who's more annoying, me or me?

i realized this morning that i have this whole weekend off from work. i've been working so many weekends lately that i almost don't even know what to do with three days to myself. sometimes i'm so indecisive that it makes my head hurt, or maybe that's just a natural response to my multiple personalities battling it out in my brain.

either way, it dawned on me that i should probably take advantage of my sybil-esque tendencies and see what fruitful results i can elicit from deep within my psyche. this morning i took a very thorough survey of my peeps to see what they had to say about this whole 'free weekend' situation.


me: hey practicality, what do you think about this weekend? got any good ideas?
p: uh, how about vacuuming up this dirthole you live in for starters? then there's always laundry, grocery shopping, dishes, making baby food, more dishes....
me: yeah, ok i get it. you're boring, who's next?


me: what's up free spirit? what would you do with three days to yourself?
fs: oh hi! well let's see, i might take monster out for a really long hike up in silver mine or maybe even minnewaska. oooh, and i'd have to make sure i brought a notebook to capture any reflections i might be stricken with as i'm surrounded by nature's beauty. i might also want to start planting that garden i've been talking about. i could have all organic vegetables and then have some flowers on the edges to bring some harmony.
me: uh, that all sounds like work to me. i'm trying to not do any work here, maybe next time... i think i see paranoia over there, maybe she has something to offer.


me: paranoia, what the hell are you doing with all this foam padding stuff?
p: oh, just a little babyproofing.
me: um, i don't think monster is going to be very happy with padding on his feet. have you thought this through?
p: oh yes. this is exactly what the book said to do, cover ALL sharp objects in the house, and if you haven't noticed he's got some claws there.
me: o..k... you don't think that's a little extreme? i mean, he still has to walk, and it's not like the baby can get up onto his sleeping chair to mess with them.
p: uh-oh. is it too much? am i over-protecting? is little miss never going to learn to have natural boundaries? are other parents going to think she's spoiled? is she going to be able to make friends in kindergarten? is she...
me: that's enough! i gotta go see something, uh, over there. bye.


me: potty-mouth! you ol' bitchass! it's been too long!! maybe you can help me think of something to do this weekend. whattya got for me?
pm: for fuck's sake, enough with this indecisive bullshit. just get your ass out and do something already. b will be here to watch little miss, so you can go get shitfaced in the middle of the day if you want.
me: oooh that sounds fun! you coming?
pm: fuck that! it's supposed to rain. i don't go anywhere in the rain.
me: well, i can't exactly go out drinking in the middle of the day all alone. it's not that fun to get shitty and talk to myself.
pm: and that's so different from this crap you're pulling right now?
me: right. whatever. fuck off. i'm going to talk to laziness.


me: lazy, you have to have something good for me. no one else has been any help. i just don't know what would be the best way to spend my weekend.
l: go to the beer store, get a sixer of something new, put b on baby duty, and park it on the couch alternating between horror movies and super mario galaxy. done.
me: i knew i saved the best for last for a reason! you are so good at understanding me. how do you always have the right thing to say?
l: i'm really just too lazy for this conversation. can i go nap now?


i think laziness is my new best friend. at the very least, i should definitely listen to her a little more often. oh wait, i think i just did. i was going to make up some fun pictures in paint to illustrate this post, but guess what, i'm too lazy! so my words are all you're going to have, i trust you all to create wonderfully funny and appropriate images in your heads for yourselves.

and now if you'll excuse me, i think i need a nice long nap to help me gear up for all the sitting around i plan on doing this weekend.

i'm the one who likes to hurt things

i can never remember if it's the sadist or the masochist who likes to be the one inflicting the pain. i thought about looking it up, but we all know how literal google can be. i'm sure even this post is going to be enough to make the little men who live inside my computer run and tell all their little computer dwelling friends that i like weird mean porn. which may or may not be true, but that isn't exactly what i'm talking about in this particular instance.

so if you will please picture me the james spader to maggie gyllenhaal in 'the secretary' i will continue with this warped train of thought i have somehow embarked on.

really though, i'm talking about how i like to dehydrate all my house plants and then bring them back to life at the very last minute.


behold my sad little christmas cactus.

this baby has been sitting on my kitchen windowsill for over a year now. i think the last time i watered it was sometime in early march, there was definitely still snow on the ground.

i wash dishes in that kitchen every day, for no less than two hours a day (not all at once). i look into the pink ceramic pot and know that the thick, fleshy leaves of the plant are yearning for me to be the one to save it from certain death. we're not talking about neglect here, i don't forget to water it. i choose not to water it. i say 'oh plantie, you're fine. you have the very word 'cactus' in your name, that's got to count for something. hang in there til tomorrow, maybe i'll feel differently about you then. by the way, nice flower.'

but i never do.

until this morning, when b said 'LANA! throw this gross dead plant out already!!'

i obligingly answered 'sure honey, i'll do it today.'

but after he had left for work and i went into the kitchen to do the deed, i knew i was only fooling myself. i promptly drenched the dry soil with a hearty dose of tap water and put it back on my windowsill. i've seen it get way worse than this before. i give it a good 36 hours before it bounces back to its usual state of not-so-sadly-surviving.

now the planties in the living room are getting jealous. it's almost like they can smell the water that their fellow prisoner/companion was fortunate enough to receive this day. their leafy tendrils are pointing this way as i type, reaching out for me. the little bead bugs i once so delicately placed in their pots to spread some cheer have now mustered what strength they have left, uniting in a desperate attempt to force me to care for their plant-hosts.

i won't cave. not tonight, do your worst bead bugs.

(and then tomorrow b will read this post and then be all 'yeah! those ones in the living room are gross too! when are you gonna get rid of them! why do you even have plants in the first place?')

well b, i'll tell you why, because i'm a masochist (or a sadist, whatever).

if i knew how to make a fancy fireworks display, i would do so now

at this very moment i find myself succumbing to the inevitable boob sweat that will plague me for the rest of my days, and also to the fact that during my brief respite from everyday busy-ness i will end up sitting at my computer chugging coffee like it's going out of style.

on this cheery sunshiney morning i can only think about how amazingly awesome it's going to be to have b around for a long holiday weekend. and since i should be doing something else instead of blogging right now, i will offer up a small list of things to look forward to this weekend:

1. not working with dick chef (sexist asshole who won't let me get near a heat source because that's for menfolk)

2. any and all time spent with family so that i can pass off the baby and drink a shit ton of beer in the middle of the afternoon

3. getting out of the house and away from monster's incessant barking and therefore not have to hear myself yell 'shut the fuck up you stupid mongrel' every five minutes

4. eating more hot dogs than i want to count

5. allowing myself to pretend that someday i'll be able to own the boat i've always wanted and picture myself out on the river basking in the sun (as i watch every other assclown in the hudson valley out on their boats that they probably don't even appreciate as much as i would)

6. finally getting a pedicure so that when i wear my flip flops you're blinded by fluorescent orange nailpolish and don't notice how big my big toe really is (or how sad my little nubbin of a pinky toe is)

and i think that might be more than i can handle this weekend, but i'm damn sure going to try. i know this holiday is really about commemorating those that have given their lives in battle, but there are plenty of americans who may not have died but gave of their lives when needed. on that note, i want to thank my brother, a veteran of the iraqi war, and all others for doing what i know i never could. THANKS FOR BEING STRONG FOR ALL OF US!!!

this post shouldn't even exist

i wasn't even going to post anything today, yet here i am type, type, typing away. i have a trillion things to do before leaving for work today, not the least of which may or may not include letting monster loose to attack the man who insists on playing with his remote control car right outside my window.

before i do that, i can easily take a few minutes to tell you all about this little gadgety thing i saw on kristine's blog this morning. it's called wordle, and it takes your most commonly used words from your text and makes a cute little arrangement for you. since something new is better than nothing at all, i thought i'd try it. (and no, it's not stealing post ideas if she encouraged people to do it. which, by the way, you should do it too, it's fun.)

here's my compilation: *

(click here to see julius ceasar in full battle regalia, or maybe just a bigger version of my wordle)**

so, i'm not really surprised to see 'really' making such a loud statement in this collage, but i am wondering why 'so' isn't front and center, considering i have a really, really bad habit of starting off sentences with 'so...'.

who knows, maybe the little guys inside my computer who run around picking up words and throwing them back down randomly forgot all about 'so' because it's so little. at least they didn't forget 'assclowns'. that's one of my favorites.

or maybe the little computer guys are obsessed with any word that starts with the letter 'a'. it seems there's a disproportionate amount of a-words in this wordle. they even grabbed the abbreviation a's (for the oakland athletics-worst baseball team name ever). i guess i should take the hint and change up my writing a little bit. there's only so much i can write about appetite addiction or adventurous attention.

i always did have a problem with excessive alliteration.

now that i've sufficiently wasted another seventeen minutes reading up on mr. linky, i think i just need to stop where i am and leave nature to take its course. i wanted to see if i could pull off adding that piece here so that you could all link your wordles to me, but i guess i should have known it wasn't going to happen before i even started. i don't think i'll ever get all that html crap anyway. well, the thought was there, and that should count for something.



*i'm sorry this picture is so small. i have no idea how to make it bigger and now i really need to go get ready or i'll be late and unprepared for work and then i'll get fired and then i'll lose my home and then my kid will starve. fuck you wordle! no really, it is kind of fun, if you can manage to get the right size to show up. any helpful hints?

**if you really wanted to humor me, you can click on the link. i know, i probably wouldn't either, it's ok.

eat at your own risk

there's nothing wrong with being sexually adventurous, but there's definitely some lines that i won't cross. the biggest taboo for me is the mixing of food and sex.

these two acts, once merely for survival, have often become intertwined and co-mingled in a way that i will never feel comfortable with. i like to savor the taste of a well-prepared meal, or enjoy a delicious dessert, on a plate. i prefer any sexual encounter to be as far removed from the kitchen as possible.

but there are some folks out there who would call me prude, or at the very least, tell me that i can't knock it til i try it. all i can say to that is you can have your whipped cream bikinis and sushi served on a woman wearing nothing more than lotus leaves, i'm too much of a purist to taint one pleasure with another. and how do you really, really know what you're getting yourself into? humans can carry around some nasty little surprises that may only become visible when it's way too late for you to do anything about it. before any of you guys get too excited, ask yourself, is this thick, rich whipped cream just masking genital warts and maybe some crabs? or perhaps, think twice before using your chopsticks near the sushi woman's too-perky breasts, lest you cause her implant to rupture, spilling boob juices onto your spicy tuna maki.

thinking about eating, licking, or otherwise consuming food from another person's body, no matter how physically attractive they may be, is so repulsive to me that i can't help but shudder and make that 'bleeecchhh' sound.

body shots are right up there as well. you might argue that if the liquor is strong enough, say moonshine as opposed to peach schnapps, there might actually be some sanitizing going on there to make ingesting fluid off of someone's body seem not so bad. and you may be right, but i will not be the one to test that theory.

this whole topic may seem a bit out of the blue for me, but the truth is, it's been prompted by what i consider to be one of the most disturbing advertisements i've ever seen.



there's so many levels of wrong here, white castle. the weird shadowy, smokey lighting, the pig stripper taking pleasure in covering herself in the sauce, and the fact that she knows she's performing for a crowd who's captivated by her sexy dance. eeww. but the part that really gets to me, the part where i have to say 'that's enough of this food porn!' and quickly change the channel, is when the guy licks the sauce off the paper bag from his finger and then nods his head, acknowledging his pleasure.

it's too much for me. i need a hot, steamy shower to clean all the icky off.

my work is never done

this weekend i actually worked two shifts. that's a huge step for me, my usual being about one shift every two weeks. i have to say, it definitely is hard work, but sometimes a girl just needs to get out of the house and in front of a hot oven or deep fryer to really appreciate all that life has to offer.

the burning pain in my legs that i've been experiencing since yesterday morning leads me to believe that i've actually been using some muscles, to walk around and stuff, which can never be a bad thing. i've also begun to collect more of the horizontal burn lines on the middle of the inner forearm from hot sheet pans. these lines are almost like the rings of a tree trunk, the amount you have indicates the length of time you've been working. up until this weekend, i only had two.

working for an enormous catering company when i'm not pregnant also means that my appetite will return to that of a normal cook, i.e., nonexistent. spending ten-twelve hours a day handling food, even if it's the most gourmet shit i've ever seen, makes me want to ingest nothing more than an ice cold sam adams summer ale. which, of course, the bartenders are way too stingy with so i have to settle for a few gallons of coffee. so hopefully i'll shed the last 25 pounds of baby weight in no time with my new diet of caffeine and air.

another fun thing about working more is that i get to come home and see what random goings-on b has managed to capture on camera. i don't know about all of you, but this weekend we had another one of those obnoxiously loud thunderstorms that should have lasted only an hour but stuck around for about two days. oh and just a warning for future reference, flip flops plus flooding rains is not a safe combination. right, so i was trying to introduce this lovely photographic evidence of monster's new favorite hiding spot during a thunderstorm. it used to be here, but it seems that sometimes a dog just needs a little more security, and nothing says 'you're safe here buddy' like a bathtub.

(i don't know how to make that writing not blurry so you're just going to have to deal with it)

on that note, i before i go scrub the shit out of my tub, i really would like some input on a question i had not too long ago. i never really got a second opinion about this, and i'm still very curious. if a bathroom cleaner is so strong that it makes me headachy, and the roof of my mouth and the back of my throat burn for about five hours after using it, does that mean that i shouldn't give my baby a bath in a tub that i just cleaned with that cleaner, or does it just work really, really well?

i'm going to use it anyway, i guess i just wanted someone to tell me that it's ok and that little miss won't develop a skin condition from chemical exposure.

my baseball post

you may not know this about me, but i grew up in a family of baseball fanatics. there was no other sport that we even paid attention to. when i was about eight years old, and my brother about six, no one could top ol' donnie baseball in our minds. darryl strawberry on the mets and jose canseco on the a's were up there too. we don't need to tarnish that childhood memory with where they ended up, so i'm just going to move along here.

now, with b being a mets fan, we enjoy a mutual love for our ny baseball teams. we still have to make it out to visit the new stadiums sometime this summer, although i have to say that i'm a little superstitious because every single time i've been to the old yankee stadium the guys lose. i might be a hex.

my point with all this is that i was super annoyed to read this crap in my local paper this morning about how they're auctioning off the fucking clumps of dirt from the old stadium.

i mean, i always kind of looked the other way when ticket prices kept going up and up and up. it's entertainment, and if that's the price you have to pay to enjoy it, so be it. but selling clumps of grass and pieces of a busted wall that that douche kevin brown punched a hole in, just to make a buck?

i can't decided who's the biggest tool, the yanks for looking at $$, the assclowns who pay for this stuff, or me for getting annoyed about it all when i really should have seen it coming a mile away.