when it's cold outside, i've got the month of may...

unless of course you're in seattle, 'cause we don't subscribe to the temptations or their crazy propaganda here! nosiree, bob! that said, may is still my favorite month of the year. sure, november's got thanksgiving and december's got that minor holiday for that guy who knew magic tricks (what? too much?), but may, MAY! has cinco de mayo, mother's day, memorial day weekend, AND george clooney's birthday! oh. and janell's. and sharon's. and andy's. but they don't really count. (LOOVVVEE YOUUUU!)

and believe it or not, may also has my birthday. despite my valiant attempts to start the rumor that i was not born but rather spawned off the coast of mexico, i feel i must now 'fess up to the truth that i came from a woman's womb, just like everyone else. how pathetic.

i generally spend my birthday attempting to drink myself into oblivion, and this year, on the thirtieth anniversary of the day god forgot, i will strive to be no different. i suppose some would say that because it's the big three-oh, i should try to demonstrate restraint, but liver-decimating debauchery has worked out pretty well for me thus far, so why mess with a good thing?

still, i must admit i've been feeling slightly mid-life crisis-ey lately. i learned recently that the body automatically starts to decline around 28, and being two years out from there is not helping to soothe my currently rampaging biological clock. i mean, seriously. it is out. of. control. i babysit two insanely adorable two year old twin boys weekly, and when we go to the park and see all the families, it is downright torturous. my heart practically falls out of my chest when they run to hug me after they've shown the slide who's boss. but here's the kicker: MY BRAIN AND I DON'T WANT A CHILD! and i definitely don't want to push one out! so it's not like i'm out there trolling for seed or anything. but my body's in denial like a has-been football player saying, "put me in coach! i know i can do it!" after twenty nine years, my body's become brett farve. this is what it's come to. sigh. somebody pass the tequila.

here's your found item of the day: classy.

forgive me sun...

for thinking your presence today would signal the beginning of shorts and t-shirts season. clearly, the goosebumps and lip chattering were evidence that i was sorely mistaken. i guess this means my aspirations to become the greatest meteorologist of our time may have been a bit misguided. pity.

not that i have the time to pursue such a rip roaring endeavor in the first place. my schedule continues to be insane with little time to myself, hence the absence of witty witticisms usually displayed here. but absent no more! tonight! tonight, i give the people what they want! (but selena, no one asked you to writ- SILENCE! i will not tolerate your insolence!) ahem.

other than studying medical insurance and coding for the last two weeks (with another three ahead of me), school's been pretty kick ass. i'm finally starting to make friends with my classmates and i didn't even have to pay them, so that's a win. turns out they like drinking just as much as i do, and as we all know, nothing says lasting friendship like being wasted and declaring friends forever with people you've known for two months. seriously though, it's been a pretty great experience and in particular, i feel as though i've found a kindred spirit in my classmate lauren. sweet as a button and a fellow lover of arrested development, she totally meets the santa rosa gold standard.

speaking of which, holy crap, it's still surreal that i left. seems like just yesterday i was attempting to load up the budget truck, fighting off an insane hangover from the whiskydrunk mustache bash, while being plagued by bouts of intermittent crying. and now here i am, in a new city, fighting off insane hangovers from drinking with greg, still being plagued by bouts of intermittent crying. how the world turns, my friends. how the world turns.

anyway, i have more to say, but it's late and you've done your duty by reading thus far, so i'll pause for now. here is your found item of the day: how i long, LONG to meet this guy...

clean up your mess or santa will cancel christmas.

this is the new parenting approach i am taking to the children i did not push out of my womb but still have minimal responsibility for as the sunday morning church nursery attendant. if that doesn't work, i'll simply introduce them to catholic guilt, and they'll be ship shape in no time.

megan and dani's visit was incredible, or incre-eeeeblay, as those silly spaniards would say. it was a rollicking good time that included copious amounts of vegan food, beer, and debauchery. not to mention, a little naptime thrown in. truly, an ideal vacation and one that took a while to recover from. if not for the pesky demands of work, school and moving, i would probably still be in the fetal position, crying out for someone to fetch me vegan waffles, and then crying some more when none came. in my defense, there's really very little that can beat a good vegan waffle.

living with greg though happens to be one such thing. we applied for and got that box masquerading as an apartment in mid february, and have been happily cohabitating ever since. despite the fact that my view of the cascades is now a view of a brick wall, and despite the fact that said brick wall is part of the gay dance club next door that plays shitty techno until two in the morning, i love living there. it takes me literally (LIT-TRALLY) thirty seconds to walk to stumptown coffee or any of the four bars around the corner. this of course is not the least bit conducive to my fake attempts to quit caffeine and drinking, but i'm willing to suffer the consequences because greg is a kick ass roommate. he brings me coffee in the morning and i bring him beer at night and straighten his towel on the towel bar so it has a chance to dry out. a match made in heaven if you ask me. which you totally did.

also a perfect match - me and my anatomy and physiology class. i started at PIMA last week, and while all of it is pretty awesome, a & p is winning by leaps and bounds, which just confirms that the medical field is the right place for me. and while school is going to definitively kick my ass and mop the floor with it, it's SO wonderful to be challenged again and to know that once i successfully complete the requirements of the program, i will be working at a place that will treat me as a valued employee and compensate me as such. which is a crazy thing to expect of your employer, i know, but i'm a wild card, as you know. a loose canon. a rogue. there's no telling what kind of shenanigans i'll get us into. you stick with me kid, and we'll go places. like to the library. as in right now. seriously, i've got a stack of homework packets that won't finish themselves, so get your stuff and let's go. no? no? you're staying here? fine. but you'll never go anywhere with a quitter attitude like that.

here's your found item of the day:



this was found in a parking lot apparently. bobby is an uncaring bastard.

a dream deferred...

gather round y'all cause i'm only gonna say it once. quit leaving toast crumbs in the fake butter tub! it's gross. looks like dead ants in there, and dead ants, whether real or imagined, do not belong in fake butter tubs or any other food container. that is all i have to say on that matter.

in other more pressing matters, it appears that i will not be working towards my radiographer degree this spring. instead i will be working towards my medical assistant certificate. why the drastic change in professional goals? well, short story made incredibly long: money. benjamins. scrill. stacks. dinero. greenbacks. that legal tender perpetually out of my reach: the once mighty - but now just taunting me with its former superiority - u.s. dollar. i don't have enough of it, and without any rich relatives in my family tree, i've been relegated from first class seating on the express train to success - to sharing a handcar with that guy with the villainous mustache. i shouldn't judge - he's actually very nice and even brought me a pie once. name's thompson, he's a good guy. you should meet him.

anyway, i am actually very excited about the prospect of returning to school. i start march first, so my non-existent social life will not exist even more as i will be attending full time and working full time. while i still want to be involved in the gory glory that is x-ray teching, i think the m.a. program will be diverse enough to keep my interest, and will also give me a leg up in getting into a radiography program in the future. certainly, work as a medical assistant is a step up financially from what i'm doing. and knowing i'll only have to be at the group home for eight more months instead of two years, well, that's a sigh of relief and a much more manageable goal.

continuing the exciting news trend, my friend greg and i are looking for apartments. we applied for one right in the heart of capitol hill and should hear back by wednesday or so. it's essentially a box but greg and i like to refer to it as cozy. very, very cozy. my lease isn't up until april but if we can find a place by march, it'll give me plenty of time to slack off until the last weekend before when i will be frantically packing, cursing my procrastinating ways. send us your positive thoughts!

and lastly, my most favorite positive thought: megan and dani will be up to visit next weekend!! it'll be the ultimate romantic get away for three friends who are madly in love with each other. platonically, that is. strictly, platonically. i'll be sure to update you on our crazy adventures - if i'm still left standing. seattle's not gonna know what hit it, it's going to be OUT OF CONTROL!!!

with that i leave you your found item of the day:

triumphantly going where everyone and their mother has already gone before...

into the land of plenty - the magical land of netbooks!

ok, so i was late in the game in terms of getting a personal computer. actually, that's not true. i had one back when i started college but it took a massive dump in the midst of fulfilling my similarly massive dream of downloading every song ever created in the history of forever. as you can imagine, my heart was crushed. and, as it turns out, so was my hard drive. for the next eight years or so, i would beg, borrow and steal (hey! it was for like a second! and i gave it back!) my way through the tawdry world of other people's computers and other people's itunes libraries. all this effort - only to find my soul empty at the end of every day. it just didn't feel real, you know? it felt like i was pretending. which i totally was cause i didn't pay for those computers and i sure as hell did not put the entire boys II men anthology into that library, ahem, terrance. but judgements aside, i must impart gratitude to where kindness was extended. if i harassed you over the years, thank you, i love you and seriously, terrance. it's twenty ten...let it go.

and so as i prepare to step off this precipice into a sea of telecommunicative ability, i must remember that with great power comes great responsibility. i will do my best to write frequently and to contribute thoughts of a classy nature. and if i can't stick to the high brow stuff, i'll at least vow to make my posts entertaining. and if i can't actually make time to post anything, i hope you'll be comforted in the thought that it's probably because i was too busy catching up on episodes of it's always sunny on hulu. i know i'll be comforted at least.

with that, i leave you your found item of the day:

i want a valentine like this.

reason #197 why i love seattle:

because when you finally have a day off and it's perpetually cloudy and rainy outside, staying in bed, watching movies and drinking coffee is a perfectly acceptable way to spend it. whether or not watching sleepless in seattle while in fact in seattle is acceptable - well, that is an entirely different matter but i'm willing to take the risk. don't look at me like that. rosie o'donnell's role as meg ryan's sassy but suppportive friend is downright shakespearean. there i said it. 

the main reason i'm laying low on my day off is because of the debilitating pain i'm in. three months of idleness came to a crashing end this past saturday with three hours of basketball. and while i consider myself the muggsy bogues of women's street ball, my body clearly does not agree. also, i'm not that good. as a result, i can't even sneeze without my eyes watering, and laughing is quite out of the question. i've never felt so old before. if this is indicative of my life at seventy, then no thank you. i'll take a cougar cruise at sixty and be done with it.

the upside to engaging in activities far beyond my actual ability is that i'm branching out and meeting new people. after all, it seems only appropriate that i attempt to you know, actually live here. so, in addition to basketball saturdays, i will also have volunteer wednesdays at the local soup kitchen. and if i play my cards right, getting lucky fridays. what? i didn't say that. 

  with that hanging awkwardly in the air, i leave you with your found item of the day:   

damn, it feels good to be a gangsta...

ok. so i'm pretty sure gangstas don't eat delicious vegan cinnamon rolls for breakfast or go for solitary walks in the rain, practicing russian on their iphones. but some might. and to them i say, спасибо. пожалуйста не убивайте меня. which of course means, thank you. please don't kill me.

so far, twenty ten has been awesome. in addition to the kick ass morning i had, in the scant four days of this new year, i've managed to do the following: create a realistic budget for my finances, get paid and pay off some debt, sign up for a swimming pass at the community pool, write some new riffs on the piano, roll multiple yatzhees and speed read tolstoy's war and peace. ok. so the last one was a lie. but i did roll multiple yatzhees, so suck it. and i do feel pretty damn productive.

but mostly, i feel free. it occurred to me the other day while riding the bus (and attempting to ignore the vagrant that was so blatantly JUST STARING at me WHILE DRINKING RUM OPENLY), that for the first time since 2006, i don't have feelings for anyone. my heart is not aching. it does not feel crushed, it does not feel alone. it feels quite simply, fucking fantastic. seriously. i don't owe anyone a damn thing, and no one has a piece of me. this, combined with the liberties of my favorite city, makes me feel downright untouchable. i'm right back to that new year's picture of aught six, where i am alone, wearing a black shirt and blue tie, drunk and blurry, lighting a cigarette with a purple flame. i'm back to being me, back to being completely independent. and that, my friends, is what makes me gangsta.

here's hoping this year brings you that feeling too. and happy birthday, jinxy! momma loves you! here's your found item of the day:

people after my own heart.