A Room of One's Own

The Ronnie Miller Express

Nope. Can't do it. I watched about 2 minutes worth of Grey's Anatomy tonight. I can't figure out why people find Patrick Dempsey sexy. I simply cannot wrap my brain around that as I can't look at him and NOT see Ronnie Miller, the lawn mowing geek that pines after Amanda Peterson in Can't Buy Me Love. I just do not get it. Maybe my whole idea of sexy is totally fucked up. Who knows. All I know is that he in no way, shape, or form does it for me.

Now, we all have some strange obsure people who, for one reason or another, makes us really happy in a potentially inappropriate way. But I can't see this as being the case with the folks who love Patrick Dempsey. I mean, there is a whole following of people who are, as I like to refer to it, "riding the Ronnie Miller Express." Again, I don't get it. Is it the whole TV doctor thing? Man + Televison = sex god? Does not compute.

If anyone understands this phenomena and would like to expalin it, I'm all ears.

What fresh hell is this?

Can I just say how much I was looking forward to my morning cup of coffee todat? This past week I have not gotten enough sleep to make myself a decent cup of coffee before leaving the house. So I figured I could make up for it this morning. Saturday morning is swim lesson morning for my daughter. We have to be there and in the pool at 8:00 so we leave the house at 7:20. On Saturday. No problem, really. I'll just make a cappuccino and head about my merry way with a handy dandy thermal cup. I make up an nice double shot cappuccino, froth the milk, add ample sugar (like my coffee sweet) and head out. I get about a mile down the road and take a sip and oh Sweet Mary Mother of God.

I don't mean that in a good way. I mean that in a, "What fresh Hell is this" way. Apparantly, my mother-in-law, who is staying with us until tomorrow, has replaced my regular sugar with artifical. As in Splenda. This is the same woman who has somehow replaced all my brand name whatever-they-hell-it-is with generic in order to prove to me that I am a slave to marketing and the Kroger brand is just as good as the Ziploc bags, which she washes out and hangs over my faucet after use, by the way. I can only picture her, smiling in my kitchen like the, "We've replaced the regular restaurant gourmet coffee with Folger's Crystals, let's see if they notice the difference" guy. Let's say I noticed the difference. I HATE all artificial sweeteners. Period. None of them taste like sugar. At all. Never met a single one I liked. I had heard some good things about Splenda so I tried to changed my opinion. See? I'm pliable. I'm not THAT stubborn. Nope, it sucks. I cannot even imagine people baking with it. The horror. This, of course, coming from a woman who refuses to use margarine and uses only real butter. And let me say this: If I come to your house and you even attempt to serve me Folger's Crystals with or without artificial sweetener, I will kick you ass nine ways to Sunday.

Apparantly, the Splenda had ended up in the sugar jar because my mother-in-law could not find the regular sugar. I have had an entire lesson on pantry organization as it should be. I'd tell you more about it but really, I have no idea what she said as I'm sure I fell asleep standing up in the middle of the conversation.

Okay, I'll say it.

I might, in the tiniest, littlest, smallest, itty bittiest part of my being, miss teaching.

First time in 6 years it's even crossed my mind. And it makes me just a little bit sad. Of course, it's totally a phase and it will pass because I know I really have no desire to go back to it. I think it's that I've stopped reading. All of my books are in my garage just sitting there. Collecting dust. At least once a week I feel totally compelled by whatever to go digging through all of them in order to find one certain book. Of course, it takes me an hour because I forget I had such-and-such book and have to peruse it right then, or I can't find the one I'm looking for in the first 15 boxes I look in. It's partly that damned Deanna's fault. She has to go get a book published and keep that damn Dorothy Parker quote going. Bitch. Whatever it is, I've found myself sitting in my garage, surrounded by boxes, reading Raymond Carver and I feel really dorky about that.

When I was teaching, I had to read. It was my job. Granted, I left teaching because, in part, if I taught Hamlet and Lord of the Flies one more time I was going to shove knitting needles in my eyes. It took me two years to get over having to read a book with a highlighter. Another part of it is that teenagers ruin things. There were things I loved and when you hit opposition 5 times a day, it sucks the passion about it right out of you. So when I left teaching, I stopped reading because I had no desire to. Quite my Master's program and never looked back.

Of course, my whole explanation of this that, though I love my job, hearing nothing but bitching for 8 hours is killing me. Sucking the life right out. So I think I'm falling back on what originally gave me any sense of life. Those damn books.

Side effects of sugar intake

I started today with a bang! I actually got up early which is not just unusual but unusual for me after staying up late last night watching Gladiator. First time I had seen it and I had made the grave error of watching it with my husband who is an Army Sergeant and had a significant amount of liquor in him. Little known fact about the movie: if you watch it under these conditions, there is a secret hidden bonus feature that includes random narration that details the entire history of field artillery explaining the evolution of flaming catapulted balls of pine pitch to napalm. Sadly, I found you cannot turn this feature off and it makes the movie 4 hours and 13 minutes long.

Regardless, I made it to work, after dropping off the kidlet, early enough to get flowers for the admins, donuts for the whole office and Starbucks for me and two friends. I felt on top of the world looking down on creation. Cranked out a high volume of work while listening to the new Shooter Jennings album. Until 9:30. I then crashed. Hard. I have had two Cokes and another half of a chocolate donut in a vain attempt to recover the early morning bliss. It is not working. As a matter of fact, the only thing it is doing is creating the overwhelming desire to crawl under my desk and nap there very contentedly until someone kicks me and tells me it's time to go home.

Now, I have gotten a good amount of work done today as I have spent a nice portion of my day running around like a poodle on cocaine. I have a few projects to muster through and I may actually be ahead of my game. But what am I doing? This. Typing nonsense. Rambling. I mean, I could feasibly sit here and go on for hours. Not very good for my job performance or for anyone reading this. So, I'll leave it be and get back to work. Damn my responsible nature.

You can't see me!!

A few weeks ago, I went to this charity ball. It was delightful. I bought a fabulous dress. There was a photographer hired for the event. I didn't bring a camera. I just naturally thought there was a good chance I may be in a picture and that would do. When we get the link for the pictures I am not in a single one. Period. Not one. It's like I wasn't even there. Today, we get the link to our company's family picnic pictures. I peruse all 57,396 of them and I'm not in a single one. I am hell bent on determining the reason for this and I have a few theories.

#1 - My mirror lies and I am actually hideously disfigured and ugly. I'm thinking I may be under some kind of spell by some woodland witch. The spell distorts my own self image.

#2 - I am my friend Sebastian's imaginary friend. There were a gazillion pictures of him at the picnic standing all by himself. I hung out with him at said picnic so if I am a figment of his imagination then I could feasibly have been standing with him and not actually IN the photo.

#3 - I'm in the witness protection program and the government is paying these people big money to not photograph me. I don't recall any of this as my memory was most likely erased.

This is as far as I've gotten. I'd be open to other theories should you have one.

I already hate them

I have decided that I just plain don't like my neighbors. They technically only moved in about three weeks ago. I wanted to like them but it just ain't workin'. As I pulled into my driveway today I realized that my eyes do not roll far enough back into my head to express my feeling toward them. I spend a good amount of time looking out my window and shaking my head at them.

The first time I met the wife, we stood in my driveway and tried to make nice-nice. After about 30 seconds of "conversation" I realized we were both standing there with our arms totally folded in front of us. Not a damn thing to talk about. Yep. We were not going to be friends. Husband's a piece of work. He now has 2 ATV's and a mini dirtbike for his 7 year old son (always a good idea) and they take them out in the desert behind my house, which I have a lovely clear view of, and ride around loudly while swearing. This is exactly what I want to experience as I sit pool side. What boggles my mind is the thought process involved here. Phoenix is the 6th largest city in the nation with the fastest growth rate. Does this guy actually believe that there is just land out there, not owned by a damn soul, just waiting for him to recreate in? Either he's stupid or he just doesn't give a shit. Whatever the case may be, it's not endearing.

Every time I come home they have some new item of god-only-knows-what that they are bringing into the home. Today, I pulled up and there was this painting. Oh Lord. I have no idea who the woman was in the painting but if someone painted me and I saw looked like that I would move to a very small village in a little known African country and hide. And this painting was large. Very very large. I'm sure it will be hung by the only window in their house that I can see from my house.

I have half the mind to plan some mildly annoying retaliation. Nothing overly obnoxious but just annoying enough to make me feel better. I have an iPod, iTunes, and speakers and I know how to use them. Nothing mean spirited. Maybe just routinely playing something like, oh, I don't know, Tom Jones's "It's Not Unsual," quite loudly with the windows open, each day when I get home from work.

Yes, I DID know that.

I have an annoying habit. I know. Shocker. The person who gets to experience this the most would be my husband, of course. Last night my husband decided that this habit was no longer going to annoy him. I was ecstatic. I thought I was making headway!

I have a tendency to annoy the living shit out of my husband by frequently sharing with him excerpts of whatever the heck it is that I’m reading. It makes perfect sense to me that every person in the world should think Laurie Notaro is as funny as I do. Of course he wants to hear me read the last damn hilarious thing she has just written. I mean, why wouldn’t he? The same holds true for the dozen or so magazine subscriptions that come to our house.

His idea of deciding that my habit was no longer annoying was actual a diabolical plan to turn it against me by doing it himself. I worked late last night and came home to my darling husband on the couch reading my Glamour. He had also just finished a whole bottle of wine and washed it down with a beer. I’m tired and I head upstairs to go to bed, thinking I’ll just start a new book. Oh no. My husband comes to bed and decides to read to me off every page of the magazine. Mind you, I’ve already read the whole thing. I already know the 6 Things Women Think About Men That Are Wrong. Number 7 is that they don’t read our magazines, by the way. He shares anyway. I am highly annoyed. Highly. I can’t read my book. I can’t watch the news. I tried very hard to pretend I was sleeping.

If he thinks this is going to cure me of my habit he is so wrong. It’s a full on war now. And I will win. His plan has totally failed, especially since I was planning on re-reading Wuthering Heights. Nice job, Captain Backfire.

It's your Mutha.

We got a new phone system at work. Not my idea but, hey, change happens. Unfortunately, all of our saved messages from the last system were deleted. I had kept a few messages from my husband and my mom that were midly amusing. Of course, this is for the rainy day when you need a laugh. So now I'm concerned because I have no sudden amusement. This sucks. For two whole days. Then my mom calls...

Now, I have said a dozen times, my mom is Linda Richman. I can immitate all I want and people do not believe me. Until now. She calls and gets my voicemail on which I'm asking for a detailed message. She leaves the following:

"How detailed of a messgae do you want? It's your mutha (like I had no idea, mom). Hope you have a good day. Cawl me. I love you."

I had to play it for any and all of my co-workers. They've invited her to lunch next week. It should be fun.