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!

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 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!

When tiredness overwhelms me it’s time to take a nap… or go to bed for the night.

Welcome to Being 35, Popstar.

I would try to be witty with some pithy comment about OMFG I DID EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK THIS WEEKEND but instead I’ll just tell you what I did in short sentences.

Friday is completely lost in my memory.

And so ends the short sentences.

Saturday I went to Longggg Island to meet up with the always adorable, funny, insightful, and entertaining Bella so we could see Extract. We talked about Bella’s work picnic before the movie, then were accosted by old ladies at the movie who didn’t get why any of it was funny. After the movie we went to Chipotle! My first time! I had the braised beef (barbacoa) burrito with the extra hot salsa, rice, black beans, cheese, sour cream, and the tomato/onion mixture and have fallen madly in love with this chain. I got to see photos of and hear more about Bella’s incredibly successful picnic! Then I drove back to Queens and took Dawg to the Georgia Diner where I ordered Disco Fries, hold the cheese and gravy (I didn’t see just fries on the menu) and Dawg had the Romanian steak sandwich dinner, then we drove to drop off the laundry and to 7-11 for sundries, including 6 pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. At home we watched the EXCELLENT-to-me film The Wrestler on DVD while eating ice cream then had some of the most fantastic sex. (We very often have that, just for frame of reference.)

Sunday we had some mid-day lovin’ then left the apt for Five Guys where I had a bacon cheese hot dog (EFFING A, DUDE), then we walked to Staples to get a $40 USB cable, then we went to Mama Dawg’s to wait for The New Jersey Crew to show up. When they arrived we went to Shiro of Japan (all 11 of us, including Hollywood and Mr. Clean) and when we arrived there was a reservation for “Stephanie” for 11 people at 5pm, the time we arrived, with phone number of 917. I happened to be the person letting the staff know we were there for a reservation and was pretty sure no one called in a reservation for my misspelled name. Just coincidence, and a habachi table for 11 of us was set within minutes. My given name is Stefanie (with an F, yo), in case the irony is lost on you. Fantastic waitstaff (Stephanie and Daniel served us) and a fantastic tableside chef whose name I don’t remember. We were laughing so hard that other tables were looking on and would start cheering when we cheered at the chef, it was great. After food we went to the Atlas Park carnival, where I promptly watched Blinky ride the Zipper (it’s a caged ferris wheel where you flip upside-down) and The Professor ride The Scrambler, and all the kids ride the Round-Up, then I got cold so Dawg walked me over to the cart to pick up a funnel cake, zeppoles, and fried Oreos which I took back to Mama Dawg’s where I hung out with her and Hollywood and just chatted. I love talking to them. :) And then eventually the whole crew came back from the carnival and we had brownies that Dawg and Mama Dawg had made earlier, as well as all the fair food, and just talked for a while. When it was time for everyone to go we slipped out into the night, back to 7-11 for a few more sundries, then it was home to order my Avitaween costume then off to bed.

Monday we woke up too early then decided what we would do for the day: See Final Destination 3D! It was a ridiculous movie, but fun to go see a horror movie in the theaters, especially in 3D. I ate sooooo much popcorn, cuz I ordered the large by mistake, which comes in a tub, and I was eating it like a ferocious animal while I sucked down my fountain soda Coke. After the movie we picked up the laundry and then I was soooo not hungry so we grabbed Chinese restaurant Mexican food for later — got my regular 2 crispy chili beef tacos and order of chili beef nachos with extra japeno peppers — then grabbed Dunkin’ Donuts beverages and went home. A nap ensued. Ohhhh, do I adore my naps or do I adore my naps?! And here we are to current where I just ordered the last item of my Avitaween costume and now I’m about to watch last night’s ABDC while eating my Chinese-Mexican dindin then maybe a movie and it’s back to bed, mebbe with a little hot and steamy sex. ;)

A perfect weekend. Better than perfect.

Update: Apparently we had really hot sex on Friday, too! YAY, ME! And I’ve been guaranteed more hot sex tonight! YAY, ME AGAIN! I am a lucky girl…

So, in exchange for some advice that I gave I received some words of kindness and good news in return and I seem to be miraculously out of my funk!

I think it would be wise for me to start that paper journal, or at least do the offline writing thing. Those writings would never be published unless I significantly changed the names and had permission from all involved and was 90 years old.

I know he hasn’t communicated about it yet, but Adam is having Avitaween in October and I am SO STOKED to go to Florida. I just hope I get to see everyone I want to see while I’m there.*

What the hell is this movie behind my head? …. Ahh, Delta Force 2. Good ole Chuck Norris and his boom-booms.

Hey, who’s watching Top Chef Las Vegas? Who was annoyed by Ashley being mad about the wedding/battle of the sexes challenge? What the fuck did she expect to have happen in Vegas? At least she made some tasty vagina dish that kept her on the show, what does she care?

Ok, that was perhaps said so crassly to make you laugh, but I might have offended a vagina. Sorry.

Anyway, I got a perfect score (I tried to spell that as “squore” … like square score? I guess…) on week 1’s professional development quiz. I’m going for my ACSP certification, randomly, but it will help my job. It’s something I’ve wanted for years and now is a really good time to get it. I just hope I’m employed through the entire time I’m studying for it… but if not, I paid for the book so I’ll just take it with me and keep on studying. I hold out little hope that work will cough up the money to pay for the certification at this time. We’re really trying to be much more fiscally conservative, is all I’m saying. I suck at conservation. I throw away things all the time, wasteful.

*I am also excited for RenYC but it is a NO-NO to mention another event near the Party of the Year.

Sometimes I feel like writing a book about my life.
Sometimes I feel like being the life of the party.
Sometimes I feel like judging a person based on first impressions.
Sometimes I feel like crawling up into a ball and becoming invisible.
Sometimes I feel like trading in all the good things so that the past is fixed.
(Sometimes I feel like saying what I really mean: I wish he could be here, even if it means me not being here.)
Sometimes I feel like my feelings are invalid.
Sometimes I feel like I am outside looking in.
Sometimes I feel like asking those questions I “shouldn’t”. (And sometimes I do ask.)
Sometimes I feel like putting extra butter on my toast.
Sometimes I feel like helping people who need help.
Sometimes I feel like keeping my mouth shut and letting people create their own destiny.
Sometimes I feel like I am selfish for how I live.
Sometimes I feel like my sister was right about me… a lot more now than I did a year ago, for sure.
Sometimes I feel like being selfless is selfish.
Sometimes I feel like not growing another wizened inch.
Sometimes I feel like making no sense.
Sometimes I feel like I have no one on my side.
Sometimes I feel like too many people are on my side.
Sometimes I feel like I confide misplacedly.
Sometimes I feel like walking in the rain.
Sometimes I feel like it’s all for nothing.
Sometimes I feel like.

You know?

I got my Queens library card today!

Which somehow reminded me about something that happened this past weekend, so I’ll share. I saw on Facebook that someone I used to work with back home was posting mobile photos of him and his wife in New York City so I left him a comment on one of the photos or maybe his status, somewhere on there, that we should meet up!

He Facebook messaged me to ask me what I meant, did I mean a meet-up on Saturday?, so I replied explaining that I work in Manhattan so a Friday meet-up for a beverage in the Hell’s Kitchen area would be cool!

Aaaaaand he didn’t reply for the rest of the weekend, until after he posted a status that he had such a fun time here.

And then FB messaged me that it was a whirlwind weekend and blahblahblah couldn’t meet up for drinks blahblahblah.

And I thought three things:

1. Yah, duh, I kinda figured out you didn’t want to see me when you didn’t answer on Friday.
2. I didn’t say DRINKS, I said a beverage and that it needed to be before the workday ended because I had plans after work (I had dinner I was taking home to Dawg).
3. I do not miss the manner in which people back home let you know you’re not a priority to them.

See, I like my pain up front like Teri Garr in Tootsie. You don’t want to see me then don’t ask me questions and lead me on. And if you realize you can’t or don’t want to see me then just fucking say so. Don’t give me that silent treatment bullshit where you pretend you didn’t get the message until after the time had passed. Be a fucking man, woman, child, unshithead, and just own your reality. It’s not gonna break my heart if you’re up front with me, and now I just think you’re a jackass for playing that game with me.

But, if you’re in NYC again, like, OMG, FB message me.

There’s nothing new about me now that I’m 35.

I bought a vertical laptop bag today. I need a messenger bag because carrying the weight on my back is painful, but having a horizontal bag is really awkward on the train. Plus, if I get another laptop bag for my birthday I’ll have two! (Yah, don’t have all my presents yet, not sure what they all are, excited to find out, do not mind duplicates. :)

Geek speak is about to occur. Read through it, it might save you or your IT Guy (gender neutral) hours of annoyment. ;)

(I made that word up.)

Between yesterday and today I spent 6 hours trying to figure out why someone’s BlackBerry stopped checking in with the Black[B]erry Enterprise Server (BES) at 6:33am on Saturday, July 25. 633725 — nope, nothing significant about that, so what the hell? Today I finally got the bright idea to try to add her email account to my phone — it worked, so I knew it wasn’t her account on server that was causing the problem! So I tried adding my email account to her phone! And it got STUCK at the same spot! So I had a hunch and called the provider… They had no record of her being on a BES plan, which means her phone was NEVER, EVER going to be able to both send and receive mail through Enterprise Activation. Why had it ever worked before? I don’t know, but I have an ignorant theory (ignorant because I don’t know the details of how phones work) and it goes something like this: There is some way to allow phones to activate on a BES server without a BES plan that costs more money, but BlackBerry’s service providers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Nextel) would prefer that you pay for the service so if your phone randomly happens to connect even without that plan a little cleanup script is run at certain intervals that checks in with your phone and deactivates your phone’s mechanism for connecting. I think it has to do with the Desktop [CMIME] service book, personally, but again that’s just a hunch since I don’t know what I’m talking about at the granular level. My bottom line recommendation: Call your cell phone provider first and innocently say, “I’m having a little trouble connecting this phone to my BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Is my phone on a BES plan?” and if they say no tell them to add you. Don’t ask why it’s worked for forever and suddenly stopped, just accept it and move on, and once they add BES to the phone it will magically work again.

Geek speaking is over.

I went to the zoo on my birthday and took some really great photos, but my favorite one is this one:

I love that we are such little kids together. It makes my heart happy.

Technically, Dawg took that photo, as you can tell by his left arm placement, but it was at my request when I could not figure out how to angle the camera to get the totem pole from the background into the shot. He showed me how. He’s a pro. He rocks.

A few notes about my birthday weekend: I did not knock over any of my beverages at the fondue place Friday night, but Saturday I did knock an almost full scalding hot cappuccino into Dawg’s crotch area while he was telling me a story about his younger vollies days, then Sunday at Jekyll & Hyde Club my Coach purse knocked over Dawg’s mostly full soda glass after he’d already gotten up. Oh, and I totally heckled one of the J&H guys who was picking on a girl from Houston at the table next to us. He would not leave her alone, which he is supposed to do while she eats her main meal, so I finally asked, “what’cha got in that glass? Looks like a Hurricane glass! Ya got a Hurricane in there?” and he muttered something about it being water and skulked away. Apparently he did not like the implication that he appeared drunk, even though he totally did appear drunk, but then again I had consumed a Chimay White (9%) and a Chimay Red (7%) (none of my favorite, Chimay Blue (12%), in the house) so I was tipsy.

I love being me. :)

Ok, resume your day. Good to see you. :)

A food story
Monday at lunchtime I did not feel like leaving the office, as I never feel like doing, so I hopped onto grubhub.com and put in my lunch order.

What I ordered:

What I meant by my special instructions:

What I technically said and therefore received, because this is New York City, so anything you say you want you can actually get, oops: A bunch of pieces of swiss cheese thrown together between white bread (dry) with bananas on it. As in, the fruit. I hate bananas. They are revolting to my taste buds. And they charged me $1.00 extra for the bananas but the delivery guy couldn’t read the slip and kept telling me it was $10 for the bananas. Yah, no. 1⁰⁰ is a dollar. That’s the last time I pre-tip for that particular establishment… I had a proper swiss cheese sandwich with sandwich topper peppers, mayo, and toasted bread for dinner. NUM!

A movie story
And for your viewing pleasure I present to you my review of the movie KNOW1NG (aka Knowing) starring Nicolas Cage, in less than a minute!

At the end I say something about spoiling the whole movie. I know, I know, my audio sucks. But my boobs are fantastic, so who cares?

A love story
Also, a piece of love advice from me and your favorite Dawg with an orange blog: It’s hard work to find true love, and even harder work to keep it. Be prepared! :) (<3-8 baby!)

A story-tall amount of happy
Happy bastille day, happy my-dad’s-birthday, happy (18th?!) anniversary to you-know-who-you-are!