Who does these things?
Ok, seriously now. Who really enjoys "long walks on the beach" and "watching sunsets"? Why do people who write personal ads feel the incessant need to lie about the beach? You don't go there to watch sunsets, you go there to ogle the one hot member of the opposite sex that has accidentally arrived there.
And who are all these paper bagger's friends who tell them that they are "attractive"? I swear, every personal I've read where the person describes themself as "attractive and fit" is accompanied by a picture of an overweight ugly. At least be honest! If you "value honesty" in a relationship, why start out with such an obvious lie?
In case you didn't notice, I'm cranky today. I had airport pickup duty and the flight didn't land until 1:30am and that means I didn't get home until 3:30am. With work at 8:30am. Oh well, at least my mom enjoyed her vacation. Shit. 6 more hours to go before I'm free.
Kill me now.
The Scar (well, one of them anyway)
A few months ago, I was visiting my mom and was telling her one of my crazy "i'm an idiot" stories in the kitchen, when I got a little heated. I tend to gesture wildly when I'm telling a story, especially when I get into it, so as I pushed up my sleeves and threw up my arms, my mom lets out an audible gasp and grabs my right wrist, pulling it closer for inspection.
"Good lord how did you get that bruise?" She squints. "Wait. That's a scar?"
Oh crap.
I forgot that I wasn't supposed to pull up my sleeves yet. Enough time hadn't passed and the incriminating evidence was still pretty obvious. There's only one thing worse than your mother catching you off guard with questions about a sex scar and that's catching you in the act of making that scar. The latter hasn't happened to me, yet. I don't live anywhere close to my mom, but I learned long ago that ruling something out is a sure-fire way to make it happen.
So, I did what anyone would do in that situation. I lied.
Rolling my eyes I wrenched my arm free and walked over to the doorway, placing my arm convincingly against it. "I think I walked into a doorframe, again," I said, adding exasperation for effect. "I don't even remember anymore. Isn't that horrible?" And then I added my standard, "I'm so clumsy," to clinch the deal.
My mom rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I do that all the time," she comforted wistfully. "You've got clumsy in the genes."
Of course, that's not anywhere close to the truth of the matter.
To make a ridiculously complicated story short, I'll suffice it to say that I was visiting a "friend" in his dorm room the weekend after Thanksgiving. There were plenty of illusions regarding the purpose of this trip but we both inherently knew that it was for sex. Fine, great, better than fine. As long as I was going to get some, I didn't really care. We ended up hitting it off and the heat of the moment took us all over the room, eventually ending up on his extremely narrow (read: about 32 inches) dorm bed. Fine, dandy. Except, the bed was pulled away from the wall and a bookcase was shoved flush against the wall, leaving a gap just wide enough to pull a book out. This wasn't something I was thinking about with my pants across the room.
A short time later we were done, and, as I tend to do after sex, I rolled away onto my back to create some space, completely forgetting the gap, the smallness of the bed and the bookcase.
Did I mention the bed was lofted on cinderblocks? In that moment, my ass didn't hit bed as it was expecting, it hit air and I fell, flailing my arms out and slamming my wrist into the bookcase on the way down, slicing it enough to leave a scar 3 months later. I, of course, laughed it off at the time, "I'm so clumsy..." meanwhile hoping the bleeding wouldn't hamper the sex of the rest of the weekend (it didn't).
I still have the scar (and a few more for good measure: the coffee table shin scar, the broken nose from walking into the wall in a flu-induced delirium)...I'm so clumsy...
Starbucks wants to kill me.
Starbucks and I have a tenative relationship built upon the solid foundation of continual sabotage. The coffee cups, in particular, cause me the most grief. I prefer the taste of Dunkin Donuts, not to mention their ordering process. Anytime I go into Starbucks, I grumble under my breathe at the notion of saying "Venti," but I've done the "gimme a large" before and would prefer to keep the killer death stares, outside of my friends and close family, to a minimum.
But I digress. Regardless of what I get, I inevitably end up sweezing the cup or tilting the cup or breathing funny in the general vicinity of the cup, and in protest, the cup spews its hot contents through the sippy hole and all over me. Down my cup-carrying hand, onto my camel jacket, onto my pants in the most embarrassing of places. The farthest I've made it without a spill is setting the cup down in my car's cupholder. I've even tried stuffing napkins into the sippy cup hole to try to stem the flow, only to have the reverse occur. Napkins soaked with coffee are a lot drippier than a leaky cup.
Today, I played it "safe" and got a venti *grumble* coffee of the day. The coffee of the day never, ever tastes different day to day, so why don't they just call it "regular"? Baffling. Anyway, I made it to my car, set the coffee down in the cupholder and it proceeded to spill all over the car's interior. I got to my office, parked, picked up the cup and coffee dripped out from under the lid, scorcing hot on my hand. "Fuck!!" I said a little too loud while stumbling out of my car. A woman glanced at me and quickened her pace.
Just as I was getting to the door to my building, hot architect breezes out, sees me, smiles. I smile in return, my coffee cup catches wind of the sudden change in attention and sqirts hot coffee in a stream down my arm. Hot architect gives me the "my my what a mess" look and continues to his car. My coffee gives me one last "haha you look like a fool" squirt of coffee for good measure. Hot architect then drives by and sprays a puddle's worth of muddy water all over me, soaking me from head to toe. Well, not really, but I've got time.
Getting a tan in a snowstorm
So I'm going on my one and only real vacation in a couple of weeks and since it's to a tropical local (cayman brac) everyone I know has been strongly suggesting that I go tanning to avoid being whitey mc. obviously from the northeast when I strip off my layers for the first time. I always agree to their faces because it saves time and quite honestly I've learned the hard way that people offering advice just want you to say something along the lines of "oh of COURSE! thank you so much! i didn't think of that!" and be done with you.
Oh tanning. Tanning and I have a love/ hate relationship. Actually, it's more like a hate/hate relationship. I love the way a tan looks on my skin. My skin doesn't agree and thwarts my bronzing efforts by burning, or tanning in patches, or giving me evil tan lines that closely resemble racing stripes (and then never fading completely so year round i have tan lines). Anyway, this time I decided to take the element of sun out of the equation thereby unblocking the road to perfect bronze. Tan in a can baby, how could I go wrong?
Oh let me count the ways...One of the friends I'm going with on this trip has used tan in a can many times before. She always looks beautiful. Therefore, by simple mathematics, if I use the same tan in a can, the same method, I'll look beautiful. I applied it to my legs on a recommendation from my (level-headed not crazy) sister. "In case it doesn't work out, do you really want it all over your face?" Well. Thank goodness that someone was levelheaded. I ignored the slight burning sensation that intensified after a few minutes and went to bed.
The next morning I could hardly wait to see my bronzed legs. Only....they were orange. Burnt sienna. And splotchy. It looked like someone came at me with a paintbrush and blindfold only it wouldn't scrub off. So, I obviously had to even it out...I applied more tanner and only waited an hour before I washed it off. It did nothing. I'm pretty skeptical at this point and most likely will cave and go to a real tanning place to try to even myself out before my trip.
On the other hand...I have a whole bottle of the tanner stuff that I'm loathe to just throw away. Maybe if I apply a little bit *less* ....hmmm...
The fucking laser man...the fucking laser
My office abuts a dermatology office and no less than 4 times a week, elderly patients practically kick my door down with their wheelchairs and canes demanding to know why no one is at that office when they "have an appointment!" (indignant). When I tell them that I have no idea and that my office is not, in fact, the dermatology office, they give me the old person stare that says "i know you're lying but i can't prove it." And then they proceed to try to push past me or phenagle the use of my phone. But that's another story.
Today it's the laser. They must have finally gotten enough money out of these people's insurance to buy a handy, dandy new fangled laser machine. How do I know this? Well, the high pitched whine (think dog whistle) from it being used is piercing my brain. It's been on for nearly an hour straight and I think I'd probably still hear it if they turned it off. Are they taking off someone's entire first layer of skin? The new preventative skin cancer treatment: take it before it gets cancer! I don't need skin!
Yesterday they were banging away in there so loud (finally, a reprieve from the whiny laser!) that I couldn't ignore it and when I finally turned around, sure enough, I saw a hammer coming through the ceiling tile on my side of the wall followed by (badly) muffled hysterical laughter.
Later: the old people start recruiting! Be afraid!
