Friday, February 29, 2008

Arts and farts and crafts.

Sorry, but since they've been talking about it on Armsweat's little slice of blog heaven, I can't get it out of my head. That shit is good.


Takin' it higher and higher!

That's all I really wanted to do: post an image of Christopher Meloni pelvic-thrusting his way through a montage of nothing but comedic gold. The man is an inspiration.

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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Either I have too much time on my hands...

Or I'm trying to avoid work/wedding planning/everything else. Yes, probably that.

I just signed up for that Grand Central business you see in the form of the "Call Me!" button to your right. Apparently, you plug in your phone number, and the system calls you and connects you to my assigned phone number or voice mail. And it's all free. I have yet to get a phone call in this manner; probably because I'm not quite sure whether or not I want to give out the number. But I guess that's part of the charm, since I'm not actually giving out my cell number or anything, just a number I've been assigned.

I think I was just really missing the old audio blog capability and felt like maybe, just maybe, someone will get soused enough to leave me drunken voice mails to post on the blog to be reviewed in later moments of clarity. Drunk dialing a blog? Oh, hell yes. It's starting to feel like college all over again (except without all the vomiting and early morning shame)!

And I see your mouse pointer hovering over the button contemplatively. Give in and call it, already! At the very least, we'll know how the hell this works, and your dulcet tones may be broadcast far and wide! Why am I yelling?

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Friday, February 22, 2008

Another gem from my mother.

Despite the fact that in the past six days, any and all talk of wedding planning has made me want to commit "quality matricide," as Buffy would put it, I have to share just a small thing before I retire for the evening.

Moments ago, I asked my mom what the heck she was still doing up at this hour. She then dutifully informed me that she was watching America's Best Dance Crew. An entire episode. And she had opinions on each crew competing!

"I don't understand why they call them 'dance crews,'" she said. "It's more like calisthenics!"

Oh, the whole thing was too cute; I just had to enjoy.

So kudos to Perla for her cultural immersion! Too bad she'll probably start talking politics to piss me off next.

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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Shiny!

Okay, because I promised, here are a few pictures. I only mananged to salvage a couple from Perla's stellar photo shoot (see entry about my mom vs. electronics), especially because she kept insisting that instead of looking into the camera, we should "Look at the ring! Look at the ring!"


I refuse to call my ring anything even remotely sounding like "My Precious." And yes, I do realize that my intended proposed to me wearing what we call his "Mr. Happy Ass" t-shirt. This may give you a tiny bit of insight as to why I said "Yes!" before he finished asking the question.



Okay, Ma? Knock that "Look at the ring!" shit off already!


And here's the ring close-up. Oh, if I only knew how to really use my camera...

Great. Now everyone's seen my "Rubble Hands," which are similar to what Stumpster calls my "Flintstone Feet."

Here comes a doctor... Back later.

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Friday, February 15, 2008

I still feel like I'm going to barf a little.

Okay, long story short, because I'm exhausted from this day. And I promise I will elaborate and include photos (assuming I can get the auto-focus on the camera right), but I just had to share this with you, dear friends.

Ben asked me to marry him this evening, and I said yes!

Now, I am going to try to sleep. Very little of that happening lately. Wonder why that is?

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Tuesday, February 12, 2008

And now, to celebrate my conceding to Facebook...

And in honor of one particular Tacky Blog Lady from the Tri-State Area, I present to you... Mr. Vartan:

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Please, Hammer, don't hurt 'em.

Carry on, dears. Carry on.

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Monday, February 11, 2008

This is probably how constipation starts in most people.

Today, I was being a dutiful daughter. My mom is going to participate with the church choir again after a year's hiatus, so she has started attending practices for the Easter Vigil mass. It so happens that these practices are on Monday nights, during the same time that Ben and I attend a class nearby. So, it only made sense for us to drop her off at practice, then pick her up after class.

Upon arriving at our drop point, my mother assured us that she would call me if her friend couldn't give her a ride home. I saw this as a moot point, since we would be out of class right around the time her practice would wrap, and I planned on driving her home, anyway. She insisted, however, that if her friend could drive her home, she would call me.

"I'm going to have my phone on 'silent,'" I warned her. "I don't want my phone to ring in the middle of class. I won't know if you've called until I leave the room."

"Well," she started as she got out of the car, "Don't you have a vibrator?"

Dead silence from Ben and me for a good twenty seconds. She continued to stare at me, with little to no affect on her face, waiting for my answer.

I looked in the rearview mirror, back at Ben, who looked as if he was going to either barf, start crying hysterically or pinch off the biggest loaf in the history of loaves.

---Sorry, no image available.---

"What?" was all I could eke out after the never-ending silence.

Now, Perla was getting a tad impatient. "You know," she said as she stood there, "Where instead of ringing, your phone vibrates to let you know you have a call?" This was said, mind you, with all the annoyance of one who is quite aware of such technology. It's quite funny, coming from the woman who is famous for hanging up the cordless phone, then pointing the same at the television in order to change the channel.

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Seriously. You don't want to vex her. She will straight up bitch slap you.

"Oh, yeah," I replied, finally understanding what she really meant. "Sure. I'll have it on 'meeting.'" With that, she shut the car door and headed into her practice.

Within moments, I pulled away from the church to find parking for our class. Ben could hold his hysterics in no longer. I teared up a little from laughter, especially after we thought up some clever things I could (but never would) have said:

  • "Don't I? Who doesn't?!"
  • "Well, Ma, shit, does it really look like I need one at this point?" here, I'd be gesturing back to Ben, who would wave happily.
  • "It's in the shop."
  • "No, I put it in with our other donations to Goodwill."
  • "No, not since you bitched about how high the utility bill was last month!"
  • "Didn't you find it next to the gas mask and bottle of lube when you went through my shit last week?"
  • "Not anymore. Ben's borrowing it. Right now. Give you three guesses as to where it is." Again, I would need his assistance in this scenario. Of course, it would end with "And honestly, at this point, I don't think I really want it back."
Just file this under the new label: Stories to tell the children grandkids absolutely nobody when we're older.

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Friday, February 08, 2008

Dirtbag.

Lately, instead of calling perturbing people fucksticks or douche nozzles (or just "nozzles," for brevity's sake) under my breath, I'm calling them dirtbags. It's just been in the past few days, and I think it's because I can't get the following joke out of my head:

What's the difference between a Harley and a Hoover?
The location of the dirtbag.

Oh, well. It'll probably pass when the word "fucktard" gets back in my good graces, which is probably right after I've called people "dirtbags" twenty times before I clock out today.

Today's going pretty well. It's a slow Friday, which is almost how I prefer them. I'm not running around the office like an idiot trying to put out small fires like I often do on Wednesdays, which is the day all the doctors are here, and everyone's scrambling for room. And air. And sanity. Most of the patients coming in on Fridays are regularly scheduled for treatment on those days, and they're usually all set, just chilling in their chemo chairs, reading, talking on their cells, watching a movie, or sleeping.

Oh yeah, if I've neglected to mention it before, I got a new job last April. The fact that I'm approaching a full year at this "new job" is just crazy. I work for a bunch of oncology/hematology doctors now, and strangely enough, I really, really enjoy this job. I get to interact with patients a lot less than as a therapist, but a whole lot more than when I worked at Eviltown, USA (one of my many pet names for the job before this).

The people I work with are pretty cool, except for one person who has made it her mission in life to make her job seem more important than it actually is; and who, by her actions, makes it less and less meaningful in the process (now, that's some talent). I don't want to waste precious time on her, as it wastes my energies...

Oh, now, here we go. She just walked into my office, sat down next to my desk, and proceeded to stare directly at this screen for fifteen seconds before making up some lame excuse that she was trying to find out what music I was listening to. Oh, so it's not being a nosy, nicotine-soaked idiot who wants to pretend she has any say over me or what I do?

Now I have to cut this post short, before she comes back in here, snoops some more, then reports some tall tale to someone who actually has authority.

Effing dirtbag. I swear.

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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Another lesson.

It's the middle of the week, and things couldn't be going slower. I've got less than three hours left at the office, and it seems like it took forever to get to this very moment...

As I typed the above statement, everything started happening at once. It is now 3:00, and I have an hour left here. In the past two hours, I have helped a patient apply for assistance through two different foundations, started rudimentary plans for starting a food pantry for the patients in our branch office, tried to get prescription authorizations: the usual.

But perhaps the most important thing I did today was listen to a patient's spouse fret over her husband's rapid deterioration. He has cancer, and he now weighs less than his own father did when he succumbed to it. She says he can barely stand now, let alone walk. Her tears are stubborn, like her, but they are there, hovering, waiting.

I look at him and see his mouth scrunched up, the lips curling inwards towards his mouth, as if he is in a perpetual scowl, or waiting for his insides to swallow him up out of existence. He sees my gaze and manages to eke out a small smile. I know it's a smile, because the twinkle in his eyes, although duller, is still there.

Their savings are dwindling; she spends hundreds a month on food, because his appetite fluctuates so greatly that whenever he has a craving for any food at all, she rushes to take advantage of those rare moments. She tells me how she could win an Oscar with the performance she puts up for him. She tries not to let the worry and fear show through on her face, especially when what he puts in his body won't stay there for very long, and he slowly fades.

Moment by moment, he disappears, and disappears, and disappears. She says it's not a matter of how anymore, but when, and she doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed when the next day comes, then the next, then the next.

This sturdy woman, shorter than I, forever clad in muumuus of varying purple shades, always bringing the staff Thank You cards, little deli trays, boxes of candy in gratitude, summarizes her life with her husband: a mix of anticipation and dread, hope and despair, everything and nothing. Their whole life together is no longer defined by who they were when they married, who they grew into when they raised children, or who they became in their careers. Their life is now defined by phone calls to case managers, scheduling scans and appointments, budgeting to afford prescriptions, gas, life. It's about calling the immediate family together to reminisce, to say goodbye without using the actual words. Their life is now about preparing for a future together, different than what they'd planned for before... dreading the time they know will come.

Then, a future apart... A future without each other.

A future alone.

I look at her. I can't see her without seeing him, and can't think of him without thinking of her. That day will come when I won't see him anymore. I may see her once or twice after that. Soon I won't see her, either.

After talking with her, and watching her struggle to keep a stoic face, and him struggle to, for her sake, pretend he doesn't see her struggle, it seems ridiculous for me to complain about time creeping by. It's trivial to complain about far away parking spaces, encounters with people who do stupid things, running out of diet root beer in the break room fridge. It serves no purpose, really, to get bent out of shape over something said by a loved one in a tone you don't quite grasp, or to worry, worry, worry about tomorrow, next week, next year. All that energy wasted, when it could be used to appreciate right now.

None of it makes sense, and it all makes complete sense.

I've spent the last hour typing this, and now it's time for me to clock out. I know I should probably end this post by tying things together, completing a theme, making it neat. But I can't worry about making it pretty, or comprehensible, or even the least bit good.

I'm just going to leave it as it is, go see Ben, get wrapped inside his arms, tell him I love him, and not think about anything but that. Tomorrow can wait.

Isn't that the point, after all?

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Renovation, restoration, no vacation.

I've got Alias: The Best of Seasons 1 through 5 churning on my Zune as I take a minor break from work duties to post this, and it's making me want to don a wig and start beating on people (in a stealthy manner, of course).

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Who doesn't love dress-up, money in briefcases, and espionage mustaches? I mean, really?

I promise, I will return in a bit to discuss the disaster area that is my house, facebreaking, and other highlights of the past few days.

Right now, the unholy alliance of free lunch and Diet Barq's is a-callin'.

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Excuses.

Oddly enough, I don't have any really good ones for being absent so long (yet again)... I thought of perhaps taking the stance that my web silence was in quiet support of the striking writers; but we all know that one has absolutely nothing to do with the other, and it would also mean I'm taking my verbal shenanigans way too seriously. So, out of respect for striking writers, I will not use them as my convenient excuse for blog slacking.


Again, they have nothing to do with my laziness.

Instead, I shall explain away my lack of blog effort on footbaw(!), work, family, my new mp3 player, and life in general.


Me, as recently as four hours ago.

Now that I have established myself in an office almost all my own (I share with one of the doctors two days a week), I may be able to sneak in a post once in a while, assuming the mood strikes.

For now, I'm off to have my fourth can of Sprite Zero since I got here this morning. It's like Hades in here.

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