Under the Arch

It's so funny to me to say that phrase. All the silly adolescent fantasies of the rock and roll boyfriend that now make me roll my eyes with embarrassment. It's ridiculous the things we think are cool way back when. Now, when I actually get to say it out loud, I felt like an idiot. ;) I was sitting on a barstool and a guy asked me what I was doing there, alone in a bar and out it came. "I'm with the band." Inside my head, I'm giggling as I explain to total strangers why that is so funny to me. Then, of course, I'm trying to quietly and unobtrusively listen to the music, when the band raises their glasses to toast my Saturday off work. As the room's eyes switch to me (ok, so maybe it only felt like it) I'm sure my face turned ten shades of red. (Thanks guys!) As I listened to music and sipped my spiked cider, I was also wishing I had an ink pen, for I was once again itching to record my surroundings here, in this place. ;)

There was the couple to my right, who lived next door and were shocked to see a man taking photos of two very naked women in another apartment across the street. Apparently, they stumbled onto porn production in our fair city. If that wasn't enough, a guy at the table to my left was shouting about republicans in strip clubs. (Nope. No idea what that was about.)

I dedicated my Saturday to being as lazy as humanly possible with T. (The guy with the cute dog now has a letter, he's moving up in the world. lol) We watched TV and cooked dinner and....that's pretty much it. I succeeded at my goal. ;) Oh, I did finish a new hat that I was knitting, so, you know, there's that. lol

Sunday, I spent chasing down a pair of shoes I wanted and making the changes you can see here. I'm still working out the bugs and fitting in all the bits of things I had before, bear with me, even starting with a ready made template I still made changes that I had to figure out as I went. Which means, I was working on it all afternoon and evening and I'm still not satisfied. There's an "about me" that's new and I updated the Naked Monday page to include all the posts.

Ok, that's all for now, I have work in the morning and should already be in bed. ;)

Hee. Shud up.

My friend Dan is back in Kandahar from his first mission. He sent me a message on Myspace telling he was back, so I could stop hyperventilating. Sad, but true. I was so happy to be able to talk to him again, even if it was only by Yahoo messenger that I freaked him out a little bit. He said I was being all lovey dovey. (basically I wasn't calling him an ass every other minute) He couldn't figure out what was going on with me, so he asked if I'd gotten laid. No. I have not. Thanks for rubbing it in. ASS. There we go, back to normal.

My friend A from work and I are going to get all dressed up and go see Sex and the City. She is super excited and frankly, so am I. (Wheee! Socializing! With other people!)

Small rant: I get it that many women's self esteem is connected to their body and self image, I get that, but please for the love of god, Please! DO NOT FOOL YOURSELF ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN WEAR! I'm not talking about style, here. In my opinion, style is almost completely about attitude. With the right attitude, you can sell just about anything. BUT. The rest of your body may be a size small, but your boobs are double D's. Double D's will NOT fit in a small anything. They are not small. Accept it! They're not going anywhere. I don't mind getting you another size, but COME ON. Self delusion much? Ok, rant over.

Best comment overheard at work today:
"I just got new boobs and they won't fit in this. How awesome is that?!" (if you could have seen her, SO funny, she was adorable and REALLY excited about those boobs) (this was not the woman I was talking about in my rant)

Best comment overheard at work yesterday:
"I know, but I didn't get to sleep 'til like 5." "Why?" "Well I was lying there and just about to nod off, when you rolled over on me. Like, completely on top of me, and I don't know if you've noticed, but you're not exactly small, are you?" (my eyes were watering, it was all I could do to hold the laughter in until they left the store)

I will be away this weekend, visiting the family and I don't know what sort of internet access I'll have so if you don't hear from me for a couple of days, that' s what happened. I'll try to remember to twitter from my cell phone, but being inherently lazy and scatterbrained, who knows if that will happen. On the agenda for the weekend is a LOT of photography. The whole family (mom, dad, brother, sister and nephew) is having a portrait done as a complete family. The last time we had a family portrait done was when my brother was little bitty. He's 21. Yeah, it's been a while. My mom HATES having her picture taken, I have a total of three photos of my parents together in my apartment. One is their wedding picture....yeah. So, my sister, queen of the guilt trips conned my mom into this, for Mother's day. She used our grandma, my mom's mom against her. My sister is a genius. THEN, after all that "fun", I agreed to do a portrait session of my nephew in his tuxedo. My adorable little nephew was asked to be the ring bearer in my brother's friend Mark's wedding. After the photo session and before the wedding, we are going to a local museum which has beautiful grounds for an outdoor photo session with my monkey boy. Sunday is my grandma's birthday and my cousin's baby shower. It's a jam packed weekend, but I'll be back for Naked Monday and as soon as I get the nephew shots edited, I'll post the best ones here. (I'm going have to figure out the watermark thing.)

One last thing. My friend MP is moving and I'm thinking about following her. It's a decision I've been heading to for a while now, but I still need to work out some details, first. I'll keep you posted!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

We (in the southern IL/Eastern MO area) had an earthquake this morning, well, two if you count the aftershock (and, really, why not?). The original was around 4:30AM and the 2nd was a little after 10AM. Nothing really scary, a 5.2 and a 4.5, but pretty interesting for some that are earthquake virgins (as MP so eloquently put it). I had asked a friend to call me this morning to wake me up on her way to school and when I answered, she asked me if I felt the earthquake.

"Oh, that's what that was? I was really confused. I thought maybe a big truck had gone by but knowing the way I am, the whole thing could have been a dream, like the giant red spiders, but I remember the window rattling."

"No, you weren't dreaming, we really had an earthquake."

"Oh, well...neat, I guess."

Not more than a couple minutes after getting off the phone with her, the aftershock hit and I called her back in the middle of it.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, it's doing it again. Angel's freaked out, and the bed is shaking like I just put quarters in it. I don't know whether to be alarmed or enjoy the ride." (Of course, it was over before I even finished the sentence.) "And, now the mice in the attic are freaking out."

"Eww."

"Exactly"

We got off the phone and I called my Mom to make sure they were OK. (They live closer to the epicenter.) When my mom answered the phone, I asked her how everyone was doing, "Oh, you know, we're rockin' and a rollin'." (My Mom, ladies and gentlemen, this is where I get the bizarre sense of humor.)

"Did you feel the one this morning?"

"Yeah, it woke me up. I thought it was your brother running up and down the stairs, but it just kept going and going, so I looked at the clock and saw it was 4:30AM and thought, well, that can't be right. I figured it was an earthquake. But, then, it was over and I went back to sleep."

Basically, eh, nothing broke, we're good. Hee.

I called my brother a few minutes later to ask him a question and after talking for a couple of minutes, he asked, "Bri, this might sound stupid, but were there earthquakes this morning?"

lol"Yes, Jared, there were two."

"Oh, good, so I'm not crazy, then. I thought I might have been imagining things, but my lava lamp fell on me earlier. Just thought I'd check." That's my brother.

So, the whole morning has been pretty interesting and amusing, but I've got to go wash some dishes. I'm expecting the landlord later about the mice I mentioned earlier. I don't want him to realize how much of a slob I am.

Note: There are no mice in my apartment, just in the building. I've been hearing noises in the ceiling for a while now, but I have a cat, so none have actually invaded my space. (And yes, I know that just because I don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there. I inspected my apartment for "evidence", no poop to be found means no mice.) So, the fact that I haven't done my dishes in a while does not mean that I am responsible for the rodent invasion. If I had to point a finger, I would have to guess it is the ghetto neighbors causing the issue, if it is something we have done and not just the natural way of things. I didn't live here at this time last year, so I don't know.

I was having a bad day Thursday and I went to the mall for a little pick-me-up (shaddup). I was wandering around a bookstore trying to find something, anything interesting when I remembered that some blogs that I read had mentioned this series of books that was seriously addictive. Since I am such a voracious reader, I am always looking for new authors to obsess over. Ok, problem. I could remember the general plotline of the first book. I could remember that it was known as a series and were referred to as the....something. Dammit. The author? Nope. The name of any of the books? Nope. The blogs who had mentioned reading and liking them? Not. a. clue. By today, I was seriously stressed out that I couldn't figure it out and was ready to make an ass out of myself by explaining here what I had remembered and BEGGING one of my readers to HELP ME! Thankfully, I used the truly scientific method of starting at the bottom of my reader and scanning each blog back a few weeks until I found what I was looking for.....violia!!! I found a mention of the series on OMSH's page here. And though I know at least one other blogger in the last few weeks has also mentioned it, I didn't feel like pressing my luck. I went to amazon.com armed with the title of the latest book and wrote down the entire list. And, since, the idea of making an ass out of myself doesn't faze me, I shared the whole ugly truth with the internet because I still have a question for you....what do you read? What authors make you grind your teeth and rend your clothing in agony because the waiting is just. too. hard? Help me out, people. Feed my habit.

Update: Kendra kindly pointed out in the comments that I didn't tell you the series I was talking about! Oops! It's the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.

So, I've been trying to get my apartment in order this past week, a little at a time and today was the day I carried things down the back stairs to the basement. It's about two and a half floors down to where my laundry and storage area resides. I made a multitude of trips up and down and up and down...talked to the girl who lives across the hall from me...pet her giant dog...and bashed the crap out of my knee. If you've seen my Naked Monday posts, you know that I regularly sport bruises on my legs, most of the time I couldn't even tell you what I did, but tonight I managed to hit my knee on a filing cabinet in such a way that pain shot up my leg and exploded in my brain. It still hurts like a son of a bitch and what should have turned my whole leg black and blue left one teeny tiny bruise on my kneecap. Bloody hell. We have progress, though. Soon my apartment will look like someone actually lives here, rather than someone is just storing stuff here. le sigh. As I finish, I'll try to post pictures...I found the pictures I took of my empty apartment the other day...we can do a little comparison...it'll be fun....or something. Gah, I'm going to bed.

I went to the laundrymat (laundromat?) to wash all my clothes, because semester end+holiday season+bad cold+lazy+procrastination= lack of socks and underwear and...pretty much anything else. I actually have a washer and dryer in the basement that I own, but the water pressure here sucks so it takes almost as long to wash a load of laundry as it does to dry it. (plus, I'm lazy and it's cold down there and mwah!) So I took all my dirty clothes, sorted them into like colors and such and hauled the whole mess to the laundrymat on South Grand that is open 24/7 and has free wifi. I would have taken advantage of the wifi, but I had a new book to read and all this knitting, so I didn't bring my laptop...another time perhaps.
I have a lot of clothes. Say it with me...I have a lot of clothes. I didn't bring towels or sheets or any of that nonsense, just clothes. But, uh, by the time I finished folding everything and putting it back in the laundry bags, it was a little embarrassing.

I noticed this guy watching me and he was frankly making me a little nervous, but when he finally came over to talk to me.......
Stranger: Are those all yours? (pointing at the MOUNDS of clothing)
Me: Yeah, I know, it's really sad.
Stranger: Wow, and I thought I had a lot.

Look at that! Random strangers are alarmed by how much clothing I own! (And I didn't tell him about the summer stuff I have packed away.) As soon as I get it all hung up, though, I won't need to do laundry again for at least a month, maybe two. That's gotta be worth something.

While driving to work this morning, I took 44E, cuz with the 64/40 mess, it's actually easier for me to swing around downtown and up to UMSL, my school and work. (pretty convenient that way). For the last couple of months, they have been making improvements to the pavement and recently began restriping, uh....different lanes...because???? I have no idea what or why, but, you know, urban living and all that...I deal. BUT, and this is a big one (not to be confused with my butt, which is big too)um...shouldn't they, I don't know....FINISH the lanes before reopening them??!!!! Since I can't get a pic of this travesty, let me illustrate with a lovely drawing......

Ok, my photoshop drawing skills are not the best, but you get the idea. How is this ok? You literally lose your lane and have to quickly pick a new one going 60+mph and pray that there isn't another car that wants that lane too. HELLLLOOO!!!!! Seriously?