sentence saturday (holiday edition)

well, gang, due to popular demand (or maybe it was just repeated harrassment by a couple of dedicated fans), sentence saturday makes its return this week. however, since it's a holiday weekend, we'll continue the game through monday evening at midnight, giving you ample time to join in.

the first word this week is portilification. please scroll through the comments to find your word, and don't forget to leave a new one for the next person who stops by.

thanks for playing with me this week!

easily amused

my 4 year old sidekick and her family left for myrtle beach yesterday. they were supposed to head out around 3pm, but didn't get out of the driveway until two hours later, partially because of the mysterious disappearance of my sidekick.

i was up in her bedroom, unhooking her monitor from her computer so it could be hooked up to her brother's playstation at the beach, when sidekick announced she needed to use the bathroom.

not five minutes later, the screams started. (well, not really screams- more like loud requests for her mother's presence.) i ran downstairs to pass along the request to her mom, who was answering the phone at that moment, and then went back upstairs and assured her that mama was coming.

i guess she got tired of waiting.

between half an hour and forty five minutes later, everyone (and all their most important worldly possessions) was packed in the car, ready to roll.

except for my sidekick, that is.

naturally, i volunteered to track her down. i went inside the house and called her name a couple of times.

i was met with total silence, which was unlike her.

then, i ran upstairs to the last place i saw her. i opened the bathroom door slowly, and met with a sight that was not only hysterically funny, but would have also been pretty photoworthy....had her swimsuit not been around her ankles.

i guess i'd worn her out at the pool, or maybe it was the late night the evening before, because there my sidekick was, head resting in the back of the toilet, aforementioned swimsuit around aforementioned ankles, flat out snoozing hard on the throne.

i'm working on fashioning this into some sort of comeback the next time she brings up the subject of my butt.........

everyone's a critic.....

never underestimate the power of a four year old to take your ego down just a notch or two.

my boss called this afternoon and asked if i could take my sidekick to the pool while she ran some errands. i told her it'd be no problem, and slipped into my bikini.

just when i was beginning to think that maybe the cellulite wasn't so bad, my sidekick walked in and rather than "hi duff" or "are you ready?", the first thing out of her mouth was "eeew, your butt!"

needless to say, i wore shorts to the pool today.

i'm also wearing running shorts at the moment, because i feel a whole new sort of devotion toward my previously abandoned workout plan.

just call me fool

i am shocked, appalled, and horrified.

i don't think i can forgive myself for this one.

somehow (and don't ask me how because, honestly, i don't know), i forgot to celebrate mr. t's birthday.

i have no fool to pity but myself.

the complaint department is open for business

i've got a "to do" list as long as my arm this evening, but since i don't want to let down my eight nine readers this evening, i figured i should post something deep and meaningful for you.

i should, but that doesn't necessarily mean i'll be able to pull it off.

with that in mind, let me share a couple of complaints:

issue #1: why, oh why, do the slow people around here feel the need to clog up the fast lane? i'll admit it- one of my major flaws is that i'm a terrible leadfoot. i come by it honestly, as both of my parents had lead feet. (one has since reformed.) consequently, i often wind up zipping down the highway (at the posted speed limit, of course, daddy), feeling like this:


(i found it on the internet, but can't remember where. sorry about that.)

i could not have said it better myself. (perhaps i might incorporate a few other combinations, but would they top these? that's iffy.)

actually, perhaps not all is lost- i think i've finally figured out why you only see single shoes abandoned in the middle of the road. perhaps i should join the masses and simply hurl shoes at drivers who tick me off. (in the interest of killing two birds with one stone, i'll only hurl shoes other people have abandoned- or perviously hurled- in the middle of the road.)

issue #2: why is it the people of nigeria can't seem to find a way to get their fortunes out of the country on their own? i swear, i've almost got the email memorized:

"dear sir or madam;
i am the honourable captain james t. kirk, servant to the equally honourable harold t. stone. my employer has offered to pay me an extra $100 this month if i can send out roughly 2500 spam emails trying to lure some poor shlub into letting me have access to his bank account by promising him numerous thousands of dollars for simply letting us "borrow" his account to "transfer some money" "out of our country".

please be that shlub. my fingers are cramping from all this typing, and i could really use the spare hundred bucks.

sincerely/with kind regards/so long, sucker,
the honorable james t. kirk"

i'm too lazy to look it up (besides, who bothers with boring things like facts these days?), but is the nigerian economy in the toilet? if not, it really should be. i mean, obviously the folks over there have no clue how to handle their money.

perhaps i could sell them some slightly used, undoubtedly aerodynamic shoes.

wherefore art thou?

i was all set to answer one of your burning questions this evening.

yep- after the post i was going to write, all eight of my readers would have declared their lives fulfilled, and died happily.

i had links. i had lyrics. i even had quotes, for goodness sakes!

unfortunately, when it comes to writing my revealing post explaining what coolio's been up to lately (i mean, i know you've been wondering whether or not he actually fell off the earth, too.), i just can't do it tonight.

my braids are too tight (i felt like trying out the whole "method blogging" thing), and my noggin hurts too much to type the full expose*.

*speaking of folks who fell off the face of the earth....

my life is complete....seriously

at the risk of sounding like a total nerd, i think this is awesome.

as is this:

Who's Your 80s Movie Icon Alter-Ego? Find out @ She's Crafty

in the sticks

as promised, SO and i went hiking in congaree national park yesterday. i'm pleased to report that everything went well- no mosquito bites or alligator attacks, and thunderstorms didn't roll through the area until we were back out of the park and heading back to columbia. since i'm a photo-happy fool, here are a few pictures from our trip:

the entrance to the park

a new picture for the profile? the stumps in the back are actually bald cypress "knees"- part of their root systems. (the trees grow so tall that the knees help stabilize them, as well as bringing in extra nutrients....or something like that. i don't remember where i stuck my informative pamphlet.)


more bald cypress trees. can you tell we're in the middle of a drought?


hot dog the gnomad, who returned from arizona with me last month. (i know, i know- i really need to finish tinkering with those photos, don't i?)

over the swamp and through the woods

despite the late night last night (not what you think- i haven't been out carousing and dancing on tables in ages), i found myself wide awake at approximately 5:35 this morning- roughly the same time i walked past a mirror in a well-lit bathroom and saw my thighs.

lest you think (fear?) this will turn into one of those typical female body issues posts, let me state for the record that i really don't have any major body issues. granted, i think i could probably stand to lose 5-10 pounds (but who doesn't?) and the cellulite reality check this morning was an awakening of the rudest sort, but overall, i really don't worry about it that much.*

that said, something has to be done, lest i send small children (as well as val kilmer) running screaming in the other direction the next time i hit the beach in a bikini.

i really need to start working out......and while i'm at it, i'll be slathering on thigh cream for good measure. i figure one or the other has to work at least a little. i mean, i look pretty decent in jeans, but once out of them, i'm afraid i don't quite resemble a lingerie model.....though with a little creative airbrushing i suppose i'd have a shot.

so, with that in mind, after work today, SO** (who also admits he could stand to lose a few) and i will boogie across town and spend an hour or two hiking amongst these:

he's never been to congaree national park, and i haven't been nearly as far along the trails as i'd like. i figure this way, we'll be hiking somewhere slightly more interesting than the workout room at the apartment complex, and it's a lot harder to give up exercise in favor of a nap at the park than it is at home. (though there are several conveniently placed benches in the park, we are in the midst of alligator season, and i think the last thing i'd want to be woken up by is the sensation of something nibbling at my toes.)

so, the snacks are packed, as are the hand sanitizer (i had a gnome take an impromptu dip in the swamp the last time i came to the park), first aid kit, bug repellant, and camera**.

now, all i have to do is find alligator repellant.......or figure out if i can outrun SO, if necessary. (surely these thighs are good for something.)

*despite the great tankini controversy of summers past. i'd tell you to remind me to share that story sometime, but quite frankly, i'm still not done being peeved about the whole ordeal.
**yes, folks- i finally recharged my batteries, which means i'll be able to start posting on random photos again soon

you know it's bad when....

...you're cuddling up to your laptop to take advantage of the heat it puts out...on an 80+ degree day, no less.

i'm babysitting a truck race at the radio station this evening, and i am in what is quite easily the coldest room in the building, and as luck would have it, i have to sit directly under a vent that i swear is pumping out 40-degree air.

you now, it's really too bad i've been too lazy to recharge my batteries for the digital camera, because otherwise, i could present to you my best loni anderson imitation.

riiiiiight. you should be so lucky. (hell, i should be so lucky- wasn't she about a d cup?)

if this was covered on wkrp, i'm afraid i missed the episode.

when kal is no help whatsoever

as usual, i've had a song stuck in my head all day, and try as i might, i've been unable to get it out thus far.

i thought perhaps looking at other blogs this evening, might help, but noooo....i'm afraid my visit to kal's world has actually made the problem worse.

you see, the song was "when i get you alone", and it was a minor hit in 2003 for thicke....as in alan thicke....as in the artist behind the song is mister seaver's real-life son robin.

thanks a lot, kal.

would i lie to you?

so i was going to do this totally creative, original post this evening involving song titles that happen to be questions, and set it up as sort of a self-interview (hey, it's got to be some sort of an improvement over some of the ones that show up in my bulletin section), but i simply couldn't get past "would i lie to you?"

so, rather than tell you a little white one and claim i am simply a font of musical knowledge fully capable of pulling all of the following out from behind me, i'll fess up.

i came up with three off the top of my head. the rest i had to dig up, and since i had to spend time doing all that extra work, i simply don't have time to answer these questions after all:

what have i done to deserve this?
where do broken hearts go?
who can it be now?
how can i fall?
why do fools fall in love?
what have you done for me lately?
why can't this be love?
why can't we be friends?
who's johnny?
who's gonna ride your wild horses?

i thought about trying to get you to answer them for me, but that paled in comparison to the vastly superior plan i came up with after about five minutes of thought......

who posed these musical questions on the top 40 charts?

the first person with the most correct answers will win a prize yet to be determined.*

*i'm broke, so i'm hoping my undying devotion and a virtual pat on the back or something will suffice.

artichoke...you know, the green thing you eat with butter?

for me, going to the grocery store "after hours" is almost as agonizing as having a fingernail break off a little too far down.

no, wait- it's worse.

i'm at the radio station this evening, and a couple of hours ago, i wound up involved in a short conversation with a coworker (who recently moved here from california) about his plans to grab some groceries after work. (this was around midnight.)

i warned him that, after all, he's in south carolina now. there are no guarantees that walmart will be open at this hour, no matter how "super" it may be. most regular grocery stores pack it in early, too.

kroger seems to be one of the few to remain open 24/7, which comes in handy when dragging oneself home after an evening out and being tormented by an undeniable craving for a red baron pizza, frozen broccoli, or even a pound of ground chuck. (in college, we tended more toward hardee's or taco john's, but hey- it's south carolina after all. there are no taco john's here.*

anyway, kroger's open all night, but around 10pm, the last human disappears to the stockroom or break room or whereever, and if you want to actually leave the store with your pizza, broccoli, and/or pound o' ground chuck, you have to utilize the highly-touted self-checkout system.

for the record, i absolutely, positively loathe the self-checkout system. for some reason (and no, it's not just pms), this stupid machine always turns me into a violent bitch. i have to rank it right up there with those talking navigational systems (as seen in rv and this musings post). i don't like being told what to do, whether by man or machine, and for some reason, the self-checkout delights in ordering me around.**

i don't appreciate being told to move my food in and out of the bags, and i'm afraid i get more than a little frustrated when the touch screen doesn't offer up a little picture to poke when i'm trying to pay for my red bell peppers. (artichokes i can almost understand, and that's only because i have yet to get out of any grocery store in south carolina without having to explain to at least two people what an artichoke is. (you would think, since it's located near the broccoli, and not in the "exotic produce" section, store employees would at least have some vague notion of what one is, but nooooooo.) perhaps one of these days, instead of educating the checkout staff about artichokes, i'll simply call it a head of lettuce and run like hell after paying 1/3 the actual price for the little sucker.)

but i digress.

anyway, suffice it to say, the self-checkout and i do not get along. (not that bystanders would come to that conclusion after watching me throw my pizza into the bag repeatedly and threaten to beat the computer screen with the red pepper that apparantly does not exist.)

however, since SO is a kinder, gentler, more computer-oriented person, if it looks like we're going to hit the checkout (literally! i mean, it's a freaking bell pepper, for goodness sake!) after hours, his job is to deal with the machine as quickly as possible (lest i become irritated and try to "help" by flipping the thing off in the middle of the transaction) and usher both groceries and myself out of the store before things get ugly and i wind up with a hyperextended middle finger, broken toe, or (even worse) broken nail.

*which is killing me, i'll have you know.
**i, in turn, delight in kicking it when no one's looking

for lack of anything better to do.....

too many late nights + crashing headache = slacker post full of nothing but quiz results:

What Office Space character are you?

Samir
Take this quiz!

Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!
(that's odd- i think of myself as being more like piglet....)

Which Family Guy Character Are you?

Meg
Take this quiz!



and last, but not least, the one i've been searching for for far too long....

Which Character from REAL GENIUS are You?

You're Chris!
Take this quiz!

this and that

a few random tidbits from today:

i was the first to call mama, my future potential mother in law, and both remaining grandmas to with them a happy mother's day. (yes, i am still gloating about this.)

i knew mama was cool (she has a rolling stone subscription), but i had no idea how cool (she subscribed when the magazine first started out. unfortunately, my rather uptight grandmother found out, and made her cancel the subscription after two issues).

i will have to update these lists in a month and a half. guess that means i need to hurry up and finish my arizona pictures/writeups.

and while i'm making a mental "to do" list, i need to help bodhi put up some pictures from his recent trips. perhaps there will be something new to look at over on his blog by next weekend.....perhaps.

that's it this evening- it's been a rather exhausting week, and i still have a small pile of myspace-related radio stuff to do before i leave tonight.

(by the way, happy mother's day to my maternal readership)

look at me!

i'm early this week! for once, i'm actually ahead. (or maybe that's because everything else i need to do this weekend is harder than this, so by getting sentence saturday up 2 1/2 hours early i feel accomplished)

at any rate, go, me!

the first word for this week's edition of sentence saturday is scandomonucleated, thanks to mr_g. the first person to stop by and play (will it be before midnight?) needs to use the word in a sentence, then leave their own made-up word in the comments for the next person who stops by. (i'm really hoping we can make it to 20 this week, though i'm sure many folks will be spending quality time with their moms this weekend.) thanks for playing with me this week!

#141

the latest addition to my list of "southern things i don't understand":

yesterday was a holiday. seriously. state offices were closed for "confederate memorial day". even more interesting- state offices used to observe this holiday instead of the memorial day every other american recognizes.

and, if that weren't enough- for years, jefferson davis' birthday was celebrated. from what i understand, it was replaced (eventually) by martin luther king jr's birthday.

the north did win the war, right? i'm beginning to wonder.......

when i grow up....

wook kundor is my hero.

this is no small feat, since she is one of the very few women in my personal pantheon.

she's not an acclaimed humorist, nor is she a great athlete, nor a public figure.

wook kundor is 104 years old.....

.....and just married a 33 year old man.

squish!

i have been forced to sit in the wet spot more than i care to admit the past 24 hours, and i'm afraid i have no one to blame but myself.

now that i've got your interest, we'll move on to something completely different (or is it?).

i feel slightly pressured to make whatever it is i write about this evening at least vaguely interesting, mostly because i noticed today that my readership is back up again and i don't want to let any of my five readers down.

with that in mind, let's discuss something truly thrilling- windows.

i have always been something of an old-fashioned girl. every single car we had growing up had windows you had to crank yourself. it was a great system, and i give it credit for the bulging biceps i sport to this day.*

since this was all i'd ever known (and because i'm stubborn and need complete and total control over my window at all times), when the time came for me make my first automobile purchase, i declined the power windows and door locks (don't even get me started on those- we'll be here all night), and went the old fashioned route, even though it meant giving up a sunroof and 6-cd changer.

i'm pleased to report that over the past 4 1/2 years, i have had absolutely zero mechanical problems with my windows and door locks. however, i have managed to leave my window(s) down during approximately 2 dozen rainstorms, at least half of which were rather heavy.

lately, i've enjoyed a pretty long streak of remembering to roll my windows up upon exiting the car. in fact, i'd say over the past six months, i've been damn near flawless.

unfortunately, my streak ended yesterday.

i arrived at the radio station with 20 seconds before i had to introduce the next song, which necessitated both a fast exit from my hastily parked vehicle, as well as a full-on sprint into the building and in front of my microphone. after giving some trivial little tidbit about james blunt, i wandered back out to my car, opened the passenger door, and grabbed my worldly possessions from my passenger seat. with my various "projects" in hand (and crook of elbow, and on shoulder), i headed back into the building and got on with my day.

a couple hours later, i stuck my nose outside (had to give a weather report, and it's always good to be at least semi-accurate...unless, of course, you're willard scott, in which case you're probably far too busy worrying about keeping those centenarians' names straight long enough to wish them a happy birthday) and learned that not only was it raining, but apparently, our parking lot would soon have enough water running across it that the columbia kayak club would soon be begging us to let them onto our property so they could ride the rapids.

not wanting to stick around long enough to let them in (i have a hard time saying "no"), i scurried back indoors and resumed gathering my useless musical trivia and whatnot for my show. i didn't really give the weather any more thought until about an hour later, when my very wet SO delivered my slightly wet lunch, and informed me that my driver's side window had been rolled all the way down and that entire half of the interior of my car was now wetter than a goldfish's tongue.

since i couldn't talk him into swapping cars with me for a day or two, you guessed it- i got stuck in the wet spot. **

*okay- maybe that's a slight exaggeration. i mean, they don't really bulge, but i like to think there's a little bit of muscle tone there somewhere.

**what were you thinking? never mind- don't answer that. i know for a fact that most of my friends are downright perverted.

"a" memish sort of thing

i totally grabbed the baton from osbasso:

This is how it works: Comment on this entry and I will give you a letter. Write ten words beginning with that letter in your journal, including an explanation of what the word means to you and why, and then pass out letters to those who want to play along.

(my letter was "a", but that should be relatively obvious)

artichoke: my favorite veggie....bring on the garlic/lemon butter and please don't even attempt to engage me in conversation until i'm scraping fuzz off the heart.

avon: i don't wear makeup, but i seem to be able to sell it fairly well. (not well enough to quit any of my jobs, mind you, but i get to stuff a few extra dollars into the bank account every now and then.)

a-ha: "take on me" has always been my favorite song. i'd have it on my myspace profile, but i've been obsessing over the body rockers' singer lately.

agnostic: i'm more ambivalent, i suppose. i don't believe in god, but hey- whatever gets you through the day......

airwalks: in my whole collection, my two favorite pairs of shoes are airwalks. one pair is made out of tennis ball material, and the other pair is made out of purple velvet.

athletic attic: yep- i played al bundy for almost exactly five years. this would be where my tennis shoe habit came from, including several pairs of adidas.

absolut vodka ads: i've been collecting them since i was 15. i'm still looking for the full-sized version of "absolut inxs", but otherwise, i'm pretty satisfied with my collection, which currently sits in protective plastic sleeves in a large 3-ring binder.

antisocial: i've been called this more than once. i'm not good in large crowds of people i don't know, and tend to retreat into my own little corner in such situations. unless the problem is that i'm surrounded by idiots, in which case, i just don't feel like wasting my time on them.

andy: i've dated two guys with this name, and harbored not-so secret crushes on two others. it's a little weird, but i guess maybe it's just a common name.

alaska: one of the very few states i haven't been to yet. the others are texas (airports don't count), montana (hopefully, i'll knock this one off the list next month), idaho, washington, oregon, hawaii, and utah.

is anyone willing to take this on? i promise i won't stick you with "x", though "q" is a distinct possibility. ;~)

about that "million dollar smile".....

forgive me for posting about myspace twice in a row, but i'm afraid i just can't help myself this time.

i recently posted about the guy without game, and i tackled the whole "looking for love in all the wrong places" topic a while ago, and i'm afraid i have something i can add to the dating heap.

it seems, i have an admirer. (no, not this one, or this one- a new one.)

there's a guy on myspace who sent me a message out of the blue about a month ago:

Date: Apr 3, 2006 11:36 PM
Subject: how are you?
Body: Hello and Good Evening. I dont normally say this but you just stood out. I bet your eyes twinckle in the moonlight. Anyways, my name is Giovanni. i'm orginally from Panama, Central America. grew up in florida being a surfer dude. How is your day going? just wanted to say Hi and how great of a good looking woman you are

(note: in the interest of letting you read these in all their glory, i'm resisting the urge to fix his grammar/spelling et cetera.)

the message was nice enough- flattering, even- though i didn't really feel compelled to respond.

perhaps that's why he changed tactics:

Date: Apr 15, 2006 7:23 PM
Subject: Hi Duff
Body: Hello and Good Evening. I dont normally see a woman with a million dollar smile but i guess i have ran into one as of now. your smile, your eyes, and the whole picture just brings passion through the athmosphere. dont know if i could i afford the rich in you but i thought i would just say Hi and how great of a good looking woman you are...

well, the guy's nothing if not persistant. however, things are sounding just a little.....familiar.

and then i got this last week:

Date: May 4, 2006 10:28 PM
Subject: Hi
Body: Hello and Good Evening. I dont normally see a woman with a million dollar Smile but i guess i have ran into one as of now. your Smile, your eyes, and the whole picture just brings passion through the athmosphere. dont know if i could i afford the rich in you but i thought i would just say Hi and how great of a good looking woman you are...

by the way my name is Giovanni

aha! no wonder things were sounding a little repetitive! this guy's probably got his little message saved somewhere on his desktop, and whenever he sees a vaguely attractive female, he simply copies the whole thing and pastes it into a message, then keeps an eye out for a response of some sort.

while i wait for my name to come up in his little rotation again, i believe i'll add "brings passion through the athmosphere" to my resume.*

*not really- after all, unlike giovanni, i know how to spell "atmosphere" correctly.

blast from the past...

something odd happened to me on myspace this week, and because i'm a sharing sort of girl (and too lazy to dig out my paper journal and scribble it down), i'm going to bore you with the news:

i found a pair of sisters i haven't seen since i left baltimore 14 years ago.

seriously. i was typing in random names from my past- mostly folks who'd be highly unlikely to find me on their own, since i'm registered as "duff", though no one from baltimore would know me that way, and came up with a match, which was surprising, due to their rather unusual last name.

what do you say to someone you haven't seen in fourteen years?

i'm feeling a bit...

tipitic.

no, wait- that's the first word for this week's edition of sentence saturday. scroll through to the last comment to find your word, use it in a sentence, and please leave a new made-up word for the next person who stops by.

thanks for playing with me again this week!

from one of my favorite flicks.....

i totally stole this from penny, in lieu of pounding out a real post this evening:



Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

well you can tell by the way i use my walk, i'm a woman's man, no time for talk

wanna take a wild guess what was on the radio when i got into my car to drive home tonight?

hearing the bee gees (brothers gibb, for the music nerds in my viewing audience)reminded me of the late 90s hit by one of the fugees that sampled those exact lines. i remember dancing to it each friday night at the "world famous" outback club, which i really doubt you've heard of, but hey- whatever they have to do to attract business, right? you would think after dancing to that song on a weekly basis, i'd be able to easily recall the name of the song, but nooooooo....all i can come up with are those two lines and a fugee. (actually, i suppose i could get up off my lazy butt and look it up, but it's much more fun to see if someone else is willing to figure it out for me.)

anyway, this reminiscing about college (as well as the pimp-daddy song) have left me thinking about a guy in college who was destined to be the inspiration behind the 40-year-old virgin.

he was a nice enough guy, but a little, well....you know how they say you've "got game" when you, uh, have a way with the ladies?

i'm afraid this guy actually had negative game. there were murmurs amongst those in our "crowd" about his inexperience (i believe the phrase "never been kissed" came up a time or two), but we all had our quirks, and i suppose that was just his.

he lived with a few other guys from our college radio station. one of the guys was flat out drop-dead gorgeous, and nice as he could be, to boot. he's the one every girl on the station fantasized about. two of the others weren't as attractive (i really need to dig up a picture of him....), but were amusing and had their followers. (guilty, but i've since come to my senses)

...and then there was the guy with no game.

care to take a wild guess which one developed a crush on me?

i mean, he was nice enough, and he did provide me with an ultra-bootleg version of a tape involving two blurs in a dark room, reported to be bret michaels and pam anderson*, and i did enjoy flopping on their couch and watching movies on a weekly basis....until it happened.

you know how in the movies they'll show the young, innocent teenagers going out to see a film, and after a while the boy will yawn, and stretch, and somehow his arm will wind up around the girl's shoulders, and then he'll give this relieved grin, and then maybe they'll kiss later?

it is not nearly as cute when you've got a twentysomething guy sitting next to you and trying to oh-so-subtly yawn and stretch and i think at that point i either lost it or excused myself to go to the bathroom.

no- i'm not kidding. it was a yawn and a stretch heading toward territory i had absolutely, positively no desire whatsoever to explore. i've never actually seen lost in space, but i'm pretty sure this would be one of those moments when a robot would come rolling out of nowhere screaming, "danger, will robinson!"

i don't think i've ever left a guy's house that abruptly in my life.** looking back, i hope i didn't hurt his feelings or make him give up completely on women or inspire him to live in the woods and make explosives or anything, but quite honestly, the first thing that came to mind right after the "holy shit- did that really just happen, or did i doze off during the movie?" was "i have got to get home and tell my roommates about this....and then i'm calling mama first thing in the morning....and then i need to call......"

i'll admit it- i totally*** kiss and tell.

i think he moved a couple weeks after "the incident", as he'd already graduated and was just sort of bumming around while the lease ran out, and we kept in touch (uh, figuratively) for awhile after that, and then he sort of fell off the face of the earth......or maybe he just moved to the woods.


*though for all i could figure out from the two minute clip, it may as well have been brett butler and louie anderson, quite frankly

**no, wait- i have.

***though it most definitely did not get that far in this case

spring has sprung...or is it flying?

ah, spring.

the sun shines longer, the birds chirp more, the cacti can go outside instead of poking me every time i try to open the bedroom window, and in general, life's just dandy.

yeah, for about five minutes, and then south carolina springs lose their appeal.

don't get me wrong- i really like south carolina. i'm all about being less than two hours from the mountains and beaches, depending on where i feel like driving. the laws here amuse me (but hey- there are finally legal tattoo parlors in this state, though i can't really vouch for any of them, as SO turns a strange shade of pale every time i mention tattoos/piercings/fun haircolors), and so do some of the natives (trucker hats outnumbered dressy outfits at the cirque du soleil performance i attended last night which, by the way, was excellent*).

however, i do not love the notion of needing to take two showers daily in the middle of may simply because it's 90 degrees and sticky and if i only shower once, i will not exactly be making lots of friends in the event i raise my arms after 12:30 pm. while i'm highly fond of some of the wildlife that become more visible with the rising temperatures (lizards), i really could do without mosquitos the size of my fist and palmetto bugs.

what's this? you've never heard of a palmetto bug? consider yourself lucky. sure, to newcomers they sound like some cute little fuzzy caterpillar or something- an adorable state bug- something to show a little state pride. however, palmetto bugs aren't the cute, fuzzy little six legged mascots you might imagine. oh, no sirree...

a palmetto bug is a roach the size of a freakin' buick.

we're talking a couple of cans of raid max here, folks.

these beasts come out as soon as the weather warms up, and heaven help you if you have a gap between the bottom of your front door and the ground, because not only will the little suckers barge right in, but they'll bring friends.

oh, and it gets even better. not only do they invite their friends into your home without asking and try to eat any food you may have laying around, but they can fly, too!

....which, come to think of it, might explain the levitating trucker hat i saw out of the corner of my eye last night.

*the performance, not the trucker hats, though i appreciated the fact that most of them looked like they were relatively clean.

i'm (not) lovin' it (so much)

dear disgruntled mcdonald's employee,

you may not remember me, but i certainly remember you. it's good to see that mcdonald's is an equal opportunity employer, willing to hire even sullen employees too busy checking the stability of their lee press on nails to worry about little things like actually giving me the condiments i actually requested, rather than substituting in whatever you think i should have.

given the late hour, i'm more than willing to cut you some slack. i mean, at 11 at night, i might confuse buffalo sauce (bright orange) with chipotle barbecue (mahogany), but let's keep any personal opinions about my waistline out of this. i mean, i like the balsamic vinaigrette as much as the next girl, but dammit, i wanted my full-o-fat (and pepper) italian dressing to add that certain special, artery clogging, je ne sais quois to my side salad.

despite the fact that you were obviously not lovin' it this evening, i'll continue to support my stock and stuff myself full of greasy fries at your place of work. however, if you screw my order up again, rest assured that you'll wind up smelling like balsamic vinaigrette for at least a week.

sincerely,
~duff

what's my age again?

i have shamelessly stolen this from kal:

You Are 14 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

yep- fourteen sounds about right. i still question authority, get all flustered around cute boys, and i'm still waiting to land in a "c" cup.

goody two shoes

i must be getting old.....or maybe i'm just a little more straight laced than previously thought. there i was, last night, standing around before a shift on another station, and overheard two of my coworkers talking about a "longhorn lemonade", which is apparantly a concoction involving lemonade and vodka.

what does it say about me that the first thing that popped into my head was that it sounded a hell of a lot better if one got rid of the vodka?

there are so many directions i could take on this, but none of them (including throwing in a gratuitous adam ant reference) would be nearly as amusing as


the top ten reasons why i don't drink anymore
1. i still look underage.
2. though drinking makes me incredibly witty and charming (no, really), my mojo is lost as soon as i open my mouth and something inappropriate (words or *cringing* otherwise) flies out.
3. some drinking establishments in south carolina still use minibottles. tell me, would you pay $12 for a long island iced tea?
4. i once woke up spread eagle on my bed (fully clothed, mind you) with a frying pan in my hand turned upside down. the only situation i can think of that could possibly be more unsettling than that would be rolling over and discovering that you've just spent the night with a 500 pound black bear*.....which appears to be foaming at the mouth the more you look at it, though hopefully, that's just a trick of the light.
5. tequila's totally off limits, due to a rather unholy concoction i once had in college involving it and jello, which i rather liked at the time (or so they tell me), but did not like a couple hours later (so they tell me).**
6. the one and only time i had absolut vodka, i didn't realize (since i was never a huge drinker) that the shots i was consuming were, in fact, doubles, and i'd downed 6, not 5, of them in a relatively short time. from what i understand, this led to me being deposited back at home and waking up roughly six hours later a la #4.
7. beer tastes even worse the second time around.
8. seriously, dude- an upside down frying pan. did i plan on making a grilled cheese sandwich as soon as i woke up, or what?
9. i have a hard enough time getting out of the bed in the morning as is- just the mere mention of the word "hangover" makes my head pound.
10. i'm too klutzy to dance on a table with a lampshade on my head....which i may or may not have already proven at some point during my college career.***

*oh, i thought about coming up with a way to work in "that's not what they mean about "hair of the dog", is it?", but that would be just plain wrong.
**jello's off limits, too. i don't care how sick i am- i'm never touching that stuff again.
***i guess i'll find out for sure at some point when i'm rich and famous and rather embarrassing photos of myself wind up on the front page of weekly world news, right next to the human/black bear hybrid that bears (oops- sorry about that) a strange resemblance to elvis.