Grab the day by the pink panties.

Yesterday I decided since I was in an "off" mood, the weather was bi-polar and my steam iron broke, I would pull myself together, wear my favorite panties, and just go get it! (the day I mean).

Well, here's how that turned out. I had to redo a lamp shade twice(I make lamp shades for a living if you don't know that), I received multiple texts from someone who I had canceled out of my life for good reason over a year ago, and I a ran into a girl on the street who the last time I saw her, she basically insulted me for half an hour over a coffee I bought her!

When you are feeling fragile and sensitive, the littlest things can seem huge. Yesterday when I got those "little texts", they sent me into this wretched freak-out attack, making me question if I was still "back there", or if this person would turn into a crazy stalker/killer and come and get me while I would be redoing this shade for the 4th time late that night. Today, having erased all those stupid texts, I realize that no one can come into your life if you don't want them to. They can text or call, maybe show up at your door. But you can, erase, not answer and slam that door in their face and go back to watching 30 Rock on your sofa, "eating my night cheese!", thank YOU, Liz Lemon. Sure they can pop back up when you least expect or want them to, but they don't get to take up any more space in your head then you allow.

That girl on the street? Well, she seems to have forgotten that last time I saw her she had left her manners, charm and common courtesy at home with her wallet, but it was classy and kind of me to buy her that cup of coffee, and it was absolutely RIGHT of me to not spend any more energy on someone like that. I have plenty of friends who deserve a good cup or charitable coffee that would spend that half hour sipping it and telling me jokes, witticisms, or just chatting pleasantly with me and appreciating the time spent together. I will continue spending $3.75(Seattlites will pay up to $8.50 for a cup of Joe, it's a sickness), and 30 min. with them. Done.

The lamp shade? Well, since my iron is still broke, and the new one hasn't arrived from the magical Amazon truck yet, I have a slight reprieve. I think I will use this time to hunt online for more pink panties, wearing them on days I don't feel "off" seems like a plan.

2:16 AM

I'm not a great sleeper. Ok, actually, I am horrible at it. Always have been. I read that people with insomnia are cheaters. Well, I've never been good at it, I haven't a clue who or what I was cheating on when I was 7...I'm pretty sure it is a biological flaw, not a character one.

You see, I am tired at all the wrong times. 3 in the afternoon, Sunday brunch hour, 8pm at night. That's what happened last night. I was falling asleep at 9:30 and had I forced myself to stay awake, read a book, watch Beetlejuice(again), it wouldn't have made me drift off perfect and peaceful come midnight. I would have stayed fixed on that book till "the end". I would have put in Edward Scissor-Hands after the credits rolled naming Michael Keaton in his(as far as I'm concerned)best role. I just do NOT sleep.

When I get to sleep, its either a strange and disturbing nightmare, a simple sound not expected, or the slight shift of my dog at the foot of the bed that wakes me, then the vicious cycle starts all over. I wish I could say I did something constructive with all the extra waking hours, but for the most part they are spent lying there in the dark thinking thoughts not allowed in daylight hours; "what if it doesn't stay this busy at the shop?", "did they mean it when they said that?", "is that spot on my arm cancer?"...it gets more creatively horrible from there.

So tonight, when I fell blissfully asleep at 10:49, I was due to awake with a start at 1:38. I laid there for 12minutes and then decided to just finish reading the latest Esquire, take(another)bath, write a blog, check my email, and then watch the damn Beetlejuice dvd again. (Dear Netflix, I don't care that I will never get to watch anything new, you are never getting this movie back).

I will go to work tomorrow, probably 2 hours early as always since I will wake at 7:34 and the shop actually opens at 10. I will make a bunch of lampshades, I will drink too much coffee, and I will inevitably be ready for sleep come 3pm. But at least with this ruined night I did something...productive; I took a bath.

Phone looses fight to a 5lb Squirrel

See this picture? Looks pretty innocent right? WRONG! This little guy is my pet Papillion(read Mogwai:no getting him wet, no food after midnight, etc. ), and he is a real nuisance!
Okay, okay, that is a little harsh. Here is what happened:
I am taking a bath, my phone is on a little table by the bath so I can answer when my Mom undoubtedly will call on her way home from work. Also, because I have a compulsory need to check what time it is and I think a watch will knock my look. Anyway. I am reading the Tina Fey article in this month's issue of Esquire, and my dog (if you can call something that weighs less than 6lbs a dog), runs into the bathroom, jumps up ONTO the table and "plonk"! there goes my phone into the bath!
I fish it out and do my best attempt of drying it off, taking the battery out and flailing it around trying to shake out all the mint and cucumber smelling water out. I grab a towel and as I am drying the screen off I see it gray out and flicker. Oh, shit. "DOG!!!" I now start yelling "Nikki!" as if he either cares or will change his evil ways of jumping up where he doesn't belong. He runs back into the bathroom, tongue out, smiling and looking up at me with this proud expression that says, "yes? did you call cute little me? I was just out in the living room wrangling your hair pins into bent shapes that will no longer hold hair. That and hiding your favorite bra from you".
As I look down at his pea-brain head I realize that this isn't just a phone to me. This is so much more. Here's a look at what my cell phone does for me on a daily basis:

1. clock. I look at it to determine time, how much time has passed, how much time I have left, etc.
2. calendar. I put all my appointments in this little piece of plastic with timers that go off to alert me when a meeting is, who its with, etc.
3. alarm clock. For when I was out till 3am and have to wake up at 7am. Yes, I still do this to myself on occasion. Not because I am young, but because I am to stubborn and too stupid to learn.
4. texting. Oh texting! My favorite way of communicating! You can relay info, send witticisms, flirt, all without a 8 minute preamble over the phone about "so, how are you lately...".
5. making phone calls. Yep. It does that too!

With all this said, can you imagine my panic when I realized I would be without all of this for a whole night until Verizon opened at 9am? Where is my xanax!?!

As it turns out, when I woke up this morning(at 9:15 because I couldn't set an alarm), I put the battery back in and the damn thing works. I immediately apologized to Nikki, though he could care less and had totally forgotten he was on my #@$% list anyway, and I said a big thank you to the brilliant makers of LG phones! You made a durable little piece of technology folks! You can be proud! Now I must go, I can tell by my phone I have wasted 12 minutes telling you all this.

R.I.P. Here lies a girl who smoked, drank, and wore high heels.

To say that I am sore, would be putting it far too gently. Muscles feel like fire is consuming them from the inside out, hell's demons are pinching and stretching my tiniest nerves, blocks of my body are severed from any kind of "normal range of movement". And this is supposed to be good for me?!?!
That's right folks, I have-for the very first time- decide to get physical. Sure I have danced and done pilates. Sure I have done hot yoga and body balancing. But ran? Done cardio? Aerobic activity other than what happens in the bedroom? Hells NO. In fact, while I was running and crunching and sitting-uping I overheard a woman say, "I haven't worked out this hard since high school". I flick her a sideways glance and countered with, "I have NEVER worked out this hard. I did THEATER in high school!!!!!". Sad folks. Pretty sad.
But what do you expect? I'm the girl who is 5'11" except in the shower. I should have my 5" heels surgically attached to my feet except I like variation in my heel choices. I had to go out and BUY a pair of shoes with laces just to make this happen! Also, I do NOT run. I just DO NOT. The crunches and sit-ups and leg raises are no problem, but running? In circles? Up hills? To me, I feel it is completely foreign. I have one pace- saunter. Okay, two paces, when I'm on pavement: strut. That is it!!!
Well, I guess what it comes down to is, I am hoping to be the hottest corpse in the cemetery. Because there is NO way, I will survive 10 weeks of this.

Cops and Criminals

Thursday morning came bright and twinkling with the smell of cherry blossoms and magic newness! Awakened early by my alarm clock, I was ready and out the door by 8:00. My drive to the shop I own was just delightful! Tangerine and coral clouds clustered in small flocks in the sky, just enough to catch the first glorious rays of sun cascading over the mountains. Ahhhh...what a fine day to live in Seattle!
-----whew! WHEW! WHEW!----blaring, beeping sirens jolt me from my happy reverie. A cop car flips a bitch(U-turn in the middle of the street) and pulls up behind me. Lights blaring, an unnatural neon blue and strident red. I pull over as the sweating po-po gets out of his vehicle. Why are they always sweating? His car is a 2010, I'm sure it comes with A/C, plus it's 8am on a March morning, roll down the window it's sunny but freeeeezing out!
Up saunters the cop-one arm at his right hip, directly above his hand gun. Let's not forget to let this little lady in her friend's 1998 Subaru know where she stands, right lawman! My window rolled down, he asks for the requisite documents. I abide. He saunters back to the car, I flip around in my seat ready to yell "what did you stop me for mutha fucka!?", but he is already sweating and computering in his car.
When he returns, he tells me that the reason he pulled me over is because I had my dog on my lap while I was driving. And here is a $124.00 ticket.

My 4.6lb dog was curled up on my lap while I was driving on a sunny Thursday morning with no traffic, not on my cell phone, and wearing my seat belt going 25 mi. an hour.

Your right. What a hazard!!! Here is where I slooooowly take off my sunglasses take the green carbon copy from him and slooooooowly look back up at him and say "you will NEVER see a cent of this money". Here ensues a conversation which proceeds with him calling me "mam" at every opportunity like I am his 83 year old aunt, and me telling him: there is, to be sure, a judge at the King County Courthouse that would no doubt agree with me that there are FAR better ways for him to be spending his time. I spare him the long list of petty and not so petty crimes perpetrated against myself and/or my friends that perhaps had he been patrolling for actual evil doers as opposed to say, stopping a girl in a Subaru on a sunny morning for her dog sitting on her lap- her less-than-a bag of sugar-weighing dog, would never have happened.

I flick the ticket across to the passenger seat and then with a wave of my hand and a quick replacement of my sun glasses I tell him, "carry on!". As he looks at me in shock, I drive off thinking two things: will he follow me and beat me down with his baton for not showing his "authority" proper respect? And, while he makes an illegal u-turn while talking into his radio and flipping on his lights and sirens, isn't he far more distracted than I am?

Dear Seattle P.D., yet again you have astounded me with your acute sense of right and wrong and your can-do attitude when it comes to thwarting every last effort on the part of us criminals and lawbreakers. Well done! I think I can say with confidence, thank you for making Seattle such a safe place to live!

Heart!

When we are young, we ask ourselves "what do we want to be when we grow up?". I had so many answers for that question;
age 8 an oceanographer and marine biologist
age12 a chef, as well as a food photographer
age 14-17 a comedian
age 19 a race car driver
age 21 a landscape architect
age 23 a fashionista
age 26 Ann Wilson.

Yes folks, after much deliberation I have decided I want, NEED, to be young Ann Wilson- lead singer of Heart.

I need 3 things to complete my dream:

1. a rockin' bad ass amazing singing voice- check!
2. big threatening glorious hair- workin' on it!
3. cool. Dammit!

That's the one thing in my way! In fact it's the very same reason I'm not an awesome chef-marine biologist-comedic-architect: no cool. I just am NOT cool. I don't have the mystique. Something to do with the fact that I wasn't neglected or abused enough as a child(damn you mom and dad for giving me a good childhood!!!!), and the fact that I will always choose goldfish crackers over cocaine. Dangit.

Well, if I can't be Ann Wilson, I guess I will be happy being me: the lamp shade making, little dog owning, cheese craker eating, me.

Paying for sex is not the same as paying for someone to paint your nails.

Paying for sex is completely different than paying for someone to paint your fingernails.

Let's look at the top 10 reasons this is true:

1. there is no manicure pimp, sometimes there is a little Korean boy working the cash register.
2. sanitizing of the equipment is key in a nail salon and regulated by the board of health. The $20 tranny you picked up north of 87th, not so regulated.
3. Prostitutes don't take visa or mastercard. Nail salons won't take personal checks.
4. You can sit with your feet in peppermint scented hot water and have your feet scrubbed and a polish change for about $15. I hear you have to pay a prostitute $150 to do the same thing.
5. First thing a manicurist says to you when you walk in: "pick your color". First thing a prostitute says: "unzip"
6. Manicurists take your money after the service and if you mess up a nail, they fix it for free! Prostitutes take your money before service and if your not happy they send their pimp after you.
7. Manicurists take pride in their work. Prostitutes don't really care either way.
8. Manicurists have salons to go to, Prostitutes can point you to the nearest Holiday Inn or back of a van. (same thing really, but check out goes faster at the van).
9. Manicurists have pictures of their babies and family around their station. Prostitutes have tattoos of Looney Toon characters on their lower backs.
10. Prostitutes is spelled completely different than manicurist.

These are just some of the reasons paying for sex is not the same as paying to have your nails done. Happy thought of the day: I don't do either of these things for a living!

Dear Craigslist, You Lie!

Alone on a couch last night, approaching the midnight hour, I decided to watch a scary movie. That was a mistake. I am neither as brave or as secure in the dead bolt stability on the front door as I thought. That said, it seems a merry and snugly feeling to what I am enduring this morning: apartment hunting.

Oh yes. The apartment hunt. What horrors of horrors you expect to find are nothing in comparison to the reality of the beautiful craigslist post becoming a stained carpet-no water pressure-one window-nightmare. And that smell! What is that? Craigslist should have a search option much like the sort by price button, but it should be: sort by smell. The last place was an infusion of 500 cats and cigarettes dipped in teriyaki sauce. Oh. Dear. God.

Dear apartment gods, here is my short list of what I am searching for, if it isn't asking too much, thank you:

1. NO carpet. Is it unreasonable to not want my bare feet touching the grisly gray filth soaked carpet that has been through 34 tenants? I don't care that is has been steam cleaned with a dirt devil- I would rather have the most scratched and abused hardwood floors-1970's vinyl even- than you, nasty carpet.

2. A clean-mildew-mold free shower/bath. With enough water pressure and a big enough hot water tank to shower without it feeling like I answered an add in the Stranger for someone to pee on me.

3. a two bedroom unit that costs under $1,400.00. We do not live in London, Manhattan, Tokyo or Dubai. We don't have a fully functioning public transportation system or even a night life that goes later than 2am, believe me Seattle, you are lucky to get $950 for a 2 bedroom!

My list goes on; a claw foot tub, a dishwasher, w/d in unit, high ceilings, etc. But really, these three requirements are my only non negotiables. Heck, I'm willing to live above a really bad thai restaurant and smell the ketchupy pad thai they make every morning! (though living above a good thai restaurant and smelling their panang curry every night would be ideal...).

Well, as for now, the search continues. The good side: a sparkling wood floored-vaulted-ceilinged-directly facing Volunteer Park-refinished bathroom-$1,200/month miracle could still be out there waiting for me... I will find you my love! I will find you and never ever leave you! ...until my landlord raises the rent.

Mother of Invention

Picture if you will, a sweet middle aged woman. Short with graying curly brown hair wearing a pink robe, she stands in her dining room at 8:45 at night: dropping knives onto the floor on purpose. Yes, straight down-point sticking in the vinyl squares she has laid out at her feet. What the...?

This crazy lady is my mother and she is not actually crazy, just trying to decide if the new vinyl she is installing in the kitchen is too soft. This got me thinking about all the seemingly crazy and secretly strange things we do when we are alone. For example; someone I know eats only the patty of a hamburger dipped in tarter sauce and throws the rest away. Weird. Truly. Another unnamed friend taps on her teeth in the mirror and tries to "hear" if they sound brittle or strong. I am guilty of draining the bath tub and then continuing to lay in the empty cooling bath for another 35-40 minutes reading Esquire magazine. Bordering on psycho.

That said, is there anything more self indulgent and relaxing than just being ourselves? To do the things that-in some way or another-we all do, we just don't talk about? Okay, maybe it's weird to put potato chips on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but when my sister and I were 8 and 10 we did just that and enjoyed it openly! In fact, I remember distinctly thinking we were geniuses. This leads me to strange curiosity, not necessity, being the mother of invention in our century.

Exhibit A: the Snuggie. Yeah, you know how many times you have thought "I wish this blanket had sleeves so I could read this book without my forearms getting chilly"? I thought that at least 2.3 million times myself.

Exhibit B: the Spork. In a Pennsylvania kitchen late one night, some dude was like, "dammit! I made this chili con carne too thin for a fork, but a spoon seems not quite right... I wish I had a spoon with little prongs on the end"...viola! Spork!

Exhibit C: Facebook. Someone was tired of internet stalking being so time consuming and so he invented this interweb world where people would willingly put their details and thoughts out there for all to read, enjoy and stalk openly.

As someone who gets a little odd in my off time, thanks to Scott Boilen(manufacturer of Snuggie) and Hyde Ballard-Pennsylvania Spork man, you gents are courageous and much appreciated! No thanks to stalkers and Facebook inventor dude; you have both stole countless hours and liberty from my life. Boo to you.

Where is Connery When You Need Him?

My friend calls me around 2am this morning. I am house sitting for her and watching her two little cats, as the phone chimes I wake with a start-the first thing on my mind; "this better not be a booty call!" *note: who would be calling me for a booty call? I flatter myself.

I turn over my cell phone and see that it is my friend calling me from out of town-something is very wrong.

Turns out, her upstairs neighbor called to tell her that her car window was smashed in the driveway and she was calling me for details. Sadly, folks, I have no knowledge of this as I fell asleep watching the Hunt for Red October around 10:00. I put on some clothes- a haphazard ensemble consisting of a bra, leggings, a trench coat and stiletto heels. This is how the pros do recon in case you were wondering. Plus, part of me is thinking- I can be found dead in an alleyway with no shirt, but I gotta be wearing nice shoes.

Approaching the car with nothing but calm and assurance(read: trepidation and fear of the bogeyman around every corner), I find that indeed the window on the passenger side has been smashed, and by all appearances, not a thing was taken. Here is what Detective Heels deduced:

1. Either this was a pointless crime committed by some bored felon or teenage scoundrel, or:
2. It was a focused attack. Did I mention this was the second time her car window was smashed in a month? Or:
3. An asteroid fell from space and shattered the window but I couldn't detect it's remains amongst the other debris in the driveway.

Let's look at the evidence surrounding each possibility(this is how real detectives, as well as Sean Connery as Captain Ramius would solve this):

1. If it was a pointless crime, why was nothing taken? Where was the threatening note left in cut-up magazine letters? Why were no other windows broken? Aha! Because it was pointless!
2. If it was an evil, bad, nasty focused plot to, over the next few months, break every window one-by-one of my lovely and dear friend's Volkswagen Golf...knock it off crazy town! That poor girl doesn't need to be replacing every window of her cute little car and you should seriously look into getting some help with your projection against German automobiles!
3. The most plausible and obvious explanation is of course the simplest: billions of years ago, a star in the Clancy Nebula exploded, sending particles hurtling through space. One of those particles found itself over the northern hemisphere-exact location: Queen Anne Hill, Seattle, WA. As it entered the atmosphere, it began speeding up to the point where when it hit that beautiful and durable German auto glass, it was with enough velocity to shatter the window and knock a tape out of the tape deck.

Case closed. It is such a relief to know that we live in such a crime free city. Watch out for falling space particles though. Oh dear.

*Katie dear! This is not funny at all really, and I am so sorry this happened to you. We will get this sorted out, and I will keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior. Hugs to you. :(

And on the 8th day...

God ate a reuben sandwich. The end.