Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Don't Get Excited

Don't get excited.
I'm not back.
Well, not officially.

I'm like the "Brett Favre" of blogging....I make an announcement that I'm taking a break, and then all of a sudden I'm *still* making passes for the Vikings.

Go Team

Today is one of those rough days that makes you want to just bury your head under a pile of pillows or in the nearest oven until it's "tomorrow" and you can finally stop stressing and actually ENJOY that cannoli you just ate instead of just stuffing it down your piehole as fast as you can to momentarily forget that you're losing your G-D mind.

It's like you have your rational side. And your rational side KNOWS that hope, in this situation, is silly. Your rational side knows that tomorrow will be a disappointment, and you might as well just get used to it now, because there's no reason to think otherwise.
You think your calm and cool.
You expect the worse.
You know what's coming.

And then it happens.
And your hopes are crushed and mangled to an unrecognizable pulp.
And you're all, WTF, because there wasn't supposed to BE hope. Your rational side took care of that, right? But that emotional side, that sneeky bastard, was hiding hope. You didn't know it was there until it was being repeatedly run over by a Mac truck.

Ouch.

So that's what I'm in for.
I'm on a "Search And Destroy" mission, looking for any signs of hope so I can bludgeon it to death before it can hurt me.
But it never works like that. Hope is elusive. Hope is persistent. And despite my best efforts, Hope is completely uncontrollable.

Tomorrow? Is going to suck.
That hope, wherever it's hidden, is going to be trampled.
Sometimes the anticipation is worse than the pain, like when the nurse is holding your arm and is about to put the needle in, and you're all NO NO NO NO NO, but then it's in and, well, that wasn't so bad, was it?
Today, I'm anticipating tomorrow's pain. I'm all, NO NO NO NO NO, but there's nothing I can do to stop it.

So I blog, maybe to ease the pain a bit.
Lord knows the cannoli didn't work.

Monday, August 16, 2010

A Brief Respite

Okay.
So I write....and then I don't write.
For weeks, I don't write.
I lose a follower, and then another.
I feel bad about myself.
I eat gallons of ice cream and drag lipstick in large circles across my face while screaming "be pretty...be pretty!!!"



Okay...
That's an exaggeration.

But I DO feel bad. And I certainly didn't start bloging to make myself feel any worse than I already do.
(Anyone with a vagina knows that women are pretty good at making themselves feel like crap WITHOUT additional "blog guilt")

So I'm taking a break.
A simple-enough fix, I suppose.

I doubt it'll be a permanant break. More like a hiatus of sorts.
I'll refresh my writing.
I'll chant and meditate and wave smoking sticks of insense around the house until I feel ready to contribute quality posts to this blog again.
And in the meantime, you won't have to suffer the injustice of a crappy blog post (well, those of you who are left, that is).

I'll miss you all terribly.
I'll miss writing, those few times per month when I'm actually inclined to do so.

But I won't miss the guilt, and I wont' miss the lipstick (the ice cream, on the other hand, will be a source of grief for many nights to come)


Goodbye for now...

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Shark Week

Well.
Another year, another Shark Week has come and gone, taking a piece of my heart with it.
Truly a glorious time - I love me some shark-on-seal action.
Need I remind you about last year's love-fest with sharks?


However.



Is it just me, or are they showing pretty much the same thing year after year?
I came across this funny comic.
For those of you lazy bastards who can't be bothered to click the link, the author sums up the following Shark Week programs:

Ultimate Air Jaws: Sharks can jump out of the water. It's the same thing you've seen the past 8 years, only different angles
Into The Shark Bite: Sharks bite really effing hard. Don't get bitten
Shark Attack Survival Guide: If you don't have a shotgun, punch the shark in the nose. If you're not prepared to die, don't get in the ocean
Day Of The Shark 3: Every single day is Day of the Shark. This is about 6 dumbasses that sharks mistook for food
Shark Bite Beach: Really? Shark bite beach? Sharks only bite people because they bleed into teh ocean or try their best to look like seals
Shark Bites: Adventures in Shark Week: Famous guy swims with sharks. He makes jokes. Will only be funny if he is bitten.

Lolz.

Okay, okay, point taken.

Dear Shark Week Executives
Perhaps it's time to admit that your materials are going a bit stale. Might I propose that you change Shark Week to focus on another scary predator-type animal?
Like Bears.
Fact: Bears are one the largest land predators in North America. Like, really, REALLY big. And strong. Especially Polar Bears. That shit is scary. Get on it.
Fact: Grizzly bears will hunt you over hundreds of miles and eat your bleeding African American friend, and you'll only survive if Anthony Hopkins happens to be nearby. I saw "The Edge." That shit was crazy!
Fact: Stephen Colbert hates bears. Which means Republicans hate bears. Which means, by default, Democrats must love bears. Great way to increase your demographic!
Fact: I once saw a video clip of a "tame" grizzly bear maul a reporter. You should put that shit in there.

Obviously, it's time to retire Shark Week for another animal. If not bears, then lions maybe, or something equally toothy and claw-ey.

Or you could just rerun clips from Real Houswives of NY.
Nobody would be able to tell the difference.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Beer-Sponsored Literary Snobbery

*disclaimer: the aforementioned "beer-sponsored" part of this post occurred last night, not while this post was being written, which is a good thing, because it's only 8:30 in the morning. However, it IS 5:00 somewhere. Keep that in mind.

You guys...
TODAY IS THE DAY that I write a funny...or at least worthwhile...blog post.
There has been a lot of crap posting going on here lately.
I do not approve.
However, since I've been the one writing these crap posts, there will be no disciplinary action just yet, unless you count me waking up at 6:00 this morning to see my two male dogs humping each other, in which case, it would appear that I deserved it.

What?

Whatever.

I started drinking last night, in honor of the awesome post I was sure to write today.
I was feeling all, yay, I'm funny and creative again. Let's unwind after dinner and have a lively discussion about interesting things. (which is code for drinking multiple beers and having a heated argument over the most respectible rap artist. Oooh, to be a fly on that wall). So we did argue about rap artists, as only two white middle-class individuals can. Then we moved on to literature.
And that's when I dropped the bomb (compliments of the third bottle of River Horse Brewer's Reserve).

Brian has this.....author. According to wikipedia, he's considered to be "an American adventure novelist" (and those of you who are literary-inclined can already see where I'm going with this). By all accounts he appears to be a very successful novelist, with 17 of his books being on the New York Times best-seller fiction list.
But the thing is....

It's crap.
Like, god-awful, cringe-while-reading-the-first-paragraph crap.
Really bad.
(And seriously, considering most adult readers think that Harry Potter is ground-breaking fiction, any book that hits the best-seller list can probably be read and fully comprehended by an 8th grader).
I tried reading it once, while Brian was out of the house. I read 3 pages of the book, gently put it down, and swore that I'd take my opinions of this author to the grave so as to not disturb the household.
But that stupid third River Horse Brewer's Reserve....apparently it didn't know when to keep it's mouth shut.

So the cat's out of the bag.
Brian is not heartbroken, but I think I've officially been labeled a literary snob, which is just as well, considering I have a B.A. in English. Hell, I'm just glad the degree is starting to pay off. I might have spent 4 years wasting money on classes that have little to no application to the real world, but at least I can recognize a phony writer a mile away.
At any rate, after much discussion, we've decided that Brian will continue to read his "author," and I will continue to smile falsely when he talks about him, if only for the sake of the dogs.

Oh well...I guess it could be worse.
He could be reading the Twilight trilogy
*GAG*

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Nonesense

I have no topic for this post.
I'm supposed to be writing about glioblastoma, because honestly, what could be more fun than talking about brain tumors?!?
But I'm not ready yet - the ole' noodle isn't working at full capacity...which is a symptom of brain glioblastoma and OMG MAYBE I HAVE A BRAIN TUMOR!
That's the problem with medical writing.
If you weren't a hypochondriac before, writing about diseases all day will certainly make you one. For instance, at one point, I was convinced that I had prostate cancer.
I rest my case.

In other news, I tried mountain biking the other day.
I also kicked ass at it like nobody who has ever mountain biked before.
Okay...that might be an exaggeration. But for my first time out, I was damn good.
When we were finished, after almost 4 hours on the trail, Brian confessed that he was shocked.
"I would have bet money," he said to me, "that you were going to fall or just get scared within the first 10 minutes and insist on turning around."
HAH.
Well....okay....the first few minutes were a little "poop-your-pants" scary. But then you realize that your bike is MADE for this shit, and as long as you don't lose control completely, chances are, you'll be okay.
So I kept riding, managed not to soil myself, and before you know it I was catching some air and generally having a good time, except for that one point where I may or may not have seen my ex whiz by in a group of 8 mountain biking dudes.
*shiver
I hope I was mistaken, because that would be no good, people. no good at all. However, when we were togethere, there weren't 8 people in the world who liked him (including his parents), let alone 8 guys who would have liked him enough to go mountain biking with him, so I have my doubts.
On the other hand, they're doing amazing things with antipsychotics these days, so maybe?
I dunno.
Bottom line is, if we get into a head-on crash on the trail, I'll just have him arrested for breaking the rules of my restraining order
:-)

So I've got a big week coming up.
Brian's brother comes back from Afghanistan for a 3-week visit on Thursday, and then Brian's birthday is on Friday. So there should be much celebrating and good times to be had. And I WISH I could tell you guys about the awesome-sauce present I got for Brian, but I can't risk him reading this blog before his birthday and ruining the surprise.
All I'm going to say is that there's a good chance I might win Wife Of The Year after this one.
Oh yeah...it's a doozie.
So I'll fill you peeps in on that little surprise after Friday.
Until then, I guess it's back to writing about brain tumors.