Your hair is the color of the sun, your skin is like fresh milk

Stop! Sit.

I got up really late for work today, and after my first three calls, I think my urge to call in sick was less lazy than protective, but I got up late and didn’t have time to wash my hair. Instead, I just brushed it thoroughly, root to tip, to get all of the oil more equally distributed. Staring in the mirror, I was inspired to write this little verse.

Dirty, dirty hair
That’s looking very greasy
On a girl who doesn’t care
If she’s pretty or she’s pleasing.

I hope all of my lapses in hygiene are this valuable. (side note- I was convinced that fortuitous was the word I wanted to use instead of valuable. I was wrong.)

Remember when we said please don't go girl...

Cause you'll blow my cover.

Given my incredible track record as a fag hag, I shouldn’t be surprised that Lance Bass is almost certainly gay. Lance was my guy in *NSYNC. Any girl who has followed a boy band knows exactly what I am talking about. When you and your friends like a boy band, each girl has to pick a boy to be in love with and there can be no overlap, which is why it is good to pick out your boy early, or you get stuck with “the shy one.”

*NSYNC

My sister = Mrs. Justin Timberlake
Justina= Mrs. JC Chasez
Cassiopeia= Mrs. Joey Fatone
Me= Mrs. Lance Bass (after my brief stint with Chris Kirkpatrick ended)

NKOTB
Akilah= Mrs. Jordan Knight
My sister= Mrs. Danny Wood
Tracey= Mrs. Donnie Walberg
Me= Mrs. Joey McIntyre

Once each girl in your group had picked a boy, the group (I ran in packs of four) was now free to challenge other gangs of girls to see which gang was more devoted. Typically, the more useless branded merchandise you had, the better you “loved” the band. My sister (hereafter known as Villi) and I had particularly cruel parents who would only buy us one oversized NKOTB pin a piece. However, *NSYNC came out right about the time that I became a working girl (office job, not a pro) and I was able to spend almost all of my disposable income on *NSYNC memorabilia. This included: the puppets, stickers, posters, magazines and scalped tickets to a concert at a price that translates to roughly three car payments. Why just last week I came across some *NSYNC valentines and a musical Christmas ornament that plays “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays.”

Let’s do be honest, if a group is putting out a musical Christmas ornament, the group probably has at least one gay member. And for *NSYNC, it looks like it is Lance. I should have known when he had that fake relationship with Danielle Fishel. It was too staged and convenient, like ABC Studios presents Danielle and Lance. It’s a lot like Jon Knight’s reported relationship with Tiffany. They find a wholesome, sweet girl for “the shy one” to date. Then, after a few months, when the couple hasn’t been photographed making out, or even holding hands, they will just point to the girl’s supposed chastity and say, “please, not so loudly in front of Danielle. She doesn’t know about i-n-t-e-r-c-o-u-r-s-e.” A few months later they break up, citing busy schedules, and “the shy one” pretends he is too heartbroken to date another girl. Until, of course, he peaks out of the closet and starts being photographed shopping and having breakfast with the freaking GRAND MARSHALL of the San Francisco Pride parade.

Maybe Lance wants to go dancing with me at Trax2000?

Ken Griffrey Junior Mints

Technically, the title of this rant is stolen. It was one of many possible names for my sister’s fantasy league baseball team. I stole it because I know things about her that will keep her from charging me with internet plagiarism and because I was eating Junior Mints when I decided to write this entry.

The library is complete. I got very lazy at the end and decided to create a Biography section, rather than catalogue 7 more books. I’m a little ashamed, now that I read that, and I may go back later and fix this. However, I found out that I missed two assignments in the last 3 days, simply because I didn’t do them. I’m worried that I will flunk out this semester and be forever known as the Community College Dropout Girl. I’m going to crank out some assignments as soon as I walk home tonight. It is 2 miles and I am very out of shape, so that will probably take some time.

Sadly, the stolen title is the most interesting part of this entry. I’m pretty much a terrible and boring human being.

Sweet maiden of the spit, grant now my boon

Well, like any single, 27 year old girl out for a good time on her weekend, I went to the Renaissance Festival (or renfen to those in the know) and entered, catalogued and dewey decimaled my library. Do I know how to party or what? Actually, I did start the weekend off like a proper party girl/ alcoholic by drinking 1.5 bottles of wine Friday night, but I had to beg off the shots that started at 3 AM because of the stupid renaissance festival.

Like 2 months ago, I agreed, in a fit of madness, to go to the renaissance festival with my mom for her company picnic. Like 7 weeks ago, I forgot that I agreed to go to the renaissance festival and didn’t remember until I was reminded last week. It was all I could do on the phone to not yell “crap” into the receiver, thus tipping off my mother that I had in fact forgotten my promise. She would be over at 11 AM; because of this, I stopped drinking at 3 AM. It is a 35 minute drive from South Denver to Larkspur, where they are celebrating their 30th anniversary as a place for families and sad, medieval recreationists to spend their weekends. After we parked, we hiked the half mile to the entrance, where I presented my ticket to the ticket taker (ye royal admission verifier?) and he said-

“My lady, have you come here to meet a man?”

Once I recovered the ability to speak, I just muttered, “no.”

“Well, I hope the man you have is loyal and true.”

“Uh, thanks.”

That, it seemed, was a strange thing to ask someone coming into the renaissance festival and even if I am looking for a man in general, I certainly wouldn’t be looking for the love of my life from a pool of single dads and LARPers. That would be fucking stupid! Only later, when I was looking at the festival program and the weekly themes did I see that it was officially the “love and romance” weekend.

“Join our romantic rogues and fair maidens, as we create a special atmosphere for the Festival’s 30th Anniversay Journey…Singles Day: Meet the love of your life. Leave your message on the Singles Message Board. Singles party 5:00 PM at the Pirates Pub.”

Luckily, a mere 2 hours later, my mom was ready to leave. I was then able to trick her into buying us a copper fire bowl for a housewarming gift. The rest of the weekend, aside from an interesting trip to Benihana, was spent working on the ol’ library and that is too tedious and nerdy to write about.

I make the crap into credible

I make the dull into…delicious!

My favorite subordinate at work has been keeping and updating a list of quotes from me and sending it out to the other employees. They are called, umm, nacho-isms. I thought I would get them out on the website before they get emailed around the world, turning me into an overnight, international wit. VH1 – here I come!

1. Today, we mastered fire.
2. I secrete non-organic substances from my scalp.
3. When they wear an eye patch and have a parrot on their shoulder, they almost always turn out to be pirates.
4. Helping people restore databases is noble work, on par with the Peace Corps and kindergarten teachers.
5. Recommence domestic spying program (on the day I brought my binoculars back to work)
6. I’d like to be a vice president so I could just make ridiculous mandates like no U’s on the keyboard or coffee must be stirred by a fork.
7. Yeah, what sacred vessel did you run over this weekend? (In response to said subordinate’s back luck over the weekend)
8. Today we will be conducting a geological survey on and near the cranial lobe. There are pits and valleys, so watch your step. We will meet back at the ear for lunch. (I have no idea why I said or emailed this. I’m pretty sure I am just fucking crazy)
9. Does it necessarily follow that people who loot and plunder are always environmentally unfriendly? I mean pirates harnessed wind power and rarely bathed. They were all about conservation…and looting and plundering. (In response to the Captain Planet theme song)
10. Truth be told, I would prefer to have a ceiling mounted periscope and a captains chair. (?)
11. I’m going to steal a bow from a Girl Scout camp, or write an impassioned letter to Geena Davis, begging her to bring her amazing self to my funeral and shoot flaming arrows. She almost made the Olympic team in archery, you know. (In response to how I want my funeral to happen. There is a pyre involved)
12. Remain optimistic until fate has ripped every shred of hope from your life.
13. It’s not only a cool dance move; it's also a medical procedure.
14. Celebrities are like zoo animals; they have to have handlers travel with them.
15. If all of your powers came from your eyebrows, that would make an esthetician the Grand High Wizard. A good arch would give you good powers and a bad arch would make you evil.

On an unrelated note, my sister got a new job (same evil empire, but new department). Congrats!

They say Confucious does his crossword with a pen...

...and so does Jon Stewert. He is left-handed and proposed to his girlfriend through a crossword puzzle.


Double swoon.

I hope they shrivel up and fall off...

"You hope what shrivels up and falls off?"

"Her breasts, Miss Dietz."

So, last night I tool apart my sister's 3rd generation Ipod to steal the harddrive for my 4th generation Ipod. She already has another 4th generation video Ipod, so don't cry for her just yet. She told me I could have her old ipod, when mine stopped working a month ago. However, I think she gave it to me to use "as is" not to strip it for parts, like I did. The situation is kind of like Pretty in Pink, when Andie asks Iona if she can have her dress. I bet Iona is thinking sure- wear it, fuck Blaine in it, dry clean it, and bring it back. Instead, she takes the dress, completely dismantles it and turns it into something else. Me and Andie are two peas in a pod. Pods that take people's shit and fuck it up.

What's even worse about this analogy is that my mom cut my sister prom dress up to make a ball skirt out of it and my sister was pissed. So, now my sister has a non-working 3rd gen ipod and a ball skirt and she didn't ask for either.

So, I know this is old news about poor old Dustin Diamond, but I have to wonder, even with a bankruptcy, why he couldn't get a home loan in Wisconsin. You would think, in a small town in Wisconsin, that a C-List celebrity like Dustin Diamond could basically be emperor. Maybe I treat Dustin with a little more reverence, since I grew up on Saved by the Bell, but I figure there had to be at least one semi-retarded loan officer in the state that would ignore all of the banks rules about credit scores and interest rates just so she could say she processed Screech's home loan. If it had been me, I probably would have been classless enough to ask for Zack's home phone number. And I would call him Zack, too, not Mark Paul Gosselar. That is just how I roll.

It's better than a kick in the face with a golf shoe...

Today, on my way to the lunch counter, in the basement of our building, to get my favorite breakfast of a toasted bagel and cream cheese and chocolate milk, a woman behind me on the stairs complemented me on my tattoo. Because she was behind me and above me, I instinctively reached for my neck, where one of my tattoos is, as she said, simultaneously, “it’s a shamrock, right?” Ah, she had meant the one on my ankle. But she saw my neck and asked about that one as well.

“Oh that? That’s a triskele, it’s a Celtic Symbol.”

“Nice,” she said, “I like that one even more.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I don’t see the big deal about tattoos. My family didn’t like when I got my tattoo 22 years ago,” she said.

“Well,” I countered, “it meant a lot more for a woman to get a tattoo in 1984 than it did 5 years ago. I mean, my mom paid for my first tattoo.”

“Really? I can’t imagine any mother buying a tattoo for her child. Well, have a great day.” She really couldn’t imagine why a woman would buy tattoos for her children- to irritate her husband of course!

My father, being raised in a very paternalistic family, harbored the delusion that he had the same control over his household. He was mistaken. He actually live in a house with three exceptionally smart, fiercely independent women and push as he may, we didn’t conform. One of the areas he tried to be rigid about was body art. He fought my mom when she let me get my second pair of earrings when I was ten. He fought about Tami’s piercings and any conversation we had about this, ended with him booming, “YOU WILL NEVER GET TATTOOS!”To which we replied, “but of course we will.” We were very insolent as teenagers, but that’s like saying we were very pale as albinos.

This argument happened at least once a month for three years and finally, I was 20 and my sister was 18 and we were both of the legal age to get tattoos, and yet we continued to merely threaten my father with them. These arguments almost always became all encompassing with my father eventually blaming my mother for everything. My mother grew sick of the arrangement and the cyclical argument. So, one Christmas, she totally called our bluff and got us gift certificates to her friends’, Gwen and Tara’s, shop in Boulder. Now, we had to put up or shut up. We now had the means to get the tattoos and my mother knew if we didn’t get them, we wouldn’t argue with my father and if we did get them, my father would stop caring a few weeks later.

My mother was very clever that way.And that is the story of my first tattoo.

Thread Tension Headache

Today, at work, while counting the numerous mental lapses I have had recently, I joked that I must be having a series of mini-strokes that are slowly eroding away my mind. I'm starting to think it isn't a joke (not that strokes are, but you get where I am going).
Every time I move, I decide that I have to get new bedding. I think it is because every time I move, I have to see my ragged, pathetic, abused pillowtop mattress. It looks so sad and dilapidated and I immediately want to give it an extreme makeover. For the second time in five bedroom sets, I decided to make my own. I had been racking my brains about what to make, knowing that the colors were going to be blue and brown, but I couldn't think of anything. I was sitting on my bed, glazing over, when the design came to me. My strokes seem to be affording me some degree of savantness.
I went shopping for the raw materials over the last three weekends and after days of forgetting bobbins, scissors, thread and the like, I finally had amassed what I needed to get started...or so I thought. I started pulling out the king sized sheets destined to be my bedspread and realized that I was trying to sew a fitted to a flat. I'd like to say this was my intention and that it is some kickass new design, but really it's just that I saw the word fitted at Target and read it as flat. I'm losing my fucking mind; one linen at a time.
A side note on the colors of my bedroom- chocolate and light blue are the brad and angelina of deco colors right now, but I just want to note that I was rocking this combo years ago. My old webpage was brown, blue, and canary and I pulled it off like only I can. I have this prescient skill of making things right before they blow up. Bib necklaces? Rocking them a year before titanic. Socks for ipods? Made my own ages ago, bitches! Every slightly quirky thing I do seems to become hot sooner or later, which is hilarious because I am so fat and invisible!

Ever vigilant

I work on the top floor (twelfth) of a building that overlooks a massive highway system. I also see the mountains and stuff, but mostly I just see I-25. I keep a pair of binoculars at work to spy on the traffic. Normally, it is just checking speed traps and the people pulled over, but sometimes there are accidents and those are my favorite things to spy on. It is voyeurism at its worst because I’m there for the misery, not the thrill. Yesterday, my boss pointed out an accident just below us on the highway, so I grabbed my binoculars and wheeled over to the window. I panned down, not bothering to look with my naked eye first and saw a huge pool of blood and gray matter on the street below. I pulled my binoculars away and realized there was a dead motorcyclist on the road. His bike wasn’t too wrecked and his body wasn’t swollen and purple with bruises, but his head was opened and empty on the street. I haven’t been able to find anything on the news and I can’t confirm he is dead, but there were several clues that helped me piece it together. The forensic unit was already on the scene snapping pictures and spray painting lines around the carnage. When they loaded the man onto the stretcher and into the ambulance, the ambulance didn’t pull away for another 5 minutes, and when it did, it didn’t leave sirens blazing. I realized they didn’t put him in the ambulance to facilitate care, but rather to get a dead body off the highway.
The whole rest of the day, I was hyper aware, sensing collisions and accidents on every street I drove on. On the way to my parents’ house, I watched a Miata dart in and out of traffic. At one point, he pulled out partially to change lanes and almost got hit by a Ford Focus. The accident probably wasn’t as close as I thought, but given the time and circumstance, it felt really close. If there was ever was an automobile equivalent of a motorcycle, it is definitely the Miata. Neither would offer much comfort or support in an accident and both are small, quick and hard to spot in traffic.
I drive my car like an extension of myself. I think all drivers do, once they are comfortable with their car. But we forget too often and metal and bone are not the same.

I am an amateur nacho

It was the first night in our new house and we had been moving for 6 hours. We were hot and tired and in need of refreshment. At 4 in morning, where else can you go, but 7-11? I was just going to get a Slurpee and I was still trying to get around the switch from Coke Slurpee syrup to Pepsi Slurpee Syrup, when they both taste the same. After the 10 minute process of filling my Slurpee cup, banging the air out, and filling it again, in pursuit of the perfect 90% syrup slurpee, I realized that I needed something salty to counter-balance the 360 grams of sugar I was about to consume. I decided on the nachos. So, I grabbed a large nacho, opened the individually wrapped bag of chips, dumped them back into the tray and proceeded to pour cheese over the top. I finished them off with some pico de gallo and replaced the plastic lid. I paid for my nachos and my Slurpee and drove home.

Only when I opened the nachos up at home and realized that about 70% of the chips had no cheese at all, did I realized that I was no pro at creating 7-11 nachos. I turned to my sister to say so, but reversed the two crucial words, declaring instead-

"I am an amateur nacho."