Happy New Year

I am home and thank god, I am done with the family obligations for this year. If there could be any more socially akward moments in my life, I am not sure how. New Year's Eve is here and I think that for the first time in a long time, I will make New Year's Resolutions. Actually, I have them made, I just decided to do like other people and wait 'til the 1st to implement them, it's that whole pick a date to start doing something thing...

1. Give thanks before each of my meals.
2. The whole work out thing.
3. Make it happen.

I don't know. Most importantly, I want to make it happen. I used to say that all of the time, but now I am pretty serious about it. I am tired of living my life afraid. There are calculated risks that it is time for me to take and I am ready. Be Safe and happy 06!

Semper Fi

I heard a great story last night that seemed silly enough to share. It takes a back story to tell, but I think it's worth it. (This story was created with the help of Bad Shoe Guy-let's give credit where credit is due.)

There is a story that floats around the Education circuit that I was first introduced to during my senior year of college. It is intened to be inspirational, and the short version goes something like this: A man is found standing on the beach throwing what appearsto be stones into the ocean, when another man comes up to him. He inquires as to what the man is doing, and the man replies, "In a few hours the tide will receede and all of these starfish will be left to die. I am throwing them back into the ocean so that they can live." Distressed at the man's statement, the observer says, "But there's miles and miles of starfish on this beach. What you are doing won't make a difference." The thrower looks up at him and smiles. He holds one up to the observer and says, "Tell that to this one." This story has always gotten on my nerves. It's inspiring and wonderful, until you hear it for the sixth time and you try to let it have the same meaning. Well, that and you experience your first year of teaching and you know that those blessed little high school students aren't starfish, they are more like stingrays or jellyfish. But all fish metaphors aside, I heard a story that parallels this and is just insulting enough to give me great pleasure.

Story number two, which I believe is better because it is true: A young girl is working in a restaurant when she comes upon a gluttonous couple. They order many things to eat, they are ravenous. Many appetizers and bread sticks later, the couple's food arrives. They again bolt thier food like fat girls at an eating contest. When the waiter comes back to pick up the plate, she notices that the man has eaten everything on his plate except for one bite of shrimp. She looks at him and smiles. "There's only one bite left on your plate. Don't you want it?" The man politely smiles back and says, "No thanks. I am stuffed." The young girl proceeds to pick up the plate, "Too bad you don't have room," she looks at the shrimp again, "I guess this little guy died in vain." And she walks off.

I don't know why this story feels like sweet justice, but for some reason it tastes like buttercream cupcakes in my mouth.

Bart: B-7
Homer: Ow, You sunk my scrabbleship
(Lisa walks in)
Lisa: Scrabbleship! That's not even a real game!
Homer: Tell that to the brave men who just lost their lives. Semper Fi!


I'll be gone until Saturday, see you later...

This Is My Christmas Vacation

I'm back and I am thrilled to be home. Actually, I am back for the next 48 hours before we go to the next location: the in-laws. Erg. Guess I won't be doing much checking of my blog there. Thank goodness that's only a 2-day trip. And I say that not because I hate my in-laws, it's just that we always see them after flying to L.A. and after being gone from home for six days and I don't want to travel anymore. It will be weird when we reverse this for next year and we fly after spending four days out of town. This is the update on the vacation so far:

Flight 551. The flight was overbooked. Conveniently, there was too much fog to take off, when, after 30 minutes, no one would give up their seats. After we all cram into the close quarters, there was a bomb on the plane and we had to de-board the plane so they could bring in security. Funny how after there was a bomb on the plane, there were also suspiciously many more people who were willing to give up their seats for a later flight. I think this might be the new proceedure for dealing with over-booked flights-just tell the customers there might be terrorists on the plane and less than 1/2 mile flight visibility and you have more than a few who will give up a few of thier precious hours to give the seats to someone else. But we were excited, so we got back on the plane.

The Grove. We walked from Beverly and Santa Monica Blvd. to Fairfax and 3rd. I'm still claiming that this walk was no less than 2 miles. It's at least 10 blocks. And I have no good sense of distance, but I know it took close to an hour to get there. I ate some really awesome Greek food at the Farmer's Market and we looked at the crazy tall Christmas Tree. I thought about Angry Dissenter and we even entertained the possibility of going to go see a movie there, but we were too excited to sit still. By 3:00, it we decided we would wait for my mom to come pick us up, which made us feel all of 13 years old, but needless to say, she was running late, so we decided to go ahead and walk over to the Beverly Center, which is right by Cedar's, which is on Beverly and 3rd. My feet hurt before we even got to DisneyLand.

Jason Schwartzman. That's right. We passed him while walking to the Beverly Center. I only caught the back of him, while my counterpart was nudging me and freaking out. We have a "leave celebrities alone" policy. So we didn't do anything crazy except text friends with this uneventful news.

DisneyLand Magic Kingdom. The castle is like a child's plaything compared to the one at DisneyWorld. "it's a small world" was awesome, but not as awesome as they said it would be. The best part of the Magic Kingdom is that they transformed the Haunted Mansion into "the Nightmare before Christmas" and it was wicked! I wished the line was longer because they were playing the soundtrack to the movie the whole time we were in line. And there was an entire shop devoted to Jack and the movie. I'm a huge fan, so it naturally made my day. The newly rennovated space mountain was fun, the parade was great, and they cancelled the fireworks at night. The snow, however, was the coolest thing ever! It was small condensed bubbles, that felt like actual snow and tasted like soap.

• DisneyLand's California Adventure. Ahh, Soarin. If you have not ever done this, you have to go to DisneyWorld or DisneyLand to do this. This is a 50 ft. tall OmniDome-type thing that gives the simulated experience of hang-gliding over Californina. You are lifted in the air and you move when the camera moves, the wind blows in your face and you can smell each of the places that you are at. This by far is always my favorite ride. It's thrilling, but all of the smells and sights leave you very relaxed. We rode it twice. The Aladdin show was nothing short of spectacular. You have to appreciate it because most live Disney shows are a mere re-creation of the movie with the same cheesy lines performed live. This was not the case. The story line they used was consistent with the Broadway musical that is or was done and the Genie does these long impromptu lines in the middle of the show which include quips about Churros, Desperate Housewives, and Harry Potter. Even Iago did gave props to the audience. It made the experience unique and seperate from the animated cartoon. If you are a technical theatre buff like my nerdy self, you will also appreciate the flying magic carpet, the 25 ft. tall flats, the trap doors and the fact that the entirety of the set is all lifted into the fly loft. The whole set is on battens, which is impressive. I set a personal best record and I decided to go for it and ride the roller coaster with my friend. I know this is going to sound twisted, but I found strength to ride some of the scarrier rides because my wild friend kept screaming about wetting her pants. Too much fun.
• Flight 1461. This was on the Airbus from L.A. to Denver. This is the 2nd largest plane I have ever been in. I guess United figured they owed me after the bomb scare incident. (Now might be the right time to mention that I am deathly afraid of planes and that one of my few recurring nightmares is being in a plane crash and plummetting to my death, which is why it is a miracle that I even fly after seeing "Lost") It sat nine across with a middle aisle and I couldn't touch the ceiling of the plane. It was huge and freakin' sweet. I did pretty well, and I never even cried or threw up once. I did squeeze off some tears on flight 551. The wild friend, aka wild one, just laughed at me during that flight. She really likes it when people are under stress and she takes those opportunities to laugh at all of us. That's why it was hilarious to see her afraid of space mountain. Hee hee hee. Bitch.

Home. At 1:00a.m. this morning. To the dog who was crying and who was so tired that he rolled off the bed in his sleep twice last night. It was a rough week for Squeaker. That's right. My dog's name is squeaker. It's not as bad as the guy in Old Navy who's dog's name was spanky. And it was some pit-bull-looking dog. How demeaning.

The chronology will continue soon...

P.S. Apparently, my counterpart wants me to add that this is an Eeyore hat, or at least that's what he thought it was until some 7 year old asked him where he got the Stitch hat. So, even though he is seemingly wearing Stitch ears, my counterpart has requested that because Stitch is a Son-of-a-bitch, that you henceforth only recognize his love for Eeyore and not Stitch. There's a story behind that, but I've already wasted too much space.

M-I-C-K-E-Y

So we're off this morning to head to DisneyLand for the holidays. We've heard that it's more fun than Christmas in Tennesstupid, so we are going to go try it. The rumor is that for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that the park will simulate snow. We didn't get gifts this year. Well small ones, but not big ones. We are going to go play on the rides and celebrate Christmas with the family and friends that we love dearly. I'm not gonna lie. I am pumped up about the whole deal. We did DisneyWorld for our honeymoon and I can honestly say that we really have talked about how much fun it was since we got back. I guess it's the whole childhood nostalgia thing, but I don't care. The only dilemma I have now is about what two movies to see while I am in L.A....shameless attempt to get you to post? Yeah, probably.

M-I-C

See you real soon

K-E-Y

Why? Because I like all of you

M-o-u-s-e

And I'll return on the 28th.

Christmas Jeer

Apparently, there are a few good things about Christmas:

1. I am on the nice list with 2,952 nice entries and 676 naughty entries.

2. My elf name is Batty Bing-A-Ling and my counterpart's name is Sparky Bing-A-Ling.

3. My secret santa gift is The Death Star (from Star Wars)

To experience some great Christmas Jeer, click on the links in the sidebar.

Spreading Christmas Cheer

There's a word that I loathe. Of all the words that I loathe, this one now safely takes the spot of number one. (see below)

Disasterous words that make my mind ache and my ears ring:

10. schnoze (nose)
9. otay (okay, with a 't' instead of a 'k')
8. yummy (as in, "That sounds so yummy to eat")
7. hyper (as in, "I'm so hyper from all of the Starbucks I have been drinking)
6. professional (as in, "Try being less childish and more professional" Which really means, stop having fun and act like you are better than everyone else)
5. Giggidy. (Funny when Quagmire says it, not funny when you say it)
4. gay (as in, "That's so gay" or "Dude, quit being gay")
3. humps ("my hump, my hump my hump. my lovely lady lumps.")
2. Kwinky-dink ("You have a red dress like me! That's such a kwinky-dink)
1. Christma-hanza-kwan-ika (nothing in parenthesis, rant to follow below)

This word that is supposed to mean "have a happy holiday, regardless of what you celebrate this season" makes my blood boil. And do you know what? I am a Christian and I do believe in Jesus, but I tell you what, I don't believe that a holiday that has pagan origins should be confused with Jesus. I am angry at two main groups of people, which is why I suppose this word leaves me fuming.

Group One

The people that think this is somehow a new way to create a conglomeration of religions and that this is the new greeting to people so that you don't fuck up and tell someone who is Jewish "Merry Christmas." The bat signal lights the sky outside because even Comissioner Gordon knows that the only reason Chris---------ka was started is because Virgin Mobile had the keen concept that if they could convince all people that they were included in this ridiculous feast of commerciality (you better believe that I just created a new word) that they too would now feel the obligation to buy for friends, family, and gods. If it's Chrisma-----ka, then no one has an excuse to be benched during this game day race. What could be worse than that, Batman? The fact that people are stupid enough to buy into it. This is worse than swatch watches and slouched socks. Holy pathetic trend, Batman! Is it possible that people and not just corporations are going to actually tell their friends and family Merry Christ------waka? You mean to tell me that you can't remember that your best friend, the one who you have known since you were to, the one that has come to your house for the Christmas party for the last eight years actually celebrates Kwanza and not Christmas? Your long term memory is so pathetic that you can't come up with the answer when wishing people a happy holiday? You can't figure it out? Too much pressure not to fuck up, huh? Dont' want to mess up the biggest play of the game? How many people out there are going to lose thier minds if someone accidentally messes up and says "Happy Chanukah" instead of "Merry Christmas." Oh, this language is a fine way for all of us to be unintrusive and lazy. Don't inquire what people do or don't celebrate. Don't take time to get to know people. Make lame wild assertions with stupid phrases. And I thought supercalifragalisticexpialadocious was stupid. Imagine someone seeing Mary Poppins and actually now using that phrase when trying to sound precocious. Fun times. When, my friends, will we learn that we don't have to do everything that the t.v. tells us to?

Group Two

Christians who are trying to argue that Jesus has been taken out of the season. And do you know what? They are right. But they are right for the wrong reasons. In previous rants, I have wasted emotional energy on how it is silly that we celebrate on a day that is not actually Jesus' birthday, just so that we could align with the pagans back in the 300s. Ever since then, 300 A.D., Christmas has been about feeding lies to the masses. Please, those of you that keep trying to yell that "Jesus is the reason for the Season, " please from a fellow Christain, please stop. We don't want Jesus commercialized. We don't want Toys 'R' Us marketing mangers and showing the "California Raisin True Christmas Story." While idealogically, this would be beneficial, there is something about Capitalism that makes everything it touches cheap. I hate the word Chrisma----hanik---a worse than I think any other human on this planet, but don't condemn it because it took Jesus out of Christmas, that damage was done long ago. I'm not saying don't celebrate Jesus' birth, but please don't ask for the real Christmas story to be subjected to any more torture. Leave the PC bastards alone. And the biggest reason to leave them alone? Because you know, at its core, it's just about giving. And loving. And even if this word somehow rears its head on Wikipedia two years from now and becomes a staple in our society, at least we will try to be a giving culture and a loving culture and that will be okay. Although I just may have to take a hanger to my eardrums if that is the case.

In the words of Buddy the Elf, "there's room for everyone on the nice list" so I guess I'll just hope that after all of my complaining that I am still there. Oh look! I still am!

Ticket to Hell #3

So far, every other ticket to hell has been based on my all-too-free flowing speech. This next ticket comes from my actions and not my words.

Here we are and I'm 22. Yes, this was just two years ago. I thought I was smart. It seems like I should have had all of my wits about me at this point.

The scenario: Each day, I am responsible to pick up a young beautiful deaf girl who has to go to a special day care after school for her hearing. The bus can't take her there, and her parents can't pick her up until six, which is why they need me. So I get paid a hefty fee each month, just to drive 25 miles a day to take this girl to her day care. She is in the 2nd grade. It is the last day of the school for my deaf friend and I go to pick her up from school and she's not there. I see her teacher and I ask her where she is at. She tells me that she never came to school that day and that she thinks she just might have started her vacation early. While the teacher and I are talking, the teacher tells me that she thinks her parents would be just the type of people who would be oblivious to how important the last day of school is for a young student who won't see their friends for an entire summer. I agree with her. I think her parents are those kind of people too. Shameful people. At about 6:00p.m. that evening, I get a call from her parents. They ask me why my beautiful friend never went to school that day. We go through the whole what do you mean she wasn't at school thing and after the confusion is cleared, her mother concludes by saying, we dropped her off at 7:30a.m. just like we were supposed to, what I want to know is why you didn't pick her up at 8:15a.m. to take her to school? Oh shit. Now the memory hits. The phone call the night before. The mother asking if I can get her from daycare to school in the morning. I agree. And then? I go drink and sleep until noon. I go about my day and then go to pick up my friend at 3:00p.m. and the story has been told from that point....

Ticket to Hell #3: The reminder that drinking causes temporary memory loss. Never say you'll do something and then go drink. Especially when it is your beautiful deaf friend's last day of their second grade year. And, just in case, never bad mouth parents of your friend even if there is even an inkling of doubt in your mind about their effectiveness. Chances are, you suck way more than their parents do.

Ticket to Hell #2

As if I hadn't learned my lesson...there's a second ticket to Hell. Actually, there's way more than two, and some of them aren't near as harmless as these, but here's a start:Now I happen to be 19 and still pretty damn stupid because here we are again, I am on another debate trip, which I don't think I mentioned last time that I was on a debate trip, but I was, so there. We are now in Springfield, MO.

We go into a Chili's. I think 1 1/2 years of college have now given me infinite knowledge and consequently, infinite wit. I'm cool. I'm college.

We are seated in a booth and some stupid son of a bitch has his Oakley's on in the restaurant. Stupid. And here he is with his Zack (or is it Zach or Zac?) Morris, Saved by the Bell, haircut. And it's always bastards like this that think they are as cute as Hollywood actors and that they get some kind of free pass to do what the hell they damn well please. Come to think of it, what the hell gives actors the right to shield themselves indoors? Clearly those $200.00 sunglasses do wonders to maintain your privacy...I think I should say something, this is bullshit... (Everyone turns around to look at the man I am speaking of) What pains me is that it has to be the Oakley’s...Jana...I mean I don't give a shit about his $200.00 sunglasses, if he put them on top of his head I would still get the point and see that he's...Jana...rich enough to have glasses...Jana! What? That guy is blind. (Blink, Blink)I get it now. I see the dog at his feet. I see him struggling to put his fingers on his plate to find his hamburger. I get it now. Damn. Twice now in a restaurant. Twice with the laughter and the wit and the just talking to get attention. Damn.

Ticket to Hell #2: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Ticket to Hell # 1

A ticket to Hell is a special little fellow. He is never bought and only ever earned. A dear friend told me once that I could always choose not to use my tickets, but I'm not sure they'll work that way.The first one comes from when I was the ripe old age of 17.I have always had the habit of speaking my mind. Worse than that, I have had the worse habit of speaking outlandish or brash things that I think will amuse my cohorts.

We were in St. Louis, at some restaurant I don't remember, and we are already slightly irritated at the fact that we couldn't get a table. Of course we are complaining now, and we are ready to get some service. I don't remember what comments were made; all I remember is that everyone was griping. It was my turn.Our hostess comes and takes us to our table, which happens to be outside. Shit. It's the middle of the summer, who wants to be outside? I start in. Who the hell know what's said...The hostess walks away and here I go: What woman would be stupid enough to walk around in those heels? As if that dress isn't hideous enough, we could be spared seeing all nine months of her pregnancy fat. Someone get her a tailor...and so on and so forth.Everyone laughs, and just like a bad Spongebob Squarepants episode, I think it's funny that other people are laughing with me. Now the waiter walks up. Excuse me, sir, but someone needs to tell that girl that we weren't really curious about how soon she was going to give birth. Maybe she wants to tuck some of that shit away and wear clothes that make her look like less of a stripper...laughs, giggles. He smiles. Then he says, that hostess over there is my wife and I think she looks beautiful. Gulp. Please don't spit in my food.

Ticket to Hell #1: Is a reminder that humor is only funny when what you are saying NEVER gets back to the person you are talking about. When in public places and speaking of people you never know, always assume they can hear you.

From the Vault (re)explained

This is something I started on my old blog page that I need to revive for those of you just now joining me that may have missed out on the fun. Those of you that have been around can just disregard.

I have chosen on nights where I don't want to talk about my boring crappy life to revisit stories of the less than mundane in what I will now refer to as the "From the Vault" series.

From the vault is a reference to one of my most favorite things: professional wrestling. Every year in March, the WWE always shows old clips from previous Wrestlemania matches to get the audience pumped up enough to purchase the upcoming PPV. In the spirit of the WWE, I am starting my own vault, which is a "best of the best" and "best of the worst" moments of my life. Here they are. Just take caution when you read them, and know that for each mistake that I have made in the past, there are sure to be two or more that will follow in the present or the future. Hopefully, however, they won't be the same damn mistakes.

I think I'm gonna be sick...

At some point I realized that some of the things I say seem pretty asenine to some people. It's crazy because when I started doing this thing, I wanted everyone to read it. I called and told everyone that I had this blog and I invited everyone, including my counterpart's parents to come read. I didn't think they'd take it seriously and it is my fault for talking about my husband's balls where everyone on this green earth could read about it.

So do I apologize or even attempt to clean up my blog? Nope. I ran away. We called his brother and had him erase all of the links on his parent's computer and the result is this now, very new-feeling home. I am wanting very badly to laugh about this and say its no big deal, but it kind of is.

Someone told me at one point that I shouldn't do this if I didn't want everyone to read it. I've always disagreed with that. While I invite everyone to read what I write, there are some people that I don't want to see these parts of me. It's like walking in on your parents having sex. No one wants to see that. Your parents having a fight. Don't want to hear it. Your mom smoking one night when she gets drunk. Kind of makes you sick to your stomach.

All of this is my oneryness, it's my anger, it's my drunken moments, my embarassing moments, my sordid past, and it's small pieces of my boring life. I don't know that everyone does get invited to this party. I don't know that everyone wants to be here. There's a special and raw/naive/childish/immature/artistic/gothic/tragic/cynnical/bitchy part that the fam can't really be a part of. It's my bad, but now, when I think about what they've seen, I feel shame. They think that it's embarrasing, but largely funny. To me, I feel like the 7 year old that got caught with my pants down exploring myself for the first time.

I don't know if I'm upset or just pissed that I'm having to start a new blog all over. Ironically, it's my "21st" post. And I feel emotionally hung over, like I've been doing shots of embarassment all damn day. Here's to hoping the akwardness goes away soon. Gulp. C'mon, you know that you've been caught doing something embarassing that you got busted for. (In two months, after I tell you what tickets to hell #'s 3-6 are, I will conclude by telling you that ticket to hell #7 is talking about your in-laws' son's balls on the internet.)

December Archives

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...
For a few weeks now the dog has come out of the bathroom with drops of water on his head. It's always been in the morning. We take showers before we go to work, much to the chagrin of the dog, who hates waiting outside the door while we soak up all the heated steamy air. After awhile, I started feeling sorry for him, so we decided to let him come in while we shower. He is a good dog. He waits right outside of the shower door. I always get out of the shower first, so I never think about what happens in the few minutes following this ritual. Then, the dog appears with drops on his head. For awhile, I just assumed he was standing too close to the shower door and that the drops were from the shower. But why is he never wet when I get out? At some point, we finally figured out what the problem was. I must prepare you, because it would seem slightly personal. If you are faint of heart, then you should pass up the end to this anecdote. It seems that when my counterpart exits the shower, the dog runs over to kiss and lick his feet and toes. This places him under the drippings of my counterpart's counterparts. Upon reflection, I am just trying to figure out if this is more embarrasing for my husband or for my dog.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 7:31 PM 4 comments
Monday, December 12, 2005

This is my prayer...
A little birdie told me today that there's a possibility that there's a riot that's about to happen. I am really confused about what to say. I see now that Stan Tookie Williams is going to be executed tonight at Midnight and that Governor Shwarzenegger denied his clemency. My stomach is sick thinking about this situation. I don't know what to say or what to think. I don't want to take this time to make a statement about what the death penalty does or whether or not it's the right action to take. I just know that my heartbeat quickens when I think about what the state can do. Worse than that, I don't want to think of the possibility that violence is on the verge of a death that is less than 8 hours away. My prayer is that a horrible situation doesn't turn worse, but at the same time I know that something has to give. I think of Paris. I remember Rodney King. I know nothing but how frail this whole system is. I can only hope that if William's death is now imminent, that his death will continue to bring understanding about how important life and redemption can be. I can only hope that the protests stay peaceful. And I dearly pray that some fucking day we will be smart enough not to keep putting ourselves in this situation over and over. I can't stop typing, but I still can't think of anything to say. If you want to share your thoughts, please do so. I am open to your input. For more information, see: http://www.savetookie.org/
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 9:51 PM 3 comments
Sunday, December 11, 2005

Searching for a Kansan...
For as long as I can remember, we always waited for the day when we would see Santa's Workshop. Each year, my brother, sister, and I would wait until the evening news was done, because a miniature superstar was about to appear in our world. It was Santa and Toy Boy. Every night for 30 minutes, the CBS affiliate-I believe based out of Witcita-would have a thirty minute show with some mall looking Santa Claus and some puppet/jack-in-the-box that would tell you all of the things you would love to have for Christmas. I don't remember the function of this program, it was definetley supposed to be for kids, but it seems like the show also told you where to buy these things, I don't know...I just know that at the end the last thing the program would do before ending, was zoom in on a little calendar that would show us how many days were left until Christmas. All was good with the world, and I could go to sleep because tomorrow I would see Santa and Toy Boy again and again up until the day that I got presents and who the hell needs Santa and Toy Boy when you've got new shit to play with? So I ditched the bastards right after Christmas and I wouldn't think about them until the following December...I didn't realize how precious this memory was for me until I moved away from Kansas. At some point, I remember mentioning in my new elementary school how I used to see Santa and Toy Boy and over and over again, no one has ever seen the show and more disturbingly, everybody wants to know who the hell Toy Boy is... By the way, don't try to Google it, he wasn't that kind of toy boy.So here I am. Twenty-four. And when I think of it, I try to find people that remember this show. So far, since I have moved, I have yet to meet someone who knows or remembers this program. I am searching for a Kansan who might have seen this program that aired sometime in the 80s who remembers...Having searched high and low, I found this website that actually has the first of what I think might be the first of this series in the show. If this description is accurate, and I believe it is, then there should be more than just Kansans that remember Santa and Toy Boy. If you know who these people are, please let me know. It would be nice to know that I am not the only one who remembers Santa and Toy Boy.(For more information on Toy Boy, please refer to The Real Toy Boy.)
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 7:49 AM 2 comments
Tuesday, December 06, 2005

From the Vault Explained...
Okay. I've had a really bad couple of days. If I wanted to get myself real worked up, I would sit here and bitch about it, but I've been trying to quit smoking for three months now and I find that bitching just makes me want to smoke again… I've have wanted to do this for some time, so here goes. Being the wrestling fan that I am, I always love watching t.v. during Wrestlemania season because they are always going to show clips from the vault, which happen to be these really old clips of awesome previous Wrestlemanias. I have decided to borrow this phrase for the nights when I don't want to talk about my crappy situation at present and instead will share a story from my past. Largely random, and hopefully entertaining or maybe depressing, these are the stories from times long long ago but not really that far away...If you are curious, continue reading below.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 8:17 PM 1 comments

Ticket to Hell #1
A ticket to Hell is a special little fellow. He is never bought and only ever earned. A dear friend told me once that I could always choose not to use my tickets, but I'm not sure they'll work that way.The first one comes from when I was the ripe old age of 17.I have always had the habit of speaking my mind. Worse than that, I have had the worse habit of speaking outlandish or brash things that I think will amuse my cohorts. We were in St. Louis, at some restaurant I don't remember, and we are already slightly irritated at the fact that we couldn't get a table. Of course we are complaining now, and we are ready to get some service. I don't remember what comments were made; all I remember is that everyone was griping. It was my turn.Our hostess comes and takes us to our table, which happens to be outside. Shit. It's the middle of the summer, who wants to be outside? I start in. Who the hell know what's said...The hostess walks away and here I go: What woman would be stupid enough to walk around in those heels? As if that dress isn't hideous enough, we could be spared seeing all nine months of her pregnancy fat. Someone get her a tailor...and so on and so forth.Everyone laughs, and just like a bad Spongebob Squarepants episode, I think it's funny that other people are laughing with me. Now the waiter walks up. Excuse me, sir, but someone needs to tell that girl that we weren't really curious about how soon she was going to give birth. Maybe she wants to tuck some of that shit away and wear clothes that make her look like less of a stripper...laughs, giggles. He smiles. Then he says, that hostess over there is my wife and I think she looks beautiful. Gulp. Please don't spit in my food.Ticket to Hell #1: Is a reminder that humor is only funny when what you are saying NEVER gets back to the person you are talking about. When in public places and speaking of people you never know, always assume they can hear you.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 7:58 PM 0 comments

Ticket to Hell #2
As if I hadn't learned my lesson...there's a second ticket to Hell. Actually, there's way more than two, and some of them aren't near as harmless as these, but here's a start:Now I happen to be 19 and still pretty damn stupid because here we are again, I am on another debate trip, which I don't think I mentioned last time that I was on a debate trip, but I was, so there. We are now in Springfield, MO. We go into a Chili's. I think 1 1/2 years of college have now given me infinite knowledge and consequently, infinite wit. I'm cool. I'm college.We are seated in a booth and some stupid son of a bitch has his Oakley's on in the restaurant. Stupid. And here he is with his Zack (or is it Zach or Zac?) Morris, Saved by the Bell, haircut. And it's always bastards like this that think they are as cute as Hollywood actors and that they get some kind of free pass to do what the hell they damn well please. Come to think of it, what the hell gives actors the right to shield themselves indoors? Clearly those $200.00 sunglasses do wonders to maintain your privacy...I think I should say something, this is bullshit... (Everyone turns around to look at the man I am speaking of) What pains me is that it has to be the Oakley’s...Jana...I mean I don't give a shit about his $200.00 sunglasses, if he put them on top of his head I would still get the point and see that he's...Jana...rich enough to have glasses...Jana! What? That guy is blind. (Blink, Blink)I get it now. I see the dog at his feet. I see him struggling to put his fingers on his plate to find his hamburger. I get it now. Damn. Twice now in a restaurant. Twice with the laughter and the wit and the just talking to get attention. Damn.Ticket to Hell #2: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 7:10 PM 3 comments
Friday, December 02, 2005

Hi, My Name Is...
Not slim shady. But I've been thinking this week. At the risk of sounding too mushy, I will just say that there are a few of you out there that I can't wait to read what you've written every day or every few days. P.S. If you want to know who those few people are, look at the sidebar. But anyways, I am fortunate enough to know you or to at least be able to associate your posts with a name. And for some reason, that brings me this strange sort of comfort. Like I know who you are. I'm not real big on revealing a whole lot about myself, mostly because I have tons of students who can outsmart me any day in the IT department, and I would like for the longest amount of time possible to keep this website away from their prying eyes. All that being said, we were talking today in class and I learned that over half of my students don't even know what my first name is. This cracks me up, because its not like it's hidden from them, but it was my little ego check that reminded me that those bastards really aren't trying to hunt me down or pry into my life. I just thought I would take the time, for those of you who check up on this website, to introduce myself. Hi, My Name is Jana. It's nice to meet you. And Angry Dissenter, I will be in L.A. over Christmas. I'll be chasing down Mickey on Christmas day. If I could fit Genderist and The Hater in my suitcase I would. For those of you who are new, a hello to you too. And my name is still Jana. It's German. If you want to say it in German, it's pronounced like yana. In English, it sounds like Anna with a J. As an interesting side note to any policy debaters out there, my name has 1N and 2A's, just like my speaker positions used to be... Now I am going to go do some serious social drinking because while one long week is done, another is on the horizon...
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 10:06 PM 3 comments

November Archives

Trapped
I am writing now, because for the first time in a few nights, I finally have time to sit down and write. Not to speak again of the holiday, but it is always hard when family is in town because you have to merge your normal habits and routines with other people's routines. I appreciated the visit with my family, but I was ready to be back to my life. Strangely enough, I haven't hit that point yet. I keep waiting for my week to return to normal, and my routines keep getting changed.This week happens to be a really busy one. Not only that, but I am pretty sure that I hate my job. I have been complaining about my job for a few months now, but I never thought it was anything serious. I came back after the break and instead of being irritated about the usual things, it's like I lost my will to care about it anymore. We have our fall show in three days. I have been practically living at the school. I'm not really stressed out about it. At this point last year, I would be going crazy out of my mind with last minute with changes and necessary items that need to be fixed and this year I am just bored and tired. I have a few million battles that I could fight to make my job better, but instead, I just hate it. And I'm even too tired to complain about it anymore. More than anything, I just want to go home, spend the normal 2 hours messing around on the computer, fix dinner, catch up with my counterpart and then whatever else until bed. Instead, it's been something different every night. I'm barely getting dinner in before I pass out from exhaustion. I'm done with the half-assed whining. That's not why I wanted to write this.The reason why I am posting this is because with the rare exception of today, I doubt I will be around for the next four days. I have found out how to read everyone's blogs that I like to read over my lunch at work, but unfortunately because of the network, I can't post anything to your sites or to my own. Trust me, I have been reading, I am just rendered speechless. I really do feel like someone has stolen for this week the small piece of my life that isn't stressful. I am here. I am reading. I just doubt I will be posting. Or responding to your posts. Hopefully the next thing I write will be less dull. Hopefully. There was a quote from the book that I was reading the other day where a mother says to her daughter that the only way to get over the hard parts of life is to go right through them. This week and next will be my attempt to get through a couple hard parts. I'll be talking to you later.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 8:23 PM 3 comments

A "Secret" Post For Genderist
Okay,I know this is strange, but I think it is interesting because you were telling me about a dilemma last week and something happened this morning that made me think about it. I got an e-mail from my bridesmaid-you know the one I have spent way too much of my time bitching about? The one that caused me to have orange angst and paranoia when it comes to friendships. Now I have complexities and trust issues. Ugh. But still. I got the e-mail. It was all about us hanging out just like old times. Old times? I think just the statements that I have just made above make things pretty fucking clear about how fond I am of the old times. I responded by saying that there's alot I thought we should discuss before we do a whole lot together-I was eluding to me, the husband, and the loss. She responded by elaborating another two paragraphs about how her life was pretty rough lately because she had been sick for three weeks. Always her. Always her problems. I'd had enough. I remember telling you one time that it was okay to be angry. And while you didn't help me out by telling me that "Walk the Line" sucked, I am really hoping you'll tell me that I still get to be angry. Or hurt. At least tell me I can still be hurt.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 8:14 PM 1 comments
Saturday, November 26, 2005

The Blitz
The decision was made for the first time ever to give this a try. What could it possibly hurt? My mom has been looking for a laptop for awhile and who are we bothering by trying to get one on sale? We set our alarms for 4:00, considering that we only live a 1/2 block away from our nearest Wal-Mart Supercenter. I am pretty excited at this point because(All right. Venting break. I just accidentally erased this post when I was about two sentences away from ending it. So now if this post sounds forced or awkward, it's because I am trying to re-create what was a pretty good of my account, but now I have The Rage working in me, so I don't know that it will come off in the way I would like it to. Sorry.)there is something uniquely spicy about waking up in the remaining witching hours to go shopping. I was more restless than I am the night before Christmas. At least then you know your Christmas presents are waiting under the tree, unlike now, where who knows what we could end the day with? There's a soothsayer in my story, just like in the old Greek tragedies, that warns us that our journey may not end as we expected. As a former Wal-Mart employee of 20 years, she warns us that people usually start lining up at midnight to get this stuff. We spit on her midnight.We woke up at 4:00 as planned, we drove the 1/2 block to the store and the parking lot was full. Not middle of the day full, but I am surprised we are vying for a spot, full. Look, I am getting ready to say something that I won't ever say again, but when we got to Wal-Mart and found our places in line, it looked like Red-Neck-Homa, which consequently normally gets on my last nerves when people make fun of our state because it has so much more than ignorant people...All that being ranted, Every Tom, Dick, and Cletus were out in line. Apparently, they thought that there was no way they could get sales from their local Wal-Marts, and so they made the trek to the city to get the goods. There was a woman in line behind us that had teeth like the Grinch (see above). I swear there were maggots and mold forming and crawling in between her teeth. After checking for my scar (see MISSING?!?) I found out from her that there were only 15 laptops. What?!? Why in the name of Davey Jones' locker didn't I see this one coming? I know that I am inexperienced in the ways of blitzes, but c'mon. Fifteen?!? I thought maybe they'd only have 100 or something, but not 15! How naive. At this point, the veterans of this little sport let me know that apparently I definitely needed to get my info straight before venturing out because last year one of the Best Buys had the same kind of deal and there were only 5 laptops. 5. Now I feel asinine to be up so early. Now there's nothing to be gained. And I won't even go into how painful it was to wait for the next hour to reach the point in the line where they started turning us away because they were sold out. To read more about my experience, see: Shopping Frenzy.In the end, Target and Bath and Body Works produced some pretty sweet sales that we loved taking advantage of. And I really do think that I would wake up that early again, but that's only because I love watching people trying to control chaos. It reminds me that we are only as civilized as we tell each other we are. In the end, we are still animals and killers. Except now, instead of fighting over territory, we fight over toys. And we still fight for territory. Wait. Where am I going with this? Yeah, it was fun. I think. People are nuts. But I'll still defend our crazy ways to the bitter end, so bring your cynical comments about the destruction of Christmas, or about how bad it is that people fight each other, I'm Ready.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 9:30 AM 3 comments
Thursday, November 24, 2005

Teaching a Jew the meaning of Christmas
It seems strange to me that the other day I had my friend over to my house. We'll call him the bad shoe guy-mostly because of his sense of style, or lack thereof. So, the bad shoe guy comes over to help me hang up a dartboard that he had given us and while we are working on it, he notices that my home has the beginnings of our Christmas decorations up. (See The Damn Angst Quiz) While he was gazing at the decorations, he noticed one special trinket: The Abominable. Being the fan that I am, I have a knick knack. He says, "That guy was awesome in Monsters, Inc." Which is interesting because the knick knacks I have are on a red mat, in a house with Christmas decorations, and sitting next to five other knick knacks that are from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I reply to the bad shoe guy, "That Abominable is from Rudolph, not Monsters, Inc." His response: "There's an Abominable Snowman in Rudolph?" WHAT PLANET DID YOU JUST COME FROM?!? That's like saying, "There's a witch in the Wizard of Oz?" or "There's a rabbit in Alice in Wonderland?"I can't even remember the series of witty and brilliant responses that I had that were intended to humiliate him for forgetting the coolest part of the t.v. show. Then, he dropped the bomb. And just to be punny, I'll say he dropped the A-bom. He says, "I'm Jewish, of course I've never seen Rudolph." To which I again reply, WHAT PLANET DID YOU JUST COME FROM?!? At this point, I happen to be thinking to myself, "Well, I am Christian but that didn't stop me from watching Real Sex on HBO when I was a kid." (Yes, you sexist bastards, girls watch that shit, too.) Why did I watch Real Sex? Not because I was interested, but because that was ALL THAT WAS ON past ten on the channel and if you weren't watching cable past ten, then you were watching infomercials and you can only watch those for so many years... You couldn't avoid the show. If you watched HBO in the nineties, you had at least watched one clip from Real Sex. (Thank you HBO for being my sex ed teacher, you taught me well.) So, despite being Jewish, how do you manage to avoid a show that has been on for 41 years? You have to live in one pretty big Jewish Cave to avoid that shit. Especially considering that bad shoe guy has been alive 28 of those 41 years. C'mon. The argument continues, and again and again his only retort is that he didn't see it because he was Jewish. Which brings me to my next complaint: How in the BLUE HELL did Christianity become synonymous with Santa Claus? I don't recall signing that sonofabitch's paychecks. If my sources are correct, the belief in Santa Claus is just as pagan as worshiping Osiris or the Golden Calf. And don't feed me this crap about how we get him because of the whole St. Nicholas thing, either. There's no way that our Saints somehow mean that we get pegged with eight (nine including Rudolph) reindeer and magical elves that fulfill toy fantasies. This is precisely why I have a large beef with Constantine and his decision to have pagan holidays coincide with Christian ones, i.e. changing the celebration of Christ's birth and coupling it with the pagan ritual that somehow involves trees, and right now all that eludes me and I will rant about it some other time. My point being: this Jew has no excuse to pin Rudolph on me and he needs to get off his ass and watch it. In the end, he tries to convince me that both abominable's are one in the same, which is why he shouldn't have to go back and watch the show. Once again I have to chop the bad shoe guy down to size by countering that only hard core Rudolph fans would know that they can't be the same because the Abominable in Rudolph lost his teeth when the gay dentist elf pulled them out right before he went over the cliff, or Herbie did some serious caps before his Monsters debut...Are they the same? I am open for your thoughts...And even more titillating for the brain...Is Donald Sutherland the true Abominable? Maybe you are the one who holds the key to unlock this unsolved mystery...P.S. I am not really anti-semetic and I would appreciate you holding back on the hate mail.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 8:17 PM 2 comments
Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Water Polo Plus Relevance
More than a few years back, I took at Water Polo class at the college I attended. Notice, I'm not sporting the school pride by announcing my alum. Jerks. Where was I?I had made the decision to cheat the system by taking Beginning Swimming, which is kind of a joke considering that I am a lifeguard. Okay, wait. Sometimes that doesn't mean jack taco because some teens become guards to see how much humor they can find in a fat culture trying to squish their back and belly fat into spandex. And I definitely am that guard, but I also happen to be a damn good swimmer. Please note that my swimming is pretty and not fast. I don't want the random haters tryin' to challenge me to some kind of swim off, because I've only done that once and I will not lose $250.00 again. I ask again, where was I at? Beginning Swimming. Right.I took the class because I knew that I could find reasonable success in the class. It was really fun. Being the egomaniac that I am, it was nice to once again be "King of the Hill." Did I mention that I don't tolerate competition well? I drank an entire bottle of KC Masterpiece once not because I was dared, but because someone wasn't listening to me when I told them that I loved BBQ sauce, so I drank it in the middle of the restaurants to gain his attention. Continuing on...We were playing water polo.Screams and shouts were echoing of the moldy over-chlorinated pool. After the festivities, we were all pleased with the days performance. Everyone was paddling to the side when I looked up, there was my 60 year old gym professor screaming at us to apologize to each other. Someone must have forgot to tell her that generation x doesn't play nice. "It's not personal, it's business." Needless to say, she made us all hold hands and look each other in the eyes and say, "If during the course of this game, I have somehow offended you or hurt your feelings, I truly apologize for myself and my actions." It seemed silly then, but as I walked away from the game, I mentally catalogued this memory thinking that I some day might need it.Right now, I feel the need to say that this weekend I hung out with some new friends and some old friends. And for some reason, I think I might have offended you. To you I say, "If for some reason during the course of this weekend I made you feel uncomfortable, or if I offended you in any way, I truly apologize for myself and my actions."And I want to eat food again sometime under much less complicated circumstances, friend.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 5:39 PM 3 comments
Sunday, November 20, 2005

The Damn Angst Quiz
Okay, so apparently Angry Dissenter wins the poorly designed and quickly thought out prize for the most amusing 10 minutes of my day, because I was supposed to right now be writing some kind of post about the comforts of home and how pleased I am going to be to see my counterpart tomorrow, and instead I take the damn angst quiz, which when I read it, happens to be right at the place that I am at right now. I have spent the better part of 6 months struggling with the loyalties of friendships, just like the website told me I was. I just had that conversation with a friend over a Carmel White Fudge Shake this morning. Needless to say, I was suprised to see how accurate it was. I must say this was cooler than reading a fortune cookie after dinner to find out what I was going to be doing later that evening "in bed." Check it out at Angry Dissenter's website. You won't be dissapointed. And, just so I don't feel like I abandoned the evening's original purpose, you all should know the house is now decorated in a Christmasy fashion. And it smells more like cinamon and pumpkin than rank beer and dog pee.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 9:56 PM 3 comments
Saturday, November 19, 2005

Anger Hangover (subtitled: Ha Ha the Boys are Gone)
So apparently I had a lot of frustration on my mind yesterday. It has been a really hard week. I've had bosses yelling at me, a few co-workers have been nagging me, one of my favorite wrestlers died, and of course, my husband and I lost our baby. It feels good to finally say that to someone. I needed to get a lot off of my chest and for those of you that read that last post, thanks. I just needed someone to listen. It must have had a really cleansing effect because I woke up this morning and now I am ready to listen to Christmas songs and I am ready to bake some cookies or something. Having read genderist's post about the fudge, however, I think that I will hold off on doing anything too complicated. Maybe I'll just leave the cooking to her.It is strange because a few of my friends and I have been waiting for this weekend because our husbands would be out of town. Needless to say, we were looking forward to a grrrrl's night out. And I guess I could cheat you and tell you that we went to a bar, because we did. At 7:00p.m. But then we left at 7:05p.m. Some nights you have to do your eating before your drinking. We head to get some nourishment, if you call fried pickles nourishment, and then decided to stop by Target to get some Coke for the real drinking. What did we end up doing? Spending the night playing in the Superstore. I bought this wicked awesome two-disc Christmas CD for $9.99 and it is great. Well, if you think Christmas is awesome, that is. Well, and it's awesome for a nine dollar CD. You can't have expectations too high when you find it on a clearance shelf. Needless to say, our night of debotchery ended with everyone going to bed long before the sun went down and no drinking was to be seen. Maybe that's why I am up at 8:00 a.m. posting. Whew. I don't know how many more crazy grrrl nights I can handle with the men gone.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 8:15 AM 1 comments
Friday, November 18, 2005

An Attempt to Reconcile with The Rage (Revised)
I no longer have doubts that pop culture and t.v. have been my primal and soul guiders for the majority of my life. It's funny that my earliest memory is being scared to watch the Def Leppard video "Pour Some Sugar On Me" because the one-armed drummer always gave me nightmares. Don't ask me why a one-armed man is scary...I have had an almost two year old dilemma that I have been struggling with and I thought that I would share it. It is at this point that I should issue a brief warning: I am not in the mood to work for the 'big words' to come into my roaming little mind today. As a result, I am more than sure that a fair amount of the 'naughty' words will be spoken in this post. If your eyes will burn from the insult, please move on.Back to the dilemma...Most people would tell you that I used to have an abundance of ego. I was pretty sure that I was the most amazing thing in the world and I also equipped myself with a sharp tongue so that any person that got in my way would quickly wish they had never crossed my path. There is more than one person who would attest to my temper. I am also sure that there is more than one person that still hates me because of this. But that's the thing: at the time, I didn't care. You either were or weren't important to me. You either worshipped me or you got the hell out of my way. The weird thing is that when you act like that, there are actually a ton of people who are stupid enough to hang around you just because they want to see you go nuts and fly off the handle...this in and of itself is a foreign concept now. It seems like all of the sudden I woke up and the Feelings Fairy took off with my fucking mojo. At some point, I came to the sick realization that the things I said might actually hurt someone else's feelings. Most people at this point would tell me that maybe I was just growing up. I would like to momentarily ignore this statement. Somehow, for damn sure it was unintentional, I went through this ridiculous "spiritual" journey where I learned that all people deserve to be respected and that all people should struggle to take control of their lives and that the way we control our lives and our destinies is by owning our actions. While this may seem really trivial, it is amazing how many people don't grasp this concept. AND IT IS WITH THAT IN MIND, that I would like to throw a brief shout out to Dr. Phil. That son of a bitch was kind enough to teach me responsibility and I can see that he must have forgotten to teach the rest of the damn world because I am the only person who bought that bullshit. I wrote in my self-discovery journal and I meditated on my defining moments, and at the end of the day, I was the only one searching out my feelings. Everybody else was watching Seinfeld.Time passed on and I started my dream job, and you know what happens now? I take responsibility. I try to tell the truth. I try to be kind. I try to compromise. I try to understand people. I make excuses for other people's poor or strange behavior. And I do this because I hold to the hope that all of us must be fragile. That all of us are trying to make this world better. What do I get in return? High School Drama. And no, the irony of the fact that I work in a high school in the theatre department is not lost on me. There is someone in this world who would read this and say that I am a better person for being kind. Say that I am making some kind of positive effort. There are probably even more people that are wondering what exactly it is that I am crying about, but for right now I wish the positivity police would jump off my back so that I could go back to being pissed off. And then I would find those people and tell them to take me to the fucking fairy that stole my anger. It is literally draining me of all of my energy to be as angry as I am now. I'm having to listen to really crappy music, just to keep focused on the anger. I just want to go back. I just want to say, what I want when I want, and to hell with the emotional damage that it may cause. I want The Rage back. It seems like an irrational request, but at least I wouldn't spend the majority of my adult life like the way I am now, which is feeling like a tool. Feeling like a victim to lies, manipulation, and gossip. Feeling like the majority of the people I deal with are the ones who snuggle themselves to sleep at night with the lie that they tell to themselves about how they are truly better than those with whom they would betray. I MISS THE ILLUSION. At the same time, my ever so special Feelings Fairy tells me to abandon The Rage. She holds a drop of sunshine in her hand and has smiley face stickers on her shirt. I hate her so much. I want my cigarette smoking, too tragic to deal with you, authority bucking mojo to return. She's the one I miss. She's the one who doesn't have to scrub the toilets and the bathtub in the morning. She doesn't have to pull down the poorly hung Halloween decorations. She's the time of my life that I never get to go back to. I think I will call her Adolescence.All that being said, I would just like to add that I knew that t.v. was controlling most of my life when I had a dilemma as pressing as the one that seems to be nagging me now and the best reference I have to explain to you what I am going through is from the movie "Hope Floats" when people keep telling Birdie that she needs to be audacious and bold like she used to be. Thank you Sandra Bullock and famous-country-singer-who-I-can't-think-of-your-name. Thank you for leaving me with such an intellectually satisfying way to generate a metaphor for my life.Homer Simpson: In case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 11:54 PM 3 comments
Thursday, November 17, 2005

The Efficiency of Spell Check
I am pretty sure that as time goes on that my spelling will no doubt get worse as my memory fades, however, I found this irony last night and thought it was worth sharing...Because my confidence is so low in my spelling ability, I have made the decision to spell check all posts. This is when I discovered that the spell check on this program doesn't recognize the word blog. It seems like there should be more to say here, but instead I will use Nelson's voice to fully color my thoughts, "Ha Ha! Your spell check doesn't know the word blog, and this is a blog"Nelson: "Smell you later."Bart: "Yeah, smell you later."
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 5:24 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, November 16, 2005

MISSING!?!
I have lost a lot of things in my time: my sanity, my virginity, and even occasionally my car keys. But never have I lost a scar. Oh, stop it. I already know what you are thinking: It faded, right? Look, I am not the the smartest turnip in the turnip truck (no, thank you, Dan Rather, for such an insightful metaphor) but I know the difference between fading and disappearing. This morning I woke up, I grabbed some pretty cheap pants that have a button that just happens to rub right where my belly button scar is. Flashback to 2001: I have my gall bladder removed because surgery seemed like a fun thing to do in the very merry month of May. When it is finished, I am left with a bumpy L-shaped scar that looks like a maggot that is trying to die at the bottom of my stomach. I have six "maggots" from this particular surgery, and after the fading-see I know what fading is-the scars turn from purple to white. This particular scar has been the biggest of my six. Flashback to present day: back in my bedroom with the cheap pants with the cheap button that always rubs on my belly button and the maggot scar. I was annoyed with this when I was dressing this morning, however I dismissed it and decided that the cheap pants were the option for the morning. Side Note: Ever notice how when you aren't in the mood to play dress up for your job, that you REALLY aren't in the mood? I mean, if I know I'm going to look bad for the day, I don't just half-ass it, I mean I put my whole heart into looking bad...So the day of looking bad goes on...and so on and so forth...but now the majority of the evening is through and I am ready to take a bath. After sitting in the tub and glancing past my dirty pillows, I notice that the scar is gone. It's not a different color, it's not smaller or a new shape, it's just gone. So here's my plea: If anyone has seen my belly button scar, please immediately respond. It was lost between the hours of 7:15a.m. and 7:30p.m. I'm not asking for any money and I won't tell anyone that you took it, but I want my damn scar back.As an after thought, not having the time or records to keep track of my own belly button scars, I thought I would post Alyssa Milano's belly button in place of mine, just because. I am a big charmed fan, maybe that's why I did it.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 9:08 PM 2 comments
Monday, November 14, 2005

Thoughts from a fan
I don't know quite how to start this post. This past week has been really long for my family. We have suffered a loss in our family and we have been hiding from most of the world. It has been strange because I haven't wanted to talk to anyone about it. We have received all of these kind phone calls and visits from friends and loved ones and I have just been wanting everyone to get the hell away from me and leave me alone. Yesterday evening, I received a call from my brother and he informed me of the death of WWE Superstar Eddie Gurrero. It was surreal to hear that somewhere else at this moment, there is someone else in the world that is experiencing grief.Just in case you are a fan or you are just curious to know, Eddie was found yesterday (Sunday) morning dead in his hotel room in Minneapolis. The cause of his death is unknown. More information and thoughts about Eddie can be found at http://www.wwe.com/I don't have anything special to say about Eddie Gurrero, other than that he was an awesome wrestler and had an amazing ring presence. Mostly, I just want to say that I was a fan. I also wanted to take the moment to say that it amazed me to see other wrestlers talk about their personal relationships with Gurrero, rather than talking about him as a wrestler. Being in a similar situation right now, I have a deep respect for people who could face millions of fans and express deeply personal emotions. I know it has been hard for me to face even a few people and for these men and women to face the public less than 24 hours after his death and continue to perform and speak seems deeply commendable to me and I just thought I would throw out the love.Part of my heart says that I have to close by saying this: if you haven't experienced professional wrestling, I don't expect you to do so now. I also don't expect anyone to all of the sudden have some kind of profound respect for the event. Either you get it and you love it or you don't. I feel fortunate to be a fan. I have found that this too, like the other loves of my life, come in these tight community packages, where even though I am one in a million people that loves this, I have no doubt that any other fan of this activity wouldn't understand exactly how I feel at this moment. Ultimately, I am no one special. But yet, the bonds that grief creates seem to blend us all together as a community, as supporters, as fans. Rest in peace, Eddie.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 9:52 PM 3 comments
Saturday, November 12, 2005

A Breif Author's Note:
Picks suck. They really really suck.
posted by Unequivocal_Prowess at 4:26 PM 1 comments

One Fish, Two Fish
I have been thinking alot lately about how strange it is that I love almost all pets-except one. The fish. I actually have a recurring dream that I have to pick up one of the fish from the floor with my hands and return it to its tank. I didn't ask for the fish, that's for damn sure. But through a long story, which I will not include, I have four fish and a ten gallon tank. Correction: I have four fish remaining. There were something like ten or fifteen at one point, but I've been succesfully watching them die off for two years.Don't get me wrong, these same fish would be great if they were in someone else's home or they were actually being taken care of, but I don't have the time or the love for the creatures to want to help them out. They get food, sometimes new water, sometimes new filters, sometimes I wipe the algae from the tank. Mostly, I wait for them to die. So, I watch and wait.
I am pretty sure that one of them is refusing to die just on sheer principle. I'm okay with that. I was relating this to my friend the other day and he told me it would be less painful if I just put the poor fish out of their misery and flushed them, but there seems to be some kind of ethical dilemna in actively killing the fish versus letting them live in the slums. That's really what it is, right? They aren't unhealthy or swimming in parasites-I even exterminated the tank once from unwanted snails-I don't let them get "swim bladder" or "fish pneumonia" or any other disease. But I wish that they could just lose their will to live and move on to the next place. I would even write a eulogy if it would make them feel better. Especially the big silver one, I hate him the most. I know the other three are pretty laid back and they would accept my half-assed attempt at fish care, but the silver one, Mr. Big is what I'll call him, he watches me. He knows my intentions and because he does, he refuses to die. Maybe in the end, my crappy care is worse than a quick death. But for now, the ambiguity of the situation is comfort enough for me.

Same Great Blog, Brand New Location

So for reasons hence undisclosed, I have decided to change the address of my website. I started this little ditty with the need to speak freely away from those who would possibly be hurt by what I say. Therefore, we begin again and hopefully I can play hide and seek from the ones that found me.