dangerous k

For Real This Time

2011-01-07T21:47:00.003-05:00

I've officially relocated to a new blog. Thanks for the laughs.

The Phantom Menace

2010-08-23T13:50:00.002-04:00

I’ve been working here for just over a month now. By my count, this is my 30th business day at Save De Puppehs Inc. Let’s say each day I visit the rest room approximately four times. I realize that is a conservative estimate considering that I daily drink between 72 and 90 oz of water. Each visit lasts an average of four minutes including seating, pep talking, action, flushing, hand washing, hair primping and checking my teeth for bits of food. So, by the end of today, I will have spent a grand total so far of 480 minutes, eight working hours or one business day in the ladies room, a world of unwritten rules and never-ending scandal.

Every restroom has its share of villainous characters. In the past, you’ve heard about Bertha, Amy Winehouses’ doppelganger and Happy Friday. Now I’d like to introduce you to my new arch nemesis, The Phantom Menace, whose crime is possibly the worst one possible in a girls’ room: she has left many a stall looking like a murder scene. Even I won’t describe the gory details of the things I’ve seen lately. I don’t want to give you nightmares. Suffice it to say, she doesn’t clean up after herself.

I’ve always wondered what goes through the minds of these exhibitionists. Why leave it all there for the world to see? If you’re so proud of it, take a goddamn picture and hang it up on your refrigerator at home. We (the collective WE of the rest of the building) are not so interested.

The collective WE made this known by complaining to every office and building manager who would listen until they 1) sent an awkward email around about cleanliness 2) taped the email up around the bathroom and 3) when the notices were ripped down and EVERY SINGLE one of our four stalls was systematically violated in retaliation, posted the message in protective Plexiglas sign holders on the inside of every stall door at eye level.

It wasn’t until I was scanning the memo for the n-millionth time this morning that I locked on a certain phrase: “Management has been receiving numerous complaints for several weeks now.” Several weeks. Not “countless” and not “a few.” Several. I’ve been working here several weeks. OH GOD! DOES EVERYONE THINK IT’S ME!?!

Now, I know it’s not me perpetrating these acts of egregious toilet violence, but in my egocentric, hypochondriac mind, I now assume that others have made the same connection in time period with a different conclusion. This is currently my worst fear in life next to zombies, sharks and serial killers all of whom might be hiding under my bed at any given moment.

To make matters worse, I only feel guilty about something when I HAVEN’T done anything wrong. I can look a man in the eye and tell the most shameful lies on the planet without a flicker of the truth passing across my face. But if I’m telling the truth, I will look like the guiltiest suspect in the lineup. I felt personally at fault for the oil spill in the Gulf. The same thing happens when I take a sick day at work. If I’m really under the weather, I spend all day feeling like I’m not ill enough to stay home and thinking I’m a bad person for not going to the office. If I’m playing hooky, I don’t give it a second thought. Yes, this is all ludicrous. Does not change the fact that I look and feel responsible when I’m not to blame.

So, how do I unsully my good name and keep the others from potentially pointing the finger at me? I could just stand on my desk and loudly proclaim it’s not me or I could send a mass email to the same effect. Either way, people might want to pursue the topic in conversation and I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from looking guilty so that option’s out. I could offer to have a security guard follow me to the girls’ room and check my stall after I’ve completed my business. But I get such bad stage fright that I would sooner wait till the end of the day to use the lavatory. Maybe I could just stop drinking water during the day!

The possibilities are limitless. I’ve brainstormed around 50 and stopped myself before the spiral of irrational thought got out of control. But I won’t be the victim here. For once though, I intend on staying in a job for more than 15 minutes. Time is on my side for a change. I’ll be right here, Ms. Menace. I’ll be watching out the crack in my stall and running out after you if I don’t hear a flush when you leave. Your secret is no longer safe. I will find you. You’ve irked the wrong neurotic observer of strict bathroom etiquette.

When You Assume...

2010-08-13T11:35:00.004-04:00

Everyone at my new job is super friendly, even the people from the other company on our floor. I’m getting used to smiling at people in the hallway instead of turning my body sideways to avoid coming in contact with the air they’ve been breathing. The next time I visit my Dad in South Carolina, I’m SO not going to freak out when a stranger greets me in the street.

So, I was pretty surprised when I said good morning to an unfamiliar face coming out of our shared kitchen and she just gave me one of those contemptuous why-are-you-talking-to-me smiles. I brought it up to my coworkers at lunch later that day and they laughed and told me there’s a deaf girl in the next office over and said it was probably her.

(The following isn’t really relevant to the story as I’m just using this scenario to introduce how I came to find out about the deaf girl but I have to share it anyway. The lunch conversation continued and my description of the unfriendly stranger with a short black bob didn’t match the description of the purported deaf girl with long light brown hair usually worn in a high ponytail. I saw the bobbed girl later. She’s an intern in my office WHO CAN HEAR PERFECTLY FINE. BITCH.)

Regardless, I bumped into the REAL deaf girl coming out of the ladies’ room last week. This time I knew it was actually her because when she opened the door and almost hit me in the face, she said sorry but kind of in that Helen Keller voice like “sah-reh.” After thinking that, I immediately ran into a stall to berate myself for my insensitivity and make up for it by mentally complimenting how cute her dress was. It really was. I’m not just making that up. Then I started wondering if dressing particularly cute was some sort of visual overcompensation and I had to change the topic in my head because I don’t even MEAN to think these things. They just happen whether I want them to or not and I frequently feel bad about them.

A few days ago, she was in front of me walking into the bathroom in yet another adorable dress – a pink one with big Hawaiian flowers. We seated ourselves and she immediately ripped ass. Instead of panicking and leaving the room like I usually would, I realized that despite our rocky start, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. For once, I could (and DID) take a wiz without the stage fright of someone listening in and judging the quantity of my wiz or audible speed of release. I even contributed a little gas of my own and there we were, tooting along in our own little bathroom jamboree while I imagined a movie montage of us laughing while drinking coffee on a park bench and window shopping for really cute dresses on our lunch break. Amidst my reverie, she left the bathroom and I was sadly left to wash my hands alone.

I walked back down the hallway to my office still lost in my own personal thoughts when who should appear out of the kitchen with a cup of water but my new office BFF! She smiled in return to my greeting and we parted ways. It wasn’t until I was back at my cube before I realized that when she was leaving the kitchen, she was wearing a blue toile dress. Not a pink one. I’d mistaken someone else’s ponytail for her signature look and got so caught up thinking about her wardrobe that I didn't even look at her face.

And this is why I have such a hard time making new friends.

A New Meaning to Free-Range

2010-07-28T13:49:00.007-04:00

Alright, yes, it has been three weeks since my last post and nearly two months since my wedding and I have been side stepping complaints from a certain luncheon meat who will remain unnamed but guys. I got my dream job. A few weeks ago I started working for an animal welfare nonprofit and it rocks. It also kind of makes me feel like I’ve never worked a legitimate day in my entire life because the work is demanding and brain-energy consuming and interesting for once. I’m doing a lot of real writing which is completely different from blogging because instead of recounting the slapstick routine that is my daily existence, I’m tearing out hearts with sob stories about abused puppehs. I mist at my desk all the time. I shit you not.

So, it should come as no surprise that this one-time vegetarian is struggling with meat again (even bacon) and now refuses to consume it unless I am absolutely certain that the animal it came from was humanely raised. It should come as less of a surprise that this development has gotten me into trouble.

Two weeks ago was the wedding of Beau’s cousin in Florida. Starbucks wasn’t even open yet when we got to the airport at the ungodly hour of 4:30am that Saturday. We huddled at their gates peering through the bars to no avail until his parents found an open Dunkin Donuts further into the terminal. In addition to my new wariness of meat products (even bacon), my situation has been compounded by renewed interest in getting back into shape to avoid eventually having a TLC special made about me when they have to use a fork lift to remove me from my condo. That pretty much crossed everything on the Dunkies menu off of the list of possibilities for breakfast.

I wandered to a snack kiosk and found a stash of Fiber One bars. At 150 calories a piece, I reasoned that two would make a satisfactory and responsible meal. I ate one while paying for them and the other somewhere over Delaware. By 9am we had landed in Tampa, collected a rental car and were on our way west to a beach front hotel.

Sometime after checking in and eating lunch, Beau’s sister She-Ra and her husband arrived. We were splitting the room with them in a cost-saving measure. Her husband retired to the room for a little golf tournament surveillance while we basked around the pool. Mere pages into a new book, I realized how exhausted I was. Severe sleepiness often makes my stomach ache so between a rumbling tummy and lack of rest, I was cranky. I excused myself to the room where I figured I’d get a jump start on the shower line up before the wedding that evening.

As soon as I was out of ear shot of about a dozen in-laws, a bit of gas escaped me. I giggled in that way that you do when you are actively flatulating behind a bush in public. It ceased to amuse me by the time I reached the elevator and was making wind like a tropical storm. I greeted She-Ra’s husband and retreated to the safety of the bathroom when I could attempt to silently detonate my digestive system.

Cleaned, refreshed and partially deflated, I snuggled into my bed for a power nap. When Beau woke me later that afternoon, I knew without a doubt that I was in trouble. Tropical storm Dangerous K had upgraded to a full-fledged category one hurricane and was gaining strength on the coast of the gulf. I threw myself out of bed and poked my head into the hallway where there was a lone housekeeper slowly pushing her cart down the never ending hall. I turned around, slammed the door and hurtled across the room as fast as I could at a controlled geisha step to my last sanctuary: the balcony overlooking the tennis courts.

As soon as the glass sliding door shut, I farted like nobody’s business (yet here I am telling the internet all about it so I guess that makes my business everybody’s business actually). Sheepishly, I slunk back into the room and confessed to Beau who already knew due to my constant whining earlier that day. News travels fast in a 12’ x 12’ room. Especially when you've been tooting along in your sleep. She-Ra inquired after what I’d eaten that day and a look of horror passed across her face when I got to the Fiber One bars that I’d had for breakfast, “Aren’t each of those 35% of your daily fiber? That’s 70% of your daily fiber that you ate in one sitting.”

Well. Fuck.

That didn’t change the fact that I had to fit my bloated abdomen into a cute little dress and march myself down to a gathering of in-laws and complete strangers where we’d all sit in closs proximity and in complete silence while watching a solemn, major life event unfold before our eyes. At least it was outside.

I managed to last through the blessedly brief ceremony without embarrassing myself further than a few moments of doubled over agony and the occasional sound of reuptake – that horrendous gurgling that your intestines do when you have a fart on deck that you REFUSE to release into the wild. Even my own body is bent on my complete and utter humiliation.

After the ceremony, I tried to sneak away but was retained for family photos. I lagged behind the group that was heading for the sand dunes and snuck a few silent-but-deadlies. My newly free-range ass air swirled about and I shuffled towards the sea grass before the guy collecting the folding chairs had detected anything was amiss.

Having mastered the art of silent release, the reception was much more comfortable. I passed gas near a volley ball court, at the bar, at a cocktail table while stuffing my face with baby quiches, in at least three hallways, in the bathroom after greeting the bride at the sink, in line at the buffet and, God help me, at the dinner table seated next to a previously estranged family member. Beau, if he stops speaking to you guys again, I may know why.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to lately. Jet setting to southern states, attending family events and tirelessly lobbying for the freedom of farts, puppehs and meat. Even bacon.

Collect The Moments One By One

2010-07-07T19:37:00.009-04:00

Before I can talk about the wedding, I have to properly cover the days leading up to the wedding when we sat back and watched all of our loved ones converge on Cape Cod. It’s surreal seeing different parts of your life collide like that. My best friend from the 2nd grade made friends with my gay BFF. My sister played beer pong with my drinking buddies. My Dad hit on Beau’s pretty cousin. Again.

Brideslave Grasshoppah & sanitary beer pong

The weekend started with a speed bump when our friends gathered on the lawn of their rental house and the landlord didn’t show up to let us in. We busted out the party supplies (namely vodka, leis and a deck of cards) and partied on the front lawn.

Why not? We rented the lawn too.

Though our friends seemed content playing Asshole in the yard, poor Beau was getting distraught and leaving irritated voicemails for the delinquent landlord. I was rapidly approaching the optimum number of red cups for Supreme Levels of Confidence so though we’d made multiple attempts at breaking into the house, I gave it another go. Somehow, the vodka mixed with the Jersey in me and I busted in.

"What if you boost me up to the balcony?" / "Nobody is boosting you anywhere"

After settling in, we all trooped back to the Beau homestead where Mama and Papa Beau hosted a fantastic barbeque, fed us meat and mac’n’cheese, and poured more alcohol down our throats. We returned to the frat house to play drinking games and listen to Sandstorm on loop. At some point, we tried to take a cute picture out front and succeeded only in breaking the fence.

Should have shown up to let us in. Now your fence is busted.

Somewhere around midnight, Beau and I started the mile trek home on foot. We held hands to keep from stumbling into bushes of hydrangeas and to protect ourselves from potential skunks. About a block from his house on a quiet side street, a cop car drove towards us. It did a U-turn at the end of the street, slowly passed us again, and then halted at the stop sign at the end of the block.

“Are we getting pulled over on foot?” Beau hiccupped. I nodded. We were quiet and attempted to be less stumbly as we neared the cruiser. When we were 10 feet away, the trooper opened the door and pointed a flashlight in our eyes. He ascertained that yes, we were coming back from a friend’s house and probably noticed that we were half in the wrapper. Beau waved off his offer of a ride since we were so close to his house. I spent the remainder of the walk scowling at his for passing up the opportunity to arrive home in a cop car. Also, I was in flip flops and didn’t feel like walking anymore.

That was the last unmarried night we spent in the same bedroom.

Fur is Murder

2010-06-22T14:33:00.002-04:00

This morning I went to the dentist, got two fillings done and it was entirely uneventful (except that I drooled a little bit on my dress and was too lazy to change when I swung by the house to pick up my lunch before driving to work so am currently trying to sit in such a way that I hide the slobber spot) but it DID remind me that the Saturday before my wedding, I did something even more painful: I got waxed. For the first time. In places other than my eyebrows. And I have opinions.

Before you go thinking this even MORE of an over share than usual, I didn’t get the whole shebang done. Despite the encouragement of most of my female friends, I resisted popular opinion and opted for my thighs and bikini line instead of getting a landing strip in the shape of Harry Potter’s scar. It began harmlessly enough with my eyebrows. I chatted with my waxer, Alice, about the wedding. She was cute, not overly-perky, and had a big fake hibiscus behind her right ear. What a coincidence? I also like big fake flowers. We bonded over being chubby and avoiding buying pants until our old ones have holes and how I would likely reward myself with ice cream after my waxing appointment. Alice and I were thick as thieves. Until she stole my pubic hair.

I dropped trou, preparing myself for what I understood would not be a pleasant experience. The first rip wasn’t as bad as I had expected. I thought to myself “I can handle this. I’ve been through worse.” Over the next hour, that would prove to be a terrible, terrible lie. I can honestly say that it was worse than all three of my tattoos combined at the same time. PLUS, unlike the tattoo parlor, there wasn’t a TV playing Labyrinth in the background. Instead, she dimmed the lights and we listened to Sounds of the Ocean: Volume IV on loop. I’m sure it was meant to be soothing but I couldn’t wrap my head around the dichotomy. It would be like playing Enya on the set of Saw. Waves calmly lapping against the shore and getting the hair ripped out of your crotch just don’t go together. It took me DAYS on the honeymoon to stop cringing when we walked on the beach.

What else could I do but attempt to control the volume of my voice during our idle banter and not yell “I WILL KILL YOU” when she asked about my wedding dress. I kept my furiously perspiring hands tightly clasped on my stomach to keep myself from giving in to instinct and begin hitting the person causing me so much pain. In addition to controlling myself, the wet spot under my profusely sweating palms was growing and I stressed about hiding it from this woman with a terrible fake tan who had already seen my ugliest pair of underwear and parts of my lady bits. But the anxiety gave me something to think about other than holding her down and pulling out her fingernails so I accepted it.

To keep myself distracted I made a mental list of those responsible for my situation: I cursed my own propensity for fuzziness. I cursed my genetic information for giving me the fuzzy phenotype. I cursed my parents for those genes. I cursed Italy for my fuzzy heritage. I cursed all of the Mediterranean just to be on the safe side. I cursed my bathing suits and I cursed Old Navy for not having any board shorts in my size that week. I cursed the fashion industry for insisting that females be bald everywhere but their heads. I cursed every dollar I’d spent in support of that industry and I cursed every goddamn Vogue I’d ever read. Then I squinted and I cursed Alice in my mind so vehemently that she caught my eye and started looking scared. So, I stopped playing that game.

But. It. Kept. Going. I ran out of clever little things to think about and my jaw started hurting from grinding my teeth. The sweat spot was out of control. I’d already memorized every detail of the neon painting of a Caribbean beach landscape on the wall and had already drafted a mean letter to the artist in my head belittling his talent. I searched the walls for something else to focus on. Mere feet from the painting was Alice’s waxer certificate. From mid-April. You know when the camera rushes in on a focal point really quickly in a movie and you can tell the main character must be shitting his pants? That’s sort of what it was like. Just then Alice asked “Did you want to do the back of your legs too?” and I responded a little too quickly with an unnaturally high voice “NOTHANKS.ITHINKI’MALLSET.”

In a thinly veiled attempt to restore my karma after an hour of homicidal thoughts, I tipped well despite the fact that I was walking like I’d been riding a horse all day, had wax stuck to my pants, and, as I later found out, still had plenty of patches that she’d missed, making me resemble not a blushing bride but a mangy dog.

So, yeah, I have opinions. Here's one: cavities are more fun than waxing appointments.

Hitched

2010-06-18T14:46:00.001-04:00

Stay tuned for TONS of photos and stories (oh the stories!) of the wedding and honeymoon coming up in the next few weeks. I’m trying to hold out for the DVD from our wedding photographer before I get rolling. Till then, here’s a sneak peak from the fabulously charming and talented Kate Haus of Alpine Moon Photography.

Bachelorette Party - Part II: Seth's Girls

2010-06-01T14:48:00.015-04:00

Correction from previous entry: The overwhelming page hits that I accused Bologna of are indeed NOT being perpetrated by Bologna. She introduced my blog to one of her coworkers who has taken a shining to my work. It is my pleasure to introduce her as My First Unrelated Admitted Fan (or Mfuaf for short... kind of sounds like if you tried to say “mofo” with a Ugandan accent). Hi, Mfuaf! Today’s post is dedicated to you!

When we last left our hero, I was sitting in a car clutching a big red balloon with a note that read “Clue #1.” I opened the note and was directed to a local park where I was instructed to publicly announce my love for Beau. We circled the park a few times but were unable to find the balloon so Chairsy took me to the known location of the second balloon: Subway.

We parked and I half skipped, half stumbled in the door and ran to my next balloon which had been tied to a chair. There was no clue though. I frowned loudly and began complaining about the lack of security in this area since someone had clearly tampered with my second balloon. A girl at the next table over turned around and it took me a moment before I realized it was Lulu. I gave her a big ol’ Dangerous K bear hug and she told me that the cashier (sandwich technician?) had my next clue. I just needed to sing the $5-footlong song in order to retrieve it.

I sang and ($5-Italian-sub and clue in hand) we journeyed to a local grocery store where I was instructed to purchase a variety of phallic items. As I began perusing the produce section, the store manager welcomed me to the store over the intercom and congratulated me on my upcoming nuptials to which I began war whooping. A banana, carrot, and after many pokes and squeezes, a cucumber were selected (As previously discussed, I have a phobia of rotten vegetables. I refuse to purchase a subprime cucumber. Besides, I wasn’t entirely convinced that the next step wouldn’t involve these items going in my mouth).

Chairsy suggested purchasing a log of pepperoni which would be both phallic AND delicious on crackers. I concurred with her logic and we migrated to the deli section. Before reaching our destination, I saw a red balloon and honed in on Bologna who was calmly seated in one of those open meat refrigerators. It must be an unsettling sight to be on the receiving end of me, slightly intoxicated, charging with fistfuls of pointy vegetables but what can I say? I was excited.

The last balloon directed me to Grasshoppah’s house but first, Bologna insisted we return to the park (or rather, visit the correct location for the first time since it turns out we had been circling the wrong park the last time). Upon arrival, it became clear that the original first balloon had gone missing anyway. I climbed on top of a picnic table and shouted to a group of adolescent soccer players that I love Beau and intended on marrying him.

A kindly stranger took our picture once I’d climbed down and asked if we happen to be looking for a red balloon. My eyes narrowed. He said he’d seen it earlier in the day but didn’t know where it went. I focused on his 6-year-old son. I had a pretty damn good idea where my balloon went and assumed that beating the child was an implicit task in the scavenger hunt. Sadly, my bridesmaids know me too well so they quickly put me back in the car before ass-kickings could be distributed on the playground.

At Grasshoppah’s house, I was greeted with a slew of my favorite things: Beau’s face glued to posters of Taylor Lautner’s body, the entire Quatro, a small dog who I may or may not have attempted to put in my purse later in the night, my college roommate Gazelle and gallons upon gallons of rumndietcoke. There was a magnificent spread of food and drink, all of which was related to a memory of me. There was Jack Daniels from my more dangerous years, chips’n’cheese’n’hummus from Oxford’s street-meat vendors, even Lulu’s mother’s meatloaf. I was in heaven. I piled a mound of food on a plate and sat myself in my throne to chatter with my lady friends and ogle the Chihuahua.

An hour or so later, I was full and moderately plastered when Bologna ran into the room urging everyone to quiet down. One of Grasshoppah’s respectable neighbors had called the cops. I attempted to hide my pimp cup of rumndietcoke behind my throne like a drunken 15-year-old. I heard quiet murmuring from the front hall and began writing my apology monologue to Grasshoppah’s landlord. Then the cop walked in. It was immediately apparent he was not in fact, an officer of the law. Either the long, greasy, curly hair, the shirt open to his navel, or the tear away pants gave it away.

Despite my purported dangerousness, I have never actually seen a live stripper before. Even drunk, the situation is uncomfortable. It doesn’t seem right to just sit there while someone is going through the trouble of taking off their clothing for you. Should you applaud? Dance? Sit there and smile idiotically? I chose to engage in conversation because, by God, strippers are people, too. My stripper’s name was Seth and according to Lulu, one of my opening lines was, “So, tell me your back story.” This doesn’t surprise me at all considering one of my primary interests in life involves the logistics of taboos. For further details on this interest, please refer to any of my bathroom posts.

Time passed. My memory goes a bit fuzzy. I know I gave Seth some of my stickers because like a truly underdeveloped adult, it’s the most valuable thing I had to share. Other than one-dollar bills I guess. Given the choice, I would personally pick the unicorn sticker. Anyway, more time passed. I vaguely remember an exchange between myself and Bologna that went something like:

Me: There’s a raffle?! I want raffle tickets!

Bologna: You have raffle tickets, sweety.

Me: [looks at left hand which is clenched in a fist around several dozen raffle tickets] What are these for?

Bologna: The raffle

Me: There’s a raffle?! I want raffle tickets!

I don’t know how long that went on for. I know that eventually the night devolved into an all-out dance party in Grasshoppah’s living room to Sandstorm which was being played on loop thanks to Notorious and, though the money had dried up, Seth hung out with us in his banana-hammock while Face brought him Shirley Temples.

My fuzzy memory flashes forward to the point of the evening when we were out on the front porch having heart-to-hearts under a quilt (“just like a scene out of Gilmore Girls” as Chairsy reported) and I was eating the carrot we bought earlier. I remember someone asking me why I was eating an unwashed, unpeeled carrot and I remember not understanding why they couldn’t follow my train of thought that went “Bologna doesn’t like it when I get shitfaced and smoke cigarettes so I should eat something to keep my hands busy but I shouldn’t eat any more combos covered in queso dip or else I’ll get too fat for my wedding dress so I’ll eat this carrot instead.” Instead of explaining, I just rolled my eyes at them which in retrospect probably looked more like I was about to boot.

But boot I did not. I survived thanks to Lulu’s stealth transfer from rumndietcoke to water. She may be the only person on earth who can remove an alcoholic beverage from my hands and replace it with water without getting physically assaulted. The next morning, I woke up to the Chihuahua running across the pillow next to me and within moments I was surrounded by girls handing me Advil, water, and a bagel. A dollar bill and a raffle ticket fell out of my hoodie and they all laughed while I scratched my head. I couldn’t have asked for a better bachelorette party or more achingly awesome friends.

Tomorrow morning, we’re leaving for Cape Cod in preparation for the wedding on Saturday. I won’t be near a computer for two glorious weeks. I will share many, many photos when I return but until then, Mfuaf, please enjoy this picture from the morning after my bachelorette party.

Good morning, America / How are ya?

Bachelorette Party - Part I: The Road

2010-05-29T12:16:00.005-04:00

First of all, I’d like to say how tremendously flattered I am that after more than a month of no entries, my site meter says I’m still getting a whopping ten hits a day. Granted, eight of those are coming from Bologna’s IP address, but to my two other fans, thank you ever so much. You give me the warm fuzzies. Bologna, you give me the warm fuzzies but also sort of a chill down my spine that you get when you can feel someone watching you. At nighttime, I check under the bed for you.

Beau was kidnapped by his groomsmen yesterday afternoon for his four day bachelor party extravaganza in Montreal. That means I’ve spent the last twelve hours crapping with the bathroom door open, eating nothing but pizza, and sleeping in the middle of the bed without him complaining about my elbow being in his face. What better time to tell you about my own bachelorette party which occurred two UNFORGIVEABLE weeks ago? I actually did a complete write up at work yesterday but found that too many of the important details were left out in a one part entry. The humor is all in the details, my friends. So, before Bologna pops out of one of my closets frothing at the mouth, wielding a laptop, and shrieking at me for an entry, let’s begin.

Two INEXCUSEABLE Saturdays ago, Chairsy pulled up to my house in her brand spanking new SUV. I hopped in and threw my bag in the back which contained (among many other things that Bologna insisted that I bring) a bathing suit, five pairs of underwear, and a sturdy pair of walking shoes. I immediately asked if there were snacks. Shocker.

Chairsy instructed me to look at the bag at my feet and to also note the two bottles of soda that had clearly been tampered with. I was to consume those. Trusting that Chairsy wouldn’t slip me a roofie (and frankly, not caring if she did – free drugs for everyone!) I opened the first bottle and tentatively took a sip. I was chugging the sweet nectar of rumndietcoke before we’d even left my street.

Though Chairsy was supposed to blindfold me from the get go, she understood that the combination of binge drinking in a moving vehicle in pitch blackness might cause my now notoriously (NO-NO-NO-NOTORIOUS) weak stomach to expel its contents all over her brand spanking new dashboard causing her husband to kill her in a gruesome fashion. Thus, I was allowed to skip the blindfold and secretly begin guessing where we were going. Yes, I can talk myself out of almost everything. I would have been a lawyer but that requires work and I am decidedly against work.

After my first bottle of darling rumndietcoke (sweet Jesus, how I’ve missed you, my poppet) I convinced my chauffeur to let me out of the car to pee. Everyone is happy to pump me full of liquid but the minute the necessary bodily function need occur, it’s all OH LOOK AT DK WITH HER TILTED WALNUT BLADDER. Sorry for my petite organs. I can’t help that they aren't gargantuan like yours.

Rest stops are much more fun when you’re tipsy. Before you start thinking I’ve gone lightweight, let me say that Chairsy mixes a hefty drink and had prefaced my first sip with “Sorry… that might be a little strong. I got carried away.” Carried away indeed. I skipped into the turnpike restroom, nearly stopping to ask what appeared to be a living anime character to take a picture with me. I clicked the lock on the stall while pulling down my pants and spun around in ballerina fashion before flopping down on the toilet. I immediately jumped up in my least graceful way, pseudo-waddling in the seated position so as to hide my lady bits to slam the door shut before any errant Pokémon saw my shame. Guess the lock was faulty. Must have been.

I skipped back out to the parking lot ready to relate my close encounters with Japan and stopped short on the curb. Instead of seeing Chairsy usual red beater, I saw a sea of unfamiliar vehicles. What color was her new car? Black? Dark blue? Steely Gray? Shit. Well, I knew it was a Toyota SUV. That narrowed it down to only 90% of the cars. I peeked in a few vehicles and inadvertently gave one elderly woman the scare of her life when I was certain I’d found Chairsy’s car and popped up next to the passenger’s side window with that HERE’S JOHNNY face and enthusiastic jazz hands only to find that indeed, I had not found the right Toyota at all.

Eventually, I found Chairsy in the next row and told her about my adventures. We continued our journey while I wondered aloud whether the turnpike went east-west or north-south and started nursing my second bottle of refreshing, beautiful rumndietcoke (sigh of yearning). I became convinced that we were not going a roundabout way to Boston when some of the town names became vaguely familiar from my college years. We left the highway and not long after, pulled onto a bona fide dirt road. I felt so complimented that Chairsy bought an offroading vehicle just for this moment. Until she pulled over and told me to get out.

I stepped out, making sure to leave the door open so that if the engine kicked back on, I’d have time to hop back in. Chairsy told me to turn around. I faced the farmer’s field, surveyed the recently sown rows, and asked if we were trespassing on private property because getting shot at by a man in overalls was not really my idea of a good time. Chairsy giggled from somewhere near the trunk of the car. While I continued to form a contingency plan, she blindfolded me, pinned something to the back of my head, and shoved me back in the car. While this may sound like the starts to a promising porno, I assure you, it is not going in the direction that you think it is.

Though blindfolded, I could sense from Chairsy sudden reticence and the many K turns that we were ever so slightly lost. Could there be a more convenient time that when you’re lost in the unfamiliar land of Deliverance to need a bathroom? I think not. I demanded she return me to the dirt path so I could tinkle in the bushes. Instead, ten minutes later when it became evident that a phone call was necessary for assistance, she pulled over at a gas station.

I cheerfully hopped out, resolving to look at the bathroom lock BEFORE undressing (see, I’m a quick learner) and walked in with a jaunty step, smiling at the many admirers who watched me go by. By many, I mean the toothless man who held the door for me and the Pakistani cashier. I was pleased to see my favorite type of public lavatory (a single room instead of a prison of stalls in which I could see my neighbors’ ankles), secured the door, double checked the lock, and enjoyed a private smile before looking up at my fabulousness in the mirror. Looking back was a smug, slightly intoxicated woman with a fringe of veil showing around her face. The smile broadened as I checked myself out. The smile faded as I realized my admirers outside may not have been admiring me so much as staring at the many neon penises bedazzling the back of my veil.

Instead of slinking past my new found friends, I strode past with my head held high, genital-covered veil flowing behind me. I returned to the car, ready to say “very funny” in my best dripping-with-sarcasm-but-secretly-incredibly-amused voice but Chairsy was ready for me with one of my weaknesses in hand: a big red balloon with a note attached that read “Clue #1.”

That’s where I’ll leave you for today. See what I mean? I couldn’t do the sheer awesomeness of my bachelorette party justice if I didn’t tell you how it really went down and there’s just too much for one day’s work. I swear on my penis veil that I’ll get the entire story written by the time I leave for the wedding next Wednesday. But for now, I need to get to my wedding chores and prepare for the arrival of Lulu who has generously offered to drive up for the weekend to help with crafting. That means I’m spending my last weekend as a single lady the same way I spent them from 1992 to 2002: having a slumber party with Lulu, gossiping about boys, watching chick flicks, and getting into my ~~father’s~~ liquor cabinet. I guess that means no more open door pooping.

A Fabric Cage of Emotion

2010-04-16T16:06:00.012-04:00

The wedding is coming up fast (50 days to be exact but who’s counting? I certainly don’t have half a dozen countdowns that I update daily). Last night, I went to my first dress fitting. Both Mama Beau and Chairsy were able to make it to David’s Bridal in Natick with me. They helped me carry my trousseau in from the car and then deposited me in the fitting room. The seamstress (who was named Nina, I believe) came in and asked me if I knew how to get into the bridal bra. I said, “No, not really.” She said, “OK well, I’ll show you.” So, I stripped and held the new one up to my chest and called her in. She instructed me to bend over slightly while she hooked the back. It was very Mammy-pull-tighter-I-want-to-look-ravishing-at-the-barbeque until she kind of gave up and said, “This is the wrong size.”

Nina ran out to get a new loaner bra to use for the fitting and I poked my head out of the dressing room to chat with Chairsy and Mama Beau. Now, my bridal bra is one of those seamless molded corsets. It doesn’t show through the dress but it holds my womanflesh firmly in place. I like it in all its simplicity. It reminds me of my grungy cotton bras when they first arrive in the mail from Victoria’s Secret. But, of course, last night they didn’t HAVE a loaner seamless one in my size so Nina brought back a monstrosity out of Frederick’s of Hollywood. There was lace and wire ribbing and those little strings that you hook to your stockings and OH MY GOD IS THAT A PALE PINK BOW?!

After Nina strapped me into the The Moulin Rouge corset, Chairsy came in and helped me into the petticoats which GOODNESS GRACIOUS poof like nobody's business once you pull them out of the original packaging. She managed to get the dress over my head and I waddled out to the little stage while Mama Beau sniffled and smiled. I realized I had left my shoes in the dressing room. Chairsy brought them out and placed them at the edge of the stage. As I found out, there is no bending over in a wedding gown. Try as I might, the shoes remained steadfastly several feet away from me. As I approached them, one of two things would happen: the dress would push them further away or they would get consumed by my petticoats and I would begin fearing for their safety up in there.

Instead, Chairsy, ever the good brideslave, lifted the hem of my dress, guided my foot towards the shoe and then even acted as my own personal shoehorn. I stood there petting my dress as Nina showed my entourage how to properly close it up. She hemmed what felt like several thousand layers of skirt. Time passed. I spun in lots of circles, talked about bridezillas, and found out that my toes go numb when I stand still too long (I guess we know what will happen during the ceremony – that will make for a graceful exit down the aisle). The seamstress gossiped with us about girls coming to David’s Bridal for prom dresses and buying skimpy one that barely cover their bosoms and we all shook our heads and said “Kids these days.” Once she was all done, I got to walk up and down a little hallway while everyone watched to test the hem length. It’s fun taking up an entire corridor with a voluminous dress. It’s just fabric but it feels like sheer POWER. At one point a woman, I assume a scullery maid, needed to get down the hallway and I stepped aside and magnanimously gestured that she may pass my magnificence.

Chairsy helped me out of the dress and I managed not to put an eye out on one of the thousand pins. I left behind my red light district corset and was able to make an exchange for the correct size in the correct style. Everyone and their mother made a point of profusely apologizing for getting me the wrong size in the first place. I assume they’re used to dealing with bridezillas. Say what you will about David’s Bridal, but I think the customer service is phenomenal.

As we were collecting our things to leave, another girl came out of the dressing room next to me and went up on the stage. Mama Beau, still looking a little misty, complimented her dress (which was ivory silk and one of those pretty mermaid shapes that only looks good on size 2 figures) and asked her when the big day was. The girl replied, “I’m not getting married. This is my prom dress” and proceeded to concentrate on pulling the dress lower on her chest. Kids these days.

The Jell-O Mug

2010-04-02T11:51:00.008-04:00

The past week has comprised of INTENSE preparation of the condo for this weekend when my loved ones will descend (or I should say ascend since they’re almost all coming from points further south) on the metro Boston area for my shower and a big thanks-for-hauling-ass-to-a-state-in-which-the-National-Guard-was-recently-deployed BBQ. Despite having sat still for about 15 minutes in the past week, I made time on Wednesday night to prepare for one of my favorite holidays: April Fools. Are you really all that surprised?

Office BFF is a die-hard Office fan and prides herself on being our office’s version of Dwight. So, this year’s inspiration came from the pilot episode. As luck would have it, Office B took a vacation day on March31. Why someone would leave their personal belongings unprotected the day before April Fools with me around, I’ll never know. Suffice it to say, she did and I took advantage by abducting her favorite mug…

Figure 1

… and asking Beau to buy as many packages of strawberry Jell-O that he could find on his way home from work. Shortly after dinner, I was in the kitchen setting this up:

Figure 2

When I pulled it out of the fridge on Thursday morning, it was magnificent. Sadly, it did not survive my commute as well as I had hoped:

Figure 3

Regardless, many laughs were had by all and Office B shouted “I’ve been Dwighted” when she got to work so I consider it a success. If anyone would like to try it out themselves, learn from my mistakes:

1. I positioned the mug horizontally instead of vertically on purpose but in retrospect, it was probably my first mistake. I was hoping to create the illusion of suspension since it was too big to touch the bottom of the bowl (see Figure 2). This way when I took the block of Jell-O out of the bowl, the mug appeared to float a couple of inches from both the top and bottom. The problem lay (lie? Laid? Lied?) in the contact points in which the mug touched the sides of the bowl. Those created weak spots in the outside of the mold which eventually turned into larger fissures. Lesson Learned: A better way was to suspend an object in Jell-O can be found at (where else?)

http://www.jellostapler.com/stapler-in-jello.html.

2. Jell-O will stain white counter tops. Lesson Learned: Work over the sink or (like I did) make sure you have a serious stain remover on hand. Beau had to the leave the room when I cleaned though because the stain remover reminded him of cleaning up vomit in college.

3. Before pouring in the liquid Jell-O, I greased the interior of the bowl with cooking spray in the clever hopes that it would make removal easier. It did nothing of the sort. When I pulled it out of the fridge and shook it over a plate, it didn’t fall out. I thought that maybe the top edge of the Jell-O was preventing it from sliding out easily since it was clearly adhered* to the side of the bowl. I slid a knife about an inch down around the mold. The next time I shook it, a chunk fell out but not the whole mold. Major fissure # 2. Thanks to the foul, clingy nature of Jell-O, I was able to stuff it back in the bowl and make it sort of whole again. Lesson Learned: I eventually shoved a long boning knife as far as it would go between the bowl and the Jell-O. Then it finally came out.

4. For transportation purposes, I put the upside down bowl back over the plated mold and harnessed it in place with tape. If the Jell-O hadn’t already split, this may have worked. Since it did split, bits of Jell-O were preventing the bowl from making contact with the plate. Lesson Learned: either don’t let the Jell-O split or even better, pull the mold out of the bowl at its final destination so that transportation is not an issue. I didn’t want to bring a big honkin knife to work but what the hell. What’s one more weapon in my cubicle?

5. I put the plated mold with the bowl covering on the floor of the front passenger seat where it jiggled at me horrifically**. My commute was longer than normal thanks to flooded roads and the Jell-O continue to wiggle and ooze out from under the bowl. When I finally got to the highway, I floored it in an attempt to get the wretched thing out of my car before it touched the carpet. Lesson Learned: I reiterate, pull the mold out of the bowl at its final destination. Jell-O was not meant to go 80mph.

6. Jell-O smells really bad on its own and if you’re anything like me, the odor will make your stomach turn as you relive memories from high school of your first attempt at Jell-O shots. Lesson Learned: Do not mix tequila and lime Jell-O even if you’re in high school and it’s the only thing you and your friends can steal from your parents’ liquor cabinets without getting busted because no one ever drank the tequila and you could tell from the amount of dust on the bottle. The memory will haunt you well into your 20s.

I hope my pointers serve to help you in your own future pranks. I know this time next year, I’ll be references them myself.

*This shit is so gross. How is it considered dessert?

**SERIOUSLY – HOW COULD SOMEONE EVER WILLINGLY IMBIBE THIS VIAL SUBSTANCE?

It’s Gone Now. I Ate It While Trying to Think of a Title.

2010-03-24T13:32:00.002-04:00

After a post-lunch trip to the vending machine today, I settled back into my cubicle with a prized bag of Cheez-Its. The lunch crowd was emptying out of the kitchen which is directly behind my desk, so I had to wait before opening Facebook and continuing to scrutinize Beau’s profile (listen, I am marrying this man. I need to make confirm that what he puts out into cyberspace is an approved representation of his person. Sometimes he wears stripes and plaid together. It makes me nervous).

I clicked on my favorite pretend-I’m-working screen which is my loaded and color-coded work calendar. Coworkers continued to filter out of the break room individually. I opened my bag of snacks and began munching. Two girls stopped to wrap up a conversation. I squinted at my computer in that way that suggests concentration and serious thought. Really, I was looking at the list of alternate calendars and thinking, “I wonder if I still have access to the President’s calendar” because I thoroughly enjoy putting my nose where it doesn’t belong. My right hand continued to dig through the contents of the bag which was firmly held by my left hand. Then the President’s calendar opened up. I almost choked on a Cheez-It.

I immediately closed his calendar and informed Bologna that I have telekinesis because being able to control things with your mind is more interesting than my boss’ doctor’s appointments. After 26 years, Bologna has grown accustomed to my reports of brain aneurisms, bird flu symptoms and Sasquatch sightings so she tends to approach my claims with a reserved tone. This time I got a “wow” with TWO exclamation points. That’s how moving my proof was.

She demanded scientific testing. I put a cracker on my desk and worked on levitating it to my mouth by making the same squinty face. After a few seconds of wasted energy, I gave the Cheez-It a little boost by putting it on my keyboard (don’t judge – it’s my first exercise in levitation). I hovered menacingly and opened my mouth really wide but to no avail. I moved the cracker to higher ground again and continued concentrating.

Bologna and I kept talking while the stubborn cracker refused to fly into my mouth. Maybe telekinesis is like one of those Magic Eye pictures. You can burst a blood vessel straining your eyes or you can kind of let them cross and the picture will appear. But how to distract myself while a lush Cheez-It, the last of the bag, sits unmolested and easily within reach? I checked my email. I lined up other objects on my desk. I wrote an entire blog entry. Still, 45 minutes later, the cracker remains steadfastly on my stapler like Mufasa overlooking his kingdom. That is the longest that an undefended food product has ever remained on my desk.

None of This is Exaggeration

2010-03-10T14:52:00.002-05:00

My morning was not off to a fantastic start. I didn’t get a great night’s sleep in the guest room where I was relegated because Beau took Nyquil and was snoring in a way that proved it. I had to wake up earlier than usual to get to my first HR class and overslept by 10 crucial minutes. My entire morning routine was rushed as a result. I shook my face moisturizer without checking the lid and an arc of lotion sprayed across the carpet, furniture and walls. Finally, I sat down to eat my breakfast in begrudging silence and roll my eyes continuously at the sportscast that came on thanks to my altered schedule instead of my usual morning news. Shortly after I finished my cereal, something walked out from under the red Man Chair in the corner, casually walked across the floor and entered the gloom under the TV console.

No, I don’t have mice again. The something appeared to be an ant, roughly 2 inches long, of the variety one sees on documentaries about the Amazon, carrying entire sparrows into its den. My shock wore off after I lost sight and I immediately started shrieking to Beau. He appeared (after an inexcusable pause, mind you) and stood halfway down the stairs looking at me calmly with shaving cream all over his face. It’s as if he’s getting used to me and my early-morning blood-curdling screams. Actually, he was entirely too nonchalant about the situation.

From where I stood across the room, I explained that an Ant of Epic Proportions had infiltrated our home and was now camping out under the TV stand. Beau ever-so-coolly stood there in his boxers and informed me that he “couldn’t do anything about it at this moment” before heading upstairs. Within a second, I had leapt off the sofa and was tailgating him to the second floor. I sure as shit wasn’t staying downstairs with that thing.

Teary eyed and verging on hysteria, I begged Beau to fumigate its lair in hopes of killing it or at least scaring it out. I really ought to buy a can of Raid. The number of times I’ve hairsprayed or Febreezed an insect to death is just obscene. While I did my hair (pausing occasionally to blow dry the doorway to protect against sneak attacks), Beau followed orders with household sprays of mass destruction. The ant didn’t come out but if it shits out a sparrow down there, I’m confident the scent will be masked by half a bottle of Glade.

Things I’ve Learned About Myself

2010-03-09T14:06:00.000-05:00

1) While the pace of my job has been picking up lately, it has not picked up enough to entirely eschew blogging.

2) Even when I am busy at work, I’m still bored because office management is only slightly more interesting than eating plain Wasa crackers.

3) Despite having a box of Wasa crackers in my desk drawer, I am still more likely to hit the vending machine for Cheez Its.

4) Writing about food and taking pictures of flowers makes me want to vomit harder than I did last Sunday

5) Flower appreciation and burgeoning culinary skills aside, I am still not an adult. See #4.

6) It’s really hard to not say the f word or talk about my bowel movements for an entire month.

7) I’d rather have a blog in which I can talk about my fucking poops than a blog in which I show you pictures of quinoa even if I know I’ll neglect it when I get moody.

Fin

2010-02-10T15:38:00.002-05:00

Over the past year, my life has changed in a very positive way. It's time for me to stop fighting it and openly acknowledge that I like the changes. I haven't been blogging much lately because I felt like it wasn't worth mentioning the parts of my life that aren't slap-stick comedy. Like I'd be letting down my three fans if I included the other parts of my life. Really though, I started this blog for my own entertainment and I've missed it. I don't want to feel pressured to live up to my old lifestyle or any arbitrary expectations that I set for myself but I want to continue writing. So, this is it. I've decided to retire Dangerous K and migrate elsewhere. If you're one of my friends or relatives (or you're a curious stranger) you can now find me at rose ribbon and carbon.

Every now and then I still miss my wild days but really, I had a good run. I'm going to keep my old blog here as a record because while there may not be many more bar fights in my future, I'll always think fondly of the past ones.

In Which I Do Not Acknowledge My Two Month Absence

2010-02-07T20:49:00.001-05:00

I have been known in the past to make rash decisions. Now I spend several minutes reading nutrition labels before committing to a box of crackers. Every once in awhile though, I still do something without thinking it through and it comes back to bite me in the ass, much to the amusement of my loved ones. But not to Verizon techs.

After reading this hilariousness and watching Beau whisper sweet nothings to his Iphone, I decided it was time to join the 21st century and purchase my very own smart phone. My BlackBerry arrived in the mail two days later and I spent an evening playing with it and experiencing something very similar to Nintendo thumbs. Yet I was still intrigued by my brand new blinky, buzzy thinger with Interwebs and email and Facebook.

Shockingly, over the next week, I grew to hate it for all its blinking and buzzing and constant connection. I hid it in my desk drawer. I gave it dirty looks at the dinner table. I said hurtful things to it when we were alone. Despite several opinions to the contrary, I did not want to wait another week to get used to it. I could not love this thing. It was unlovable.

Bright and early Saturday morning, I strapped on my snow boots and dragged Beau to Verizon. I punched my information into the waiting list registry and wandered around the store looking at other hateful blinky things until they called my name. I bee lined to the counter and cheerfully asked the tech to take back my BlackBerry. I explained that I thought I was ready for the 21st century but indeed, I am not and this was just way TOO connected and I miss my paper pocket calendar. He gave me a look that suggested that they paid him to do this on Saturday mornings and he did not, in fact, care about my particular breed of neurosis. My cheerfulness waned until he said he could reactivate my old phone so I wouldn’t have to keep using the terrible, horrible blinky thing that plays Bach when no one calls me.

I slid my gray clunker flip-phone across the counter and enjoyed the revulsion in his eyes, probably in the same way that PETA crazies get a kick out of throwing red paint on ladies in fur coats leaving the opera. Oh yeah, I thought, that’s right. I don’t want your miserable smart phone. I reject it. I am publically declaring my preference for this old, clearly inferior model.

Now all I have to do is send the wretched BlackBerry back and we’ll have this impulse buy behind us. I skipped back to the car as Beau shook his head and said he hoped I learned something. Then I made him take me to the Salvation Army.

Decaffeination

2009-12-17T10:19:00.003-05:00

I was shooting for an entire month between entries but I can’t hold out. I just couldn’t stay away. I can’t quit you (no homo).

It’s been characteristically busy since my last check in. That’s becoming routine so I’ve stopped feeling surprised by work demands and my overwhelming popularity. For now I’m going to skip over Beau’s first Thanksgiving turkey, cramming 6.5 people into our wee little condo, Nugget projectile crapping in my bedroom, the purchase of my very own wedding dress, and the solid 40 man-hours I’ve devoted to crafting in the past two weeks to update you on my digestive health. Again.

The Monday after Thanksgiving, I started having the same weird stomach pains I had back around Bologna’s baby shower this summer. I suffered through them for a few days before heading to the doctor who ordered blood work and other fun tests to screen for the lead suspect: an ulcer. While waiting for the results, she said to temporarily treat it like an ulcer and see if it got any better. No carbonation, no caffeine, no alcohol, no OTC pain medications. Pretty much no reason to live. I immediately began looking for pointy things to jab into my eyes.

Like 90% of red blooded Americans, I depend on caffeine to keep me going about my humdrum office life. Eliminating it resulted in a solid week of throbbing headaches, massive irritability, and mild retardation. Simple fifteen-minute tasks took an hour to complete as I tried to wrap my shriveled brain around arithmetic. I almost threw a computer at a coworker for walking too close to my desk. I couldn’t take my usual four Advil pills to counteract the epic migraine that was worse – I DO NOT SAY THIS LIGHTLY – than any hangover I’ve ever had, including the morning after Pleasure Island, the morning after St. Patty’s Day 2007, and that time I woke up in a tent in the bathroom. I was in the throes of caffeine withdrawal for seven days. That much was clear.

Sure enough, the stomach pains went away and though the tests did not reveal an ulcer, she said to continue treating it that way since it seemed to be working. How could I possibly have gotten a Ninja ulcer that hates on everything and hides from ultrasounds? The first person to suggest half a decade of the triple-punch of rumndietcokes which contain three of my delectably forbidden food groups will be eaten alive.

Bologna, who went through this ordeal in her mid-20s, advised me on the subject. Caffeine and carbonation are not a part of my future. Though I gnawed on the phone a bit when she told me that, really the worst was over. The headaches had subsided and I regained normal brain function. I still want to throw rotten fruit at my coworkers but at least Happy F left the company. That helps. And I can still drink alcohol in moderation (whatever the hell that means).

Unfortunately, as we usher out 2009, I will need to say goodbye to my long beloved rumndietcokes. In honor of them, friend, lover, soul mate, I present this tribute to be viewed while listening to “You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings.”

Farewell my little friend. I'll see you again at my bachelorette party.

Dangerous K and the Almost Zombie Apocalypse

2009-11-20T12:04:00.017-05:00

I’ve fielded two complaints in the last few days about my lack of blog posting and that’s really all it takes to get me started again. I like to feel needed. I am a slave to my fans. My sincerest apologies to all of them (including the gaggle of Filipinos who know me better as Wak2. Listen to your cousin. He’s telling you the truth. I really do abduct young Catholic virgins from their beds at night and feast on their innards). As reparations for my inattentiveness and for the consumption of innocents, I offer you the story of Dangerous K and the Almost Zombie Apocalypse.

Maybe I mentioned before that my job closely resembles that of an office manager (I say “closely resembles” because what it more accurately resembles is a vaguely employed slacker who spends most of her days sneaking Twilight under her desk and helping the company hemorrhage it’s caffeine supply while occasionally and begrudgingly ordering paper clips). In early October, on a day when every C-level employee was in a meeting somewhere on the other side of our massive office complex, the lights suddenly went out. In the silence following a string of my belligerent curses, I heard the other lemmings shift about. I sat motionless at my desk, squinting in the dull glow of the emergency lights and the windows onto the building’s atrium, and hoping that the problem would resolve itself if I just ignored it long enough. It did not.

I rummaged around in the storage closet for flashlights but came up empty handed. By then, there were wide eyed cubicle monkeys peering around the corner looking for guidance. It occurred to me that somehow I was supposed to be holding down the fort while the big dogs were away. My one day of active duty for the month and calamity strikes. Well. Shit.

I addressed my flock, “I’m going to… uhh… go check with building management.” Yes! That is exactly what I’m going to go do! Eureka! And I promptly scuttled to the front door of our suite. Downstairs in the atrium, madness was moderately erupting. The maintenance guys with whom I’m friendly (because seriously, have you never seen Fight Club? Be nice to those guys. Plus, if you make friends with them, they visit you faster when you call them crying about leaky faucets) were unusually short with me. One of them shouted over his shoulder, “Sorry, K. We’ve got people stuck in elevators all over the building” as he ran off with what appeared to be the Jaws-of-Life. I sympathized. Our building is only three stories tall. I frequently take the elevator to my office on the second floor out of sheer slothfulness. I would be absolutely ripshit with myself, not to mention terrified, if I were one of those people.

Building management was likewise unhelpful in regards to the cause of the problem. They informed me that the power was out, but oddly enough, I was already wise to that fact. Later I learned that they had a backup generator for their suite and spent the next two hours emailing their tenants to say “the power is out.” I didn’t know that at the time because my computer runs on electricity you fucking morons.

I wandered back to my office to inform the others of the lack of updates. Instead of standing around, twiddling my thumbs, and fighting out the socializing advances of my coworkers, I decided to further make myself useful by checking on the C-level meeting in case they had no windows where they were and were currently sitting in total darkness. I knew generally where the conference room was but getting there was trickier. To access it, I need to head away from the sunny sky-light filled atrium and wander through a maze of windowless halls without a flashlight.

I turned the first corner and came face to face with a door that had never been there before. I learned later that the fire doors run on electricity and they had all automatically slammed shut when the power went down. Though it was disorienting, it wouldn’t have been a huge deal if someone had thought to put those red emergency lights in each segment created but closed doors. Instead, two segments down the hall I opened a fire door and was confronted with pitch black. I couldn’t see the tip of my nose. But I’m a clever girl, so I ran back to my desk and grabbed my cell to use a makeshift flashlight. When I got back to that door and started jabbing buttons on my phone, I could just barely see to the end of my outstretched arm, which wasn’t a bad thing because I was fairly sure this is what it looked like around me.

The red glow of the emergency light from the last segment was abruptly lost as the fire door slammed shut behind me. Within two steps, I could no longer see the door I’d just passed through. That was when it hit me. I’m that girl in a horror movie. I’m the blonde chick who goes to investigate the cause of the blackout armed with nothing but a half-charged Motorola. This is exactly why I need to keep a battle axe at my desk.

Without at least a machete for protection, I knew from countless B-movies that I had between thirty seconds and four minutes to live, depending on how cruel this particular director was. My left hand curled into a fist and my heart began racing. A door cautiously swung open to my right where I wasn’t expecting it and I nearly wet myself. An elderly woman popped out to ask if the bathrooms had lights. Looks like she hadn’t gotten the memo. Probably because it was emailed to her. Too bad, because those halls weren’t safe for little old ladies. I have a heavily ingrained self defense mechanism and almost beat her to death with my shoe before I realized that she was not a) the undead b) a serial killer c) a Velociraptor.

Several minutes later I found the conference room. I burst in looking more shaken, frazzled and wild eyed than usual to find the C-levels cheerfully sitting in a room with a wall of windows. I smiled weakly, explained briefly, and returned to the hallway for the return trip. My heart rate tripled as the phone battery blinked down to one pathetic bar.

I raced down the hallways at a faster pace than before, colliding with several doors and physically assaulting an unfortunately placed potted palm tree. Wait? A palm tree? There was no palm tree on my way here. I looked at the room number next to my victim. The numbers should have been ascending, not descending. In my panic, I’d lost my way.

I back tracked, slower this time, until I picked up the scent of rum and jeans that haven’t been washed in awhile… and also the turn that I had missed. I was back to the correct path. Around the corner was a sad looking woman with an illuminated iPhone who was looking for the bathroom. I took comfort in the developing pattern that proves I am clearly not the only one with an inherent instinct to soil myself when trouble strikes. I pointed her about ten feet behind me and secretly judged the iPhone for lacking a Fucking Awesome Survival Skills app. My confidence rose as I realized it had been about fifteen minutes from my original departure. Even the most sadistic director wouldn’t drag out the dumb girl’s death for fifteen minutes. People would get bored. Except for maybe Saw but I’ve never seen that movie so I don’t count it as technically existing. I apply this same logic to Australia.

Could it be that I was the hero of this story and not just a disposable supporting actress? The protagonist always has a brush with death that appears inescapable but ends up surviving on nothing but their own cleverness, charm, and resourceful use of palm fronds that have been sharpened into a shiv. I started to recognize the offices I passed and realized I was close to my suite. Oh thank God, the denouement.

I opened the door leading out of the last pitch black segment and my smugness evaporated. At the far end, there was a dark figure lurking in edges of the red emergency light. Not moving. Just standing there. My fist tightened around the shiv as I prepared for the final battle. I squinted to ensure I was not about to attack another houseplant when the figure turned its head to look at me as I approached.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked me and my breathing returned to normal as I recognized the voice of the guy who sat at the office complex’s front desk, “There’s a black out. Didn’t you get my email?”

Also, I Behaved Myself In God’s House

2009-10-28T15:46:00.003-04:00

Yep, I know I haven’t written about Chairsy’s wedding yet. Nope, I probably never will. I’ll add it to the list of major life events that never got proper blog representation. I just never walk out of the big things with a napkin full of notes. The ladies restroom on the other hand… usually I've mentally drafted an entry by the time I leave. I don’t want to leave you completely empty handed though.

Somewhere around the seven rumndietcoke mark when the bartenders began marveling at my ability to stand up right, we busted out the glow bracelets to rave to Sandstorm. I’m pretty sure the glow sticks can be blamed for my illuminated boobs. Or maybe I’ve finally gone radioactive from all the Splenda pooling in my liver.

My Neurosis Knows No Bounds

2009-10-21T13:45:00.002-04:00

My bathroom and the next closest bathroom are currently occupied by custodians and my bladder is ready to burst due to a cup of soup at lunch, a glass of water, and most of a can of Diet Coke which I continue to drink because I’m TEMPTING THE GODS. To keep my mind off of my dangerously distended lower abdomen, I will now furiously relate to you the textual panic attack that I sent Bologna while she was away from the computer to change a dirty diaper (probably Nugget’s, not her own). I can’t believe how out of whack her priorities are. Can’t the kid sit in a pile of his own feces for five minutes? I HAVE A CRISIS.

Everyone knows that I have severe stage fright when it comes to peeing in the presence of others but I flat out refuse to enter a bathroom inhabited by janitors. They are the ultimate, silent enemy. There’s no Mexican Stand Off that can deter them. They will wait for you to vacate because they need to finish cleaning that room. You can’t just curl up in the fetal position on the toilet, put your fingers in your ears and hum gently to yourself because it’s not a personal thing for them – it’s professional. They are professional Mexican Stand Offers. They’re paid to wait for you to move your ass so they can scrub the toilet under it.

As I have just demonstrated, waiting is not an option. I could just go in there are pee but the last time I did that, I imagined the custodian polishing the sink faucets, shaking her head and thinking “Seriously?! I JUST cleaned that and now I have to fucking do it again.” Except for the recleaning she’d have to scrub a freshly soiled toilet with loose urine particles still hanging in the air. And GOD FORBID the seat still be warm when she goes back to reclean it. I would not be able to live with the knowledge that there was a transfer of ass heat.

Anyway, after that played through my head last time I had to wash my hands while standing next to her, full of shame for my own biological insufficiencies. I almost apologized. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to sprint across the building to find a safe haven before I follow Nugget’s example.

When We Last Left Our Hero

2009-10-20T15:11:00.004-04:00

First of all, I turned my squash into soup and I want you to know that it was fan-freakin-tastic so I’ve actually purchased another butternut squash to pulverize into liquid for tonight’s dinner. Second, wow. It’s been two and a half weeks? A lot happened. A lot. Oodles. I will now summarize for any interested parties who may or may not have attacked my Facebook wall with wails of rage over my lack of blog attention due to brides-slave duties and also doing someone else’s project at work. The only thing I’ll leave out is when I was almost attacked by zombies. That’s a story for another time.

So where did I leave off? Ah yes. The two-foot inflatable penis. It was implemented as it should have been. Meaning shortly before the bachelorette party guests began arriving at my hotel room to pregame, I sat around in my underwear watching Food Network and blowing it up. Then we posed with it and repeatedly tossed it at our token gay guy. Much joviality was had by all. After polishing off a bottle of vodka, all sixteen of us piled into the rickety old elevator (because it looked like a REALLY good idea at the time) and had a collective panic attack when it started jerking a bit and showing other signs of strain.

We stormed Sissy K’s (which will put you on the guest list, waive the cover charge, and let you skip ahead of the line if you call ahead for a bachelorette party reservation) and did all the things good little single ladies should do: threw back test tube shots, asked young gentlemen for their underwear for a scavenger hunt, danced so much our legs hurt for the next two days and handed out mardi gras beads. Oh. And I also may have almost gotten into a fist fight when some bitch shoved Chairsy, the bride, on the dance floor. But Chairsy is made of sugar and spice and everything nice so she didn’t even realize the girl had shoved her on purpose. She just kept on smiling and bopping along to the music while I got up in the chick’s face with that wide-armed you-messed-with-the-wrong-brides-maid stance but the bitch ran away so I didn’t get to throw punches after all.

Next we stumbled, skipped, and piggy backed over to the Grand Canal where we had another connection that allowed us to jump the line for free. Once inside we realized it was a pseudo classy bar which we were adulterating with our boisterous shouting and Chairsy’s loud complaints that the bartender didn’t know how to make a blow job shot. Then the night got fuzzy and I think I made friends with a hooker in the ladies’ bathroom. She looked like Bret Michaels in a gold lame mini dress and she was using the hand dryer to make her hair bigger. Love at first sight.

Eventually, the night wound down and our drunken bride began demanding her comfy shoes so we shuffled back to the parking garage to retrieve her Uggs from the trunk of her car but the thing about parking garages? Really tricky to get into when you’re drunk. The security guard yelled at us when we attempted to hoof it down the ramp meant for incoming vehicles. Finally we found a staircase which took us to the right place but the second we emerged from the stairwell, the door slammed shut and an ominous sign said “No Readmittance” which wouldn’t have stopped us except it also had the audacity to lock. Once Chairsy had appropriated the preferred footwear, we found an operating elevator and cheered and high fived all the way to the floor marked with a star. That floor ended up being the grand marble-clad lobby of 75 State Street where a gaggle of drunk girls wearing matching neon pink shirts look ever so slightly conspicuous at two in the morning. We certainly weren’t returning to the creepy depths of Mordor though, so instead, we attempted the front door which was locked and guarded by two police officers behind a line of yellow tape. So, um. I knocked. Politely. And then a little bit more insistently.

Eventually they overcame their surprise and opened the doors to yell at us as we scampered outside. After 10 or 15 seconds of trying to respectfully explain the stairwell situation to calm their belligerent scolding, we grew bored and Chairsy started to wander so I closed the conversation by yelling “Well, we’re outside now, so it’s a moot point, isn’t it, officer?” and followed the entourage down the street.

Shortly after, we parted ways so the bride could attack a McDonalds on the way to her own hotel. Apparently I know Boston better than I previously assumed because I found my way back to my hotel without incident and in celebration, purchased a large bag of snacks from the 711 next door. I then proceeded to stand on the street corner eating Combos from my purse while texting Beau.

I woke up relatively early the next morning in relatively good shape. I pulled down streamers and popped about thirty balloons with a pen to avoid getting charged for trashing the room before smuggling all of the remaining penis accoutrement in the bag that Chairsy left with me for safe keeping. Including a deflated two-foot wang.

Your Own. Personal. Jesus.

2009-10-01T16:04:00.007-04:00

I currently have a butternut squash and a two-foot-long inflatable penis in my car and they are, in some strange way, related thanks to Chairsy’s upcoming wedding. The wiener is one of many inappropriate objects destined for her bachelorette party this Saturday. The produce. Well.

As you may remember, I was incorrectly measured for my bridesmaids dress. I have since learned that it was ordered a full THREE sizes too small. I’d lost a size by the time it was delivered so by the time I was hopping up and down trying to squeeze into it, it was only TWO sizes too small. Only. After briefly exercising in an attempt to shed 30 pounds in 2 months, I came to the conclusion that I much prefer drinking vodka alone at my kitchen counter to sweating. She-Ra recommended I go to the uber-Italian seamstress who altered her wedding gown, proclaiming her a bonafide miracle worker. She works (and apparently lives) in the basement of her big, beautiful house, I assume because Italians have a strict no-touch policy when it comes to having nice things (thus the plastic couch covers so prevalent in popular movies). I’m used to this because my aunt in Long Island has a white couch in her mirrored front parlor guarded by a porcelain jaguar. In a quarter of a century, I have NEVER seen anyone sit on that couch. Anyway, that’s why the basement thing didn’t weird me out.

Last month, after a bit of prodding and yanking on the zipper, the seamstress asked for more fabric to complete the sash around the middle of the dress. I ordered a yard of it from China which was finally delivered last weekend. I didn’t make it to the seamstress until today because I’m having a REALLY hectic ~~week~~ ~~month~~ year. I forgot the fabric at home on Tuesday, postponed my fitting till Wednesday, forgot the shoes on Wednesday, postponed the fitting till today and finally made it to her ~~house~~ basement, flustered, red-faced, and extremely apologetic.

I wiggled into the dress which already fit thanks to her wizardry and wobbled out to the pedestal where she spun me around in circles while marking the hem and patiently listening to my outpouring of gratitude for fixing a dress that previously had a 4-inch gap to overcome via its zipper. I paused for breath at one point and she calmly said while holding pins between her lips, “That’s life. Nothing to get upset over. Don’t you worry. This is nothing.” It made me pause mid-hyperventilation and reevaluate my entire life. Wow. So what if I came inches (4 to be exact) from walking down a church aisle at one of my best friend’s weddings with a gapping hole in the back of my dress? It’s not the end of the world. No biggy. She fixed it. Just like that. I wanted to take her with me to say it over and over again the next time I’m stuck in traffic thinking about following a tailgater home so I can egg their house and key their car.

While I stood there dumbstruck by my existential epiphany, her husband wandered through the studio to ask about lunch. They exchanged a few words in Italian and he smiled and said to me, “I still have to ask her how to cook everything.” I smiled. Then he asked “You like these?” and pointed to the squash in his hand. I answered “Of course!” He could have been holding a pound of rancid meat and I would have said yes at that moment. “Then I give you one before you go.” True to his word after I’d changed clothes again, he took me to the garage to display his garden’s bumper crop and insisted I pick out a butternut squash for dinner. I almost hugged the seamstress when she walked me to the door. We’ve shared philosophy and squash. In the Italian culture, that practically makes us family now.

Even Bigger Yawns

2009-09-23T16:01:00.007-04:00

Christ almighty. I’m now getting over round THREE of the ailment that will not die and now work refuses to settle down. Turns out I have a real job. Weird… good thing I don’t show up hung over anymore. Well, except the day after Nugget was born but that was situational intoxication. I was innocently drinking red wine at a dinner party when suddenly Bologna sent me a picture of him and I was SO excited to a) be an aunt and b) figure out how to open a picture text that I may have accidentally gotten into the bottle of rum. Half the bottle of rum. Anyway. As I was saying: Nug.

via Flutter Productions

While we were in the Jerz, a photographer stopped by to take some family portraits. I’m pumped to see the rest of her set because in addition to the usual formal pictures, there's also a series of about 50 shots of Nugget crapping his pants while sitting on T’s knee. You would not believe the faces that this kid pulls. First it’s a look of consternation, followed by effort, then relief, utter shock, disgust, confusion, and finally delight. I’m going to make it into a flip book and show his girlfriends when he’s a teenager.

Great Big Yawns

2009-09-16T15:05:00.001-04:00

I’m back from round two of the cold that will not die. Lounging this past weekend probably would have been a better option than drinking in the city, shopping at the new Dedham mall, catching a late showing of Julie & Julia, cleaning the entire house , and then hiking and picnicking in the Blue Hills but at least I’ve committed myself to slothfulness this coming weekend to teach myself a lesson.

I realize that I’ve neglected to go into any amount of detail concerning the events of the past few weeks, but instead of chronicling every moment of madness, I thought I’d just drop some pictures and brief explanations over the next few days. Is good? Yes? Does anyone even read this thing? Good, then I can do whatever I want instead of catering to my imaginary fans. Starting tomorrow.

A Mexican Standoff of Epic Proportions

2009-09-10T14:39:00.004-04:00

Maybe you’ve noticed I avoid discussing work these days. I know I’m flattering myself but it’s because I’m afraid that should my real name ever get out, I’ll get fired for online snarkiness and since I have no marketable skills, I will remained unemployed for many moon while my savings wither away. But the following story? This I must share with you.

To preface this, I haven’t been sleeping well. I’ve had about six hours of sleep in the past two days. Partially because I’ve been busy and partially because that busyness is exhausting me and when I’m exhausted, I don’t sleep well. It’s a vicious cycle that usually ends in my narcotic of choice, Advil PM. I haven’t gotten there yet since it’s only been two nights of insomnia. I’m still firmly planted in the phase that oscillates between crankiness and glazed-over, vacant staring.

So, when I entered the ladies room earlier today and saw that my favorite stall was occupied, I got a little ornery. I was forced to take the handicapped stall at the end to provide a buffer. Hate that stall. My feet swing because my legs are short. Grumble grumble.

Normally I would just wiz and leave but because I’m a LITTLE ON EDGE RIGHT NOW I SO CAN I PLEASE JUST HAVE SOME FUCKING PRIVACY WHILE I URINATE, I waited. Seconds crept by. The other occupant shuffled and fidgeted a bit. She pulled some paper from the roll and deafeningly wadded it into a ball. I tapped my foot. She made a second toilet paper wad. I sighed. By then I had passed the Awkwardness Barrier which requires that you perform within 20 seconds of seating yourself in a public bathroom when only one other stranger is present. Whether those 20 seconds pass due to stage fright or choice, after that time period it is absolutely prohibited to do your business until the other occupant has vacated. Why is this a rule? I don’t know. Maybe this is how my OCD brain keeps me from tapping things as I walk by them like my father does. Maybe I just can’t stand the sound of pure silence unexpectedly interrupted by the piercing cry of pee on water. Regardless, after this period of time, you enter into a Mexican Stand Off with your opponent. Only one can remain and I was prepared to wait another half an hour or so to prove my point.

I was pulled from my dazed reverie by a cough. With a heavy heart, I recognized it. It was a particular coworker of mine who consistently makes my eye tick. She’s foreign. Even her cough has a thick accent. She’s also the office talker: get caught at the sink with her and you will need to discuss for 15 minutes how you are both in the restroom at the same time and isn’t that SUCH a coincidence. Any slim consideration of getting on with my business vanished. She was going to fucking leave and I was going to get my fucking privacy and oh my god, I think I just burst a blood vessel in my eye.

Please allow me to expand on my vehemence. Office B and I have nicknamed this woman “Happy F” because after her first week here she wished us all a very happy Friday. Each one of us. Individually. And then next week it was “Happy Monday!” and “Happy Tuesday!” etc. etc. until my nails were digging into my palms to keep me from flying at her in a fit of desperate rage. You want more? She has taken it upon herself to be our personal welcome wagon and hug new employees on their first day. HUG. As in full body contact. She asks a series of questions that would be better directed at Google to anyone who demonstrates the slightest shred of competence in a topic. I despise watering the plant next to her desk because inevitably, she prairie dogs out of her cubicle and starts asking me about sun exposure, speckles on foliage, and botanical terminology and I have to stand there and not say, “I’m just watering the fucking plant” which takes immense restraint on my part. She makes me order random office supplies. In one instance, she decided she didn’t like the footstool I got her (footstool – who needs a footstool?!) , she hid it in the storage closet and buried it under other things as if I eventually wouldn’t think, “hmm, I don’t remember leaving all of these previously neatly stacked items in one heap on the floor.” She once told people gathered around the coffee machine that she heard on NPR that laughing has health benefits so if you live alone, they recommend practicing on inanimate objects. Like tea cups. Then she demonstrated. Now I can’t erase the depressing mental image of her standing alone in a tattered bathrobe giggling at her morning cup of tea in an otherwise deserted studio apartment.

So, that’s Happy F. Imagine my relief when she gave up and flushed. Another minute or two and I would be clear to evacuate the three cups of coffee that were keeping my sleep deprived brain semi-useful. She washed her hands. I stared at my boots and imagined that I was somewhere else. Then I heard the sound that will echo through future nightmares. The unmistakable zing of a make-up bag zipper sliding open.

For the next eternity, I sat in silence as she brushed her teeth, rinsed, brushed a few spots she had missed, and rinsed again. I sighed loudly. She flossed. I counted ceiling tiles. She gargled with mouth wash, and rinsed. In a dramatic gesture, I rested my forehead on my right arm which I had stretched out along the metal support bar on the wall. She patted her hands with a paper towel, brushed her hair, wiped down the counter, adjusted her clothing and took a long hard look at herself in the mirror. By the end, I had resigned myself to die alone in the handicapped stall and was preparing to scrawl my last will and testament across the wall. I leave my DVDs to Lulu, the condo to Beau, my collection of strangers’ grocery lists to Bologna. But to Happy F, I leave NOTHING.

My head jerked up when the door swung open and another woman entered. I had dozed off somewhere near the end of Happy F’s grooming session and didn’t notice when she left. I finished my business and returned to my desk, having proven my point by spending my entire lunch break in the restroom.

Weekend Highlights: Coming Up For Air

2009-09-09T13:00:00.001-04:00

I’ve finally caught up with enough work to even consider sneaking off to the internet for a little blog action. These past two weeks? Madness. Absolute insanity. Tonight? I’ll be sitting behind the dugout at the Sox game spilling beer on innocent bystanders just to fit in with the crowd. Tomorrow? Taking Notorious out for a belated birthday dinner. Friday? Mistress’ birthday party in the city. MADNESS.

These past few weeks will probably need to be cordoned off into multiple segments to cover the many layers and levels of lunacy that I experienced. I will now diligently begin writing about them and glaring at the banana that I bought last night for my breakfast this morning that I haven’t eaten yet because as much as I don’t want to admit it, I really hate bananas.

Business and Busyness

2009-09-02T13:01:00.011-04:00

Never in my life have I been this busy. One time in college I signed up for two whole extracurricular activities and found that attending weekly meetings was too demanding for my lifestyle. My Monday and Wednesday schedules could not handle the loss of a couple hours of sitting my dorm room playing Air’s Talisman on loop while drawing caricatures of people I didn’t like. After just a couple weeks, I dropped out of the student government to pursue illegally downloaded reruns of Family Guy because that’s more my speed.

That is no longer an option in life because despite my constant yowling and notarized demands, my friends and family have refused to space out their major life events in a way that is more convenient to me. This brings us to the busiest two weeks EVER. I’m possibly busier than Oprah but frankly, I just don’t have time to personally correspond with her anymore so I don’t know for certain. Sorry O.

Does this all sound like pissing and moaning? I didn’t mean it to. It may be the caffeine WHICH I’VE BEEN DRINKING IN HIGH ENOUGH QUANTITIES TO MAKE MY HAIR TINGLE causing another bout of verbal diarrhea. Here’s the thing: turns out that I am a completely different person from the blue haired girl I was in college. I'm digging on this nonstop chaos. Last week I learned how to cram 40 hours of work into about 24 hours while planning a bachelorette party and throwing the big company picnic so that I could take a 4-day weekend at the Bologna estate with the family and the newly born Nugget who is officially the cutest baby EVER and if you’re not comfortable with that magnitude of a hyperbole then please send me a picture of the infant that you think is cuter for a side by side comparison. Or just save your stamps because I can already confidently say your kid would only rank about a 4 on the scale from 1 to Nugget.

I challenge you to be cuter

So, yeah, Nugget already rocks harder than anyone I know and he’s only up to crapping his tiny little pants and emitting wails of rage. Really cute wails of rage that will eventually make me do things like pat him on the head and pinch his cheeks when I’m finally allowed to touch him. Anyway, most of the weekend was spent cooking, cleaning, errand-running and staring at him while he slept. There was also one incident of backyard mojitos.

Beau and I drove back from Wu Jersey on Monday and I’ve been banging out work ever since. Even now I’m simultaneously typing this entry, licking the remnants of my lunch from a Lean Cuisine tray, and hollering at a vendor. This is an unprecedented level of multitasking for me. Why? Because this is another 3-day work week. Thursday night I’m leaving for the Cape where She-Ra is getting married in a multiday bonanza of festivities.

Until probably mid next week, this is Dangerous K signing off. Stay classy, Internet.

Weekend Highlights: I Interrupt This Belated Post

2009-08-25T21:00:00.003-04:00

I took a dozen pictures of an ominous sky this weekend but the much-hyped Hurricane Bill passed by without much more excitement. Allegedly, there was rain but I slept through it. Awful convenient.

I snuck away from the office yesterday to interview for an awesome position but never made it there because I spent an hour getting lost on the south shore. Even if I got the directions down, I’d never manage to commute so far on a daily basis. From the parking lot of gas station, I cancelled while choking back tears and spent the rest of the day being a sad little rock. I’d seen the light at the end of the work tunnel and just as quickly had it ripped away. WHY?? Is this because I doubted the power and majesty of Hurricane Bill?!

Now, I could care less and it has absolutely nothing to do with the bottle of wine sitting in my kitchen. I got a call while catching up with work this morning. It was Bologna. At 5:00 am, she sprung (sprang? spranged? springed?) a leak and by the time I sat down to my morning coffee, she was on her way to the hospital. The majority of my day was spent in true bipolar fashion, alternately shrieking at vendors and pestering Bologna for updates. At last check, they estimated Nugget would be birthed tomorrow.

Which means, my sister made a human. Seriously. She hasn’t been faking it this entire time like we all suspected. She made an entire person and science suggests that that person will one day grow a personality and perhaps even roll his eyes at me. Also, T may have been involved.

In Which I Identify With Hollywood’s Finest

2009-08-19T14:17:00.005-04:00

I’ve been trying to blog for the past day and a half, but every time I try, I end up sitting and staring at my site for 15 minutes. In my characteristically fickle way, I’ve decided I’m not in love with my new design. It’s just not me and I might be PMSing so this is suddenly very important. It’s blocking my creative juices. And also maybe my chi. Do I have a chi or is that just for Asians?

Anyway, I think the design is absolutely adorable. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just too adorable. There’s too much lady and not enough sailor visually represented here. I wear stilettos and skirts every day but I also usually have soy sauce on my blouse and I freely flip people off behind their backs when they don’t hold the door for me. Those are equally important sides of my personality. As I explained to Bologna earlier, long hair is fine as long as you tie it back during bar fights. There’s just too much loose hair around here and I’m beginning to compensate with crazy. And we don’t want the crazy to bubble up. Nobody wants that.

So, we’ve identified the problem, but the solution is trickier. My designer just had a baby a week or so ago. I sent a tentative email requesting help but she’s understandably busy caring for a new life form and not tending to my whininess. I’m going to wait till the end of the month to give myself ample time to think this over but I’d kind of like to scrap the frou frou thing, take it back down to the bare bones, and let it return to a more natural state.

Oh God. I think I just got why Britney shaved her head.

Weekend Highlights: Second One (Booya!)

2009-08-17T13:27:00.012-04:00

I’m back to reality after another lovely weekend spent down the Cape. I thrifted again…

Hoarded glassware for eventual center pieces (the candles will eventually be white or blue)

…except this time, the elderly cashier accidentally put an extra item in my bag: a horrible decorating book printed in the late 90s. After thumbing through it, Mama Beau nodded her head and declared the designs “grounds for divorce.” One project suggested I hang pink tulle from my bedroom windows. Shudder. So, now I’m terrified that I’m going to be banned from my favorite thrift store as a shoplifter all for a crappy book that I would never have shoplifted in the first place. He couldn’t have inadvertently thrown in a trashy romance novel instead?

Saturday night we watched beach fireworks from the comfort of the yacht club. I may finally be getting the hang of using my new camera.

Most of Sunday was spent tethered to a boat playing with my favorite floaty.

Everyone else prefers the adult sized tubes and rafts but I adore my $1 children’s toy from the Tree. Sometimes I stand on it, sometimes I sit on it, sometimes I see how long I can balance in a dhanurasana pose before ever so gracefully flopping into the water. The balancing effort is an ab workout and it keeps me pseudo-treading water for hours. Or at least until the big, bad red jellyfish start showing up in droves. We counted almost a dozen in the span of an hour.

Now back to work which is increasingly annoying. More so than a normal Monday. This ranks as at least a Tuesday in my book.

Shopping Extravaganza

2009-08-14T11:35:00.013-04:00

Sometimes I go weeks without spending more than I need to on food and bills. Then I check my bank account, see a surplus of funds, and feel the need to buy completely random items that make me happy.

There are two bathrooms on the second floor of the new condo. Our master bath has a claustrophobically small shower stall which I refuse to enter and our cavernous guest bathroom has a bathtub. I’m currently taking it over with my girly stuff – hair products, tampons, sentimental poetry to read on the shitter. To further mark my territory, I’m decorating it to suit my own tastes. My tastes involve prints of animals in fancy hats.

"Hippo Queen" by Poordogfarm

Then today during my morning ritual of coffee, reading blog updates, and avoiding work related tasks, I saw these cuties on one of my favorite wedding blogs, Snippet & Ink.

Sseko Designs

Not only are they made by a group of Ugandan women who use the proceeds to further their educations, but Snippet & Ink readers get a discount. I ordered a pair and opted for interchangeable brown, red and black ribbons.

In a similar vein, Beau and I decided where to register for the wedding. First, Bed, Bath, and Beyond which, yes, is kind of overdone, but we have really basic tastes in housewares (apart from decorative hippos) and don’t want people to spend a fortune on us. And this is a step up from our original thought of registering at Ikea. Second, Home Depot. Didn’t know they had a registry, didja? I didn’t either until a coworker of mine told me that’s what she did for her wedding a few years ago. We don’t really need a gilded toilet scrubber or fancy plates. We need power tools and gift certificates for renovation supplies so we can continue pimping the condo.

Now I just need to make it through the rest of the work day before heading out to the Cape. Have a good weekend!

My Bridesmaids

2009-08-13T15:00:00.003-04:00

The Jalapeno

2009-08-12T13:08:00.003-04:00

**PARENTAL ADVISORY: consider yourself warned**

Beau is damn near a gourmet-level of chefery. When we started dating and lived on opposite sides of the city, I looked forward to visiting his South Boston apartment because, among other things, it meant one less night of eating ramen, salad, or my infamous bachelorette chili (one can of black beans, sprinkle of taco seasoning packet, ground turkey, sometimes a little shredded cheddar on top if I felt fancy). I’ve considered submitting his name to Hell’s Kitchen but I don’t want to be responsible for showing up at Gordon Ramsey’s house with a flaming bag of my own feces should he abuse my Beau.

Instead, I graciously allow Beau to cook all of my dinners thereby providing him with time to hone his art form and only occasionally berate him for making me fatter. Last night was chorizo and rice with a fantastic mango-avocado-tomato salsa. Awesome. I was in the middle of licking my plate when he started whining about jalapeño juice burning his upper lip. I nodded as best I could while maintaining eye contact with the television and mouth-vacuuming my dish. As I set it down on the coffee table with an appreciative belch, he leapt up from the couch and ran upstairs. I took the opportunity to similarly clear his plate.

Moments later, the floor shook and the sounds of “owwwww, ow, ow, ow” trailed down the staircase. I followed the wailing and found him in the bathroom, jumping up and down with a wash cloth pressed to his eyes. He very helpfully told me, “OWWWWW.”

“But what is the matter, Beau?” I calmly queried (no, really. I call him Beau at home. I barely remember his real name at this point. They’re going to have to use that nickname in our wedding vows).

He squinted from his hunched position and said, “I have jalapeño juice in my eyes. OWWWW.” Normally, this sort of calamity would earn a mute head shake as I left the room and closed the door behind myself. Like the time he fell down the steps 10 seconds after I said, “Remember they redid the back stoop. Watch your step.” Normally I’m used to that kind of clumsiness. But this incident occurred on the coattails of a conversation about a pepper so hot, there are laws banning outdoor cultivation in the US because if an animal gets the oil in its eyes, it will literally scratch them out. In a characteristic fit of paranoia, I didn’t see Beau hopping around my bathroom. I saw a panicked squirrel gouging out its eyes with a stick. There was only one reasonable course of action: chemical shower.

I got the water running while he stripped, pushed him into the shower stall, and instructed him to flush his eyes out with water and to scrub the oil off his hands with soap. While he followed orders, I perched nervously on the nearby toilet. Finally, the water turned off and he popped his head out, blinking cautiously. I retrieved his towel and enjoyed the descending calm. It didn’t last. Suddenly he was shrieking and flailing and hopping around my bathroom again. He shoved past me and jumped back in the shower. I settled on the toilet again and reprimanded, “Really wash your hands or you’re going to keep getting it in your eyes!”

“It’s not in my eyes,” he called back.

I’d settled on the toilet again. From there, I leaned over to peer into the shower stall. What I saw was Beau, face planted against the wall with his back side in the water. I asked, “What are you doing?! Where did you…”

“It’s on my bunghole.”

There’s so little in this world that makes me speechless. But when I saw my darling fiancé flayed, spread-eagle, using his hands to pry apart his butt cheeks to best flush the jalapeño oil from his anus, my mouth dropped open and I was without words. Usually, I recover from those rare moments quickly and return with some witty turn of phrase. Last night, I just laughed until I cried and clutched the bathroom counter convulsing with waves of laughter until I could finally breathe again. By then, he was drying off, scowling at me and asking if I was quite through laughing.

But I didn’t finish laughing until this morning when I realized that mango salsa is probably no longer on the menu.

Presents

2009-08-11T14:43:00.014-04:00

The first of my wedding crafts went into the mail last Friday and today I heard that the last of them had safely arrived at its destination.

Due to geographical inconveniences (like Connecticut's existence along the north east corridor) I had to ask the majority of my bridesmaids via phone, email, or IM if they would be part of the wedding party.

Since that’s not the most charming way to pop the question, I also sent follow up notes introducing them to each other and providing information about the big day.

Elise Blaha was the inspiration behind this project. Visit her blog for the adorable originals!

Weekend Highlights

2009-08-10T11:25:00.009-04:00

My weekends are always packed with fun tidbits to share but come Monday, I’m usually too busy at work to post, so they get lost in the melee. So, instead of a lengthy recitation of every time I scratched my ass this weekend, I’m going to start posting a few highlights (I’m formally declaring a new project – that’s like a death warrant for it. Let’s see if I even make it through the first one).

Per usual, we went down the Cape where I started pillaging thrift stores for wedding centerpieces. I’m planning on candle gardens of mismatched glassware with a few big blooms similar to the ones below. Yes, I’m ambitious enough to attempt cross stitching all the table numbers as well.

Via Snippet & Ink

Grasshoppah came out to visit looking like a cast member of Twilight thanks to a no-sun policy and a new hair color. We ate lunch at the BBC in Hyannis, dropped by the yacht club where Beau and I will be married next June, and took an evening cruise on the boat.

Friday night I made it through 14 innings of the Sox-Yankees game that would not die thanks in large part to rum’s newest rival, Firefly, a sweet tea infused vodka that pairs deliciously with lemonade to make a spiked Arnold Palmer.

Booya! Made it to the end. No promises for next week, but we’ll see.

Don't Trust A Computer

2009-08-06T13:42:00.007-04:00

Me and you, we’ve discussed how I have trouble with screen shots, right? Once again, I’ve experienced technical difficulties with that seemingly simple function. This morning I sent a routine email about an error message I saw. Now, here’s a game for you to play: spot the horribly mortifying mistake in the following screen shot that I sent to the vendor.

Need a hint? Did you check what I last googled?

WHY AM I SO AWKWARD?!?!?

Now there’s a herd of techies sitting in Texas who are either a) pointing north and laughing or b) convinced that I am a jilted lesbian. In my own defense, I googled it in the first place after reading a facebook status update from Notorious:

Being the playful type, I had planned on responding with lyrics that describe my innermost feelings… but couldn’t remember what came before “woo ooh” in the song. And then I got distracted with error messages and screen shots and emails and the whole thing just kind of spiraled out of control until I was sitting at my desk slamming my forehead into the keyboard and exchanging brief emails with the vendor which are COMPLETELY USELESS WHEN ATTEMPTING TO READ SOMEONE’S TONE AND DETECT LAUGHTER AND POINTING.

So, I now present this to you, sweet Internet, as further evidence that I am the reincarnation of Lucille Ball. Much like recounting a nightmare involving zombie cucumbers chasing you out of the produce aisle to whoever will listen, sharing the embarrassing details of my day makes me feel a little better about them.

I Got Some 'Splainin To Do

2009-08-05T14:21:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, the ladies of Chairsy’s bridal party ventured to Rhode Island for our initial dress fitting. As the least shy amongst the group, I was led into the dressing room first to strip before my mimosa had fully kicked in. The wedding consultant took my measurements and then sat quietly for a few moments, furiously scribbling mathematical equations on her notebook and eyeing me warily. Finally, she explained (in that tone that you use with your dog when you’re trying to coax out from under a bed during a thunderstorm) that bridal couture runs small. VERY small. Always. Fact of life. Even congress can’t change it. I nodded patiently and smiled in a good-natured way. She told me not to feel personally affronted by the size she was about to suggest for me. I acknowledged that it was just a number and that I was not the type to determine self worth based on clothes tags.

Still, she flinched as she told me I was on the cusp between a size 16 and 18. An 18 would need to be taken in, a 16 would need to be let out. I considered her statement for a moment and explained that I’d lost almost a dress size in the past few months and that I was planning to continue with that diet plan. So, I picked the smaller size with the best of logical intentions… and also the slightest distaste for the number 18 which feels large and cumbersome even when you just say it out loud. Eighteen. Look how terrible it is written out!

Last week, I picked up the dress and two days ago, I finally had time to try it on. I was expecting it to be an extremely tight fit that would need to be let out. I was not expecting a one and a half inch gap circa my rib cage.

Bitch LIED to me.

I shrieked for Beau’s help. After a few earnest tugs he shook his head. I began muttering soothingly, “That’s OK. I’m still losing weight. I just need to keep going. I’ll have it let out as much as possible. Yes. And then it’ll fit just fine. Everything’s going to be OK.” Beau backed away slowly while I wiggled out of the dress and began a Jillian Michael’s video.

I later asked Beau what it’s like to be engaged to the modern equivalent of Lucille Ball. Considering my track record of attempting to kidnap dogs, getting locked in stairwells, convincing myself I was in the men’s room at my new office, and breaking my ass while trying on Spanx, I don’t think the comparison is a far cry. Really, who gets themselves into these situations on a regular basis?!

He shrugged and said I make his life “entertaining.” Which is exactly what I think losing one and a half inches from my ribcage in just over two months will be like.

Boudoir

2009-08-05T09:32:00.010-04:00

Before

After
Pre

Post

Formerly

Currently

Welcome to Dangerous K 2.0

2009-07-31T16:52:00.000-04:00

Sexy, eh?

This is my way of saying I plan to continue blogging despite my evolution into a slightly less drunken waste of space. Thank you to my loving friends and family who assured me that I am not becoming a boring old lady just because I can no longer consume a fifth of Jack Daniels and remain vertical. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the house-holdy posts have been increasing and the I-threw-up-on-a-man-on-the-subway posts have been decreasing. This is a trend that’s here to stay, I fear, though, that said, Beau and I will be celebrating the best work week ever this evening. I got a raise and mini-promotion (no new title, but extra work which includes spending company money on limos and booze) and Beau got a surprise bonus out of the blue. So, that whole sobriety thing is subject to change. I’ll be back from the Cape on Monday with – I swear on all that is holy – with pictures of my first wedding craft and the final bedroom pictures.

A special thanks to Marina at Penny Lane Designs who is responsible for this face lift. I’d recommend her for anyone else considering a bit of freshening up.

Sneak Peak

2009-07-29T12:23:00.004-04:00

Oh yes. I painted the master bedroom a particularly vibrant shade of "are you fucking crazy?" blue.

And now I'm wondering where to find a good online tutorial for my Nikon S710 because it's a wonderful little camera and I'm not doing it justice with my lack of photography skills. Also, I would like to avoid having to crop my pictures so close to hide the shame of an obvious flash on window pane glass.

Floral Motif Thug

2009-07-28T10:14:00.002-04:00

Every year I buy a planner and every year it falls apart from the rough and tumble nature of life in my purse where it is forced to cohabit with stilettos, half eaten muffins, and the occasional leaking water bottle that I refuse to throw in the garbage when recycling will eventually be available. It’s the handbag equivalent of Compton.

This year I bought my pocket calendar from Posy Paper Co.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that their Etsy shop is operational anymore which is a shame because this little guy has taken a serious beating for the past six months and is still in fantastic condition. Hopefully 2010 will not see a return to my old organizational system of blanketing my desk in a complex series of color coded Post-Its.

Who Needs Free Time?

2009-07-27T13:06:00.002-04:00

Pfft. Not me. I’m beginning to get used to the nonstop roller coaster of home-owning, wedding-planning, and family-event-juggling. This time last year, my favorite pastimes included waking up at noon with a hangover and lazing about on the couch but I haven’t done either in ages and I can’t honestly say I miss them. There’s just not enough time to loudly moan for Beau to bring me Tums. If I need Tums now, it goes on my to-do list and gets checked off just like the others.

Friday afternoon I trekked further into the city by car than I’ve ever been before to attend a friend’s 30th anniversary party at my old office. It was relatively uneventful, but merits mention because I actually got into and out of the city during Friday rush hour without crashing or crying or ending up in Maine.

Saturday morning we drove down to Connecticut where we caught the ferry for Long Island for the yearly Dangerous Family Reunion. As usual, I brought my camera with the best of intentions and then promptly abandoned it in favor of cracking dirty jokes at the kids table with Beau, Bologna, T, and my favorite cousin, Hazardous (so called because while I may be Dangerous, she’s downright trouble) and her husband. My family lived up to its reputation as the Italian version of the family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding by asking five minutes into the party when we planned on breeding.

On Sunday we raided Home Depot and held a second Ikea siege. For the remainder of the day I repotted sick plants that I definitely didn’t overwater by leaving on the back porch during Boston monsoon season and painted the bedroom. There should be some stellar before and after pictures by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, we’ve finally scrapped the idea of a pseudo-elopement to Bermuda with our 50 closest family and friends and are steaming forward with plans for a full-fledged Cape Cod wedding next June. Since I’ve learned nothing from watching She-Ra craft oodles of time-consuming goodies for her wedding this September, I already have two craft projects of my own planned, not to mention my own Etsy shop to be launched by the end of the summer.

So, that is how I came to cherish my lunchtime blogging sessions in solitude though it may make me look slightly sociopathic to my coworkers who all eat lunch together in the break room.

PS You may have noticed my blog has its own official home at www.dangerousk.net now. The damn squatters at www.dangerousk.com have been sitting on that domain for well over a year without budging or developing it, so I gave in and bought the alternative. Keep an eye out here for another of my pet projects coming soon: an overhaul of the blog design. Happy I-Don't-Spend-All-My-Money-On-Tequila-Shots-Anymore Day to me!

Domestic Adventures (Not the Chris Brown Type)

2009-07-22T10:54:00.002-04:00

I am loving on domesticity so hard right now. There has been a veritable bonanza of householdy stuff going on and I’ve gotten very squealy and arm-flappy and new-word-makey-uppy to convey the full scope of my delight. My delight is so much bigger than you understand right now. So much bigger.

After She-Ra’s bridal shower this weekend (which was lovely and very cute and gave me the chance to make sober introductions to other Beau family members that I don’t already know, but which I can’t talk about in more detail before I get to Bologna’s baby shower because in the Great Shower Caste System, Bologna’s shower wins by virtue of happening first, being planned by me, and being thrown for a blood-relation. So, in short, I will get to Bologna’s baby shower soon… ish) Beau and I came home early to finally get to work on the condo. First on our to-do list was pillaging Ikea for furniture since the place is cavernous. And beige. Maybe I mentioned that it is beige before.

Our Ikea raid was extremely successful. We walked away with more Swedish accoutrement than one can reasonably expect to fit in a sedan even if said sedan is of the Italian Grandfather variety. But we are not reasonable people. We want our Stefan and Grevbäck and several hundred other small items that we cannot live without like these place mats and that garbage can and OH! these skirt hangers are only $0.99 each? Grab like 20. Also that dust ruffle. And that thing. Yes that thing. What is it? Its $1.50 – put it in the cart. I’ll figure out what it does later.

It became clearer that the situation was challenging at best when we returned to the car with a greater volume of stuff than available interior space. Specifically, the bed which was in a big flat box of a length suitable for use as a life raft and was wider than the car. But Beau, being of the male persuasion, knew exactly how to transport this item home. He began by launching it on top of my car.

For the next 10 minutes, Beau ran around with flimsy Swedish twine while making brow-furrowing faces to show his concentration and hide his delight with the project. Eventually, my Lillesand was “securely” tied to the roof. Beau hopped into the driver’s seat and I hopped into the seat behind him as the front passenger’s seat was fully reclined to accommodate a bookshelf.

We began our journey of under 10 miles home at 30mph, avoiding highways and making LOTS of new friends along the way who were all so excited to see us limping along that they followed us almost close enough to push us up the hills. I waved and smiled and pointed at the giant cardboard slab. When I do things like that, my family often tells strangers that I’m touched in the head. Then I just wave and smile at them some more.

What’s interested about Ikea twine is that it seems to be made of Lycra because when the wind got under the parcel, the string would stretch and the box would levitate ever so slightly forcing us to drive with our arms out the window in an attempt to maintain stability and keep the car from lifting off. We got home without going airborne and pulled everything into the condo where Beau contently began piecing things together and countering my offers for help.

Since then, we’ve also invested in a washer/dryer set which gave me hours of amusement last night (no, seriously, I’ve never been so happy to wash laundry. Mostly because my basement isn’t covered in midcentury grime or infested with hippies like my last two) and I’ve also purchased my very first sewing machine with which I will alternately hem skirts and mangle clothing patterns. Tonight we’re heading to Home Depot for paint and such to revamp the bedroom, so I may have a few before and after pictures sometime this century.

The Grand Tour: First Floor

2009-07-15T16:45:00.010-04:00

We’re preparing to overhaul the condo which we got for a steal thanks to the lack of updates made since it was built 25 years ago. And, of course, thanks to the economy being in the crapper (thanks economy!) Before beginning work, I snapped a few pictures to compare with the end results:

Here’s our eat-in-kitchen which features glamorous linoleum floors and a light fixture from the early 1980s Italian-American era of etched glass and shame. Note the Miami Vice pink walls. They are a running theme. In the entire house.

This part of the kitchen won’t be tackled until next year when our free money shows up. Until then, I will accept the overarching beige-ness and continue feeling like Buffalo Bill is my interior decorator.

Besides the couch and Beau who’s preparing to hang curtains over our sliding glass door, the living room is still predominantly empty. What seemed like an excessive amount of furniture in our tiny apartment barely fills the room here. I think the area behind the couch will eventually house a line of bookshelves reminiscent of the library in my childhood home. Also, possibly a liquor cabinet.

Here we have my very own fireplace in which I will burn wood, confidential papers, and any dissenters who think I should switch to a gas-burning fireplace. I’m proud of my little magazine-inspired display though Beau is skeptical. Yes, the long sign on the left says “Help Wanted. No Irish Need Apply.” I bought it after dumping the Evil Irish Bartender and I refuse to get rid of it just because I’m engaged to yet another mick. Anyone who objects will be thrown on the fire with the potatoes.

And lastly, a teaser shot of my staircase leading to the second floor which is too messy to conscionably photograph and post on the Internet. I have some standards. Those standards involve not taking pictures of my unmade bed.

Until then, look closely at the photos above. In one of them, I might be stark naked leaning against a flesh colored wall. That should keep you busy until I get around to making my bed.

Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

2009-07-13T14:21:00.005-04:00

I can’t believe it’s been almost three weeks since my last post. No, I won’t believe it. I refuse. You must be mistaken. I’m pretty sure I wrote something further down the page and you just missed it. You should appreciate those other posts that you clearly overlooked because it’s been a busy month and my brain is slightly more frazzled than usual. I:

Finished packing the apartment and jumped up and down to piss off the Evil Landlord
Moved into the new condo thanks to my crew of six
Finished unpacking (well, 90% there)
Skipped town for a long Independence Day weekend
Formed the Lobster Liberation Front; campaigned against cruel and unusual punishment on the 4th of July; was outwitted by Beau’s uncle who claimed to be a Wiccan who sacrifices crustaceans to the Mother Earth; was told I was infringing on his religious rights which was thoroughly un-American of me
Developed a weird stomach complaint that made it difficult to eat for an entire week; saw doctor; was told it was probably stress; scoffed at diagnosis
Put the finishing touches on Bologna’s baby shower
Drove to the Jerz and got lost near my old hometown
Cooked for 30 people with Beau and Lulu
Attended Bologna’s baby shower
Came home
Realized my stomach had been better since the day before the shower; started believing that maybe it was stress

But here I am, returning to some semblance of Zen. More stories and details to come now that I’m not clutching my abdomen in pain or throwing baby related items at the computer and hissing through clenched teeth.

Weakness of the Flesh

2009-06-23T13:38:00.004-04:00

Upton Sinclair made me a vegetarian when I was 15. Or, more specifically, that terrible scene in The Jungle did. The socialist content went completely over my head but the thought of people-meat being mixed in with my sausage products was too much for me to handle. I went down to dinner that night, looked at the freshly carved chicken on the counter and announced, “I think I’m not going to eat meat anymore” to which my father called from the next room over, “There’s peanut butter in the cabinet.”

That carried on for a few years until one particularly grueling day in Disney World when I ordered a taco salad sans beef and was presented with a taco salad WITH beef. I knew it would take longer to get a fresh one than it would to wait for a gun license in New Hampshire (around 20 minutes) (which was unacceptable in my famished state) so I sat down with the intention of pushing the offensive substance to the side and consuming the slightly tainted lettuce beneath. Several minutes later, I came up for air with my face covered in delicious beef and then proceeded to sample a meat product at each country in Epcot. Now I own that shirt made famous by Heather Armstrong that says “Meat is Murder. Tasty, Tasty Murder.”

Still, I have a soft spot for animals. I cut six-pack rings before recycling to save the dolphins. I incessantly try to rescue lost dogs. I cry during those horrific animal abuse commercials with the Sarah McLachlan music in the background. So, when Beau told me that Father’s Day dinner would involve fresh lobsters, I may have panicked a little.

When it came time to cook them, I remained in the kitchen. For solidarity. Like how William Wallace’s friends came to his execution. The little troopers emerged from their refrigerated bag, kicking and futilely flailing their bound fists of fury. They continued struggling until they were lulled into a false sense of security with back pets though I’m quite sure I heard one of them whisper, “No. It will numb my wits, and I must have them all. For if I'm senseless or if I wail, then Longshanks will have broken me.” Just before being lowered into the Pot of Death, one of them looked me directly in the eye and I was forced to run into the next room. They died gracefully without the alleged screams I had been led to expect.

At dinner I choked down the steak that Beau’s mother had thoughtfully made for me in lieu of lobster, all the while thinking, “I will courteously eat this animal carcass and then I will remain steadfastly vegetarian for the foreseeable future.” I spent the rest of the evening in bed, nauseated by what I had seen.

Come morning, I woke late and had a bowl of soggy cereal, stewing in my self righteousness at the breakfast table. Because I was determined to carry on the Good Fight for which my comrades had so valiantly perished. I would not let those martyrs be forgotten by the barbarians who slew them for their savory innards. Oh no. I WOULD NOT LET THEM GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT. WHO’S WITH ME?!

Then Beau’s family showed me the two crisp, succulent strips of bacon that they had saved specifically for me. As it turns out, the foreseeable future is less than 18 hours.

FYI: The Liquor Boxes Are Labeled “Anal Depilatory Cream”

2009-06-19T11:51:00.008-04:00

We’ve been busy little beavers this week unlike this guy:

Good Example FAIL

There’s been some serious packing going on at Chez Dangerous K. Mama Beau thieved packing materials from the hospital where she works. That means some of my moving boxes have big ominous labels that read “Surgical Underpads” which may lead the casual onlooker to assume I have an incontinence problem of epic proportion but on the bright side, it also means I felt secure leaving those boxes in the back of my car yesterday while parked in front of my office where there’s been a rash of recent break ins. Office BFF suggested that I label the unmarked boxes with equally terrifying words. Like “tampons.”

In addition to boxes that once contained phenomenally gross materials, she also provided us with blue cushiony wrapping that she swears is used solely for packaging sterilized equipment and not putting under dead bodies. It smells of band aids nonetheless. Big six foot square band aids. That’s what’s wrapped around the contents of my precious liquor cabinet … which may have exceeded two large boxes … with some straggler bottles that I insist on finishing before we move next Saturday. What?! I refuse to move five bottles of two fingers of scotch each. It’s not fair to me and it’s not fair to the scotch.

Last night we brought the first shipment of things-nobody-wanted-to-steal-from-my-car over to the condo and had our very first camp out – complete with a picnic on the charmingly 80s linoleum floor, discovery of a leaky showerhead, and removal of marbleized contact paper which was stuck to every shelf in the kitchen (to complete the Miami Vice ambience, I assume).

We’re off to the Cape tonight for a viewing of She-ra’s wedding band and tomorrow, Cape Gods willing, the postponed yard sale. Next week I’ll be posting a ton of pictures (one craft project and several thousand new purchases).

Wampum

2009-06-15T15:11:00.001-04:00

I can speak English again now that I have caffeine in my system. My early morning was spent grunting and scowling at the refrigerator which went on strike while we were down the Cape this weekend, thereby spoiling my olives, cheese, and most importantly, the milk for my morning coffee. Really, I should appreciate the fridge’s effort to push me out the door faster because I wasn’t already desperate to move into our condo in the quiet, sunny, affluent suburbs when I won’t hear motorcycles ripping past my house at midnight, my landlord’s wailing baby or the lilting tune of Flo Rida from the Section 8 housing down by the train station. I really needed someone to light a fire under my ass.

That said we spent a few hours on Sunday packing our worldly belongings without making a noticeable dent on the apartment. When did I accumulate so much stuff? As previously discussed, I spent a good portion of my post college years drifting about, living with whatever I could fit in a midsized sedan that I could pack up in an hour if I needed to flee. Now I have… things. I own Christmas plates. And decorative tchotchkes for my bookshelves. And bookshelves.

I was supposed to host a yard sale on Sunday but it was rained out, preventing me from selling off a motley assortment of my aforementioned possessions. It doesn’t help that I inherited a Stair Master from Beau’s cousin which was meant as a contribution to the yard sale and is now a delightfully retro contribution to my new home gym that I will use while wearing leg warmers and blasting Pat Benetar. I may have also gone to a few yard sales on Saturday morning and purchased an Augusten Burroughs memoir and a 2 foot strand of faux pearls. Those are my weaknesses. I totally understand why the Native Americans sold the island of Manhattan for beads. They will be accepted currency at my belated yard sale as well.

Moving Day(s)

2009-06-09T14:31:00.013-04:00

I was bitching with Office BFF this morning about moving out of my third floor apartment (in a house on a hill… so there’s actually another staircase outside). After she mentioned that she’s been making yearly moves since leaving college, I counted up how many times I’ve moved in that time frame and came to the realization that this will be my ninth relocation since December 2005. The first seven occurred in the year and a half span after graduation, much to the frustration of Bologna and T who helped 63% of the time. Here’s a not-so-brief outline of my travels:

1) Hilton Head, SC (Dec 2005 – Jan 2006)

I left my dorm room and moved roughly 1000 miles south to my father’s retirement village. By car. I stayed there for under a month. Shortly after a rousing New Years Eve of drinking Bacardi on his couch while watching Amelie and then attempting to play it off as drowsiness when he came home early from his Old People Party, I hopped on a London-bound plane with one suitcase to reclaim the alcoholic genuinely-Irish boyfriend that I procured during my stint at Oxford the previous summer.

2) Brixton, London, UK (Jan – March 2006)

Turns out there was very little worth reclaiming. He was still Irish and an alcoholic, but spent a good portion of my three month sojourn unemployed and not paying his share of the rent. We lived in the ghetto of Brixton (of the Clash’s “Guns of Brixton”) above an Indian bodega on a street where they frequently posted sandwich signs advertising unsolved crimes (for example, “Please be advised there may be a serial rapist on the loose in the general vicinity”). I worked as an illegal nanny to the director of American movies in the Marble Arch area. I regret not spending more of my time sightseeing by myself and wandering the city instead of wallowing in the misery that was my personal life. After a particularly bad row, I hopped on a plane back to the States with my one suitcase… and one very large bag of souvenirs.

3) Central NJ (April – May 2006)

St. Bologna greeted me at Newark Airport and brought me home where she deposited me (and my luggage) on her couch in central New Jersey. My father brought the rest of my belongings from South Carolina and they began piling up around Bologna’s condo. This was around the time that T developed a nervous twitch.

4) Weehawken, NJ (May 2006)

After getting my first big girl job in Manhattan in April, I moved to Weehawken just across the river from NYC. I had a beautiful view of the city skyline from my bedroom window and three incredibly creepy roommates who I caught congregating outside my room listening to one of my phone conversations. When Bologna prompted me with “Do you want to leave this place?” after a baseball game, I packed up my entire life in about an hour and threw it in the back of their pick up truck. T’s tick became inescapably noticeable.

5) Central NJ… again (May – June 2006)

We formed a neat little family unit back in the old condo. Just me, Bologna, T, and T’s head jerking. I crashed in their guest room for another month or so until selecting…

6) New Brunswick, NJ (June – Oct 2006)

...another slum! But this apartment was also conveniently located a full mile from the train station. I like an extra challenge when I’m running for my life down dark alleys past gold toothed whistling Mexican men. This one also required furniture. So, me, my luggage, and my brand new furniture were all neatly deposited on the 18th floor of a high rise by the ever patient Bologna, T and T’s hopeless shaking.

In early October, sick of getting cat calls on my walk home, I shouted back at a car full of large black men something to the effect of, “Does this ever work for you? Have you ever had success picking up a female using that kind of language?” They parked around the corner and menacingly began following me. I was then very grateful for my troop of lurking Hispanic guys and my ten years of Spanish lessons because I was able to ask them for help in their own language. They formed a blockade on the side walk behind me as I high tailed it. Apparently they didn’t take kindly to others intruding on their sexual harassment turf. To my knowledge, that was the only racial riot that my ghetto booty has incited.

During this time period, I’d also begun talking to Beau more and more frequently and ultimately decided to move up to Boston for him since he seemed unwilling to move to Yankee territory.

7) Boston, MA (Sept 2006 – June 2007)

Once again, Bologna, T, and T’s violent quaking packed me into a U-Haul and put me on the road. I unloaded in record time in Boston with the help of Beau and my three new roomies who were completely unconcerned that I had no job or marketable skill base. That Christmas, after it became clear that I was indeed settling in one location, T presented me with a gigantic bottle of tequila and lovely card noting that he had almost fully recovered from the persistent convulsions that I must have noticed when I was retired to his couch.

8) Outskirts of Boston, MA (June 2007 – June 2009)

After moving in with Beau, I stayed in the same apartment for an unprecedented two years. Now we’re finally leaving for our very own purchased home with our very own adult couch for T to crash on, should his malady ever return.

This concludes the Nomadic Adventures of Dangerous K. On a side note, I’ve decided to continue blogging even if that means subjecting my loved ones to pictures of my wardrobe choices and gushing over frilly things with pink bows once in awhile. More news to follow after the closing on Thursday!

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

2009-06-07T14:07:00.003-04:00

I sporadically keep a private journal in addition to my blog. Usually I cover 30 pages before either growing bored of it, feeling embarrassed by my own emo ramblings, or deciding that i just don't like the general direction or tone that I've established. I'm preparing to throw yet another one in the trash and I couldn't help but notice that I'm having the same issues in keeping up with my blog. This site was founded in my rum-soaked, binge-drinking, trouble-causing days. The stories focused predominately on barhopping and my subsequent hangovers. So, how am I supposed to turn around now and tell you that on vacation, I actually didn't get drunk? Or that my new favorite blogger is an 18-year-old British chick who likes pink things and polka dots? Or that I now like pink things and polka dots?

Call it maturity, call it a soft liver, but I think my wild oats are officially sown. That brings us to the actual problem which I find similar to my issues with regular personal journals. I find it off-putting to continue on in the same place but with a complete reinvention of tone. Damn you English degree for making me care about continuity.

I'm trying to decide if I want to continue writing here about my tamer exploits and interests, start a Dangerous K 2.0 blog, or just scrap the whole damn thing entirely.

If anyone actually has an opinion, please share!

Don't Worry - I Wasn't Eaten By A Shark

2009-06-05T13:34:00.003-04:00

...but I've been playing catch up at work and trying to plan a wedding at home so I haven't had time to write about my fabulous vacation yet. I will though, even if it means doing it by hand this weekend while I'm sitting on Beau's boat. Until then, please enjoy this picture of me making out with a vat of rum at the Cruzan Rum Factory in St. Croix.

Dangerous K 2.0

2009-05-20T15:24:00.004-04:00

I’m a terrible, neglectful blogger but here are some valid excuses as to why:

1) I gave myself a make over. Now I think about what I wear in the morning instead of picking something up off the floor that smells mostly OK. I blame The Glamourai which I stumbled across earlier this month. I’ve even been blow drying my hair. For those who know me personally and think I look exactly the same as I did last month: I don’t care for you.

2) The make over involved spending all of my disposable income on what amounts to little more than 3 cardigans and a dress so I have no money and therefore, have been on a limited drinking schedule except this past Saturday when I may or may not have done shots of Soco while wearing a lobster bib. Pictures to surface on the interwebs soon.

3) We bought a condo! It’s a lovely 2 bedroom in the burbs with a fireplace, an open pet policy, a screen door that’s falling off its hinges and three bathrooms so I can say to myself, “Where will I poop today?” Best of all, it passed inspection on Saturday. That means we’re (meaning Beau) frantically trying to pull together our mortgage crap so we can get this thing locked and loaded because GOD HELP ME the newborn downstairs has a set of lungs on it. Theoretically, we will be moving in by July 1. Go ahead and laugh. That’s what I’m here for.

4) Speaking of newborns, I’m planning Bologna’s baby shower. Have I mentioned this before? I don’t have time to look through my archives to figure it out, so if I’m starting to sound like my father and am repeating the same story over and over, please just skip to #5. If not, then please tell me what you’re supposed to do at a baby shower because I have it on good authority that Jägerbombs (how does spell check not know that word?) and strippers are not involved.

5) We’re leaving on a cruise on Sunday. Yep. Whoops. Skipping town again and forgot to tell anyone. This time next week I’ll be island hopping around the Caribbean praying that I don’t bump into the CEO who will conveniently be there for his honeymoon. Rumor has it he once congratulated Office BFF for double fisting a beer and a scorpion bowl, but I think I would rather play it safe on this one.

6) Gosh, I’m sure there’s something else. Ummm. Hmm. Oh maybe it’s this:

I’m officially the future Mrs. Beau and Beau is the future Husbeau! He proposed on Monday night and as of 3:00 today I have planned 95% of the wedding. In my head. So all we have to do is …everything else. I’m going to begin by getting back on the iceberg lettuce/vinegar diet with a side of exercise.

So, please forgive me for being sober, skinnier, busier, engaged, home-owning, and more stylish. Blog entries may be shorter from now on (except for this obvious contradiction …. and possible future ones… I have trouble shutting up once I get started so I make no promises) but other than that I’ll try not to let it interfere with my rapier sharp wit. I’ll be back in June after the cruise!

Introducing Pictures of Things and Stuff and Such

2009-04-28T13:25:00.004-04:00

Note: My quasi-daily photo widget was being forgotten (eh hem... by me) and started becoming a quasi-monthly photo because I sequestered it in the corner over there. So, starting RIGHT NOW, pictures from my incredibly interesting life will now appear here.

So without further ado: here's what you can buy for a quarter on the Cape: 1) classic novel 2) flyest sunglasses ever.

A Promising Start to the Season , originally uploaded by dangerousk.

Manila and Beige Both Kinda Suck. So Does Chartreuse Though It Hasn’t Personally Offended Me Today.

2009-04-23T14:15:00.000-04:00

Oh hai interweb! I’m back for what has turned into my weekly check-in (as opposed to the more frequent check-ins of last year when I was funnier and woke up drunk more often.) I didn't do a blink of work all morning and when I looked at the clock and saw that it was only 10:30, I was all “AHHH!!! CANNOT BE TRUE” but it was. IT WAS.

(On a side note, an ominous manila folder just landed on my desk but I am quite certain it is the only thing I need to accomplish today so I’d better drag it out as long as possible. Besides, if I do it too quickly they might figure out that I’m competent and may give me even MORE things to do. We just can’t have that. There’s nothing worse for boredom than work.)

(Incidentally, that manila folder kept me busy until 2:00. I will now resume blogging but let this be a lesson to the rest of you: don’t trust anything your boss puts on your desk)

I’ve been painfully bored at the office quite frequently over the past few weeks much to Beau’s dismay. When I’m bored, I’m cranky and bitchy and threaten to run away to far away lands (most recently, Europe and Oregon have been popular threats) and I dissolve into tears at inconvenient intervals… like every Monday at 6:45 pm. So, why didn’t I turn to you sooner for comfort? Because I am much like a despondent 7-year-old when I’m bored and my brain is much like the weary but patient Bologna who used to suggest possible activities to keep me entertained while I would respond with a resounding “NO” to each idea of standing on my head in a corner or drawing pictures or reading a book or, in this case, blogging.

As you can see, I’ve been quiet not because I have nothing to say. I’ve been quiet because I’m being difficult and I’m busy moaning “ennui” while I lay prostrate on the floor. Such is the paradoxical nature of my being. But now onward to important things that I’ve been holding back while I stared out windows sighing and writing creepy little haikus about rain!

Remember how Bologna is growing a human life form? The one who had an internet presence before it was even born? Well, it’s not an it anymore. It’s a boy! Bologna has an ultrasound picture of his wing-wang but I can’t post it here because I’m afraid the Authorities will arrest me for kiddie porn and then my sister will have yet another thing to explain to her child about dear Auntie Dangerous K who is slightly off her rocker. In conclusion, Nugget is a he and I won’t tolerate any more gender neutral pronouns here or anywhere else. He’s a fetus, people, not a dog.

Speaking of dogs and excellent transitional subjects, we have a lead on a very promising condo where my future puppy will possibly romp around (yes, that’s right, stretch the credibility of that transition just a little more). Last night we visited it a second time and brought Beau’s father, our unofficial building inspector, who was unable to rip it a new asshole. The condo’s current asshole was built in the 1980s so while it may be covered in beige linoleum, it is, in fact, intact.

Now I have to get back to the sinister manila folder of doom which remains persistently next to me and which I probably summoned this morning by complaining loudly to the universe about being bored, but before I go, I leave you with these potential upcoming blog entry titles:

Earning My Keep, Or, How To Clean Toilets At the Beau Family Cape House

Don’t Get Drunk and Go Swimming In 50° Water

Why Losing Darts To A Gay Man Will Make You Feel Worse About Yourself

Farting Audibly in Harvard Square: Check

Do I Have What It Takes To Play Wingman in a Lesbian Bar for My Office BFF?

If You Pass, I’ll Rotate Your Tires for Free!

2009-04-17T16:21:00.005-04:00

Today at work, I was involved in a discussion with the single girls in the office concerning point systems for rating potential mates. I got to thinking about how Beau attained the coveted position of being my boyfriend (coveted like being a fighter pilot: it looks really fun and you get serious street cred for surviving, but actually, if you fuck up, it's really hazardous to your health). While my new office BFF, Krystal Youngblood, has a 5-point system, I determined Beau passed a much more rigorous assessment which was (sadly) culled from actual knowledge gained over years and years of dating complete losers. Here I present to you, in no particular order, Dangerous K’s 22-Point Inspection:

1. Must drink without being a full fledged alcoholic.
2. Must be able to drink me under the table.
3. Must not wear black eye liner
4. Must not write, read, or enjoy dark poetry
5. Must not have British teeth.
6. MUST NOT BE A BARTENDER.
7. Must not be in a band.
8. Must pay own share of rent.
9. Must have an egalitarian point of view concerning housework.
10. Must bathe frequently.
11. Must live in the continental United States; must not need assistance obtaining proper paperwork to do so.
12. Must not exist in a permanent state of couch-surfing.
13. Must participate in communal farts, burps, and nose picking.
14. Must be able to make me laugh at his jokes harder than I laugh at my own.
15. Must not have connections to the mob.
16. Must not be gay.
17. Must not play Dungeons & Dragons.
18. Must not be a vegetarian.
19. Must not listen to Starbucks soundtrack music, NPR, or jazz.
20. Must not expect me to attend cultural events and maintain a façade of maturity.
21. Must not weep during arguments.
22. Must be an excellent cook. Must not judge me when I lick my plate. Must offer his plate for licking as well.

Now for shits and giggles, guess which points the following ex-boyfriends failed (pseudonyms have been expanded on for those in my personal life who may have difficulty determining real names):

Weasely, The Elf Boy: Transitional high school to college boyfriend (Summer 2002 – Summer 2004)
Ho-Train: Abercrombie-esque guy that I permanently broke (Fall 2004? Maybe? Is that right?)
Marilyn Manson: Goth dude from my dorm (The day I broke up with Ho-Train until a month or two later)
Malarkey: Irish delinquent (Summer 2005 - Spring 2006)

Bonus points for identifying the ex (not included on this list – initials only if you know who it is) who failed #15!

**Update for clarification: Each point may apply to multiple listed exes. Some points apply to unlisted exes**

When 3 Miles Really Equals 6

2009-04-09T16:33:00.017-04:00

This past weekend marked not just the homecoming of Grasshoppah. It was also the Quatro's very first communal charity event. And it wasn’t even court ordered! We just did it because we care. In our magnanimous way, we combined forces to fight MS by … walking around Boston. Actually, I’m not really sure how that part fought MS, but it did give us an excuse to raise almost $3K for the cause and also to hold up traffic on both sides of the river.

Since Grasshoppah got into town on Saturday and the event wasn’t until Sunday, we had to find a way to entertain ourselves in between. We very responsibly ate a light dinner involving vegan-cheese nachos and gluten-free beer at Other Side Café where it was glaringly obvious that I did not fit in amongst the skinny hipsters who made me feel old (for further proof of the insanity, follow the link to their website. You’ll note that it is a MySpace page. You’ll also note that only 13 year olds and pedophiles use MySpace). I’m also fairly certain I heard a young lady with a lip ring discussing Nietzsche. I know I’ll get a few raised eyebrows for saying this considering my own emo-teen years, but Saturdays aren’t for deep philosophical conversation. They’re for starting bar fights and vomiting in public. Kids these days.

After dinner, we migrated to Lir where several dozen drinks were consumed. Because who thinks getting drunk the night before a 6 mile charity walk is a good idea? This guy. That’s who.

Shockingly enough, we all made it to Harvard Stadium in good spirits the next morning though most were equipped with dark sunglasses and one unnamed participant admitted to being in “rough shape.” The walk commenced amidst a crowd of entirely too chipper do-gooders and a couple of tee-shirt wearing dogs. Except it was really less of a walk and more of a stroll because there were several thousand people trying to promenade along the same path and some of them were in wheelchairs. Which asshole saw no problem passing disabled people on the left with the rest of her team? Still this guy.

Despite my best efforts to divert the herd to the nearest pub or bakery, we remained steadfastly on track (On a marginally related note: somewhere after half a mile, Notorious gave me a piece of vacuum sealed cheddar that she had snagged from the refreshment stand before leaving to shut me up. Thank you for your pocket cheese, Notorious).

After the first loop (which the MS Society claims was 3 miles but I think was probably closer to 4 miles), there was a smaller secondary loop to walk in order to complete the full 6 miles. It was like one of those trick SAT math problems with no solution.

Anyway, after completing oval A, we broke off from the pack of determined good Samaritans and slunk back to the stadium where we were greeted in a noisy, embarrassing fashion by a group of cheerleaders who congratulated us on finishing half the course (OR POSSIBLY MORE THAN HALF, YOU BUNCH OF FUCKING LIARS) and presented us with medals. Which we wore to lunch.

Lunch wasn’t easy to get though. After our exodus, we had to walk from Harvard Stadium to Border Café (a 0.6 mile route according to Google Maps, the leading authority on where stuff is… except my car keys… and my dignity) and then BACK (another 0.6 miles) to my car which was located at Harvard Stadium because I was too cheap to pay for parking a second time in one day. So according to my calculations (yes I have detailed calculations saved to my computer and am willing to show proof if necessary), even IF the route we walked was 3 miles, then we walked 5.6 miles between Saturday and Sunday. And everyone knows that you round up because decimal places are stupid because their not divisible by zero or something.

Tadaa! I walked 6 miles in the fight against MS, got drunk, and ate some vegan cheese though not in that order. Wasn’t it worth waiting all week to hear about it? Stay tuned – I’m heading down to the Dirty Jerz tomorrow morning to visit my knocked up sister and bring her to a liquor store for supplies where I’m hoping we’ll get judgmental looks and I can yell something at an elderly woman like, "Well, maybe YOU shouldn't be drinking on your heart medication? Ever think of THAT?"

The Password Is "Sussudio"

2009-04-01T14:57:00.003-04:00

AHAHAHA... HAHA... HA... ahhhhh

Too bad Beau uses the same few passwords for everything he does. I didn't really break into his Facebook account. More like, used the key that he hid under the decorative urn directly to the right of the front door.

Also, please take note of the tab furthest to the right in my browser. Yes, I had to look up how to take a screen shot and no, I didn’t remove that evidence before taking said screen shot. See, I’m not immune to horrible embarrassment via the Internet either!

Happy April Fools Day everyone! Go glue quarters to the sidewalk.

Solutions for the Opposite of Awesome

2009-03-31T11:31:00.006-04:00

Can we squeeze in one more blog entry before the end of the month despite having little to say? Yes we can! My site meter suggests I have fans to please and I am all about fan pleasin’. Are you pleased yet? Are you at least temporarily satiated? I know I am.

Now that I’ve set an entirely too chipper tone for this post (which I can do in my wild nihilistic way), here are some updates that actually kind of blow and also the various brilliant ways in which I plan on fixing them:

Problem: Beau and I have seen around 40 houses and haven’t found a single structurally sound home in our price range that isn’t in the ghetto or 40 miles from Boston.

Solution: We finally gave up on Sunday and started looking for condos. Apparently, our budget provides for some pretty pimpin’ places that we’d previously ignored. In exchange for a buffer zone between me and my neighbors, I might get granite countertops or a Jacuzzi to put my little toy boats in or an extraordinarily convenient location.

Problem: Obama hasn’t fixed the economy yet like FOX news promised he would. Half a dozen of my friends or family members have been laid off, taken pay cuts, or at best, had their wages frozen for the foreseeable future.

Solution: I will convince T to let us build log cabins on his family’s land in the boonies where I will have a victory garden and feed chickens and darn socks and pretend to be Daniel Day-Lewis from The Last of The Mohicans until the recession ends.

Problem: There is a disfiguring blemish on my face. I am very sure it is a herpe. Just one. Beau insists that it is a zit and not a cold sore but luckily I am a hypochondriac so I know better.

Solution: Neosporin fixes everything. I have also threatened to remove my herpe and hide it somewhere in Bologna’s house during my impending trip to the Dirty Jerz. She thinks she’ll find it, but she won’t. My herpe is stealth. It doesn’t run around waving flags and screaming. This isn’t a gay pride parade folks.

Problem: I suck at conclusions.

Solution: I will leave my readers hanging with a sentence fragment which is sure to piss some people off but I don’t give a

The Terror and Wonder of Advil PM

2009-03-27T10:23:00.006-04:00

Disclaimer: This blog may have been written under the influence of OTC sedatives. If you are the criticizing type, I urge you to stop reading. If you are the criticizing type and continue reading, I urge you to take your complaints and shove them.

At 9pm last night, I was still a cranky girl due to possibly the least eventful work day that I’ve had in the past 3 months. Most of the day was spent complaining to whoever would listen to me and constructing elaborate castles out of office supplies on my desk. At 9 pm I was in such a foul mood that I Advil PM’ed myself to ensure a good night’s sleep instead of one of those fretful, emo-poetry-writing-in-your-head kind of nights. No disturbing little sonnets. That’s a plus for Advil PM.

Normally I can shake my drugs off by the time I need to leave the house in the morning, but that doesn’t seem to be the case today. I half shook it off. I was fully capable of driving but I was sedately listening to The Shins on my commute instead of baring my teeth and hollering at minivans. No road rage or sprained middle fingers. That’s another plus for Advil PM.

All this positivity isn’t enough to save me from drifting off to sleep in a more recumbent position than my swivel chair is intended for. From the minute I sat down at the computer, my eyes started drooping. Narcolepsy. Definitely minus one for Advil PM.

I was the first one in the office this morning but now my coworkers are coming in thick and fast and they all want to talk about last night’s American Idol. Can you not see me trying to nap here? Fine, we’ll chat. Unfortunately, though my hooded eyes suggest I am awake, my speech pattern does not and now I’m very sure my peers think I am stoned. Minus another one for Advil PM.

This leaves me with very few options. I could build another Post-It fortress or I could sit here and inanely blog with drool on my chin which is actually the more legitimate looking way to spend my time.

A Really Big Hat

2009-03-26T10:03:00.002-04:00

Two days ago I accidentally scared poor Beau half to death. We watched Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist which was infinitely cute and enjoyable and incidentally put me in a terrible mood. Mostly because it was 9:30pm on a Tuesday night and I wanted to go have an adventure in which I too find Jesus at a drag show instead of putting on my big girl panties and going to my cubicle in the morning.

So I grumbled and was put to bed early and the next day I wrote Beau a lengthy email apologizing for my funk and explaining that I was fine, I just wanted to quit my job and join the Peace Corps so he shouldn’t be concerned. Leave it to Beau to worry about some innocent little comment like that.

After talking me down from my proverbial ledge in his I-Am-Diffusing-a-Bomb-and-I-Know-Better-than-to-Cut-the-Blue-Wire tone by promising me things like puppies and magical powers and bars in Key West, he told me it’s time we took a vacation. Much like a Labrador, the key to keeping me from going berserk, ripping up your favorite pillows and peeing on the carpet when you’re not home is to let me out in the backyard for a solid romp. I have to be tired out before I can be expected to sit still without causing trouble (or hung over but I’m much whinier then). So Beau is letting me off my leash for a week in May. I’M GOING ON A CRUISE BITCHES.

I will now procure a pirate’s hat. Effective immediately, I will begin referring to myself as Commodore Dangerous K and respectfully request that you do the same.

Speaking of Which, Has Anyone Had A Positive Experience With OxiClean?

2009-03-18T10:11:00.003-04:00

There have been recent developments in the ever continuing saga of When-The-Fuck-Did-I-Gain-1/3-of-a-Person, namely me once again attempting to lose the extra 1/3. Did you like how last time I just kind of quietly let it peter out without drawing attention to it? I was all “Hey, look over there! A unicorn!” and you didn’t even notice I was busy eating all the peanut butter.

Now I have a plethora of motivators pushing me towards actual commitment (2 weddings this year, 6-mile charity walk in April that I would prefer to finish without using my inhaler, my own stinginess preventing me from buying new clothes, bathing suit season… shudder). I’ve already massively overhauled my eating habits and curbed my drinking. Thanks to those changes, I’ve dropped almost 10 pounds since the start of the year but my weight loss has tapered off and I’ve been getting frustrated. Jen Lancaster’s latest book, Such a Pretty Fat, reminded me that laying around whining about my weight (albeit while eating carrot sticks instead of cake) is probably less effective than just getting up and moving around.

Much to Beau’s amusement, I’ve began doing aerobics after work using some of the On-Demand Exercise TV videos. I find the biggest problem is not the actual exercise itself, but getting started. When I get home from work, a glass of wine and a log of cheese look much more appealing than this:

As such, I could really use is an automated email reminder sent to me 15 minutes before I leave for home suggesting that I work out. I scouted out a few available options, but was only able to find your standard weekly newsletters with such painfully cheerful ideas as “Crunches are super fun when you use an exercise ball!” That is not helpful. That just makes me want to give dirty looks at the skinny girls in my office and drown my sorrows in mozzarella sticks.

I need something a little less subtle. Maybe something like, “If you don’t go home and exercise, you will have to shop in the fat chick store for the rest of your life” or, “Work out so you won’t eventually need firemen to knock down a wall of your house in order to get you out because you don’t fit through the doorway anymore.” Or even just a picture of Jaba the Hut with BBQ sauce down the front of his favorite JCrew hoody. Not that I would completely relate to that or anything.

Reason #719 Why I Don't Wear Pleather

2009-03-11T13:57:00.005-04:00

Castle Update

2009-03-09T16:05:00.002-04:00

Not so much my castle anymore. Here’s a list of fun discoveries we made on Saturday during the building inspection:

The house has a termite problem which was previously undisclosed by the listing agent.

The house had 2 crawl spaces under it that the owner attempted to hide. They were not properly treated for moisture, so you can pretty much imagine what they looked like.

Since the last time we visited, they sealed the ceiling panel leading to the attic (which we were unable to get into the last time because no one had a ladder).

After busting through the ceiling panel to the attic, we found it had also not been treated for moisture and was full of fuzzy white mold which I am horrifically allergic to.

(My personal favorite) The roof was being supported by a log. A LOG. The building inspector said people stopped doing that in the mid-1800s so the house was definitely not built in 1926 like the listing agent told us.

So, yeah, we didn’t buy a house this weekend. Even though I was pretty in love with the place before, I’m very over it now. The aforementioned list plus a number of other problems plus the BITCH of a listing agent we had to deal with was enough to turn me off completely. It’s like finding out the hot guy you’ve been dating for a month hasn’t showered in the past year. Maybe you wonder “How the hell did you not notice that he wasn’t showering in the first place?” Axe. That’s how. This house was the real estate equivalent of a whore’s bath.

Though I’m not heartbroken that we rescinded our offer, I’m getting frustrated by 2 months of fruitless searching. Add that to the gloomy, nasty New England weather we’re having today and you’ve got a recipe for a solid funk.

But My Brilliance Cannot Be Contained

2009-03-06T13:55:00.007-05:00

I spent a portion of this week reminiscing with Notorious about our good ol’ college days and how we’re now boring people that get excited whenever something remotely interesting happens to us because then it gives us something to blog about. Personally, I’m boring now because I’m too much of a pansy to deal with the consequential hangover from a night of drunken adventure. For example last weekend’s party:

As a result of my own weakness – or maybe the unnaturally fast aging of my liver – my binge drinking has reduced from a daily habit in Oxford to a weekly ritual in Brighton to a monthly treat at my own home. (I like throwing parties at my apartment. It almost guarantees I’ll make it back to my bed before passing out.) Drinking more often even for the sake of a good blog or two is no longer an option. Much sadness. Tear.

But my conversations with Notorious this week reminded me that I have plenty of old amusing exploits to share that the Interweb has not yet heard. They inspired me to reach deep into my iffy memories of an era long past when I could down a liter of Jack and still be up for class at 9am. Let’s start with this one from circa Fall 2005 when one day, I missed the bus.

It wasn’t just any bus that I missed. In the dead of night, I missed the last bus leaving from the densely student-populated apartments just north of campus. With a bottle of Sauza in me, I determined that the walk home could not possibly be worse than spending the night huddled on the sticky floor of a bachelor pad inhabited by 3 foul males while unsuccessfully trying to ignore the inevitable sounds of fornication on the couch across the room. “Hey,” I thought, “a walk might even be refreshing.”

Google insists that refreshing walk is 1.7 miles which may not sound like much to the able-bodied or energetic amongst you, but to a drunk, lazy college student with “put the lime in the coconut” looping through her head, it's almost enough to deter such a quest. One last look at my other option was enough to send me out the door. By the time I reached campus, I had remembered a short cut which I estimated would shave entire minutes from my walk. WHOLE MINUTES that I could spend curled up in the fetal position next to the toilet instead of walking uphill. Here is a map that illustrates my genius:

You’ll note that the red line represents the Google-suggested way home along major thoroughfares and that the blue line represents my hypothesized shortcut along a footpath in the woods. The pink dotted line is where the trouble began. As I paused to catch my breath at the intersection of pink and blue, I caught sight of my dorm through the trees and determined I would forsake the footpath for a beeline.

This plan was going well until I came upon a mystifying chain link fence in my way. I sniffled quietly to myself, clinging to the fence like one of those depressing refugees on the commercials. After a few failed attempts at scaling it, the obstruction proved to be insurmountable in my inebriated state. I sniffled again and turned around to head back to the path.

Once about-faced, I was confronted with a large house looming ominously in front of me. I scratched my head wondering who put a big lovely house here and why I’d never noticed it before. It was a sobering moment when it dawned on me that I had seen the house before from the front on my way to classes. Somehow, I was standing in the Chancellor’s fenced backyard. Several more panicked attempts were made at scaling the fence, but eventually I was forced to follow it out of the gloom and onto his well lit drive way where I ran as I have never run before.

Though my confinement lasts a mere two paragraphs here, in reality, it lasted an excruciating quarter of an hour. When I finally got back to my room, I was visibly shaken with twigs in my hair and scratches on my arms. My roommate, having lived with me for some time and witnessed the M&M incident, didn’t ask a single question.

The Zen Master

2009-03-05T14:34:00.012-05:00

It’s safe to say Bologna has always been a little… on edge. I mean, you won’t get knifed if you make a sudden movement around her but if she catches you improperly folding a bed sheet, she might go ballistic and start screaming.

Lots of things serve as irritants to Bologna but that’s just because she is a sensitive soul, unlike your beloved Dangerous K who once ate an M&M from behind her college roommates’ desk even after realizing that that particular candy had not been brought into the room in the 2 years of cohabitation. But it was a brown one and I really like the brown ones because I’m always afraid they’ll be the next to be discontinued after the tan ones so we should enjoy them while we have them. Or maybe the shell had eroded and I was looking at raw chocolate innards. Whatever. It was delicious. Anyway.

Now that Bologna is pregnant (read: engorged with hormones) she is slightly more sensitive than usual (read: a fucking whack job that WILL knife you). So her husband T and I have formed a sort of unspoken 24-hour patrol – he takes the in-person night shift from 6pm to 7am and I have the day shift via AIM from 8am to 5pm. We spend her unsupervised travel time in between our shifts praying for the safety of other commuters.

So this afternoon I was not surprised to hear her ask for a dose of Zen to sooth an apoplectic fit induced by a lazy secretary in her office. In my most calming typing tone, I talked my sister down from a ledge. Deep breath in…. and release that big guy back into the wild. Very good everyone! I’m seeing progress here.

But if there is one thing I am learning from this whole fetus-incubating-sister thing, it is that logic means nothing to the impregnated masses. There are no rules. This IS ‘Nam, Smokey. And if Bologna says turkey bacon on a bagel she MEANS turkey bacon on a bagel and GOD HELP YOU IF YOU BRING HER A PLAIN ONE (Hi T! Remember that time you brought her a plain bagel? That was fun). Meltdowns will ensue. Since things like reason can no longer be counted on to pacify Bologna, I find the best option is distraction. My best method of distraction is apparently humor. So when my conversational tactics failed today, I turned to whale noises which top scientists say are very soothing in their OOOOoooooOOO’y kind of way. I detected giggling (I can detect these things through a computer). I pushed on, idly threatening to call her office and sing Enya to her if she didn’t immediately get happy.

Don’t threaten pregnant ladies. Just don’t. Because they will in turn refuse to become happy until you call them and sing Enya. They won’t be swayed by excuses like “I forgot my cell phone at home” and “I can’t sing to you from my cubicle – everyone in the office will hear me” or even “But I’m the new girl and I still have them mostly convinced that I’m normal!” Why not? Because TURKEY BACON NOW.

So I peaked over my cubicle wall, ascertained that the desks nearest to me were empty, dialed with shaking hands and as soon as the phone was answered, began softly crooning “storms in Africaaaaaa.” Giggles from the other end. Bologna was appeased. I stopped. Bologna was no longer appeased. I made a thunder/tribal drum noise. Giggling continued. I hissed, “I’m sorry, that is all I have time for” while attempting to contain a guffaw that would surely be heard in the executive offices.

As I was hanging up and wiping the beads of sweat from my forehead, one of my coworkers appeared with a quizzical look on her face. She had been in a conference room around the corner from my desk, easily within earshot. I smiled my best I-am-SO-not-certifiable smile. She asked if I was OK. She’d heard a disturbance and now there appeared to be tears on my face. In order to save my reputation, I gave her the abridged version of this blog and explained that they were tears of laughter, not pain.

But they would have been tears of pain had I not called Bologna and sung Enya in my most humbling and self-mortifying way. Because she would have knifed me. And don’t you forget that.

Ella Ella Eh Eh Eh

2009-02-27T15:29:00.004-05:00

There’s pretty much NO way I can work today because:

a) It is currently 59° outside.
b) It’s Friday.
c) We made an offer on a house this morning and I’m waiting to hear back from the owners.
d) One of my oldest Jersey friends, Pilipoy, is visiting Boston tomorrow.
e) Beau and I are hosting a dinner party (read: shit show) tomorrow night and when my liver hears the word “party” it starts sending chemical signals out to my brain that say “HOLLAHHH - CRANK UP UMBRELLA AND START DANCING AROUND!!”

I’m forcibly resisting the urge to take my swivel chair outside in order to tailgate in the parking lot. It’s taking all my will power just to stay in this cubicle. I have no energy left over for silly tasks like counting or filing or doing anything else that I’m currently being paid to do. So instead, I'll tell you a random story.

Earlier this afternoon, the controller, president, and vice president took me out for lunch (technically my welcome lunch which has been postponed for a couple of months because they have real jobs, which I totally understand). Here’s a sample of our conversation which may help explain why I love this freakin’ place:

VP: So what kind of wines do you like?

Me: Cheap ones… pretty much anything with an animal on the label. I bought an expensive one recently that tasted horrible so, now I pretty much stick to Yellow Tail.

Controller: I love Yellow Tail!

VP: Are you more of a cocktail person? What’s your signature drink?

Me: Bacardianddietcoke [Yes, I told this to senior management without any hesitation whatsoever and practically before the vice president had finished his sentence]

President: I love Mt. Gay rum. I could drink that stuff straight.

Then the conversation turned to a discussion of rum and rum-based drinks for the next 5 minutes and I kept grinning from ear to ear and thinking “I am never going to leave this place.” At the end of our meal, we clinked our sodas together in cheers and they welcomed me to the company again.

Me: Just pretend there’s rum in here

President: We should start bringing flasks to lunch.

LOVE THIS PLACE. Anyway, have an awesome weekend! Full report of party shenanigans on Monday. And for any of the invitees who read this, don’t you dare flake out! We have Guitar Hero and a camera all set up.

The Game’s Up, Scarlet. There’s No More Bullets Left In That Gun

2009-02-23T12:51:00.001-05:00

I simply cannot wait for the end of the year to summarize the awesomeness that is 2009, so let me share with you what’s going on in the life and times of Dangerous K:

New Jobs = 2
As you already know, I now have a job that doesn’t suck ass and I’m very pleased to announce that Beau officially resigned this morning from the Evil Accounting Firm in order to join Happy- Fun-Time-Angels-Singing Company in two weeks.

House Purchases = 1
Since Landlord Man unofficially evicted us after our tame little Christmas party, we decided to take the plunge and buy a place while the market was tanking and the government is giving a sizeable tax credit to first time home buyers.

Puppies to Adopt = 1
About 5 minutes after we move into our new yet-to-be-determined house, I’ll be supplementing our family with a new character: a mutt. I’m now accepting name suggestions.

Baby Showers to Plan = 1
I’ve been put in charge of Bologna’s baby shower. Normally I’m not put in charge of anything because I’m irresponsible, lazy, and usually drunk, but regardless – in what I can only assume was a fit of hormone induced tenderness – Bologna asked me to spear head the thing so here I am, interviewing strippers and placing orders for an immense supply of cocaine when who should step in to help? My big fat Italian family from Long Island which is sure to cause lots of drama.

So, sorry Misty. Looks like we won’t need you this time.

Weddings to Attend = 2
Jay Aitch proposed to Chairsy in December and they will wed in October AND I get to be a bridesmaid! Yay more inclusion!

Beau’s sister She-ra is also getting married this fall and she’s doing so …

Humans to be Birthed = 1
… the same week of Bologna’s due date which means I should probably refrain from get tanked at her wedding just in case I get the call at 2 am and need to start driving to Jersey in my Sunday best. I can already envision that police stop: me in a pink taffeta gown with mascara running down my cheeks while I explain to the officer that I am driving at 90 mph down the Merit Parkway because my Bologna is hatching her Nugget RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT AND I NEED TO BE THERE WITH A BASEBALL MIT TO CATCH THE EMISSION.

So all in all, that gives this year a total of (two plus one plus one plus one plus two plus one) EIGHT!! Eight which happens to be my favorite number and doesn’t even include the charity walk that I’m doing with the Quatro this April or the numerous visits from out-of-town friends over the next few months or any other events that might pop up.

Best year ever!

They’re Lethal At Eight Months, and I Do Mean Lethal.

2009-02-17T14:56:00.005-05:00

Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to keep a secret? It’s hard. Like REALLY hard. I’m not a secretive person. It’s just not part of who I am. I have no air of mystery about me. I like to share every thought that crosses my mind with everyone I know. I told the entire class the day I got my first period. Jabbering to my loved ones and practical strangers in person isn’t enough anymore. Now I feel the compulsion to publically discuss my bowel movements with the internet via blog.

ANYWAY. My point is that I have been harboring a secret for two whole weeks and it has been gnawing at my innards with such vehemence I thought it was going to chew its way out of my brain and expose itself to the world without my permission. Now I have official written consent to share and let me tell you, it is as cathartic as a hangover pooh:

BOLOGNA DONE GOT HERSELF KNOCKED UP.

Technically, she’s not knocked up because she is lawfully married in the eyes of Yahweh and also the state of New Jersey but that does not change the fact that she is growing a human life form in her private parts which will join us on the outside on September 3, 2009. The rest is just semantics.

I obtained this intelligence when I went to visit her for her birthday last month in the Jerz. While I hung around imbibing my post-sketchy-Amtrak-regional-train rumndietcokes, she showed me her ultrasound which looked something like this:

So it is with great pleasure (and my sincerest apologies to my future niece/nephew) that I introduce Nugget, my sister’s fetus who she thought resembled a dino chicken nugget on the sonogram. Everyone give Bologna a hearty congrats for doing what Michael Crichton envisioned and prepare yourselves for an overload of Jurassic Park quotes!

Seemingly Popular Despite The State Of My Ankles

2009-02-09T11:07:00.002-05:00

Ah, sweet interweb, it feels good to go out carousing on the town after months and months of self inflicted hibernation. It feels good everywhere but in one’s head the following morning.

After seeing five houses on Saturday morning with Beau (two of which we plan on returning to see again with his parents next weekend), I traveled into the city to dine with Notorious and Face at Pour House which features half priced burgers every Saturday. Per usual, our intentions of eating a quiet dinner and consuming a reasonable number of drinks were side tracked by doing the exact opposite. I assume this occurred because we haven’t been able to get together in close to a month and we had lots of womenfolk updates to catch up on. Also, we have absolutely no willpower. Except for Notorious who demonstrated amazing willpower in ordering an extra dinner to take home to her boyfriend and then successfully fighting me off as I repeatedly tried to assault the container for a single French fry… or alternately, his entire burger.

Eventually, she brought me with the ladies’ room with her because I could not be trusted near the food in question. We read graffiti to each other to pass the time until I nearly leapt out of my seat from sheer excitement at finding the BEST graffiti ever. If you’re ever at Pour House, I suggest that you to use the first stall on the left in the women’s lavatory and look to your left once seated because you will see the following message scrawled on the partition:
After a hearty laugh, we returned to Face to tell her of our discovery and, being the brains of the operation, she told me to return to the bathroom to take a picture of the graffiti. I returned but couldn’t work up the chutzpah to take flash photography in the women’s room because if the roles were reversed and I was the one taking a tinkle when I noticed the flash of a camera, I would freak the fuck out and probably stab someone.

From dinner I condoned a move from the hipster college-kid orgy that exploded inside Pour House to a quiet book lined corner of Lir and from there we went on to The Globe to meet up with another friend. In this way, I broke the cardinal rule of drinking which clearly states that barhopping is stupid when it’s cold outside and you are wearing your boyfriend’s boots because yours are soaked through because you’re too vain to buy REAL winter boots instead of cute fuzzy Sherpa boots. Anyway, despite the temperature and the blisters forming on my calves, we walked to the Globe and along the way, I had the opportunity to cock block Notorious from giving a quarter to a sketch ball. She earned that damn quarter and that’s more than could be said of him.

Somewhere around my seventh rumndietcoke and the arrival of our party’s addition, I found myself in a cab going to The Washington Square Tavern in Brookline to join yet more people at a fourth bar. It would seem seven rumndietcokes is the threshold where I cease being Dangerous K and begin introducing myself as Shania.

I fell into bed around 2 in the morning and was woken by a smirking, judgmental Beau at 9 to brunch with Chairsy and Jay Aitch, our favorite engaged couple who enjoy stealing chairs with me from people’s front porches, and chasing mice around my apartment. I struggled through the day with sunglasses and arrived successfully at dinner with the Italian.

Those series of events are my best explanation for why I didn’t have time to shave my legs this weekend which resulted in my current predicament of accidentally wearing high water slacks that reveal my Clydesdale-like blister-covered ankles.

Don’t look at me. I am a monster.

Lessons from the Metro Boston Roadways

2009-02-03T12:47:00.003-05:00

After merging into the left lane during this morning’s commute as many other drivers do every day of their lives and will continue doing for the rest of time, the owner of a light-green high-end minivan floored his vehicle in order to tail me as if to say, “I know there was an appropriately sized gap in front of me that was perfect for your automobile, but still, your presence in this lane will not be tolerated despite the fact that you are clearly keeping up with traffic.” To clarify, I didn’t cut him off. This individual sped up AFTER I was already in front of him and proceeded to tail me at what appeared to be less than a foot of space at 60 mph.

In response, I righteously displayed my middle finger for his viewing pleasure. He retorted with an elaborate hand gesture of mock-fellatio. He continued to tail for several more minutes, even after I tapped on the breaks nearly causing him to nearly hit my mid-90s boat with his Mercedes. Eventually, he tried to pass me on the right and failed miserably when the semi in the next lane cock blocked his ass.

Traffic moved on without the fellater but it left me thinking about all that I have learned by driving in and around Beantown:

Boston Road Repair Fund Minus $22-Billion Big Dig Equals 22-Billion Potholes

Boston never EVER fixes their roads. On the blue moon that they DO decide to fix a pothole, they will do so on a Monday evening at 5:30 pm so as to inconvenience the highest number of people. They will post between two and seven police officers to stand ominously on the side of the road and watch the progress so as to maximize wastefulness.

The “Here I Come” Principle

In my homeland of the Dirty Jerz, the root of all bad driving is impatience. People will tail you because you’re holding up traffic and they need to go somewhere. The appropriate speed for the left lane on the Jersey Turnpike is infinity. You are expected to go as fast as possible in that lane. If you allow anyone to catch up to you when there is no one is front of you, it is their civic duty to let you know that you have failed society. That’s why the Jersey Sweep was invented – to get around Virginians doing 80 mph. Come to think of it, I wonder if Mr. Let-Me-Show-You-How-I-Put-Penis-In-My-Mouth was from the Jerz?

In Massachusetts though, the root of all bad driving is obliviousness. This phenomenon has come to be known in my household as the “Here I Come” principle (as in “ready or not, here I come”, as in “I don’t know exactly where you are, but I’m probably coming in your general direction right now”). This phrase was coined after Beau, a native Bostonian, took a mostly blind left hand turn from the right hand lane in a highly populated downtown area and my subsequent caterwauling. As a general rule, Bay Staters have no idea what’s going on when they are behind the wheel. They are completely unaware of their surroundings, usually on the phone, and just plain don’t notice that there are other cars on the road.

The Hypotenuse of “Why Don’t You Look Where I’m Going?”

With all that obliviousness comes a certain amount of implied trust. They trust you not to rear-end them when they cut you off without looking, and you may pass that trust on to the next driver when you park your car at a green light to get out and inspect the effect of a carwash on your rims. In Jersey, it is your responsibility not to get yourself into an accident. In Massachusetts, it is everyone else’s responsibility to make sure you don’t get into an accident.

Rotaries Equal Retardation

I used to go through three rotaries on my way to work. Each one backed up every single day, at every time of day and the inside resembles a mosh pit for cars.

As a preliminary effort to head off reactionary hate mail comments, I challenge you to take a toodle around Boston to check it out for yourself before committing yourself to an eternity of my ridicule by whining that I’ve stereotyped horribly and you are personally offended. Should you chose to refute the facts stated above, I require specific examples as well as your license plate number so I know to avoid you on the roads.

Just Like “House of 1000 Corpses” Except with Fewer Corpses and More Humiliation

2009-01-22T15:34:00.004-05:00

It was only a matter of time before I got into trouble here at my new office. Three blissful weeks of uninterrupted professionalism and sobriety were just too much for me to ask of the Universe. I’ve been waiting patiently to do something dreadfully embarrassing like flip a driver off in traffic only to find out in the parking lot that it was my boss. That’s why today, day 13 of my new job, I was not surprised when all that waiting came to an end.

I was lost in thought this morning on a routine trip to the lady’s room, probably pondering the supreme existential questions of mankind like where on the unattractiveness spectrum does ugliness end and deformity begin. Still deep in contemplation, I entered the restroom and approached my favorite stall. My reverie was cruelly disrupted when I saw before me a toilet with a lifted seat and urine spatters along the raw, exposed rim. Huh, I thought, here’s one I haven’t seen before. Some women are real freaks I guess.

My eyes widened in panic as it occurred to me that that may not be the case. A more reasonable explanation presented itself. I might have overshot the girl’s room by one door. As a result of my own spaciness and a case of massive autopilot failure, I might instead be in the men’s room. Like, for males only. Coincidentally, the gender of the CEO, President, and Vice President of my new company. All of whom were getting out of a breakfast meeting any minute and were no doubt, full to the brim with coffee.

These disturbing mental images flashed through my mind as I stood just inside the stall, completely frozen. Then the main door to the bathroom opened and I slammed the stall door closed behind me and attempted to shrink to an eighth my normal size while cowering next to a sullied toilet that despite more serious prevailing concerns, continued to noticeably skeeve me out.

Instead of the click-clacking of stilettos across the tiled floor, I heard the soft padding of flat shoes. Like the scene in a slasher movie just before a stupid blonde is murdered, the footsteps moved casually past the sinks, excruciatingly slowly past the crack in the door jam that I was desperately trying not to watch, and finally into a neighboring stall. With my heart pounding in my ears, I ripped open the door and flew out of the restroom.

As I paused for breath directly outside like the complete and utter moron that I am, the President appeared in the hallway before me. My face fell into a look of abject horror to have been caught exiting the men’s room. Thankfully, like all good senior staff members, he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice that I appeared to have just soiled myself in his presence. He smiled benevolently before passing me and entering a door to my left.

I spun around and saw that I had been in the women’s room after all. My trustworthy autopilot had not failed. Shaking, I double checked the skirted symbol on the door and reentered, making sure to avoid the tainted stall of terror which I may never be able to use again.

Where's Waldo? Let Me Show You.

2009-01-18T15:45:00.002-05:00

Ya know what pisses me off, Interweb? When your next door neighbors go away for two weeks at the end of December and turn off their wireless router so that you are bereft of Interweb access for HALF A BLOODY MONTH. And then they come back and lock the network so that you can't mooch off of it anymore. How uncharitable is that at this time of year? Seriously, my neighbors are the opposite of philanthropy. You can blame them for me not blogging much recently.

I suppose you could also blame my new rockin' job which keeps me super busy during the day but I would prefer if you didn't come down too hard on them. Granted I've only been working for two weeks but I absolutely adore the new gig. The days fly by since I'm not just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring, I get to commute by car in my new pimpin mid-90s whip, the office is filled with girls my age who invite me to lunch every day to discuss our favorite available-only-on-TV merchandise, and there is free Diet Coke available in the fridge. If I can figure out how to sneak Bacardi onto the office supply ordering list, I'll absolutely be in 9-5 heaven.

In addition to Interweb issues and working for a living, Beau and I are now house hunting in earnest. The morning after our Christmas party Evil Landlord politely asked us to vacate by March instead of staying till the end of our lease in June. He insisted it wasn't because we were blasting Bette Midler until 3:00 am but instead because his sperminated wife will be spawning in the early spring and they'd like to move her mother into our apartment. While this is a massive inconvenience for us, I don't particularly want to live one thin layer of floorboards above a screaming baby. Plus, I imagine our landlord's life is about to suck big time if his mother-in-law will be living in the house. I take some twisted comfort in that. But, don't worry. We're not being evicted and we haven't put anything in writing. We're just trying our damndest to get out of here before the Seed of Evil Landlord is birthed.

At any rate, Beau bought us our very own Interweb connection so I'm free to babble to my heart's content. And now that I'm done with what was intended as a quick introduction to get you up to speed on my enormously interesting life, I see that it has actually evolved into a fairly lengthy entry unto itself so instead of launching into further revelations, I will instead say goodbye for now and promise to post again within the week.

Not So Dangerous

2009-01-03T16:54:00.004-05:00

While most normal people are quick to blame their mistakes and appalling behavior on an Evil Twin, I long ago accepted that this was not an option for me. This is mainly because if I had a twin, I would invariably be the bad one. I've had a colorful past (some of which I illustrated for you at this time last year). When I sat down to compile a similar entry to conclude 2008 though, I wracked my brain and found the pickings to be much slimmer. Sure, I climbed out a window at a party last weekend, and yes, granted, I fell out of a chair later that same evening, but overall, there are fewer wild stories to choose from. Now, I'm more likely to curl up in my pajamas with a book on a Wednesday night than be chased out of a parking lot by the cops for public urination. Could it be? Have I… matured?

At the very least, my Good Twin has been rearing her un-hungover pretty little head with greater frequency. Beau has already taken the liberty of naming her "Cautious K" and shames me with the moniker every time I cross-stitch or turn down a fifth rumndietcoke or drive with my hands at 10 and 2 or gently suggest he maintain a speed of 35 mph. Maybe it was the four months of penny-pinching unemployment, maybe it was the increasingly nasty hangovers. Whatever the cause, the damage is irreparable. We're facing a kinder, gentler Dangerous K. One who drinks decaffeinated tea, has a gym membership and soon, a mortgage. One who gets tipsy off a bottle of wine and serenades her DD with an a capella rendition of Elton John's greatest hits. For that matter, one with hobbies other than drinking.

Did those past two paragraphs lose me my entire readership (who I assume is bent on hearing stories about me skin my knees outside a bar in Fenway)? I don't mean to suggest in any way, shape, or form that I have become an overnight teetotaler. On the contrary, I fully expect a number of shenanigans in the future, but I have to admit that the past year has been the tamest I've seen since 2001. It's time to pass the torch onto the younger pups like Mistress who tossed her cookies in a diner bathroom and then cheerfully rejoined the breakfast table last weekend. Ah, the good ol' days may have passed, but there are some things I just won't miss.

By The Numbers

2008-12-18T09:37:00.003-05:00

To summarize the past four months of my life:

I permanently withdrew from the graduate program I was slated to begin in January. I applied to 72 jobs: 11 in September, 16 in October, a whopping 39 in November, and just six in December. I was offered 10 interviews and made it to eight. I had four second round interviews. I had one infuriating third round interview. I had one faux job offer which dissolved into nothing when I left a message accepting the position, called five more times that day without success, and finally got through to someone the next morning who gave me an attitude, told me they were “still deciding” and never called back. I met with four staffing agencies. Two of them laid off my original recruiter. None of them were able to find work for me in a span of almost four months. So, you see, it’s been a rocky third of a year.

And absolutely none of it matters now because I was offered a job this past Friday (this time with legitimate paperwork!) which I gleefully accepted. I’ve learned an important lesson, which I think my father was right in saying that I’m lucky to have learned at this age when I have so few financial obligations. But even in my euphoric state last Friday, I had one last lingering concern. I worried that this phase changed me as a person, made me a somber, antisocial downer unable to even write a funny blog anymore. So I did the only thing I could to test the waters: I got invited a dozen of my friends over for a Christmas party, got shit faced drunk, spilled a rumndietcoke down the front of my shirt, and needed a team of people to help me overcome the hiccups.

I'M BACK BITCHES! AHAHAHA!

Close Only Counts In Horseshoes & Hand Grenades

2008-12-03T10:32:00.008-05:00

I just… I don’t even know where to start. I have spent the past five days trying to decide where to start. I’ve started and then stopped and erased everything because it was not to my liking. I take my blogging very seriously. In short, some things happened on the trip and those things were surrounded by a lot of…. quiet. I don’t know if those events were actually eventful or just seemed eventful because they were not, in fact, cornfields. So, before another week goes by and my relations in New Jersey get their collective panties in a twist over the lack of posting, I’m going to go ahead and just start at the beginning. If you don’t mind.
Our wagon ride occurred mostly without incident which goes against everything I know about the Oregon Trail. There was no typhoid or blocked mountain passes or bear hunting (not yet anyway… that’s foreshadowing, folks. You gotta pay attention to my foreshadowing. T, are you paying attention??) We managed to fit almost every one of our worldly belongings in the barely-existent trunk of an Audi TT. Then we drove five hours west with four pit stops because seriously, at any minute we were about to fall off the face of the earth and I was reluctant to pee on a farmer’s front yard. Also, Beau needed tater tots in Troy, NY.

Finally, we approached our destination in West Bumble. We zoomed past the farmstead (going entirely too fast, eh hem) where Bologna was standing outside frantically waving her arms. That made me start flapping my own arms and squawking. Beau, probably because he was going entirely too fast, was one step ahead of me and was already turning around in the driveway of someone who might have run out of their home with a shotgun. Instead of an angry yokel, we next encountered a loose cow that proceeded to race the convertible for a short distance. It’s as if we went to the zoo and found a tiger walking around outside its enclosure. These things aren’t supposed to happen. Tigers are supposed to stay in their cages, and cows are supposed to stay inside their fenced pastures.

We spent the remainder of the day wandering around cornfields, taking pictures of deer poop, and getting acquainted with the holiday’s cast of characters. In addition to the family, we met two cats, Sweet and Pooh, so named for their individual temperaments. Sweet was particularly awesome. She’s twenty years old and noticeably blind. When she looks at you, it’s like she’s looking through you directly into your soul and reading your inner most thoughts. Then she would go and wreck my theory of feline wisdom by walking into walls and meowing peevishly at them as if it was the wall’s fault. According to Mr. T (T, that is your dad’s official blog name. I just wrote it with the intention of circling back and writing something more clever, but then I was all, “Mr. T?! YES.” These things just come to me) Sweet still goes outside and hunts. AND ACTUALLY KILLS STUFF. So, yeah, she may be a little clumsy and we may have found her standing in a toilet one night, but it’s all a part of the cosmic feline wisdom that I detected in her spacey stare.

Thanksgiving morning, before I woke up, the menfolk (T [Hi T!], his dad, my dad, and my Beau) went into the woods with guns and tried to kill things. Real guns. With like, real bullets. My boyfriend and my father with his iffy hearing and his poor eyesight went deep into a secluded forest, somewhere south of the Adirondacks, with loaded guns and little supervision. But happy times! They all came back alive and empty handed. Apparently, a few shots were fired but, as Mr. T told us, “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.” They should have brought Sweet with them. She would have felled a buck with telekinesis and plaintive mewing.

We rounded out our visit to the middle of nowhere with a trip to the closest town which was a thirty minute drive through the woods and fields and farms. And at that, it was still the middle of nowhere. We wandered and visited a used book store and looked at Christmas decorations. All very peaceful, pleasant activities but you don’t want to read about that. You want to read about Beau pitching a hissy fit at a bakery which was really slow in that not-a-Starbucks-in-Boston way so we left before he got a cookie and complained about it until we got him a beer at a dive bar on the edge of town instead where he nearly got us all shot by loudly announcing that “those guys really suck at darts.”

That night we had an Oregon Trail style send off. Mr. T made us a bonfire in the backyard and sharpened sticks so we could roast cocktail wieners and marshmallows. We were having a merry ol’ time setting things on fire and stuffing our faces, when a mile down the road, the dogs at a neighboring farm began barking. Hysterically. The T’s all looked at each other and were quiet for a moment before forcefully starting conversation again. I was not so easily fooled so I asked what all the racket was about. They told me it was nothing to worry about. The dogs probably just smelled… something. Something? Yes, something. Like a coyote. Nothing to worry about.

I’d already been worrying about that for days. Ever since Mr. T said that the coyotes were originally introduced into the area in order to keep the deer population at bay, but they weren’t big and mean with drooly fangs enough, so local officials introduced a coyote/timber wolf cross breed. How is everyone ignoring the wolf part?! That’s like ignoring the part of me that’s Polish. Yeah, I’m mostly Italian, but that doesn’t cancel out all the Polish qualities. You should see me try to do simple common sense tasks like open a box of frozen chicken nuggets. The Polish is in there, festering, and it makes a difference. Except, generally speaking, those genes don’t make me snatch unsuspecting city folk from camp fires and feed them to my young.

Needless to say, despite attacking a bush with my pointy stick in self defense and nearly soiling myself twice, the predators stayed at bay long enough for us to wrap things up and return to the comfort of the indoors and the protection of Sweet.

Truly, this was a proper Dangerous holiday. I was nearly run down by a cow, pitch forked by angry locals, and eaten by a coyote in the span of 72 hours. Oh, and my dad almost shot my boyfriend which would have been a particular inconvenience because there was absolutely no room left in the trunk of the car for a body.

Real Pioneers Caulk It and Float

2008-11-24T12:29:00.006-05:00

In the time honored tradition (which began last year) of the Dangerous Family, Thanksgiving simply cannot be held in a reasonable location. Why would anybody want to have dinner in front of a roaring fireplace at their father’s house in temperate South Carolina where one could still at this time of year feasibly walk on the beach? Thanksgiving must be an Adventure. This is to test the family loyalty. Sure you’ll help a relative hide a body, but will you drive cross country to stay in a roach infested motel?

Much to Beau’s disappointment, we won’t be returning to the Liki Tiki in Florida this year. Instead, we’re taking a relatively short drive of five hours to upstate New York, home of T’s entire family. Entire. Like going back a dozen generations to the Mayflower era when people were called hominids and ate ants with sticks. Yes, we’re going to eat Thanksgiving with the descendants of real life pilgrims. To do so, we just need to drive through an area that’s been blanketed with snow for a month to a place that Google informs me is nestled snugly between the Catskills and the Adirondacks. We will be frontiersmen in our own right as we forge through this wilderness where there may not be public restrooms, acceptable fast-food, paved roads or cell service. In just two days, we begin the exodus of The Slightly Abbreviated Oregon Trail.

Culling knowledge from the computer version, I know that the first step involves packing the wagon and similar to the ways of my overzealous ten-year-old self, I am already over packing. But instead of bringing fifteen pounds of cornmeal and twenty chickens (each with a name and an elaborate personal history that was explored in detail via the journal feature which chronicled every time a hen wandered off or had to be killed for food), I’m taking a number of supplies that Beau and I are concerned we may not find at our destination. Among these items are cilantro, comfy pillows, rum, and freshly ground coffee as well as a full arsenal of allergy medications since I’ll be cohabiting with multiple felines, which, though adorable, make me sneeze uncontrollably and my throat swell up in an unattractive and life-debilitating way.

Speaking of bodily weakness, remember how pissed you’d get when Amos, the quote-on-quote doctor, would come down with cholera somewhere in Wyoming and you’d have to rest for two weeks? Like Amos, I am also diseased. The inexplicable disappearing zit that hid before I got to last week’s interview has resurfaced on my chin and it is ANGRY. It looks much less like a pimple and much more like a second chin jutting out to the right. For thematic continuity, we’re going to call it mumps.

So, this is how I am required to prove my loyalty to the family and renew my membership for the coming year. With cornmeal, dysentery, and mountain lions. Pray for us. And Godspeed on your own travels!

A Comedy of Errors & Illustrations of Said Errors

2008-11-19T19:40:00.004-05:00

Hello free blogging hobby! I had an interview this afternoon that very nearly went horribly wrong, but happily, did not because I apparently have good karma.

My chief concern this morning was picking between two completely different interview outfits.

I brought this quandary to Beau’s attention because he works with Conservative Types and therefore, would be able to best answer whether the bright blue shirt ensemble or the white shirt/coral necklace outfit would be most appropriate for an interview at a Conservative Type Place. Beau picked option #1 which secretly pleased me because that meant I didn’t have to iron the horribly wrinkled white shirt. Yay one less thing to do!

Instead, I ironed my hair to make it less poofy and more straightish while watching reruns of Golden Girls (and, yes, I know this goes against the cardinal rule of my last entry but I gave myself a break since I was going to have an honest-to-God interview and I needed something to calm my nerves because going into public gives me agita now that I rarely leave the apartment and when I’m nervous I start defecating because nervous pooping runs in my family. When my cousin got married a decade ago, all the bridesmaids had to crowd into a bathroom stall to help lift her dress so she could pooh without obstruction. Ahh, longest parenthesis interjection ever! How much longer can I make it?! Ok I’m done).

Next, I ironed the skirt part of my suit so it could match my hair in its lack of wrinkles. I looked down at my project while I chortled at Sophia’s antics and noticed that the first pass of the iron had done more than just de-wrinkle. It left a white chalky residue which I lamely swept at, still calmly chortling. But it did not go away and I began mentally freaking out: “What the fuck?! The iron came on the fuckin’ black skirt that I have to wear to a Conservative Type Place?! What is that?! OH GOD!!”

I ran to the sink and began scrubbing just hard enough for the Iron Jism to really set into the fabric. Then I upgraded to wet paper towel. Then to Mr. Clean Magic Eraser which has saved articles of clothing in the past. Then in a moment of temporary insanity, I turned the faucet on full blast and dunked it in. Then I realized I had an hour to pull myself together and dry a now soaked “dry clean only” garment. Then the nervous pooping started. Then I only had 55 minutes to dry the skirt.

In a full set of penguin-print flannel pajamas, I tore down to the basement, ignoring the electrician working in a corner, and threw my shame into the drier which I cranked up to the max. Back up in the apartment, I simmered down slightly and began searching through my closet for other skirts I could wear with the suit jacket. The first thing I tried on looked ridiculous but not because the pieces didn’t match into a real suit. They looked ridiculous because the jacket looked like a sack. I checked the tags, assuming I grabbed one of Beau’s suits, but unless Beau has started shopping at New York & Co, then it was mine. Turns out being poor is making me skinny and for once in my life, I was not thrilled with this.

I gritted my teeth and dug to the depths of my closet to pull out my very first suit which I bought right out of college and made me look like a sausage the last time I put it on about a month ago. Granted it was still snug today, but a much closer fit than my newer suit. With mere moments to spare, I ironed the white shirt which is Iron Jism resistant by nature of already being white, slapped on some make-up, and looked in the mirror before running for the train. Here is what I saw looking back (except for the letters floating around my body; those are for explanatory purposes only):

Now I will use those floating letters to explain everything that was wrong with my appearance when I walked out the door this morning:

A) Entirely too much eye shadow applied by a girl who reads every issue of Glamour but still can’t figure out cosmetics.
B) A giant underground zit that popped up somewhere between nervous pooping and make-up application and is now hiding under a thick layer of concealer which actually conceals very little.
C) Pin stripe suit that I bought OVER TWO YEARS AGO (on second thought, I’m going to give that one a silent fist pump)
D) Scab from scratching at dry skin. Ew. Do you even want to know these things about me?
E) Elastic lines from the fuzzy argyle socks that I wore all morning
F) Mystery bruise from mysterious source. Possibly obtained during Mouse Hunt.

Somehow, in some magical, cosmic way that I will never EVER understand, points A, B, and E resolved themselves between the train and my arrival at Conservative Type Place and the others suddenly didn’t look like an issue. Furthermore, I had a lovely interview with two charming ladies who appeared to like me, genuinely laughed at my jokes, and made allusions to a second interview next week. On my way home, I thanked the universe for pulling through for me on the big day by emptying the contents of my change purse into the collection pot of a very surprised looking Salvation Army bell-ringer, despite being dirt poor, despite not having had a paycheck in almost 80 days, despite having sworn off Crystal Light Iced Tea which was a major addiction and source of happiness that cost me an unjustifiable average of $4/week without providing nutritional sustenance or inebriation.

So, thanks Universe for throwing me a bone and letting me have a good interview today. Here’s $1.08 in nickels and pennies for your trouble!

S&M Rodents

2008-11-18T12:22:00.015-05:00

**Written Sunday, November 16:

Silently mouthing “Help me” at my laptop does not seem to be improving my current situation. I am being held hostage in my bedroom with the door barricaded by an animal in my sitting room. And it is most certainly not Ninja Mouse. Allow me to backtrack for a moment.

Saturday night, Beau and I held one of our increasingly popular dinner parties in which he gets to show off his gourmet cooking skills and I get to socialize for free. Everyone wins! After plying our guests with an Italian feast and plowing through several bottles of wine, we retired to the sitting room for board games and the Top Gun soundtrack and additional wine. I was in the middle of what I’m sure was a very urbane, witty joke when people began yelling and jumping out of their seats and pointing emphatically at the baseboards. For a moment, I got very defensive. I spent a lot of time dusting those baseboards and if they weren't clean enough for my friends then maybe they should try staying home all day scrubbing and sweating over a hot stove and not buying me nice things.

That was when I saw it: a very small gray mouse streaking across the floor. A miniature version of Ninja Mouse. One might say a baby version. It was immediately apparent that my arch nemesis has spawned and sent a legion of offspring to continue the reign of terror. Adding insult to injury, this implies that Ninja Mouse has not left my home as suggested by the past quiet month of poopless counters. No, she’s been shacked up behind my kitchen cabinets fornicating. Who knows what sick, sick acts were perpetrated mere inches from my collection of holiday appropriate dinnerware.

I climbed to the safety of the back of my couch as chaos erupted in my apartment. Our guests assembled into a cohesive regiment and began brainstorming an attack plan. Battle supplies in the form of umbrellas and large wooden bowls were quickly procured as the rodent continued to run willy-nilly around my sitting room and I began shrieking in my most helpful manner. It occurred to me that the super-genius gene seems to have skipped a generation, evidenced by the offspring’s willingness to leave the safety of the mouse hole for a brightly lit room filled with very large, loud, drunk beasts.

Large, loud, drunk beasts

During an eerie moment of quiet, I was shooed off the couch and forced to put my feet on the floor where they remained briefly as I ran to the safety of the bathroom and climbed on top of the toilet. Someone generously collected a bottle of rum from the kitchen and handed it to me in my ivory tower from which I alternately moaned in anguish and called, “Don’t hurt it!”

Next to cowardice in the dictionary

But they didn’t catch it, let alone tie it to a chair and pull out its toenails. They managed to chase it out of the apartment and continue to not be too skeeved when the second littermate appeared to check out the commotion. While Loaded Questions is still my favorite party game, I can safely say that Mouse Hunt has its own merits. Though, when you lose at LQ, the game pieces generally don’t get up and chase you around.

So, now, while Beau is out purchasing Starbucks to ease my thundering red wine headache, I am a captive of Seed of Ninja Mouse who may still be hiding under my coffee table waiting to shank me on my way to the refrigerator.

**Update from Tuesday morning: We’ve been (theoretically) mouse-free since Sunday evening. The apartment looks like a scene from Home Alone. There are half a dozen traps set with peanut butter and three plug-in devices that supposedly make an inaudible high-frequency noise that drives rodents insane but actually also make a faint buzzing noise that is quickly driving ME insane… and paranoid, because I’m fairly certain that these gizmos are part of a Beau plot to get me out of the house more often.

I’m onto you.

Seriously, Eat Asparagus

2008-11-14T16:01:00.007-05:00

Earlier today as I was rounding off my fiftieth job application since September 1 (the third one today), I had a moment of passing panic when I realized the job boards probably wouldn’t update until after the lunch hour when those lucky, gainfully employed members of society would return to their suddenly luxurious looking cubicles in the HR department. That meant I would have my first free time of the day which had thus far been spent getting dolled up for an interview, getting to the interview, interviewing, returning from the interview, and sending out resumes in hopes of gaining other interviews. That’s what my life is now. Job hunting and open wastelands of down time. I couldn’t tell you which terrifies me more.

There are countless articles on how to recession proof your job, how to get a new job once you get laid off from the recession-proofed one, how to compete in a market flooded with qualified candidates, how to scale back on your budget to eek out another rent payment, but I haven’t found a damn thing explaining how to deal with the boredom of seemingly infinite hours of unpaid vacation. When I quit in August, I thought a month off would be a peachy sabbatical and it really was for the first fifteen minutes. Two and a half months later, it’s a different story.

If anyone else out there is like me, then you stopped liking sitcoms about a month ago. You got sick of dusting after you found yourself on your hands and knees scrubbing a baseboard that simply refused to stay clean. Facebook has started to nauseate you. And so, I present my unsolicited advice on how to fight the unemployment doldrums and keep you from going any crazier:

Put down the remote, put on a CD that is not Fiona Apple

As that group of radicals that I associated with in college thereby destroying any ideas I had of a political career used to say, “Kill your TV.” It is the single biggest contributing factor to my brain rot. I’ve sworn it off during daylight hours and put on music instead. Anything not written in a dark room by someone wearing black nail polish is generally a safe choice. I like a variety so my current line up includes Enya, The Killers, and Pirates of the Caribbean. The intensity and drama of the last was particularly useful. It made my dishwashing feel ten times more dignified and triumphant.

Stop sitting in a corner crying and take a walk

For me, the worst part of unemployment is that stagnant pond water feeling, so I try to move around a bit. I frequently dance around the apartment and try to venture into the sunlight at least once a day. When I’m physically sitting still, I try to keep my brain occupied with crossword puzzles, reading, writing, taking inventories of what’s in Beau’s dresser drawers, anything keeps my neurons from liquefying and crawling out my nose.

Make shit to sell on Etsy

To keep my brain really distracted, I get creative. For example, cooking. You’ve got to eat anyway and making things by hand is way cheaper than Lean Cuisine. Last night, Beau and I made potato gnocchi from scratch for dinner. Today I made stir fry for lunch and as an added bonus, I threw in some asparagus which means I’ll be doubly amused the next time I have to pee. I've also been crafting like a fiend. Speaking of which, do you think there’s a market for illustrations of beans riding tacos?

Like Enigma said, return to innocence... eiiiiiiiiIIII ohhhhwah wah wahhh (remember the video with the unicorn running through the woods?!)

Lastly, I’ve embraced cabin fever like a kid with chicken pox and allowed some of my craziness to bubble to the surface. I make forts. I talk to cashiers at the grocery store. I pet stray cats. I tackle Beau and try to wipe boogers in his hair. I play dress up in my own closet. I see which pots and pans fit on my head.

It might all sound pretty simplistic and common sense, but honestly, it took me a month to remember how to entertain myself without people around to play with or wads of cash. Now excuse me, I need to use the ladies' room and I am REALLY excited.

This Is My Chin. You'll Note That It Is Up.

2008-11-06T14:59:00.002-05:00

There comes a point in life when you’ve been unemployed for two months in a failing economy, had your resume rejected 30 times, been personally rejected after three interviews, and can’t get a certain temp agency to call you back when you think things look pretty bad. Then your insurance company tries to screw you out of nearly $1000 for a routine test. A test to tell you that you don’t have cancer. The disease that’s affected several of your family members. Including your mother. Who it claimed years ago. When you were nine.

And then you think back to you and your mom’s favorite picture book, Could Be Worse by James Stevenson, about two kids who whine to their grandpa about their trivial problems like splinters and lost kites and always elicit the same eponymous reply until one day he conjures up a long, elaborate story to teach them how much worse things really could be.

Then you think well, hey, things could be worse. So what if I’m unemployed with seemingly few prospects and looming medical bills? I don't have cancer. I have oodles of friends and family who I adore. I have the bestest boyfriend on earth who senses bad moods from miles away and brings home flowers to make me smile. I have a roof over my head and cable TV. I have rum in the liquor cabinet. I have a library card and poop jokes and turkeys-gone-wild in my backyard.

You think all that and then suddenly, things don't look so bad after all.

Thanksgiving is in the Air

2008-10-30T10:26:00.003-04:00

There’s good reason for me to ignore Halloween in favor of skipping ahead to the next holiday. Here’s a particularly good reason: I’m still unemployed and too frugal for a costume which is a real mood killer. But in addition, Thanksgiving forcefully assaulted me yesterday. It was thrust under my nose not once, but twice, TWICE. That’s more than once. Two times as much actually.

This year, the family plans to convene at my brother-in-law T’s childhood home in upstate New York for the holiday. Having been raised in Jersey and lived in and around numerous cities my entire life, I’ve never seen the middle of nowhere. I visited my college roommate in Vermont once, but we spent most of our time in Burlington, which is at least a small town, so that doesn’t count. For this trip, I’ve been promised farmland and woods and moors through which I can wander and sigh into the wind like a Brontëan heroine. These dreams, of course, have been dashed by the first snow storm of the season which blanketed the area in, well, in this:

But, hey, it's not the Liki Tiki

Until then, I’m left with obscene amounts of time on my hands. One of the few productive things I do with it is romp in the park near my house. I look at the leaves, pet the puppies, and give dirty looks to the joggers that judge me as they pass me on the trail. Whatever. I’m outside getting exercise and I know better than to wear those stupid little running shorts that expose your nasty old man thighs to the 40° weather. So let’s all just keep our self righteousness to ourselves, shall we?

On my way home from said romp yesterday morning, something caught my eye as I turned into my driveway. Something moved in my backyard. At first I thought it was Winston, one of the semi-feral (but very friendly) cats that belongs to our crazy cat-lady and sometimes hangs out with me when I read outside or when I come home drunk and need to sit down on the porch to figure out which key to use. I stooped to look under the car that was blocking my line of sight for soft little paws. None. I was about to write it off as my imagination when something else rounded the side of my landlord’s unsuspecting Subaru. It was a skeksi. Except this time, it was corralled in my backyard and I was blocking the only exit.

I snapped a few blurry phone pics and returned to the apartment where I stood there for several minutes wishing I had time to return with a proper camera. But wait! I have nothing but time! I flew out the back door with my equipment, praying that the skeksi hadn’t used my absence to flee. Happily, it hadn’t. That’s because skeksis are stupid. AND THEY ARE ALSO FLIGHTLESS, COUGH COUGH. You know who you are.

As I stood at a safe distance on the back porch zooming in on my find and feeling like the Croc Hunter, Beau’s words came back to me from my last skeksi sighting. Something like, “No, honey, you shouldn’t chase wild turkeys into other people’s backyards. They are vicious birds. I’m very sure they will start shit with you and they will win.” Those words continued to echo in my head as I snapped picture after fruitless picture from a miserable, safe distance:

So far away you has to circle me in red

Here I is. Bein as tall as yur table

Soon, I grew weary of precautions, so I snuck closer. I really like to have photographic evidence of my many wild, seemingly tall tales. Not because I sometimes lie (no, really, I am an Italian supermodel) but because sometimes even the true things I say stretch the bounds of reasonable credibility. I was sneaking up behind it musing on this point when finally, it came for me.

They see me rollin. They hatin.

With as much grace as one can muster when fleeing from poultry, I jumped over a bush and ran the 15 feet to my backdoor. As I snapped one last picture of my close encounter, I thought back to my vegetarian days many years ago when I hung “meat is murder” banners in the dining room and handed out pamphlets covering the inhumane treatment of livestock to our Thanksgiving dinner guests. Times they are a changin'. Now, I’ve officially added turkeys to the List of Things I Would Eat Because They’re Really Ugly. Right after pugs.

Lonely Teenage Boys Need Not Apply

2008-10-25T16:42:00.003-04:00

The following requires no introduction, which is convenient because I’m slightly hung over from Beau’s birthday festivities last night and my brain is having trouble formulating an appropriate opening line:

My web of spies informs me that this flier was found posted in a student dorm at Bentley College (just west of Boston) and that the square seen in the lower left corner is the genuine stamp of approval from the school. After a little intrepid sleuthing of my own I was able to find the aforementioned housing contract here on their website but was unable to find the anti-chicken-choking clause.

So many questions come to mind (a much better place to come than the Bentley showers apparently). I’m positively bursting with questions, much like their pipelines are overflowing with the raging spermatozoa of a thousand desperate freshman boys. But enough puns. Onto the inquiry. Right onto it. All over it, in fact. One might liken it to a money shot. But seriously:

Who was the unfortunate plumber that discovered the problem? How exactly does semen clog a pipe other than the one in which it originated? How does the school expect students to masturbate in their rooms when most are shared by a roommate? Isn’t that why they’re escaping to the showers for a little privacy? Is Bentley suggesting they do the five knuckle shuffle with their roommate? Is that sexual harassment or homosexual activity? Do they permit the non-ejaculating gender to wank in the showers? Isn’t that gender discrimination if they do? If the boys can’t beat the bishop in the shower OR in their rooms, will all that baby batter on the brain affect their schoolwork? Which is more important to Bentley: keeping their students happy and healthy enough to succeed in their classes or keeping the cost of facilities maintenance at an absolute minimum? If the guys are cock blocked in their own homes, will they compensate by having more sex elsewhere? Will the school turn into one giant outdoor orgy? How will that affect the teen pregnancy rates? How about the STD rates? Is Bentley prepared to provide free condoms as a precaution? Wouldn’t it probably be cheaper to just clean out the pipes once in a while? How much sperm does it take to clog a pipe? How much are these guys masturbating anyway?!

The only certainty in this case is that the housing authority at Bentley College wouldn't be so up tight if they engaged in a little prohibited self-love themselves. I suggest the administration make a special visit to the showers immediately.

Wildlife: A Summary of the Past Week in Three Vignettes

2008-10-09T16:58:00.006-04:00

I. Goats

After months of whining that I always share Beau with our friends and that he never takes me anywhere nice (other than the Chili’s on route 1 which is pretty rockin’), I was treated to a date-weekend commencing with a trip to Belkin Lookout Farm for apple picking. I was informed that there was a petting zoo which quelled my griping over the $14 per person entrance fee… which didn’t include any actual fruit. Fruit was extra.

We got our money’s worth though because we rode a little train to get from orchard to orchard which I found exhilarating. Anyone who has been on a kiddy rollercoaster with me can personally tell you that dragging me on any ride that involves drops or unreasonable speed results in my uncontrollable swearing. Kind of like that scene in The Exorcist where she cusses out the priest. Except instead of a priest it’s usually my close friends and relatives and an errant ride operator or two. In addition to this fantastic amusement, Beau managed to scarf down one Asian pear and three grapes while we hid behind trees watching for farm workers and other immigrants. By my calculations, we stole approximately $1.93 worth of merchandise.

Truly the animals were worth every cent I overpaid. I was expecting some chickens and a really exasperated looking pig. What I got was a pen of a dozen hungry goats and small children. Less adventurous types in skinny jeans and Uggs watched on in horror at the chaos of these constantly defecating creatures. I quickly grabbed Beau and pushed in front of a nine-year-old while dancing around steaming piles of pooh. I chased them around in little circles, I scratched them behind the ears, I otherwise amused myself until finally, I found the Holy Grail of the petting-zoo world: a wee little goatling baby which I played with until it started chewing on Beau’s sneakers and nipping his fingers. As I told Grasshoppah a few days ago, baby goats are adorable for many reasons but also because they don’t reject you from a job that you had two interviews for and felt promising since the employer went through the trouble in the last meeting of explaining the company's benefits package thereby causing you to waste three weeks of job searching. So there’s also that.

II. Turkey-dogs

After returning home with the Most Expensive Apples ever, we punished them for their excessive cost by making them into a pie, then decided constant consumption of pie makes us fat, so punished ourselves with exercise. We took a stroll through the park near our house which was similar to our other walks there: we discussed my continued lack of employment, the little graveyard tucked in the forest that always makes Beau say “Wow, I’ve never noticed that before!” every time we pass by it, and the cuteness of the dogs we saw. I was still remarking on the chubbiness of a huge chocolate lab and fluffiness of a miniature husky when we heard hysterical laughter behind us. The chubby lab had mounted the fluffy mini-husky and the owners were attempting to pull them apart. It’s dogs humping in the park that I find most useful in fighting off the hovering clouds of self-pity and depression. As long as I’ve got that, things can’t be all bad.

Monday I had jury duty which was disappointingly uneventful. Upon leaving my apartment for the courthouse, I saw a gigantic turkey walk down the street. It must have been as tall as my hip. But what the hell was it doing in my neighborhood? For that matter, what was that coyote doing in my neighborhood? This is a suburb of Boston, people, not Des Moines.

Anyway, it was like an acid flashback. Or a scene from The Dark Crystal. Either way, after chasing the turkey halfway to the train station and almost pursuing it into someone’s backyard, I realized that maybe I don’t get out of the house enough anymore. Mostly because I’m busy peeking out from behind a curtain waiting for more skeksis.

III. Vermin

Ninja Mouse is still terrorizing the household. While this is a useful diet aid since it makes me afraid of my own kitchen, I have come to find troublesome droppings on my counters like the trail of an overzealous 5th-grader with a bottle of jimmies. Clearly, we can no longer share this apartment. The other inhabitants work on an honor code built around not defecating on food preparation surfaces. If Ninja Mouse can’t abide by that rule, then I’m afraid it has to go.

But how to get rid of a critter whose intellect and acrobatic skills far surpass my own? As an animal-hugger, I was inclined to purchase a humane trap so I could catch it and re-release it into the wild. Unfortunately for Ninja Mouse, those traps are costly and I remain, yes, unemployed. Beau even drove me around to the local hardware stores looking for options other than the snappy-break-your-neck type traps without success. Once home, we found out that estrogen and mouse-genocide do not mix well together. I pouted and fought back tears while Beau was forced to set the traps alone. But it doesn’t matter, because after two nights of attempted murder, we haven’t caught the damn thing. It’s been eating the bait WITHOUT SETTING OFF THE TRAPS. Pitted against each other in a game of chess, I’m 90% certain that I would lose to Ninja Mouse.

HR Beasties

2008-09-30T15:33:00.003-04:00

Today I had a phone interview for an editorial assistant position with a local publishing company. Unlike the last interview I had, this one was with a faceless human resources lackey. Regardless of actually wanting this job and feeling lucky to have gotten an interview, I can’t help complaining about the conversation itself which consisted of The Most Generic Questions Ever which I answered in my usual evasive, political way (thanks presidential candidates for teaching me how to give a 30-second sound bite without giving any semblance of a real answer!). I talked about professional growth, my intellectual curiosity, and my understanding of the words “deadline” and “organization.” Meanwhile, deep in the corners of my mind, my real personality was hog tied and gagged with a tube sock because this is how she wanted to answer these questions:

Why did you leave your last job?

I put eye-drops in my boss’ coffee or, they caught me negotiating with the janitorial staff for a bag of pure, uncut Colombian, or, I got sick of collecting mugs and scrubbing at stubborn tea rings, or I hate answering the switchboard phone, or, I am the lizard king.

What is your understanding of this position?

Despite rereading the job ad 5 minutes ago and actually having it open on my laptop right this very moment, I have very little understanding of what I would do in this position because your advertisement uses the same kind of flowery corporate phrases as are present this interview. I’m aware that I will book flights, send form letters to annoying people that my superiors don’t want to talk to, and go to occasional conferences where more than likely, I will watch a married editor get drunk and tell me he’s gay before vomiting in his briefcase and passing out in an Applebee’s bar.

Why do you think you’d be good at this job?

I’m good at everything that I’ve ever tried except sucking at life.

What are your future goals?

Well, short-term I intend on using this company as a source of income, title, recommendations, and new facebook buddies. Long-term, I hope to flee this country, become a snorkel tour leader in Bermuda or barmaid in a small village pub in Ireland where I’ll own several large Labrador/Shepherds mixes. I do not see myself as part of the intelligentsia and have limited interest in the disciplines covered by your company (literature, anthropology, sociology, political science, etc.) but would be interested in founding a division on crude humor.

How much money do you want?

I need $75K a year, access to the corporate jet on the weekends, and also whatever you have in your wallet right now.

Phew! It feels better to have gotten that out of my system. Anyway, I think the answers I gave out loud were sufficient enough. Fingers doubly crossed for this one and the interview I had last week.

More Projects I Started and Then Forgot About / I Still Have a Blog?!

2008-09-26T23:31:00.005-04:00

I’ve made it through almost a month of unemployment and besides a booming social calendar and a dwindling checking account, I have very little to show for my time other than a touch of insomnia. While I wait for this Benadryl to knock me out so I can finally get a good night’s sleep this week, I thought I’d check in. Nothing puts me to sleep so well as listening to myself talk. In the dark. To the Internet.

I’ve had a couple of complaints from my Only Fan that updates have not been coming at their usual frequent pace. For this I apologize and offer the following excuse: I have very little (good) material to share with you. For monetary and liver-tary reasons, I’ve scaled back on drinking (except for last weekend which was a shit show in New Hampshire where I took shots and ate sauerkraut in the same day which is a VERY BAD IDEA) so I have fewer wild and crazy stories to divulge and also I fall down less often. Mostly I putter around the house, read 19th century fiction, water plants, do laundry, and spy on my neighbors.

I also voraciously apply to every publishing house in the Boston area while our economy crumbles and hope that someone employs me soon so I won’t have to start bootlegging gin out of the washing machine (no bathtub – it’s the only option). On that note, I just had my second interview with an awesome company that felt promising but now that I’ve jinxed it and probably won’t get it, I’ll come back and cry to you next week when I hear back. I also crawled back to that grad program that I deferred in the spring and told them I’d be enrolling in the spring (hopefully part-time if this whole getting-a-job thing works out). So, I’m theoretically back on track to get a Masters in Books. We’ll see how that goes.

In my puttering today I discovered that we once again have a mouse which is not unusual in an old Victorian in New England at the onset of cold weather but nonetheless grosses me out when I want a piece of toast and find that something has chewed through the plastic bag and nibbled a circular portion of my whole wheat bread. This happened sometime last year when I left an unprotected loaf on a shelf with a large obvious mouse hole, but this time the food was in a bowl with tall, smooth sides on a counter devoid of holes. This led me to believe I have not just a rodent but indeed a Super Spiderman Ninja Mouse that carries nun chucks and wears a little black mask like Zorro. Bologna (who is visiting for the weekend) disagreed and demonstrated vividly how the villain might climb up the pipes under my sink, through a crack in the stove, hoist itself up on the ledge around the counter and from there jump into the bowl. So, OK, either I have a Super Spiderman Ninja Mouse or a Super Intelligent Mouse with Logistical Powers and Planning Ability Far Exceeding My Own. Neither makes me feel comfortable in my kitchen. But so help me God, if I see that thing crawling around on the ceiling like the baby in Trainspotting, I will spray its ass with Raid faster than you can say “Hey, I think the Benadryl kicked in.”

I Know Exactly How Tom Brady Feels

2008-09-09T10:09:00.007-04:00

Hi Internet! Sorry I’ve been ignoring you but I’ve been wallowing in a sea of self-pity and boredom and rabidly applying for jobs. And also acting like a complete teenager by having the following dialogue with myself daily:

Me: Woe is me, I am so bored laying on the couch watching reruns of Will and Grace.

Rational Me: You could get off the couch and do something.

Me: There’s nothing to do.

Rational Me: What about that elaborate page-long list you made when you still had a job? Ya know? The one with fun things like pickle-making, dress-sewing, learning-a-Beatles-song-on-the-piano, etc.?

Me: Why bother? Life is so bleak. Woe is me.

[Fade to black]

I used to get like this when I was bored at work too. I would spend all morning staring at a wall but when someone finally dropped a two-minute task on my desk, I would procrastinate an hour while giving it the stink-eye before I would actually get it done. This is in contrast to the days when I actually was busy, because then the two-minute task would be swept up in my frenzy and completed while I simultaneously did five other things. So the moral of this story is that I’m more likely to accomplish something if I’m already overwhelmed. But now that I am my own boss, I have no whelms. I am whelmless and as such I may not brush my teeth until noon.

Now that you know I am too lazy to voluntarily cross the room to pick up a coloring book for my own amusement, it should not come as a surprise that I haven’t left the apartment by myself in a week. I’ve been out with Beau multiple times but am seemingly incapable of mustering the willpower to leave of my own accord. That is until yesterday when the catalyst of T’s birthday party this weekend provided enough force to launch me onto a Boston-bound train to shop for a dress.

I found almost exactly what I was looking for:

There was only one problem: the tummy region. Despite my best sucking in efforts, it remained… slightly poochy. Luckily, technology has remedied this problem! I hurried off to the underthings department with the dress and belt in tow and found what Bridget Jones referred to as those “scary stomach-holding-in pants very popular with grannies the world over.”

I remained skeptical of corseting undergarments as the laws of physics suggest my body fat might just spill over into other regions creating even weirder bulges. With this doubt in mind, I hustled off to the dressing room. I put on the other portions of the outfit and then looked challengingly at the medieval torture device hanging on the wall. I had selected the largest size possible assuming it would be physically impossible for me to fit into what would be considered my normal size (On a side note, why do they make them in a size small? If you can fit in a pair of small Spanx then there’s absolutely no reason you should be wearing them).

I pulled them off the hanger figuring I would try them on in the same fashion as a new swim suit: quickly and with my existing underwear still in place to block passage of cooties. The garment was safely up my left thigh when it became apparent that there were about three square inches of space left for the rest of me. This wasn’t a complete shock as I already understood the point of this device was to constrict my existing flesh. I was less concerned by the bondage of wearing it than the logistics of actually getting into it. It was like trying to climb into a tin can.

In a burst of energy and unprecedented acrobatics, I attempted to thread my right leg through the remaining hole. To do so, I lifted my foot as close to my belly button as I could and quickly jammed the pointy end into the garment. This movement is not included in my usual range of motions because I don’t do yoga. A searing Charley horse ripped through my left side. I fell sidewise into the wall, howling in pain as the rustles and coughs from adjoining dressing rooms went silent. I stayed with my forehead pressed against the mirror until my left leg stopped twitching enough to put weight on it at which point I realized I was now firmly jammed into the scary stomach-holding-in-pants. I made the best of it and squirmed around until they were in the correction location. Though they did, as promised, make my stomach smaller and my ass higher, I realized I would be drinking at the party and would therefore need to reenact the scene in a small bathroom stall every time I needed to pee. Exasperated, I ditched the entire scheme and left the store. Hobbling.

Half an hour later, I was still in a good deal of pain which was no longer ripping through my entire left side. It was now localized. In my left ass cheek. I pulled an ass muscle trying on a pair of these. My vanity now has the ability to wound not my just my pride but also inflict actual physical damage.

Now, approximately 20 hours after the incident, I’m still limping which provides me an awesome excuse not to leave the couch for another week.

A Sorry Excuse for a Blog Entry

2008-09-04T08:29:00.007-04:00

Unemployment wears well on me. I spent four days being a human slug at Beau’s Cape house (mostly having a stomach bug that interfered with my drinking, but otherwise tanning). While there, I spent a bit of quality time with Beau’s sister, She-ra, so named because she very casually does triathlons every few months making me think that she could probably pick me up and throw me if I got too rowdy. Plus she has style flair just like her namesake and if you aren’t impressed with the embellished toga/cape/Uggs combo, then I just don’t know how to reach you.

On Monday night, I found myself on the couch with She-ra and her friends who introduced me to a new substance to go with my ice cream. I’ve never tried it before because I thought it was shameful, detrimental to my overall health, and dangerous. They say you’re hooked after just one dose, and they’re right. I am speaking of course of The Hills which I will more than likely watch next Monday and every Monday thereafter while drooling a little from the side of my mouth.

In other news, I’ve jumped on the housewifery bandwagon to fight the threat of cabin fever. In my first day alone at the apartment, I got up early to pack Beau’s lunch, did all the laundry I could find, exorcised 2 liquefying tomatoes from the kitchen, and did that puttering thing where you find problems you didn’t even know existed when you had a life. Like dusty baseboards. Faced with the prospect of continuing on a cleaning rampage thereby becoming my father, I rounded yesterday afternoon off by reneging on every bad thing I ever said about Corporate America and trolling Craigslist for job openings.

I Said “More on That Later” and Now is Apparently Late Enough

2008-08-26T14:58:00.002-04:00

The time has come to explain what I meant when I elusively mentioned in my last post not getting a job until October. I’d like to preface this explanation by saying that I had to completely rewrite this post because it turned into an incoherent three page diatribe ending in a poorly constructed metaphor involving colonialism in early America, so, please be aware that this is the calmer, friendlier, 50% less bitter version.

In short, I have determined that work sucks. I don’t want to overwhelm you with my wisdom so why don’t you take a minute to let that sink in.

Specifically, I’ve come to abhor office work. I’m resentful of every minute I fritter away in front of a computer under fluorescent lights in a room with no windows. Less than three years into the work force and I’m already sick of office politics. I realized earlier this month that if one more customer/superior/random neff they pulled off the street gives me an attitude, insults my intelligence, or is just generally nasty because they’re constipated, I might actually just walk out on my job. Like literally. Take my purse and leave this place and never come back because this doesn’t feel like the way to really live one’s life.

Instead, I’ve luckily had a quiet month of training my replacement and saying my farewells. Originally, I quit in anticipation of starting grad school in the fall. After weeks of agonizing (both in my head and out loud to everyone I know… thanks guys), I deferred my acceptance for two main reasons:

1) I have no idea what I want to do with my life and I’m finally comfortable with that. I’m not prepared to waste $30,000+ figuring it out. I highly doubt sitting in a classroom will lead to existential resolution anyway. So, if I go back for more education, I’m going to be damn sure I’m going to use it. Without that assurance, I don’t think it’s not a good investment. And no, I don’t believe graduate programs are generally beneficial in landing a fulfilling career. For those stalwart proponents, I suggest reading Barbara Ehnrenreich and Penelope Trunk and then polling the cashiers at Barnes and Noble and baristas at Starbucks to find out how many have PhDs in English.

2) Any graduate program I’m both qualified for and interested in will launch me directly back into an office environment which, as we’ve already discussed, I find loathsome and soul-sucking. The thought of paying someone so that I can come right back to the same general thing under a fancier guise is downright horrifying to me.

I fully respect those who do office work. Working outside of one can be tough – I know, I’ve been there. I understand that we need someone to staff the organizations that make the world go round. I’m aware that my humble efforts photocopying play a role, albeit a minor one, in keeping these giants afloat. I get that you’ve got to start at the bottom where the work is boring and unrewarding and work your way into a more stimulating position. My understanding of the way the world works does not change my reluctance to participate in it. And yes, I am five minutes from following Thoreau’s lead and building a house in the woods. Preferably on someone else’s property (hey Bologna, how’s the new house search going? Still looking at that one with a few acres of forest that you won’t be able to easily monitor?)

As such, I’ve given myself a break in September, both to goof off and also pursue projects of my own interest. It’s entirely possible I won’t be able to support myself in my freelance endeavors (which I assure you are farfetched and completely unstable means of earning a living) but I owe it to myself to try before resigning myself to a means of existence that I personally find distasteful.

Wanted: Sketchy White Van & Large Bag of Beggin' Strips

2008-08-21T14:45:00.002-04:00

“Tail at two o’clock” is the first thing I said when we got to the park last night as I craned my neck to watch a black lab run through the forest to our right. Beau thinks we’ve been taking walks for exercise but really, it’s just a cheap excuse to ogle puppies and use my secret dog weapon, a “misdirected” Frisbee, to cop a scratch behind their ears. Frisbees are to dogs what Huffies are to children. Lately the dog lust has gotten worse. I spent 15 minutes chatting up my landlord in the hall last night because his adorable mutt was alternately sniffing me and going through my laundry basket. I am the construction worker of the animal kingdom. I shout obscene things at your pets and they secretly feel flattered.

Luckily, they have places for people like me. Institutions that use our sickness in a constructive way: animal shelters. So, between my September sabbatical (Did I mention that? Yeah, I’m not getting a job until October. More on that later) and my willingness to be a free walking pooper-scooper, I’ve decided to volunteer a few days a week at the local animal rescue. Tonight is my second orientation. I’ll be touring the facility and getting a lesson in proper dog walking form which I believe involves triple sow cows but I’m not entirely sure.

God, Gin, and Something Trippy

2008-08-18T12:18:00.003-04:00

This Saturday found me in a vaguely familiar place: church. I haven’t been to one of those since Christmas 2006 when Beau’s family dragged me to a midnight mass despite the fact that most of us were half in the wrapper. But this weekend wasn’t a holiday. It was a wedding. That means I stopped hissing at statues of saints long enough to quietly sit through a ceremony.

Let me preface this by saying that I was raised Catholic. I went to church every week in my childhood. I sat through Sunday school classes where I was scolded for asking questions, not understanding the concept of blind faith, and drawing fancy hats on Jesus in my work book (and then further reprimanded when I called my teacher an idolater for putting so much emphasis on a pictorial representation of Christ). I’ve studied the Bible more in depth than most Christians. That said, I am now an enthusiastic atheist. If that or blaspheming bothers you, now might be a good time to stop reading.

Anyway, I can be respectful when needs be, so I behaved. We were seated too far back in the church to hear or see what went on up front which was a pity because friends of ours were getting hitched somewhere up there. After a quarter of an hour of straining my neck and failing to catch anything, my mind started to wander. For awhile I watched everyone around me kneel and sit and chant and make elaborate hand gestures all the while thinking that truly, mass must count as cardio. I abstained from the general hocus-pocus except the standing bits (because my ass was falling asleep) and the hand shaking (because I like smiling and saying nice things to people on occasion). For the remainder of the time I admired the interior of the church with its marble columns and painted murals and wondered how much money could have been donated to charity instead of pimping God’s crib. Of course, studies show that God is between 17 and 30 feet tall so they had no choice but to vault the ceiling that high, but the rest is a bit much.

Eventually, the ceremony was over and we moved to the reception hall where I visibly relaxed and unclenched because there was an open bar and that is a religion I can wholeheartedly believe it. In my magnanimous way, I grabbed a few scotches for the boys before asking for my rumndietcoke. The bartender shook his head. I spoke louder as if he were hard of hearing, “RUM AND DIET COKE.”

He gestured behind him at the sparse array of bottles and said, “This is what we have.” No rum. Fuck, I thought, God is pissed at my sacrilege. The bartender suggested I try something else and handed me something blue and fruity. I was dumbstruck. Defeated, I took my blue cocktail back to the table and sat pouting while Beau laughed at me.

Five minutes later I returned to the bar with a friend all the while lamenting the plight of the rumless. She told me her drink of choice was gin and Sprite but she couldn’t have too much because it gets her into trouble. Trouble you say? I ordered a round for us.

An hour later, I was dangerously flirting with Tanqueray, sending texts to Bologna about this delicious mistress. The rest of the evening flew by in a blur of gin, baby quiches, and holding my new friends’ hair back while she vomited on the sidewalk. I spent the majority of the time dancing to Polish techno with a dozen accountants. At one point I paused to wonder how I came to be spinning with my arms above my head, surrounded by stupefied bean counters but then someone told me it was time for the second dinner and this one included meatballs and I lost my train of thought.

In conclusion, gin gives you a crisper feeling hangover than rum, don’t eat a bowlful of sauerkraut when you’re drunk, and God may or may not shop in the big’n’tall men’s department of Macys.

The Show Down

2008-08-15T11:23:00.002-04:00

When I weighed myself this morning I was a full 2.5 lbs heavier than I was yesterday, though to the best of my knowledge, I did not eat an additional 2.5 lbs of food yesterday. This is the first time in my life that I’ve religiously applied to a scale for a sense of my own self worth. If I had even casually monitored my weight in the past year, I would probably not be in this situation. I would have seen the numbers climbing and made appropriate adjustments. Instead, I scorned owning a scale in favor of owning an additional 30 lbs of woman-flesh adhered delicately to my abdomen.

I rampaged around the house taking my fury out on everything in sight: Beau for trying to drink the last of the coffee, Beau for putting his shoes up on the coffee table, Beau for not agreeing to come home early to make me dinner… mostly just Beau. I finally calmed down and conjectured that it could be either a combination of the rum cake from last night and part of Grasshoppah’s buffalo chicken wrap from yesterday’s lunch or water weight. Beau offered that perhaps I just had to take a massive pooh.

Since his idea was the only one I had any control over, I began chugging coffee as soon as I got to work to, ya know, speed things up. Finally the time came and I bustled off to my favorite bathroom stall. Mid-ya know, someone walked in: my new arch nemesis, Amy Wineouses’ Doppelganger. In Bertha’s wake, I was left with this over-kempt girl of twenty-something who appears to pull her wardrobe directly from the pages of Cosmopolitan. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just be aware that wearing a snug vest over a long white button-down with a pencil skirt and 5-inch stilettos, pancake makeup, a jet-black bouffant, and a perpetual pout of disdain will cause me to judge you. Harshly. And on the internet.

So, it was fairly easy to identify Doppelganger when she tottered into the room in stilts and planted herself in front of the mirror where she proceeded to apply cosmetics, and, I assume, feed the raging goblins that dwell within with a mixture of heroin and Chiclets. Next, armed with a wet paper towel (yes, this much I ascertained from vigilant listening and also looking through the door gap) she seated herself in a stall somewhere to my left. Then the furious sounds of reams of toilet paper being pulled from the roll. Enough to wrap a small child in. Then silence. Then more silence.

I sat there patiently waiting for her absence in order to resume activity since there is nothing worse than a prolonged bathroom silence interrupted by a deafening plop. If you are the type of person to do this, then I must ask you to stop reading my blog and never come back. That one thing is perhaps the only thing that I find truly offensive. Pooping in a quiet room of strangers. Shudder. But I digress.

Finally, it became apparent that she was also waiting for my absence. Oh Doppelganger, don’t try to outwait me, I thought. I am a receptionist. I spend all day waiting for something to happen. If I need to spend that time waiting in a bathroom stall instead of at my desk, so be it. More to the point, I was there first and frankly, I was in the middle of something important.

Happily, she did her thing and vacated. I won. With just 10 days left at this job, I have finally triumphed in a bathroom that was a battleground for a year and a half: coworkers trying to discuss paperwork while we were both otherwise occupied, creepy Indian ladies trespassing in the buffer stall, Bertha’s digestive stench. Today, 2 weeks from my permanent departure, I am victorious. I am also probably 2.5 pounds lighter.

Logic of the Year Award

2008-08-14T16:27:00.002-04:00

Scene: AIM conversation during business hours

Unspecified Friend: I'm sleepy

Dangerous K: are you stoned again?

Unspecified Friend: nope, I've stopped smoking!

Dangerous K: like on principle or because you ran out of weed?

Unspecified Friend: weeeeeeeell...both

Her Bags Are Packed, She's Ready To Go

2008-08-14T11:42:00.010-04:00

Three years ago while studying abroad in Oxford I met Notorious, Face, and Grasshoppah. Since then, we’ve referred to ourselves as The Quatro (yes, we named our foursome and shame on Carrie Bradshaw for not doing the same). Those three years have seen more action than a Denny’s parking lot. There have been parties, bars, street corners, gutters, fights, make ups, hugs, heart-to-hearts, laughs, and, maybe the worst of it, moves. Actually, it seems we’ve been apart more than we’ve been together since the good ol’ Oxford days. England and Arkansas robbed us of Notorious for years, London and Jersey stole me away for a time, but finally we all collected in and around Boston for a second coming of the golden age, though granted, a far tamer, more gentle version. Alas, once again, a member is moving on: Grasshoppah leaves us on Saturday for western Massachusetts. In homage to our wise, advice-giving, ever patient, understanding, and empathetic friend, I give you a pictorial representation of Grasshoppah through the years (we'll miss you hon!):

Me, Face, and Grasshoppah on New Year's Eve 2008

Grasshoppah playing drunken Jenga with the German

Grasshoppah and Notorious talking in the gardens at Oxford

Face, Notorious, and Grasshoppah clubbing in England

The Quatro in Scotland

Grasshoppah and me, showing the love at our favorite bar

'Hoppah, consider it a going away present that I didn't post the innumerable pictures that I have of you passed out on various bar stools, kitchen counters, sofas, and assorted ditches. Now go get into trouble where we can't keep an eye on you and come back soon!

There’s One in Every Neighborhood

2008-08-12T14:53:00.002-04:00

I was not pleased at 7:30 this morning when my doorbell rang. First of all, I have a doorbell? Second, I was halfway through an iced coffee watching the morning news in my pajamas. Third, Beau was in the shower still so I couldn’t send him downstairs to answer it.

Since the butler was busy, I trounced down two flights of stairs picking at the wedgie my booty shorts were giving me (I only wear them in the privacy of my own home and that is my prerogative), hoping to God that this wasn’t a religious official trying to convert me when I was still braless and thereby, at my most defensive. Through the glass in the front door, I saw a very shabbily dressed older gentleman. I cracked the door and said, “Can I help you?” in a tone that best conveyed my intended message “Get the fuck off my porch.”

As he opened his bearded face to explain exactly why he was still standing on my landlord’s New York Times, I was overwhelmed with the smell of festering garbage and unwashed human. I ascertained he was homeless and come to beg tuppence of me. I was about to shut the door in his face when he said “Do you own a sports car?”

Don’t nobody threaten my baby’s convertible.

In an unprecedented move, I skipped from the usual Jersey attitude directly to the tone and demeanor of Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny. It was something angry, feral, bestial, JURASSIC even and probably had a lot to do with my Cheerios getting soggy as I stood there talking to a man that appeared to have slept in a dumpster.

I cracked the door farther and barked “Yeah.” He then asked (quite politely considering my general bearing) if I could move said sports car so that they could remove a dumpster from my neighbor-across-the-street’s driveway. The car was in the way of the truck. Apparently he didn’t sleep in a dumpster, he just worked with one.

I rolled my eyes in a way I haven’t done since I was 15-years-old and gave him one last “Yeah” before slamming the door. But since I can’t drive stick, I had to run upstairs and scream to Beau (who was just getting out of the shower) that he needed to move his car because some construction guy told me so. Hell hath no fury like a Beau bothered before 8 am. I immediately started eating my Cheerios in front of the window to see if Beau ran someone over.

When he returned, I described to him the sheer grossness of the construction worker who rang our door bell. “That wasn’t part of the construction crew,” Beau responded, “That was our neighbor.” The same neighbor who left a nasty gram on the car this past winter causing me to call down the fury of coyote poop on his backyard. The same neighbor who actually confronted Beau in person once about our car being parked in front of his house instead of our house (even though at the time there were clearly no spot available on our side of the street). Yes, that neighbor has now asked that we not park in front of our own house either. And also he smells bad.

Grumble Grumble Grumble

2008-08-08T12:17:00.001-04:00

I find it monstrously unfair that though I stayed in last night doing laundry and reading instead of imbibing my usual Thirsty Thursday quota, I have a headache. I don’t get non-hangover-induced headaches. Doesn’t happen to me. When I’m not hung over, my brain is so grateful not to be drained of all hydration that it behaves itself. Until today when it suddenly became a whiner. Shape up buddy or I’ll really give you something to cry about. It’s Friday. I’ll do it. Don’t mess around with me, Brain. I have an override button that allows me to put rumndietcokes into my mouth with or without your help as evidenced by so many previous black outs.

Really, I should probably blame Neck and not Brain because that’s where this trouble started. I have a crick from reading last night with my head in Beau’s lap. I don’t know how to threaten a neck, but I’m open to suggestions unless they involve a guillotine. That’s the only neck punishment I could think of, but it doesn’t seem fair to take disciplinary action against Shoulders and Pretty Little Face both of whom I’m sure would be marred as a result. Back to the drawing board, readers.

Speaking of Lessons Learned

2008-08-06T15:15:00.001-04:00

As I leaned against the kitchen wall just now, fixing myself a cup of coffee and swallowing my second helping of Advil to counter my early afternoon hangover, I thought to myself, when will I learn? When will I learn that staying out half the night drinking ends the same way EVERY TIME? A small voice in my head ventured never. I may NEVER learn to curb my thirst in the interest of not feeling like pond scum the following day. I’m sure we’ve all sworn after a particularly bad night that we were never drinking again (see St. Patty’s Day 2007). I certainly have no intention of following through to a state of teetotalism but a little restraint might go a long way. Developing the ability to say “I’d love to go to another bar for more drinks after dinner, but it’s a weeknight and I’m broke” instead of “Hells fuckin’ YEAH I want a shot of tequila” would be advantageous at this juncture of my life.

Instead, here I am squinting under fluorescent lights thinking of how that plate of nachos from the Cask & Flagon circa 10 pm will manifest. Perhaps as another dimple on my already ample bottom? A third chin to keep the other two company? A pooh that waits until my commute home to try to leave the mother ship? It is a mystery.

Besides the weight gain and the hangovers, my wallet runs dry as my poor, desiccated bladder (something to keep in mind since I’ll be officially unemployed as of September 1). Yet this trifecta of reasons NOT to get drunk enough to pinky-swear that I will reread Wuthering Heights is somehow not enough to sink into my brain.

Lately, I’ve actually grown bored of the boozing lifestyle but you wouldn’t know it, would you? I whine that I want to go out for a nice adult dinner but then I’m the first one to order a rumndietcoke… or seven. I make plans for innocent day trips but then cancel on account of a hangover. If I wasn’t too lazy to go out most nights, I’d be an alcoholic by now. Apparently, sloth is my saving grace.

So, I returned to my desk with my coffee and my obstinate refusal to learn from my mistakes. And also the memory of Grasshoppah buying a steak and cheese sandwich for a homeless guy sitting outside the 7-11.

And I Haven't Learned a Damn Thing Since

2008-08-05T11:25:00.002-04:00

Without going into any further detail, I would like to share with you a remarkable cure for the hiccups: hold onto the hiccuper’s nose until the afflication has ended. Keep a firm hold despite their attempts to shake you off, wipe snot on your hand, or get their drink back up to their mouth. For example:

Thanks, Mistress!