Poppy Cedes

Representatives from Tennessee (my mom and stepdad), Long Island (Dawg’s aunt, uncle, cousin, and cousin’s girlfriend), New Jersey (Dawg’s ex Pudding, Pudding’s Wife [PW], The Wolves, and Gwennie the Sky Terrier), and Queens (me, Dawg, Mama Dawg, Hollywood, Mr. Clean, Soco and Coco the cats) were at the Dawg Family Thanksgiving Dinner. During this momentous occasion Pudding’s Wife kept telling me she was adding my mom as her Facebook friend so she could send her nudie pictures. Of herself or of the lovely Native American woman who wallpapers her phone, I’m not sure, but in any case I started yelling, “I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ARE GOING TO BE MY MOM’S FRIEND ON FACEBOOK BEFORE YOU ARE MY FRIEND!” (because screaming at Thanksgiving dinner in the Dawg family household is a perfectly acceptable behavior, and I’m not even kidding).

Two days later we were driving my mom and stepdad to our humble abode to see their furry grandchildren when my mom reminded me of this whole Facebook PW adding my mom before she adds me as a friend debacle and I started screaming at my mom “YOU BETTER NOT LET HER SEND YOU NUDIE PICTURES! NO NUDIE PICTURES!” to which she sagely responded, “I cannot help who chooses to send me nudie photos, I can only choose to not look at them.” My mom is so smart.

Tonight when I got home from work I had a Facebook request from PW sitting in my Gmail inbox. I promptly added her as a friend as Dawg was walking into the apartment. I greeted him, gave him a minute, then sat down on the couch and proudly announced, “PW added me as a friend today!” to which he screamed “SHE BETTER NOT SEND YOU NUDIE PICS!” to which I sagely responded “I cannot help who chooses to send me nudie photos, I can only choose to not look at them.” And Dawg, too, had the same epiphany I had in the car on Saturday.

And then I went and suggested my mom as a friend to PW on Facebook. So far no one involved in this story has exchanged any nudie photos, to the best of my knowledge. :)

Photos of my Thanksgiving weekend are here and here. Enjoy!

Today is my mommy’s birthday.
Tomorrow is my stepdad’s birthday.

But I’m the one who gets the present.

They’re both showing up tomorrow to Dawg’s parents’ house and staying in Queens for Thanksgiving.

I can’t even put into words how much it means to me that they’re joining us for Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for their willingness to make the trip, to hang out with the entire gang (me, Dawg, Hollywood, Mama Dawg, Mr. Clean, Pudding, Pudding’s Wife, The Wolves, Gwennie the dog, Soco and Coco the cats), and to celebrate their birthdays with us in the chaos of Queens instead of the calm quiet of Tennessee. :)

I am the luckiest girl int he woooooorld.

So, we were supposed to go to the Gotham Girls roller derby championship last night, and then have a make-up date at Serendipity III since last time we went during ReNYC I was drunk as a skunk and was convinced someone famous was in the limo behind me so was screaming at the top of my lungs and called people I didn’t know Bitch.

But, the universe had other plans. I was cleaning my desk where I keep all of my tickets for all of the upcoming events that I attend. The tickets for this event were actual tickets, the kind that come in the mail, the kind that are originals, the kind you can’t just print again. And I NEVER do that for that very reason, but for some reason I chose to get the kind that are originals rather than printing my own on my own printer. So when I couldn’t find the tickets on my desk I went through the entire ginormous stack of to-be-shredded mail — not there either. And I started to panic and walked my head right into a full-blown stress migraine.

Dawg came home from working a hospice patient move and the second sentence out of his mouth was, “what’s wrong?” I’m pretty sure I started crying through saying that I had lost the tickets. He gave me a hug and asked if I wanted to take a nap with him. We went to sleep for several hours. At 5:30pm I woke up with a splitting headache, the kind where it feels like someone has carved your skull off and is sticking knives into your grey matter. That hurts a lot, by the way. And my neck was so sore I couldn’t stand it. I tried to manage the pain myself for a while, put a hot towel on my neck, but eventually I gave in and sat on the edge of the bed and woke Dawg up. He came out of his foggy grog to ask me what was wrong and I started bawling.

An unnecessarily long story short, we weren’t going anywhere. My head was not suitable for light, sound, or audio stimulation. So, instead of going to roller derby, Dawg made me a mini pizza and we sat in the dark on the living room couch and watched The Proposal on low volume while the Excedrin and Tylenol kicked into my brain.

Never did find those tickets, probably will sometime in 2010. Thankfully the other tickets that were lost with them (VT plane tickets and West Side story tickets, total combined value of ~$750) were the kind I printed on my printer so I can just do a reprint of those.

I was going to write this lame post about college essay topics I read about on CNN, how some college students are actually being admitted to their dream school for their answer to the question “How do you feel about Wednesdays?” but I’ve decided not to do that.

When a bad thought comes into your mind how hard do you work to get it out of your head?

Have you ever considered letting it hang out in there, develop, flourish, bloom, expand and explore the depths of your creative mind, just to see where it takes you?

I do this. A lot.

I let myself process events that I have experienced, others that I only know about second hand, still others that I have no proof are even remotely close to reality, and ones that I know for certain with actual evidential facts aren’t the truth.

Why do I do this? Because it prepares me for when the shit hits the motherfucking fan.

No shit has hit any fans, people. I’m just… practicing for if/when it does. It’s what I do. Because I’m crazy. And I like me crazy. So… we stay crazy up in here.

Went to see some wrestling with Dawg.

Had an awesome time.

Swooned over Roddy Piper, DX, and Undertaker. Booed at Miz, Cena, Swagger, Orton, and Seamus. Chanted with the crowd and heckled the people around me who kept chanting the wrong guy’s name.

Coulda touched Shawn Michaels in the street after the show if I reached my hand out and risked being SWAT team assaulted by his six bodyguards… after we were finally allowed anywhere near Dawg’s truck which was parked in with the wrestlers, oops. :)

One of the top 10 best events of my life. See some wrestlers over at flickr. It’s ok to look, they’re pieces of pretty meat, they like it when you call them pretty meat.

Tomorrow night the lights will go out in Madison Square Garden. And when they turn back on Dawg and I will be in the same room with our maker:

And I will scream my little head off with glee. :)

WWE RAW airs Monday at 9pm Eastern on USA. Watch for us.

I guess I’ve turned into someone who perpetually needs a line-up. Right now I have events for more weekends between now and the new year than I have free weekends, and I’m pretty sure all the free weekends will fill up shortly. And one of those events came about today when my aunt emailed me saying the next time I was in town she hoped to at least have coffee with me.

I thought it through, and I am technically keeping my word that I am not returning to Vermont for the remainder of 2009, so instead? Instead I’m showing up there on Friday, January 1, 2010 on a plane, renting a big 4WD vehicle, and crashing on couches. Right now my brother’s couch is confirmed, waiting on that second night’s couch, and then I fly back on Sunday, January 3. And right before I fly back I’m having lunch with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and their two doggies, Daisy and Chester.

Yay. :)

So, a Thursday in the not too distant past I showed up for Karl‘s radio show with special guest Sheila. And in the chat room appeared Vahid.

One innocent question from me to my geek brethren, something in the phrase family of “what Netbook do you own?” and now I am the proud owner of the Samsung N110 Netbook.

I CAN COMPUTE FROM THE COUCH NOW! AND THE BED! AND THE KITCHEN COUNTER! AND THE FLOOR! AND THE… toilet. (what?)

And the shower! But why would I do that.

It even has a sucky camera! See?!?!

And Poppy did rejoice.

And so did Dawggy, because I can sit next to him now AND sit next to you, too.

I will very soon be blogging on a much more regular basis but for now I’ll dump my brain onto you.

Happy birthday, Vahid!

On the way to work this morning I almost finished the book I was reading. Rather than being able to enjoy another book down I was sad that I would no longer be in its world. It wasn’t a great book, moved between tenses, both historically and pronounally, too frequently for my taste. When I finally told myself to just please get over this I found the ending to be the best part of the book and was really glad I stopped letting my eyes scan the page as I lamented the book’s passing.

At work I learned that Chris Livingston passed away. I don’t know him and I don’t know what happened, but a lot of people I care about knew him and were very sad because of his passing, and I truly feel sad for my friends because they hurt in a way that I cannot help them not hurt. I can just sit by and say sorry.

Speaking of friends… I was all complainy last week that everyone pulled away from me after Avitaweekend, that no one seems to care about me anymore wah wah wah except a select few people. And then I realized I equally pulled away from everyone who was there and our culpability is shared. So, hi friends. I miss you and am thinking about you a lot even though we don’t get to hang out and party and eat meals and joke about whatever enters our minds.

And there are other friends who weren’t at the party who I felt were slipping away: One, I think, is trying to get me to be the bad guy and break ties. One wants me to be in her life but lunchtime is a very tough time for me to hang out (hi :). One I accused of ditching me but she didn’t and then I got busy and stopped writing her. After I write this post I’m going to respond again because I have stuff to say. Oh, and one friend told me something I wasn’t ready to hear and can’t quite reciprocate, for reasons that go far deeper than anything between us. I just have my trust issues and I try as hard as I can to offer as much trust as I can, but the end result is… a lopsided friendship with people. It’s the best I can do. I hope you continue to love me anyway. And then there’s this other friend who hangs out with me and is awesome and gets cupcakes with me and then she asks me how the cupcakes are and I tell her “I had one, it was ok.” heh. This amuses only me, doesn’t it. I love that I can be honest with her, is my point.

Back to today.

On the way home the same man was on the 4:45pm train as had been on that train Friday. He yells at the top of his lungs, “IF YOU LOVE YOUR FAMILY YOU’LL GIVE ME MONEY *pointing his fucking STARBUCKS cup at you* YOU DON’T LOVE YOUR FAMILY?! YOU HATE YOUR FAMILY?! WHEN THEY DIE YOU WON’T CARE, YOU WON’T LOVE THEM! YOU DON’T LOVE YOUR FAMILY ENOUGH TO GIVE ME A PENNY *throwing a penny at an unsuspecting bench sitter* TAKE THE PENNY, I DON’T WANT IT, YOU FAMILY HATER!” It scares the shit out of some people, but even when he is standing directly behind me screaming his diatribe all I’m thinking is “I really should start screaming, ‘if you love your families you WON’T give me ANY money because you’ll save it for THEM and put food on THEIR table instead of THIS Starbucks fake motherfucker! What, WHAT!’” but I just smile and chuckle and keep it to myself and guard the scared people with my body. It’s what I do. I just don’t have appropriate fear levels for given situations, I’ve concluded.

And directly after Repeat Man we got a new lady charging through the car not holding onto anything screaming that she didn’t want any money, “no pennies, no nickels, no quarters, no dollars” (guess dimes don’t exist in Crazy Town) but that Jesus hates us. Which reminded me that my favorite word for today that I made up but probably already exists is Jeez-ass, which I wrote to Partner in Crime in response to some message he sent me about the sad state of affairs back home within our common location. Cryptic much, yup. But … Jeez-ass! Isn’t that lovely? It is.

It was a rare occasion tonight. Because I was going to the store I chose to turn off my music and walk from the train to the store, listening instead to the sounds of the city so that I would remember to go to the store. When I took out my earbuds I was still riding the last leg of the train and I was reminded why I love the train so much. Perfectly quiet humans listening with me to the soothing sound of the train.

In the store a woman didn’t realize she was blocking the entrance to the store and the hand carts. When she realized she was doing this she scooted herself to the side to let a soldier in his desert fatigues pass by then she stood up and handed me a hand cart. I was so surprised, I burst out laughing, smiled, and said thank you. And then I heard her continue her conversation en español and wished I had at least “graciad” in return. (No s’s. Gracia.)

On the way home I watched a little girl in a tiny little dress and coat skipping along next to her mom while she sang Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi at the top of her lungs. Cutest version EVAR. I laughed out loud.

A little further along my path home 3 teenagers were spanning the entire width of the double-wide sidewalk. I was walking with no earphones toward them with three grocery shopping bags chock full of heavy items and my work bag slung over my shoulder. I slowed down a little bit, but they parted just enough for me to turn sideways through, and as I did one of them dared to test out his manlihood on me by saying, “heeeeeey, Miss [inaudible].” He couldn’t quite keep that courage level going as I pushed through him and his friend to continue on my way. I… think I might possibly be intimidating. In Vermont the only men who cat call at you are your friends. In New York City you’re not A Real Man if you don’t cat call by 12. It’s an interesting culture difference. I wish I had said something like, “nice try, we’ll give it another go on Tuesday *wink*” or something funny but I just spent a little too long trying to decipher what he had said after “Miss”. It sounded like Hershey, but we all know I’m not Hershey. I’m all vanilla and stuff.

The word count was at 1179 before this line. I think that’s pretty good. Can’t wait to see you all more consistently again. :)

PS – Ripley says hi!

I went to this party a couple-few weeks ago and the studio photos are finally up.

One of the very best photos is not shown, and that makes me sad. Mew… *sniffle* BUT there are a lot of amazing ones and you can live vicariously through the photo set or relive the party if you were there with me.

Also, this Dylan’s Candy Bar rocky road cupcake I got with Robin?

Pretty damn good.