2005 in review

So a whole new year starts in a few hours. I thought it would be fun to go back through time and take a look at some of the things I've done in the past year.

In January, I:

Made a New Year's Resolution to not kill anyone (and kept it! Yay me!). I'm going to have to come up with a good one for 2006. Hmm. Any suggestions?
Got hit on by a woman at the Chalet.
Had my heart broken (no, not really. Just found out that Bobby had a girlfriend. He was my eye candy at the bar).
Spent time with Beth while she was on drugs (codeine and Beth is a very fun combination) at her apartment and at karaoke.
Was thrilled when Liz sat at our table. We got our first experience of sitting at the cool table. I'm pretty sure this is also the day that we met James and Barry officially.
Struck mass fear in the hearts of others by saying things I don't normally say.
Climbed onto my soapbox to regarding the stupidity of boycotting cartoons because the characters may or may not be gay. Who cares? Seriously. If you have nothing better to do than worry about SpongeBob SquarePants holding hands with Patrick, you really need a life.
Met the Weary Hag for the first time. Yay! Have you checked her out yet? You really need to, she is brilliant.

In February, I:

Went back on Effexor. And was really happy when it kicked in.
Wrote about a love affair that went horribly awry (Part one, two and three).
Told the hot bartender Bobby that I dreamt about the gun (drink dispenser). Why am I allowed to talk to men?
Was accused of being vain.

In March, I:

Found out I have sleep apnea (not really a surprise. Ask anyone who has ever had to share an apartment with me).
Wrote about obscene phone calls I had received in the past (1 sick, 3 funny).
Went to karaoke and discovered I have the mind of a teenage boy.
Celebrated my birthday (also got my passport).

In April, I:

Experienced super weird karaoke experiences (Karaoke Gone Wild!).
Confessed to playing Strip Magic.
Got an iPod shuffle for my birthday.
Dreamt that George Clooney invited me to dinner and I was the main course (in the food sense). Went to Portugal and met the beauteous Johnny in person.

In May, I:

Participated in a plot to drive Johnny insane by encouraging people to click on my Google adsense links so that Beth and I could get her to come to America for the state fair. Ah, the insanity. Plus! Met the lovely and talented Diana!
Was excited about Spring and posted a mini photo essay.
Started doing a photo assignment that I never finished. Perhaps I will soon.
Wished my mother a happy Mother's Day
Had my first kiss in seven years. Thank goodness for Andrew - I can't believe I found this. I've been trying to figure out when this happened.
Received horrible news from my doctor - easily resolved but I was NOT pleased.
Wrote about two funerals I went to that resulted in laughter instead of tears.
Was told that I am delightfully and refreshingly mad by Johnny.
Proved Johnny right - because my God, I am a freak.
Discovered that my personality matched Captain Kirk (who's surprised by this?)
Wrote about how to win Gil's love and affection by using tips from Oprah.
Celebrated my one year blogversary.
Wrote a post inspired by Diana about the first time I ever heard/used certain swear words.
Met Quagna, my South American boyfriend and love of my life. Oh, Quagna. Move me.
Came out of the blogger closet - revealed my true last name and set up an Amazon wish list.

Wow. May was a busy month.

In June, I:

Posted a photo essay of balloons. I like balloons.
Posted a photo essay of Eddy and his problem with ornament addiction.
Became a femme fatale and also first decided I wanted to lick Gil's ear (well, admitted it out loud).
Wrote about the time that my fear of heights, elevators and spiral staircases almost resulted in my committing homicide.
Went to Tomah to meet Mark (part one and two) and eat really good Chinese food.
Wrote about why I'm not allowed to play with power tools.
Posted a photo essay about going to the park with Josh - for my sister's birthday.
Wrote a poem based on one I found on Diana's site.
Posted the prolouge to a novel that has been stuck in my brain for years.

In July, I:

Heard about the bombing in London - And panicked that Betty was one of the injured or lost but fortunately she was not.
Wrote about one of my old nicknames - Edmund Waynde the 2nd
Was handed an article by a co-worker about a tree molester.
Watched James take off his pants at karaoke - also said goodbye to Tom because he left us to move to Texas.
Realized that the smell of beer turns me on. If it's the right guy.
Did that meme, you know the one where you look back at where you were in your life so many years ago.

In August, I:

Decided that there is a Cosmic Joker who is messing with my mind and trying to convince me to tell Gil how I feel about him - Like telling him that I lick like him is going to accomplish anything.
Got really, really, really drunk on Buttery Nipples - And wrote a post about why I was never ever drinking again (because I'll stick to that promise. Yeah. Right).
Posted a photo essay about Eddy - because I have no life and what could be more exciting than seeing pictures of my cat, right? Right?
Said goodbye to Char - And cried. A lot. I miss her. This is the weekend that Beth decided to paint my nose and arm with ice cream. She's a freak.
My Introduction to Comic Books - My first boyfriend was a geek. I like geeks.
Post about turning my skin different colors - Hey, I look good in blue. But hot pink? That's really my color.
Broke the touch barrier with Gil - And that worked out so well. Look how far we've come since August. ARGH!
Posted about one of my pet peeves of repeating the same words over and over and over again in the same sentence or two - Unless it's used for comedic value over and over and over again by me. Then it's okay.

In September, I:

Wanted to kill Keem for sending me the most annoying email ever - Tied to my pet peeve post.
Became known as Hurricane Dana
Participated in the first ever New Sex Song Sunday at karaoke - Other stuff happened, of course, but this is an exciting day.
Celebrated National Talk Like a Pirate Day by winning Pirate Porn - With a picture of Jesus.
Celebrated Keem's birthday - Although she wouldn't let me pet the El Camino so she is very mean and doesn't deserve to have a birthday.
Found links to sites about Jesus that were, well, horribly wrong but yet funny - Yes, Mom, I'm going to hell. I know.
Went to see the best movie ever made - My God, I love Joss Whedon.

In October, I:

Try to disguise my love for Gil by saying it was really Neal Patrick Harris that I adore - I'm not sure it worked.
Became somewhat jealous when this woman was touching Gil - And Beth had sugar and went insane.
Posted about two horribly awful boyfriends that I had in the past - What was I thinking?
Annoyed Keem in a store, watched tons of Lost episodes with Beth, went to karaoke - my, what a social whirlwind I call my Life.
Made declarations as to what I would do when I became the Official Queen of the Universe
Faked being hypnotized
Celebrated Beth's birthday
Was the only person that dressed up for Halloween karaoke - But I was adorable so who cares, right? Right?

In November, I:

Confused Ginger and Molasses cookies for one another and was very disappointed - and also received weird spam
Posted a story about my pet rock running away
Vowed to never drink again when I decided to tell James and Dean about my piercings - I seem to make these vows fairly often. Nothing seems to come of them.
Went to the Children's Museum with my nephew, the most brilliant child in the world - Carefully edited photos of said child
Posted the list of reasons as to how to tell you are a karaoke junkie
Got an exciting new banner, thanks to Sheryl of PaperNapkin - Green Duckies are frogs! They're frogs! In case there was any doubt.
Posted about the time I babysat Damien and gave him a bloody nose
Met Matt for the first time - He works with James at the theater.
Posted what I was thankful for (on Thanksgiving)
Posted about my Thanksgiving
Went to a lot of karaoke - Where I was tortured by New Kids on the Block songs
Went to some more karaoke and flirted! With Gil!

In December, I:

Consoled Becky when she told me that her boyfriend broke up with her by calling him a rat bastard and bald - I am ever so supportive.
Talked to James Kirk
Almost got into a bar fight at karaoke
Sorry, the last post was the prelude to the almost bar fight - This post is the actual post about how I almost got into a bar fight.
Worked for Junior Achievement, got to go through James and Matt's wallets at karaoke - Have I mentioned what an exciting life I have?
Got invited to Matt's birthday party - More proof that we are part of the cool table. Oh and I got talked into sing Strokin'. It was my lucky day.
Had my title usurped by the Evil Keem who has now decided that she's the Queen of the Universe - Which is just completely irrational of her.
Participated in an elaborate scam to get a Creepy Tall Guy to leave the Chalet - Because he was creeping us out. And freakishly tall. I mentioned he was creepy, right?
Received the most unique Christmas present ever - Joe in Vegas sent me Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Thought I was dying - Turned out to just be the flu.
Felt better and decided to share way too much information about myself - And also a semi review about the Pirate Porn movie.

I hope you all have a wonderful time tonight, whatever you might be doing, and a spectacular New Year. Keem and I will be meeting Beth tonight at Fridleykins for the 2nd annual Sheepsheadian New Year's Eve at Fridleykins (okay, so we don't have a fancy name for it. It's still fun. Last year I decided to wear a creamer bowl on my head for a party hat and spent 2 minutes telling Beth, Keem and Matt the plot to one of my favorite Star Trek: TNG episodes). Beth works until 11:30 tonight so it's a nice way for us to spend time together and not deal with too many drunks. Until they decide that they're all hungry once the bar closes.

And this cryptic comment is for my lurker - "We miss you. Could you please call or email either Beth or I and let us know that you're okay?"

It's alive!

Barely. But I am at work right now. I am no longer worshiping the porcelain god. I was telling my co-workers what the last 36 hours were like for me and they laughed. Can you imagine this? Laurie, when she was done chortling, said "It's not funny that it happened but it's funny the way that you tell it." Apparently, my tale of woe of being huddled at the bottom of the shower with steaming hot water pouring over me and the vomiting and the reverse vomiting was amusing. Sigh. Where is the symphathy? Obviously it is only you, my gentle readers, that really care about me. Which I adore you for.

I was able to eat solid food yesterday but that was a mistake. So today I am trying an all liquid diet. I have a 64 ounce container of orange pineapple juice, V8 Splash tropical blend (which normally I love but today was not so thrilled with so I gave one bottle to a co-worker and mixed the other one with cran-grape juice), Ocean Spray Cran-Grape juice and two cans of Campbell's Soup at Hand, creamy chicken (and I'd like to say to the Campell Soup people, why are you trying to kill us? Is it really necessary to put 890 mg of sodium in one little container of soup?). And, of course, my large 64 ounce water bottle filled with refreshing water. I love water. It is our friend.

My goodness, isn't my life exciting? I have just regaled you all with what I'm going to be drinking today. How fun.

Speaking of juice, Keem received a Magic Bullet for Christmas (suddenly, that just sounds so terribly wrong). You may have seen the infomercial for the Magic Bullet. It is called the ultimate smoothie machine, etc. Keem made a wonderful fettucine alfredo with chicken on Tuesday night with fresh parmesan. It was quite yummy. Anyway, she had also bought some fresh pineapple, grapes and apples to make juice with. I was craving juice on Thursday so she decided to make some.

The juice she made was this somewhat green, thick concoction that frightened me a little but I was brave. My, it was foamy. I finally ended up cutting it with some Welch's grape juice. We will probably not be making juice at home very often because this one glass took 3 apples, half a bag of grapes and half of the pineapple. Cheaper to buy it premade, thanks. We later found out the reason why it was so thick and foamy was because she hadn't installed the juicer portion properly and all of the grape skins had found their way into the juice. Yeah. I probably would have been better off if I tried eating it with a spoon. Keem had a great time laughing at my reactions to the juice (note: she didn't drink any. She'd like to say it is because she is so self sacrificing and noble but we know the real reason).

So, a couple of different things.

Why do these food preparation places think that the Magic Bullet and the Thunder Stick are good names for something that is basically a blender? These are not names that make me think of food. They make me think of other types of appliances, such as you might buy at flea's shop.

Speaking of flea and her shop, there has been some clamoring for knowledge about what I bought so, without further ado (except for the following disclaimer), I will reveal all.

Mom! Do not read this! I will be discussing sexual things. Avert your eyes!

I'm not sure why I'm so worried about my mom - this is a woman who I had the following conversation with when I was 18:

Mom: Why are you shaving your legs?
DM: Because I'm going to have sex with Mark tonight and I want to make sure my legs are smooth.
Mom: Don't you masturbate?
DM: Mother!

As you can imagine, I was a bit stunned by that question. Mothers are not supposed to ask these questions (although why I felt the need to tell her I was going to have sex is kind of bizarre as well).

Anyway, I purchased the LAYspot which was manufactured in Germany so it is very efficient and ergonomic in shape. It is, well, interesting. That's about the only way to describe it. There are some designing problems that I'd like to address with the company, such as the battery cap falls off fairly easily - at the wrong time! And the convenient plus/minus buttons are hard to distinguish in the dark. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.

I also bought the Pleasure Paws. Believe me when I say that this is the best toy ever. Lots of people swear by the Rabbit but some of us (that would be me) have been celibate for many, many years and are not in the mood for anything to invade sensitive areas. There. That's as tactful as I can get. Oh, and it's so cute. It is purple with this little tiny bear on the top.

I would recommend, if you are ever in the mood to buy a toy or two, that you should buy them from flea. If you have questions about something, you can email her and she will respond on her blog (but she won't reveal your name). She answers questions about just about anything you can think of and she is funny and smart and I adore her. I would rather buy things from her than the larger companies.

As for the pirate film, I actually didn't watch it until Friday night (had the place to myself). It was okay. There were no subtitles, which is so irritating because, hello, I live in an apartment so I can't turn up the sound too much. Do I really want the neighbors to be hearing a lot of panting and moans? No, I do not. The acting was stilted at best but I wasn't expecting much. As for the sex, well, yeah, it was good but not very believable. Take, for example, the required lesbian scene (for the record, this is not my requirement but appears to happen in every porn movie ever made). This takes place with the heroine, a very blonde woman with a kind of horsey face, being threatened by a pirate chick. Pirate chick is brunette (which was nice because every other woman was blonde and it gets annoying after awhile. Your eyes start burning from all of the bleach). They are surrounded by a bunch of pirate men, including one who has no legs and gets around by using his arms to swing him from place to place. Interesting.

Anyway, pirate chick has blonde chick tied to a chair and blonde chick says "Don't you touch me, I'll tell my husband on you!" Pirate chick is just shaking in her pirate boots (I am assuming she was wearing boots, wasn't really paying attention) and starts ripping off blonde chick's clothes off. Blonde chick is upset by this until pirate chick finds a sensitive area with her tongue (that's all you get) and then blonde chick giggles and falls at pirate chick's feet, begging to be played with in front of all of the other pirates.

Now, I ask you, if you have been a) kidnapped by pirates, b) about to cheat on your husband and c) are about participate in a lesbian encounter for the first time, would you be willing to do this in front of a bunch of pirates? These aren't cute pirates, either, like Steve the Pirate. No, they are dirty and unwashed and kind of greasy looking. Not my idea of a good time. But blonde chick is all excited about it.

So I guess what I'm saying is that the movie would probably have been a lot more interesting for me if I would have been watching it with someone special. Like Steve the Pirate.

Mom, you can start reading again.

So, Betty (Rob's (Rob is Eric's dad) girlfriend) gave me a bunch of books. They are Intrigue novels, published by Silhouette or Harlequin or some romance pushing book publisher. They're not bad, on a whole, because, while the romance is a part of it, they are also mysteries. I like mysteries. Betty, bless her, saves her books for me. Anyway, I needed a new book so I grabbed the first one out of the bag. As I was walking along, I noticed the title.

Cowboy PI.

The first thought I had was "Oh, Beth would like this book. It is about a cowboy who does math problems." You know. pi = 3.14159265 (which I can't believe I actually knew the first part of this. I knew it was 3.14 before hitting Google. I am so brilliant!)

Then I flipped the book over to read the back (I always do this. Even if I've read the book before. I don't know why).

Yeah. It's not about a cowboy solving math problems. It's Cowboy P.I. as in private investigator. Not quite the same thing. It's called a period, people! It comes in handy. Punctuation is our friend.

Projectile Vomiting - What a perfect way to start the day

Hello. As you may have guessed by the title, I am home right now. Do you know why? Oh. You might have figured that out from the title as well.

I am not sure what is wrong but Keem wasn't feeling good all day yesterday at work. We came home and she was almost crying because she was so cold, even when I piled up 3 blankets on top of her. Her entire body was sore and her stomach ached horribly. Not good. I stayed in her room until she fell asleep, just in case she needed something (well, that and she has this computer game I'm addicted to that I don't have on my computer).

Do not read the following if you have a weak stomach.

After she fell asleep, I went into the kitchen to get water and, as I was coming back to my room, I had to suddenly detour into Jeff's bathroom. There is nothing more than I hate in life than throwing up. It is horrible. Fortunately, I had not yet ate supper so it was just a whole bunch of bile (Keem and I have different opinions about this. She would rather throw up food than bile. I think she is insane. We have both agreed, however, that there is no way either of us could be bulimic). Unfortunately, at the same time, the force of the vomiting caused another problem. I'm sure you can figure it out. Eww.

Okay. You can start reading again.

I heard Keem say "Dana? Are you throwing up?" She then went and got me a wash cloth that she ran under hot water and found me a heating pad (since my stomach had started hurting as well) and found me an extra blanket because I was now freezing. As she went to put the heating pad and blanket on my bed, she laughed and said "It's the sick tending the sick."

I decided that I absolutely had to take a shower right then and there because I was unclean and climbed into the shower. One thing about me that you might not know is that I hate hot showers. I prefer to have the water luke warm. Not this time. I cranked up the water as hot as I could stand it and then kept turning it up because I was so cold. I ended up sitting in the tub with the water showering down on me. Steam was rising all around me but I was so cold. Finally I climbed out of the tub and went to bed.

About 2 or 3 AM, I woke up and felt like I was going to throw up again so I went online. Didn't know that was a cure for illness, did you? Actually it helped because I was sitting up and drinking some water and trying to control the nausea. Beth was online so I talked to her for a little while about going to karaoke tonight (because I was sure this was just a bug). I went back to bed and slept until 5:30 AM.

At that time, I had to get up, feeling like I was going to throw up again. Well, sitting at the computer had worked so well last time, I'd try it a second time.

Again, don't read if you are squeamish.

It didn't work. I leapt up and raced to the bathroom. I didn't make it. I got to the bathroom door and then my mouth flew open and streams of bile shot out. Lucky, lucky me. The floor, part of the counter and I were covered. Oh, the joy. Fortunately most of it landed on the towel we use as a bath rug. After cleaning it up (and myself), I went back to bed, crying because I was in so much pain and felt sick and couldn't pull the blankets just right over me because it hurt my stomach to move and I was so damn cold.

Okay, you can read again.

Anyway, that's why I'm home. That's why Keem is home. No clue what caused this other than we both spent the weekend with small children and Josh was getting a cold. Maybe Keem's neice and nephew were sick as well.

Beth, I am not going to be able to go out tonight but I was thinking that tomorrow I could meet you at the Chalet so we can go to Matt's party. I am not missing that.* Old Mexico is close to there and that way you don't have to drive all the way to Saint Paul to get me. I'm sorry about this. But I can't afford to miss work tomorrow (no PTO left. Today is going to be unpaid) so I just want to stay home and hopefully get back to normal.

*Unless, of course, I die. It could happen. I feel like someone is cutting my stomach out from the inside.

Hope you all have a good day and do not get sick. It sucks.

Happy Tuesday to me

Yesterday I checked the mail when I got home and received 4 packages.

Two of these packages were books that I purchased off of eBay (mmm, books).

1 was my Christmas present to myself from flea's shop. I am not telling you what I ordered. That would be too much information.

The fourth one was from Joe. Dear, sweet Joe who meets all of the criteria of my man check list. Well, except for Number 5, which is pretty important and the main reason why I haven't rushed off to marry him.

Would you like to know what I received from Joe? Would you? I bet you would.

Here is the note he sent to me, the first thing I saw when I opened the package.

Dana,

I know that you like your karaoke evenings, and you have lots of friends there - but I wanted to get you something different, that no one you know would give you -

Merry Christmas
Joe

PS - Wait for a dark and stormy night.

I look at the note and then at the gift. It is a DVD. It is kind of a dark box with weird printing on it. And then I see something about cotton candy.

DM: Oh, he did not.

I start laughing. Joe sent me, much to my (hilarity invoking) dismay, Killer Klowns From Outer Space. I'm not sure when it was but we had a discussion, in comments, about my fear of clowns and he suggested I watch this movie. To which I replied, quite politely, that he was insane or smoking the crack. Well, I'm just assuming this because I can't remember what post this was on.

Joe, thank you for a unique and thoughtful gift. I will watch this movie. I'm not sure when I will do it because I will not be watching it alone (or on a dark and stormy night) but maybe, just maybe I can casually bring this up at karaoke some night and convince Gil it would be vital that he watch it with me.

You have to love a movie that has the tag line "In Space, no one can eat ice cream."

I don't even know where to begin

This has been quite the evening. It's 5:48 AM and I should be going to bed but not yet. I don't have to work tomorrow (today) and I have the apartment all to myself and I am loving the solitude (not that my roommates are loud or anything but it is nice to not have to worry about being quiet if I decide I want water or when I came home from karaoke).

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas/Holiday. I certainly did. Last night I got to spend the evening with Rob and Betty (Eric's dad and his girlfriend). I always enjoy the time spent with them. They are a lot of fun. As you can imagine, Josh, as the only grandchild, was the center of attention. I wish you could have all seen him, he is so silly and funny and has such a great personality. The more time I spend around him, the more I start thinking "Hey, is this kid thing all that bad?" And then, thankfully, he gets really tired and cranky and there is this explosion of stubborness and I realize that I do not have the patience required for a child. I don't know how all of you that have children do it. My hat is off to you. Well, it would be if I was wearing a hat.

When I was opening my presents over at Kari's, before we went over to Rob and Betty's, Kari asked Josh to hand me a present. Josh decided to rip the paper off of it. It was very cute, especially since we knew he wasn't going to appreciate the clothing I received from Lane Bryant. He does the cutest thing now, when opening up a present, he will say "Oooh." You know, like you do when you're opening a present and it's really exciting and just what you wanted. He has obviously picked this up from us. Then, when told that the present was for me and he should give it to me, he picked up the shredded wrapping paper and starts covering the box up with it. Okay, maybe you had to be there but dang it, I thought it was adorable.

Today, we went over to Eric's mother's house. I was asked the other day if I didn't have any family of my own to spend time with and it was a little irritating. Kari, Eric and Josh are my family and I think it is very sweet of both of Eric's parents to open up their homes to me for the holidays. His sisters are also very nice to me. As far as I'm concerned, they are my family.

It took a little doing and wrestling Eric away from the television (Vikings were playing. Big deal. The Vikings are not more important than karaoke) but I did get him to drive me up to the Chalet where I met Beth. Becky and her friend Linda were there as well. Becky is doing much better dealing with the break-up with Nate. I wrote her a quick Christmas card with her new mantras on them.

Becky's Mantras
(Repeat After Me)

1. I am beautiful.
2. I am a good person (well, something like that. Not sure).
3. I deserve a man with hair.
4. Nate is not only bald but stupid.

She got a good laugh out of them. Which was my secret and not so evil plan.

Bryan was later than usual but we figured he was waiting for the football game to be over. Stupid football. Meanwhile, Angie and Steve, along with half of her family arrived. There was Cousin Greg and his girlfriend Amber and two other cousins that I was introduced but can't remember their names. Also along was Rick, Angie's brother. Rick was wearing a sweatshirt that said Guinness on it. He told the story of how his mother had bought it for him thinking it said Genius and didn't realize until later that it was Guinness. How perfect is that?

Amy was there as well and she gave Angie her Christmas presents. There was a candle holder that she had bought and then personalized by using stickers about friendship. This was the coolest idea ever and I can't wait to start doing it myself.

Angie is getting a lot of flack from some of her relatives because she is dating Steve. Not because the relatives don't like Steve, he's pretty damn likeable, but because he is Lutheran. Apparently it is better for Angie to be a lapsed Catholic than to go to church (and enjoy it) with Steve. Amy was told that Angie's family is now going to start referring to her as Lutheran Amy instead of just Amy. I said something about how they could refer to us as Athiest Bryan, Agnostic Beth and Born Again Dana. This is one of the reasons that I don't go to church, you would think that people would be happy that everyone has their own beliefs but no, there is too much judgemental crap that goes along with religion. Take the whole stupid war on Christmas. There is no war on Christmas. You get two groups of people that have to fight about everything - the PC Zealots and the Fundamentalist Fruitcakes. I know perfectly well that there are other religions and that not everyone believes the same as me. That's fine. Do you see me running around telling everyone that they're going to go to hell because they don't have the same beliefs as me? No. Because I don't think that way. I don't think anyone has the right to tell others what to believe or not to believe.

Okay, completely off subject. Sorry. Holiday vant over.

We ended up pulling five or six tables together and were having a great time laughing and talking. Bryan finally arrived (did I mention that football is stupid?) and I gave him the Christmas card I had for him, Liz and Theo (their dog). He, in turn, handed me a present. I had a pretty good idea what it was, the DVD I have been begging him for quite some time, possibly 2 years. Beth has a picture of me opening the present. This DVD is phenomenal. There is a documentary of the making of a movie called Smoke Fire - here is a description from Bryan's website - "In a world infested by ninjas and an evil genius with a robotic killing arm, one man stands tall. When John Smoker’s computer expert girlfriend is kidnapped and forced to create a device capable of catastrophic consequences, there’s no such thing as negotiation. SMOKE FIRE is a super explosive action thriller with non-stop action, complex characters and sweeping tales of beautiful romance." It is quite possibly the funniest thing ever. There's a bunch of movie previews on the DVD as well.

It was Andrew's birthday and, when we got there, he was rather drunk and in his truck. Angie and Becky went to go check on him and found that he was doing somewhat better. He found his way in eventually and Becky had the idea that we (Angie, Beth, Becky and myself) should sing "I Touch Myself" for him. Amy dragged him out and we sung to him. When we got to the part "When I think of you, I touch myself" we substituted Andrew for you. His response? "I know." Not a modest man, our Andrew. Which makes us love him just that much more.

Craig was there. He was filling in Becky on all of the things that she had missed last Sunday. He told her all about the crazy Woman with Annoying Voice and how I told Beth and Angie that there was no way I would ever sing Strokin' and then ten minutes later I ended up singing it. He thought that was funny. Angie promised to sing Strokin' when she got drunk enough and also alternated between Strokin' and Vibratin.' When she got to the part about the "sat'ified woman," she decided to bring me into her song. So she changed the lyrics to "You can always tell when Dana's man is sat'ified 'cause he starts calling her name. Huricane Dana."

There was some strange guy who would come up and sit at the table next to us, right near the stage. When Jason was singing "We Didn't Start the Fire," this guy, who we began referring to as "Creepy Tall Guy," would get up and start dancing in place for a little while and then sit back down. It was weird.

Now there's nothing wrong with dancing, we've done it ourselves. But normally we stay at our own table to chair dance or dance with a group. We have even done interactive karaoke when Amy sings some song that I can't remember the name of but we refer to as the "Wings" song. We do not go stand in front of the stage and do this sort of half shuffle with this scary grin on our faces.

Towards the end of the evening, Liz, James, Matt and Dean all came up. Stefanie and Lisa Jo were there as well and were singing something by Salt & Pepa' - something about a mighty man? Creepy Tall Guy ended up sitting at the end of our table and would stand up and do his weird little shuffle dance again. This completely cracked up Stefanie and she would end up losing it while Lisa Jo would continue singing. Barry was there with Cassie. There was this guy that we've seen up there before named Aaron but for some reason I thought his name was Kenny. I'm not really sure why.

I asked Liz what I should sing and she requested Leavin' On A Jet Plane. Creepy Tall Guy sat at the table near ours and stared at me the entire time. Can you say creepy? When I was done, he came up to me and started asking me if I knew the song that went "clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee." This is, of course, You're So Vain. I've sung it before. He wants to know if I'll sing it. Sure. Anything to get you to go away. I go and sit down. He follows me. This guy towers over me when I'm standing so it is not good to have him standing over me, leaning down to talk to me. Plus, keep in mind that I have a hard enough time hearing people on a regular basis. He's slurring and it is also busy in the Chalet so I can barely make out what he is saying. Plus he is breathing his beer scented breath all over me. Remember how I said I only liked the way beer smelled on Gil? Yeah, well Creepy Tall Guy did not make me change my mind about that at all.

CTG: You know. The song. Clouds in coffee, clouds with my coffee.
DM: Yes. It's called You're So Vain.
CTG: I think it's by Carly Simon.
DM: I know. I've sung it before.
CTG: I think you're probably around my age, right?
DM: Uh...
CTG: Mumble not many people mumble remember mumble end mumble VietNam war.
DM: Uh...
CTG: But I always mumble like to mumble learn mumble mumble mumble.
DM: Okay.

As you can imagine, I was praying for someone to save me from him. And someone did but I can't remember who. I think it might have been Dean who waved at me from one of the other tables. He was sitting with Aaron who I thought was named Kenny. I called out "Hi, Dean!" Then Aaron waved at me and I said "Hi, Kenny!" Then Beth, bless her, pulled me out of the conversation with Creepy Tall Guy by saying "Did you just call him Kenny? It's Aaron." Oops.

Creepy Tall Guy wandered away. Thank goodness.

Let's see. What else happened? Um, I watched a woman kiss Gil and did not kill her. They are friends but there was a bit of jealousy. Mainly because it wasn't me doing the kissing.

DM: I wish I had her guts. I wish I could walk right up to him and kiss him.
Liz: Well, he's standing under something vaguely mistletoe like. You could do it.
DM: Liz. It's a Santa Claus ornament.
Liz: You could say you were confused.

Needless to say, I didn't use that excuse. I wish I had. Why am I such a coward? I've liked this guy since freakin' APRIL! Liz did say something to me about the whole situation.

Liz: I wouldn't say it was hopeless. But I wouldn't say it was hopeful either. Maybe in 5 years. He's just sort of asexual.

But there was more kissing to be done. Since we are all in that weird, goofy mood that we get in late at night and surrounded by friends, it was amusing to watch Barry and James kiss. Twice. Well, actually, it was kind of hot. And yes, they were joking around.

The following is what happened after the bar closed. And I just want to state right now that we are all horrible, evil people and are probably going to go to hell but we were all playing off of each other and it was funny. To us. You might not think it was funny. And then I would hope you would realize that we didn't mean to offend anyone. Don't get offended! Please?

The bar closes. Most of the people leave. Creepy Tall Guy is wandering around. He puts his jacket on. We are convinced that he is going to leave. He does not. He gravitates over to me.

CTG: You didn't sing.
DM: No. There wasn't time.
CTG: That's too bad.
DM: Yes (not really, I suck at the song).

Aaron sits next to me and is talking to Liz.

A: Well, Liz, as you know, as a Puerto Rican Jew...(background, I don't believe Aaron is Jewish. James has this fascination with Jews and had decreed that orange is the favorite color of Jews. Therefore Aaron, Cassie and I are all Jewish because it's Cassie and my favorite color and Aaron was wearing a shirt with orange on it)

Creepy Thin Guy sits down at the end of the table.

A: Who's this guy?
CTG: I'm just a guy. I'm interested in learning more about your religion.
A: Okay.

He turns back to Liz. He's going to ignore Creepy Thin Guy.

A: Liz, as a Puerto Rican Jew who has been fucked over...
Liz: I understand, Aaron.
CTG: Says something I can't hear.

This is where the evening just gets weird.

A: Liz, it's just so hard. You can't understand. No one knows. No one understands what I've been through.
Liz: I know, Aaron.
A: But you can't (this is said in kind of a wail).
Liz: I'm sorry, I can't appreciate your pain because I don't have this situation but I know you've been through a lot.
CTG: When did you come to this country?
A: What? What? Do you think I just came here from Cuba last week? I'm an American. I've lived in Saint Paul all my life.
CTG: I'm from Roseville. Don'tcha know (he is trying to do the really annoying accent that everyone outside of Minnesota seems to think we have)?
A: I saw Fargo. I don't talk like that.
CTG: I know, I just...

Aaron turns to us.

A: Who is this guy?
CTG: I just want to learn more.
A: Liz, it's just so awful. With my family and everything that happened and...I'm just so verklempt, Liz. I'm verklempt.

He gives this fake sob and turns to me. Burying his head in my chest, he laughs to himself. This, of course, sets me off and I cover my mouth while stroking his head.

DM: Don't cry, Aaron. You're making me cry. I'm sorry I called you Kenny.

By this time, everyone is aware of what is going on, we're playing off of what Aaron says and running with it. It is Improv Theater. And yes, we are all evil. We are aware of it. Please forgive us.

Bryan: Aaron, if it makes you feel any better, someone in my family died in the camps as well.
A (raises his head): Don't you say that! It's not the same, it's not!
Liz: Bryan! I can't believe you brought that up.
Bryan: Hey! Falling from the guard tower still counts.
CTG: But it was all so long ago. It doesn't matter anymore.

Uh, what?

A: You need to leave! You need to go.

Creepy Thin Guy doesn't take the hint.

Liz: So, how are we doing the arrangements for leaving tonight? Stefanie, you're leaving with James, right?
S: Yes.
Liz: Cassie, you're giving Barry a ride home?
C: Yes.
Liz: Beth? Who are you walking out with?

Beth snuggles up to Dean in this "Oh, hello, my best friend in the world, you are so wonderful, save me from the creepy guy" way.

Dean: I guess I'm walking out with Beth. And Dana.
Liz: Good. I'll be leaving with Bryan. You can't be too careful.

Creepy Tall Guy doesn't realize that we are worried that he is a stalker freak possible serial killer and continues talking to Aaron.

CTG: So tell me about your religion. You light candles and there's 12 days, right?
A: It's not the 12 days of Hannakkuh, you idiot.
CTG (turning to Dean): You celebrate Kwanzaa.
Dean: What? What did you ask me? Do I look Swahiliiiiiiii (imagine Xena the Warrior Princess giving her war cry) to you? Do I?
CTG: Uh...
Dean: Just because I'm black doesn't mean I celebrate Kwanzaa.
Liz: You're black (this is an old joke between them. Imagine she is saying this in total shock)?! I can't believe you didn't tell me.
Dean: Liz, I'm brown as all get out.

You would think by this time that Creepy Thin Guy would figure out that he's not wanted. But no. He still continues on, saying something to Dean that I don't catch but I'm sure it's about Kwanzaa. Do not read the following if you will get offended! I have warned you!

Dean: No. I am not Swahiliiiiiiiiian.
CTG: Mumble Kwanzaa mumble.
Dean: F*ck Kwanzaa.
CTG: Mumble.
Dean: No. I want you to say it. F*ck Kwanzaa.
CTG: F*ck Kwanzaa.
DM: Can't we all just get along?

I'm trying to keep from laughing and my eyes are watering from the smoke and the whole situation. Liz has come over and is sitting with him. We are consoling him. Liz asks him to come over by the door so she can talk to him. They leave together. I have covered my face in my hands and am pretending to cry because it will allow m to laugh.

Someone says something to Beth about this.

Beth: Dana's a very sensitive person. She's very empathic.
Dean: Like that chick from Star Trek.
CTG: Ohura.*

*I came very close to saying "It's Uhura, you idiot" but that would have been completely out of character.

Dean: No. The other one.
CTG: From the new show?
Dean: No! The other one.

I completely lose it and walk up to the bar to grab a napkin and pay. Bobby is trying not to laugh as well. He tells me that he's been scolded because he lets us stay so late. He's supposed to kick us all out by 2:15. It's now 2:30. Oops. The napkin is not helping. I go into the bathroom and scrub off all of the eyeliner and mascara. When I come back, Aaron and Liz have returned. CTG is still there! Does he not take a hint?

I don't remember what he said at the end but Aaron looked at him and said "You need to leave! Get out! Go right now!"

CTG finally gets up and walks out the door. We wait a few moments. Finally, all at once, we disolve into laughter. Oh, the relief.

Aaron comes up to me and hugs me. He hugs Liz and Beth as well. We are all laughing hysterically. Liz and he are talking about what they were saying in the corner. She had said something to him and he had done the high pitched "Liz, you just don't understand" when she said "No, Aaron, I need you to be serious." He responded, in a normal voice, "Sure, Liz, what do you need?" They decide if they ever need to do Improv, they will win for sure.

Then Bryan tells us what CTG told Bobby. Apparently he lives in Fridley. And rode his bike to the Chalet. That just makes us all laugh harder. Except for Beth since that's where her mom lives.

We end up all leaving and Beth drives me home while we laugh about the entire evening. It was one of the stranger evenings that we've had at karaoke. We are looking forward to next Friday, which is Matt's birthday.

Keem and I are going to see the Chronicles of Narnia next Saturday with Katie. Then Keem and I will meet Beth at Perkins for the 2nd annual Sheepsheadian Fridleykins New Year. We will ring the New Year in playing Sheepshead and perhaps I will wear a creamer bowl on my head and call it my hat again this year.

And then Beth and I will return to the Chalet on Sunday.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannakuh, Happy Kwanzaa (unless you're Dean), Happy Holidays! May you have a blessed and wonderful New Year! Any good New Year's resolutions? I'm trying to come up with a good one. Any suggestions?

Hey. Doesn't that guy look like a peanut?

Beth picked me up and we headed to the Chalet. The place was busy but not as packed as it was last Thursday. We were able to get a table sitting right behind Joe Funko, Reverend James and their friend Jay. The topic came up about how the men had all met their significant others. Both Joe and Jay had met their wives at work and R James met Marion when he came into her work to sing karaoke.

There was a table up close to the stage that was filled with some younger kids (okay, they were probably around 23-24 but they were kids to me. Probably the way they were acting) and then next to Joe there were two older women, probably in their late forties. We noticed right away that one of the women was acting rather drunk. I swear I watched her do the macarena. Probably not but she was flailing her arms all over the place.

Joe mentioned that she had bumped her chest into his head and then said "Oops." He said "If I bumped my crotch into someone and then just said 'Oops', I'd probably get arrested." The woman was doing her best to attract Joe's attention but he ignored her. She finally headed up towards the stage and started dancing in front of one of the guys at the table. Given a little more time and a tad more to drink, I think she would have given him a lap dance.

Later on a group of men and women came in. There was one guy called Jimmy who was a pretty good singer but kind of weird. His table started singing acapella "Brown Eyed Girl" R James joined in and I was singing along as well. One of the women at the table started talking to R James and he referred to this as armchair karaoke. She then told him she wanted to sing the song with him. He was okay with that.

Joe was telling us that R James had it so rough, he was athletic and good looking and women just gravitated to him. But, in this case, it was a bad thing. Not that this woman was bad looking or anything, she was just, oh, twice his age. But that didn't stop her from fawning all over R James, telling him that he could be her brown eyed boy. When she came over and started hanging all over him, it was hard to keep from laughing.

Back at the future lap dancer's table, some guy had joined them. He was a small, brownish looking man and looked familiar to me. I figured out why when I saw the commercial for Mr. Peanut on the television. The guy looked exactly like a walking, talking peanut. After the two women left, he stayed. And then fell asleep at the table. Beth told Joe she needed to take a picture of him and used it as an excuse to snap the peanut man's picture. I'm sure she'll post it soon.

Karaoke shut down early and we had a great time talking to Joe and R James and Liz when she joined us. We got to watch Andrew wake up peanut man twice and watched him finally stagger out of the bar. He dropped his cigarettes and Joe tried to give them to Liz but she refused, stating that he looked like the type of man who wouldn't wash his hands after going to the bathroom so no way was she touching his cigarettes.

The evening ended with a discussion about the local strip club, the Lamplighter. I told the story about how I had been at a garage sale and found a baseball jacket that I really liked, it was comfortable and fit well. It wasn't until I was at school one day that someone asked me if I worked there. I was very puzzled and that's when I discovered that the Lamplighter was a strip club. I also shared my opinion that there's something wrong with a strip club being in a strip mall.

Anyway, I'm off to Eric's dad's house to celebrate Christmas Eve. Hope you all have a great holiday, no matter what you celebrate or don't. Love to you all!

Christmas - the survival guide.

So the boss (also known as Matt) and I were talking about why I wanted to go home and he made some smart alecky comment and I said "You're not funny" and he said "Obviously I haven't shown you this email I sent my friend" and I read it and laughed and said "Yeah, you are funny. You're freakin' brilliant. Can I publish that on my blog" and he said "Yes" and emailed it to me.

You might remember Matt from previous posts such as Just another reason why I love my job and Stuff (descriptive title that. It's the one where I found out that my personality matched Captain Kirk (yay!)).

Anyway, this is an email he sent to a friend of his. I think it is hi-larious!

From: Matt
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 10:07 AM
To: Matt's friend
Subject: Dark days

Dark days are upon us my friend. The holidays are quickly drawing to a peak and survival is essential. Now with JC Day and other highly publicized birthdays coming up, I think yours is tomorrow, you must realize that people will not be this friendly in a week. Many victims have been claimed by happiness overload during these times. These poor souls have been seen in Christmas stores in July to get their mid year fix. They needed that taste of the holidays to hold them over for the long journey ahead. I have compiled some tips to help people through these times. Enjoy

1. If you have to drink at all; get drunk. Nothing brings you back to reality better than a good hang over. That and picking pine needles off your clothes from trying to make relations with the Christmas tree. (It was asking for it)
2. Step on a scale. There are a lot of cookie recipes that call for flour, butter, and sugar. They are the triad of chunky buns. The less you eat means the less guilty you will feel when you sleep in instead of going to the gym.
3. Relatives are not forever. You don't have to like them, you just have to tolerate them. There's only so many times that you can listen about the time that Uncle Bob beat up your Mom's prom date. You already know the story by heart so just smile politely and laugh at the appropriate times. Just make sure that there is something interesting going on behind them. That way it looks like you're paying attention to them when you're actually watching the football game on the other side of the room. Touchdown!!!!! Go Broncos!!!!
4. Don't ask for the gift receipt to return something. I have lost gifts after a month to only find out that a friend has mysteriously acquired the same item, and I have a new CD. Nobody's feelings get hurt, and I've been meaning the replace that stolen Alice in Chains CD for a while anyway.
5. Strategic napping. Nothing gets you out of annoying family functions like passing out on the couch while moaning, "Ohhhhhhhh, I ate waaaay too much food. Aaaaaaaaagggghhh". Everybody has been there at one time or another so nobody is the wiser. Just make sure that you didn't just get done putting down a bottle of wine while having a chugging contest with Uncle Bob. It tends to raise suspicion.
6. Last but not least; make your own fun. Don't let other people bring you down. It's one of the few times in a year that you don't have to remember that credit card is about to blow up and you hate your job. That and New Years Eve is just around the corner. "Party on Wayne!! Party on Garth!!"

Happy Holidays. I celebrate Aku. The dark overlord of all that is evil from the cartoon Samurai Jack. That and Scooby Doo. It's a talking dog that solves mysteries man. That's… like so crazy….man. Where are the Cheetos?

My God, I love my job. He's the best boss ever. Even though he seems to think I'm sucking up when I say that.

Where's the magic 8 ball when you need it?

This is my horoscope today (astrology.com. I'm a Pisces. In case you didn't know).

Analyzing the heck out of a relationship is tempting now, but at a certain point, thinking over (and over, and over) every last detail ceases to be useful (and may even drive you nuts). If you're contemplating initiating a discussion or taking some kind of action, why not just do it? Really, there's no time like the present, especially according to the stars. Moving forward is the best gift you can give yourself.

This is my fortune (random fortune generated by myway.com).

You will say yes when you should say no.

Could you contradict yourself anymore? C'mon, random elements of the Universe, what am I supposed to do here? As you all know (well, except for Discom (who, by the way, I answered your question in the comments of the last post)), I have been asking myself the all important question about Gil - To lick or to not lick, that is the question (Sorry, Will S, couldn't help paraphrasing).

What to do, what to do? Ah, well, going to go take a nap. Karaoke tonight - yay!

She has found another way to torture me

Keem. Keem, Keem, Keem. Why must you do these things to annoy me? Why? It is wrong. And let's not forget that my New Year's Resolution for 2005 expires at midnight on the 31st. You could be very, very sorry if you don't stop this RIGHT now.

So Keem and I were fighting about something on Tuesday. I have no idea what it was about. It was one of those fights where you hiss things under your breath that you don't mean and you get really defensive about something stupid and then find yourself later regretting what you said.

I am regretting that I referred to Keem as "Your Majesty."* Twice. Not because it was mean or anything like that. Oh, no. That's not the case.

*In my defense, she is kind of bossy sometimes.

No. Do you know what she is doing now? She has now started referring to herself as the Queen of the Universe. She is not the Queen of the Universe. I am the Queen of the Universe! She has started referring to me as the false Queen and saying stuff like "So saieth the Queen." She can't say that! I say stuff like that.

Conversation this morning:

Keem: You are a bad Dana. You were supposed to wake me up.
DM: I am sorry, Keem.
Keem: I do not believe you. Bad Dana. So saieth the Queen.
DM: ARRRRGGGH!
Keem: *Giggles*
DM: Stop saying you are the Queen. You are not the Queen.
Keem: Yes, I am. You called me Majesty. Therefore I am the Queen of the Universe.
DM: You can't just proclaim yourself the Queen of the Universe!

Granted, this is a fairly illogical argument considering that that's what I did, just decided that I was the Queen of the Universe one day.

So I ask you, my loyal subjects, to please inform Keem as to just who is the real Queen of the Universe. Thank you for your time and attention.

Crazy Little Thing Called Karaoke

Several years ago, if you would have sat me down and said "Dana, you are going to become a complete and total karaoke junkie. You are going to live and sleep and breathe karaoke," I probably would have laughed at them. But you know, it's kind of true. Especially when you think that, besides blogging, that's really my social life. I'm okay with this. I've met some great people through both activities.

Last night was dead. Hard to believe after how crazy last week was on Sunday and Thursday. I did do my hair and wore my sparkly shirt and, if I do say myself, looked good. Maybe a little too good. Some of you will remember from last year, my quest for the perfect cleavage enhancing shirt. Well, I found it. Several times during the evening, I would look down and I was spilling out of the shirt (not that bad but both tattoos were on full display through most of the evening). I am not used to this at all because most of the clothes made for larger women fall into two categories - sedate, Grandma clothing and "Hello, I am a whore" clothing. Since I have rules against extremly tight clothing (yeah. Because bulges are sexy) or exposing my midriff (I think it is tacky and have only met one woman who can pull it off without looking tacky, that would be Marion, Reverend James fiance - mainly because she doesn't combine the midriff bearing shirt with hip hugger jeans), I rarely wear anything that falls into the latter category. I am more into the long, ankle length skirts (don't have to wear nylons, don't have to shave above the knee (does any one (women, I mean) remember why it was so taboo to shave above the knee? Flea asked about that recently and I remember my mom telling me not to do it. I don't care about it being tabboo now, I just don't do it because it is way too much work)), comfortable jeans, the occasional dressy blouse (or t-shirts). I've decided that, since Thursday and Sunday are the only nights I go out, I'm going to start dressing up a little more. Just for fun. NOT because of Gil. Really. You believe me, right?

When Holiday Cheer Attacks

There was a group of four people that sat in the back. One of them, a woman wearing a sequinned Santa hat and also a shirt that appeared to have a lit fireplace on it, had one of those voices that really annoys me. You know the type. It is the high pitched, baby voice that some women have. The only reason I can see for this is to drive me insane. Now, I'm not talking about Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." No, think Victoria Jackson (former SNL member, "Casual Sex?" star) but raise the pitch and decibel level about five hundred degrees (I don't know if decibels and pitch is measured in decibels. Just work with me here).

Bryan was standing at our table, talking to Beth, Angie-Ang and Steve (Angie's boyfriend (Or Steve 1, as we started referring to him once Steve 2 (Beth's team lead) arrived)), Amy and Craig (I do not know what Craig's relationship to our little karaoke dynamic is. He appears to be a friend of Amy. He is kind of hot and also amuses me so I welcome him to our table)). Woman with the Annoying Voice comes up to the table. She stands right behind me at my left, touching me with her body. Look, let me put it this way, WAV. The only person I want standing this close to me is Gil, okay?

WAV (to Bryan): Are you the karaoke man?
Bryan: No. I'm the karaoke boy.

We all laugh appreciatively. Except for WAV. She stares at him blankly. You can almost hear the word "Huh?" forming in her brain.

WAV: You should sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
Bryan: That's not going to happen.

Bryan is an athiest minister (I think I've mentioned that before). Bryan is the man who, if I ever get married, will perform the ceremony. While he and I have completely different spiritual beliefs, he is an intelligent and respectful man who would never discount someone else's beliefs. We've had good discussions about the Bible, religion, whether or not Jesus is a vampire or a zombie, etc. Instead of telling this woman that there is no way he's going to sing a Christmas hymn, he says a very simple "Sorry, I'm not interested."

WAV wanders off and we resume our conversation. Later on, she returns. She is drunk(er) and, as hard as this might be to believe, even more annoying. And again, she is standing right next to me, her body pressing up against my shoulder. Woman! Just back off already.

WAV: C'mon guys, you have to get him to sing Hark the Herald Angels sing!
DM, Beth, Amy: That's not going to happen.
WAV: But I really want to hear it.
Angie: I don't think we have it.
WAV: But...but...I want him to sing it.
Amy: No. You should ask him to sing this great Christmas song. It's called Purple Rain.
WAV: That's not a Christmas song.
Amy: Sure it is.
WAV: He should stop being such a Scrooge.

She nudges me with her body.

WAV: Don't you want him to sing a Christmas song?
DM: Look. He's not going to sing it. He's Jewish.

Beth later said she couldn't believe I chose to say Jewish over Athiest but my reasoning was that I was not going to watch her try to convert Bryan. That would just be annoying.

WAV: He's a Scrooge.
Amy: No. He's Jewish. He's not singing the Christmas song. Okay?

WAV finally wanders away. Bryan walks by. I tell him that he's now Jewish. He nods. It doesn't phase him at all. Later she shows up again when this guy is on stage singing something, she stands in front of him and starts shouting "Blame my Dad! It's my Dad's fault!" I think it had something to do with the song but I'm not positive because I can't remember what he was singing.

Nicknames Du Jour

Later on, we realize that WAV and her group are gone.

DM: My God, she annoyed me.
Bryan: Yes. And unlike Dana, she needed batteries to make her shirt sparkly.
DM: I have a much better use for my batteries.

Bryan is speechless momentarily.

Bryan: When did Dana become evil?
Beth: She's always been evil. You gave her the nickname Evil Dana.
DM: It comes from dating the Devil (long story short, Randall Flagg is my fake boyfriend).
Steve: *Says something about cloven hooves and a tail (can't remember exactly what it was)*
DM: Once you've gone cloven, you never go back.

Somehow I get talked into singing Strokin' by Clarence Carter. Both Angie and Beth turn the puppy dog eyes on me and convince me this is a good idea. It is not a good idea but our rotation is down to Angie, Amy, Beth and myself so what the hell - it's new song Sunday again. I end up alternating between singing Strokin' and Vibratin' which is what Beth and Angie would yell up at me (Lisa Jo had sang it one night as Vibratin' and it cracked us all up. We are so mature). I get to the part where Clarence Carter says how he knows how his woman is "sati'fied"( because she starts calling his name) and I substitute "Hurricane Dana." Steve is pleased because he is the one that gave me the nickname Hurricane Dana in the first place.

Considering that I complained about not having a good nickname when I gave Keem her new name (Kim with drawn out "ee's." I like "ee's"), I am fond of both of these and glad they were given to me. Even though they seem to indicate that I am destructive and evil and everyone knows that I am so sweet and wondrous and everyone loves me. Right? Right?! Why are you all cowering in the corner?

Men are stupid. Except for the Steves. Oh. Sorry about that, Craig.

I'm not really sure how we got on that subject or why who said it (Angie?) but it brings up another topic. After I don't know how long, the boy shows up at karaoke, along with Pete and Guru and some other guy (not Mullet Man). They stay up at the bar (yay about Pete and Guru, boo about the boy) and do not approach or acknowledge us. Beth had invited Steve 2 (her team lead) up to karaoke and I was really hoping that he would show up while the boy was still there. And he did. I did a subtle chair switch with Steve 2 so that he could sit across from Beth (subtle because I was sitting in the middle and there was an open chair next to me and if Steve 2 sat there, Gil couldn't sit next to me (which didn't work)) and I was hoping that the boy would notice that a) Steve 2 is very cute and b) attentive to Beth (disclaimer - in a non-romantic way because they are friends and she is his boss but hey, the boy doesn't know that, right?) and then would c) gnash and grind his teeth in frustration because he is slow like molasses and never asked Beth out.

Hey, I never said I couldn't be petty at times. I don't think it worked anyway. The boy and entourage left later. The boy said goodbye to Beth and I but that was it. Stupid boy. Does he not realize how great Beth is? Dang him. He doesn't deserve her. Pete and Guru said nothing. We think that P&G may be afraid of Beth. Sweet.

For some reason, I decided it would be fun to play with Steve 2's sideburn. I'm not sure why. But it was kind of fun, sort of like touching a crew cut but not. Beth, who is extremely ticklish, started giggling. She will giggle if you pretend to tickle her.

Gil was there but did not sit next to me. It was very sad.

More evidence that we are part of the cool table

Matt and James arrived and so did Liz. I gave Bryan and Liz their Christmas presents. They collect globes and maps and I found an ostrich egg that was decoupaged into a globe on eBay. It is very cool looking. I also got Theo (their dog) a lacrosse like scoop thing that you can use to throw a tennis ball. It is the perfect gift because Theo loves to play fetch but the ball is always slimy when he brings it back. I told them that the scoop thing was from Eddy in an effort to foster good cat/dog relations.

Matt invited both Beth and I to his birthday party in a few weeks. We are very excited about this. The oddness that we are excited about hanging out with a bunch of comic book geeks and refer to them as the cool group has not escaped us.

Um, is there more? I'm not sure. Beth? Am I missing anything? I'm sure I am.

Oh, forgot something.

Football season. Yay.

So I got to overhear two arguments about football (or hockey. Maybe one was about hockey) on Sunday. One was while I was in the bathroom working on my makeup and I could hear people yelling and telling one of the people that they were going to drive him home because of his horrible comment (don't remember what it was but it was about FOOTBALL! Who cares?) and someone might have left but then came back.

The other one was this guy that was sitting at the bar and talking to Bobby. I had gone up to pay the tab and he was babbling about football and I could have cared less. Liz had said something about him and I said "Yeah, he's talking about football. How exciting."

When suddenly he said "And then she gave him a lap dance" very loudly.

DM: Huh. Maybe they are not talking about football anymore.
Liz: Well, they could be. You know (referring to the whole Vikings controversy about the sex ship, etc).
DM: True. It would certainly make football games a little more interesting.

Okay, I'm tired. Need to go to bed. Only 3 more days and then I have a three day weekend. Thank God. I am going to love being able to sleep in Monday morning after going to karaoke on Sunday. Because, yes, where else would you go after your family festivities on Christmas? The Chalet, of course!

Hey!

It is very disturbing to pull up your site tracker and realize that someone found your site by doing a search on Google for "Whores named Dana."

What is more disturbing is that I'm the 2nd link.

Do I have an exciting new career that I don't know about?

And someone found my site looking for Chalet Dana Karaoke. Oh, dear. This could be bad.

And yes, I am working on a karaoke update. And yes, Beth did take pictures.

More stuff

Bet you wished you lived here

My start page for Internet Explorer is my page on myway.com. I have it customized to show me several things - my horoscope (apparently there is a lot of love coming my way for Christmas. Everyday there's something about love. Love, romance, love, adoration, love. I'm thinking right now that a magic 8 ball might be more accurate), the quote of the day, a description of what is happening on my favorite shows (it's how I let Keem to know she has to make sure the VCR is off so Lost will tape because I am electronics challenged (and yes, that does mean I have a problem putting at tape in the VCR and turning it off. The damn machine hates me), etc. I also have the weather for two places - Saint Paul and Lisbon. Today I pulled up the page to find that both places are sunny and fair but the temps are far different. Here it's 0 degrees. In Lisbon, it is 50 degrees. Is there any doubt now as to why, when I am rich (and possibly famous), I will be living part of the year in Lisbon? I didn't think so.

Speaking of Lisbon, if you have not yet visited Johnny's blog today, may I suggest you stop by and see her? She has posted the most beautiful letter to her best friend, Uzi, who died in the tsunami last year.

Right now, I am looking out the window at the Mississippi and watching snow blow across the frozen river. It looks like ghosts dancing. Why am I living in a place that is cold enough for an entire river to freeze? How is that possible? Oh, yeah, if I move my sister will kill me.

Just call me poodle girl

So I went and got a perm yesterday. As you know, I'm trying to grow my hair out but it has reached a stage that some people refer to as the "in between" stage and I refer to "For the love of God, can I just cut it off already?" stage.* It is a bit wavier than I thought it would be but it could be much worse, I could have extremely tight curls. I'm not sure how I feel about it right now, probably because I haven't actually done anything with it. The one thing I know for sure is that I can now pull my hair back into a ponytail - the perm has made my hair even more thick and only one or two strands of hair escape. Yay! That was my goal all along - to be able to put my hair in a ponytail. Now I can cut it (yes, yes, I am kidding).

*The correct answer is no. Which is usually the answer I receive. Except from my sister who said "You need a hair cut." Dang her.

I also decided to get fake nails put on. Not the Lee press on nails (which I never could figure out. Have I ever mentioned that I'm not really good at being a girl? I was always curling iron challenged as well. This is terrible when you are grew up in the 80's. I could never get my hair as big as it was supposed to be or to feather just right (Of course, looking back on this, you realize that I am thinking "Thank God", right?))

And I went shopping at Catherine's on Thursday and bought three new shirts. So tonight, I am going to do my hair and makeup and wear my flashy new shirt (it is sparkly! Yay!) when I go to karaoke. Because sometimes being girly can be fun. Maybe there will be pictures? If I remember my camera, I'll probably be able to convince Beth to take a picture or two.

I'm the luckiest girl ever!

I bought five powerball tickets. I figure that there's no reason to sneeze at 15 million, right? Maybe better to play now than when it gets really high, right?

There are five numbers plus the powerball to match. Guess how many I matched? Guess?

That's right. One. And it was not the powerball.

No wonder my love life is so filled with excitement devoid of romance (no matter what Astrology.com says).


Yes, my life. Filled with the most wonderful things! But tonight there is karaoke and all is well in my world. How are you doing? And dang it, why are you not posting, people? My bloglines is distressingly empty. Ooh, wait, what's that? Who posted? Who? Oh. It's blogthings. Woo-hoo.

Stuff

Just some random things to share. In no particular order.

There are pros and cons of sharing a bathroom with a roommate.

The pros are:

You're not the only one responsible for cleaning.
If you run out of shampoo (conditioner, etc) in the middle of a shower, you can usually use your roommate's shampoo (etc) without a problem.
You will be reminded when it is time to feed the cat or water the cat or when you accidently dropped soap in the shower and didn't clean it up.

The cons are:

You will be reminded when it is time to feed the cat or water the cat or when you accidently dropped soap in the shower and didn't clean it up (in Keem's defense, the shower gel I use is made from olive oil and is green and kind of gross looking).
There are sometimes what I will tactfully refer to as scheduling problems. Fortunately, Jeff has his own bathroom and it can usually be used in a pinch.
Waking up to hearing the most disgusting sounds emanating from the bathroom. These sounds would be "Gak. Blech. Retch. Gag. Splat."

Yes. Keem is sick. We're not sure what the problem is but it has resulted in vomiting. This may have an effect on our plans for the evening but hopefully not. We are supposed to go to a going away party for a woman from NABABNA. Which, honestly, we don't really care about, the real reason for going is for the chance to see Beth. Beth, we will update you as soon as possible if we're not able to go tonight.

Okay, I know I said stuff but it is hellaciously busy today again. Which is just wrong since it is Friday, dang it! Maybe there will be more on my break.

I willingly spent the day with children. Many, many children. Apparently, I am on crack.

Keem and I volunteered for the Junior Achievement program that NABABNA helps sponsor. Well, actually, Keem volunteered. I was dragooned into it by Keem (I like the word dragooned. It is fun). What we did was spend a day assisting in Exchange City, a place in North Saint Paul that was set up to help children get a grasp on working in the business world.

Suprisingly enough, it was fun. Usually the program is for students in 4-6th grade but we were actually working with English as a Second Language students that were between the age of 15 to 21 years old. Most of them were Hispanic but there were also a lot of Arabic teenagers as well.

As a volunteer, my job was to watch them run their "business (ours was a retail shop called the International Shop)." There was an owner, a production designer, accountants and sales associates. They worked together to make products in the hopes of paying off their bank loans. One of my responsibilities was to help them with their checkbooks (they got paid in Exchange City money so that they could buy snacks and products from other stores). Keem got a good laugh out of this, as you can imagine. I am rather math challenged.

I also had a bunch of them sort of disappear. All of my accountants vanished, the owner ended up having to leave at 12, one girl told me she was an accountant when she was really a sales associate and we needed to have one of the teachers come in and straighten the mess out, there was a teacher that was working in the same room that was really irritating me because he didn't pay attention to anything that was going on and started telling people to do one thing when they were supposed to do another and oh, yeah, no one got their first paycheck so they couldn't go on their first break until almost a half hour later. It was a very interesting day.

As you may or may not know, babies terrify me. Toddlers wear me out (well, Josh is really the only toddler I spend any time with but he is very energetic) and small children puzzle me (small children are between the age of three to thirteen). But, oddly enough, I enjoy teenagers. So, being in a small room with over eight teenagers was absolutely no problem for me. I had a good time.

There was one girl, Rachel, who was in 11th grade. She was Hispanic, smart, funny in a subtle way, patient (I'll explain that in a moment) and had a great work ethic. She quickly decided what she was going to make for a product and started making god's eyes.



We started talking about how I remember making these years ago and how much fun it had been. Without batting an eye, she asked me why didn't I just start making one? She got me set up with the craft sticks (remember when you had to eat a ton of popsicles to get the sticks to make these?) and the yarn and explained over and over how to do this.

It's a simple thing, really, to make a god's eye. You just wind the yarn around the sticks multiple time. There were directions. But for some reason, I would wind the yarn and then completely lose my place. I would try to figure it out and end up making a bigger mess out of it.



At one point, I turned to Rachel and in desperation said "How do I do this again?" She smiled and patiently explained it. When I expressed frustration over how pathetic it was that I couldn't figure this out and maybe I should just give up, she said something that made me realize that this girl, who is maybe 16 or 17, is wiser than me in some ways.

"If you just give up, then you'll never know if you could do it."

When our owner had to leave, I asked Rachel if she would take over. She did so, stepping up to the plate. When other people were wandering off and laughing with their friends, she stayed where she was, continuing to work on products. Out of the six hour day, I think she maybe took a ten minute break. So when the mayor of Exchange City came around and asked me who I thought should be recognized for employee of the day, I had no problem writing Rachel's name down.

When the end of the day came, she flashed me a sweet smile and then was gone.

I have, since I was about 25, known that I do not want to have a baby. I am not good with small children. I don't know what to do when they cry. I can't handle vomit very well. I can and have changed a diaper before but it is not one of my favorite pasttimes. I have heard all of the arguments about how it is different when it is your own child but you know, I don't really think my viewpoint is going to change on that. If that was the truth, I wouldn't be trying desperately not to gag every time the cat heaves up his dinner (damn cat. I swear he is bulemic) because he is my own.

To me, kids really don't get start getting interesting until they are about six.* I think this has something to do with the fact that I can understand them. I do not speak toddler. I have been known to have a conversation with a three year old by asking his six year old sister to interpret. That's an experience, let me tell you.

*Josh excluded, of course. The kid is obviously a genius and is so a cross between Kari and Eric that it cracks me up. Plus, I see some of myself in him.

The weird thing is, I enjoy reading what a lot of people refer to as mommy blogs. I am fascinated in the stories that Diana and Teri tell about their children. I have seen pictures of Diana's children and had to go shopping in a crowded store with screaming, crying children to get the biological clock to stop its damn ticking ALREADY. This, fortunately, has kept me from asking random strangers to impregnate me. Because that would be bad.

Anyway, my point to all of this is, on and off again, I think of adopting a teenager. After meeting Rachel, I'm back to thinking about it again. I know I'm not ready to be a parent, I'm not financially or emotionally secure enough but maybe in a few years?

Yeah, I can't really think of anything else that is going on.

Except, of course, that there was karaoke last night and I got to see Beth and Steve and meet Sarah who is just as funny and cool as Beth said she was. Liz, Matt and James were there. I got to go through James and Matt's wallets. I do not know why I find men's wallets so fascinating but I do. James has a four leaf clover in his. Is he not the coolest guy ever? And I thought it was cute that Matt's wallet was a Punisher wallet. What is it about comic book geeks that is so endearing?

It was seriously busy at the Chalet last night, probably the busiest I've ever seen it. I hate it when it gets crowded and there aren't any tables open. We ended up sitting at the bar which is kind of annoying, I have found it works better to be facing people I am having a conversation with because, even if I can't hear them, I can see their lips moving and realize that they are talking to me. Doesn't help me figure out what they're saying at all but at least I can sometimes figure out what they mean by body language and facial expressions.

Oh and I told Ryan he was man pretty. I am so brilliant sometimes. But dammit, the man is hot and makes my brain melt sometimes. He mainly just laughs at me. It's kind of fun.

Anyway, must go to bed. I have an appointment early tomorrow morning. See you all!

Carve Your Name*

*Another Nadas song for you.** Don't scratch your head too hard - Matt (my boss) told me that they're known as "the best college band you've never heard of." Except that they're probably not in college anymore because they've been around at least a decade. Anyway, I like them. Matt has borrowed lent me several of their CDs and I have enjoyed them. Like Barenaked Ladies, there are two lead singers, both male, and I am getting to be able to recognize who is singing what on the different songs. Unlike BNL, I don't know their names yet or haven't seen them in concert but someday soon?

**I was going to use Hold On but I can't find a decent lyrics website that has it already formatted. I hate formatting lyrics. Hold On is a good song as well but mainly I liked it for the fact that some people are overly excited about the fact that I have not yet finished the karaoke escapades from Sunday, particularly the Gil portion of the evening. To which I reply, it has been very busy at work lately and I have not had that much time to write anything. I am sorry about this but this is not my fault - there are several lawsuits taking place and a major merger (which is fun to say) and suffice to say, I'm going just a tad insane.

First, we interrupt our regularly scheduled program of karaoke recaps to bring you this message of whining - What is wrong with my blog? I can't get the sidebar to show up properly, no matter what I do! ARGH! Beth, can you fix it? It's driving me nuts!

Anyway, here is the rest of the evening. If you haven't read the previous post, none of this will make any sense of you so you should stop and do that right now. Here is Beth's post with exciting pictures. Here is my post with no exciting pictures but it includes how I almost got into a bar fight (well, actually, I left off in the middle of that). Suffice to say, this person called Bryan a bad name and I was irritated.

Tacky Pink Sweater Girl (now known as Tacky) walking past our table): F*ckin' c*ocks*ckr!
DM (Me!): Who was she talking about?
B (Beth!): Bryan. The guys were making vomiting sounds when the drunken girls walked by to the bathroom. So she's blaming Bryan. The idiot (or something to this nature, I'm not the best at remembering what people say).
DM: What? That's stupid!
B: I know! She's dumb.
DM: Listen, Bitch (in direction of Tacky)!
Tacky: Shut up, you bitches (or Oh, you bitches. Not sure. But we were called bitches).
DM: No one talks about Bryan like that. Unless it's us. That's okay (because we're joking).

Fortunately, Tacky did not decide to challenge me. Fortunately for her. I was enraged and hadn't even been drinking so you know I would have trounced her ass. Since she couldn't even stand up straight, I don't think she would have been much of a challenge.

Stephanie was there. She was amused by my annoyance with the drunken women as well. Beth, Stephanie and I were wondering what these people were doing in our bar. We are used to our nice, quiet Sundays where we can sing lots of songs and have great conversations and not feeling like walking from one end of the bar to the other could become dangerous with all the flailing o' the arms and legs in an attempt to dance.

Some guy sat down at our table, probably in an attempt to flirt with Angie. Angie sells Avon (which makes me happy - pretty girly stuff for me to wear and I'm supporting a friend as well) and she had several bags on the table with our orders. This guy was attractive but kind of stupid. Unless he was pretending to be stupid to make conversation. Because that's not annoying at all and ever so sexy. I have put what I think we were thinking in italics.

Stupid Guy (SG): What's in the bag (Picks up bag and looks at it where it clearly states Avon on the front)?
Angie: Avon.
SG: Why?
Angie: Because I sell it.
SG: What do you sell?
Angie: Avon (she picks up the bag and shows it to him).
SG: I don't understand.
Angie: I sell Avon. People buy it from me. You are a complete idiot.
SG: You are not fawning over me. How is this possible? Do you not see my chiseled jaw? My flashing eyes? I am going to ignore you now in favor of this woman here. This will make you jealous and want me madly (Turns to me). What are you writing?
DM (I just recently received a new organizer and was writing my karaoke list in it. This will hopefully remind me I have the organizer so I am not mocked about my lack of organizational skills (actually I am mocked more for the fact that I am addicted to organizers but then never use them (usually because I lose them))): My karaoke list (I was on page 2 or 3).
SG: Are you going to sing all of these songs tonight?
DM: Yes. Because this isn't really karaoke. No, it's the Dana Vittum show. And you will all watch and listen to me sing and pay great amounts of money to buy my CDs. No. These are just songs I have sung in the past and will sing again.
SG: Oh.

He then begins to ask questions about different singers, are there songs by these singers in the book. I am completely not interested in him and so pay little to none attention to him (he may have a chiseled jaw but he doesn't have half of Gil's charm), other than to reply yes or no when he asks about a certain singer.

SG: Do they have Maroon 5?
DM: Yes. They have She Will Be Loved.
SG: Are you going to sing it with me?
DM: No. It's not a duet.
SG: So? You should sing it with me.
DM: It's too high for me.
SG: I'm going to write it down.

He stands up and grabs my pen out of my hand. My pen. My beautiful, beautiful Dr. Grip pen that I get very panicky about if it is missing. Because I can't use thinner pens due to my carpal tunnel.

B: Well, that was rude.
Angie: Yeah.
SG: Oh, I have the attention of another woman. Let me flash my patented smile o'charm at you and then you will forgive me all my transgressions. I just did it as a joke. Here, I'll give it back.

He then slides the pen into my hand, into the open spot between the thumb and forefinger, left empty by his brutal act of pen thievery. Then, obviously thinking that he's such a hottie that this will turn us all on, he slides the pen in and out in an obvious interpretation of intercourse. I quickly grasp the pen and return to my list, after rolling my eyes at Beth and Angie.

Suddenly, one of the drunk girls (not Tacky, this one would be the one that looked like she shopped at Abercrombie & Fitch in the boys department) threw herself into his lap. This knocked him into me and almost ended up spilling our drinks. This group is really starting to annoy us. In fact, Stephanie decided to leave because of the general rowdiness of the evening. She tells us we are much braver than her and leaves.

Becky was there. Nate has not yet come to his senses and begged for forgiveness. In fact, when she had been talking to him about the break up, he finally admitted that he had been lying when he said there was no one else. No, apparently (and I'm taking this with a grain of salt because I admit to being a bit cynical) there is a woman who goes to the bar he works at that he is interested in dating. Nothing has happened between them (yeah, right). Since he was confused about these feelings and was having them even when he was thinking of marrying Becky, he figured it would be better to just dump her and start dating a complete unknown, thus ending a 3 year relationship. How brilliant.

Since I am a) somewhat cynical and b) somewhat a bitch (just ask Tacky pink sweater girl) and c) the type of person who does not censor what she says (I think it, I say it. I'm not known for my subtlety), I was somewhat displeased with this news. There was the gnashing of teeth and the saying of "Sacana" and "Rat bastard" and "That jackass" and my personal favorite, "He's bald."

DM (not sure why I said it but I did so we'll start here): Look. There comes a time when you just have to say "Dude, just shave it off already."
Becky: Nate shaves his head.
DM: No. He shaves it half way. That doesn't count. His hairline is in the middle of his head. That's not attractive.
B: Well, some men don't look good with shaved heads. Like (insert name of really nice guy).
DM: Yeah, well, (really nice guy) has a great personality so his hair doesn't matter.
B: That's true.
DM (back to Becky): You deserve a man with hair. Good hair.
Becky (to Angie and Beth): I love her.
Angie: Yeah, I do too.

So, yes, I'm somewhat cynical and somewhat a bitch and somewhat not good at keeping my mouth shut but I'm also somewhat loveable. Becky did, on several occasions, thank me for keeping her laughing. Which was my secret plan. If she is laughing, she is not thinking about what a wanker Nate is (well, she was but it at least kept her from crying).

Okay and now for what you have all been clamoring for - the Gil stories.

He was there. He sat next to me. He is so effing hot it drives me crazy.

At one point, his knee moved over next to mine. And he moved it several times. Was he playing "kneesie" with me? I don't know.

Thanks to my roommate, Jeff, I have now learned to appreciate forearms. I never thought that this was a particularly attractive body part before but Jeff and I will watch TV and he'll say "Oh, look at that guy's forearms! Aren't they great? (Jeff, by the way, is gay, just in case you hadn't figured that out)" Gil was leaning forward, his sleeves of his sweater pushed up to his elbows and his forearms were somewhat rippling and muscular and hairy and oh, my God, I need to change the subject.

He lit my cigarette. With his incredibly cool Zippo lighter. I got to touch his hand. It was a moment.

When we were talking to Becky about what happened with Nate (Liz found out when she asked "So where's your guy?" Oops), Liz was telling us her theory that women are evil and men are stupid (there is both good and bad evil. We (Beth, Becky, Liz, myself) are all good evil. Tacky pink sweater girl is probably bad evil. Or maybe just tacky evil. We all turn and look at Gil. I touch his shoulder briefly and tell him he is not stupid. We all laugh.

When he was leaving, he put his hand on my shoulder and told me to have a great night, looking into my eyes with his glorious beautiful eyes. He kind of waved goodbye to everyone else.

Liz was talking about the fact that he is kind of in his own world and likes his life the way it is and when she asked him if he saw himself ever getting married a few weeks ago, he said he wasn't sure. So she suggested that he might, oh, try dating someone or maybe paying attention when women flirt with him. She kind of gave me the indication that holding my breath, expecting him to change was not going to happen because he only really cares about movies and his own world and his friends.

But the whole thing is, this is the person that I have fallen into like with. I don't want him to change. I like the fact that he totally gets into movies and comics and thinks a major movie mogul is evil. It doesn't bother me that he has no qualms about certain bad habits that he has that he will easily do in public (this includes but is not limited to biting his nails and then spitting said nail out (which, yeah, is kind of gross but I bite my nails and swallow the nail so that's kind of gross as well)) without embarrassment. I like him. For who he is. I like his friends (those that I know). I love watching how passionate he gets about things. I like it when he mocks me for liking movies he doesn't. I completely and totally adore him.

If nothing happens between us, fine, I'll live with it. As long as we are still friends, I think I can handle just about anything. But you know what, he is stupid. Why does he not know that we are perfect for each other? Why?

Beth has a theory that maybe what Liz said to him kind of sunk in because the last few weeks, he's been more flirtatious. Maybe, in our own, pathetic, slow way, we are learning to flirt with each other. Maybe, when we are in our eighties, something will finally happen between us. I don't know. But I'm looking forward to seeing him again. Maybe I'll just wear a lot of mistletoe on Christmas.

Sorry this took so long, it has been very busy at work. I ended up using my bonus hour of time off tonight to post this. Don't you all feel very special?

Carve Your Name - The Nadas

Carve your name next to mine, in a wood stump with a jack knife
Cross the"T" and dot your "I", carve your name next to mine
Made my mark and left my name, maybe you could do the same
Grooves on a window pane, made my mark and left my name
Won't you stand next to me, and tell me who you want me to be
Only your eyes can see, won't you stand next me

Carve your name next to mine, in a wood stump with a jack knife
Cross your "T" and dot your "I", carve your name next to mine

So I press the ink to skin, hopping you would let me in
Well it may have been a sin, but I press the ink to skin
Now everyone can see that you're a part of me
Almost like a guarantee, that everyone can see
And the years roll by, and soon I'll surely die
Baby don't let me lie alone, let me carve your name in stone

Carve your name next to mine, in a wood stump with a jack knife
Cross the "T" and dot your "I", carve your name next to mine
Carve your name next to mine, in a wood stump with a jack knife
Cross the "T" and dot your "I", carve your name next to mine
Carve your name next to mine, Carve your name next to mine
Carve your name next to mine, Carve your name next to mine