My Mom, The Origin of Awesome

I have a really great relationship with my mom, which I think is because I'm just like my dad--which is to say, a total goofball and only quasi-logical on the best of days. I'd have to say that my mom likes my dad, since they've been married for longer than Flava-Flav has been nailing anything that walks, and so hanging out with me is just like hanging out with my dad, if he were into shoe shopping and talking about china patterns. For my mom, I'm just like my dad, if my dad were mugged by Queer Eye.

One of the things I admire about my mom is her ability to force anything, anytime, at any store on the globe, to be on sale. I'll go over to see her, and the first thing she'll say is, "oh, come see what I got today!" So we traipse up to the master bedroom, and she whips out a jacket that costs more than my house. "Look what I got for $17.92!" she giggles, waggling a silk-lined leather mortgage payment at my googly eyes.

I examine the conquest. "Holy crap, Mom, this is a $400 Marc Jacobs jacket! Who did you con into giving this to you for $17.92???" If it were anyone other than my mom in front of me, the question would be who did you blow to get this for $17.92?, but I prefer to keep matters a bit more kosher with the one who bore me in her vessel of life.

"Well," she gears up for her victorious epic. "I had a coupon for 25 percent off, so I went over to Macy's, and they happened to be having a 25 percent off sale on the whole store! Then I found the clearance rack, and everything there was 60 percent off that--"

(I swear to God, we're already at the point that the store is paying her to take the goods, but we press on.)

"--and I found this fabulous jacket! And when I went to the register, and this is the funniest thing, I went to high school with the lady who rang me up! Well, we started talking, and it was so nice to catch up with her, eventually I told her I'd take her mother a cake, because I'd just love to see her mother, and she gave me another 10 percent off! So, do you like the jacket?"

Yes, yes, I like the jacket. You can leave the house to Questicle and my sister, but I want that jacket.

Mom and I spend a lot of time together, so it's easy for me to forget that she's part of a whole different generation, the generation that believes that chocolate gives you acne, and that only perverts hang out on the "world wide web." Then sometimes, she reminds me, in ways that bring a whole new meaning to the term generation gap.

Recently, Mom and Dad were sitting together reading the Sunday paper. Mom was deeply engrossed in the Garden section (I can only assume), when Dad interrupted her with a question about his chosen material, an editorial on pop culture. "What's 'twittering'?" he asked.

Mom looked around, baffled. She cocked her head, then looked at him, assumed he had really lost it, and replied, "I don't hear anything!"

I'm not actually on Twitter, because I don't think I'm responsible enough to nanny another social status, but to my credit, I at least know what it means. However, mom knows the meaning of bargain hunting, so I'm keeping her around.

Don't Give Notice--Just Flee

Friday was a sad day at my office, as is every Friday, because Friday means that we all have to grudgingly shut down our barely-literate computers, drag ourselves in the direction of the sketchy elevators that have recently taken to bouncing down the shafts like they're dry-humping the cables, and prepare to spend 48 excruciating hours without the majesty of the law to shed its glow upon us.

Shameless plug for continued gainful employment, take 1.

Speaking of things that are actually true, Friday was less than delightful because it was the last day for one of my favorite attorneys real people at the firm. Since he broke up with us to become a government employee, and I'm sure the government will continue to keep us safe by endlessly Googling him, I'm renaming him Michael Scott. Michael Scott is not only a Steve Carrell creation of epic blunder, but interestingly, is also the first and middle name of a guy I used to date. Adding to the fun? Scott is my middle name too, which I felt the need to share on our second date. FYI, guys aren't thrilled you if you say, "omigosh, that's my middle name too!" It just doesn't have the same bonding potential as, "omigosh, I love Metallica and stale candy corn,* too!"

And now, back to our regularly scheduled mayhem. My coworkers and I are, to put it lightly, raucous like two teenage baboons fighting over the baboonette with the most shapely blue ass, and so we knew that we had to do something stupendous to send Michael Scott off to the feds. Classy catered lunch? Nope. Champagne toast with heartfelt speeches? Nah. Hide in his office, catch him off guard, and ambush him into dressing like a preppy Hawaiian woman? CHECK PLEASE!

Correction: We caught him off guard with six cans of Silly String, and then forced him to dress like a preppy Hawaiian woman with a hint of Groucho Marx. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Exhibit WTF:



To be fair, the preppy end of his enviable ensemble was his own doing, because fortunately, he had come to work clothed that day. (But if he hadn't--that's called going out with a dang, yo.) But bless his Hawaiian heart, he kept his party frock on for the rest of the day! Including the balloons, which he eventually tied to various part of his person so as not to lose them.

As I watched him shuffling his hula hips down the hall and asking paralegals if his boobs were on straight, it occurred to me: If I ever leave this firm, there is no way I'm giving any more than six seconds' notice before I stealthily ease out with a tote bag full of post-its and the quasi-functional lamp from my office shoved under my shirt. I'll be there, deeply engaged in the noble quest of helping people form the melting pot of the USorA, and then shazam! I'll be gone! Just like Molly Ringwald's career and parachute pants.

They'll probably find me, but I'd at least have a head start on the Silly String.

*Because it is delicious, and because it is a sound economic investment, since you will be profiting from candy corn futures trading in your teeth for at least two weeks.

Blowhard

Lawyer Boy is currently suffering from either allergies, a summer cold, or the plague, which means I've been waiting on him more than usual, and have actually agreed to allow him to monopolize our only tv with "Snakes On A Plane." THAT IS LOVE, PEOPLE.

In the throes of mucus and horror, LB and I were running some errands this afternoon, buying new wine glasses and hoping that we would infect the entire side of town we dislike with his personal plague. We were stopped at a red light when out of nowhere, he turned to me and said...

...and this is a direct quote....

"Most people don't know what I'm talking about when I say this, but when I blow my nose, air shoots out my eyes. Does that ever happen to you?"

No, in fact, that has never happened to me, a fact I shared with him once I stopped laughing so hard that plain old tears came out of my own eyes. He was shocked, truly shocked, that I had never experienced the transformation of my tear ducts into fire-breathing dragons.

I really hope he gets over this plague soon.

Run Like The Wind, If The Wind Were A Loser

I have never been what anyone with any remote command of the English language would call "athletic;" my greatest sports-related accomplishment as a child in Little League was striking out so many times that it was downright astounding that I still managed to be disappointed enough to cry each and every time. My parents signed me up for every single country-club popped-collar sports clinic that would enroll my damaged ass, with mixed results, but only if an alternate definition for "mixed" is "catastrophically loseriffic." A sampling:

• At tennis camp, they video taped each of us so we could watch ourselves and critique our stroke. My shiny-special-star sequence was played over and over, in slow-mo, fast-mo, and all other versions of mo, so that everyone could laugh hysterically at my throwing my racket, tearing around the court like a sugared-up preschooler, and all but shedding my clothes to get away from the bee the coach told me was chasing me. IN FACT THERE WAS NO BEE.
  
• I was signed up for "beginner gymnastics" when I was 9, and was placed with the five- and six-year-old class. Apparently my bespangled rainbow leotard with silver hearts and matching headband-legwarmer combo did not convey my inner Mary Lou Rhetton as strongly as I had hoped, and the ankle-biters leaped clear over my dreams...at least during the two classes I suffered through. Quitters R Us, cleanup on aisle 5.
  
• And ballet. For those of you who may object to its inclusion here as it is "not a sport," I defy you to argue that with the ferocious midgets who always jacked the leading roles in our overblown, long-winded recitals. In my last recital, my capstone performance after eleven years of honing my craft, I was cast in a role that graciously allowed me to remain seated for the duration of my own performance, at the end of which I pranced, gracefully (or not) and on-cue (or not) offstage. I just can't be sure--I think my bitterness may have gotten in the way of the stage directions.
• I played varsity (?) field hockey my freshman year of college, and with four games left in the season, the coach unabashedly told me that I was the worst player on the team, explaining why I had ridden the bus to a variety of Division XIV colleges only to ride the bench upon arrival. Also? We lost every single game without the benefit of my magnificent participation, so maybe the skills gap wasn't all that extreme. When your recruitment efforts consist of trolling the freshman dorm the day of move-in, asking stunned newbies if they've ever played skirt sports before, you really can't set your standards any higher than you can whack that ball.
  

Of course, all these rigorous physical challenges took place back in my glory days, when I could chow an entire pizza and not awaken the next morning to find that same pizza jiggling at the backs of my upper arms and battling fiercely with the waistband of my jeans. (Please note that yes, I do consider the ability to chow an entire pizza an accomplishment.) Now that I'm trapped in an adult's body, I find myself struggling to ensure that January's pot pies and February's truffles don't spend bikini season in a matrimonial relationship with my thighs. I have to do something to burn off my bad decisions, and so I run. Kinda. With great fervor, and much dying of the lungs.

It took me at least four years of running before I stopped hating it like Batman hates Joker. The only reason I kept at it, frankly, is because my college roommate/BFF/lovemuffin, Shelley, is a badass physical fitness genie, capable of running long distances in a single outing without having to bum oxygen off the elderly lady with the tank waiting for the bus. After a long evening of pounding shots, winning drinking contests, and finding our roommate in bed with the Mr. Goodbar Du Jour, Shelley would get up, spritz on her eau de Reebok, and bound off into the sunrise, only to arrive a sweaty hour later to proclaim, "I just kept running to see how far I could go, and I ran seven miles!"

Hell, I don't even like to drive seven miles, but guilt is thicker than vodka, and so I'd think to myself, "well, the worst that could happen is...I could pass out in front of the Sig Ep house, and they do have Miller on tap..." strap on my tennies, and stagger out into the sunlight, to bound approximately 10 feet before slowing to a light prance. I pranced, daintily, for about three years, before I determined that if I had the right music, I could up my shuffle to a moderate jog, and I was off! Never to run to the "Titanic" soundtrack again!

My current running playlist is a chronicle of high-energy embarrassment, but it really keeps me moving, mostly because it makes me picture the music videos full of dancer-chicks with waists like Pixie Stix and legs longer than War and Peace, and I feel the need to compete (losing is inconsequential, apparently). It's lame, and I know, but it burns off the wine. In case you're wondering, here's a short sampling of what keeps me hobbling along:

• Flo Rida's sample (cover? do-over?) of "Right Round," which is either about blow jobs or stirppers, the former of which is disturbing and the latter of which reminds me that tennis shoes are always more comfortable than thigh-high plastic boots. Also, someone pointed out to me that Flo Rida is just "Florida" with a space, so I spend the entire song snickering at the grammatic goof-up.
  
• A selection of Britney Spears songs, from her newest vocal vomit, Circus. In her latest release, Ms. Spears, with glitter-coated boobies bigger than her glitter-coated voice, has collaborated with a variety of high-end producers in order to disguise, as much as possible, the fact that she is actually singing. This doesn't bother me in the least, because honestly, were we ever really paying her to sing? I don't know about you, but I was there for the washboard abs and sex for free.
• Kevin Rudolph's "Let It Rock," featuring Lil Wayne being generally and unabashedly obscene. I love this song for the dance beat, but Lil Wayne's voice is like a middle-school smartass with braces and socially awkward jeans running his teeth down a chalkboard. If this kid had a voice, it would be Lil Wayne's.
  

So I tie on my ipod and bound away, hoping no one notices that I'm dragging at least three loose sphincters behind me in my daily death march. If you happen to drive down Grove Avenue and think you may have spotted me, I'm the one with an inhuman amount of red hair and a stride like a dying golden retriever. If you happen to be my boss and drive down Grove Avenue, you already saw me, mid-death spiral, and then made fun of me for it the next day at the office--specifically, my pink shorts.

Just add that to my list of athletic failures, and we'll call it a day.

A WTF Moment

One of the weirder discoveries of the day: a tour bus, parked in front of the grocery store closest to my house. What could the other high points on this tour possibly be? "After the Carytown Kroger, we'll swing by the home of the local crazy cat lady, and we'll finish up at that parking lot on Broad Street that every seagull, worldwide, believes to be the ocean."

I can only assume that this is a bus full of Japanese tourists. Experience has taught me that they will tour anything--including, apparently, the deli case.

Conversations with My Husband

Lawyer Boy and I are a match made in white-wedding heaven, and not just because I love to cook home-style fatty things and then not eat them (because of lady-guilt*), and he loves to eat them and then not put on any weight at all. This not only solidifies our bond, but also proves that chemistry and genetics really are the tricky little bitches I thought they were in high school science class. I think a large part of our matrimonial magic has to do with the well-known fact that I’m weirder than a blow-up Santa Claus at an Easter Parade, and he’s…not. If opposites attract and relationships are about balance, then I’m the powder-blue, highly-flammable polyester leisure suit to his starched lawyerly dress shirt. The Jon Stewart to his Dick Cheney. The Gene Simmons to his Marie Osmond. (This contrast will no longer be so drastic if the long-fabled line of Gene Simmons Delicate Porcelain Whimsy Dolls finally debuts on QVC. Stay tuned.)

One thing I have noticed, after seven years of inflicting my personality on him, is that it's starting to rub off. Just like when you cook a big pot of chili and eventually everything you own, including your cat, your couches, and the grubby dollar bills in your wallet, smells like stale cayenne and digestive woes, so too has LB's personality begin to reek of Grace. He’s still a far cry from being the insanity-spewing fountain of hipster** slang that I am, but he’s becoming progressively goofier with every minute that ticks by into the Great Beyond that is the rest of our lives together. The only thing that really stands between him and the lofty goal of being my nuttier than Mr. Peanut’s pants equal is that he still sometimes struggles to keep pace with the rapid-fire lunacy that I call pleasant conversation.

Here’s a good example. Recently I had dragged an unwilling LB on some evening errands with me, out to the side of town where the SUVs are almost as big as the McMansions and the toddlers are almost as big as their Twiggy McTightpants moms. I’ve only ever known one guy to use the phrase “I’d love to run errands with you, honey,” without gagging and then ducking behind the nearest sofa for cover, so file that one under “Lies My Ex-Boyfriends Told Me,” along with “‘Come On Eileen’ is a U2 song’” and “I’m a virgin.”

I was trying to distract LB from the fact that he was about to enter the grocery store, which he hates because they won’t let him eat one of everything, so I corralled him into a conversation about his favorite topic, Our Old House. We were discussing which project to tackle next, now that Holy Shit, Mice! and Why Are The Walls Black? were under control. I suggested that we go ahead and roll into painting the front hall, ending my argument with, “Because, LBH, those walls aren’t going to paint themselves.”

“What’s ‘LBH’?” LB asked, thinking it was his new monogram--short for “Lawyer Boy Husband” or perhaps, on days when he sends me flowers, “Lawyer Boy Hottie.”

“Short for ‘let’s be honest,’” I said, amazed that he hadn’t picked this up from the 19 previous times I had used it (that day).

A word on LBH: While I know for sure that I am not the originator of this jargon-y gem, I’m apparently the only one who uses it in conversation, confusing everyone I encounter. All part of my charm, amigos.

Our trip through the grocery store was uneventful, save Lawyer Boy’s insistence that we buy the jumbo-pack of garlic cloves sheathed in what appeared to be the foot of a pair of used panty hose, storming of the bread-and-dip sample station, and refusal to allow me to buy goat cheese because, “it’s just filthy.” Wonder why I normally go alone? Ask and ye shall receive.

We got back in the car, toting canvas sacks of 16 things that I didn’t need to buy and only 3 that I did, when I suddenly remembered something I needed LB to do as soon as we slid into home base. “I don’t remember you telling me about that before now,” was his counter argument.

“I did so. I told you the other night while we were watching TV!”

Silence.

“Did you black that out?”

Silence.

“OMG, do you black out everything I say to you while we’re watching TV?” Eureka!

LB was quiet for a minute, then turned to face me, and with the definition of a shit-eating grin plastered across his face, said, “Well…LBH.”

I am not teaching him any more new words.


*Someone has to fit into all these fabulous sundresses, and you can bet your string of pearls it won’t be the cat.
**Hipsters wear aprons and revel in the creation of another perfectly-domed Bundt cake. Yup.

An Important Life Decision

I have made an important decision, for when I am eventually pregnant with LB's maniac babies. Whenever I'm in public, and a well-meaning stranger looks at my belly, smiles, and asks me, "What are you having?" I am simply going to reply, "Kittens."

Snaps To You Award: My Baby Brother, Questicle

It has been far too long, eons and eras, and almost long enough for Kristen Stewart to blow all the money she made from "Twilight" on weed, since I have given out the S2U Award. Today, reminding me that perhaps I'm not giving it to the right people, my mom suggested that I also give out an award to people and entities who do stupid things with zero flair and no panache, and call it "The Pork and Beans Award."

No, I don't know, either.

But I do know that for now, we'll stick with the S2U, and this week, on his 24th birthday, I know of no better recipient than my little brother Jordan, who should get the award for no other reason than the fact that he can totally rock the middle name "Quest." No one believes that it's his real middle name, but at birth, each of us was graced with a grandmother's maiden name for a middle name, and I drew the much less Questionable "Scott." Frankly, I'm shocked that it took me 24 years of being the nerdlier sibling to realize that I ought to be calling him "Questicle."

My brother and I aren't twins, but aside from his ultra-laid-back demeanor and my obsession with handicrafts, we're very similar. I kinda feel like we are twins--twins who were, by some trick of fetal magic, born two years apart, giving me the chance to solidify my position as The Responsible One, so that he could arrive fashionably late and slide right into the role of The Cool One. When we were kids, he was always the one running ahead while I watched from behind to make sure no one kidnapped him. As a teenager with my first-ever boyfriend, my lame, lame curfew was 10, and I was just stoked to be let out of the house with a boy at all. When Mom and Dad told Questicle that he should be home by ten, he'd argue until they pushed it back to 10:30; then, around 11:30, he'd start thinking that maybe, after one more beer, it was time to head home. In high school, he was the kid who always knew where and when the parties were, and which ones were worth gracing with his presence. I, conversely, was not actually aware that there were parties in high school.

You know you're perhaps not the sought-after sibling when you're the older child, and people know you by your younger brother's reputation.

Today, his 24th birthday, we are miraculously close to another major life event in The Life and Times of J. Questicle: college graduation. After six years of a long and twisty road to adulthood, which sometimes looked to be heading to adulthood, and sometimes looked like it was going to trail off into Beach Bummery or The Art of Professional Fratitude, Questicle rises triumphant to claim his slip of academic sheepskin* from Clemson U and set forth into the world of gainful employment and shitty office coffee. My dad gave me the best example to date of how laid-back and easygoing my brother is: The other day Dad called to shoot the sheeot with him, and said, "So, when's your last day of school?" Meaning his last day of school EVER. After 19 YEARS of school. Questicle's response? "Um...I don't really know. I'll ask someone!"

Despite the fact that I've painted the picture of a totally stereotypical fratalicious slacker, Questicle is ridiculously smart and, even more importantly, is one of the most well-loved people I know. Everyone wants to be his friend, and once they're in the circle, they never leave, so help them God. He's an awesome kid/man/functional human. So Snaps to You, Questicle, the best little brother I could have asked for. Happy birthday!!!!

I'm fairly confident he's reading this right now, drunk. And I'm totally cool with that--because I've taken some lessons in coolness from him.

*Not a reference to sheepskin condoms. You stop that, this is a family post!

Red Headed Slut: The Drink, or The Chick?

Let me begin with a statement of fact: I do not go to bars very often. I’m married, so I’m not biting at whatever slick-smiling bait the guys might be dangling in my direction, and I’m insanely talkative (who knew?), so having to yell over a crowd and an endless loop of drunken karaoke “Livin On A Prayer” really cramps my style. That said, what happened a few Saturday nights ago does not happen very often, which is cheery good news for my girlfriends, my husband, and my liver.

The weekend before St. Patrick's Day of Drinking All Things Dyed Green and Regrettable, my girlfriends Martha, Lauren, and Melissa and I had decided to get together for a girls’ wine night, our standard celebration for all of us being in the same place at the same time, which happens less often than Joan Rivers gets laid. So once every fourteen years, we converge on Martha’s house to chow spreadable cheese products and plow through the supermarket’s finest vintage offerings—preferably the ones sold in the largest authentic vineyard jugs under the NEW LOWER PRICE sign.* Martha’s house has become my personal binge-drinking black hole: Every time I leave to head over, I say to Lawyer Boy, “I’m not going to drink that much, and I’ll probably be home early,” which we now understand is code for, “Show up after midnight with the snow shovel to scrape me off the sidewalk, and load me into the back of the car like a slaughtered hog.”

So we hug and squeal hello and OMG WHEN DID YOU CUT YOUR HAIR I LOVE IT!!!, top off our glasses, and chat about our lives, a group of lively young professionals embarking on their meaningful careers and life journeys...and me. We (they) are all busily engaged in doing productive, important things with our (their) lives. Here, let me show you:

• Lauren holds a degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke, and is currently pursuing an MBA at Darden Business School.
• Martha is a CPA, which means she passed that horrid Triple Frown of an exam, which I hear is like being butt-raped by an adding machine except for less fun.
• Melissa just finished an RN program and is now a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at a big hospital. She's also planning her wedding, which we all know involves more blood, sweat, and tears than saving babies.
• I, meanwhile, frequently make cupcakes.**

I started out the evening very proud of myself, because I only upended three glasses of wine in three hours, and had refrained from chugging from the chunky bargain bottle of alcoholic antics.*** I should have seen the finger-painting on the wall and gone home when the girls started talking about going out, but ever the social sheep that I am, I followed the herd through the rain to 3 Monkeys, a bar I only see the inside of when I'm too drunk to remember that I suck at bars, and usually humiliate myself in ways that embarrass my gender as a whole. Melissa, however, is really good at bars, and within two minutes of seating ourselves in a booth covered in someone else's spilled drinks and social failures, she had two random upstanding gentlemen who were in no way looking for a one-night stand, leaning over our table and begging to buy us drinks.

Immediately upon our arrival at the hooch hut, Martha had bought us a round of red-headed sluts, which taste like messy college nights spent pretending to be old enough to drink in public, and then we had the good sense to order a round of beers. By the time a dude shorter than me named Michael Doyle, Our New BFF Du Jour, was slurring over our table about buying us a round of Irish Car Bombs, I was far enough down the road to Bourbontown that 1) a drinking contest seemed like a great idea, 2) a drink that mixes beer and liquor seemed like a great idea, and 3) continuing to drink heavily seemed like a great idea. I was the only one of our pretty party who felt it necessary to try to drink a stranger under the table, so "Michael Doyle" and I went toe-to-toe with the car bombs, frantically chugging before they curdled into slippery pint glasses of baby vomit.

AND I WON. Me beating someone at a drinking contest says less about me than it says about him, and what it says about him is that he drinks like a toddler with a sippy cup. As much as I wanted to bask in the glow of my victory for the rest of the evening, the alcohol and my bud Michael Doyle had other ideas, and I spent the rest of the evening trying to pretend that I could still drink like I pretended I could in college. The events of the rest of the night are based largely on conjecture, since none of us left the bar able to remember what exactly had happened, as the Demon Liquor had stolen our memories, dignity, and my most favorite purple sweater. What I think happened was this: I beat Michael Doyle at car bombs TWICE more, I continued to gloat, I lost my sweater, we went to another bar, I bragged and drank and hopefully did not dance, and all the sudden I was on the bar floor, which is nastier than falling into a Port-a-John at a Billions O' Burritos Festival. It was at that time that the bartender casually suggested that we depart for the evening, whereby "casually suggested" I mean "told us in no uncertain terms to drag my drunken liability-laden ass out of their establishment."

One-what-the-hell-thirty in the morning found us (well, the rest of the girls and my body) standing outside the bar trying to hail a cab, stay out of the rain, and prop me up on the curb like a wasted Lindsey Lohan at an afterparty/in a club/on a movie set/in public at all. The cab drivers, traitors to my quest home, refused to take us since I looked like an ominous threat of a vomitous nature, so the girls ring-a-linged Lawyer Boy from his peaceful slumber to come scrape me off the sidewalk and load me into the car like a slaughtered hog, per my earlier encoded promise. As soon as the car began moving in the direction of home, the Mount Vesuvius of used drinks erupted all over Lawyer Boy’s car, which I tried to argue was the “upside” to the whole situation, with LB firmly insisting that his car covered in the contents of my stomach was, in fact, a “downside.” I settled the argument by proclaiming it an “upside-slash-downside,” and either the debate ended there or I passed out, whichever happened first. I stumbled into the house, fumbling as I shed a trail of failure-soaked clothing in my wake (otherwise known as my front yard).

I woke up the next morning on the bathroom floor, under a snuggly fleece blanket, wearing my socks, one contact lens, and the previous night’s makeup smeared all over my face a la “Braveheart.” I had no idea how I had gotten there, where my other contact was, or why I felt like I’d been hit upside the head with a dead ox. LB filled in most of the blanks for me, but Martha summed it up best in an email the next day: “Lauren said that when she went to your house to drop your purse off, she saw a pile on your front porch that she thinks was your shirt. Well done!”

Well done, indeed.

*Sadly, and much to my surprise, they are still not selling neon twisty-straws taped to the sides of wine bottles.

**If you know of any jobs that make use of my particularly impressive skill set, I'm also really good at making up new lyrics for songs on the fly. Favorites include my version of Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl," which is henceforth "I Kissed A Squirrel." (and I liked it/the taste of his nuts and berries/I kissed a squirrel just to try it/I hope my cat friend don't mind it/It felt so wrong, it felt so right/I might be up in his tree tonight.)

***Yes, I CAN have fun without alcohol.****

****Sometimes.*****

*****Only if you make me.