well, that’s… prolonged

so. ahem.

yes, i’ve managed to neglect my blog for three goddamn years. not three months, which can absolutely be forgiven by random life events. but three. fracking. years. and it’s not like i’ve been doing something amazing, like hiking in the himalayan mountains, and then one of the tribes there kind of swallowed me up, and assimilated me into their culture. no. i moved out of breederville, into a house that really ought to be torn down (or blown up. yeah, i think this house should be imploded). i’ve had a fascinating short list of strange roommates (don’t let me forget to tell you about the sleepwalker who busted his ass on the basement stairs, and who would drink his coffee out of my pyrex measuring cup. he was charming) (or the perpetually drunk woman who nearly set the house ablaze with her inebriated dumbness), and i’m now in the home stretch (please gods let this be true) to buying my own tumbledown shack. which honestly, i’m looking forward to the work that owning a house will be.

but. back to missing three years.

i’ve had internet connection. and i’ve had a working computer for pretty much the whole time. except for that one week in november, where my beloved carmen-the-laptop booted her last… uh… thingy, and i had to buy a whole new computer. i’m not complaining; the new computer is great, although windows 7? really? you’re not apple, microsoft, so you really should just stop trying. mario is still here, he still snores, and now he catches mice like some kind of bizarre, ninja-dog. he doesn’t kill them, he just nabs them and escorts them outside in his mouth. i now have an honest-to-goodness boyfriend (kind of charming that my last post was about the interweb dating scene), and he has an honest-to-goodness daughter. she’s amazing.

in the last three years, i’ve lost my maternal grandfather and my mother (not like, i lost them at the fair, or anything like that). gramps died of dementia-related illness, and my mom had a heart attack while asleep on the couch just last year. my dad, for his part, has met a really nice lady and moved her into his house. she really is nice.

hm, what else? oh, i had my gallbladder removed last week. that was pretty awesome.

so. i make no promises, but i will do my bestest to be a better blogger. i like talking to the internets, even if no one is talking back. i will knit, cook, take pictures and make fun of everything. most of all, myself. because i can be… well. ‘window-licker special’ is probably the best way to describe me.

as always, thanks for stopping by.

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not dead, just resting

yeah, it’s been awhile.

instead of recapping all the minutiae of my life (yoga, biopsy, various weird dog stories, pilates, taking the bus to work, more yoga), i’m going to ignore the ages of silence and jump right into making fun of myself.

specifically, my foray into online dating. oh, yes.

one night, i was feeling unloved. that’s the best way i can put it. it had been a rough week, and it seemed like i had managed to muck up a fair few friendships in various and exciting ways. i hadn’t, but i felt like it. so, in my minute of need, i went to google and asked it about online dating.

this is probably stating the obvious, but there are a lot of dating websites out there. i think the actual measurement is a shit-ton. there are the big, generic sites (we match you on eleventy billion different levels of compatibility… and yet, they can’t find anyone for me? i mean, aside from one self-proclaimed serious christian army man up in washington state? really? am i that much of a bitch? apparently, yes). there are smaller, specific sites (fetish for girls in glasses? there’s a site for that. gotta have a dude that likes to dress up as minnie mouse? there’s a site for that, too). and there are my personal favorite, free sites.

the one i went with was plenty of fish. which is not a christian site, i’m happy to say. i signed up, took a few quizzes (apparently, i have trust issues. who whoulda thunk it??), and answered a few questions. the usual. age, star sign, body type. they also asked if i had a car, which is a new one. i mean, i’ve created my fair share of online profiles, and i’ve never been asked if i have my own vehicle. it was kinda like being back in high school. you know, when you could tell who had just had their 16th birthday by who felt the need to carry their CAR KEYS JANGLE JANGLE SHINY I CAN DRIVE NOW keyring around instead of putting it in their backpack like the cool seniors did.

anyway.

i put one picture up. in hindsight, probably not the best thing to put on a dating site:

i keep my little “about me” paragraph simple. i’m me, my dog farts, i like big dudes, bonus points given for facial/ body hair and/or glasses. i think to myself, so, at least i’m making an effort to meet people. then i turn off the computer and go to bed.

the next morning, i have ten emails. most are one sentence, and all but one says something like haha what happened to your tongue. after several more emails asking about my tongue, i edit my profile to say…  the tongue color is from a sourball gone awry. which is the truth. but as i was answering the emails (my original rule was, no matter how badly misspelled the email, or how silly i thought the content was, i would respond to each email, it only seems polite), i started telling guys that i either ate a smurf, or licked a smurf. some thought it was pretty funny – like the one guy who said, oh yeah? well i licked a pretty pony once, but it tasted like liver. some thought it was a sexual reference. and a few had no idea what to make of it, and thus never wrote back.

something i’ve learned about online dating: i attract divorced men with kids age 9-13. i’m not sure why this is, but that seems to be the majority of guys i’ve heard from. oh, and guys that can’t be bothered to run spell check before hitting ‘send’. now, in my world, spelling totally counts. and i’ve written guys back making fun of their errors. like the 50-year-old who asked why my tonge was blu, and was i interested in chatting with a ‘real’ man. i wrote him back… i don’t know what a tonge is, but if i had a blu one i’d get it checked out at the free clinic. and i’m really only interested in pseudomen. but thanks!

yeah. i’m an awful person. and a bitch. further, it’s nice that the URL is plentyoffish. so, it can be ‘plenty of fish’ or ‘plenty offish’. both of which are fairly accurate.

i have no neat ending for this. it’s just a weird thing i’m doing, and i fully intend to make more fun of it as things continue. i’ve come in contact with a few awesome people, and one who writes the most amazing emails i’ve ever received. but, in general? just a chunk of humanity using the interwebs to be vulgar and idiotic.

as always, thanks for stopping by.

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yeah, i’m an awful blogger

so. there’s that.

it’s a habit i’ve fallen out of, that’s for sure. i don’t have as much time to myself as i once did, and the blog suffers like some kind of unloved stepchild. plus, we are once again minus an interweb connection at the house (i’m blaming the brats in particular, and verizon in general) (i’m typing this on my phone. that’s how hardcore i am).

none of this is a valid excuse. bear with me, and i’ll get there. if you’ve got better things to do, i totally understand.

as always, thanks for stopping by.

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technology is awesome. and evil.

hi. i’m still here.

i have no good excuse for not posting in such a long time. other than, there may have been some drinking.

the hooch of choice in triple digit weather

there may have also been some shenanigans.

stealing my sunglasses. and my sippy cup

also, there may have been a new addition to my little army.

mario in the front, bentley in the back

i have missed you, internet.

here’s the thing. i really like the internet. like, as something more than a friend. you can type the most random of phrases into your search engine of choice, and spend a few hours giggling at what is retrieved. i mean, who knew there was a blog dedicated to cakes gone wrong? or a woman that will induce you to scream WOLVERINE!! for no good reason? not to mention all the crazy stuff you can find on youtube. which i’m convinced is its own little internet.

i have met great people through my computer. some of them i have even met in real life. and, so far, most of them have not been creepy stalkers. the internet has this amazing power to connect people and spread factoids. you can send your mom flowers, and then find a strip club. all within five minutes. it’s incredible.

anyway.

life, as they say, is what happens when you’re making other plans. i will try to post more regularly. but there’s knitting to accomplish, alcohol to be consumed with friends, and a dog who grunts and demands i rub his belly. and a heat wave to avoid amidst all that other stuff.

but, as always, thanks for stopping by. and not giving up on me. is appreciated.

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huh.

so, today? i was gonna talk about something kinda funny. but then, farrah fawcett died. and then, michael jackson died.

i’ll be hiding in my room for the rest of the day. because, clearly, death is knocking out the crazy.

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srsly?

have you ever actually read the product reviews at amazon? sometimes they’re helpful, sometimes they’re whiny.

sometimes they make you think, is this for real?

case in point – i was getting my gossip on over at dlisted. one post featured this photo (saved to my own compy, because i’m not a dumbass):

i howl at the moon, if you catch my drift

wolf shirt. being sold on amazon. with the most amazing product reviews. as i was reading, i kept thinking, is this a joke? did i just get hyperlinked to the onion’s website? i laughed so loud i snorted. i may have peed a little.

a sample:

So, when wearing this shirt, I noticed that I immediately received all powers of the planeteers, superspeed, invisibility, flight, and the ability to turn woodchucks into gold.

The problem is the powers only occur when I think about happy thoughts. I later found out that Peter Pan made the shirt so it makes a lot of sense. I think that the manufacturer would specify this.

-1 star cause it fades easily in the wash.

go read all the crazy goodness over there. i’m really glad that amazon doesn’t really monitor the product reviews too closely.

thanks for stopping by. be on the lookout for golden woodchucks.

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falling down on the job, as per usual

i’ve been sick with a cold the last week. which is awesome. i hate the sound of phlegm, and i’ve been making the sound of phlegm. so it’s been a lot of blowing my nose and saying ewwww.

seriously. sound of phlegm being coughed up is one of the only things that can make me gag.

but thanks for stopping by. have a cough drop. i bought eight bags.

i may have a problem.

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getting back on the horse. or… whatever.

so, it’s fair to say i’ve been a little emotional the last week and change. i’ve started half a dozen blog posts in my head, only to have my internal editor veto them before i got to a computer. and then, i end up reading a book and forgetting about the blog altogether.

instead of talking about this cat-shaped hole i now have in my life, i’ll talk about my neck. at least that story has a happy ending.

as you may recall, i had an MRI of my neck that told me what most of my friends and colleagues already know – that i’m damaged goods but pretty much within normal limits. a few saturdays ago, i was in the shower washing my hair, and i experienced what i thought was a pulled shoulder muscle. great, i thought. i’m the only person i know who can get injured while performing personal hygiene.  i continue about my day, which included going to see the watchmen and doing a few little errands. as an aside, i’m still not sure if i recommend the watchmen to non-geeks. you may love it, you may hate it. or, you may just go to see if dr manhattan really is totally naked (yes, and apparently uncircumcised. just saying). it was fun to watch, but i don’t know if i absolutely loved it. i guess if i still don’t know, then i probably didn’t love it. still, worth watching.

anyway.

as my day goes on, my neck starts to hurt more and more. what started as a mild pain in my left shoulder became really intense pain working its way up my neck; by the time i was heading home, the pain was on both sides of my neck, shooting into both shoulders. i couldn’t turn my head to check traffic, or my blind spot. which made my drive home one elongated prayer to the universe. please don’t let me hit anyone, please don’t let anyone hit me, let me make it home safely, please please please…

as another aside, i don’t really believe in god. i blame my catholic upbringing. i can’t get behind the idea of an invisible man, up in the sky, watching every move i make and deeming it good or bad. also? that’s just plain creepy. but, i can get behind the idea that energy in the universe can be positive or negative. and if you ask nicely, these good and bad energies can sometimes work together to get you what you need to get where you’re going.

so, i get home in one piece. i go to bed, because i can’t really hold my head up. this is the week before ophelia died, and she was all over me, and very much on board with going for a lie-down. i lay down, put on a DVD, and proceed to try and not move.

i know i’ve said this before, and i’m pretty sure i’ll be saying it again, but you really don’t appreciate beign able to do something until you experience not being able to do this same something. the act of moving from a horizontal position to a sitting position takes no time or thought on most days. it took me over 15 minutes. seriously.

so, i’m in a lot of pain and moving sucks. i take waaaay too much aspirin, and roll out of bed monday morning (yeah, i spent my weekend snoozing with the cat and trying not to move. i’m such a rock star). i go to work – yeah, i’m having trouble moving, but i work at a hospital. surely, someone there can help me. what i get is a stern talking-to about taking waaaay too much aspirin, a prescription for muscle relaxers, and a referral for chiropractic services. the pills help, but it’s the chiro dude that makes the pain go away. i was so impressed when, 10 or so minutes into my first appointment, i could move my neck. i’ve had a few appointments since then, and i’m down to once a week. it still hurts a bit, even now, but i can move my neck without wincing or making little gasping noises. it takes me no time to get up in the morning – i mean, no more than is usual. the appointments themselves are pretty great. during one morning appointment, the chiropractor said my shoulder muscles were really tight, and he was going to use some kind of electronic stimulation that would cause my muscles to spontaneously contract and relax. essentially, he hooked me up to a battery for ten minutes, and i got to watch my arms jump about of their own accord. he said i’m the only patient that’s ever laughed their way through such a session.

anyway, i’m glad my neck works again.

it’s going to take a little doing to get back in the swing of sitting down to blog. normally, ophelia lays on my feet while i make fun of myself on the interwebs, and it feels wrong to be doing this without her. however, life continues, and i do like writing, even if i’m not terribly funny all the time. i have ideas coming, things that do get past the internal editor. like, i really want to talk about all the badly misspelled signs i’ve been seeing. but that needs photos, and i just haven’t gotten around to it.

so, thanks for stopping by. i hope you continue to stop by. it’s only gonna get weirder.

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i can’t even think what to put here

ophelia thunderpaws

mah bubbeh

time of death: friday, march 13, 2009. 9:15pm

i just couldn’t let her suffer anymore.

y’all excuse me for a bit.

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double u, tee, eff?

so, i was at the dentist this morning. where they like to complain that i don’t floss vigorously enough or whatever, and the hygienist pokes my gums with that pointy thinger far too often to be accidental. seriously, what kind of person becomes a hygienist? you scrape at other peoples’ oral cavities all day. it just seems like odd behavior.

says the girl who draws blood for a living.

anyway.

the dentist is telling me i need more fluoride, so i should get a rinse to use at night. or, she says, we can get you a prescription for toothpaste.

i mean… really? a toothpaste prescription? i use toothpaste (the arm & hammer stuff. it’s great. and over the counter!), so it’s not like i need to be dragged into the modern age or anything like that.

that just slays me. a prescription for toothpaste is like a prescription for dental floss, or a hairbrush.

sorry. it’s not terribly funny. but it’s still baffling to me.

carry on.

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