Oh. Mah. Gawd. Monday, Dec 3 2007

Don’t mind me, I’m just having a lil’ panic attack over here this morning.  Here’s why…

How about, hmmm, an analogy. 

Let’s say there’s something that you’ve REALLY wanted to do.  Let’s say it’s, oh, skydiving.  (It is not skydiving.)  You definitely want to skydive.  You’ve told people that you want to skydive.  You can totally picture yourself skydiving.  Maybe you’ve had, like, a taste of skydiving (I don’t know what a taste of skydiving without actual skydiving would be, but just go with it) and you think, “I could totally do this skydiving thing, no problem.” 

So you’ve been ready.  But the skydiving company has been wishy-washy and they’re all, “I have no idea if we will be able to take you skydiving.  Soon.  Or ever.  We know you want to skydive but you know how these things go…keep in touch.” 

Okay, so maybe skydiving won’t be happening.  You investigate other, uh, extreme sports options.  Bungee jumping or something.  You realize that skydiving isn’t the only option and maybe some other extreme support would be BETTER.  Or more exciting or what have you.  Who needs to go skydiving anyway? 

And then, all of a sudden, the skydiving company calls.  “We want to make your skydiving dreams come true!”  They’re ready to take you up, like, tomorrow, and push you out of a plane.  Here, here’s your parachute, jump on board. 

So now, skydiving is a reality.  And what seemed like such a fabulous idea when it was a foggy, distant someday seems, uh, super-duper scary now.  Because F**K, they want you to JUMP OUT OF A PLANE.  Who does that willingly?  It’s crazy.  And meanwhile the skydiving company is all, “But we really, really want to take you skydiving.  We’re willing to do whatever we have to do to get you skydiving immediately.  Please come skydive with us.  We’re desperate.”

But all you can think is, “Did I really want to skydive?  Seriously?  Was I crazy?  Why would I be so enthusiastic and willing to do something that is so insane?”  And your hands are shaking and your head is muddled and you’ve got butterflies in your stomach and all you can think about is skydiving.

Now substitute “moving to New Orleans” for the word skydiving.  It might be happening.  For real.  If all the pieces fall into place (which to be honest, I don’t think is too terribly likely), I could be heading down there before Christmas, at least temporarily. 

If you need me, I’ll just be curled up in a little ball on the floor. 

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Tainted Blood Wednesday, Nov 28 2007

I had the weirdest, most realistic dream last night.  About donating blood. 

I’ve never donated blood before.  I was always too scared of the whole process.  And then after 9/11, remember it was the thing to do?  When there was nothing else people could do, they were lining up for hours and hours to give blood.   

I thought to myself, “Self…we are in a time of national tragedy and crisis.  You should suck it up and donate blood, instead of being such a baby.” 

And it was along about that time I learned that I am BANNED from giving blood.  I am tainted.  Indeed, anyone who lived in most of Europe for longer than 6 months in the ’80s is prohibited, including military members and their families.  It has something to do with Mad Cow Disease, and the possibility that we may have eaten some tainted beef or something, I don’t know. 

Well secretly, I was gleeful.  There it was, a reason in black and white to skip out on giving blood with a legitimate excuse.  So I gave money to the Red Cross instead, and have worked a blood drive at my church but yo, you can’t have my blood, for it might be tainted. 

So this brings me back around to the fact that I had a dream last night about donating blood.  We have a blood drive coming up at work and my dream involved me whipping out my legitimate tainted blood excuse only to find out that I wasn’t banned anymore.  This very realistic dream actually involved me checking the Red Cross web site to learn that my excuse wasn’t good anymore and it ended with me being forced to give blood. 

And I woke up wondering for a split second if all of that had actually happened, and I was going to have to give blood.  So naturally, I checked the Red Cross web site this morning, just to make sure…

Yup, still tainted.  You don’t want mah blood.  So for now, I can still smile angelicaly when talk of donating blood comes up and say, “Oh, I really wish I was able to give blood, but I am prohibited, and what a shame that is.” 

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A Whole New Decade Wednesday, Nov 14 2007

(I was going to post this on Monday, but one of the things I got for my birthday was a delightful head cold so I have been operating on about 50% power since Sunday.  Better late than never.)

This is what 30 looks like:

Well, that’s what a few days short of 30 and a fresh-from-the-salon expensive haircut looks like, but you get the idea. 

30.  And I am okay with that.  A whole brand new fresh decade. 

I have been doing some thinking about my 20s.  When I think about everything that happened to me between turning 20 and the day before turning 30, the mind, it boggles.  And then I am okay about being 30, because just IMAGINE what kind of wonderfulness might happen in the next 10 years. 

During the decade of me being being 20-something, I…

• Passed a lot of classes, wrote a lot of papers, wrote a lot of journalism stories, pulled a lot of all nighters, served as editor-in-chief of my college paper and graduated from college, outside, in the rain, on a 50 degree day in May.
• Got my first job two weeks after graduating college in my chosen career field.
• Got several subsequent awesome jobs and survived being laid off once.
• Took a dream vacation to London and had the chance to spend a Christmas in Germany with my second family.
• Moved out of my parents house and lived with my best friend in our own apartment for two years, before living completely on my own and loving it.
• Adopted the best cat in the world.
• Took three mission trips to El Salvador and learned what’s really important in life.
• Made new friends, lost touch with some friends and rekindled old friendships.
• Had amazing, unbelievable high points in my career, including the day we got to blow up a dam, and managing 75+ media inquiries for the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
• Served as a bridesmaid 5 times and threw more kick-ass bridal and baby showers than I can begin to count.
• Made financial mistakes and learned from them.
• Lost my virginity, fell in love three times, had my heart broken twice and broke someone else’s heart once.
• Saw a lot of amazing concerts and took a lot of road trips. 
• Kicked a whole lot of ass in Trivial Pursuit and various other board games. 
• Watched both my brothers graduate high school and realized that they were growing up and how proud I was of them.
• Mourned the loss of all of my grandparents and missed them fiercely.
• Bought lots of clothes.  And shoes.  And god knows lots of lip gloss. 

So yeah, that was my 20s.  And now I’ve unpacked this brand new fresh decade out of the box and I’m all ready for it to be filled with lots of little bullet points like my 20s, ’cause I’m organized like that. 

P.S. Michelle, thanks for my birthday wish on Monday!!

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Veterans Day and Uncle Bill Sunday, Nov 11 2007

I jokingly have always referred to Nov. 11 (Veterans Day) as my Birthday Eve, and deeply appreciate the fact that a federal holiday falls so closely to my birthday because it basically guarantees that I get a freebie day off on which to celebrate, well, me.

But in all seriousness, Veterans Day is, to me, one of the most meaningful days that our government has chosen to commemorate. My father is a 23-year Air Force veteran. I grew up in military communities all over the world and he deployed during the first Gulf War. I know firsthand what members of the military and their families give up on a daily basis to ensure our freedom. My wonderful grandfather, who died last February, was a member of the “Greatest Generation,” a John Wayne lookalike who enlisted in the Marines during WWII and fought in the Pacific.

However, when I think of a veteran, the first one that comes to mind is Uncle Bill. He is a man I’ve never met, but one who has achieved a hero-like status in our family. Uncle Bill was the older brother of my grandfather, the oldest of my great-grandfather’s five children. My great-grandpa was a veterinarian and cattle farmer in a very small town in central Illinois. Our family was pretty prominent in this small town, which is to say that a great deal of the town was related.

From everything I’ve heard, Bill was a sharp kid — smart, witty, funny. He was a good student and went off to college at a challenging private liberal arts college in IL (the same college both of my parents would graduate from 40-some years later). He majored in English, acted in drama productions and served as editor of the college paper. After college, Uncle Bill eventually returned to his hometown and became an English teacher at his old high school.

I believe he was drafted into service in the Army after WWII began, and was sent to Europe, where he served in Holland. Like any good English teacher would, Bill continued writing, in the form of long, chatty, descriptive letters — to his parents, his brothers and sister, other family members and friends, students, etc. It was nearly the end of the war when Uncle Bill was killed — some of his fellow soldiers were guarding a border one night, he went out in a jeep to take them dinner and drove over a explosive device. He was buried in one of the American military cemeteries in the Netherlands. After his death, the family collected all his letters and had them published in a book for family and friends.

When my father was stationed in Europe, we had the chance to visit the cemetery and see Bill’s grave. It was especially meaningful because my parents had chosen to name my youngest brother (who at the time was a newborn) after Uncle Bill. A couple of times we attended a Memorial Day ceremony at the cemetery, where family of the deceased were honored guests. Coincidentally, Uncle Bill is buried not too far away from his brother-in-law Bob, the husband of my Aunt Elizabeth, who had also been killed in WWII.

It’s funny, but I’ve always felt that my immediate family had some weird connections to Uncle Bill — echoes of his personality, maybe. I mentioned that my parents went to the same college, and that’s actually where they met and fell in love. My parents and my brothers and I have all acted in drama productions over the years, like Uncle Bill, and we’re really the only ones in our extended family who are into the performing arts. And I’ve always been a writer, like he was, and I served as editor of my college paper as well. Plus, I’ve read some of the letters my father wrote to his parents while he was stationed overseas, and I can see the same chatty, conversational tone that Uncle Bill’s letters had. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if my Dad had a lot of his uncle’s personality.

I have always wished that we hadn’t lost Uncle Bill during WWII, because I really would have liked to get to know him. But I’m thankful for him, and my Grandpa, and my Dad, and the millions of other men and women who have served…those who died and those who lived who tell their stories.

(I don’t have a picture of Uncle Bill, but that’s my Grandpa in his Marine uniform…he was very handsome.)

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Something Totally Different — The Writers Strike Friday, Nov 9 2007

I’ll admit I hadn’t paid much attention to all the news of the impending writers strike, other than to realize that (crap!) the writers strike = no new TV shows. “Selfish writers,” I thought.

Yeahhhh, now I feel guilty.

The past few days I’ve been reading internet superstah pamie.com and zap2it’s coverage and this morning I found United Hollywood, a blog by some of the strike captains. So now I am all educated on the subject on the subject.

The TV shows I have loved over the years generally fall into two categories. One category is guilty pleasures.

And the other category are shows that are well-acted and, more importantly, well-written. I have tremendous respect for anyone that can write well, and especially can write dialogue well. Shows that are written well are like classical music to me, full of sharps and flats and crescendos and decrescendos.

Like West Wing. Like Sports Night. Like Brothers and Sisters and Grey’s Anatomy. I own each of those shows on DVD. I have watched some of those shows via the internet.

For every one of those DVDs I’ve bought, their writers receive 4 cents. 4 cents. And when I watch them on the internet? The writers receive NOTHING. Even if the networks include ads in their online broadcasts. Because the networks claim that showing the entire episode online or through iTunes or whatever other new media comes up is “promotional.”

And that? Is bullshit. If I’m viewing Brothers and Sisters on the internet the exact same way I would be viewing it on my TV on a Sunday evening, complete with ads, then the writers responsible for crafting those episodes (as well as the cast and crew and everyone else*) should be compensated in exactly the same way. Period.

The current Writers Guild of America contract (I guess that’s the right term?) was crafted when home video was just coming into the mainstream. There’s a whole new world of media out there. The WGA is doing the right thing by striking. They’re not asking for anything outrageous. A lot of television writers are unemployed. They may work for a season or two, and then live on residuals for several years or submit spec scripts. That can’t be an easy life.

I haven’t been able to watch The Office this season, because it runs opposite Grey’s Anatomy. I could very well go to NBC’s website and watch it online, but knowing what I know now, I won’t do that. Because The Office, like many many other fine TV shows, wouldn’t be ANYTHING without its writers. And I want to do my part, however small, to support them.

* I have a feeling this issue will continue to raise its ugly head over the next few years with the Screen Actors Guild and various other unions, if no one is being compensated for online viewings of TV episodes. I know that right now, actors and everyone else is being very supportive of the writers and we’re seeing coverage of entire show casts and crews walking picket lines with their writers.

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Memories of Birthdays Past Wednesday, Nov 7 2007

After MUCH discussion and MANY e-mails, my friends and I finally figured out what we’ll be doing on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday (my birthday is actually on Monday night, but we’ll be celebrating on Saturday night…whatev…it’s a long story).  So, that caused me to jump into the wayback machine and remember some of my other 29 birthdays (not all of them, ohmigod, we’d be here for 3 days):

1st Birthday — I had a broken leg (no joke, my mother put me on a table to change me and I rolled off and had a cast on my leg before I could walk) and they were trying to diagnose unknown food allergies so I had some sort of citrus birthday pancake made out of rice flour (irony alert — the undiagnosed allergy was to oranges and tomatoes!).  Seriously?  Saddest 1st birthday child ever, with my little cast and my flat little birthday pancake with no frosting. 

4th (?) Birthday — All I remember was the awesome Winnie-the-Pooh birthday cake my mom made. 

8th Birthday — Another birthday party, another leg in a cast.  This time it was a full leg cast, as about a month before this birthday I broke my leg very badly roller-skating.  I never skated again. 

10th Birthday — The 10th birthday is a watershed birthday for military children, as it is when you get your military I.D. card.  I swear, it seemed like a big damn deal back then.  I do not know why, except that I lived overseas and once you had an I.D. you could carry it around with you everywhere and lose it and get yelled at by your parents a lot.  I had a ’50s themed party and my mom made me an awesome skirt that had a shoe instead of a poodle and a bobby sock that made a pocket. 

12th Birthday — Trip to an indoor swimming pool (Germany had these awesome restort-style indoor swimming pools ) and then pizza. 

14th – 17th Birthdays — Slumber parties all, no doubt, and I can’t discern one from another 10 years later, as they certainly featured the same cast and the same activities and likely the same angsty teenage drama.

19th Birthday — Sophomore year at college, and I very clearly remember that I had a couple tests the following day and maybe a paper due or something and lo, it all sucked very very hard. 

21st Birthday — Alcohol.  And more alcohol.  Actually, I’m pretty sure it fell on a Thursday and that night I went with my sorority sisters and some other friends to a line-dancing joint (oh god) and not one but THREE of my sisters met their future husbands that night while I drank.  And then the following night I had dinner with my parents.  Then the night after that I did the big 21st birthday crazy ass bar hop. 

22nd Birthday — I got a ticket for running a red light.  Damn police officer.

24th Birthday — Coincided with the day we returned home from Illinois for my grandmother’s memorial service. 

28th Birthday — I had a boyfriend.  Somehow that didn’t improve the birthday situation all that markedly. 

29th Birthday — I spent the weekend with a bunch of girls at a resort/spa with lots of alcohol and pampering and a relaxation room.  That DID improve the birthday situation markedly. 

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Impending Dooooom Monday, Nov 5 2007

Today is Monday.  And I am still 29.

Next Monday?  I will be 30.

And that very fact right there?  Is freaking me the fuck out more than I really care to admit (except, uh, am admitting it right here to the internet).

But I guess what I am saying is that this is the first time I had said, “Self, you are really truly having a very difficult time with the fact that you are turning 30.”

Plus, no one in my real life knows that I am seriously, like, all to pieces about turning 30.  All year long I have watched my friends turned 30 and oh, we have laughed and joked about getting old and ha ha, hasn’t it been so funny?  And whee, the last few weeks I have begun to make Bridget Jonesesque references to my quickly-approaching 3oth birthday about days of mourning and whatnot and I write “30!” on my calendars and what no on really realizes is that it makes me wants to cry.  For real. 

Like, panic attack cry.  Like, curl up in a ball and cry big heaving sobs. 

Because this is not what I thought my life would be like when I turned 30.  I never thought I would still be alone.  I never thought that I would be making more money every month and still feeling financially unstable.  I never thought that a biological clock was a real “thing” or that I would begin wanting a baby so badly when it seemed so far out of reach. 

At 25 I thought I had all the time in the world.  I thought all the pieces of my life would fall into place.  And now at 30, I’m scared they’re not ever going to. 

So I’ve got 7 days to figure out how to be brave enough to turn 30.

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Blind (In)Justice Wednesday, Oct 31 2007

I’m probably going to go to hell for writing this post.  You may go to hell just for reading it 

Remember the blind cafeteria lady and I was all, “Ohhhh, her quirks are so charming and funny, ha ha ha?”  WELL.  No more.  It is ON like Donkey Kong, Blind Cafeteria Lady.  I’m staging a one-woman boycott.  Or, uh, girlcott, as it would be.

Oftentimes in the morning I will purchase a 16 oz. cup and fill it either with a coffee/hot chocolate mixture (and I bring my own hot chocolate mixture, thank you very much, because the pricing on that caused even more confusion) or hot water, with which I make my own tea.  And she always tells me to bring it back because I can get a refill.  In fact, one time I got water and she even SPECIFICALLY SAID that the water was free and I was paying for the CUP.  That piece of information will prove to be important. 

I don’t often remember to bring the cup back at lunch, but occasionally I do hold on to it and wash it out and bring it back and refill it with Diet Coke or iced tea and pay the refill price, whatever the stupid refill price happens to be that day.  And she has never — NEVER — said a word to me. 

Until yesterday, when I told her I had a refill and she was all, “Is that the cup you had coffee in earlier?”  I informed her that, in fact, I had had hot water and that now I had iced tea. 

Well.  NOW she informs me that I can’t get a refill of something different!  That I have to get a refill of the same thing!  The same thing being hot water, of course. 

So I promptly threw a big ole bitch-fit.  I had only brought down 50 cents, and besides, she always lets me pay the refill price, no matter what the drink I had the first time was and what the drink I am purchasing the second time is.  If McDonald’s changed their policies all willy-nilly like that, they’d have no customers left!  It’s riiiiidiculous. 

So for now, I’m avoiding the cafeteria and the mean cafeteria lady and her stupid refill policies.  We’ll see how long it lasts.

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Randomosity Tuesday, Oct 30 2007

This is going to be a collection of little bits and pieces of things that have absolutely nothing to do with one another…

The aforementioned blind cafeteria lady keeps her satellite radio tuned to an oldies station and I swear, the last three or four times I have gone in there, the song “Boy from New York City” has ALWAYS been playing.  Which is funny, because it’s a song we did in show choir in high school, which means that I always get the urge to sing along and bust out in a box step with some jazz hands.  Except that might be embarassing, you know.

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The last couple weeks my friends and I have been consumed with a lot of hubbub and hullabaloo over what is right and wrong and appropriate and inappropriate regarding one of our friend’s upcoming weddings.  You see, said friend at first was having a regular but very very small wedding with a dress and a couple attendants (sister and sis-in-law) and whatnot.  Then that was cancelled and in it’s place she declared that she wanted nothing big and no fuss and they were just going to go to the courthouse with their parents and that was it.  Except that she expected her friends (that would be us) to throw her a bridal shower!  And we were all, “Whaaaaat????”  She wasn’t even inviting us to her no-fuss non-wedding wedding and she expected a full-on bridal shower??  So there were a lot of e-mails and discussions and arguments and the bride got her feelings hurt and the mother of the bride did some yelling and all us friends got our feelings hurt and we tried to compromise by suggesting a smaller spa day, vis a full tilt boogie bridal shower and lo, it was all very uncomfortable and ugly. 

The result?  Now there is a real bridal shower being hosted by a friend of the mother of the bride to which we are invited.  AND the spa day we suggested the following weekend, for which we will be paying for the bride’s services.  AND a slightly larger wedding at the home of the brides parents two weekends later to which a very small group of guests will be invited, us included, which I suppose means we need to bring a gift to as well and dayum, all of the sudden that is THREE SEPARATE MONEY SPENDING OPPORTUNITIES.  Which seems like, I don’t know, a heck of a lot of FUSS for such a low-key bride!  Sigh. 

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Remember the guy from her school that Best Friend A was trying to hook me up with?  Well we went to the school fundraising thing with her a couple weeks ago and were introduced and he was really nice and cute and that was all good.  And then I tagged along with my friend and her husband to a party that he (the guy in question) was hosting at his house on Saturday night, when I’m sure I dazzled him with my knowledge of pop culture because our girls team SCHOOLED his guys team in the Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture DVD Game.  That is, if I didn’t scare him off with my uber-competitive nature and all the screaming and the screeching and fist-pumping.  I have to say, he seemed somewhat competitive too, for when Best Friend A pulled some questionable moves with the dice to get the necessary 2 that would land us on our last needed pie space, he began calling our team the Cheeter Girls. 

Oh, and earlier in the evening I was on his team for one of those electronic trivia games, like the kind they have in bars, which was all well and good (Best Friend A was pretty much ready to send out the wedding announcements when he declared that I was on his team), except I totally boffed one of the questions and lost our team a bunch of money and we never did recover from that wrong answer and lost and it was sad. 

But it was a really fun evening and I like anyone that can be as dorkily enthusiastic about board games as I can, so we shall see what happens next.  Best Friend A is supposed to be, I don’t know, dropping subtle hints about me but ohmigod, subtle is sooo not her strong suit so I could be in trouble.

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I cannot deny it any more.  Today is Oct. 30, 2007.  Which means that tomorrow is the 31st and the day after that is the 1st of November and in 13 days I will be 30.  Oh.  God.

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Side Effects May Include… Friday, Oct 26 2007

A couple years ago my doctor put me on a daily medicine called Elavil to help prevent migraines.  When I got my first dose, the pharmacist handed me one of those looong documents that described every side effect and complication that the medication may cause.  It was long, the print was small and of course I didn’t read it.

Within the next few weeks I slowly began to realize that I was craving sugar and sweet things more and more.   I hit rock bottom the night I took a pat of butter from the fridge, mixed it with brown sugar (you know, like you do when you’re making cookies) and ate it out of the bowl just like that.  Suddenly it occured to me that this was a little weird, so off to the helpful Internet I went. 

Turns out, a wacky side effect of Elavil is an increased craving for sweets.  Whaddya know!  Remember this tale.

Fast forward 2+ years.  The Elavil is not working, as evidenced by my near-daily migraines.  The doctor decides it is time for the big guns of the migraine-prevention world — Topamax.  Topamax must be adjusted to gradually, so I started on it last Sunday with one pill a day and will spend the next month building up a tolerance or some such thing. 

Now, I did read (okay, skimmed) the drug literature this time.  Frankly, most of the drug literature always sounds the same but I read it.  I even re-read it to see if it listed sleeplessness, because when I take the stupid Topamax at night it causes me to, well, be sleepless. 

Now here is the sad part of today’s tale.  As I am a 29-year-old girl, you can imagine that I love the Diet Coke.  It is a cliche, yes.  But I am a Diet Coke girl.  My bloodstream is probably composed of equal parts Diet Coke and Starbucks with some margarita thrown in for good measure.

And the few times I have had Diet Coke this week they have always tasted weird.  Flat-ish.  I thought it was the cafeteria Diet Coke, and then the Subway Diet Coke, but I also had a canned Diet Coke, which is usually the best Diet Coke of the bunch and they’ve tasted weird too.

So today, in the course of googling Topamax and side effects to research the sleeplessness factor, I discovered that many patients complained that Topamax MAKES SODA TASTE WEIRD.  And FLAT.  Topamax RUINS DIET COKE. 

This was definitely not listed in the stupid pharmacy literature!  Nor was it mentioned by my doctor.  Because if I was asked to choose between cosntant migraines and constant weird-tasting and flat-ish Diet Coke, I…would have a very tough time choosing. 

Also?  My beloved Starbuck’s Sugarfree Hazelnut Non-Fat Latte (SFHNFL) this morning tasted super-sweet and not right at all.  Y’all, I’m not sure I can face a life without Diet Coke AND SFHNFLs. 

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