Archive | October 2009

I looked in the mirror today and didn’t like what I saw

Oct31

I normally like and love myself, think I’m awesome with chips firmly planted on the side and even a pickle.

Today I looked at myself in the mirror after putting on my cute outfit and said, “I love you.” And the depressed foggy cloud feeling entered my brain. Oh no. “Pull your shit together, you have to love yourself. It’s a rule! I LOVE YOU! … oh, I don’t love you today. Wow. Ok, ok, no, I do love you. Wow. I love you? I love you! I love you! I … feh.”

I’m not sure what’s going on, but I have been having a lot of bad dreams since returning from Florida. A LOT. They scare the fucking shit out of me. They’re hurtful to me personally and always involve people I care about intentionally betraying me, or betraying me and I’m not even a thought in their mind about betraying.

I really don’t know where this is coming from.

And, of course, something happened today where I went from somewhat stable in emotions — ok, so you don’t really like yourself today but there’s always tomorrow — to me screaming at the man I love, things that I never ever wanted to scream at him.

And he still loves me. I don’t know why or how. I’ve never been loved so unconditionally by a man before. It’s hard to accept this. It’s wonderful, but it makes me feel so much shame to act so immaturely to him. I get so mad at myself for taking out my insecurities on him.

And then tonight Mama Dawg said to me “you have a lot of issues!” when I told her how I used to have a stuffed toy eggplant as a kid so now it’s hard for me to eat eggplant.

And I do.

I feel so strong and then… so low. I just was hoping to feel my strength as a woman, as a person, as a pillar of strength. But I don’t feel that today.

I’m just saying it so I don’t forget to love myself again.

Yo, Popstar: I love you!

Choose Your Own Blogventure: Dying to Get Out, Part 3

Oct30

Today is Choose Your Own Blogventure Day! A collaborative piece by many bloggers is spun from one starting fragment of a story. You choose which path to follow.

If you’ve arrived directly to my blog, start the story at NPW’s blog.

If you’re a CYOBer and you’ve arrived here from Aaron’s blog then you chose for Annelise to go downstairs. Here we go…

Annelise ran downstairs to the kitchen. She had never seen a real zombie before, and the idea of meeting one face to face made her absurdly giddy. As her foot hit the bottom step her mind processed the scene — a quorum of the undead, caked in blood, shuffling slowly in place around the marble-topped island — but her body could not stop quickly enough. Her size 6 Saucony running shoes skidded and screeched across the hardwood floors as she crashed into her neighbor, Mr. Angus V. Sumps, originally from Kansas City (the Kansas one, not that city slicker Missouri one), who had been living next door up until two weeks ago when his Diabetes finally licked him. Now he was hissing and moaning with arms outstretched around either side of her and his skin was less than politely peeling off his body.

Annelise let out a yelp and pushed herself off Mr. Sumps, running backwards as quickly as possible, almost knocking herself and her father, who had run after her, over onto the stairs. Dr. Ansel reached his arms delicately around his daughter and whispered into her ear, “don’t worry, they’re under my control.”

Annelise turned her head to look hesitantly optimistic into her father’s eyes then spun her body to hug him. “That’s… that’s… GREAT news, Dad! But, how?”

“The power of the talisman, my dear! Up for an adventure?”

Without skipping a beat, Annelise responded with a smile: “Always, Daddy!”

Dr. Ansel turned to the crowded kitchen, still shuffling in place, still moaning and hissing. “To the bus, my minions! “

Annelise giggled quietly as she watched the zombies passively push and shove each other out the front door to the ‘70s hippie bus her father kept for last minute field trips to curious destinations, and this time was no different. Next stop: Jenny’s Blue Plate Diner.

…

The ride to the diner had been pretty eventful. Dr. Ansel drove the bus, so Annelise had been forced to sit on the inside seat next to Mrs. Streeter, her elementary school cafeteria monitor in her living days, who kept slowly grabbing Annelise’s right arm and trying to chew on it. Also, in the back of the bus the “controlled” zombies were getting slightly out of control by not remaining in their seats. Each time the bus jerked to a stop the standing zombies fell over and piled on top of each other. Physics was no longer their friend, so the fallen undead would stay heaped in the pile, flailing around and groaning until the bus came to a full stop in two parking spots 10 feet from the diner’s front door.

Annelise hopped over Mrs. Streeter’s lap and ran off the bus into the diner. “Jenny, there’s 22 of us today. Think you can fit us all? Our lunch guests are probably gonna be a little messy. Sorry about that. Oh, and they’ll each want their own NY Strip Steak – raw and bloody.”

Jenny gave Annelise a wink as she wrote down the order. “No problem, kiddo. We get ‘messy and bloody’ all the time.”

Annelise ran back outside and helped her father escort their army of 20 to their seats. None of the other diners even blinked, they were too used to the Ansel family’s peculiar taste in mealtime companionship. Dr. Ansel stood outside his designated booth where Annelise, Mr. Sumps, Mrs. Streeter, and 18-year-old recently deceased football hero Tommy Jenkins were seated. He leaned over Annelise. “I need to use the men’s room, think you can handle them all while I’m gone?”

“Of course, Daddy.”

Dr. Ansel needed a minute to regroup, to make a plan for what he would do with all the zombies. He hadn’t thought he could actually raise his unfortunately circumstanced neighbors from their graves, or do anything to keep them civil once they were back to a semi-functional state, but the directions on the back of the talisman had been so crystal clear that it was like making Kraft mac & cheese – easy peasy! He went into the only stall of the bathroom and leaned over to give a courtesy flush of the last person’s business. Out of the corner of his eye he watched in horror as the talisman began to tumble out of his pocket and into the flushing water.

To see what happens when Dr. Ansel loses the talisman down the diner toilet go here.

To see what happens when Dr. Ansel catches the talisman go here.

I suck at goodbyes

Oct26

If you were in Florida this weekend hanging out for the same reason I was you may have noticed I didn’t say goodbye.

I hate goodbyes.

They imply I’m never seeing you again, and that you AREN’T just a blog away, a tweet away, an email away, a photo away, a facebook status away, a txt message away from me.

And I just can’t have that, so HI AGAIN! :)

This is my weekend recap post. Each and every thing that happened this weekend is equally as important as the others, so I’ll be brief-ish about all of them so that I don’t cry all over while I write.

Our signature photo Thursday afternoon Dawg and I took a plane to Orlando. We rented a car and drove it to the Altamonte Springs Hilton, checked in, settled in our room, then had dinner with (you know who I mean if you were at the party) The Photographer. She goes by a couple names, but she visits here as Mew. We went to Five Guys for dinner with her, her puddin’, her photographer sidekick, and a man that is seriously Adam Avitable‘s doppelgänger despite neither of them seeing that in the other. Apparently last year Dawg and I met ALL of these people at the party, but we met Mew and Baby J when we were sober, whereas we met Local 23 and Han Solo Ringmaster at last year’s party while we were in the vertical blackout stage. This year meeting them sober was an absolute treat and I now consider this pack of unruly nerds my very good friends even if they don’t consider me their very good friends back. I mean, c’mon, after sharing Five Guys together we BONDED over butterscotch Jello pudding pop ice cream at Coldstone Creamery!!!! And the irony of this gathering is that both Mew and I thought the other person didn’t want anyone else to show up to the event so we were keeping it secret from everyone, but turns out we were only doing that to appease the other, so next year we will have A HuGe MewPopstar GaTHerIng and it will be wonderful!!! At Five Guys Mew mentioned that Adam had invited us back to his place for a sneak peek at the party decor so we went to his home to check everything out. Poppy approved. I even made some modifications to the Booze List which made it on there, despite it only benefiting me and his lovely wife Amy, which I will mention in the Saturday section. Back at the hotel we had Last Call drinks at the bar with Mikey! Although the remodel of the hotel is beautiful it irks every single one of us that the bar CLOSES at 12am, so let’s fix that for next year. (Actually, don’t bother, the new hotel hot spot for next year will be somewhere else, it is rumored. ;) At the very last few minutes of bar talk we saw Bella and Rachel slink in from their night with Hilly and Dave2 so we hung out a bit before retiring to bed with our sippy cups of beer.

Downtown Disney Friday was breakfast of champions from the hotel coffee shop. The woman behind the counter made me an 8-shot espresso but charged me $2 for a regular coffee instead of $16 like she should have, so I gave her a $2 tip then Dawg and I went to Downtown Disney to meet up with Hilly, Floating Princess, and Karen Sugarpants for lunch at RagLan Road, churros at the Italian Ice cart, soap gazing at Basin, and Lego watching at the Lego store. I love Snackie AND Lisa, but it was revealed at lunch that Ms. Sugarpants and I had exACTly the same costume idea for Avitaween, so durrrrrrrrrrr I bonded instantly with her and now she’s my lifelong border babe friend and I can say nothing wrong about that woman ever ever EVAR. Then the ladies departed and Dawg and I shopped at the World of Disney store where I purchased a $50+ brown hoodie that appropriately says GRUMPY on it. After Downtown we went to the hotel for a little lay down then we went secretly to Publix and back to Coldstone Creamery where we bought tw cakes and two packages of cupcakes then headed to Faiqa and Tariq’s (yo, it’s pronounced thar-ick, not streety hood TAR-EEEK) where we got to see Baby Y!!!! as well as (oh boy, no pictures of this, so let’s try to remember everyone) Britt, Jared, Emma, Devin, Robin, Rachel, Ren, Marci, Heather, Tyler, Hilly, Dave2, Lisa, Karen, Becky, Finn, Mister, Stephen and Marianne (non-blogging friends of Tariq), and… um, who’dileaveout?! at which we had delicious food prepared by Faiqa then had cake and ice cream cupcakes and a beautiful dessert prepared by Faiqa in celebration of SPARKY’S 39th BIRTHDAY, SURPRISE! Not that she was surprised, she kinda figured it out when Robin asked her what her favorite cake is, but I don’t care, I was still happy we got to celebrate. At the end of this event we all sat in a big circle and made silly jokes and it was a wonderful bonding experience. Then we went back to the hotel where we saw (oh boy, I hope I remember) Adam, Blondefabulous, Employee 3699 (whose name I know but not sure I’m allowed to share), Employee’s daughter (whose name I know but not sure I’m allowed to share), and Kim!!! And Mikey and LW wandered in after their Blue’s Traveler concert, then Brad and Turnbaby wandered in after their karaoke! Then a very deeeeerunk Sheila came in for a quick hi and goodbye. :) Dawg and I wandered off to our hotel room so we could have “YAY! POPPY IS DONE BLEEDING!” sex then we went to sleep.

TooJays Saturday morning we pooled together with people for breakfast at TooJays. These people, in fact: Mister, Finn, Ren, Kim, Rachel, and Robin. Had a great meat skillet breakfast with bacon and Coke (NOTE TO SELF: NO SULFUR WATER NEXT YEAR, bottled water ONLY) and hilarity did ensue. Directly after breakfast it was back to the hotel for me and Dawg for 30 seconds during which time I do believe I hung out with Ren and (um, yah, blanky) until Dawg came down from changing his clothes so we could go meet with Jenny and Andy at Mimi’s Cafe!!!!! Dawg and I let them do most of the talking because THEY are our NASA friends and we LOVE listening to them talk about NASA! Not sure why, but at this point in the trip I never, ever took another photo so there are no photos of me with Jenny or Andy or the swag bag she made for me. :( I has a sad. I don’t know what I was not-thinking. But the chicken caesar salad was lovely! :) And seeing them again was spectacularly awesome. I hope one of these years we’ll actually get to go toward NASA to see them instead of them always coming to us. After we saw them we headed to the Halloween store for Dawg’s party costume where I almost picked up some army boots but decided they were neither cute nor comfortable enough to substitute for my hot stiletto boots in my costume. We then took a trip to Walgreen’s to purchase the remainder of Dawg’s costume, some makeup for me, and some Charmin for Adam’s, since rumor is that he ran out of TP last year. We then went back to the hotel to mentally prepare ourselves…

Jinkies and Popstar …and then it was time to get ready and go to Hilly’s house so we could meet Jinkies and I could get my makeup applied by Hilly! Ended up not using any of what I bought except the nail polish I had put on ALL BY MYSELF LIKE A BIG GIRL before arriving. But Hilly covered up my chin zit perfectly and gave me the sultry, smoky, sexy, slutty, trashy eyes I’d been hoping for and that was a rap. Oh, btw, I would totally have stolen Jinkies but I think Hilly would have noticed. Also, thanks again to Hilly for laying out a towel on your bed so I could put my fishnets on “correctly” without getting cooch juice on your bed. That’s just rude to do. And also thank you to Ms. Sugarpants for having the most adorable Canadian version of my same costume so that when I went slutty and you went furry we barely looked like twins!

Poppy, PJ the Bartender, Floating Princess Ok, party time! We all headed to Adam’s and … then a party happened. A lot of people I love and admire were all in the same house together. We had alien-themed mixed drinks from PJ the Bartender and I even had my secret stash of Stella! beer because I had handwritten it onto the Booze List and Adam indulged me, Mew took lots of wonderful pictures of everyone (I think I was asked to be in 4 or 5 separate photo shoots… go, Poppy!), I ate a lot of amazing food, and had a lot of crazy conversations with people. This seems like the shortest part of the post (uh, dur, cuz it is) but I just feel like you need to experience Adam’s party for yourself. Start saving up now because you won’t regret going to an amazing party with amazing friends. Make sure to bring a snack for the late night munchies and a package of TP for when the house stash runs out. :)

At about 3am a bunch of us wandered off to Denny’s. Don’t ask me who, apparently 2 mixed drinks, 2 beers, and a tiny bit of disgusting appletini were enough to give me tunnel vision. I just know I cried at the very loud music overhead until they turned that shit down, the food in front of me was DELICIOUS, and I was in the corner so I didn’t really get to talk that much, but I still had a great time. Then we went back to the hotel where we had “POPPY IS DRUNK!” sex (it’s fantastic, by the way) and then it was time to SLEEP!

Sunday morning we woke up late and headed over to Adam’s to properly say goodbye to him and pick up a gift that Mew had left there for us then we headed to Cracker Barrel for a little lunch and to drop off the rental car then catch that plane back home. (I spent the entire plane ride watching women’s billiards and popping my head over the seat looking for Bella who was in the front of the plane, but never found her. Dawg spent it sleeping. :)

Today I didn’t work but… that was probably a very good thing because I slept until 11:30am and felt blue all day from not being with everyone anymore. I miss everybody already. Boooo to that, can’t wait to see you all again! :)

Here are the photos I did take during the trip. For photos of the actual party please visit the Avitaween pool.

Thank you again to Adam and all who helped organize that damn party. You definitely outdid yourselves!!!

RenYC recap

Oct11

Dawg and I took the LIRR from Kew Gardens into Manhattan instead of dealing with the crazy subway schedule changes for this weekend, so we got all the way into the city by 4:15pm and checked in with the Houndstooth Pub who, ironically, had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the KISS party. Note to Houndstooth Pub event coordinator: You might want to mention your events to your bar staff. ;)

I made a reservation for a long table for 10 people for 5:00pm then Dawg and I went outside so he could smoke and we could wait for people to show up. Of course Robin and Rachel were the promptest! Way to go, ladies! We all went inside and waited for more people. Next to show up was B.E. Earl! And then guest of honor Ren!!!!!!! And then Bearette with Baby E (who slept the entire time, save the last 5 minutes of his stay but was so adorable, as always). And then YKnot aka Wild Bill the Pirate, who we didn’t know was showing up, so that was entertainment in itself (see below :) .

We ordered food and drinks and had a merry time and made our trips down the three sets of stairs to the bathrooms and back up the three sets of stairs. We were loud, crazy, and rambunctious but didn’t get kicked out. When we were ready to leave Bearette and Earl had departed and YKnot needed to take off for an early morning so the rest of us travelled to Serendipity 3, waited an hour for our name to be called (Carter? Carrrrrrrrter! … nope, not Carter), and when I finally got inside and sat down and saw the Frenchified menu I ordered! … an omelette – East meets Western, but without the ham, thanks.

Other evening highlights:
Riding the LIRR with Dawg
Throwing relevant-to-our-conversation DX signs with Dawg in front of the pub
Telling our Houndstooth Pub server “Hi Roger, I’m Stefanie, and this is my boyfriend. But these two lovely ladies (pointing to Rachel and Robin) are single!”
Comparing proper footwear with Ren
Trying to convince YKnot that he was at the wrong party cuz we were having a blogger party, not a twitter party (it was a very TC08 “Delmer Moment”, hehehehe :)
Having an intellectual conversation with Bearette completely separate from all the raucousness behind me
Hanging with my ladies Robin and Rachel
Trying not to laugh at what Earl does for a living :D
FROGS LEGS
Pumpkin pie martinis
Deeeerunkenly calling the Serendipity 3 male host a bitch for telling us we had to wait so long for a table ( I DO NOT RECALL THAT. )
Talking loudly about how Lady Gaga, Julia Roberts, and Gene Hackman (I meant Richard Gere) had to be in the limo outside of Serendipity 3
Ordering an omelette at a place famous for its frozen hot chocolate :)
Getting to hug my friends on their way out of my evening, knowing I’ll see them again :)

The evening flew by, it was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to see everyone’s photos!!!!!

Here are miiiiiine:

RenYC photos!!!!!!

Because sharing is caring

Oct5

Dawg and I saw this video on our local news several nights ago. When we saw it our news channel gave us no hint of how it would end. I believe this is what led us to bawl our eyes out harder than you will when you watch this:

(If you don’t cry then you are having pre-PMS or you are a robot.)

I had meant to look for a clip of it and post it, but I’m very forgetful of tasks I don’t write down, although the story itself stayed with me and I thought of it many times in the days after seeing it. Yesterday Tense reminded me of this clip in a tweet so I had to share.

Also, Hilly got a new kitty after her dear, beloved FC passed due to complications from feline cancer. Meet Velma Jinkies:

This stranger named Spider was so happy about the news that he ran out and got this tattoo! :

Jinkies!

Ok, not really, but that sounded fun. And now I totally wanna get a few geek tattoos, as well as one that says:

free glitter text and family website at FamilyLobby.com

Oh, and Dawg and I are going to see the Gotham Girls in their championship match on Friday, November 21 at Hunter College. I AM SO PSYCHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last but not least, RenYC is this coming Saturday at 5pm at Houndstooth Pub in Manhattan. If you want to go and haven’t told me already please let me know. I will be sending an email to all who want to go, but if I don’t know you’re going then you won’t be on the email. And don’t you want an email from me? Of course you do!

Because having two names isn’t confusing enough when I’m trying to remember who I am to somebody. :)

Oct3

Dawg asked us to write a post about a great weekend, a fantastic time, or an awesome experience that YOU have had”. For some reason, ever since he assigned this to us all, I’ve had an incredibly difficult time choosing the perfect thing to post here. But… I’m not really sure why I’m going for perfect. What’s going to happen if I don’t choose the perfect memory? Nothing. Because perfection is subjective and life isn’t about perfection unless you’re a crazy person. *cough* So, moving on.

Favorite times are always happening to me. My life is really just awesome, because I am in a place I want to be, in a career I want to be, am the person I want to be, and am surrounded both physically and emotionally by people and furry kids who I love and who love me back. I’ve asked my hard questions, got the answers I needed to hear, and have accepted their answers. I am so content that I’m surprised I haven’t Enlightened and disappeared. But today I had a brand new experience: I saw Whip It with Dawg. At the end of the film we had this brief dialog:

Poppy: *smacking the shit out of Dawg’s arm in the dark movie theater*
Dawg: Ow! Why are you hitting me?!
Poppy: I want to be a roller derby chick!!!!!!
Dawg: There’s a league in Manhattan, The Gotham Girls…
Poppy: Oh, I can’t be in a professional league, I need to go amateur first. I can’t stay upright in skates…
Dawg: Mmm…
Poppy: …and I haven’t broken a bone yet! I need to break a bone first.
Dawg: Well, I don’t know about THAT.

I toooootally wanna beat up chicks while I’m on skates. Like, real bad. And have people cheer my derby name…

free glitter text and family website at FamilyLobby.com

That would be awesome.