phase two: dinner boogaloo

Saturday night I went out with Trina and Peter to Outback for dinner. We discovered that it is indeed difficult to consume two large cocktails, three loaves of freshly killed bread, (does anyone know why they serve it by impaling it with a machete? although if the McDonald's commercials are to be believed, impaling something with a steel object instantly transforms said object into an hors d'oeuvre...I should try that with several Republican senators) a giant fried onion, a plate of salad, and a hamburger the size of your face in a single sitting. Fries don't count.

I made it to about halfway through the burger and so did Peter... and Trina made it about halfway through her steak. Then all of our eyes sort of glazed over and we started moaning and sweating. We continued to hold the food in front of our faces, as though it would speed up our digestive process. I grabbed the waitress and begged her to take the food away from us before we injured ourselves. We of course had it wrapped up, which she brought to us in so much packaging that it looked as though we were going to load it onto our sherpas and take a trek into the Andes.

But we were honest as we slung the giant sacks over our shoulders and lugged our doggiebags out to Peter's car. We knew that as soon as we'd added Time into the equation of our evening, we'd be having Phase Two of dinner. I even stole a fork so we'd be prepared.

We went to the liquor store on our way back to my house for Phase Two and we saw these little half-size bottles. They were eerily small, as though designed for alcoholic midgets or perhaps children. Or an evening with me. They also had tiny bottles like the ones you see on airplanes. And that is how Trina came up with the best idea ever for how to be charged with endangering the welfare of a child.

Some of my loyal (read: five) readers may remember a photograph taken of me at Trina's high school graduation party. Her male relatives (actually, I think it was just her brothers and dad) went through about two cases of beer and the empty cans were strewn about the lawn. So we assembled them into a pile and then put me in with the cans and took a photograph that will live in infamy forever.

I think you might see where I am going with this.

Picture it. My son, whom I have given the name "Mortimer" because I was in labor for 37 hours, is lying in his crib, wearing the "Busted Condom" tshirt that his Uncle John purchased for him upon hearing of my pregnancy. I have a lovely cocktail in one hand and a bottle of formula in the other and I have sprinkled the tiny empty bottles all around him. Won't someone bring me my camera? This is one for the album...the one they'll use in court.

why i'm like this, chapter 872

I was talking to Mom as she was getting ready for bed, and I noticed that the lotion she was putting on her hands was my missing foot lotion.

"Is that my foot lotion you just put on your hands?"
"Yeah, I like it because it has cortizone in it."
"I have been going nuts for weeks looking for that."
"Oh, sorry..."
"I just never thought to look in your room, I guess."
"Yeah, I've been holding it hostage."
"Ah, whatever. I'm going to use some of the hand cream on your dresser--oh, there's my pink glasses. Apparently everything I've lost is in your room. Is my virginity under your bed?"
"Nah... you lost that all on your own."

assorted happenings

Before the Steelers won the Super Bowl, I had several heart attacks in the first half. Then I saw The Rolling Stones come out and I realized that no matter how bad it got in the second half, I still wouldn't be Mick Jagger. It was reassuring, kind of like the Michael Jackson picture on the fridge.

I started my new job on Monday and I really like it. Most of the people I worked with at the credit bureau (my CBC girlies are excluded from this statement, of course) seemed to just be paper cut-outs of themselves. Although unemployment sucked more ass than Rick Santorum, (and that is a lot of ass-sucking) I'm glad I got out of that place. I really like the new job. The people are all really friendly and smart, AND I can wear jeans every day. I don't know how to express the deep joy I feel every time I say that. It's like starting every day with an orgasm of comfort. I might even opt to stay and work there over going to Japan. (If I am even offered that job.) We'll see what happens.

Mom is in Alexandria until Monday visiting Mo. We got a package from her ex-boyfriend yesterday. It wasn't ticking, so I called Mom and then opened it. It was a CD player. What the hell. He also included fucking NOTES that he took while they spoke on the phone. It's a goddamn tome. It needs chapters. The damn papers all spilled out of the envelope, and what's the first thing I see? Some notes from a conversation they apparently had about the female orgasm. That was officially the last thing I ever needed to see. I'd rather see my own autopsy report than anything alluding to orgasms my mother may or may not be having.

Yesterday, I killed a giant centipede that was chilling out next to my college diploma. This means war, you bastards.

tagged by miss jessica

What can I say... I have to do what she says.

4 jobs in your life (best to worst)
Closed-captioner
Childcare provider
Bookstore whore
Credit processor

4 movies you could watch over and over
Finding Nemo
The Shawshank Redemption
Madagascar
Zoolander

4 TV shows you love to watch
Law & Order: SVU
Monk
Arrested Development
Grey's Anatomy

4 places you have lived
Stockholm, Sweden
Wilkinsburg, PA
Chestertown, MD
Forest Hills, PA

4 places you have been on vacation
Taos, NM
Yellowstone National Park
Crete
Venice, Italy

4 websites you visit daily
gmail
UMW
myspace
Scott's blog

4 of your favorite foods
Sushi
anything Indian
great big salads
creamed chicken with peas over rice

4 places you'd rather be right now
a passionate embrace
New Mexico
bed
somewhere where I don't have to listen to the washing machine

4 bloggers you are tagging
Cindy
Scott
Brandon
Amanda

chuck norris and the 18 mile loop

Trina and I went on a road adventure today. It started as a trip to Giant Eagle to get supplies for the Super Bowl party, but we got sidetracked. First we went to Wendy's, where we frightened people in line behind us by wondering "When exactly was it that we became whores?" I think what frightened them was that we both could pinpoint that particular spot on our personal timelines.

Then we decided to go out to Pittsburgh Mills to pick up Trina's new glasses. I've never driven there, so I was clueless. (I learn by doing, apparently. Like with the deviled eggs tonight... I hope no one dies tomorrow.) Trina decided to take the Turnpike so we wouldn't be sitting in stop-and-go traffic, which is the one true cause of road rage. So we're talking and driving and I dug around for 75 cents for the toll. As we exited, Trina said "It feels like we've been driving for a day." She handed the money to the operator and we drove on. That's when she realized something wasn't quite right.

Two u-turns later, we figured out that we'd gone past our exit and were completely out of the way. Nine miles out of the way. Then Trina looked at the ticket and realized that the toll we actually owed was $1.25. Oops. And yet the operator didn't say anything. I'm going to have to try that the next time I'm in Breezewood.

With the car running on fumes, we completed our 18 mile loop and went to the mall, despite the freak monsoon that apparently followed us on our looping journey. It didn't stop raining until we got back to my house several hours later.

I threatened to punch the rain clouds in the face. Chuck Norris would have actually done it, I am sure.

1. Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

2. A man once asked Chuck Norris if his real name is "Charles". Chuck Norris did not respond, he simply stared at him until he exploded.

3. Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.

4. Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

5. The original theme song to the Transformers was actually "Chuck Norris--more than meets the eye, Chuck Norris--robot in disguise," and starred Chuck Norris as a Texas Ranger who defended the earth from drug-dealing Decepticons and could turn into a pick-up. This was far too much awesome for a single show, however, so it was divided.

6. Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of "beard". Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wisemen, jealous of Jesus' obvious gift favortism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after all three died of roundhouse kick related deaths.

7. Chuck Norris once shot a German plane down with his finger, by yelling, "Bang!"

8. When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail his family does not die from cholera or dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axels, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.

9. Chuck Norris can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying "booya".

10. Before each filming of Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris is injected with five times the lethal dose of elephant tranquilzer. This is, of course, to limit his strength and mobility, in an attempt to lower the fatality rate of the actors he fights.

11. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

12. When Chuck Norris's wife burned the turkey one Thanksgiving, Chuck said, "Don't worry about it honey," and went into his backyard. He came back five minutes later with a live turkey, ate it whole, and when he threw it up a few seconds later, it was fully cooked and came with cranberry sauce. When his wife asked him how he had done it, he gave her a roundhouse kick to the face and said, "Never question Chuck Norris."

13. Chuck Norris took my virginity, and he will sure as hell take yours. If you're thinking to yourself, "That's impossible, I already lost my virginity," then you are dead wrong.

14. Chuck Norris is currently sueing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

15. Chuck Norris once tried to sue Burger King after they refused to put razor wire in his Whopper Jr., insisting that that actually is "his" way.

16. Chuck Norris recently had the idea to sell his urine as a canned beverage. We know this beverage as Red Bull.

17. Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.

18. To prove it isn't that big of a deal to beat cancer, Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and acquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.

19. Chuck Norris once went to a frat party and proceeded to roundhouse every popped collar in sight. He then drank three kegs and shit on their floor, just because he's Chuck Norris.

20. The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain!

ultimullet and the greasy twins would be an excellent band name

I went out with Sara to see Brokeback Mountain for the second time on Tuesday night. I met her in an area of Washington County that exists in the early 1990s. The movie theater only charges $6 for an evening show and the drink sizes come in small, medium, and large.

I was considering moving to Washington County until we went to hang out in Denny's after the show. Their smoking laws are another throwback to 1992. The entire restaurant was filled with a thin gray haze, so when the hostess asked, "Would you like smoking or non-smoking?" I really couldn't stop myself.

"Is there a difference?"

She looked at me like I was crazy and pointed to a few booths in the front of the restaurant. "Well, smoking is up here, and non-smoking is back there." She gestured to the remaining 75% of tables.

"Ah, well, in that case... non-smoking."

So she wiped off our non-smoking table and removed the ashtray, as the people next to us probably needed it.

We spent the rest of the time getting to know each other and people-watching. I don't know about Sara, but I felt a little bit like Jane Goodall, observing the habits of the late-night diner crowd. Sara had a better vantage point than I did, but I could watch their acid-washed ghosts in the windows.

There was the guy with gray hair down to his hips and a baseball cap, (so it's possible he had the longest mullet ever, but not certain) his blonde permed wife, their nine-year-old son with the largest mullet I've ever seen, and their unfortunately normal-looking daughter. It was the son's mullet that really grabbed our attention, though. It was layered in the back, spiked in the front. It was lustrous and looked like after years of his ancestors wearing this particular hairstyle, it just naturally grew into business in the front, party in the back.

There was the greasy line cook who kept staring at Sara, possibly thinking of ways to get her into his white, windowless van as we left. We tried to read his mind.

"Pardon me, but is this your puppy? Oh look, he's hiding... If you can't see him, just lean in a little further..."
"I've broken my arm and I need help loading this chair into my car... could you just climb in and pull?"
"It puts the lotion in the basket or else it gets the hose again."
"I need a babysitter. I pay $30 an hour..."

And then his twin came in. No, really, it had to be the guy's twin. He was in a gas-station attendant's uniform, covered in his own particular type of grease. I wonder if they live together. Their laundry would smell like a basket of fries served in an old tool box.

There should soon be plenty more Tales of Adventure from Washington County--I just got a job doing closed captioning in Southpointe. I start on Monday.