BaddMinton

It was raining a little today, which I like. I love rain, and this time of year (my birthday week, to be exact) is always the most beautiful in LA, in my opinion, because the rain comes, washes away the smog, and leaves LA looking fresh and bright and green.  The down side, however, is the traffic. When it rains, people here think the sky is falling.  They think the roads will melt and swallow them up.  They creep along like snails.  OR, they ignore the rain, ride the butts of the cars in front of them, and speed like cheetas out of hell.  (I figure cheetas out of hell are faster than bats, since they’re the fastest animals, and nobody: bats, cheetas, you name it, wants to be in hell, so a cheetah, like a bat or any person or animal, would scurry out of there pretty fast, given the chance.  And when you combine that desire to get out with the ability to run faster than any other animal, you’ve got one fast motherfucking beast).  My point being that every time it rains here it takes 30 extra minutes to get to work because people are driving like idiots and getting in accidents on every corner.  This makes me cranky.  Thus, my cranky face in the photo above.  I actually took that a couple weeks ago when it wasn’t even raining but had been raining, making the roads a little damp and therefore leading to mass panic, and then the resulting accidents and traffic jams. 

Today it was fine because it only rained a little in the afternoon, just enough to wash the smog away, and I’m not cranky.  Here’s a photo I just took with my new crappy camera phone, which is slightly less crappy than my old crappy camera phone, to prove that I’m not cranky today:

Oh. Well, now that I uploaded it I see that I don’t exactly look UNcranky, but I don’t look particularly crankly either, so I hope you can take my word for it that I am indeed NOT cranky.  (See what’s on my computer screen? It’s the edit page for this very blog!  oooh, spoooky).

It’s St. Patrick’s Day today, and I don’t know what I’m doing yet to celebrate.  3 years ago, when I worked as a travel agent, my boss (now my friend Theo!  Haha, trippy that you used to be my boss, Theo!)  brought us beer in the afternoon.  I lived so close to my office then that I walked home with a good buzz on and started calling my friends and telling them to come on out and start drinking! I think it was 4:30.  That was a good night.  We actually went to St. Nick’s, an Irish pub near my house that used to be fun but is now so crowed all the time, weeknights included, that the main attraction is getting bumped into and spilling your beer on yourself.  I’d rather stab my eyes out with sharp shamrocks or jump into a vat of angry, biting leprichauns than try to brave that place tonight.  2 years ago on St. Patty’s I was about to leave for Australia the next night, and last year I was getting ready for Amanda to come visit me from North Carolina.  Tonight I don’t have any plans yet, and my only requisite is that it’s near my house and I don’t have to drive.  This should hopefully be easy since my friends Matt and Corey just moved here from New York, right smack dab into my neighborhood.  Yay! And if they’re going somewhere far away, I’ll be perfectly happy to stay at home and catch up on my tivo’d episodes of Desperate Housewives.  Oooh, and my boss just told me I can go home an hour and 15 minutes early!  I think this is going to be a good night.

This was sent to me by email, but I usually see it in blogs.  It’s called getting "Meme’d," and I’ve been wondering why, so I looked it up on Wikipedia.  According to them, the term "meme" refers to any piece of information transferable from one mind to another.  OK, good enough for me!  So here goes:

Four jobs I have had in my life:

1. lifeguard
2. store clerk in Disney World
3. toy demonstrator at FAO Schwartz
4. travel agent

Four movies I would watch over and over:

1. Top Gun
2. Elf
3. Harry Potter 1, 2, and 3 (this is 3 movies, I know. I’m a cheater)
4. A Christmas Story

Four places I have lived:

1. Asheville, NC
2. Chapel Hill, NC
3. Spain, if 6 weeks plus 3.5 weeks 5 years later counts as living there

That’s http://baddminton.com.  Notice there is no www. This is for an unexplainable reason that I have to figure out and fix.  I’m trying to move my blog somewhere non-friendster, but until I can decide on which platform to use, I’m keeping it there.  In any case, you’ll always be able to find it at http://baddminton.com.

I just posted a new post, but it went below my last entry, because I started writing it before I started writing the other one.  Please scroll down to see today’s blentry. (To find out what a blentry is, click here).

I’ve run into a problem.

Jeff and I both decided to give something up for Lent this year.  I chose wheat.  I made this decision on the way to church on Sunday, not realizing that it was actually the first day of Lent.

I’ve tried abstaining from wheat before, and it worked for a couple months.  I actually steered clear, and felt great and saw a noticable difference in the poochiness of my stomach.  But then we went to Spain last fall, and frankly the food there tends to be intolerable, and oftentimes bread was the only thing I could eat, so I fell off the wagon and have yet to climb back on.

So about halfway through the service, while browsing through the bulletin and seeing the words "Lent" and "Lentin" about a thousand times, it hit me.  Like a kick in the nuts. (so to speak). It’s f-ing Girl Scout Cookie time!  And I had just bought two boxes of cookies on Friday — thin mints and peanut butter sandwiches, which are called something else now, but I keep forgetting what.  I had already put a significant dent in the thin mints, but had barely started on the PBS-wiches.  In fact, they were in the freezer getting tastier by the minute.  AW, Maaaaan.

So Jeff and I decided that Lent for us would start on Monday rather than Sunday, because we had been caught unprepared.  So we finished the box of thin mints on Sunday, and I’m leaving the PBSs to him. He’s not giving up wheat, and I figure if "JC" could go 40 days without food of any kind, I can probably find it in myself to avoid Girl Scout Cookies.

Speaking of Jesus & fasting & whatnot, we were watching a show about Satan on the history channel on Monday night (it was a rather religious-themed weekend for us) and the narrator was talking about Jesus fasting in the wilderness and being tempted by Satan and how when Satan tempted him with power, that was the most difficult to resist.  And Jeff and I were like, "WHAT? No, FOOD, you idiot, FOOD would have been the hardest to resist.  You think if you hadn’t eaten in 35 days and someone came up to you and said, ‘Yo, want some power?  Or in this hand, I’ve got a chicken leg.’ you wouldn’t pick the chicken?  Hell no, you’d be like, Power Schmower, I’m starving. Give me some chicken!"

It’s 2006.  Do you know what that means?  One year until my 10-year high school reunion. 

I’m the type of person who would be very tempted NOT to go to this likely-to-be lame affair, and at age fourteen I had the uncanny fortune-telling ability to know this about my future self, and so my friend Elise and I made a pact that no matter what, no matter where we were in life or on the globe or how lame we thought it would probably be, we would both attend this reunion.  We sealed the pact on the phone from our respective bedrooms, by taking a photo of ourselves seated on our beds, left leg out straight, right leg bent so right foot is on top of left thigh, and left hand under right foot but on top of left leg, poking out the other side, palm forward.  I still have that photo, and every time I see it — the socks and sweatpants against the background of a post-modern Micky Mouse-head twin beadspread — I cannot help but accept the reality that this pact is unbreakable, and I have no choice but to honor it! Come hell or high water, Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise… I have to attend that reunion.

SO, Folks, I have ONE YEAR to get it together!  I have to start doing exciting things and reaching goals!  I have to tone my arms and abs!  I must have something to show for the last ten years!  AND, I have to make sure people I want to see will come!  SO, if you are reading this and you graduated from A.C. Reynolds in 1997 (you know who you are!) this is my rallying cry to you!  I emplore you to join me in conquering the lameness that will surely threaten to overtake our 10-year reunion.  It can’t be that bad if enough of us go, right?

So who’s in?!  I’ll see you at the Olive Garden on Tunnel Road — or maybe we can just meet at the old "goth" table outside the lunch room or the senior bench in the common room.  Be there or be square!

Let me preface this by saying I am still buzzed off a very strong French martini I had at dinner. Now, on to business:

Tonight I went to the Cheescake Factory with Jeff, Eric and Mike. As we were paying our bill, we started talking about which presidents were on which bills. Mike, who is finishing his college degree after a stint in the army, recently took a Women’s Studies class and asked if we knew who the only woman on a piece of U.S. money was. Eric answered that it was Susan B. Anthony, and I said, “NO, Sacajewea, too!”

“Who’s Sacajewea?”

“She was an Indian woman!" said Jeff. "She helped Lewis & Clark!” said Eric. Not to be outdone, I piped in with my two cents (Abraham Lincoln is on the penny; there is no two-cent coin).

“She was a Saskwatch!” I exclaimed.

Confused silence.

“A Saskwatch??”

“Yeah! That’s what they called Indian women!”

“NO, a Squaw! They called them squaws.”

“Really? Well, what’s a Saskwatch?”

“BIGFOOT!”

Last night I had a lapse of judgement so extreme it resulted in a full-fledged early-morning outfit crisis.

I had carefully picked out the following ensemble and placed it on the chair by my bed:  A long, strapless dark pink flowy top.  On top of that I planned to wear a short, black 3/4" sleeve black shirt.  Cropped jeans that I planned to wear rolled up to just below the kneee.  Converse high-tops — 3 different shades of pink — and calf-length white socks with two dark pink stripes at the top, pulled up. 

One question maybe you can help me with:  What in Pete’s name was I thinking??????  When I put it on this morning and looked in the mirror, I actually burst out laughing.  I looked like Porky Pig, or a five year old, or a circus clown named Pinky.  All I needed was a little pink cap with a pinwheel on top.  I tried to find a picture on the Internet to show you the image that came to mind when I saw myself.  I pictured a fat, chipper little slightly retarded boy going, "Wheeeeee!"  I couldn’t find a picture, so I drew one:

Also, I am including a great shot of Porky Pig, since he and I were clearly on the same type of drug when we chose our look.  If only I had taken a photo of myself.  You would have laughed and laughed.

What ensued next was a frantic pulling-out of everything in my closet.  Another question for you: Why is it that I seem to have more clothes than Imelda Marcos has shoes, and yet nothing matches anything else?  Clearly I have a shopping handicap.  Put me in a store and I’m like a crow, just going after shiny objects with no real purpose.

So here I am, wearing the most boring thing in my closet because at that point it was all I trusted myself to put on, and I’m supposed to meet friends for drinks after work.  Damn.

As a side note, my co-worker saw me drawing that picture and said, "Oh, are you drawing something?" She came closer, and I don’t think I even need to tell you her reaction.  OK, I will.  Laughter to the point of tears, and a little fear, I think.  I mean, we’re sitting at work, answering phones, editing things, being professional, and all the while I am carefully drawing a picture of a chubby retarded boy with a pinwheel hat. 

(Title to be sung to the tune of the Golden Girls’ theme song.)

If I read my horiscope for today (Pisces — anyone got a copy of Cosmo?) it would probably say "You will wake up with a splitting headache, then will spend the day stalking all your old friends on Friendster and getting incredibly nostalgic and reminiscing about old times and wishing you could visit all the ones you haven’t seen in a long time."  Oh, and "You will also spend a fair amount of time searching for shoes on the internet."

Maybe it’s because I’ve been out of the country for the past 3 weeks and haven’t seen any friends except my boyfriend, which was great, mind you — if I’m going to be holed up with one person for that amount of time I’d definitely pick him — but nonetheless I haven’t seen any of my friends in forever, and SOME of you I haven’t seen in YEARS, and that is just unfortunate.

I’ve just been sitting here viewing all your profiles and chuckling to myself at your witty comments, and loving the hell out of y’all.  So here’s a little shoutout to all of you, because I really am so lucky to know you, and hopefully I’ll be seeing you soon.

So my sister, who lives in North Carolina, recently received in the mail a letter from her dentist.  Figuring it was some type of bill, she ignored it.  UNTIL, a friend of hers who goes to the same dentist asked if she had read it… indicating that she really should.  So she did.  And this is what it said (paraphrased very heavily).

Dear Patients,

I am becoming a woman.  I will henceforth be known not as Dr. David Suchandsuch, but as Dr. Carol Suchandsuch.

Sincerely,

Dr. Suchandsuch.

Can you believe it?  Mind you, the letter was much longer and went into much explanation as to the whys and whatnot, but the important thing is, next time my sister goes to the dentist, the dentist will no longer have a penis, but will instead have boobs.

Today I was so hungry that in the middle of some piece of work I was doing, I was forced to stop and write, "I need some Rice Krispy treats!!!" on a post-it note.  You can tell by the frantic handwriting and triple exclamation point that I meant business.  Honestly, I could not continue with what I was doing until I wrote that down, because the need was clawing at me, not allowing me to think, read, or talk about anything else.

You see, I haven’t eaten any wheat in nearly 2 weeks.  I know you’re thinking, "Rice Krispies don’t have wheat in them, and furthermore, what are you, crazy?  Not eating wheat?  And most importantly, why do I care?  Why am I reading this blog when there’s perfectly good TV on?"  Well, I can’t answer the last question, but I can say for the first two that I stopped eating wheat because 2 saturdays ago while at a pilates class, the instructor told me my stomach was probably poochy because I have a wheat intolerance.  Now, this is not the first time that I have considered that wheat and I may not be the best of friends, but never have I had such motivation as the possibility of getting rid of my poochy stomach, which has been poochy for as long as I can remember.  (I have also been eating wheat for as long as I remember.  COINCIDENCE????   Probably so.)  Anyway, so faced with this new opportunity I stopped eating it, and thereby stopped eating cookies, cake, and pretty much anything else delicious.  SO, feeling sorry for myself at the grocery store, I picked up an innocent-enough looking small paper bag of pre-made rice krispy treats (because as you pointed out earlier, rice krispies do not contain wheat), and the monster was born.  I had about 2 a day each day last week, and now that I have finished the bag, I can think of nothing else.  So I was forced, today, in order to momentarily take my mind off it (not that it did) to admit my addiction by writing it on a post-it. 

My co-worker, Julie, has been pregnant ever since (and before) I started working at my current job.  As every expectant mother should, she got all the requisite check-ups and ultrasounds, and we have all been excitedly awaiting the arrival of her new baby girl.  At the office baby shower, she received lots of cute pink things, and I personally gave her the cutest baby dress ever known to mankind.  Y’all, it was adorable.  We’re talking purple and white, hand-stitched patchwork-type accoutrements.  I want to say there was a pinafore involved, and definitely some adorable little matching bloomers underneath.  I got it at a fru-fru little baby clothes store that only sells items so cute that nobody inside is speaking in a normal voice or using adult words.  Once you walk in that store, your vocal register immediately rises a full octave, and the only sounds coming out of your mouth are sounds such as "AWWWWW!  OH my gosh, LOOOOOOK!  AWWWWW, look at that widdle dwess!  It’s so tiiiiiny!!!!" 

Anyway, so here it comes, people.  The moment you’ve all been waiting for:  Julie had a boy.  I’m not kidding you, she had a boy. 

Last month somebody hit my parked car, doing just enough damage to make the front corner on the driver’s side look ugly.  A week later, somebody ELSE hit my car on the SAME block, making the back door on the driver’s side look ugly, fugly, puddin’ & pie.  Luckily for me, both people-who-need-to-pay-more-attention-when-they-are-parking-in-a-tight-space-or-turning-around left notes.  So, after obtaining FOUR estimates for damage and driving around with a butt-ugly looking car for a month, it looks like I might finally be about to collect.  Of course, the one girl’s insurance company seems to think $457 will cover the damage (that’s about how much it costs for the insurance co.’s  rink-a-dink auto body guy to grab a hammer, a scrap of sandpaper, and some old white-ish Tempra paint from the back closet and go to town for 15 minutes until SHAZAM — "good as new")! when the estimate I got from MY trusted guy was a good $300 more.  Sigh.  I guess I should be thankful that they both left notes, and I am, but you know what?  They wouldn’t HAVE to leave a note if they would LOOK IN THEIR REARVIEW MIRROR ONCE IN A WHILE. Why, why, WHY can’t L.A. have decent public transportation? 

If New York didn’t get so freakin’ cold in the winter I’d be there in a second.  At least I wouldn’t have to worry about all this car mess.  No sitting in stand-still traffic, no people banging willy-nilly into my car all the time — Yes, if only NYC were a little more temperate — Oh, and if I could still go hiking whenever I wanted, and if I were 20 minutes from the beach.  And if I could walk to the best farmer’s market ever, and if I could still drive down to Laguna Beach in an hour, a place that is so breathtakingly, heart-stoppingly, lump-rising-in-the-throat-because you can’t believe a place can be so beautiful, a place that gives new meaning to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song "Road Trippin," specifically the line that goes, "Blue, you sit so pretty west of the One, Sparkles light with yellow icing, just a mirror for the sun… just a mirror for the sun… just a mirror for the suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun…"  Anyway, so as I was saying, I would totally move away from LA in a heartbeat, as long as I could still sit in my living room in the late afteroon while the sun bathes the room in golden light and window-shaped patterns, looking out over tile roofs, then palm trees, then mountains, and when the sun goes down, over the lights of West Hollywood. 

Aaaaaaaaaugh!  Damn you, LA, you have seduced me with your wiles.  You have caused me to spew forth cheesiness like an episode of "Full House."  I love you, dammit!  So what if I have to drive a virtual bumper car in 5 mile-per-hour traffic?  So WHAT if people regard my vehicle as their personal target for car-hitting-practice?  I will drive my mangled wreckage up to Mulholland and get out and spin around with my arms open wide, and sing loud and clear, all the way to the Pacific Ocean, while the Cheesy "This episode of Full House is about to End" music plays settlingly in the background. (or possibly just in my head).

I am very important.  I have a very important job.  Some may say I am a "V.I.P." and that my job is "high-profile."   I’ll give you an example.  Just moments ago I edited and sent out the following press release:

Bigfoot — Imminent Capture Anticipated

Highlights include:

BURLINGAME, CA — 06/29/2005 — "The elusive creature known as Bigfoot may not be elusive for very much longer," according to C. Thomas Biscardi, a Bigfoot explorer and founder of the Great American Bigfoot Research Organization.

In the next few days, Biscardi will begin an investigation into a cavernous area near Happy Camp, California, in which he expects to find evidence of Bigfoot inhabitation and hopefully be able to contain and capture a live creature.

"This is a high stakes, high risk, scientific and commercial expedition," according to Biscardi. A recent two-and-a-half minute videotape of a Bigfoot sighting in Manitoba, Canada, was recently sold for an undisclosed sum to the television program "A Current Affair." The undisclosed sum, according to Biscardi’s sources, "is purported to be in the high six figures."

Information about previous Bigfoot sightings by Biscardi is available on the web site of the Great American Bigfoot Research Organization at www.greatamericanbigfoot.com. 

SOURCE:  Great American Bigfoot Research Organization

While exclaiming about the extreme newsworthiness of the release, my colleague informed me that she had edited the following release this morning:

Loch Ness Monster’s Tooth Found??

It’s all in a day’s work.

What is the deal with those moral lectures they now give us at the movies?  Do you know what I’m talking about?  Is it only in L.A.?  Every time I *pay* (lots and lots of money) to go see a movie, there is a commercial telling me not to buy pirated movies or download movies illegally from the internet.  It used to be that boring stunt guy.  They had that one in every movie for at least 2 years.  Now it’s the "You wouldn’t steal a handbag… " wannabe artsy / "Traffic"-esque, shaky-filmography one that’s supposed to scare me into not buying pirated movies.  My favorite part is when it says "STEALING IS AGAINST THE LAW" or something to that effect.  Like I’m going to be like, "Oh, it is?  OH, well, I was planning to stop by my friendly pirated-movie vendor on the way home, but now I won’t because this informative commercial has educated me on the fact that stealing is against the law."  Really people.  It reminds me of the time in first grade when Cheyenne Ruddle’s cousin Amanda Garringer stole my friend Sandra Ramsey’s sparkly red pencil, and stuck it down her UNDERWEAR!  — It was the kind of pencil with all the little leads that you take out the front and stick in the back when they get dull, pushing a fresh, sharp lead to the front — and I was like, "Sandra, you should call the police.  Stealing is against the law!"  And she was like, "Yeah, we could say Cheyenne Ruddle’s cousin (because at the time we couldn’t remember that her name was Amanda Garringer, b/c she was new) stole my pencil, and put it in her UNDERWEAR."  "Yeah!" I said.  We were all set to call the cops that afternoon, and they would totally have busted Cheyenne Ruddle’s cousin, because STEALING IS AGAINST THE LAW, but I think Miss Cole took care of the problem before we made it that far.  Anyway, come on.  Don’t you think you’re preaching to the chior just a little bit?  I mean, we all paid $11.75 to get into the blasted movie and have already been subjected to 1/2 hr. of commercials and are about to sit through 1/2 hr. of previews.  Spare us.  Please.  Please please please please please.