shoesonwrong

Quarterly Report

Well, according to this blog, we got married five years ago and then I dropped off the face of the planet. In reality, we had our five year anniversary and then life did that annoying thing where it started happening really quickly.

Let's see. At the end of June, we attending Ryan's cousin's wedding. It was about a billion degrees outside and sunny to boot, ensuring that I was the color of a Christmas ham. It contrasted nicely with my brilliantly green dress, believe me.

July found me wading knee-deep in paperwork for consolidating student loans, arguing with the city of Detroit's tax office about whether or not they still owe me five hundred and sixty one dollars (they do), and changing medication levels. Then we went up North to visit my parents and Kate, and now we're in the process of making it through a series of doctor, dentist, psychiatrist, and specialists appointments.

The reason we scheduled so many appointments for late July into early August is because Ryan is switching positions at the end of August and will be very busy for awhile, so if he does not get his physical RIGHT NOW then his kidney will fall out, and if he doesn't get his teeth cleaned RIGHT NOW his teeth will fall out, and if he doesn't get his something or other specialisted RIGHT NOW then I'm sure that will fall out too. (The psychiatrist is just for me. Ryan's all sane in the brain and stuff.) Another reason the appointments are all set up before the end of August is that we were worried for a few days that, once his current project was over, he might not get a new assignment in his company and we were going to load up on all the free health we could get while Ryan still had a job. Because, I don't know if you've heard, but there's a recession happening and Detroit is actually Recession HQ. We've changed the city name, even. Look it up. 

He has a new (long-term) assignment now, though, and my heart has resumed its regularly scheduled beating.

Five

Surprise! We survived five years of marriage without appearing on any major news outlets for domestic homicide!

Actually, last Friday was our anniversary, but I thought that delaying a post about it would build suspense. And also: I was really lazy. 

More people called to wish us happy anniversary than called to wish me happy birthday, but whatever. I'm not bitter. I'm not that bitter. For our anniversary present, we got books. Not, like, books for each other, we just went out to a bookshop together and bought books. Call me unromantic and selfish, but I really prefer shopping for myself rather than other people -- so much more gratifying, you know? YOU GET TO KEEP THE STUFF.

Then we had a fancy but homemade dinner and watched movies all night. Our anniversary coincided with game seven of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and downtown was too packed to move. Plus, had the Red Wings won (they did not), downtown would have erupted into total chaos. So we decided to just stay in.

Five years of marriage has taught me so much. Things like someone has to clean the toilet and it's probably going to be me, if you wait long enough the other person will run out of underwear first and have to the laundry, and don't go to bed angry because you'll just wake up even more angry due to a lack of sleep.

Happy five years, Ryan. Love you.

aaaaaggghhhhhhhhh

Last week, we went back to Ikea and acquired three end tables, a duvet cover, a metal trash can, two storage boxes, a picture frame, two yards of fabric, four pillows, enough tea light candles to burn Detroit to the ground, and an antelope. And it only cost twelve dollars.

Then I bought a hot glue gun and went to town on my apartment. It made sense to use a hot glue gun to apply the fabric from Ikea to the lampshades I already had -- they were cloth with a plastic skeleton underneath that didn't allow me to sew the fabric on with my non-existent sewing skills. It might have been a stretch to use the hot glue gun to make two small throw pillows and reupholster the cat bed. The ghost of Martha Stewart (she's been a reanimated corpse since the 1990s. It's why you look into her eyes and see NOTHING.) was apparently watching me make a mockery of the domestic arts and chose to punish me with a horrible hot glue gun accident. I burned my middle finger -- my most important finger. In my sleep, I yanked the blister off and woke up to a throbbing finger that had a giant hole in it. I COULD SEE BRIGHT RED FINGER MEAT, PEOPLE. Ryan made me put neosporin on it instead of tucking an apple seed in there to see if anything would grow, so that was pretty boring.

I was going to spruce up this post with pictures of the newer, prettier apartment, but then Ryan announced he had to work all night on Saturday and into Sunday morning/afternoon. We came up with this elaborate plan in which we would stay up later and later each night and sleep in a bit later each morning so he could be alert when he had to work all night and stay mentally alert. It half worked, in the sense that we stayed up late but then Ryan wouldn't sleep in and instead lie in bed fidgeting and waking me up and I have never been more exhausted in my life and now I want to die.

Since he waking up slightly before me every day -- you know, to get a head start on all that fidgeting, sighing, and whispering, "Are you awake yet?" in an increasingly louder voice until he woke me up -- he discovered that when I'm exhausted and stuffy, I snore. He, the man who snores all night every single night and sometimes in such a way that his nose makes a high pitched screech and I wake up thinking that there's an air raid, had the gall to say to me, "You know, you snore once in awhile. It's kind of noisy."

So If I Die On Saturday Night, You'll Know Why

Ryan kind of lucked out when he met me. Sure, I occasionally scream out an order to protect me from the pigeons on the street, but I make up for that in other ways. For instance, I did not want a wedding ring, hate diamonds, and don't celebrate Valentine's Day. Plus, I don't like shopping for clothes, don't go to salons to get my hair did, and I lose jewelery so I don't bother buying that. I am a pretty cheap model as far as wives go, aside from my crippling book buying addiction.

Our one concession to Valentine's day is a metric crap ton of junk food. I mean, I do try to maintain a healthy diet. We generally eat reasonably portioned meals that include things that grow from the earth as well as things that were hacked off animals. But on holidays we don't really celebrate, we do this gross thing where we go to the store and fill up a basket with everything we have ever craved, then we sit on the couch and watch movies while we eat all of it. (Related: we also have a tradition where the day after holidays we don't celebrate, we want to die.)

edit: I KNEW Valentine's Day is Saturday and yet the title of the post said Friday night. Hurr.

Day Fifteen: Ace In The Hole

Ryan prefers to think of himself as hirsute, but the fact of the matter is he's hairy in a way that suggests he was bathed in Rogaine as a baby. So, sometimes, I help him out with manscaping in places he can't reach, like, uh, his back. And his chimp neck.

He might want to divorce me after reading this post, but we both know he won't. He couldn't afford it because after I told the judge about shaving Ryan's shoulders year after year, the judge would decree that THERE IS NOT ENOUGH ALIMONY MONEY IN THE WORLD SO JUST SIGN YOUR PAYCHECK OVER RIGHT NOW, BUDDY.

I think his offical title is Head Super Nerd in Charge of... I don't know. I haven't been paying attention.

Ryan is having a bit of a lie down currently because apparently being a geek for pay is exhausting during the day. All those bits and bytes get heavy. It's hard to be THAT NERDY all the livelong day.

He really seems to enjoy his job, though, which is almost as good as the fact he gets a paycheck. (We buy food! And pay our bills! It's crazy.) In all honesty, though, his job sounds to me as though it is a mind-numbing study in tedious precision. Sometimes, I try to be a good wife and ask him what he's doing at work. Then he gleefully launches into a ten minute monologue about tables and committing changes to a server until I'm all Dear God please stop. I thought I could do it to be a good wife but no. Just no. Being supportive is not worth this.

He loves his job and I love not having to hear the specifics of it. It's win-win, really.

Year Six: He runs over me for posting his vehicular failings online

Ryan and I have known each other for five years as of last-yester-next-tomorrowday. We can't really remember exactly when we met (though we remember how we met), and as a result we're approaching our five-ish years together. We've also been married for just over four years. And both of us are under twenty-five.

I like to mark the years we've known each other with the various accidents he's had involving motor vehicles.

Year One: He backed my car into a lamp pole in the Taco Bell parking lot. Spent five minutes circling the car, fretting that my parents would hate him if he left a single mark on my car while I catterwalled from passenger seat about how I was hungry and sick and that's why he was driving anyway, remember? So just man up and drive me back to my dorm room, you can't hurt this car anyway -- it's like a tank.

Year Two: He slid at about two miles an hour through the five-way intersection outside of our apartment building because of ice on the road and lodged our car in a snowbank.

Year Three: We argued about whether or not he could fit into a parking space. He said yes, I said no. Back and forth we went as he slowly nosed into the space, then he gave a triumphant shout of victory because the space was wide enough. Unfortunately, he was too busy gloating to avoid running (slowly) straight into the wall at the end of the parking spot.

Year Four: Tapped bumpers while parking behind someone parked in our usual spot outside the apartment building. When asked why he didn't just park one spot over, he gave me a puzzled look and said, "But that's not my parking spot," and shook his head as if he was wondering how he got such a dense wife.

Year Five: This year was very similar to year three, except that I was right this time -- the parking spot was too narrow. He refused to believe me until the mirror on my side of the car folded in from brushing against a truck's bumper. I don't know how he thought I was going to get out of the car. The moon roof?

Through a combination of Ryan's snail-like driving speeds and always driving Volvos (you can't die in a Volvo. It's a FACT. They used science to prove it. SCIENCE.), he has never dented or scraped our or any other vehicle, which he brings up ever time I start a story with, "Remember the time you hit..."

But I can think of about 10 other words to describe it

Me: Sometimes I wake up and we're in the middle of a conversation even though we were sleeping.

Him: Huh. I wonder what we were talking about? Wouldn't it be neat if someone filmed us while we slept?

Me: No. It would not be neat.

Friends, Romans, Blog Readers

Because it occurs to me that this blog is also semi-autobiographical as well as being a place where I weave amusing stories out of the crap pile of my daily endeavors, here's what's been up with me the past few months.

In May, both Ryan and I (finally) graduated -- with honors, no less. The school awarded me an actual degree in mathematics despite my inability to do basic arithmetic. At least it looks real -- it's made of super thick, cream-colored paper that's absolutely perfect for writing WILL WORK FOR FOOD on the back. All the other bums on the street corner are jealous.

Luckily we don't have to depend solely on my questionable math skills for income. Ryan got a job with a great (and shall remain nameless) firm in Detroit. He's been there for just over two months, and he really loves his job so far. The best part is the stellar health insurance; now I can get that new leg I've always wanted and Ryan can finally get a liver.

In order to be close to Ryan's job and save on gas money, we moved to downtown Detroit. In the process, we had to give Cassie away to my parents, which was hard. Downtown Detroit is no place for a dog who likes wide open space and dislikes noise, people, and concrete. Because Momo, taking after me, dislikes change, he walked around the house screaming and clinging to us after we moved until we decided to go out and get him a kitten to focus his nervous anxiety and energy on. Enter Wicket, the dumbest kitten in the entire world. He's afraid of us half the day and cozies up to us the other half, occasionally pulls on his own tail hard enough to knock himself over, and will startle himself when he meows. However, Momo loves him and instantly took to being a mother cat, so even though Wicket is clearly mentally retarded, Momo loves him anyway.

Downtown Detroit isn't as bad as everyone says. There are sketchy areas of Detroit, for sure, but where we live is safe and well lit, fenced in by skyscrapers and tourist attractions. There's always something going on, and the city is beautiful at night. Just make sure you give the mayor a wide berth.

I'm in a bit of a transitional period, which is a fancy way of saying that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my life. Grad school or law school are currently at the top of my list, but I have become very fond of using money for things like paying bills and buying food, so I wouldn't turn down a paying job, either.

It's true. I read every single text. Except the long ones.

[we're watching a movie and some plot point involves one character listening to another character's voicemail]

Me: He's just really lucky she even listens to her voicemail.

Him: Yeah... Wait, what? You don't listen to my voicemails?!

Me: I was hoping you wouldn't notice I accidentally inferred that.

Him: I can't believe you don't listen to my voicemails!

Me: I do! Some of them! I only don't listen to them when I call you right back!

Him: Whatever.

Me: But I read ALL your text messages. Every one.

These are the intelligent converstaions we have before falling asleep

Me: When I was a little kid, I thought that moms had to drink milk in order to breastfeed. Cow moms included. I don't know where I thought the milk originated from.

Him: That it rained down from the heavens in buckets and farmers fed it to cows? But then why wouldn't they just skip the cow?

Me: Because everything's better when it comes from an udder. [pause] Man, I wish that better rhymed with udder. It would have been funnier.

Him: Everything's neat when it comes from a teat!

I can post things like that because he HAS to love me

We decided to just take off for a few days because it will be the last time we can in the middle of the week for awhile. Ryan starts work next week, and even though he does get two weeks of vacation per year, it's not really a great idea to take them in the first six months because those are training months.

So, apparently we're going to Cedar Point. Without Rae there to make me look brave in comparison, I fear that a group of Japanese tourists may point and laugh at my pathetic screams just like they did to me in Las Vegas when I rode a roller coaster there. I can't keep tempting fate -- one of these times, I will end up with a webpage dedicated to me, The Screaming American Girl. And then all of Japan will laugh at me.

Our decision to get away for a couple days went something like this:

Me: We could get away. Have a renaissance!

Him: A renaissance? Do we need one? I never stopped loving you, baby.

Me: I stopped loving you a little bit last night when you farted and woke me up.

knowing is half the battle

Did you know that cats (and dogs) have glands in their butts that secrete an oily, smelly substance? Neither did I until today. Another thing I didn't know until today is that a cat can forcibly discharge these glands if they are scared or startled. For instance, if you walk up behind your cat while he's intrigued by something else and he doesn't hear you coming. Then, you might find yourself covered in it and screaming for God to just come and KILL YOU NOW, KILL YOU NOW.

The conversation that followed:

Me: Animals are disgusting. Just disgusting.

Him: People are, too.

Me: Yes, but at least I can clean up after myself if a stream of oil forcibly shoots out of my butt.

Him: Why do you hate me?

Me: Funny, I've gotten that response a lot today.

Sorry about the mix-up, sweetie

Me: I just broke the second rule in our marriage.

Him: You cheated on me?!

Me: What? No! I farted close to the fan that's blowing towards you.

Him: That is rule number ONE, Annie. RULE NUMBER ONE.

He even DREAMS in geek

Him: I dreamt the last cylon was that mentally handicapped guy from Freaks & Geeks, and he was the most powerful cylon of all.

Me: That makes sense, actually!

Him: Really?

Me: No.

Apparently we have very different definitions of the word "emergency"

Me: Thank God you're here!

Him: Why?! What's wrong?!

Me: The fan is making it really cold in here, and I didn't want to go all the way across the room to turn it off. Also, the internet isn't working.

We're not running Guantanomo here

Him: Our cat is crazy. He's constantly going ballistic and tearing around the apartment for no apparent reason. What can we do to calm him down?

Me: Well Ryan, we've already taken his claws and his testicles. I don't know really know how else to break him.

It would have worked if he had let me gnaw that square into a triangle

[While playing Tangram together and trying to solve a really hard one.]

Me: Why did you get me this as a present?

Him: I'm sorry. I thought you would like it.

Me: What horrible thing did I ever do to you to make you this mad at me? How long do I have to keep trying this puzzle?

[Silence for awhile as we become increasingly frustrated with the puzzle.]

Him: I am beginning to doubt everything I have ever been taught about triangles.

Me: I don't event think rhombus is a real word.

Happy Birthday, Ryan!

Your wife is ill, the dog is constipated, and the cat just lost the rest of his teeth today when he headbutted my leg, so now he looks like a toothless hobo. Happy 24th birthday, baby!

Truth be told, birthdays have never been much of an ordeal in our house.

Ryan's 21st Birthday: We played Donkey Kong Country II: Diddy Kong's Quest until Ryan got bored. Then we watched old reruns of Mr. Bean until his sides split.

Ryan's 22nd Birthday: Um... we... what did we do? I can't even remember.

Ryan's 23rd Birthday: I bought him and binary watch and watched Star Wars with him, per his birthday requests.

What can I say? We're broke college kids, so extravagant presents aren't really feasible, and I guess surprise parties aren't our thing. I can't plan them for Ryan because I find myself being completely unable to keep from blurting the secret out. It's clearly a mental disorder. Ryan doesn't plan surprise parties for me because, well, until recently, all my friends lived hundreds or thousands of miles away, and a surprise party would have been a sad little affair with me wearing a party hat and crying.

He's in love with Rosie the Riveter

Me: Why is The History Channel like porn for you geeks?

Him: I don't know. I was watching a show on prohibition earlier. It was amazing.

[long pause]

Him: Prohibition, moonshine, white lightning! Is this seriously doing nothing for you?

Me: No.

Him: Speakeasys, blind pigs, bootleggers! I CAN'T TAKE ANYMORE!

one of life's great tragedies

I can't stress enough how much Ryan and I need a king sized bed. It would be so nice to sleep without someone being all up in my business. It's not that I don't want to touch Ryan in my sleep. I do always manage to keep one foot firmly planted on him, just to make sure that he hasn't left me in the middle of the night, or worse yet, that he's not off doing something fun without me. And I enjoy a good cuddle as much as the next person, but not when I'm actually attempting to sleep. (To all those people out there that I've fallen asleep on over the years on car trips and during movies: I contend I am not cuddling. I am passing out on you. There is a difference.) I have been practicing all these years so that I can medal in the sleeping olympics; cuddling ruins my precious, precious practicing.

Unfortunately, our bedroom is small enough that a king size bed in it would turn it into a moon bounce.

Matriarch

Me: Look! My grandma fixed my boo-boo quilt for me. It was all ripped and about to fall apart, but she patched it. It feels thicker. I think she did something else to it, too -- she did whatever grandmas do to quilts.

Him: She fell asleep and burned it with her cigarette?

Me: I'm so sad for you.

while at the top of bridger bowl in montana

Ryan: This is just so incredibly beautiful. Like something out of a video game.

[extremely long pause]

Me: You know, you could have said almost ANYTHING else to avoid my taunting. Seriously. A painting. A magazine. Literally, ANYTHING.

Ryan: That actually occurred to me as I was saying it.

23

Today, Ryan turns 23. He should start looking like the Crypt Keeper any day now.

I got him a binary watch, which means that I clearly love him and have forgiven him for leaving me standing outside of a Krispy Kreme on Dupont Circle in D.C. for over a half hour while he went to find parking but got lost instead, leaving me just standing there, holding a box of Krispy Kremes, and looking so pathetic that homeless people were giving me sympathetic looks.

Well, the watch at least means I'm working on forgiving him, right?

Tonight, we're gorging on Mexican food and then going to see a movie. Whoever says white people don't know how to party... is absolutely right, actually.

They Walk Among Us

Last night, I got a small makeup compact wedged into my gaping maw while I was trying to inspect a sore tooth that I was reasonably sure had some sort of horrifying tooth-rot that would eventually cause me to die (never having a cavity seems to have skewed my impression of what a cavity actually is). After convincing myself that it was nothing more than a seed between my teeth, I tried to remove the mirror and mini maglite. (Ha. Ha. Annie has a big mouth. Well the joke is on you, because people tell me that all the time.) After 5 panicked minutes in which I was sure it was not the horrifying tooth-rot but the swallowing of a flashlight that would do me in, I managed to pop the foreign objects out.

Of course, I rushed to share my stupidity with Ryan. (Hi. I'm Annie. I have a big mouth and feel the need to share details of my life. Is this your first visit?) That led to this conversation:

R: You know, I was born without two of my adult teeth.

A: Wait, what?

R: Yeah, the two teeth on my bottom jaw that are right after the pointy teeth and right before the molars. I lost my baby teeth, and those never grew in.

A: Wait, what?

R: I told you this before.

A: No, no you didn't. If you did, would I have this look on my face?

R: I have told you this. You never listen to me.

A: Oh, I would remember if you had told me you were toothless. Believe me. I can't believe this. Isn't there some sort of disclosure agreement you have to sign before getting married?

R: Woman, I already TOLD YOU THIS.

A: I am positive that you never told me this. You hid it from me so that I wouldn't know that you were toothless and trying to walk among the general population as though you have teeth.

R: I AM NOT TOOTHLESS.

A: I am just speechless. Absolutely speechless.

R: That doesn't seem to be the case, unfortunately.

My Summer Vacation, Part Deux: Cassie's Revenge

Of course, I tempted fate in my last entry. Mere moments after writing it, there was a clap of thunder and the earth swallowed us whole. I'm actually blogging from deep inside the earth's core. Elvis is down here. And the good looking version of Britney Spears.

In reality, Ryan developed an ear infection, and the dog has chosen to communicate her physical condition using not one but two of her orifices.

In the past three days, I have tended to an ill-tempered man, spoon fed rice and beef broth to a Shar Pei, and heard Ryan use the phrase, "The dog needs to go out before she machine guns rice across the apartment."

Until this week, I didn't think machine gun could be used as a verb.

Anniversary Number 2

Last Saturday, Ryan turned to me and said, "So what do you want to do Monday?" At which point I began furiously searching my brain for some American holiday that would cause him to have a three-day weekend and came up with, "Is it Memorial Day again?"

Turns out that it was not a repeat holiday; it was our second wedding anniversary.

On Monday, we celebrated two years of living together without killing each other by going out to a romantic dinner. I ate so much food that it made my currently tiny from-the rabbit-food-diet so full I actually turned to Ryan in the middle of the restaurant and said (in a louder than I intended to) voice, "It's a very real possibility that I may projectile vomit filet mignon in a few minutes."

Oh yes, it was romantic. It was projectile vomit romantic.

Thankfully, I did not blow chunks (Due to sheer force of will, I think. There was no way I was going to let the best food I had in months go to waste.), and we had a perfectly lovely evening, talking for hours over appetizers, entrees and dessert until the waitress kept giving us irritated looks that communicated her desire for us to tip her and leave.

Here's to two years of marriage. We're both alive, all our limbs are intact, and our dog is not dead despite being one of the most frustrating wrinkled creatures on earth.

As wonderful as this second year of marriage has been, with all the love and traveling and whatnot, I think the best thing I can say about it is that it was not our first year of marriage. We're used to living with each other now, and have settled into a comfortable routine that doesn't involve fighting every five minutes about where the forks should go or whether or not one of us needs to wear nose strips to bed to please God stop that horrible snoring.

Happy (late) second anniversary, baby.

And Thus Begins My 21st Birthday

Me: I turn 21 in exactly EIGHTEEN MINUTES. What if something horrible happens, like I turn into the spitting image of Bob Barker?

Him: Well... We'll get you a new haircut. And some new clothes. Heck, we'll even get you a new gameshow.

It Was Like Looking Into My Future

Marriage is about accepting one another's flaws and loving each other anyway.

For instance, Ryan, who has 4 years of Spanish classes under his belt, chooses to constantly overlook the fact that I firmly believe I have the ability to speak Spanish by adding "-O" to everything. Car-O. Phone-O. Dog-O. I know in my heart of hearts this gives him some sort of internal tic whenever he hears it.

I never shut drawers. He has the uncanny ability to, without fail, be zoning out standing directly in the middle of whatever doorway I need to pass through. He takes all the quarters I need for parking to buy Dr. Pepper at work. I wrap the cords of video game controllers around the controllers themselves (which, I am told, is apparently some sort of unpardonable sin for which I will spend eternity in video game hell).

And yet, here we are, both alive and mostly in tact. Primarily because we accept each others flaws, knowing that we are both equally irritating in our own way. While yes, love is all that selfless, loving, schmaltzy, heart-warming, sickening crap that you hear about every day, the truth is it's also a lot like the Cold War. We don't shoot our complaints at each other simply because we know the other person could nuke us into oblivion with their own arsenal of complaints.

However.

We went to see Failure to Launch last night. In this movie, there's a man who is overjoyed because his 35 year old son has finally left home, and now he is free to turn the now empty bedroom into a naked room in which to roam about in his birthday suit. Jokes are made about his how much work his wife had to do to convince him that the dining room could not be his naked room because the entire first floor was off limits to nude frolicking.

As we walked out of the movie, Ryan and I turned to each other, and I eventually broke the silence by saying what we both were thinking. "Oh Sweet Lord. You're going to want a naked room, aren't you??"

To which he replied, "Is there something wrong with that?"

Just One Long Synaptic Misfire

Winter has finally decided to show up. It snowed here for the first time today, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I've been whining about how if we were still at Michigan Tech, it would be winter by now, and winter is so pretty and I love snow and blah blah blah. On the other hand, I don't actually like winter all that much; with the digging the car out of a huge snowdrift and the falling repeatedly on the ice. On the OTHER other hand (Didn't I tell you? I have three hands.), wearing a hat makes my head itch and I always worry I have lice when my head itches.

So, I'm not overly thrilled by the snowflakes that fell to the ground today. Especially since it was a very light dusting of snow that, instead of giving the illusion of a winter wonderland, just kind of made it look like the earth had dandruff. If it's going to snow, then the sky should stop being such a pansy and JUST SNOW ALREADY. I want to see children making snow angels and people riding in horse drawn sleighs and school children running home after school through the waist-deep snow with red noses to go get some freshly baked gingerbread from their grandmother.

Apparently, I also want to travel back in time.

Today, I did absolutely no school work. After all that work I did recently, it felt so wonderfully illicit that I kept expecting my professors to show up and being beating me with textbooks while forcing me to take an oral exam on how the Chinese economy is affecting women's rights in the Middle East and the price of copper in Sweden to pay for my crime.

Great. Now I'm going to have a dream about that. Last night, I had a dream that when we went to pick Dog up from my parent's house, they had taught her how to make a childlike scream and to cry ACTUAL TEARS. I woke up praying to God that it wasn't true because yeah, that's all I need: a screaming, crying, bossy, biting Shar Pei puppy with claws that have gradually been filed down to deadly points because she spends her spare time sharpening them on the sidewalk when we're not looking.

"You know, those pants you're wearing have shiny silver buttons on the back that look like eyes."

"It's my butt face, Buttford!"

[long pause]

"You're going to blog that, aren't you?"

"Yes, yes I am."

"But you already blogged about the pig thing!"

That's Not Kosher

This morning I woke up and began eating my breakfast, when I heard a song spring forth out of Husband's mouth that sounded remarkably like The Dreidel Song. Except not.

"Bacon, bacon, bacon, I made you out of pig..."

Powdered Sugar is Divine

[Ovenfresh truck drives by. The side is covered in pictures of delectable pastries and such.]

Me: Oh look! It's like seeing the face of God!

Him: God's face does not look like a doughnut, just to head you off right there.

PSC 398C

Me: I'm thinking about getting a tee-shirt that says, "Future Draft Dodger" on it. You know, so people could shoot at me as I walked down the streets. That might be fun.

Him: This guy is trying to share my arm rest. I want to go home.

Me: I can't believe he just said, "The grand mufti is the biggest. There is no Mufti bigger." With a totally straight face. Now I want to go home.

Hey. Girl behind me, if you're going to pollute my brain with your annoying yammering on about how you're a Republican because it's the responsible choice and morally the only thing to do,  then don't follow it up by talking about how you were SO drunk last night that you, like, totally woke up in, like, the bed of some guy you didn't know. Seriously. Just shut it.

This Is Even Worse Than My Copy of Middle of Nowhere

I was uploading some stuff to the iPod tonight and I accidentally started playing some of Ryan's music. More pointedly, I started playing The Night Chicago Died by Paper Lace. The album cover popped up, and I was horror-struck by what I was looking at.

"Ryan. Have you seen these guys?"

"No. What's wrong? Who?"

"Paper Lace. They are wearing matching suits. BAD matching suits."

[laughter] "Oh, I didn't know that." [starts watching TV again]

"No. Do not do that. You need to come here and see this. See what you have done. What thou hast brought into our computer."

Confessions of A Morning Rage-aholic.

I truly believe that the only reason my marriage has not resulted in divorce is because my husband and I never have to interact in the mornings. If we did, he would leave me so fast my head would spin, and he would be completely justified. I am MEAN -- and not just a cranky, don't talk to me, let me wake up kind of mean.

It's more of a I hold you personally responsible for every bad thing that's ever happened in the history of the world and you will PAY because I am out for blood kind of mean.

As it is now, he is usually long gone by time I wake up. He's at school, or work, or hiding out in the neighbor's dumpster. (He's never actually fessed up to that last one, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's true. Mainly because that's what I would do in the mornings if I was married to me.) So when I wake up, the full extent of my rage gets taken out on the dog and household objects. I just kind of stalk out of bed, throw open the cupboard where the dog's food is, pour it for her, and slam it down. By time I get out of the shower, she's finished her food and usually has it all over her face. Do I wipe it off for her? No, no I do not. I just glare at her and snap, "YOUR IDIOTIC TENDENCIES BOTHER ME."

Then I sit down and glare at the TV for awhile. Because Bob Denver died, and if I had cable and turned the TV on, I would not be able to see anymore live interviews with Bob Denver. So I glare at the TV.

I have no idea what we're going to do when Ryan and I have the same schedules. He'll probably take one look at me and push the dog in front of him as an offering to my anger, or maybe he'll just keep hiding around the corner in the neighbor's dumpster.

While I Live and Breathe

The Alltel check arrived today. I almost passed out in front of the mailbox. I kept looking around for a hidden camera and waiting for Ashton Kutcher to come running out. (Yes, I totally am famous enough to be on Punk'd. I am. Shut up.) I started fanning myself with the check, then I realized it might blow away, and it took 13 weeks for the first one to get here and I was NOT GOING TO GO THROUGH ALL THAT AGAIN. So I stopped. And put a death grip on it.

Ryan: "Basically, Alltel was like our pimp. We had to go out and get money for it all the time, and sometimes it would drive by us and be like, "What are you doing on that street corner talking with your friends? You should be making me money." And then we had to be all, "No! No! I was making you money. I was on my phone, see. My phone! Money! For you!" Then it would beat us and make us switch to a higher minutes plan so that we had to give it more money. Even when it owed us money, it beat on us."

My Mommy Doesn't Live Here, Lady.

Ryan's got a new job working with all the computery techy stuffy stuff at the book palace library. I am secretly wondering to myself (and the internet) if he gives a little girly squeal every single time he goes to work. It's like someone said to him, "Hey, want to play around with toys all day in the library? Oh, and it will look good on your resume too." When they called him and offered him the job, he got all wild eyed, like I would if I had gotten a chance to run through the Amazon.com warehouses with all the surveillance cameras turned off.

I admit, internet, I am a bad wife. I tried to talk him out of it. I was all, "It starts at 8 a.m. three days a week! You have to work Monday & Friday (in his original schedule.)! That cuts into my 4 day weekend! I'm going to whine like a little baby now!"

I might not have actually said that last statement, but I distinctly remember doing it. Lucky for me, though, Ryan does not give into my every little whim. (I cannot, for the life of me, imagine why.) He's keeping the job, and so far he's really liking it. Which makes me happy, because I hate it when hates his job.

I had to go to Walmart today all by myself. It was horrifying. There's something about that store. Once I got in there, the horrible lighting stunned me, and I wandered around for almost an hour. I couldn't remember what I came for, where things were in the store, or what my name is. The time space continuum ripped, and somehow I spent 3 lifetimes in there in a single hour. I came outside, all of Mt. Pleasant had been blown away in a nuclear holocaust, and I had been incredibly unaware of it all because I was IN WALMART.

At least that's how it felt. In reality, I spent 70 minutes is there, ended up with about 4 things I don't need and forgot 3 things I did need.

I hate telemarketers. They won't stop calling. And ALL of them ask to talk to my mommy or daddy when I pick up the phone. So I usually just respond in a singsong voice, "My mommy and daddy aren't here. They don't come to see me much. Bye." I know that sometimes I sound a little chirpy or perky on the phone, but really... My MOMMY OR DADDY? I do not sound 7 years old. Come on, people.

Harlem Batgirl Revisited

I was amused when someone stumbled across my site while searching for "harlem batgirl". I'm even more amused to see that my site is the number one search result for harlem batgirl.

Ryan officially worked his last night at Meijer last night, and now we're both home at night. Do you understand what that means?

WE OUT NUMBER THE DOG.

Noggins, stiffs, and dealing the junk.

Me: Our last name sucks. People always get confused when I say it.
Him: I know. They think I'm saying "Ed." Then they go, "We need your LAST name too, Ed."
Me: And then I'm like, "No, I would have said Edward if you had asked for my first name. Not Ed. It's HEAD. HEAD, as in that thing on top of your neck?"
Him: And then I go into pick up something you ordered and they ask to see I.D. for Edward Head.
[long pause]
Him: It would be so much easier if our last name was noggin.

There are few things in life more ironic than driving behind a car with a license plate that says "B Stiff" when that car is, in turn, driving behind a hearse.

I think that the phone booth down the street is somehow used in drug dealing. There's ALWAYS someone in the phone booth (I've never seen it empty), and occasionally a shady looking person with a brown paper bag runs up to it and hands the bag to people inside. Clearly it's a drug trafficking station. Know how I know? Because I really really think so.

Really though, what else is it? Some place that you use the phone to call if you've forgotten to pack your brown bag lunch? I think not. I'm keeping this on the down low, though, because this girl don't want no homies busting up in here in the middle of the night because she know too much.

Or something like that.

Excuse Me Miss, Is This Tangerine Bothering You?

We went shopping today, and Ryan re-discovered the color orange. Apparently he thought the universe had discontinued it or something, because he was so shocked at it's re-emergence that while shopping for school clothes he bought TONS of orange stuff.

Now, I have learned since we got married that Ryan, like most non gay or metrosexual men, does not care for shopping. So when I can get him to go, I run with it. When he picks out clothes, I just let him be. I tried to suggest other colors ("How about blue? They have blue now, too!") but he has a new orange fixation. Which is okay, I guess. I will look like I'm walking around with a large tangerine, but it's a tangerine that I love.

After shopping, we're sitting in traffic, and he says to me, "That's a cool truck." Any guesses as to what horrible color this truck was? Yes. Orange. I just gave him a look that said, "Over my dead body."

YOU HAVE GOT TO DRAW THE ORANGE LINE SOMEWHERE.

Time to Kiss Myself Goodnight, Turn Out the Light.

Overall, I like Ryan working the night shift. He works 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., sleeps till about 1 or 2, and then we have all afternoon to have fun. I usually get stuff done in the morning while he's asleep. It works out pretty well. The only downside is going to bed by myself. To be clear, I have NO problem sleeping without him. I hate to admit this, but I kind of like having the whole bed to myself part of the night. I can hog the blankets, take all the pillows, and go spread eagle in the middle of the bed. The part I don't like is tucking myself in.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like Ryan sits on the side of the bed and sings me lullabys. Usually, he hogs the mirror when I'm trying to floss and changes into his pajamas in the middle of the bedroom whilst flinging his daytime clothes all around. It's kind of like a clothing tornado once in awhile. But after we slug it out for the mirror and I survive the cloth whirlwind, we both crawl into bed. We each punch our pillows repeatedly to get them just right, shift to get comfortable, re-shift once the other person shifts to get comfortable and therefore totally ruins our comfortable position, kiss each other goodnight, and turn out the lights.

Romantic it is not, but it's familiar and comforting none the less. Now, I just wander around the house, flossing aimlessly (it's possible, believe me) before bed. And when I get into bed, I only have to get comfy once. Then when I turn to kiss someone, there's nobody there. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it just totally mixes up my routine. And Annie don't like that.

Other than having to smooch myself goodnight, things are working out okay. I saw Charlie & the Chocolate Factory as well as Chocolat today (Movies with chocolate AND Johnny Depp? Few things in life are better.), but I've also got a stomach virus.

Whoever gave me this stomach virus will be hunted down like the dog they are... when I can finally stop whimpering and puking long enough to get off the bathroom floor. I've had three people ask me today if I'm having morning sickness. And while I'm NOT suffering from morning sickness due to the fact that I'm not pregnant, it got me thinking. It's not possible for morning sickness to be THIS bad, right? Because if morning sickness is this bad, I AM NEVER HAVING CHILDREN. Seriously. After mere days of this, I'm ready have surgery and get everything from the legs up and neck down removed. Just sort of fuse my head right above my knees.

If morning sickness involves stomach cramps that are so bad that I curl into a ball and sob on the bathroom floor in between rounds of vomiting so much that it somehow GETS INTO MY SINUS CAVITIES, then obviously babies are God's way of punishing us. I won't survive the first trimester, let alone giving birth or those two year old tantrums. OH DEAR LORD, NOT THE TANTRUMS. I'll just do the sensible thing and steal one out of a stoller when its mom is buying a grande mocha frappu macchi whatever.

Good One, Head!

I woke up today not feeling any better physically, but in a far better place mentally. So after Ryan went to work, I ate my big bowl of frosted flakes, showered, did my daily stretches that keep me from feeling like I'm a crippled old hag, and got on my bicycle. Well, okay, I did get dressed first. Actually, I did that before I did the stretches. Something creepy about naked stretching that I just can't put my finger on.

But I digress. As usual.

So I hopped on my bike and decided to ride over and visit Ryan on his lunch break. 30 minutes of peddling, wondering what the weird clicky noise was that my bike was making, tugging down my shirt so that I didn't show butt crack, and repeatedly stopping to try and diagnose the clicky noise, I was there. I combed the store for 20 minutes, but couldn't find him. Then I was about to ask where the break room was and if I could possibly pop in there for a second to see if Ryan was there, I realized suddenly MY BIKE, MY BABY, WAS OUTSIDE WITHOUT A LOCK ON IT. It probably wasn't a huge cause for concern, but well, you know how I am. My favorite sport is PANICKING FOR NO REASON. So I run outside to check the bike, and of course, it's still there. But it's being eyed by some older man who, when he sees me walking towards it, says, "Nice bike. Are you going back in the store? I'll watch it for you. Why are you here? Are you here for a personal ad? I'll watch your bike." To my boobs, no less.

He'll WATCH my BIKE for me? PERSONAL AD? It became official at that point -- there was no way I was going to leave my baby outside with him. Everything from his creepy leer, to his bright white velco tennis shoes said, "I want to steal your bike or grope you. Preferably both."

I had a bit of a dilemma. I still wanted to see Ryan, but I wasn't going to leave the bike. So I craned my neck to see in the store as best I could while Mr. Personal Ad chattered on and on about his cousin, the wrestler, and kept asking me questions like, "So. Are you strong? Do you wrestle?" Even the little old hairnet lady a foot to my right was starting to look nervous. Finally, I ditched the plan, got on my bike, and left Ryan to eat lunch alone.

On the way back home, I decided to be nice and make up for my no-show lunch by grabbing subs for dinner. I walk in the store, and the guy behind the counter starts telling me pirate jokes and going, "Do you think an hour and a half late to work is excessive? I mean, it only happened this once, and it was an accident!" while the girl working tried to glare a hole in him. He talked the whole time, and kept trying to put pickles on all the food, but I managed to stop him.

On the final leg of the ride home, the clicky noises got louder, I was almost run over by a blazer (yet another reason to loathe those horrifyingly ugly vehicles), and I got chased down the street by a frat dog. An angry, manky frat dog who seemed to feel that it was MY fault he was manky and tied to that tree rather than those 30 boys who live in the house.

I know that part of the reason I'm so tired is because I'm sick as a dog, but I can't help but thing that if maybe Ryan & I could calm ourselves at night and actually SLEEP, I'd be much more rested. But ooooh no, we're like kids at a slumber party. The lights go off, and suddenly we're exchanging stories about our most embarassing public farts or something. Pretty soon, I'm laughing so hard I sound like a drunk donkey, and Ryan's going, "SHHHH! The neighbors. The neigbors!"

And you probably think I'm kidding. Sadly, I'm not. Last night, we actually had that conversation. It lasted for two hours. Ryan discovered that the reason I always sit next to someone in class is because I want to have someone to shoot dirty looks at when I fart. (Poor Ryan. I am disgusting.) And I discovered that apparently farting in a choir room is VERY LOUD, and can cause the teacher to stop talking, the entire class to turn around, and some yokel named Hunter Faughnaught to say in a very southern accent, "GOOD ONE, HEAD!" The name Faughnaught alone was enough to make me snort like an intoxicated barnyard animal, and when you add choir room farting into it, well, there was just no recovering from that one.

So now you know what really goes on in my bedroom at night. I'll save the wild sex stories for, um... never.

Let's go for a Drive Baby

In yet another cruel maneuver life has made, it seems I only grow wider in one direction as I put on weight. It's odd because, even though I'm 40 pounds heavier than last year, if I stand sideways I look exactly the same. Geez. If I had to choose a direction to grow, it certainly would have been in a more... aerodynamic direction. Oh well. On the plus side, when I turn sideways, I feel thin. Have decided to always enter rooms sideways.

Well, that was an extremely Bridget Jones-y statement. Speaking of which, I saw Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason the other day... Rather enjoyed it, actually. Yes, I realize that it was, essentially, the exact same thing as the first movie. I don't know... maybe I watch it for the Colin Firth/Hugh Grant fights. There's few things in this life more enjoyable than watching two men fight it out like little school girls. The pulling of hair, the kicking, the random shrieking of, "OWW!" It fills my heart with joy.

Also, I have decided that Phantom of the Opera (the movie) = enjoyable, though more than a little creepy at times. I want to know why the lead woman... girl... thing looks like a 12 year old boy with breasts. Okay, more like a gazelle. A very... lippy gazelle. I'm not kidding. Her lips were entrancingly large.

Currently most of my worldly posessions are stacked in a corner of my apartment, ready to move. It's been an odd weekend... I'm trying to pack without thinking about packing. Because packing -> moving -> uncertainty -> mild anxiety attacks with each sucessive box that gets packed. I would just let Ryan do all of it... but, well... I love him. I did not marry him for his organizational/packing skills. The other day, I found him trying to fold a spaghetti strap tank top of mine to pack up. I thought the poor guy was going to break down. He tried folding one way, then another, and finally just kind of stuffed it into the box with a befuddled look. I'm not sure he knew I was watching.