Why I am not here.

I seriously suck at this. Like the giant spider that sucks your brain out of your head when you are in the throes of torment by your older sister.

I think I can write. I love to read and I know when I am reading well written work. I also know when I am reading crap and I wonder, how do these people earn a Robin Leach Style Fantastic Living at this? Why not me??? I don't even have to time to write crap. (Please see exhibit A below)

Right now, instead of being here, I should be working on the following tasks:

1) My real job. The job that is not something that inspires me or excites me or challenges me in any way, but it is much needed income right now.

2) My volunteer job. This job I took on to stay in my "real" profession, which is non profit consulting. It was a simple job and it seemed like it would not take up too much time. And it hasn't actually, but there is a danger that the project will fail if I do not step up and produce something soon.

3) My new job. I have a chance to jump in and start my own consulting business. This is amazing and what I want and what I plan to do full time in about 6 months. I had planned to leave my current job and then take up the new consulting gig almost immediately after that, counting on savings and the money fairy to get us through any lag time in income. Now, I have the chance to overlap and start consulting early, so that there will be no lag time. On paper, this is great. In real life, my head has just exploded. Here is why: or List of Reasons Why I am DOOMED!

A) My new life that is starting in 6 months requires me to move to another Country on another Continent.

B) We need to sell our house before we can do that

C) We need to file a million pieces of paper before we can do that

D) Above mentioned pieces of paper cost eleventy billion dollars to file

E) The other country is 5 hours ahead of where I am now, resulting in 5am conference calls every week!

I know that I have no real problems compared to others, but if I can't complain here, on my own space, why did I create it?

Done whining. Back to work.

Lather, Rinse aaaannnddd Repeat

I failed again.

already.

NaBlowmeFuckingPo.

Mo, Ho.*

I just can't do this writing every day thing. Honestly, I am lucky if I can get 15 minutes alone to myself to read my favorite blogs in the first place. Then I think Why bother? I will never be anywhere half as good as these guys, and no one will read me and if they, do they will JUDGE me and LAUGH at me and I somehow know they are JUDGING and LAUGHING and all that self flagellation really hurts man.

5 minute time out. check.

Heath Bar. check.

OK. better now. Just still not very good or very funny.

sigh.


* I may have stolen this idea from Mrs. Chicken, but man I feel it.

NaMoFailBloPo

So I already failed. The first of November was a Sunday and I was completely not prepared.

I am going to start now. and hope I can do it!

Gah.

This is probably going to be a month of crappy posts but I am going to give it a shot!

S

Tubular Bells!

So, Tube Tops are the worst idea and yet always seem to be a local fashion do! All year round! At least in these parts of Podunk, South Carolina.

Someone recently sent me a link to the amazing train wreck that is www.peopleofwalmart.com and I have been transfixed. My eyes! My eyes! Someone get me a fork so I may gouge them out before I see one more back bo*b being strangled by a shredded tied up tshirt, with that lovely Rollings Stones tongue on the front. Never in a million years would I ever leave the house again if I sported any of the looks that are apparently Walmart Appropriate Attire.

Now, however, I must make my Tube Top Confession. Let us pray.

I recently bought what I thought was a long Maxi skirt (notatwalmart - it was Tarjet), that in actuality was a Maxi dress. A Tube Tob Maxi dress and the only way I could wear it arond the house without tripping all over myself was to hoik it up over my bo*bs and wear it as a tube top! And no pictures will ever be forthcoming thankyouverymuch. And also obviously I would never leave the house in it or wear it in front of anyone other than my two dogs, George and Molly, who I really think are way to judgemental about my fashion choices as it is. Stop staring. And Drooling. And shedding on the bed while you are at it. Gah.

Just because I live in the middle of nowhere, South Carolina does not mean I am doomed to become a tube top wearing, walmart shopping person with an ankle monitor as a fashion statement!

C'était bon

So I was a ballet dancer my entire young life. Started at 5 (I was preshus, let me assure you) and kept going until 21 or 22, when my knees gave out and real life kicked in and I had to like, earn a living.

Ballet is based in French and very often, taught in French, so obviously, I took French in High School and College, because I had a head start, right? Oui.

My teacher in High School was Mrs. Matthews. She was fun and great and we conjugated every er verb and ir verg and re verb under the damn soleil. When I went to college, thanks to Mrs. Matthews, I skipped French 101 and 102 and went straight to Second Year French with Monsieur Ponsard, who was actually French, OMG. Monsier Ponsard would have been suave and sexy, but he was actually a little weird and creepy and I do not remember a thing from that class besides saying anything harder than "Quel est votre nom?" and "Je suis à la bibliothèque." was just too much for my usually très hungover and overwhelmed with life and college and boys brain.

Still, I did fine and moved on with my life and even went to France with a boyfriend years later and did not completely embarress myself (with my language skills - the destination wedding and bouquet toss - totally another story.) I ordered food in fancy French restaurants and read street signs and was not one of those horrible American tourists who do not say hello and thank you to shopkeepers.

I did get a terrible stomachache after eating way too much brie and bread one afternoon, but I was in Provence and I was going to live the dream! So I sat in the sun and read poetry and ate cheese and bread and drank wine while my boyfriend whined about Real Food and Stinky Cheese and totally ruined the experience, which is why I dumped him and married someone else. Ha!

Anyway, back home to New York I flew, where late one summer evening, I walked into a deli for a sandwich before heading back to the office to lick more envelopes and stamps because the life of a party planner is ultra glamorous, non? The place was quiet and there was a little old lady standing at the counter, trying to make the greasy deli dude (We'll call him Eddie) understand her. Eddie just stood there, arms folded across his ample stomach, shaking his head. "Lady, I can't understand you." This is America, for cryin' out loud." Now, this dude was an American, born and raised on the South Side of Somewhere and he was being a complete Yankee jerk.

I walked forward to better eavesdrop, I mean help her out, and finally heard her tiny feeble French voice. "Jambon!" she whispered, cowed by his brutish lowered brow as she pointed at the Boars Head Section. "Show her the ham." I told Eddie. He looked at me and scowled like I was making him look stupid. No help from me needed there. heh. "Pick up. The ham. And show it to her." I said in my party planner bossy voice I use when waiters at the Waldorf start slowing down after the entree course is on the table and the patrons actually request stupid things like wine and water and stuff. Stupid Union Waldorf Waiters.

Eddie sighed and leaned down into the display case and picked up the ham and lifted it gently out of the case like it was his first born son, swaddled in slimy brown sugar and preservatives. A smile lit up her tiny wrinkled face and I was so proud. A few more sentences fairly flew between us (Not Eddie mind you, he was sulking the whole time and I know he put his thumb in my tuna salad) involving bread choices and cheese and my Little Old French Lady Friend and I walked out with our sandwiches into the warm summer night. I have no idea what she was jabbering on about at the end, but I knew I had done a good thing.

C'était bon.

Post Ideas

I am going to type here, all of the ideas I have had recently, about funny true stories to put here as posts.

My life has been and continues to be.... Hilarous. You didn't know? Why not? Hilarious I tell you. Just you wait interwebz!!!!!

In no order other than my chaotic brain:

1. Helping that old french lady order a ham sandwich in NYC (Thank you Monsiuer Ponsard!)
2. Tube tops ( I forget why but who can't write something funny about Tube Tops in South Carolina?)
3. The first time I sat next to Nurse Lillian from Guiding Light at a Fancy Ladies Luncheon
4. The spider the size of a bleeping bull frog I just found in my bushes in the front yard
5. The fact we are moving across the Atlantic and have to do eleventy billion things first
6. The time my boss fell face first right behind Henry Kissinger at the Waldorf Astoria with two other World Leaders watching
7. The time I carelessly tossed a glass award off the stage at Sinbad's feet, handing him a hilarous opening for his routine, which he used as a thematic devise FOR TWO HOURS!
8. The time I asked Richard Holbrooke for his ID at a Black Tie affair (He was not amused)
9. The time I lost Al Roker between Dinner and Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center (He was not amused)
10. The time I almost forgot to go get Debra Norville. (She was fine!)
11. The time I broke a rule at Rudy's Bar & Grill
12. The Rudy's Rules
13. The time the same boss from #6 freaked out Al Gore and showed Clinton (Bill) her boobs
14. The time I did NOT get a neck hug from OJ Simpson

I think that is enough for now.

Just you wait!

A New Post - And it is not Friday!

I just want to say....................................

I mean, I have been thinking about.............................................

Um. I love you guys??????????

No, really. Really.

I love sitting quietly in a lovely sunny room, laptop in the aforementioned lap, earl grey tea steaming beside me, ginger oaty biscuits on a plate, tippity tappity clicking pearls of wisdom for this lovely bloggy thing.

What the truth is. I am sitting in a grotty office in a warehouse, at a crappy old metal desk hunched over to see my laptop and have not eaten since yesterday. I wish it was sunshine and roses around here, but it is most assuredly not.

Every day I tell myself I am going to get it together and get organized and buy some oaty ginger biscuit and decaf earl gray, but I am lucky my underwear is clean. I never, ever wear matching bras and panties much less a skirt or nice blouse any more. What happened?

I have a lunch meeting on Thursday and I might just break out the power outfits from my NYC corporate consultant days! and wear makeup and straighten my hair. Who am I kidding? No one would recognize me.

Well, I am off to buy some cookies and find my dry cleaning receipt. We shall see if I succeed.

Freaky Friday - and Big News!

How did it get to be Friday again? When the week was so GD Looonnng? I am working with a weirdo that I have decided is a classic undiagnosed Aspergers. He is 50 and should have figured this out himself. Enough said. More later because of course that is NOT enough said but I need to work up to that post.

This post is about our Big News!

We have made the decision and are making the move! Back to England and back to the English side of the family. Hopefully jobs will fall into our laps and a buyer for our house will insist on paying us much more than we paid for it just two short years ago. And a sparklecorn will visit me and bring rainbows and sunshine and vodka martinis to my bedside as I watch TIVOd Young and The Restless episodes! That Victor, he is a scamp!

More alcohol, honey, please.

Labor Day Lazy

I hope everyone had a wonderful long holiday weekend here in the States. I sat on my rear so much today I think I have created a permanet but shaped indentation in my already saggy stinky dog bed and by dog bed I mean couch.

Back to work on Tuesday and the only thing good about this week is it is shorter than last week.

Yay!

S

I need to post more. I need to post more. I need to post more. I need to.. Wait, I've got it! Val Kilmer, Nipples & Pervy Grandmas!

So I always have these great ideas for blog posts. When I'm brushing my teeth or driving or anywhere far, far away from a pencil, paper, or laptop. Like the blog post about that hilarious time I... Wait, no. Nothing.... I suck at this.

I need the little recorder that Michael Keaton had in Night Shift. Something about tuna and mayo already in the can ---- Hilarious. And speaking of Michael Keaton. Mr. Mom was also hilarious. When did he stop being funny? Was he the Batman with nipples on his Batsuit (because that was NOT funny) or was that Val Kilmer with the nipples? I sound like a pervy jewish grandma. That Val Kilmer with the nipples!! Oi!

And speaking of Val Kilmer, I heard the only door he has been opening lately has been the Refrigerator Door. You could always tell he had the Fat Gene. Some men just show early on that they are going look like walruses (walrusi?) when they age. Alec Baldwin - Fat Gene. George Cloony - No Fat Gene. He is sticking right where he is in the weight department (thankyouverymuchGoerge) (P.S.Georgepleasestaysingle). Brad Pitt - Tentatively placed in the Fat Gene Club. Sorry, but I think Mr. Jolie is heading for the Husky department at Gucci. It is something about their necks, although the dude from Boston Legal shocked me when he ended up as the Freaking President of the Fat Gene Club!

Oh God. I need to write the good stuff down. If you see a Hyundai Tuscon swerving all over I-77 in South Carolina - that's me trying desparately put a coherent thought down on a G*# D#@* piece of paper.

Blogher is going to the Big Apple

I have never been to Blogher. I read a lot of blogs by some amazing people that do go and they write posts all about the Sparkles and Love and Girl Power and Unicorns!!! I would love to be able to write half as well as these fly ladies. Just to be able to comment with a clever quip is usually beyond me. I truly don't know if I have what it takes to write well enough for someone else to want to read what I have to say. But practice makes perfect right? My husband says that to me at opportune moments in the Booooodwaaaar but boy am I digressing now.

What I DO know, though, is NEW YORK CITY Baby! I lived and worked and partied like it was 1999 for almost all of my twenties and most of my thirties. I was in fact in freaking Times Square for the Millenium. It does not matter that I was cold and bored and my feet hurt and we ran home and passed out right afterwards because we were exhausted from standing around in our New York Police Department Pen for 8 hours. That is a blog for another day.

In 2004 I married my English studmuffin and hopped across the pond for a while. I was a jetsetter! I wore Prada and "took" meetings in London and New York!!! I rocked the London fundraising world. For about 5 minutes. Then I went home to the deep south for a family visit and something strange happened. I am still not sure but I think my mother may have put something in my vinegar based bbq sauce or sprinkled it on the deep fried turkey but I LOST MY MIND and my husband LOST HIS MIND and joined me on our great Southern Adventure!

So under the influence of some drug or another, we moved to the middle of nowhere in South Carolina and then my husband went to work for his Father-In-Law. Basically this has not been Unicorns and Rainbows and Sunshine. Although it is mother-effing HOT here all the time. He's English, he loves the heat! I grew up here so the Heat for me - Not So Much. I miss New York Winters and London Fog.

I will say that many good things did come from our trek and we know we can survive one of the top marriage deal breakers - the overseas move. I would be the perfect tour guide for New York. Maybe next year I will take the plunge and give Blogher a shot. In the meantime, I will practice my pithy comments.

Past or Presents????

Tomorrow is my 43rd birthday. I feel alternately 14 and 400. I spent over $200 today covering the gray and letting a tiny young blond thing sell me hair products that will keep the gray covered for longer. My list of aches and pains is growing and my list of athletic abilities is diminishing, like the law of returns. Speaking of returns, I need to return the old lady jeans I bought the other day because wtf, "OLD LADY JEANS????" They looked right on the hanger at the bargain store but highwaisted is not even close. I could wade the Rio Grand and keep my belt buckle dry.

I recently missed my 25th High School reunion and I am sad when I see the photos on facebook but my cool years were LONG after 1981-1984. I was way cooler in my thirties hanging out with tv stars and politicians in New York.

I hope I will have another cool period soon. The new hairdo should help!

Worst. Idea. Ever. Of the weekend anyway.

I spent last Saturday night at a South Carolina Dirt Track watching the cars race around a clay mud track over and over and over again. And over and over and over again. That pretty much sums up the suckage that was my Saturday Night, doesn't it? Oh and the only alcohol was Natural Light beer. And the girl next to me was suffering from some weird swelling disease and had a wound on her leg. Yay! Those two things combined to create a situation in which she was continually drinking the above mentioned Natural Light and asking for a napkin to staunch the weird liquid oozing down her leg below the bandaid she had slapped on her injury that I am sure was a knife wound or tatoo gone wrong.

We had to attend because a customer had been inviting my husband and I every week and we dodged it several times over the summer but finally could not say no again. We already felt guilty for using a couple of creative white lies to excuse our lack of attendance at the previous Saturday Night Speedway Smackdowns and true to our Cosmic form our luck ran out, in a big way. Karma Kneivel showed up during the first of many "Hot Laps" and she (the bitch) decided we deserved a spankin' for all those times we bailed on her and the Fastest Dirt Track in the south.

We sat there on those concrete bleachers with the redneck mafia surrounding us for eleventy billion hours. Every race featured a wreck or a stalled car that made the crowd groan and at least one driver raise the occasional half hearted fist but honestly, it was too hot for them to do more than flip each other the bird and shout insults at each other every the the caution light came on, which was every. single. lap. I appear to only be able to write in incredibly long sentences today, for some unexplained reason.

I think that sums up the wasted hours that was the Saturday Evening Dirt Track experience. I was planning on writing 30 more paragraphs describing the tube tops, ten year old's with tattoos and blowsy blond banana clip updos just so you can all live moments with me, but I have to go lie down now.

Why I Freak Out (Or How Not to)

Sometimes when I have too much to do, I do nothing. Then I feel guilty about not doing the eleventy million things I need to do. For work, for my family, for my friends, for my non profit friends, and last of all for myself (Hi Oula from Bliss in NYC, my unwaxed body misses you so.)

I don't have any children (just two hairy dogs) and I know that mom's have way more responsiblity than I do so I should shut up and stop whining. I do have three step children, who live far away and while two are older and can take care of themselves and arrange their visits to see us, the youngest is quite young and we travel to him several times a year. Across the Atlantic, on a 5 day commando raid visit that must to him feel like a whirlwind of fun before he is dropped back into the life he leads every day that involves picking up his dirty underwear (pants where he is from) and playing nicely with other small people.

So, I freak myself out when the travel plans (and cost of them) get out of control and the house starts disappearing under the dust and dogs hair turns into tumbleweed rolling across the floor and there is no bread in the house unless you count the defrosted dinner rolls I took out of the freezer last night so my husband could have some form of toast this morning.

Ok. I feel better for whining and now I am going to make some lists, which make me freak out less. I wish I could figure out a way to make a list in my brain that stays there. Then when I think of something to add to the list, say while I am driving, it would just go the list and live there until I do it. I have heard the the iphone probably has an app for that so i must add to my to do list, research iphone. sigh.

Sunday Slow Down

We are back from a whirlwind of a trip in London, with lots of family time and some museums and wildy overpriced pasties thrown in for good measure.

Whenever we go, my husband gets to pick the meals as he gets homesick for British Food (I know) living in the states. So we had some average chinese food, an overpriced pasty and then I did manage to have the most amazing hamburger near the hotel. More amazing were the onion rings and excuse me now, I have PMS and must go chomp on something, even if it is a table leg drenched in salt.

Not a Blogger, just a Google Reader

I love so many blogs. I read them as fast as the posts pop up on Google Reader, while this place gathers dust bunnies and cobwebs. I wish I could write half as well as any of what I browse through on a daily basis. All I can do it try, right? Oh, and try and remember all the writing stuff I learned at the fancy college back in the 80s. Tangenital thought - How did we survive the 80's without a Super Target?

Speaking of Target, my husband and I are trying to not spend any money unless it is absolutely necessary, in order to completely pay off our credit cards by the end of July. Sadly, some literal cobwebs rather than the above mentioned mental ones caused my wonderful husband to climb atop a 6 foot ladder on Sunday and stretch out with the hoover just a bit too far, causing a catastrophic tumble and a slash on his hand courtesy of the garage door. So. Yeah. Blood. Everywhere. He kindly refrained from bleeding inside the house and then resolutely refused to head to the hospital that night because "I don't need stitches. It has almost stopped bleeding." OMG the blood spatter in the garage looks like Lizzie Borden was hanging out beside the riding mower and between the lawn chairs.

Off to the drugstore then, to spend $65 on first aid supplies to staunch the blood and wrap his hand up like a girl scout trying to get her first health merit badge (I was a girl scout drop out, btw so you can imagine how that turned out). Wait, what? $65? How is it that as soon as I get poised to clear off these godforsaken credit cards, I have to go to Target for one thing (ONE THING!) and I end up spending $100. I did not really NEED that wine rack but it helps corral the many bottles of pinot grigio rolling around in the cupboard so I can more organizedly choose my next beverage to toast falls and spills and bumps and bruises around here. My husband also does not need to know I was browsing the home goods section of target while he was waiting in the car with a paper towel around his partially severed finger. Ugh. Blood is not my thing, pass the pinot!

So, I convinced him to go to the hospital 24 hours later with the dire warning that he would get lockjaw if he did not get a tetanus shot. 4 hours and eleventy billion hospital germs later, he was told he had fractured his finger and chipped part of the finger bone off at the end, but it was too late for stitches and if you had listened to your wife then this would not hurt so much and here is a $1,000 bill for tape and gause and call us in the morning... and he's not listening.....

I have completely lost the thread of where I was going with this, but at least I went somewhere.

Anyway. I am planning on buying two books this month (yes I know what I said up there, shut up) because these two books are at the top of my list of summer must reads!!!! Danny Evans Rage: http://www.amazon.com/Rage-Against-Meshugenah-Takes-Balls/dp/0451227115/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247069304&sr=1-1

and Quinn Cummings Notes: http://www.amazon.com/Notes-Underwire-Adventures-Awkward-Lovely/dp/1401322867/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247069343&sr=1-1

Love, Love, Love both these blogs and I know that iced beverages of all sorts will be snorted out of my nose as soon as I pick both of these up!

Tipity Tap Tap tipity typy ... Gingerale? Ice Chip? Me?

I am sitting in my mother's hospital room, hanging out as she snoozes away, waiting for yet another test to make sure that there are no rogue gallstones that did not catch their scheduled ride with Glinda Gall Bladder when she made her exit a few weeks ago. It turns out Pandora Pancreas is the bitch in the neighborhood.

I could write a novel on my mom's fight, but it would be from a distant third person perspective. She has fought more battles with cancer and her own health my entire adult life and I was living in NYC and the UK the entire time. Now, I am living close by and we are all trying help out and keep her company as we decide how to get Pandora's nasty attitude under control.

I am learning about pain management and enzymes and potential complications like diabetese and pancreatic cancer although I think she has kicked cancer's ass so many times I doubt there is a cancer cell left within 100 miles of her.

My husband and I are talking about a move back closer to his family, which will take me far away again and I ok with that now, but I know I will miss her and my dad when it happens.

Enough for now, the moving talk gives me hives and has me stealing mom's morphine pills.

Gall Bladder as Red Herring

It turns out my mother's gall bladder was not her main problem. She is back in the hospital after her two daughters basically accused her of latching onto her pain medication and milking it like Amy Winehouse at a house party in Brixton.

Turns out she probably has pancreatitis, which is very painful and really has no easy cure, other than her ass kicking pain pills. Yay daughters of mercy!!! I feel just a tad guilty about trying to wean her off the pills and telling her to man up (not literally, but you know what I mean... "Are you sure you want another shot of morphine, mom? How about an ibuprofin tablet instead?)


So I am back down south to do the daughterly sit by the bedside thing for a while tomorrow.

Will try and post from the hospital. Every time I drive the 2 hours there, I think of what I want to write about it but it all fades away when I get in front of the laptop. Maybe Vista is really a soul sucking idea sucking thought leach???

more later

s

Fun Fridays

No excuse for the lack of posts. This is a quickie to try and get in the habit of writing something more often. All the birth stories this week are so amazing. Almost makes me wish I had kids of my own. Almost, I say, as I fret over the dogs and step kids and the neice and nephews and my wonderful husband of 5 years this week!

Love you honey!

xxxxx

The Gall!

On Tuesday last, my mother had her Gall Bladder removed. I named him Gary and in the weeks leading up to the surgery, I would call her and ask her how Gary was doing. Gary was not behaving, obviously, and finally it was decided he need to be evicted from his cosy studio adjacent to Leticia Liver in the neighborhood that is my mother's innards.

I must admit that my mom's neighborhood is really rough. I mean, I would liken it to my old neighborhood in Manhattan - Great from overhead in a plane winging its way to La Guardia, with some lovely buildings and parks. However, when you walk through it, you could leave my apartment, a high rise at 34th and 9th, travel two blocks south to my friend Libby's lovely studio on 31st between 8th & 9th and during that walk you could: pick up your dry cleaning, rent a movie(i am dating myself), get a decent slice of pizza, buy a bag of crack and secure the services of Holly Hooker (or should I say Harvey Hooker....)

Mom's 'hood is something of a wasteland, missing some of the vital amenities you really need to label it a "desirable neighborhood" and want to take up residence. There is nowhere to get a drink (bladder cancer moved Bettina Bladder out ten years ago), There are no girly girl stores (all that went with Bettina to be on the safe side and no I could not name my mothers female parts) and uptown on the upper east side, Oxygen is in short supply after a partial lobe removal of one lung. Although in my opinion, New York's Upper East side was so far away from my neighborhood in Hell's Kitchen we joked we needed oxygen tanks if we headed up there for brunch with our friends with better jobs.

Now, Gary Gallbladder has left the building and the city altogther. I have yet to tell Mom that this probably means that Paula Dean will no longer be invited over for recipe swaps and butter is not her friend.

Mom, you are awesome and I am so proud of your determination. Who needs Gary anyway?

S

Fun Fridays!

Today is Friday and I am planning on having s*x tonight! ...Hopefully my mother is not reading this.... My wonderful husband and I work so hard all week, that when we get home, we are lucky to stay awake until 10pm! I drive almost two hours to and from work at least twice a week and those days, you can forget about any action between the sheets, or anywhere else in the house for that matter.

My husband is so great and luckily (I think?) he is usually as tired as I am, which helps counteract the whole "He is a man after all" part of the equation and up for sex at any point or any place.

Anyway, this afternoon I am leaving work early and going home to take a bath, have a glass of wine and relax, and maybe have a nap, before P gets home. That way, at least one of us is in a position to you know, get in a position...

We don't even have any kids so we really have no excuse other than the common American problem of working way to many hours each week. Vive la France if it means a 30-35 hour work week!

Wish me luck!

ProcastiNation

I can't seem to get any work done. and it is because I am not doing any work.

List of Time Sucks that currently prevent me from doing anything remotely like work.

1. Google Reader. I have figured out how to check the blogs I check in Google Reader and I keep adding more and more fabulous blogs every day!! Hello Mrs. Chicken, how are the kids? I know you are ready for a move and your house is a mess and you have deadlines but somehow, I am pretty sure you are GETTING WORK DONE!!!!!! unlike me. hic. sigh.

2. Twitter. Time Suck of Epic proportions!!! My only saving grace is I have a work cell phone so no way I can turn twitter on my phone.

3. Facebook. This one is dying out a bit for me, but it will be back as my high school reunion looms ahead of me and friends keep poking me and throwing sheep at me. I swear to God I love the Rain Forest. Sting and Trudy and I are so tight on this issue but If I get sent one more prickly pear plant or spiney cactus I am going to decamp to myspace and start a blog on burning an even bigger hole in the ozone layer with my aquanet and my hummer!

4. Snood. Thank you amalah, for reminding me about Snood. I thought I had gotten it out of my system, but I have fallen off the snood wagon and can't stop shooting the fuckers all day!

5. Freecell. Not sure why, but I always play Freecell when my computer freezes up and it seems to work. This makes my husband's head explode and he gets all techy and smart telling me that there is now way turning on ANOTHER program will speed things up but I am sure it works!

I think that is it and I honestly cannot say that this blog is a Time Suck, because I can't seem to post as much as I want. so that would be a lie. Myabe I can write more and officially add it to the list!

sigh. Time to go home from a very hard day's work. shifty eyes, who me????

Undercover Sister

Do we all start out incognito? I want to say it all here, but I am afraid of who will see it. I have always hated my writing and have thrown away every journal I have ever tried to start after a few pages. Because I am a sucky sappy terrible writer that missed punctuation due to a bad chase of chicken pox...... :; ;)

I do not want to hurt anyone, but I am hurt by those same people all the time. How fucked up is that? Every day, I have to remind myself that the most important things are my little nuclear family. I think my parents care about my happiness, and of course my wonderful husband and stepkids. I just wish everyone understood me. I wish I understood me.

I also worry that I do not reach out to people who were part of my old life. I have friends in New York I have completely lost touch with. Ugh, I just wish I was better a keeping in touch. I think I will stop writing here and write a few emails!

Still sending love and prayers to Gorilabuns...

Sometimes Everything Sucks

Someone I never met has suffered a terrible loss and I have come to realize that sometimes this anonymous huge blogging world is as close and real as the hot tears I have shed for a baby I never met or smelled or held in my arms. He was as real to me as my own family, and he did not deserve this.

To keep things simple, please go to Whoorl and give if you can, to spare this family the kick in the teeth that is having to pay to bury their child.

That is all I have in me to write today.

Time is short and so are my pants!*

I am rushing around and getting people on planes and working and it is raining but here goes my short and sweet news of the day!

I love Twitter - it is Fabulous, but I have a work phone and am petrified of the girl that checks the bills and I know she will get all pissy and bossy and "you are not supposed to use your phone for texting" and all so Twitter is not so fabulous for me. sad.

I just looked at blurb and I am so doing this right away. I will be creative and artistic and will somehow morph my wedding pictures into ones like I see on the sample pages and lose 20 pounds and edit out the weird lighting and who is that strange guy in the back of the shot??? I will produce something amazing just as soon as I get all the pictures on all the computers onto my new laptop and scan 856,234,567,123 other old photos onto here and crop and blur edges and edit and write pithy captions and heartfelt prose about my life and my wonderful husband (who really is wonderful) and design creative layouts and omg I am already tiredddhhhmmmmzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

more later peeps!

*Oh my husband says my jeans are too short, but I did not buy them short so they must have shrunk, but they are not tight so maybe the fact they are cheap - we have lycra! streeeetchy jeans is the problem. sigh.

A Stitch in time

I had foot surgery about two weeks ago and other than throwing up afterwards from the anesthesia the drugs were fabuous. I am secretly hording some pills for later... ssshhhh.

It has been hard to keep my foot dry and clean with all the bandages and ace wraps, etc. I finally got the last bandage off yesterday and the stitches out, which was not nearly as gross as I thought it would be, although it was slightly gross.

So I am going to try and post more. I am still not sure how to handle crazy relatives and posting amazingly hilarious/enfuriating sagas, because if the family ever found this blog - I would need a lot more stitches than the three nurse betty just yanked out of my foot.

any by family I mean my blood relatives, not my wonderful husband who is amazing and fabulous and never makes me crazy like the rest of my family does.

Random Eye Watering!

Am so sick I literally could be murdered with a hand over my mouth and one nostril.

My eyes are runny and my hair hurts.

Back to more posts when I can sit upright.

ugh.

Yesterday was February 23rd

So yesterday. . . . . {birds twittering} um, yesterday was like, Monday.

I drove to my office that is in another town about 2 hours away and spent the day there, cheering on the guys I work with and creating fabulous documents in Print Shop and excel. ( I love me some excel spreadsheets!!!).

I talked to a friend in New York via email and it looks like this summer will be the first time several of my NYC pals will be able to meet up at the beach together at my parents house in North Carolina!!! I need to start stocking up on wine now so I don't hyperventilate at the licquor store in July when I buy what we neeeeeeeed for our liquid refreshment at beach prices!!!

So so far so good at heading backwords.

Tomorrow, we will once again move in both directions!

Today is February 24th

Something happened in February. What was it??? working,,,, check. Valentines with my wonderful P, check. I am assuming it was cold. I know that February is short, but how in the world did the whole month go by so fast!!! This blogging is only going to work if something happens and I never planned to bore the interwebs with my love and adoration of my husband and our two dogs!!!! He does deserve it though and I plan on an ode to his wonderfulness later.

I have this secret plan to start a backwards Blog. To vow to post two entries every day, one that sums up the current day, and one that goes back in time.

I want to rememeber my life. The good times anyway and if I am brave enough, the not so good times. We will have to see. If we get through 1998 without anything that is sad and scary then you will know I have chickened out! Feel free to call me on that.

So. I have done todays post yay!!!!

No onward and backward!

25 Random Things

This is from Facebook. I love facebook. I can catch up with friends and toss snowballs and share drinks and hugs and give plants and beat brains and block icky boys from high school. I actually only do the last one on this list. The other stuff is a timesuck of epic proportions and just weird me out.

I am starting to think I might be more popular now than I ever was in High School, due to the new practices of empafriending (friending people you may not remember from high school because you don't want to hurt their feelings) and quotafriending (friending friends of your friends you might remotely remember in order to have more friends on your friend list than that bitch Cathy from high school) Note - There is no Bitch named Cathy from my high school in real life. I made her up. There were Bitches with other names in High School but they shall remain nameless - For Now.....

Anyway, back to my random 25 things.

1. I may be from the South, but I am a NYC girl and always will be!
2. I love gardens, but have a black thumb.
3. I can finally bake my own bread (and rarely screw it up..... OK only sometimes screw it up)
4. I once had 6 piercings. (Although don't worry, none of them were in weird places, ew)
5. Unlike my friend Teal, I do not have a tattoo because I promised my mother I would not get one while she was in hospital.
6. I wish I could sing. Everyone that hears me sing, also wishes I could sing.
7. I still watch the Young & the Restless on SoapNet. Love that Victor Newman!
8. I am not sure that I know 25 random things about myself
9. Before moving to England, I owned at least 20 pairs of boots and countless pairs of shoes. Now that is random and I miss those Steve Madden's even if they hurt so bad I once had to go to Debenham's and buy yet ANOTHER pair of caramel colored boots just to get home!
10. I have been cleared by Secret Service to approach the President of the United States. It has been a while (Clinton) so that might not be true anymore.
11. I can't sleep on planes, but I can sleep in the car (which annoys my husband when I sleep in the car after we fly to England overnight!)
12. If I don't get coffee in the morning, I get a terrible headache. Can you say addiction???
13. I can rollerblade in NYC Traffic but once smashed a frog on the west side - sad clown. (Why was a frog on 9th Avenue?)
14. My favorite restaurant is/was El Cid in NYC. Oh how I miss the smack-taters... But not the extra body piercings that always seemed to happen after dinner here (See #4 and thankyouverymuch Jennifer G. OWWWW.)
15. I survived the water slide of death in the Bahamas at Paradise Island (and had a bruise on my ass to prove it that grossed out my doctor - and she delivers babies every day)
16. I never tan, I always burn.
17. I am afraid of sharks.
18. I hate emptying the dishwasher
19. I once met OJ Simpson (before he went all psycho glove modeling murderery on the world)
20. Like my Dad, I am an early riser.
21. Unlike my Dad, I can sleep all morning if I want to.
22. I have an entire plan for when I win the lottery, but almost never play.
23. Some of my best friends live entirely too far away from me.
24. My goal is to retire with my husband to Italy.
25. I read far too many blogs but did not want to start one because I thought/think mine would be boring. What is this? A Blog. Oh well. I am going to give it a shot.

wish me luck.