Special Forces

You walk into a bar and a boy stops you immediately and says, "How are you?" You answer his question and ask how he is doing to be polite. His answer is, "I love you!" You can't help but smile and safely assume he has said this to many MANY girls in this particular evening. You realize you're right after he approaches you at your table.

"I just want to tell you your beautiful. I just got back from Afghanastan 2 weeks ago. I have two bullet wounds, do you want to see?"

The difference between you and the other girls is yes, you do in fact, want to see and even touch his bullet wounds. Because this is something you've never done before. You can cross it off of your list now.

He asks you if you if your boyfriend is here. When you shake your head, his eyes light up, "Do you HAVE a boyfriend?" And you try to tell him your boyfriend is "deployed" in a strange place called Florida. But he's too wasted to stop kissing your hand to listen to what you're saying.

Your friend at the table explains that he did the same thing to her on her way in. The only difference between you and your friend is that her boyfriend was there. And for a strange reason you feel bad that this soldier boy is having such tough luck with the ladies. You consider buying him a drink and later appreciate the decision NOT to.

Before the rest of the night moves on, this soldier boy comes over and kisses your friend that beat you to the bar on the cheek. Jokingly you say, "You cheating on me?" And instead of kissing you on the cheek, he kisses you on the entire bottom portion of your face. You've never held your mouth closed so tight before.

You threaten his testicles but he returns several times to kiss your hand, forehead, cheek, etc. You're amongst people you know and you figure he knows someone you know so you don't want to punch him in the face. Not yet. But he's pushing that envelope.

Outside, while listening to a story about something that was very entertaining but you can't quite remember at this moment, soldier boy walks through the door and smiles with his chipped teeth and almost crossed drunk eyes. You hold up your hand indicating, "I'll deal with you in a moment but please stay the fuck away from me."

Once the story is finished, you turn to this soldier and advise him to keep his face far from any parts of your body. "I'd stay here for 20 more minutes just to look at you," he says. This poor guy. Just home from a place that his country forgets we're in. Holes in his body, chips in his teeth, and all he wants to do is get laid. He's in the wrong place for that because the females inside have no interest in war stories or getting shot. His approach is a FAIL and you decide to tell him this. You give him advice saying, "You can USE that! Girls will be all over that!!" about something he said that would've been intriguing to some single gal.

While all this is happening you're thinking about how you'll have to tell boyfriend that some guy rapekissed your face and you continued to be nice to him. You're feeling embarassed not so much because that took place but because you didn't act like a wretched bitch and cuss him out in front of everyone. How could you? He's wasted and obviously in a unique mental state. Outside you threatened that his testicles will be yours if he came near your face again. But no one heard that threat so it wasn't as gratifying.

Any sensation of guilt will be widdled away when you remember boyfriend sent you a text indicating he was at a strip club for longer than he should've been. When you pick him up, you start to tell him the story about your night and remember this text. You remind him that he was managing an errection brought on by naked women that AREN'T you and this is what brings balance.

You're so glad that he's home and you're even more thrilled that he didn't go to Afghanastan.

May 8, 2008 was a good day.

Angry conversations did me in. Conversations about city violence, a bum stealing the wallet of a man having a seisure, and annoying encounters with people in general made it quite simple to bask in misery for 8 hours of my life today.

It didn't help that the sun stayed home.

You have to embrace your misery so you can easily move on. and if you do it right, surely you'll find humor in it. But after spending the most part of your day being almost completely miserable, you can only hope that the Universe will do its thang to cheer you up.

I call them "my people." They're my cheer up troop. My bringers of joy. My smile enthusiasts. They're plopped in my path with the sole purpose of putting a smile on my face.

that's how important I am.

It usually doesn't take much to turn a shitty day into a happy ending- and it's pretty easy to ruin a perfectly good day. But for the most part, I'm easily cheered up. For example, watching a homeless man give another homeless man a hair cut in Love Park humbled my irritability. Or dogs sniffing each other's butts. That can always cheer me up. the irony of birds fighting over a chicken wing on the street is a hoot too.

But today, "my people" were out in full force today. I would've settled with the trash can drum man- he's enough to turn my day around. but the little screaming asian kids running the way only little screaming asian kids can run and still look cute? i thought that was the icing on the cake.

but it didn't stop there.

imagine walking down the street and seeing what seems to be a random act of silliness. people in robes with purple kite things smiling and waving at anyone that makes eye contact. You can't help but smile. And everyone does- EVERYONE.

my favorite homeless guy- the guy that never asks for money and smiles with his eyes- he smiled with his face at the sight of the kite people. He also has a relatively new pair of New Balances which gave me great joy to see.

It turns out these kite people weren't random. They were promoting Circ de Sollie (however you spell it). i wish i didn't know this, but seeing the faces of people passing by- the smiles and the camera phone pictures being taken- was enough to make that thing called my heart burst.

like i said, it's easy. easy to make me feel like the world is okay. easy to make my face leak water from my seeing holes. and if it's at all possible, I encourage you to make it easy for you too. there's not a lot of time on this earth so it's good to soak in all you can. you'll thank me, i promise.

with love,
sappy nerdalie.

And here I thought it was a mental disturbance.

quite some time has passed since my griping about the birds. and you should know that we let them stay for a little bit because we heard baby birds take about 2 weeks to learn how to fly and leave the nest. we waited two weeks. but one of them was a little slow and didn't survive the eviction. he made a gallant effort in landing gracefully but could not withstand the blunt force trauma that is inflicted by a 3 story soar to the ground.

i'm sitting here, not in the mood for punctuation or proper spacing. hell, i may not even utilize spell check. but i'm sitting here procrastinating going to bed for some reason. i've been getting a little anxious when it comes time to sleep due to the sudden solitary bedtime.

boyfriend is serving his country in Tampa, FL for two entire weeks. this will be the most time spent apart in over 2 years.

i think.

yes. it is. last time he went on a road trip with his brother and i flew to florida to meet them. i spent one day in sarasota while they were at a wedding. and then rode shotgun in the car for 2 days back to philly. the trip is high up on my list of "random destinations" mostly because i spent more time in a car than at my destination.

but this time i'm not flying to florida. because boyfriend is sleeping on a pull out in a hotel room with one of his comrades. or whatever they call each other. either way, i'm having a strange time missing him. it's exciting. the fact that i miss him is probably a good sign. i couldn't concentrate at work today because i was trying to plan out what i'll wear to pick him up on friday. i was planning my week around cleaning up. maybe even put my laundry away!

i watched a sad as shit episode of house tonight. it's one of those, "appreciate what you've got because you don't know how long you've got it" themed episodes that make you want to hug a pillow/person/animal/freshly showered homeless man/etc.

and all i have is a thermal shirt that he left on the floor. it's ripe with armpit funk and i rub my nose in it every night.

apparently, this is that thing called "love." and here I thought it was a mental disturbance. all of this ga-ga-ness still here after 2 and a half years. it's quite shocking for a girl who's relationships tend to fizzle around month 9 (plus an additional 5 months trying to break up without hurting anyone's feelings).

it's been 7 days and 15 hours since i smelled this jerk's fart as we said goodbye in the car (flying makes him nervous?). THAT'S IT. one week and i'm retarded. and to think, he was going to go to afganastan for a 30 day deployment. imagine that. 30 days with no text messaging correspondence. no nightly phone call. and instead of tampa, he's in a desert half way around the world. a desert where people die.

this is 2 weeks is good practice.

love is so weird.

bird alarm.

Waking up to the chirping of birds- well there are worse things I could think of waking up to. For a few days it was like having nature as an alarm clock- SO much better than a jarring "wrah wrah" of the conventional alarm. Until we discovered that they are building something (a nest probably, or maybe a free clinic or hospital or something productive for the bird community) under our air conditioner.

Big deal right? "So they're building a f*cking nest under your AC unit, boo hoo."

Yeah well bite me. Amanda had a bird's nest resting on TOP of her AC unit at her new apartment. When I stayed there, I took a picture of the momma bird resting on her chicks. "They're feathers look like sticks!" I said as I snapped the photo with my camera phone. We joked about it being the nature channel and that was that.

Apparently birds leave their nests when everyone's grown and ready to do their thing(s). During their stay, birds attract "bird mites" which feed off of the blood of the birds. When the birds leave, the mites need to find new sources of blood. And this is why the million of them decided to hunt in Amanda's apartment. Long story short, it was a bitch and a half to get them to go away and Amanda had to not stay at home for a few days AND she had to wash EVERYTHING.

So yeah, we're a little paranoid about the nest. But they don't seem to be procreating- which is good. Maybe it's a social club. Either way, we bang on the wall to scare them away and occassionally stick a long ruler under the AC unit to pull their club out and let it float haphazardly to the ground.

So Your Mom is an Asian Trannie

A relationship during holidays are all about compromise and sacrifice. When your families live more than an hour apart, you essentially have to plead your case for why it's more important to see your family on any particular holiday. Since my family says grace before dinner (although we forgot this year), we went to my family's for Easter dinner.



Since I can remember, I associated Easter with my birthday. Even though I resented the holiday overshadowing the celebration of my birth, I always appreciated the fact that more family members would show up for Easter but be tricked into celebrating my arrival into this world. From the perspective of a child: more family members here on my birthday = more presents. So yeah, how could I complain?



This year Easter landed far enough away from my birthday that we could celebrate each event on completely different weekends. From the perspective of a grown ass woman that doesn't see her family enough: more reasons to celebrate = more motivation to see your family. Everybody wins.



Although I was baptised Catholic, I was never very good at it. By that I mean, because I'm a good person and have a good heart, I practice many fundamentals of Christianity without being told by a book to do so or out of fear of damnation. But I could never get the knack of this organized religion stuff. Like Easter: I don't know if I can fully grasp what this holiday stands for- I get the basics and all, but I still don't know where bunnies, candy, and ham come into play. You see?



This year for me, Easter stood for technology. Women over 50 and technology. Have you ever tried to teach a 4 month old baby how to high five? Well it's easier and probably less frustrating than teaching your mother how to play Guitar Hero. Teaching your grandmother how to play bowling on Nintendo Wii is also more difficult than teaching a 4 month old how to high five. I know this because I've tried to do both.



You have to consider that the technology we spend our lives adjusting to will soon be gone and a new technology will be here making you feel retarded. Like having 4 remotes for the tv, cable, dvd player, and surround sound. So many remotes gives me enough anxiety that I'd rather pick up a book.



So here is my mom, whom I've grown to appreciate very much in my adult years- and I'm not saying this because she reads my blogs. She's about to play her 11 year old nephew in bowling. On this new fangled game system, you can pick the character that plays you! Cousin already has a character with his name. His character slightly resembles him. Apparently, this is the point of building your character- to make it a digital version of you.



My mom complains when cousin selects a female character that doesn't resemble her. She complains again when he selects an unattractive female character. It's then that we see the character named "Ben S." My aunt and I yell for cousin to pick Ben S. to be my mom. We laughed wildly as the disappointment filled her eyes. "Your Wii Bowling character does not define you as a person, mom!" I had to say. She was concerned that we chose this character because deep down we felt that it resembled her in some way. I could see why she'd be concerned with this. Because this was her character:





Besides the fact that my mom is in fact an Asian tranie with a huge mole and goatee, this character looks nothing like her in real life. She would never wear pink and her hair certainly isn't blond.

In the end, she beat my 11 year old cousin. Afterwards, she went outside to smoke and contemplate an identity crisis caused by this new technology.

The lesson to be learned this Easter is that you should probably not hurt a parent's feelings by assigning an Asian Trannie to represent him or her in a serious game of digital bowling. Until next time, Happy Day.

Last night's noises were Narwal and Woodchuck.

Settling into the 5th place in 4 years and I'm disappointed that we can hear our downstairs neighbor's phone conversation. But at least he sounds like a nice guy.

You see, I can tolerate hearing neighbors but I'm not so comfortable with them hearing me. Because sometimes we like to "do it" and I'm very private with this. Mostly because of the animal noises I enjoy making during the act.

But in any event, I saw boyfriend's optimistic "I heart this place" wide eyed contentedness drain from his face as he said, "I can hear him like he's sitting in the room!"

He'll have to deal with it. After this move and all the preparing of walls, I'm not itchin to go anywhere for the next couple of years. Our friends have already signed and notarized a contract stating they aren't required to help us move until 2010.

Our walls here are yellow. Like the DEFINITION of yellow. It takes about 6 minutes for you to adjust to the stream of emotions you feel upon walking into our apartment. First you feel a little jarred- like someone smacked you in the face with the sun. Next it's a little anxious because its brightness makes you feel like you should be productive at every breathing moment. And finally, you simply feel awake and comfortable.

I wish we could say we did this on purpose. But really it turned out much more "yellow" than we anticipated. We like it. Well, I *think* I like it- I go back and forth on the subject.

Our street is lovely. A clean street where people pay $400,000 for their row homes. It makes me nervous because clean expensive neighborhoods can bring nosey mf's. Lauren reassured me by saying, "You WANT to live in a place where people care about their surroundings! I came home yesterday to blunt guts sitting on my step! People just leave there trash right in front of our house!!" And I guess she's right.

I'm just one in 36,164

My coworker is known for luck with gambling. After a weekend of banking on whims and gut feelings, I asked her to buy (for me) a Powerball ticket. I wanted nothing to do with the purchase of this ticket so I had her take the dollar out of my wallet, purchase the ticket and drop it in my drawer. I promised to split my winnings with her and spent the weekend talking about what I'd do with millions of dollars.

My first "vacation" would probably be volunteering at an orphanage in Africa. I've been toying with the thought for some time but oddly enough, such a volunteer mission costs a bitch money. From there, I'd go to Thailand and pay $325 a week to take care of elephants. Since I'm not trained to deal with such large mammals, I'd probably have to just hose them down and clean up their poop. But I'm THAT into elephants that it'd be delightful. Oh, and I'd also have to sleep in a tent. I suspect the mosquitos in the jungle are the size of hummingbirds.

I'd buy my dad and stepmom a larger house. I'd buy my mom that small house in Runnamede that she used to talk about buying if it ever gets put up for sale. I'd invest in my friends shop because I love it and want to see it succeed. I'd give a great deal of money to charity and probably continue to work- or at least volunteer somewhere. I'd pay for my sibling's education and go back to school full time. I'd give money to the people that feed the homeless outside of the Free Library so that the homeless people can eat free range chicken and homemade mac and cheese.

If I bought a car, it'd be a Smart Car. Or a hybrid. I'd write a book.

If I won the lottery, you wouldn't hear about it though. I'd collect it annonymously and continue wearing the same old clothes.

Today I checked my ticket and to my suprise, I won $4!! This was actually far more than I ever dreamed of winning. I kept my promise and split my winnings with coworker. With my share, I bought 2 more tickets. We'll see how it goes tonight.