i'll tell you what i want, what i really, really want

* the new joss stone album

* a decent back massage

* the sort of derriere that will look so absolutely fantastic in a bikini when i'm in florida in a few days that guys who behold the glory of my butt actually get smacked for looking

i figure i can take care of one of the above at best buy later on today.....perhaps two, if i can find an attractive employee of age and talk him into it.

sadly, at this point, i fear my butt may be a lost cause.

i can't remember whether or not i've already told you about the upcoming florida trip. my bosses are taking the entire practice to hollywood, florida, for a conference.  this is their third major trip this year, and i've babysat the kids in their absence the last two times, so i was a little surprised when i was asked if i wanted to come along and watch the kids while everyone else is in meetings and whatnot. (i had to think about it for a whopping three seconds.)

to prepare for the trip (and, more importantly, the 9-hour car ride down to florida), i'm adding more music to my laptop (which, of course, will be coming with me) and my ipod.

the first spice girls cd was the first thing ripped into my computer, and i'm feeling a bit old. i mean, did you realize that it's been eleven years since we first pondered the wisdom of "if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends"? (for the record, i'm still wondering about that one. i mean, do you really need your friends to "test the waters", as it were? i'm afraid i just don't share that well.)

speaking of love, lust and everything in between, a rather interesting dating site was recently pointed out to me.

while this isn't the first unusual dating site i've come across, it's surely one of the better ones, topping even this, which i seriously considered as a means of alternate income for a short time.

wait- make that present tense. the income from one imaginary relationship could be enough to purchase a bikini that would make my butt look fabulous, wouldn't it?

something in the air....

is there anything that can even remotely compare to getting stuck behind an 18-wheeler full of livestock for a prolonged period of time? i'd just like to thank the little old man in the buick from georgia who was puttering down I-20 around 10:00 this morning for allowing me to experience this thrill for the first time in months.

actually, i had a pretty good day, aside from the morning commute, cranky boss (this is why i'm so glad i don't have to take anything besides my pre-dental antibiotic. i'm thinking alice in wonderland had it about right- when you pop pills, you never can be fully sure how they're going to affect you, can you?), and this evening's polar bear club experience.

yeah- you read that right. my trusty sidekick and i thought a dip in the jacuzzi might be nice after a few minutes of hard trampoline jumping. too bad we didn't check the temperature of the water before shimmying into our bikinis. while 70 might be considered "hot" in the northeast, i found myself feeling a little too.....perky for my own good.

but, hey- at least we weren't surrounded by livestock, right?

uh-oh...we've got a bleeder!

as i write this, i am losing huge amounts of blood.

it seems that, while people might like me (i received several random compliments over the past few days- enough to make me wonder if

a. i should buy a lottery ticket and/or

b. the world is going to come to an end tomorrow),

the cheaply made "valu-pak" coupon envelope does not.

i hope SO doesn't mind if the blood spurting out of my right index finger shorts out his keyboard, because i think there's a possibility of such a tragedy.... especially if i ramble on too long.

a little post-st. pat's bathroom humor

*though it was hard to see the humor while doing the "pee pee dance"

st. patrick's day is a huge affair in most college towns, and little ol' columbia, south carolina, is no exception.

for the past 25 years, five points (near the usc campus) has been the place to celebrate with a parade, live music, and the traditional green beer. i braved the crowds six years ago, when i worked at the classic rock station in town and wound up onstage with the other part-timers to introduce a local band.*

i am still feeling the festive spirit six years later, and consequently i haven't made my way to the celebration since.

this st. patrick's day, i worked a few hours at the radio station, played tennis for a couple of hours, and then SO and i spent the afternoon/evening together. in addition to lunch at quizno's, $200 worth of grocery shopping, and another $130 at vickie's (during my recent spring cleaning, it became apparent that i needed to purchase a few new dainty underthings.....besides, i had a coupon.), we managed to take in not one, but two movies.

in between flicks, i found myself regretting being what our friends scott and karen would call "well-hydrated". remembering that last weekend the women's facilities at our neighborhood movie theatre were out of order (which makes me wonder how many people had to get overzealous with the toilet paper to completely shut down our private 18 hole sanctuary), i was a wee** bit nervous about my situation.

while i was thrilled to see the "restroom closed" signs had been removed from the women's restroom, i was also surprised to see that new signs had been tacked up both on and next to the door.

it seems that someone, in their great wisdom, decided that it would be a good idea to have a little gender-bending fun in the movie theatre. suddenly, the men were using the women's restroom, and the women were using the men's. all things being equal, there probably wouldn't have been a problem. however, when it comes to such facilities, all things are very rarely, if ever equal.
you know how there are often lines in women's restrooms, yet the men's restrooms are wait-free? i can't remember whether or not i posted about that particular phenomenon after finding myself sneaking into a men's restroom in a bar back in december.....but if i didn't, i should have.
anyway, since there's always a line for the women's restroom, but never the men's, you would think that if rooms were swapped, the line would be diminished, if not disappearing completely, right?

wrong.

the einstein who concocted this cockamamie plan forgot to take into account the inability of most women to sidle up to a urinal and let fly, preferably without getting their knees and/or ankles wet. furthermore, i'm not sure how many guys are open to sharing bodily waste receptacles, but somehow we went from having 18 seats to having six, plus a whole wall of "standing room only".
however, as i understand it, things could have been worse. back at the st. patrick's day festivities in five points, not only did one have to pay $10 to enjoy the music and crowds, but the port-a-pots were roped off, and the only way to gain entry was to pay a $5 fee. alternately, you could pay a $2 or $3 cover charge to get into one of five points' many drinking establishments, which would entitle you to use their facilities for the low, low price of "free".

when i was told about all of this, i pointed out that even in the pay toilets in europe, one does not have to shell out $5 to take a whiz.that said, i would be interested to know how much money was brought in with the "pee fee". i mean, a college town filled with drunken revelers who no doubt had to "break the seal" sooner or later....had i thought of that deviously brilliant plan, i'd have enough money to fly to europe just to pee.

*please note: that was my first and last time onstage in public as a "radio personality". in addition to the introduction of the band, we threw out souvenir t shirts and various other trinkets. as i understand it, i managed not to seriously injure anyone with my spectacular aim, though one guy appeared to take a guitar pick in the left eye. thankfully, he wasn't exactly burdened by sobriety at the time.

**ha! bet you thought i'd be able to resist that one.

thank you, sir- may i have another?

i was going to post about my attempts to reconstitute the petrified raisins i found this morning into something that wouldn't chip my teeth by adding extra water to my oatmeal and hoping they'd soak it all up, but then i noticed the date and realized i have more important things to talk about, like

a. daddy's 61st birthday, which is today and

b. the holiday at hand.

since daddy doesn't generally wander over here, i figure a passing mention is enough (besides, i'll call him and undoubtedly wake him up in about an hour.), which leaves me plenty of room to reminisce about past st. patrick's days.

actually, one in particular comes to mind.sadly, i can't quite recall whether it was my third or fourth year of college, though not for the reasons you might think.

st. patrick's day in my college town was always a big deal. i actually had friends who would select their courses for the semester based on whether or not they would be able to make it to "the world's shortest st. patrick' day parade".* i mean, heaven forbid they miss out on the yard-long "bones" full of green beer.

*i've never quite believed that claim. our parade lasted about a block, starting in front of the "world famous outback" (another somewhat dubious claim, as i have never run into anyone outside of maryville who said, "wow- you used to go to the world-famous outback? i'm soooo jealous.") and ending in front of the palms, site of kdlx's st. patrick's day festivities......and coincidentally the setting of this story. i'm sure somewhere, most likely in another small college town, someone has figured out how to drive "ms. (whatever the heck small town pagent they offer)" from one side of the street to the other, qualifying their queue as "the world's shortest st. patrick's day parade". but, hey- what do i know, right?

but i digress.....

so anyway, back to the year in question, which i'm thinking was my last year of school, because i know i was ready and willing to pull out my i.d. at the drop of a hat, and i wasn't quite legal when st. patrick's day 1999 rolled around.

that's really neither here nor there, as it wouldn't really have mattered.

a few months earlier (and i don't really recall for pretty much the reasons you'd expect, thank goodness), i found myself at a party thrown by a friend i'd known for pretty much my entire college career. at his last party, yours truly got spectacularly drunk (so they tell me) and wound up horking her guts out, though i'm not exactly sure where this happened, aside from the spare bedroom, which was pointed out to me at this second party. (i believe it was somewhere along the lines of, "and then you just rolled over on the futon and do you see that pink mark? that was you." greeeeeeeeeat.)

so, basically, to gain entry to this fiesta, i had to solemnly swear that nothing more substantial than words would come flying out of my mouth.

did i mention that i started drinking again around the time of this party? as a general rule of thumb, any time i really overindulged in college, particularly when i wound up unable to recall a large portion of the evening, i would quit drinking for an extended period. i believe i abstained for about six months between the two parties, and my return to the liquor cabinet was extremely short-lived, as at this second party i overindulged just a wee bit.**

i could recall the drive to "the world famous outback" from the party, and while i didn't have any additional beverages at the bar, i think the multiple double shots of absolut citron may have perhaps caught up to me, as i do not recall the drive back to the party afterwards.***

nor do i recall decorating the front yard with my dinner, lunch, and possibly a snack or two.
i do, however, remember waking up the next morning in an exceptionally unsettled state, perhaps because i was fully clothed (not unusual- my clothes stay on when i'm drunk), spread eagled on my floor with a frying pan in my hand....upside down.

yeah- that was an 8am call mama will not soon forget.

oh- and did i mention that the only other roommate home that weekend was not talking to me, for reasons i didn't understand? i mean, we were never bosom buddies or anything like that, but for some reason she was ultra bitchy to me, and as can often happen with females, the recipient of such bitchiness is left wondering what the heck they did to deserve such treatment.

interestingly enough, it was literally months before i found out the reason.

it seems, in addition to not recalling the drive to the party from the bar nor my skilled exterior decoration efforts afterwards, i also do not recall being loaded into someone's car, driven home, and yelling while my chauffers pounded on the door to wake up said roommate because i'd forgotten to point out before we pulled out of the party host's driveway that my house keys were in my car and my car keys were in my hand. (or pocket, or wherever i may have had them.)

never mind that i had to let my less-than sober rommates back into the house on occasion- because i had inconvenienced this particular roommate, she didn't speak to me for months.(and people wonder why i refuse to have female roommates again......go figure.)

anyway, after the frying pan incident, i quit drinking for a year, which wound up including the st. patrick's day in question.

st. patrick's day in maryville was always full of drunken debauchery, and this particular year was a slight exception only because extra dea agents were in town to cut down on underage alcohol-induced merriment. a few of the agents were in uniform, but most of them were dressed to blend in with the revelers.

as i headed back outdoors from the bar, where i'd just gotten my cup of water refilled, i was stopped by a relatively (well, perhaps if i'd been drinking something a little stronger) good looking guy who asked to see my i.d.

yep- carded for water on st. patrick's day. if there was ever any doubt that i was a wild child, that alone should clear things up.

**and the award for "understatement of the year" goes to..........

***which would be why i'm always the designated driver these days. i have not driven under the influence since that evening, and i refuse to let anyone else i know make a drive they don't remember.

i miss my mind the most

things i've lost recently, undoubtedly because they weren't attached

1. my ipod charging cord thing (yes, that's a technical term)
2. the incredibly stylish case in which i keep said cord, plus spare ipod skin, headphones, and occasionally even the ipod itself
3. your number, which is why i haven't called
4. the list of cds i need to take to work
5. my favorite pair of underwear. (all right- who's the fetishist who raided my drawers?)
6. my butch walker cd. actualy, i know it's around here somewhere, but given the current disarray of my cds collection, i'm afraid i haven't the faintest idea which pile it's in.
7. the case to zoolander. i think SO's hiding it, because he knows that once the case and dvd are reunited, i plan on adding the film to my dvd collection, leaving a gap in his.
8. the love boat theme song.....which, i am proud to report, has not been in my head since last night. i am also proud to report that its replacement, "gravity" by john mayer, is a vast improvement.

exciting and new.....

i've been meaning to post, but i've been too busy putting in extra hours at work to sit down and come up with anything worth reading.

not that i'm saying that this post is necessarily worth reading, but i need to share the agony with you......

the theme song to "the love boat" has been stuck in my head for the past hour and a half. i have been unable to chase it out with the cult, alice cooper, butch walker, and even the highly infectious "humpty dance".

if you see on the internet that i've gone berserk, painted myself blue, and started picking off sea captains in charleston harbor, i assure you that it's all whoever sings this godforsaken song's fault.

not afraid to sing the wrong words at the top of my lungs....

....assuming i'm the only one in the car.

last night, while driving home from my weekly babysitting gig, i was too lazy to dig out my ipod and plug it in so i could listen to butch walkers "hot girls in good moods" (a song with which i am ever so slightly obsessed, as SO can attest, after being forced to listen to it no fewer than five times during the drive to see the blue man group thursday night....but i digress.), so i wound up flipping through the dial and landing on my favorite mostly-80s station.

a blast from the past came on, and i felt compelled to sing along....

i can see it in your walk
tell it when you talk
see it in everything you do
even in your talk

you know, i've never understood why jordan felt the need to mention the talking thing twice, but no one ever accused the new kids on the block of being master songwriters. (yes, i realize most of their hits were penned by hired help, but when i was young and obsessed, i was a wee bit naive. heck- i thought the fab five actually read my fan letter, the only portion of which i can actually remember was a line about how instead of wearing belts, i wore sashes. i'm still wondering why none of the guys- not even danny, who surely you agree looked like a monkey- ever showed up at my house to sweep me off my feet.)

however, it hit me last night, after- when did the hangin' tough album come out? 1988? 1989? egads- were that song a child, it'd be applying to colleges right now- when did i get so old?- eighteen or so years, i guess, that the second "talk" is supposed to be "thoughts".

so there ya go- my shameful secret:

i wore sashes.