:

"If you had to pick ONE to sleep with, who would it be: Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?"

After wine and caryying on and time passes, the party disintegrates into: "Dr. Demento or Dr. Phil?" "Dr. Laura or George Bush?" "OH GOD" "Well, George Bush senior or junior? Because I would so do senior..."

Ya'll know.

And then we got to drugged-out celebrities, mostly because I was all, "Did ya'll SEE that picture of Brad Renfro busted for buying smack downtown? He was arrested next door to my old building!" as if I were the one on TV or something. By proxy. Because he was arrested in the alley outside my old building. I'm famous!

But that was when things went wrong, because I discovered there are actually humans out there who do not waste their valuable morning coffee time on gossip blogs.

"Who the hell is Brad Renfro?" asked Faith's husband Michael. And I could not help myself. "Oh my God, don't you read your gossip blogs? Don't you read Pink Is The New Blog? How ever do you manage to get through a whole day? I mean, really!"

Michael was maybe not amused.

But luckily this is Los Angeles and people here do keep up on their gossip. Well, some of them. Not Michael, obviously. Last night on the phone, after discussing the guy who cut his own toe off, Jennifer and I moved on to the next and most pressing subject: Denise and Richie. (!!!) Having just been through a nasty and prolonged divorce myself, I can understand and sympathize with anyone going through a nasty and prolonged divorce. Except, hi! Paparrazzi! Ya'll. Try to keep your panties on, ok? At least until you are actually divorced from your respective spouses.

I do try to balance out my rather embarrassingly high amount of celebrity gossip-blog-reading with a daily trip to nytimes.com, latimes.com and of course dailykos.com. Sprinkle in some knitting blogs and weather.com and you have a perfect day.

But sometimes there's just time for one blog. And I admit, it's Pink. Where else can I catch up on all my trashy goings-on and see shirtless Ryan Phillipe and laugh at K-Fed? I mean really.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, no one wanted to sleep with Dr. Laura. I volunteered to do Dr. Phil, but only because he's so tall. Ya'll. Don't judge.)

Posted by laurie at 09:57 AM | Comments (72)

April 24, 2006

Just some little quirks.

I often tell my friends that I am completely quirk-free. They laugh. Sometimes they laugh so hard they get those little tears escaping out the corners of squinched-up laughing eyes.

I concede that I maybe have one or two little idiosyncrasies. The most annoying of them all is my unique and rather MATURE way of dealing with stuff that breaks: First, I complain about the unfairness of it all. Then I get flustered, then upset, and finally ... I cry. Like a baby. A blathering hiccuping baby. Finally, I pitch a hissy. Then I stomp off and look for someone to blame. Awesome!

You know it's wrong, see, but you do it anyway. Like, for example, when you decide (finally!) to buy a laptop, and you spend way too much money on it but you're excited about it, then you buy all this extra stuff at Best Buy that they said would be REALLY EASY to hook up, like this router thing .... and ANYWAY, you bring it home and try to hook up your old, creeky desktop computer to the fancy schmancy router thingy and then you try and try and try to hook it up, and it doesn't work and you have a glass of wine, and that does not relax you because TECHNOLOGY IS MEAN and maybe also HARD and you call tech support, which is in India, and then TWO HOURS later you still have no working wireless internet, and India hates you, and you hate India, and you cry and hang up? And start pulling all the wires out and maybe throwing them a little, and using swear words?

And then the wireless thing you bought so your new laptop could be online just sits there collecting dust and your new laptop has NEVER been online, FIVE months later, and you still use a computer with like 12 MB of ram to do all your home computing because it's the one hooked to the cable modem and just thinking about it makes you cry?

Well, maybe not you. But yes, this describes me. And finally over the weekend I broke down and called the Geek Squad and a very nice guy who was probably 16 years old came to my house and gave me the gift of wireless internets, so I can now roam my house and patio and lawn and maybe next door neighbor's lawn while staying fully in touch with all ya'll.

Now that is progress.

And I did not even cry once. Mostly because I sat on the sofa and watched "Clean House" and drank coffee while said 16-year-old worked his wizardry with technology. This break from Technology Hissy Fit Throwing gave me time to think about my myriad of embarrassing issues and tally the top five.

Top Five Really Embarrassing Things About Me

1. I talk to my cats like they were humans.
This is not sporadic or wine-fueled talkage. It goes on all day and night, nonstop. "Hey, ya'll, what are you looking at on the floor over there? You're sitting too still. And not answering me. Answer me. Did ya'll find a bug? Because I only hired ya'll for your bug-killing paws. That isn't a bug, dorkuses! That is just a piece of yarn sitting on the floor not even acting like a spider... but I guess if I had a brain ya'lls size I might mistake it for a spider too. So in conclusion, ya'll are not fired. Carry on."

2. Those cats are sometimes the best damn conversation I get all day. For example:
Me: You think the Tomkitten was hatched or do you think Katie Holmes really got knocked up? I mean there is rampant speculation on the internets.
Roy:
Me: I see.

3. I have THE worst taste in music EVER. I offer as irrefutable proof the five most recent songs I downloaded:
    1) Key Largo by Bertie Higgins. Bertie Higgins!
    2) (Because) Weekends Were Made For Fun by somebody I can't remember
    3) Roll With It by Steve Winwood
    4) Hold On by Wilson Phillips (well, we were just talking about it)
    5) Break My Stride by Matthew somebody or other

4) When I am on an airplane, I lie to strangers.
It's the only time I give myself total freedom to explore the possibilities life has to offer as a nutjob, because after all just being on a plane makes you a little nutty. And I have the terrible misfortune of being one of those people who attracts talkers in the seat beside me, and the Talker always asks what you do for a living. It used to irritate me, the Talking, but I discovered how much fun it was to tell a bald-faced lie to a total stranger, and now I love the Talking. Previous career-related lies have included but are not limited to:
• adult film continuity manager
• blimp driver
• cat wrangler
• psychic
• plate tectonics expert

5) None of my Top-Whatever lists achieve their numerical status, a fact which makes me happy.

6) I cannot poop at work. 'Nuff said.

7) I have a framed photo of Peter Jennings on my desk at work.

8) I once tried to change my name. I informed my family at age 13 that I would no longer respond to the pedestrian moniker of "Laurie" and from this moment onward everyone could call me "Crimson." Or, if so moved, they were allowed to call me "Madonna." They promptly informed me I was adopted, then laughed. (I am not adopted.)

9) I once told my little brother that he was adopted and that his real parents were ugly clowns.

10) I'm pretty sure that the reason Jason Grabowski broke up with me is because I let a little fluff escape once in a compromising position. It still bothers me to this day. Damn fluffing.

11) I use ghetto slang that is either completely outdated or inappropriate. My favorite expletive is "Jesus K-Ci JoJo and Mary!" It makes no sense to anyone but me. Yet I persist.

12) I have a terrible fear of knitting outdoors because of moths.

13) I want perms to come back in style.

14) I Tivo Dr. Phil.

Oh, there are so many more. But that's as far as I got in my Top Five list, because by then the internet was hooked up and ebay was literally everywhere I went all day long. Ebay was on the patio. Ebay was in the kitchen. Ebay was in the bedroom. Ebay wasn't in the bathroom, though. Ya'll know. One must be able to contemplate in peace and quiet. 'Nuff said.

Posted by laurie at 08:46 AM | Comments (138)

March 20, 2006

Ode to an eyeliner

This is a picture I took from the bus window on Friday as I was leaving downtown and heading back to the Valley. I forgot about it until I hooked my camera up this morning, but you can see the double rainbow if you look real close, and also kind of squint.

Yesterday I meant to clean my house and do laundry and so on and so forth. Instead, I spent almost an hour browsing the aisles of a big new CVS in the Valley, which is a pharmacy/convenience store/purveyor of lipgloss. The drugstore is my safe haven. My harbor in hellish times. My retail therapy, rows and rows of yummy items just waiting for me to discover on my lunch break or on the weekend when I mean to buy vitamins and antibac-wipes and instead end up with hair products, blemish creme and eyeshadow.

I love the aisles of glittery nail polish (Dries in thirty seconds! Guaranteed glamorous! Stays on for seven days!) and the neat little rows of eye shadow in their pots and tubs. The packaging genius of it all. The lipsticks, oh, the lipsticks. From gloss to stick to pencil to plumper, the selection never ends.

I don't actually wear a lot of makeup, but I own an embarrassingly large amount of it. I can't pass up a golden glitter pencil or a shimmery nail polish. There's a big-haired Texan Glamour Queen from 1984 living inside my nondescript skin. Some people have an inner child ... I sold mine on ebay and used the profits to buy a hairspray that has real gold glitter in it. I was born with an inner shopper, and she says: "Only $1.99? That's a bargain at any price! I'd be practically wasting money if I didn't buy that!"

Browsing the Clinique and Mac counters at Bloomingdale's isn't nearly as satisfying as spending an hour poking around at the local Rite Aid or Walgreens or CVS. That’s because you can’t feasibly leave Bloomies with a bag of goodies under $50, but you know at Walgreens you can buy long-lash mascara, a People magazine, two tubes of lip gloss and a Snickers bar and still have money left over for gas.

Have ya'll noticed that really tacky makeup is coming back in style? I have waited many agonizing years for blue shimmer eyeshadow to be back in vogue, and finally my time has come. Yesterday I bought a Wet'n'Wild eyeshadow stick in frosty denim blue and a little pot of Loreal baby blue shimmer cream. It sat in my bag for three hours while I fidgeted, anxious, needing to go home and play make-up.

(Interject long pause here to contemplate my pathetic feminine streak.)

At last, I freed myself of responsibilities, ran home and locked myself in the bathroom with my purchases. Twenty minutes later I looked like a Smurf had thrown up on my face.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

In the final analysis, I have concluded that perhaps we're not yet ready for blue eyeshadow to come back. But when it does, dammit, I'll be ready. Tubs and pots and sticks of ready.

Posted by laurie at 09:45 AM | Comments (96)

March 17, 2006

She Bangs

The Brangelina prototype hat is done, and it has a few "features" I need to work out for the real recipe. In my efforts to make a really good final pattern for this hat, I even knitted a swatch of the Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick 'n Quick to measure the gauge. And. Well. There's a reason they call it thick, people. But I can't find the less-chunky wool ease anywhere and frankly I prefer to think the old adage is true -- not just for women but for all things -- "Once you go thick you never forget." Amen, sister.

(I may have made that saying up. Possibly. Because I am thick 'n quick!)

I was having a traumatically bad hair day yesterday and I wanted to wear my Brangelina hat all day. (I didn't.) But I did wear it down the hallway and into the 19th floor powder room to photograph myself. I told everyone who I passed on the way, "Yo. I'm keeping it gangsta." (If by "gangsta" you mean five-foot-almost-four inches of nothing but pure Southern quirkery!) People humored me with a variety of outdated ghetto slang in return. I am the sort of person who is often humored.

The bad hair situation is going to be resolved next week when I visit Aharon, who I may or may not proposition once again in a fit of futility. I love Aharon. Of course, perhaps it's because Aharon knows I need boundaries, and tough love. This was apparent when I called him a mere two days before my appearance in Divorce Court (cue ominous music). I was in absolute emotional meltdown and I needed dire intervention.

Receptionist: Hello, Umberto Beverly Hills, how can I help you?

Me: Hi. Can I speak with Aharon? Please? I have a hair emergency.

Receptionist: Just one moment I'll see if he's with a client.

(Interestingly enough, the receptionist did not bat an eye at my melodramatics. They must get hair emergency phone calls on a regular basis.)

Aharon: Hello?

Me: Aharoh, it's me, Laurie. I have a hair emergency.

Aharon: What happened...? Are you ok? Did you get cake in your hair?

Me: ...? cake?

Aharon: It happened to one of my clients before, blue frosting, it was terrible!

Me: No.

Aharon: Well, thank God because the cake is very hard on the hair, we had to cut.

Me: Aharon. Focus! Emergency!

Aharon: Yes.

Me: I need bangs.

Aharon: Absolutely not.

Me: Aharon, I NEED BANGS.

Aharon: What's going on?

Me: (whimper)

Aharon: No.

Me: But I have to go to Divorce Court and I am scared and I need bangs!

Aharon: No! You cannot solve this problem with the bangs. Now be good, come see me soon. Do not ask me about the bangs for at least six more months.

It was sad, really, having your hair emergency dismissed in such a manner. But in the end, he was right. You cannot solve a problem like divorce with bangs.

But.

It's been six months.

I'm just saying is all.

Posted by laurie at 08:50 AM | Comments (124)

February 14, 2006

A day celebrating pink cannot be all bad.

By now you know my theory on Valentine's Day. Yes, I suspect other people are out getting lucky while I myself will be making sweet love to my Tivo. But I have somehow convinced myself that any holiday which chooses pink as it's primary color and chocolate as its official food is OK in my book.

Sure, a part of you suspects that everyone on the face of the earth except you is having steamy sex involving complicated lingerie and jazz music, but that's a small price to pay for aisles and aisles of pink velvet hearts with little pieces of Godiva inside.

And the possibility exists that in the next 364 days you might also find yourself shopping for unmentionables and stocking up on John Coltraine CDs. It could happen. Oh! Remind me to tell ya'll the funny story of my very first ever purchase of complicated lingerie and how my boyfriend had to literally cut me out of it because after several glasses of wine and maybe some jello shooters at the club (college... need I say more?) neither of us could figure out how to get the thing off, and then before long I was making funny voices and saying, "Well, I declare! She gone and died in her fancy panties! Her fancy panties up and attacked her while she was being sexy!" and of course it wasn't sexy at all by that point, but we managed somehow to laugh ourselves silly then accidentally set something on fire when we knocked over a candle while cutting off $60 of very, very complicated lingerie.

Of course, I can't tell ya'll about that here because my parents read this here website and would be horrified, and also maybe shaking their heads because as much as they do not want to picture me in a complicated get-up in a compromising position with my college boyfriend, they can absolutely see in their mind's eye their incredibly classy daughter being cut out of something from Frederick's and making a big Blanche Dubois moment of the whole thing. "Why I do declare, we should rely on the kindness of strangers to free me from this here pantyhose contraption with bustier and for the love of God, do you have scissors? The exertion of all this sexiness has left me parched! More wine!"

So, no, of course we cannot discuss it here. But next time you see me, be sure to ask me about it. And pass the jello shooters!

Posted by laurie at 08:57 AM | Comments (67)

January 26, 2006

This doorknob is for you.

Ya'll it is so sad. I have truly gone insane. Please don't laugh at me as I am one step away from directing traffic in my nightgown. I blame it on the massive quantities of over-the-counter junk I am using to defeat my Bird Flu. I'm a little loopy.

So. Hi! How are you? Hello! And also, are you thinking about door knobs? Like me?

Every time I have to open a door, I think of all the door handles I have touched that day and how many other people have had their grimy little paws on the same door knob and I weigh the evidence which points to a serious lack of personal hygiene plaguing the downtown Los Angeles area, and I know I have to open the door for whatever reason (to get to work, to leave work, to open the door to the hallway or the conference room or to the coffee shop) and now my own hand is picking up their nasty little bacteria and I start to go a little crazy.

(Start to go crazy? Start?) (Ya'll. It's the Sudafed.)

So then I find myself in the break room washing my hands again and Bill, the receptionist who always seems to be in the break room when I go in there, watches me out of the corner of his eye.

I know what he's thinking. But that doesn't stop me. In fact he ought to take a page out of my book and wash his grimy little germ-infested claws. Nothing personal of course!

Because if you add up the number of doorknobs you yourself have touched and handled today, and then multiply that by the number of others who touched it, then factor in some unknown national hand-washing quotient, mix in some paranoia and Howard-Hughes-esque, boy-in-the-bubble psychosis .... well, then you'll slowly realize that you are essentially placing your hand onto all the same things those other people have touched.

And oh, the things people touch! When I see what people do with their hands when they think no one is looking (or, even more upsetting, when they don't give a shit if anyone is looking) it makes me cringe.

Just yesterday I walked down Hope Street at lunchtime and saw a man in a suit and tie sitting at a cafe table. He sat there picking his nose and reading the paper. In public. Picking his nose. Do you think that when he went back to work he washed his hands before opening the door of the office building? Nosiree bob. And do you think that a man, even one who wears a suit and tie, will bother to wash his hands after visiting the toilet when he can't be bothered to pick his own nose in private? Right.

Then there is the guy in a Lakers jersey who stopped on the corner right outside the 7th Street Metro Center and whipped out his johnson to take a pee, right there on the sidewalk. What doorknob will he be fondling next?

What about the woman who used her finger in place of a toothpick? Or the one who vigorously scratched her backside in the park? Or guys and their constant personal adjusting, whatever the hell that's about. (Is it some vague reassuring moment, touching your balls to make sure they're still there?) ("Keys? check. Loose change? Check. Balls? Check! Still got 'em!")

So all day I calculate the number of doorknobs and doorhandles and door pulls I have to touch and do some mysterious mental mathematical formula that factors in cleanliness minus populace plus foot traffic and eventually leads me to the answer, which is when I get up from my desk and walk into the break room and wash my hands.

Bill turned to me today, just now, as I did this little crazy person's soap and water dance in my Sudafed and cough-syrup enhanced fugue state, and asked me why I don't use the handsoap in the ladies room instead of the dish soap in the break room to wash my hands. I didn't want to tell him the truth.

The answer is door knobs. You see, the doors to the break room are always propped open, unlike the doors to the ladies room which are closed and you have to push buttons on a security lock before opening the door. With your hands.

And I am a crazy person. Cough cough.

Posted by laurie at 10:01 AM | Comments (136)

November 15, 2005

More fun than a barrel of monkeys!

This is a widget, and I hope you add yourself:

I added myself to my own map because I am really that big of a nerd. Also? 4:39 p.m. on a Tuesday. 'Nuff said.

Posted by laurie at 04:38 PM | Comments (42)

October 29, 2005

Like this will surprise anyone

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% Dixie

50% General American English

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

0% Yankee

Last time I took this I was depressed, I thought I got 65% Dixie. Apparently I was wrong, and I am just a mere 50% Redneck. Either I have become more edumacated or I was drankin' last time I tested my linguistic profile.

Posted by laurie at 12:40 PM | Comments (19)

October 04, 2005

Email Standard Time

Someone, please, for the love of God TAKE THE TECHMOLOGY AWAY FROM ME.

And the fact that I call it "the techmology" should tell you... I have issues.

Back when I was a single girl -- before I got married and had my soul sucked out and withered to a bitter shell of a human -- I used to go on dates. Like normal girls. And in this chess game we called "dating" there were rules about the telephone and when you could call, or expect a call, that were intricate and varied and full of loopholes. Kind of like tax law.

Being of good Southern stock, and having been schooled in the ways and means of Making Him Wait, Making Him Want More and (of course) Making Him Think It's Over But Really You're Just Making Yourself Unattainable So He Will Want To Attain You More, I knew how to use (or not use) the telephone properly.

And then I got married, and now I am about to disclose to you a teetiny factoid that will make you realize I am old, very old, and withered and my ovaries are practically petrified with age, ya'll. Because I was married before email became a well-accepted method of interpersonal communication. When I was a person who went on dates, THERE WAS NO EMAIL. And also, NO INTERNETS. They may have had internets in some places, maybe in cities, but I lived in the country and we had fishing nets, fishnets, and interbreeding. No internets.

So the ENTIRE time I have been acquainted with this thing we call The Email, I have been a Married Emailer. And, unlike my husband, I did not use email to find dates and flirt with members of the opposite sex, so I was unaware that there were Rules and also Regulations in Co-ed Email Correspondence, and now I am really kind of screwed because I CANNOT DO EMAIL TIMESTAMP MATH FOR COED EMAILING.

At work I try to answer the 37,342 emails I get each day in a timely fashion. When it comes to personal email correspondence, however, I kind of suck. There are some impediments to my personal email, such as:
1) my personal email is often blocked by the firewall at work
2) spam spamspamspam spam
3) I forget
4) I just answered 37, 339 emails at my job, and I am tired.
5) spam spam spam

And so in my life, email has been an annoying neccesity, kind of like voicemail or health insurance or tampons.

It has not been a way to... you know. Get to know someone better.

It just never occurred to me. See? Since there was no electronic writing component of my dating years. Now, in this crazy modern world with all the techmology, let's say you meet someone. And you don't just swap phone numbers. No. You share email addresses, too. And then there is some email, and then you realize ya'll are maybe not emailing just because it is the most expedient method of communication but that ya'll are GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER and there are probably rules, because Lord knows men cannot handle a Woman Who Emails Too Much (Note to self: check self-help aisle for email issues books).

So you -- not me of course -- YOU call your best friend, who is younger and cuter and a better emailer, and your best friend schools you in Email Standard Time Rules & Regulations, and you listen, you do! But then you kind of think rules are stupid and you go off and reply immediately, like a ... like a ... YANKEE or something. (Sorry. No! Really, that was wrong. I had run out of similes. Send hate mail to yankees-do-email-better@crazyauntpurl.com.)

Just how on earth do people handle all the pressure to NOT respond to an email immediately when maybe it was the first email all day that did not involve one or more of the following: some part of your project breaking, some SVP asking for more cowbell, an intern who is an Accounting major offering you (the Art Director) some "helpful color suggestions" for a logo or -- my personal favorite -- someone needing a whole website design in the next 15 minutes. Maybe the Good Email From The Opposite Sex Person was the only message out of 37,342 that made you not want to eat your own hand. Maybe having to wait the amount of time elapsed since he responded to your last email before you can respond makes you want to staple things to your coworkers. Maybe you DO NOT HAVE THE PATIENCE TO PLAY THIS STUPID GAME.

Or maybe you have issues, and you should back slowly away from the keyboard.

Maybe.

Posted by laurie at 12:39 PM | Comments (69)

September 15, 2005

Make it stop.

OH God.

I just gave THE WORST PRESENTATION EVER IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND. I was so nervous, I talked too fast, and my voice was all shaky,and all I could think of was "Whatever you do, don't say PORN, don't say porn, don't say porn, DONTSAYPORN!!!!"

My presentation was worse than bad. It was... painful. I was one of those horrible train-wreck public speakers that you can't take your eyes off because THEY SUCK SO BAD. You're afraid if you look away for one second, you'll miss the part where they EAT THEIR OWN TONGUE.

Of course, the upside is that I'll never have to present to a room of high-level executives again.

Because yes, friends, I said it.

PORN.

pornpornpornpornporn.

Arggghhhhh.
Send wine.

Posted by laurie at 01:48 PM | Comments (84)

September 08, 2005

A day in which drunk dialing was finally harnessed for the power of GOOD, instead of EVIL.

Mark the day, ya'll, a day which shall live forever in infamy, a day in which finally I made a fool of myself AND helped ease suffering at the same time. And also caused suffering, a little, but only on the road to greater EASING of suffering.

And that day was ... day before yesterday.

It is my steadfast opinion that the true root of this issue lies in the "dialing" and not the "drunk" portion. This theorom of mine has been proven time and time again, including (but not limited to) the following research scenarios:

• One Kappa Alpha who shall never be named
• One adjunct History professor
• "Tell her she had cameltoe in those green pants!"
• Birthdays and ex-husbands
• The time I tried to join the Jaycees

But then Oprah intervened. No, seriously. Oprah really does change people's lives. It starts with the right bra, ya'll, and then everything falls into place.

See, I've been watching news obsessively and now I have trouble sleeping, even more than usual. I close my eyes and I see every single face from the TV, every inch of water and I can't breathe. So I thought I should start watching better TV before bedtime, and maybe up the dosage of wine so I would have a little sleep so that the thing that happened at work on Tuesday* wouldn't happen ever again.

[ * someone may have accidentally shown up to work without the following: ID badge, keys to desk, cellphone, matching socks, sense of humor, bagless under-eye area, etc.]

Right. So ... Oprah. Now, I Tivo Oprah (shutup yes I do) and so I went to watch me some "How not to get wrinkles!" kind of TV, but it turns out this was the first non-rerun Oprah show in months, and she was down south with Nate and Jamie Foxx and Dr. Mehmet Oz, too, who I just adore.

And there was a lot of wine and a lot of crying, and then I drunk-dialed Jennifer, and cried to her, because the guy who wouldn't leave his dog? OH MY GOD. And the little boy who rescued his T-ball trophies, so someone would know he'd once been a somebody? HYSTERICS DESCENDED. And then I vowed to watch something less upsetting so I could get some sleep, but of course by then all I could think of was the guy and the dog and the little boy with his trophies and then there was some drunk donating, in which I cried on the phone and talked about the Oprah show, and (in a really helpful move) also made the nice lady on the other end of the phone cry. Me = really fucking helpful. Sorry phone lady!

Oh, and yesterday on the way home from work, I remembered why I don't sleep on the bus. Even if I am REALY REALLY TIRED. You just never can tell where your head will loll. Or who will be there to capture the lolling forever on camera.

Then I got home and noticed that, coincidentally enough, there were two guys falling asleep right in my very own home and one of them had already lolled right onto the other:

And if ya'll get liquored up tonight and need to drunk-dial-donate money, call the Humane Society for a good time ... 1-888-259-5431. And for God's sake be carefull where your head lolls!

Posted by laurie at 10:28 AM | Comments (37)

June 29, 2005

Just your average Wednesday in CRAZYVILLE.

Do you see the SIZE of this thing?

The photo does not truly convey the horror or the enormity -- and yet it is still clearly visible even with seventeen pounds of cover-up, foundation and powder on it. I am so SCREWED.

Every ten minutes I have to make a furtive status check in my compact mirror to see if the Big Divorce Zit has faded. (Let me assure you IT HAS NOT.) So far this morning, I've managed to work blemish patrol in with my frantic work schedule -- all preparation for being out of the office tomorrow for the first of what may be many court dates. (Untying this damn knot is going to be a lengthy and untidy process.) If anything, the Big Divorce Zit has gotten BIGGER, so I suspect that me and my boil are partners to the bitter end.

Of course I named her. Since we're going to court together an all. Zelda. Zelda the Zit. Love you, Zelda!

One would think this would be the extent of my physical deterioration prior to court. ONE WOULD BE WRONG.

At about half past early thirty I went into the ladies room and caught a glimpse of myself in the big floor-to-ceiling mirror, and people, I was -- unbeknownst to myself, busy as I was with work and meetings and flurries of phone calls and crazy emails and inspecting my face in my compact mirror -- I was unconsciously scratching my own ass.

Well, not my ass ASS per se, more like the left hip, sort of up and to the side, which is almost, pretty much, your ASS.

Then I realized I was not just scratching, I WAS ITCHING. In the general upper hip/thigh/ass region. Ergo, the scratching was not purely recreational, it was because SOMETHING HAD ATTACKED ME.

Once inside the stall, I dropped trou and immediately began to inspect my itchy side of hip (almost-ass), whereupon I discovered not ONE, not TWO, but indeed THREE BUG BITES that may or may not be fatal.

For people like me, who cannot multi-task with their craziness due to the large volume of NEUROSES and WORRY and also TALKING that has to occur at any given moment, there is the crucial dilemma of which particular worry to concentrate on primarily. For example:

1. Where the HELL was I hanging out, geographically speaking, that I could be bitten by a bug that had time to snack on my entire left thigh/butt? Like a smorgasbord of butt-biting? Where on EARTH did this attack occur? Work? Car? In bed while I was asleep like a little angel of Jesus? On the patio while I was smoking like a little minion of satan? where? WHERE?

2. What the HELL was this bug? Mosquito? Spider? Scabies? Perhaps some unnamed paramecium with teeth living in my drains? Gnome bugs? Good Lord have mercy on me and do not let it be a big scabies!

3. Which particular disease do I now have from unnamed mystery bug? West Nile? Monkeypox? Ebola? And why the hell is Web M.D. blocked by the firewall, do they not KNOW I HAVE ISSUES? And, possibly, EBOLA?

4. And is it indeed true that I have been scratching my ass all morning without being cognizant of said ass-scratching?

So, as you can see, I have a very busy rest of my day ahead of me. I have to somehow live through the torment that has been cursed upon me, with the bugs and the evil biting and the itching, and also try to stop looking in the mirror every three seconds, and also try to get ahead on my to-do list for work because they do not pay me to scratch my heinie, oddly enough, and then after work I have to go find something to wear in court that will distract from both the size of my aforementioned (possibly west nile) backside and also my large pimplenator.

Ya'll can see what Zelda and I are struggling with. We are just worn out from it all.

(Attempts to hide Zelda with hair somewhat successful.)

Posted by laurie at 09:01 AM | Comments (71)

June 23, 2005

Hypothetically speaking ...

1. Hi Shannon! Hi Jennifer! Really sorry I made ya'll listen to crazy Mexican love songs for hours and also, really apologize that I sang them in my TWANG and also, maybe, acted them out with jazz hands and air guitar on my patio! Whoops!

2. Hi! Me again! With the whole apology thing? Can we just extend that to the entire evening? Thanks for surprising me and coming over and not letting me stew in my own pity! Love ya'll!

3. To anyone I may have emailed last night and misspelled things because I had to type with one eye shut? Real sorry! Love you! Will make it up to you!

4. Hey cats! Remember when I tried to make ya'll sign a document with your paw print declaring you would never leave me? Yeah! I was just joking, really! I mean, PLEASE. Everyone knows we'd need a notary public present.

5. Also, God, thank you for inventing pizza! And Tylenol! And coffee!

P.S. Hypothetically speaking, if you maybe possibly picked up the phone after some crying and drinking and maudlin craziness on your birthday, and maybe possibly drunk dialed a certain someone, IN THE VERY WORST SENSE OF THE PHRASE, would you:

A. Pretend it never happened.

B. Chalk it up to the end of a bad day, a bad year, and decide maybe you ought to start walking in the evenings instead of drinking.

C. Convince yourself that perhaps this moment, a true low of lows, was a catharsis in which you closed the door on a bad chapter and yes, made a fool of yourself, but occassionally foolishness happens.

D. Say to yourself, THANK GOD I got that out of the way! It was bound to happen! Now I can cross that one off the list!

E. Blame it on Karl Rove.

Just hypothetically speaking, OF COURSE.

Posted by laurie at 09:53 AM | Comments (69)

June 08, 2005

A day late and a dollar short

Of course, I am about 72 days and thousands of dollars short, but you get the general idea. I am behind in everything. EVERYTHING. Here is a brief list, with a longer more detailed description to follow.

• I am behind schedule on my diet

• I am waaaay late planting my garden. Hi, it's JUNE.

• I am weeks behind in email answering, blogstalking and general internets tomfoolery.

• I am one poor pathetic excuse of a mail-receiver and mail-sender.

• I am behind on holidays.

• I am woefully behind on writing.

• I am totally late to the draw with every kind of family obligation.

• I am behind on the seasons.

• I am behind on my knitting.

• I am behind on world events, news, politics, etc. (but I am totally caught up on gossip, thank you Star magazine and US weekly! I sure got my priorities straight!)

Ok, so here we go. Got some coffee? This is long.

1. Diet
My fridge currently has all manner of peppers, cauliflower, broccoli and other ass-diminishing foods still sitting in the plastic. Hard to eat them when they are just sitting there, unwashed, uncut and uncooked. At this point their only purpose is to separate the beer from the diet Coke.

2. Garden
When the hell did it get to be June already? I have yet to break ground in my backyard for a garden or plant any of the two bazillion seed packets I bought. My parents told me this weekend I'd be better off eating the seeds. THANKS, YA'LL.

3. Internets
I am one poor correspondent, I've been too (too) hard to find. But I just can't seem to get you off my mind. And when I get home at night, do I turn on the computer and answer email and do all the responsible, geeklike things I truly want and need to do? No. I come home, feed the cats, clean the catbox, and have just enough time before bed for a glass of wine on the patio. If I start getting home any later or getting up any earlier, I'll just be going to bed when the alarm goes off. Woe the fuck is me.

4. Mail
Ok, we're going to save this one for last. Because it's long, detailed, and VERY IMPORTANT.

5. Holidays
My mom's Mother's Day gift? Still sitting here making California a better place to be. How can she love a child who is incapable of sending anything on time? And Father's Day? It's next weekend. Have I found a good Dad present yet? HAH HAH HAH.

6. Writing
I want to write a piece for Annie, knit goddess and object of all my affection. But have I completed it? No. Why? because I want it to be PERFECT and also, I want it to NOT SUCK. Here's where I get into real trouble. For more on this, see "mail" below.

7. Family obligations
In addition to holidays (see above) I have also got a birthday and graduation card here for my nephew who graduated and ate birthday cake a month ago. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME? Perhaps these gifts and cards needed to age. We may never know. Also, my Uncle Truman? Calls my parents once a day to tell them that me, Their Bad Daughter, has not called. Again.

8. Seasons
WHEN THE HELL DID IT BECOME JUNE?

9. Knitting
Mystery Knitted Cat Thingamajig? From, like, February? Still only half-done. Self-hatred sets in.

10. World Events, etc.
Perhaps I haven't had time to read any news or watch any news or do anything remotely brain-expanding, but let me guess: Politics still sucks, we're still at war, the economy is still weird, the globe is still warming, the rich are still rich and the poor are still poor. Am I close?

Now. Let's get back to #4: MAIL.

This one is important because it explains a lot about me, and really has less to do with my currently insane workload than it does with my always insane self. The fact is, I have a problem. Well, two problems, really.

Perfectionism and Procrastination.

My two closest companions. Perhaps you may have seen them before? Do they look familiar to you, too? Please say yes. Don't leave me here all alone with them.

And what does this have to do with mail? Well, ya'll know I love mail. I mean LOVE it. This comes from spending most of my life in some rural chickenscratch town where the mail was the one surprise every day. Except Sundays, and those were dreaded interminable endless days, spent in too-tight dress shoes and on hard church pews. No surprises there. But mail? You just never could tell what might show up in the big metal mailbox.

When you live out on the Rural Route 99 and your mailbox is down half a mile at the foot of the drive, you also get the feeling that you're traveling long and far to get your surprise. I used to wait each day for three o'clock to roll around so I could take the dogs with me and walk down to the end of the long, winding dirt trail we called a "driveway" and pick up the mail and afternoon paper. In Comfort, Texas and all the little towns of my childhood, one thing stayed the same: meandering to the mailbox, wondering where the stamps would be from, getting dust on my toes as I went to fetch the mail.

So I do love mail. At age seven I got my first pen-pal, and she was from a fabled and far-away place called "Manitoba." I looked up Manitoba on the Time-Life Atlas and decided it must be very, very exciting there. I don't know what became of my pen-pal, but to this day, the word Manitoba still makes me think of snowglobes and pretty stamps.

I also love to send mail. LOVE it. I love the packaging, the addressing, the careful contemplation of every piece, like a little treasure hunt in a box. But, ah, here's where my twin theives of suckage, perfectionim and procrastination, come into play. I can't just mail something. Oh no. I have to make it AN EVENT. Which is retarded. I mean, just put the pieces together in a box and mail it.

BUT YET I PERSIST WITH THE RETARDATION.

I am the person who insists upon making my own holiday cards every year and EVERY YEAR fails to mail them on time, or mail them at all, because they must be PERFECT. And if they are not perfect, I cannot send them.

I have a long, long list of ways that the two Ps affect my life and ya'll, it is not for the positive. Let's take email for example. I can't just send off a one-line reply, or jot a quick "Thanks! Talk to you soon!" as Lynne has discovered. No. Instead, I will appear to be ignoring all your little notes for a week when suddenly you get the War & Peace of emails in your inbox. (Drew, you know, too. I'm sorry. I'll try to write postcard emails from now on. How's your eyestrain, by the way?)

And now I need to do a little apologizing. I LOVE the mail, and each piece makes me so happy and I laugh and feel like it's Christmas and I am appreciative, in fact I am floored that anyone would send me anything, and yet, have I let anyone know this?

No.

So, this is the mail I have received in the past two weeks:

And this is the mail I have yet to send:

Notice the carefully designed box labels, the uniformity of the box size, the padded envelopes, the tissue paper and bubble wrap. And imagine inside a handmade card, perhaps a little voodoo, a surprise or two. Now imagine I meant to send this all weeks ago but I am here, STUCK IN MY RUT OF PERFECTIONIST PROCRASTINATION trying to make you the best ever T-shirt, card, or CD, something that will knock your socks off.

And there's more. More ways I fuck up with the perfectionism. See, when I received each little mailbox surprise, I should have just emailed a quick "Thank you! love it!" but I did not do so. Instead, I thought, "Oh, they'll love it so much more if I send something unique and small and funny!" Or, in other words, perfect. And while I am having all this perfection happening in my mind, ya'll are out there thinking I have no good sense and I have bad manners because I never write, never call. When I'm just trying to find the perfect way to thank you.

I must stop this. I have to change. And now.

One of my Birthday Resolutions, coming soon to an Internets near you in mid-June, is to STOP WITH THE PERFECTIONISM. Especially when all the (imperfect, but still fun) outbound mail is stalled at home. Not in the mail. Or in your mailbox. Or anywhere near Manitoba.

So. Tomorrow is Thursday. I will wake up a few hours early to do some much needed email maintenance and print some things out. Friday night I will finish assembling the goodness, and Saturday it's off to the Post Office, even if nothing is perfectly perfect. NO MATTER WHAT.

Also, tomorrow I will give you the detailed low-down on THE LOOT!!! With pictures! I've received such cool packages and nice notes and postcards and all manner of goodness. And, please, bear with me. I've had 33 years to entrench myself in My Issues, it may take me a few weeks to work out all the kinks.

But I thank you :) I do I do I do.

P.S. I just need to say it one more time. MANITOBA. Love that word.

Posted by laurie at 08:40 AM | Comments (75)

May 11, 2005

P.S. I love Arkansas!

I didn't mean to insult the Arkansas folks. I LOVE the South ya'll know that. My Uncle Truman still thinks Little Rock is the best city on earth (he lived there for 22 years.) Even though the south is filled up with red states, I still love them all. And their cousins, too ;)

Posted by laurie at 09:30 AM | Comments (14)

April 28, 2005

I blame the TALKING on the COFFEE.

My today, with so much EMPHASIS because I've had so much COFFEE:

So far, and it is only noon thirty, I've had meeting after meeting, plus a pre-meeting to get a status before the project meeting, then a post-meeting wrap-up meeting, interspersed with the phone calls, WILL YOU PLEASE STOP CALLING ME have you not heard of email? Email is great! I can delete it much faster!

Then vendor visits, budgets (and I SUCK at Excel and The Math and twice my boss has called me to inquire, gently, "ARE YOU HIGH? Where on God's GREEN EARTH did you come up with these RETARDED numbers?"), some frantic research on my part, more budget revisions ... art costs money, people! And then someone in a cube near me FARTED and all I could say to my officemate was a very mature, very grown up, "The smeller is the feller, ya'll!!"

So, that’s my today. Let’s move to a better topic, like lunch. Or the more fun topic of tonight.

Tonight I had every intention of showing up unannounced at the West Hollywood Stitch n' Bitch because a very cool lady wrote me a very nice email (which I loved) and invited me to come meet the WeHo girls. (WeHo! heh heh)

And I really want to go and meet these West Hollywood knitters, and also see if they knit in some crazy westsiiiide knitting that us Valley peeps don't have, yo yo (insert a mental image of me throwing gang signs here). But, and I know you'd never suspect this from the voodoo and the chicken hats and the boo-hoo-hooing I do on this website, but I'm kind of awkward in social situations. (Nooooo! You think?) And I get nervous meeting people. Also, maybe a little sweaty. And then the talking starts. And boy, CAN I TALK.

Instead of embarrassing myself in such a way, with all the TALKING, I came up with a plan. My plan was rather BRILLIANT, or so I thought, and my brilliant plan was full of RECON and SPYING and also, in case I made an ass of myself, promised ANONYMITY. I had planned to just show up at random (Oh! Look, people are knitting here! That's so coincidental! I knit, too! And I have my entire knitting bag right here, isn't that a coinkydink?) and hang out at the WeHo Stitch n' Bitch and say my name was ... um, I don't know... Raurie. Maybe.

(I'm still w