not going...

i called my neighbor/aunt/second-cousin/whatever yesterday. i didn't lie: i explained that casey's leaving for las vegas and we're really behind on preparing our taxes for our accountant, so unfortunately we will have to pass.

she was very sweet as always. she really is so sweet and protective. she told my brother-in-law, rick [affectionately referred to as 'pizz' for his high-pitched, rapid-fire pronunciation of the word 'because'] that she loves him [accentuated by arm petting and cheek-pinching], but if he ever does anything to hurt my sister, she'll kill him. when my sister and rick were announced at the reception, they ran in and passed my sweet neighbor-relative. as they did, pizzy mcrizzowitz turned to her and slashed his throat with his index finger. it's pretty classic -- you can see it on their wedding video.

what did she ask me for a few minutes?

"...do you wvork?"

"...your house, do you own or do you rent? mpravo, koukla-mou!"

"...how's your mamma? she live very far?"

"...your hazzband, yes? he goes to las vegas? how come you no go?"

"...marriage, it wvorks both ways, you know? you both need to be good."

i hope that a time comes when i can enjoy her hospitality and we can take advantage of our close proximity, but i know that tonight is not the night. casey knows that, too: he cheered when i told him we're not going. a full-on "yeaa!" with fists raised.

[way too] near.... [want to run] far!

ti kaneis, koritzaki-mou? how come you don' call me?

holy shit, everyone.

we went to the pet supplies store around the corner tonight, and when we came back, there was a message from one of my crazy aunt/second-cousins whom i pretty much only see at weddings. in an accent as thick and greek as my delicious and elusive fage yogurt, she invites us [me and my "sweetheart" because she doesn't "know" that casey & i are married] to her house wednesday for dinner. also coming are:

my actually truly crazy uncle and his wife, who sounds and looks like a teach me greek elmo doll. my sister says she's more like grover than elmo. same big round furry head, same frank oz voice, same limited english speaking capability.

my cousin whom i have not seen in twenty years and her husband whom i've never met and their child. they live in greece and are obviously not privvy to the drama that is my family.

my dad and his wife. that's pretty much the capper there. can this evening possibly be any more ripe and ready for awkward moments? i think this repast could reach critical mass for discomfort.


my sweet but bonkers aunt-cousin thingie says, "we are... neh-buhrs baht we don' know." she rattles off her address: she lives on the next block over. i have walked past her house many times on the way to the cleaners.

people, what do i do!? she's so sweet, and means no harm, but she's friggin' nuts. i do not want to go there! surely, she'll not understand when we don't partake of her lovely lamb dishes or beef pasticho. to make matters worse, she is a block away. forever. casey asked, "do we have to move now?"

groupie in training

i realized today that the lead singer of alt-country band nadine was my boyfriend my junior year in high school. we went to homecoming together.

za skveezing ov zee goo

oh, man. i've read dooce for some time now, and i've been envying her for her idyllic post-hipster life in scenic utah, her ridiculously gorgeous elopement photos taken in yosemite national park, her eternally uber-svelte physique, and the product of her young motherhood, leta.

recently, she bested me on a whole different frontier: she got to partake of phanero-nirvana of the finest ilk.

oh, woman. you mock me. damn you to bartlett, tennessee. why won't you share any of the pictures?!

big hairy pile of randomness

simon le bon: the object of my pre-teen swooning.

big ups to gwen stefani for hiring her harajuku girls to dance on stage. i have to say, those little peanuts rock my face off. they are doing way more than many of the dancers out there that just do the stiletto step-touch but are more "commercially appealing" in appearance: taller, curvier, notably either black or white but nothing in between. there isn't that much demand for really good short asian dancers, so these chicks have hit paydirt. they work it.

being prompt is such a gamble. i go to the doctor today, full of anxiety. since traffic is light, i get there 30 minutes before my appointment, so i walk around marshall fields for 15 minutes. i arrive seven minutes early and sit in the empty waiting room for 25 minutes, flipping through something like woman's day, thinking "just kill me already." i finally get my blood pressure taken [it's down, which is nice] and then i get naked to put on a robe that is big enough for two of me. while i swear it sounds like the doctors and nurses are having a cocktail party [laughing, gabbing, clinking pyrex], i am sitting, freezing, nervous for ten more minutes, waiting for my five minute appointment. i hate going to the doctor.

the other day, my sister was eating a steak and for the first time, the smell was really offensive to me. you know what is really weird? the smell of leather now grosses me out. you know what scent i think should be bottled? eau de ikea: particle board and cinnamon rolls. the smell of new housewares is so aromatherapeutic.

just so you know: i do not wish to be kept alive on a feeding tube for years and years if i am in a permanent vegetative state. there. i said it. now, no one has any doubts.

i went to see duran duran this weekend. in my junior high years, i was a full-force durannie. i knew every vital statistic of each member. so unreal to see them all live and think, "wow -- simon was born in 1958 so that makes him... 47! damn!" after drinking a really heinous mix of vodka & crystal light ['you guys are so weird!' - casey], beer and margarita, i made a personal vow to choreograph a routine to a duran duran medley for free. for whom, i have no idea, but i even drunkenly scrawled all the songs in my notebook in a fit of passion.

saw napoleon dynamite. nope -- not that funny. [wincing and ducking]

eff me with a dull knife twice ≠ stick a fork in me

so near and yet so far...

thank goodness, i'm finished!

my last weekend of traveling for work has come and gone and now i am home and free to frolic and play. bliss! now, only 30 more days until true happiness -- sanibel island!

in the meantime, i plan to enjoy:

• watching more fear factor and the contender.
  
  
• getting that netflix cue a'rollin'!
  
  
• showing my true child-of-the-80's colors [aqua and flamingo pink, i'd reckon] and going to a duran duran concert on friday!
  
  
• putting together two ikea dressers for us to separate and organize all our clothes [check-check-check]
  
  
• going out for some tofu panang at thai thai with my old roommate, her husband, and their scrumptious baby.
  
  
• getting music ideas together for 2006 for the hilarious and adorable girls i do choreo for.

p.s. the dull knife phrase is copywrighted and restricted by my dearest friend in new york, jeannie.

were you popular in high school?

i was reading suburban bliss and, in the most recent post, melissa reflects on her unpopularity in high school.

so, how do you know if you were popular or unpopular? what's the litmus test for that? isn't that a little black-and-white? i mean, every school is so different and i'm sure criteria varies wildly, right?

for instance, my boyfriend for much of high school was the student body president and on the golf, tennis, and cross country team [football was not cool]. popular?

...but, turns out he was a closeted homosexual. well, maybe not that closeted. people would ask, "he's your boyfriend? isn't he gay?" unpopular?

i had plans most weekends -- friday with friends and saturday with boyfriend-of-the-moment... popular?

...but instead of munching love's salads with lite ranch and watching 80's chick-flicks in the basement with the cheerleaders i hung out with during the day, i shotgunned beers with the boys basketball team. unpopular?

my older sister relishes taunting me by saying with much venom in her voice, "you were in a clique." really? i couldn't name three girls i could consider myself cliqued with. maybe people who didn't know me thought i was probably in a clique. i have no idea.

when i think of the dreaded clique, i think of this group of girls my year who self-aggrandizingly dubbed themselves "the twelve-pack." they were a group of athletes, ranging from volleyball players [big bangs and frazzled perms, goopy blue eyeliner rimming eyes, jeans and gymshoes] to tennis players [past preppy and into matronly, thick chunky bodies with thick, chunky pageboys held in place with thick, chunky grosgrain ribbon]. i guess maybe they were the alpha group? maybe i was a beta.

there are a lot of popularity quizzes out there, but they're all written by disgruntled middle schoolers. i guess i know that i was unpopular in junior high, at least until i grew my hair from the wispy buzzcut to the standard issue north shore permullet [permed in the back, feathered on the top]. but consider this: don't most junior high girls feel like losers? junior high is hell on earth. i'm saving up now so i can ship my future children off to boarding school at the start of sixth grade.

were you popular? how do you know?

obsessive-compulsive much?

check-ch-check, check, check, ch-check it out

if it weren't for my good friend and coworker, kristy, i might never have noticed that i exhibit some obsessive-compulsive disorder tendencies.

we were at a new staff tryout and i was organizing and reorganizing the paperwork in front of me, separating piles and moving pencils from one side to the other, situating all the points in one direction and the erasers in the other.

this weekend while in missouri, i was continually plagued with two thoughts:

• that the stove in my house was on and my cats were going to be poisoned
  
• that i accidentally shut one of my cats -- specifically casey's cat -- in the closet

sitting in saint louis airport, i had to mindfully force myself to keep reading my magazine so i would stop panicking about the cats. then that didn't work because i would keep running into words like "die" and "death." damn rolling stone.

i think that ocd may help me in some respects with my job -- i'm superduper organized, systematic, and methodical if i do say so myself -- but sometimes, the check-check-checking slows... me... way... down.

take this quiz -- how ocd are you? i scored a 19.

on the other hand, it might just be a case of reading about something and then ascribing that disorder to oneself. what's that called? yep, must have that. damn google search.

irony at the ulta

ew migaad, burrots! wha-eet?

after two days of dredging up content for a three page newsletter, i straighten my kinked spine and went to chipotle to celebrate. without any sunlight to generate vitamin d, i swear i've contracted rickets, people.

i sat at the little bar there and read eve ensler's the good body, chowing on my black bean soft tacos. good little book, but i have to say, it gave me speed as slathered on the guac' with a little plastic knife.

to cap off my victorious evening, stopped in ulta to buy some barrettes. [i have long hair now! never say never!] and lazily browsed through the aisles, sniffing and sampling. i'm particularly lazy today as i suffered a bout of insomnia last night. restrained from tossing and turning by my sleepleaded cats, this effing spina bifida or whatever just started to twist and ache. after an hour of sightless blinking at the ceiling, i wrapped myself in a robe and tried sleeping on the couch. one thing i learned as a insomniatic kid: when you can't sleep, don't read; just change locations. i figured that out after devouring every volume of my peanuts encyclopedia over and over. what else have i retained? that studies show lucy would be less crabby if she drank some orange juice every day.

so back to ulta... i go to purchase my barrettes, and this large man clad in a black pleather apron behind the counter chirpily lisps, "hand made in america!" with a cigarette-crusted voice. he says it so smugly, sarcastically, like he's made a funny.

the zaftig, gothish cashieress asks, "wha-it?" and mr. funny flicks his languid fingers at the hair accessories with disdain, "oh, just these... barrettes." the cashierix smirks and harrumphs. she literally harrumphed!

i didn't get it. whaa?

oops! she did it again... and again, and again...

holy cats! [yes, jamie -- i said it again, too!]

you guys gotta go to the britney archives of go fug yourself. i have been sitting here for ten minutes cackling and snorting with laughter. those fug girls are so brilliantly ha!-larious.

on a different note, i actually regained focus enough today to knock out half of what i had assigned myself. go, me! beat state!

i'm a slug

can't. get. moving.

i can't get it together. i have had a stiff neck since friday and a sore throat since yesterday. to hold my head upright kills. i don't feel like working at all. to put a true emphasis on how little i want to do anything, i will employ the double-negative: i don't want to do nothing.

what do i kind of want to do if i had any drive at all?

• bake bran muffins
  
• lay on the couch and read all my magazines one after the other
  
• get a massage to fix my jacked-up neck and back
  
• wiggle my nose and blammo! have a clean house
  
• do something art-and-crafty
  
• restone my cell phone
  
• put songs on my ipod which i've had since december and never used yet
  
• work out
  
• take a nap underneath a pile of cats

instead, i will just sit here, staring blankly at my laptop.

someone help me. i'm stuck.