Cootersnap!

Sorry... creeping up on that 72 hour silence.

But it's Tuesday and Friday is gone. Boy, isn't that a fact? At the risk of offending Justin (ya little punk), I got squat to write about. Work was... work. I spent the entire day in some weird ass antihisimine daze trying to get out a contract for a new project. Took me the whole day and I'm not sure I ever started... Then I went over to Jason's afterward to mow his yard. He's been gone for two weeks, home for two days, gone again for another two weeks. Alas, I failed. Fucking Frigidaire (who knew they made LAWNMOWERS?)! After 30 tries of yankin' on that stupid rope, the damn thing finally started. I'll tell ya... I did NOT get far. His back yard has a reverse mohawk, and then the mower just plain died. I tried for 20 minutes to resuscitate it, all to no avail. So I said 'fuck it' and left (I love him and all, but I feel like warmed up dog shit and didn't feel like ripping out my right shoulder). I then went to George's because Jenny took her boards today (YAY JENNY!! Drekkie, RN!!) and I wanted to be there to help her celebrate. Unfortunately, the ex was there and it took all the fun out of it. Now I'm home, I'm blogging, and I feel like (mind if I say it one more time?) warmed up dog shit.

Next post, I'll do my best to be light-hearted, light-headed and FUN. Mmmmkay?

What makes the last half hour of work on Friday the most dreadful experience in the world second only to walking over broken glass and then landing in a big pile of salt? I'm looking out the window on a blue sky full of little puffy clouds; it's about 68 degrees here (a little cool for Iowa), sunny, and it's Friday. Should I stay or should I go? Mmm... snackable Clash.

Seems evident that I should just leave. Yet it's only another half hour before I'm off. Besides, I'm going to my sister's tonight (again with the Friday...) because my folks are in town and we're having a 'family dinner'. Don't get me wrong; I LOVE my family. I really do. But I'm not one of those people that sends out birthday cards or Hallmark 'holiday' cards. I just don't buy into that shit. And, along those lines, I don't really get into 'doing stuff' with my family. I'd rather be at home washing my dainties than hanging out at my sister's house where I'm asked the same fucking questions over and over again.

"So, who are you dating now? What happened to ***? Well, gee, that didn't last long. What did you do to scare that one off?" There was actually a time in my life that my mother thought I was a lesbian... all because I WASN'T GETTIN' ANY!! Shit, mom, if it'll make you feel better, I'll just go on downtown tonight, pick up some drunken idiot at the Deadwood, take him home, fuck him and call you in the middle of it so you can pick us up some more condoms on your way over with my congratulatory cake.

At least she's over the lesbian thing. Now I'm just a slut. Geesh... make love with a total of TWO guys in the last FOUR years and boom! Think we can live without the labels?

Then there's my sister. "So why is it that you think this relationship didn't work out with ***? Do you think that you might, perhaps, sabotage all your relationships because deep down YOU're the one afraid of commitment... huh, do you? You should really think about the things that are important in life, Ang. Because some day you're going to wake up old and alone." Gee, thanks sis... three years of therapy out the window with that last one.

Anyway, that's what I get to do tonight. Another Friday night of missing poker with the boys. Another Friday of having the Did grab my boobs, the Goat speaking in fractured Goatlish, my mom trying to pry into my sex life, and my sister trying to get at the "Things That Really Matter." There will be small asides from the brother-in-law and my stepdad, but overall, it'll be the women in the family that make this ball roll. I can't hardly wait...

I just finished deglazing... makin' a little chicken with white wine, dill, mustard sauce. Mmmm... I go through periods where I just plain can't get enough chicken...

So. Marco. I've noticed in times past and times recent that ya got a thing fer pimpin' me about my ears. Here's the story:

Simple yet true. Ears are one of the most sensitive areas on the human body, be it man or woman. I've had BAAAAAD experiences with guys tryin' to be oh-so 'tender' with my ears. Hey, they're a little more tender than SAY... your (ok, MY) vagina!! Lots more nerve endings, lots more feelin'. You don't need to hit the 'g' spot on the ear. It's all erogenous. For me, anyway. And the quickest damn way to hit my OFF button is to make a little slip (or slurp) on my ear. Ladies, how many times have we subjected ourselves to some jackass sucking away like your ear was some goddamn dilly bar from DQ? Frankly, it disgusts me to end.

Doesn't mean there's not someone out there who can be *aware* of what demon they call up, but I figure in the long life I've led, there might be some motherfucka who gets it right and it this point in time, it AIN'T happened. So do the math... ya wanna fuck around with my ears, or ya wanna keep what little manhood ya got left? (And, Marco, this isn't pointed at you).

There ya have it. I like my ears. And I don't let just anyone touch them.

Alrighty then, this post is for Jack... the cooterless man.

Yeah, so... maybe I haven't been posting as much because it's been way too entertaining checking out other blogs. For instance, Jack and Tricia's escalating pimp fest over driving records cracks me up because of its enduring shelf life (and Jack, women really CAN drive... just not the one you chose to feature); the ongoing discussion at Jay's regarding his penis size and the debate over real or fake 'tiddies'; Kevin's usual humorous posts that spark some pretty crazy conversation (that tend to go off on little tangents); and if any of youse have not yet checked out BuggyDoo, doo doo doo so! And now, back to our regularly scheduled bitch fest:

Ok then. About two weeks ago I turned into persona intoxicata and whacked off my hair. Last week I ran into my hairdresser.

Her (lips pursed): So, Angie. What happened to your head?
Me (sheepish): Um, I got drunk... and got out the scissors...
Her (fluffling through my head like she's looking for lice): Well, call and make an appointment so I can fix this mess.
Me (docile): Ok. I'm sorry...
Her: In fact, we'll do it for free if you want to model {{this is their way of asking you to be a guinea pig}}. Ya want some highlights?
Me (hedging): Well...
Her: C'mon, they're free.
Me (cheap bitch that I am): Ok then.

Yesterday I had my hair done. Now, normally I love everything about the G Spot (yeah, that one, too, but this is the name of the salon), including the great cuts. And I don't know how they managed to take my whack job and turn it into something cute, but the highlights... well, they're something else. One color (they used three) was supposed to be a light warm red. Once I got out into the daylight and pulled out my compact, BAM! The shit is PINK!! I sincerely loathe, detest, despise, hate fucking HATE the color pink! I cannot stress this enough. Pink is for the devil. And now I have it on my head. Shit. It's too damn hot in Iowa to wear hats all summer, and I don't really want to go back and complain (it was *free* after all). Man. I'm stuck with pink fucking locks. Ain't nobody but Paul or Christa ever touchin' my noggin again!

Last night I babysat for my sister so she and her husband could go out on a 'date'. Heck, I actually *volunteered* for this mission. And I'll tell ya, when I sit for the Did and the Goat, I realize that not only do I NOT want children, but I really don't want to babysit again until I can understand the Goat's special vocabulary. He just turned two about a month ago, and the only word I can discern from him is "NO!" Ok, that's exaggerating just a tad, but the child's vocab is severely unintelligible. Physically, the kid's a dynamo. The exact opposite of the Did, who was speaking in complete sentences early in her Toddlerism, but alas, she got the clumsy gene from my side of the family (in that way, the Did and I are a lot alike).

I pulled into the driveway right around 6 p.m. and my sister was {{HOLY SHIT... my dog just cut the stinkiest fart in the world!! Eeeew!!}} unloading the minivan from a long day of shopping, with the Goat clinging to her leg. At one point (when he wasn't getting nearly enough attention from her), the little slugger started punching her in the choche. So his tiny fist, about the size of a shriveled apple you'd find on the ground in November, was ineffectual, but lawdy! I tried to make him stop; my sister hadn't even noticed... ??? Soon thereafter, the Did came running out of the house, jumped on me and actually grabbed me by the breasts saying, "Auntie Ang, these are your boobies." I responded, "Yes, and they're in pretty much the same place on everyone, so let go of mine." (In other words, go get Mommy's... I don't think she'll mind). We're off to a good start, I'm thinkin'.

Then both of the kids started crying because they wanted to play with the bubble machine my sis had purchased earlier that day. Their mom told 'em "After Auntie Ang makes your dinner." Oh yay. My sister tends to feed these kids the usual kid things, like hot dogs, fish sticks, mac 'n cheese or various forms of really rotten-bad-for-your-kid frozen dinners. My plan is to start cooking fun things for them (yeah...whenever I get the time...) that aren't loaded down all the crap they're currently ingesting. I digress. A quick peek through my sister's very new, very large kitchen reveals not enough food to feed my dog. Ok, I'm going to digress again. She and her husband just built a *monstrous* house that's got all the bells and whistles any modern family would want or need (right down to the plasma screen tv in the *kitchen*). But the cupboard was bare. Sure, there were things like chips (no dip!?), various cans of Campbell's soup, crackers galore, etc. The freezer showed me a neatly stacked variety of Green Giant veggies (at least they're getting veggies, right?), family packs of chicken, and other things that would not allow for a quick fix. The fridge was even worse. A full door of condiments (which reminded me of my sister's just-out-of-college fridge, except that the only other thing in her fridge then was a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream a friend of hers had brought over for her house-warming), a vast array of various grades and flavors of milk, juice and soda, a few tupperware containers I didn't want to investigate, and *blessedly* a drawer full of cheese and another of tortillas. Jackpot!

Now then. My sister had told me to make the kids quesadillas for dinner, but I had the grand idea that I could find them something a little more nutritious than tortillas and cheese. I was wrong. Quesadillas it would be. Of course, with two hungry children, I had to use two tortillas and make a cheese sandwich out of it, cut it like a pizza, and let them feed at the same time. I guess this is important. This I do. The Did, and the Goat in his special language, both start clamoring for 'thour cweam' (or 'uhn kway'). {{Yet again, I digress. These kids LOVE sour cream. Once, when my b-in-l was in charge of feeding the Goat breakfast, he mistakenly grabbed a container of sour cream and fed it to the Goat instead of the Yoplait he was supposed to get. Mmmmm..}}

Dinner's done. Now it's time for "boobles". Toys these days are packaged in such a way as to make it more of a challenge to get it out of the damn box than it is to set it up. This took about 15 minutes with the kids howling, me panicking (and this is less than an hour into my THREE hour mission). Finally, SUCCESS! The bubble machine is free from it's carboard trappings! Alas, I then discover it calls for 6 AA batteries and a Phillips head screwdriver. Great. In their old house, I could have found them. In this one, I have trouble finding the bathroom. Luckily, the Did is a bright little girl. "Auntie Angie, I know where they are." Woo hoo! Saved by the redhead! **But** there's only five batteries in the package. Damn. Things are starting to get dicey. Luckily, I can think on my feet, and borrowed one from the tv remote. So after these many near misses, the bubble machine is operational. We sat out on the screened in deck and the kids chased bubbles like they were butterflies. Very happy. Auntie Ang wants a cigarette in the worst way, and the Did was kind enough to show me where Mommy and Daddy store the ashtrays... in a drawer behind the spices. Odd, but oh well.

After about an hour of "Bubbles, bubbles everywhere; bubbles, bubbles in your hair!", the Did tires of this and wants to watch the Rugrats. The Goat wanted more bubbles. I can't leave him, but it's getting cold and I wouldn't mind going inside. So we took the bubble machine in with us, whereupon the Goat tips it as he's carrying it, the soap solution gets all over the hardwood floor, the Did runs in from the porch and promptly wipes out in this slick, soapy mess. This would normally be followed by extreme histrionics from the Did, but it was so funny all I could do was laugh my ass off, which made her laugh away the bruised ego. Just don't tell my sister... or the fact that the Did then planted her little soapy butt on the Ethan Allen. This would be enough for my sister to banish me from the estate (which would mean no free laundry for the Ang). So don't tell.

Finally, just as I am bemoaning the fact that I'm bored (I hate the damn Rugrats), I'm tired, and I really want a beer, I hear the blessed sound of car doors slamming. Oh thank you baby Jesus! "Howwasdinner? Wasitgreat? What'dyouhave?Thekidsandihadagreattime...BYE!"

In the future, I will not be so ready to jump on the opportunity to spend time ALONE with my niece and nephew. That's what non-familial babysitters are for. You know, the whole: I'll watch your kids, but you will PAY. And I'll tell you, as much as I want to buy a house (because I'd kill to have even just the space of their kitchen/family room area), it was the greatest thing to come home to my dog and two cats. And the bottle of Stoli in the freezer the viking left behind when we were bein' *friendly*. A little vodka, a little grapefruit juice, a few cigs, a little blogging and some stoopid tv on in the background was all it took to ease away the day. How parents do it I'll never know. Especially when you spend the entire day having 2 and 5-year-old child conversations. I couldn't do it. My dog doesn't talk. My cats don't talk. All I have to do is pet them, feed them, and they don't cry, complain OR grab my tits. I like it like that.

Got yer attention, didn't it? Ah well... sorry. Not that kind of a story, but here 'tis:

(Phone Call)

C: Angie? Hi, it's C from Dr. X's office returning your call.
A: Hey C, how's it goin'?
C: Great! So do you need me to drop by some more pills for you?
A: I was thinking I'd just run out there right after work tonight and pick them up.
C: Hmmm...we're closing at 5, so...
A: Rats!
C: I could drop them off at George's on my way home if you want.
A: Well, that might be a little awkward. Besides, I need to head out to the mall tonight and I don't want 'em just sitting in the bar.
C: Hey, I'm going to the mall tonight, too. I need to go to Vicky's for some new panties. Do you want to meet somewhere?
A: I'll be at the other end at Best Buy.
C: Tell you what, it'll take you at least 15 minutes to get out there, so I'll just run to Vicky's, pick up what I need and I'll meet you out front of Best Buy right around the time you should be rolling in. Does that sound ok?
A: Perfect! I'll see you out front!

First off, I want to say that I have the best shrink in the whole frikkin' world. I see him once every three months for about 15 minutes, we talk about his kids, what trips they've been on recently, my current love interest, work, etc., then I leave with a big ol' goodie bag of Lexapro. Yeah, it's hard to believe that I could be on anti-depressents since I have such a sparkling wit and demeanor. But I'm slowly teaching my brain to set free the seratonins without the aid of the little white pill (silly sticky hoarding little pack-rat of a brain).

BUT. Until such a time when Richard and I think there's no reason for me to be on these little happy pills, it's up to me to get my butt out to his office to pick them up, or make alternative arrangements which, at times, end up taking place in some of the most conspicuous places. I shouldn't bitch, though, since they're free. Since I've been on SSRIs, he's just given me samples so I don't have to go to the Rx. Heck, I'm already on a first name basis with the pharmacists at the Mercy Rx... between sinus infections, the dread cat bite, the scratched cornea and all my other most recent medical mysteries, I'm there at least twice a month it seems. Hmmm... it's a sign of getting older when you frequent a pharmacy more often than you do a record store...

I'm just too young to be this old. At least I can still laugh at all the ironies of life.

Hola, amigos! Hope my week-long absence wasn't too much to scare off any readers. But hey... life has been happening and there wasn't a darn thing I could do about it.

This weekend two of my friends came into town for a few days. I hooked up with them Monday afternoon (any reason to take off work on a beautiful day, right?) and met them out at the Sutliffe bridge. This is one of those weird things in Iowa City: there is a *staggering* amount of people who don't know about this place. But ask anyone from small towns HOURS from here, and they know about it. It's a strange phenomenom.

The drive out to Sutliffe is really beautiful. Very curvy, wind-y roads where the speed limit drops from 55 to 35 just like that. I know there are people out there in this big wide world who don't even know that Iowa is a state, much less that it's pretty fekkin' gorgeous, but it's the god's honest truth. Anyway, I had a few errands to run before hooking up with my friends, so drove out about half an hour after they did.

It was one of those days that makes you so completely, utterly HAPPY to be sucking air. The weather was perfect (for a change!), the colors were popping off the fields, the sky, the barns... No, I wasn't tripping. I was happy. I was clear. I felt larger than life. Everything was so vivid. The music ("Perfect" by Draw Tippy, my friend Jason's band) was blaring, the windows were all down, and it smelled greeeeaaaat and green in the big outdoors (even going by the cattle farms... yup, that's the smell of MONEY, folks!) Nothin' gonna get me down, no way, no how, no sir!

And ya know what? I had a fabulous time when I got there. Natch! Steve and Brian hung out for a while, but had to get back to town. That left Kerry (Steve's wife, who is not only a very good friend, but one of the most EFFERVESCENT people I've ever met in my life) and me to our own devices. We kicked back and drank our bottles of beer on the picnic table that was placed on this very old wooden plank bridge over the Cedar River just for our enjoyment and caught up on all the hooha (because into each life a little hooha must fall). The sun was warm, the breeze cool, the beer cold, the conversation lively, and the river just eddied lazily below. We talked about everything... past loves, current crushes (in my case only, of course, since the woman IS married!), our dogs, our friends, our foes, good books, you name it. We probably talked about it.

Eventually we had to get back to town, but what a great way to spend an afternoon. Except for one time (with one duplicitous jerk), I have incredibly wonderful, peaceful memories of Sutliffe. The population is unknown, the town doesn't show up on a lot of maps, but they have a bar (which is, so very handily, right across the road from the bridge). It was once the general store in town, has fiddy-cent pool, $2 bottles that you can walk outside with without getting busted, a concrete floor with a drain in it, and some of the greasiest diner food you'd ever love (but I'd stay away from the chicken livers... not because they're deep fried, but because they're LIVERS). It's also one of those bars that encourage you to write whatever you want on a dollar bill and tack it to the ceiling.

At one point, while Kerry was in the restroom, I found the very first dollar I had stuck up there. It was from 1987, colored a dark nicotine stain, and it simply read "Angie and Michael were here. Thank you." That brought a smile to my face thinking back to being 22 years old and 'in love'.

On the way back to town that afternoon with Kerry, I was thinking how nice it is to be friends with ex-boyfriends. To this day, whenever Michael is in town, it's great to see him. He's married now, a professor at Columbia, and I can look back on a time when he was the most important person in my world and be happy for having experienced it. I wish it could always be like that. Luckily it's that way with the people who are, after every dirty rotten thing you've said or done to each other, your friend.

JC, I'm glad we're friends again. Salt?

Mr. Anonymous aka Marco... with Gus... in a bar... go figure...

Dis is Da Poog

Ok, not like I have all that much left to rip out, but I'm damn ready to commit trichotillomania on my poor tete. I'm at work. Is that enough, or shall I expound? Seems to me that a little venting is in order before I get back to the all-important job that I'm currently in the midst of.

First off, just let me say that we've been extraordinarily busy lately. We're pulling in quite a few jobs and the budgets on the Big Four are in excess of $20 million. I've been getting so far behind on my paperwork that for the past few weeks I've been taking abbreviated lunches so I have AT LEAST a good half hour of peace while John is out of the frikkin' office. Slowly but surely, I am digging myself out of this dead white mountain.

But then. Little Napolean comes in after lunch and proceeds to bitch and moan that I didn't write a phone number down on a message I left him. Hmm... when he leaves messages for me, usually he won't write a number down. Just the name of the person that called, no time, no number, no clue as to what it's all about. Double standard? Or is it just that I'm the lowly business manager/secretary/whipping post? For fuck's sake, the guy doesn't even pay his own bills. I give him an allowance and he's not allowed to touch his checking account. I gave him a company credit card and set the limit to be about half of what mine is. And he's got to bitch about all this minutiae that doesn't do anything except piss me the fuck off.

Now I need to get back to work and figure out why in the hell one of our subconsultants is overbilling a project by $16,000... I would really enjoy a nice vodka soda right about now.

Dis is Da Poog... he was out whoring one night while I was sleeping... little bastard.

Dis is Da Poog

Um... oops. By and large, I've had long hair for most of my adult life. Well, after 15 months of no haircuts (except for the time I took my grandpa's straight razor and hacked off some errant chunks), I cut my hair last night. Whacked is more like it.

Imagine this scene: I rolled out of bed this morning around 9:30, feeling somewhat hungover, and did the usual run-to-the-bathroom. Whereupon... I found about two inches of hair all over my bathroom floor. Then I looked in the mirror, and, well... I couldn't stop laughing.

Now I'm wondering what my options are. I can't glue it back on. I can't really cut any more off. Do I shave my head and look like Marco? Do I go to Wal-Mart and buy a Flo-be? Good lord. I think the only thing I should do right now is liberate the 35 garden plants that have been residing in my bathtub for the past week, sweat out some of the nasty toxins in my body, and meditate on the fact that I should not own scissors. Bad scissors.

1. Batteries. He gets a charge out of 'em.
2. A new tube of anchovy paste. Ugh... fartapukey.
3. A box of panty liners. (What da dilly yo?)
4. Numerous rolls of toilet paper (his favorite).
5. Hair ties, barrettes, hair brushes, etc. (is it any wonder I'm not well-groomed?)
6. My new sofa. This about killed me... and ended his life.
7. A new bottle of canola oil. Three hours to clean up...
8. Felix and Rufus, my cats. They DO NOT like Gus.
9. My feet... and the feet of countless others.
10. Cell phones. He likes to drop them in coffee, too.
11. Lighters. Another favorite. Sometimes he'll eat cigs, too.
12. Beer cans. Good to the last drop.
13. Books ("The Gambler" by Dostoevsky and a pug training guide).
14. A CD... something by the Grateful Dead, so it was ok.
15. My VHS copy of "Ghost Dog". Bad dog, Mr. Chadwick.
16. Basically anything that is anywhere near his gaping maw.

One must be very careful what one leaves lying around at my house. Plus, he has a drinking problem and has no qualms about drinking out of your glass of wine, vodka, etc. He's even stolen bottles of beer off the table. ('Member that one, Marco?)

I want to have a pillow fight. Pooter, can we have a big pillow fight at your next party on the farm? Anne won't mind a few feathers will she? I think that's just the thing to allow all of us to blow a little steam...

Today I feel like the title of one of Harlan Ellison's books: The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World. I don't expect anyone to understand that, necessarily, but that's how I feel.