Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Monthly Check-In

Months and months are passing by without a blog post from me. It is the saddest thing ever. I do so apologize. I’ve been all sorts of busy lately. With roughly 2343451234 things going on. Let me see if I can remember anything worth noting on the blog.

I turned 30 in January. And my body immediately went on strike. I caught The Virus From Hell and was sick for about three weeks surrounding my birthday. No bueno. I actually spent my birthday evening laying on my couch, waiting for it to be 8 o’clock, so I could go to bed. It was awesome. Then I went to New York the weekend after my birthday to celebrate with theater and friends. The theater and friends were good, but the ear infection/pressure from hell thing I had from flying while sick was not so good. Ugh.

My favorite part of my birthday trip was the fact that my driver’s license expired on my birthday and I hadn’t gotten the new one in the mail yet. This meant I was traveling with an expired license. No one in any of the airport security lines noticed that it was expired, but the lady handing out the hearing devices at Spring Awakening called me on it and didn’t want to give me the device because my license was three days past its expiration. Cause apparently people are stealing hearing devices left and right on Broadway. It’s a crisis, I tell you. Look for 20/20 to do an expose on it soon. Whatever.

In other big news I have sold the idea for my next book. This is exciting, right? Except for the fact that I once again am going to be putting my body in peril for the sake of my art. Good lord. This time, instead of marathon-ing, I will be cycling. Really far.

There is an AIDS ride from San Francisco down to LA in June and I’ve convinced myself that it would be a fantastic idea to participate in said bike ride. I’m hoping to at least make it out of San Fran. Beyond that I don’t have many expectations of my cycling abilities.

I did buy a (ridiculously expensive) bike and a helmet and even some spandex shorts with a padded butt. So I’m all set, right? What is that you say? I need to get on the bike? Oh, that doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun as just hanging around in the spandex and helmet.

The unfortunate news for all of you is that I’m writing a book about this lovely adventure, so I’m not really at liberty to write about it here. As I should probably save my writing for the actual book. But I am hoping to make some little videos of my travels and training (and trips to the hospital). So maybe that will be as good as reading.

I’ve also got another pretty big “project” on the horizon, but I’m gonna hold off on detailing it for now. I mean, I wouldn’t want to overwhelm you with too much info. Gotta save something for next month, you know.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Hello Out There

Hello people. I’m alive. I’m ever so sorry that I haven’t updated this blog in a friggin month. I would like to say that I have been out living an exciting life and didn’t have time to update the blog, but then I’d be lying to you, and that’s no way to start the new year.

Basically I’ve been crazy ass busy for the last who knows how many months. Busy with very unblog-worthy things, like work and work and then a little work thrown in for good measure. Please. Don’t be jealous.

I do so hope you all had a great holiday, and a joyous new year. My holidays were good and generally uneventful. My mother did make a stocking for my dog and he seemed to be the most excited about Christmas, “It’s a sock of some sort, which, as you know, is my most favorite thing on the planet, then, if you notice, it is full of treats, which, as you know, are the only thing that can get me to drop a sock. This is the best day ever.”

I randomly went to Vegas for New Years and I had a great time.

I’ve been working way too much and wanted to go spend some of this money I’ve been making. I must say, Vegas is a great place to do that, as they have many a thing to take your money. My buddy lives there, so I crashed with him, caught a couple shows and ate some good food. That’s all I need in life: friends, theater and food. Oh, and nickel slots. I need those too.

Jesus, I love me some nickel slots. They are just so damn random I can hardly stand it. I won 4000 friggin nickels! I’m rich! I have no idea why I won 4000 nickels, which is the joy of the nickel slot. There were animated things, they were running around for like 5 minutes doing god knows what, then all of a sudden it said I won 3500 credits. I was like, hot damn, but then I printed out the receipt thing and it was like $150 or something. Much less hot of a damn. But still, not bad for a $5 investment. Then I got up and went to another nickel slot, to change up the animated things that were running around the screen, and I won another 500 credits. My friend was playing $50 a hand blackjack and he’d lose $50 in like 20 seconds. Do you know how long it would take to lose $50 in nickel slots? Roughly 13 years.

I feel like there are so many fun things to tell you about, since it’s been a whole month since we spoke.

-I got not one but two Christmas cards from bloggers. People I know nowhere other than the web. Isn’t that cool (and only a little bit scary)? Ha, I kid. But it really touched me when I saw cards from people I’ve never even spoken to. I would have been touched more if there was cash in them…but maybe that’s just the residual nickel slot excitement talking – I’m seeing dollar signs! Or cents signs, as it were.

-The other day I was at the grocery store and there was a guy set up at one of those things that says “Cuisine Cart”. You know, where they make samples of stuff and you circle around the store and visit it 8 times to get the most free food as you can? Everybody circles right? I mean free is free, I’m not made of nickels! Anywho, this dude was actually standing at this cart, the one with the word Cuisine written on it, and he was making….wait for it…Top Ramen. Awesome.
-I’m convinced that the elevators are rigged at my office. I’m convinced that when an elevator arrives the ding sound letting you know the elevator is there is patched into a speaker above a different elevator. EVERY time the damn elevator comes I look up to where I hear the ding coming from and it’s never the right elevator, then I’m left looking around at the other five elevators, spinning in place even, trying to find the right elevator. I feel like there is a security person watching all this on the little tv screens in the lobby.

-And speaking of security people. I work on the second floor of the building. There are like 5 million floors. I feel like a jackass getting on the elevator to go down one flight of stairs. I feel the judgment every time I get in the damn elevator. So when I first started working there I would take the stairs down to the street level. But then. The stupid security people wrote to someone in our office and said that one of our employees had been seen using the stairs and doing so is a security risk. WHAT THE? Is this because I’m brown? Whatever the reason now I’m brown and judged every time I get on the elevator.

Here are some pictures:





The dog has a new friend apparently, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. At what point does this costumed ceramic animal on the porch thing become something that I should be concerned about? What is the number exactly? 3? 4 and a gnome? Let me know when we should officially have mom carted away.






This is a result of trip to the Pet Store. I think it’s very telling. There’s the potty training stuff, the spray bark collar, the Dog Whisperer, and if all else fails, there are treats over on the left hand side. This dog has me beat. And I am trying so hard not to buy an electric dog collar. First I bought one that makes an annoying noise when the dog barks. But all the dog did was shake his head while barking when he was wearing that collar. Then I moved to the spray one, that is supposed to spray and annoying spray when he barks. But, uh, it didn’t spray. Ugh. It doesn’t help that he is barking mostly at my parents’ house and my dad says things like, “Go get ‘em Nola!” when he barks. My dad feels like Nola is protecting us with his bark. The dog weighs 12 pounds. He is protecting nothing but my avoidance of jail time.





My dog is a "stay-at-home dog". I respect that. Although I’m not going to lie, I wish he’d at least earn enough to cover his sock budget.

I’m at a bored meeting. Hence the time to write a blog.

I believe a great deal of paper and possibly entire forests could be saved if it wasn’t imperative to give me a paper receipt for every damn thing I buy. Why is it that we get receipts for everything? Some things make sense. Anything over, say, I dunno $5, I guess a receipt is okay. But do I need a receipt for a Cinnabon? Really? Do I need to remember that caloric intake a month later when I’m cleaning out my purse?

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These are some of the thoughts I’ve had the past month. I’m sure I’ve had others. I’m sure they involve more cursing and way less coherence (which is difficult, I know).

I will try to be better in the new year about posting. The good news is there are bored meetings every quarter. So you know you’ll hear from me at least every three months, if nothing else.

Peace.