Um, this isn’t as weird as it looks

Andy: (putting vacuum cleaner away in closet adjacent to room) …

Me: Okay, this isn’t as weird as it looks.

Andy: It looks like you’re playing Words with Friends in the nude.

Me: Well, I am, but I’m playing against my cousin.

Andy: Okay, that’s actually weirder than it looks.

Me: No, see, I was getting in the shower and I heard Words with Friends chime so I came in here to mute it so it wouldn’t be annoying but then I decided to go ahead and take my turn and then I saw on facebook that my friend’s wife had a baby and I was like “awesome! I didn’t even know they were expecting” and … well … I was getting ready to get in the shower.

Andy: I’m pretty sure you crossed all sorts of weird lines right there.

Me: Well it’s not like I have a webcam.

Andy:  Sigh … (wanders away)

This is why people with A.D.H.D. shouldn’t multitask.

Well played, Swingline

In addition to becoming part owner of a retail business recently, I also opened a general practice law firm.  I know, right?  So in doing all of the tons of set up stuff I got a business credit card for the purchasing of the office supplies and whatnot.

My first purchase!

My second purchase: a printer.  Seriously.

It gets better though.  When I got to the counter to pay for my red Swingline stapler (and yes, it’s full size despite looking oddly small in this picture) the clerk informed me that I got this little guy for free!

“The Legendary Red Stapler Ornament”

So now I have a little family of red Swingline staplers!

When I got it home and started to open the packaging, I discovered this subtle marketing gem.

Well played, Swingline. Well played.

Well crap. Literally.

Apparently what happens if you eat a half dozen Red Lobster cheddar bay biscuits and manage to survive the night is that you crap your pants at the grocery.  I really wish I was exaggerating a particularly nasty fart for comedic effect but nope, that happened. It was really more a shart than a full crap but yeah, outside of illness and too many laxatives, this is a horrific first for me.  Also, people often tell me that they love how I am so open and can just talk about myself so easily.  This is the down side to that right here.  I’m pretty sure most people don’t share these stories.  I’m also pretty sure Andy won’t be sharing this blog post.

In less disturbing news, I’d like to thank the hilarious Noodles & Company employee with no concept of volume control for making my lunch so entertaining.

I was craving Pad Thai today so I went to the snooty upscale shopping center half way between work and home.  Like many midwest snooty shopping centers it is always packed to the hilt with a bunch of cookie cutter white people.  There are business men and women, bored stay at home moms, and rich college kids in there mostly.  Nearly all of the employees look exactly like the customers and were it not for the name tags it would be hard to tell the employees from the patrons.  Today though, I walked into Noodles to find a tall, heavy-set black woman in the kitchen and a middle aged guy in a kilt in line in front of me.  Cool, I thought.  This place is finally diversifying a little.

As it turned out, it was even better than I could have hoped because the black woman – and let me say that no, I don’t say African American because not all black people are from Africa and because I have known people who are from Africa who are black, white, and brown so I just find the term unnecessary and inaccurate.  Black people know they’re black.  It’s okay to say so.  Anyway, this woman was hilarious and had absolutely no idea how well her voice carries.  The second the kilted guy was out of her view, and bear in mind, he hadn’t left, he was just no longer standing where she could see him she said:

Loud employee: HAHA!  DID Y’ALL SEE THAT MAN WEARIN’ A SKIRT?!?!

Another employee (probably aware the guy was still there): Oh, he was wearing a kilt.  Maybe he’s going play the bagpipes for us.

Loud employee: WANTS SOMEBODY TO PLAY WITH HIS BAG AND PIPE MORE LIKE!  HAHA!

Kilted guy headed deliberately toward the back door so as to stay out of sight of the employees conversing about him.  I was disappointed.  I was really hoping one of them would ask him if he’s wearing underwear.  Guys in kilts get that A LOT.  So much so that many of them will show you rather than answer the question.  That would have made my lunch perfect.

Other employee: (I couldn’t hear what she said but I am assuming it was something to the effect of can you or would you play bagpipes)

Loud employee: SHOOT NO!  I AIN’T GOT WIND FOR THAT.  I PLAY CLARINET AND VIOLIN THOUGH.

I’d beg to differ loud, funny lady.  I think you most certainly “have the wind for that”.

After that they got really busy so there was no more commentary from the kitchen.  I quickly became surrounded by the boring droning of the most vanilla of wealthy white people.  Then I remembered why I seldom go to the uppity shopping mall despite it being the closest place I can get Thai food.  I don’t really fit in with uppity white people.  I don’t really fit in with most people, if I am entirely honest.  I guess the nice thing about not fitting in anywhere though, is that I’ve kind of learned how to blend in most everywhere.  Well, so long as I don’t open my mouth.  If I have to open my mouth I’m much more like the loud Noodle lady.  I may stick out like a sore thumb, but hopefully I’m at least entertaining.

 

Apparently we’re fat AND co-dependent. Well that sucks.

Earlier today I was thinking about how it sucks that I have to work so much harder than Andy does to make less money than he does all because my vagina is being penalized. It’s not nearly as fun as it sounds.

Speaking of being screwed by your vagina (aka gender inequality) today when I came home from work and immediately cooked dinner like I always do not because anyone asks me to but because there’s a societal expectation that as a woman I am supposed to take care of the house and family and … WHOA! Sorry about that. I sent my daughter to a liberal arts school and clearly I’ve spent way too much time talking to her lately. I’m all for feminism, don’t get me wrong, but this is a post about co-dependent fat people.

What I was trying to say was, tonight I made a batch of Red Lobster cheddar bay biscuits for dinner because Andy loves them and I love cooking things that make him happy. But he wants me to be happy too so he does things like eat way too many and then tell me I should eat more because he feels bad for eating too many and then I eat more because I feel like he has given me some permission I needed or something and then the next thing you know, we seriously ate an entire batch of cheese and butter filled dough. 14 biscuits, you guys.  I am not even exaggerating.  I’m fairly certain we aren’t going to make it until morning.  I think I can actually feel my arteries congealing as I type this.

The sad thing is, we do this crap all the time. Not just with food either, but with being lazy. Andy is very sedentary and constantly talks me into joining him in sedentary activities. I do it easily because I like spending time with him and the things we do together are fun. The thing is though, when Andy and I got together 7 years ago, I was strictly watching what I ate and exercising every day and he was controlling his portions and trying to make a point to be less sedentary. We have become locked in a co-dependent relationship where we are each dependent on the other to allow us to be fat.

Andy and me in 2006.

Andy and me in 2012.

So I guess the first step is admitting we have a problem.  The second step is making the rest of the cheddar bay biscuits and taking them to the pot luck I’m going to on Saturday.

Also, even though they’re mine, I’ll say it.  Boobs.  That’s not a step, that’s pointing out the white elephant in the room.  Literally, in this case.

Soooo I may have just flashed my neighbor

Yeah, that happened.

When I was getting in the shower this morning there was either a dead centipede or a wad of dog hair on the mat.  I couldn’t determine which and I didn’t want to look closer for fear of lapsing into some Lovecraftian monster induced madness, so I threw a towel over it and tried to pretend it wasn’t there.

I took my shower, put on Andy’s giant robe and went to let the dogs out.  As soon as I got outside though, it felt like something bit me so I squealed “Ahhh centipede” flung my robe open and began jumping, swatting, and shooing simultaneously before remembering I was in my yard wearing nothing but the robe I had just flung open.  Yeah.

Luckily it was 6:00 AM so most of my neighbors were probably asleep.  Less luckily I saw the neighbor directly  behind me let her dogs out just before I let mine out so I knew she was up.  Also her lights were on.  So I fixed my robe, stood on my back porch and squinted into my neighbor’s house to see if I could see her within seeing distance of me.  I’m not sure what I planned to do if she was though.

Then I realized that if she could see me, what she saw was me stand facing her place, rip my robe open, act all crazy, and then stare at her.  I’m hoping she doesn’t  call the police.  This will be pretty hard to explain.

Come with me and you’ll be …

in a world of surprisingly little imagination.
This will (hopefully) come as a surprise to many of you, but I am severely challenged in the suspension of belief / imagination department.  I suppose you could say I’m creative.  I like to do things with my hands.  I used to draw pretty well.  I kind of sculpt a little and am good at thinking of things to sculpt.  I can jury rig just about anything.  I’m good at stuff like that.  I can’t enjoy fiction like most people though.  Most books won’t hold my attention.  Sad movies never make me cry.  I get overly distracted by plot holes and predictability in scripts.  OMG, I do not understand pen and paper RPG’s.  People who refer to playing video games like they’re actually in them baffle me.  I just completely and utterly lack the ability to pretend I am someone else or to get immersed in a story I know didn’t really / isn’t really happening.  All of my witticisms are simply twists on existing things.  Puns, parodies, satirical jabs, and sarcasm.  Even my “art” if you can call it that, is reproduction or combining existing things in new ways.  This doesn’t really bother me or anything.  I’m just baffled by how others seem to do it so easily.

My daughter wears a fairy costume at renaissance festivals.  Her fairy has props and a back story, heck, she has a whole fairy world where different types of fairies live in different places and whatnot.  For example, she lives in a sunflower and drinks an elixir that makes her people sized so she can interact with humans when she wants to.  Flower fairies and tree fairies have bad blood between them.  They’re easy to tell apart though because tree fairies have pointy ears.  There aren’t really any rock fairies but it’s considered very posh to live in a geode.   She thinks they’re really too flashy and quite uncomfortable though, so she doesn’t really see what all the fuss is about.

I’ve worked at Ren faires for 7 years and I can’t even maintain the same accent all day, let alone come up with a back story.

It’s the same with Andy and his gamers.  They’ll play a game and then stand around and reminisce about it like it not only actually happened but like they weren’t all just there.  Or Andy will tell some story about gaming or airsoft or whatever and his friends all play along like he just got back from a tour overseas and is telling legit war stories.
I contemplated playing the Dresden Files RPG until I discovered I couldn’t just say I was Molly would have to create a character and then try to think and act like that character.  What?!?!  I totally can’t do that.

The ability to think in stories like that is just so weird and foreign to me.  Heck, even as a kid when we played Barbies I really just wanted to dress them up and fix their hair.  I never cared about whatever little scenario we were supposed to be playing out.

I’m not really sure what the point of any of this is other than it occurred to me to find it odd that the lifelong weird girl who wanted to grow up to be an artist utterly lacks an imagination.  I guess it’s a good thing I’m smart and a good technical writer or I guess I’d be screwed.  Also, I always did suck at ending things that I write so, um, the end.

 

Now Weird Science is stuck in my head

My dog is so fragging weird!  I put a bra on her head and she liked it.  She wore it all day until I finally took it off of her myself.

I don’t even know what else to say about this other than …

(Weird science)
Plastic tubes and pots and pans
Bits and pieces and
Magic from the hand
We’re makin’

(Weird science)
Things I’ve never seen before
Behind bolted doors
Talent and imagination

(Weird science)

You’re welcome.

EPIC Weekend (part 2) More gaming con shenanigans

The second installment in the story of my epic weekend at Origins Game Fair.  If you missed part 1, we revese photo-bombed Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day, played board games with Grant Wilson, and drank rum with a modern day pirate.  You should check it out… but you don’t have to.  This posts does fine as a stand-alone.

Wherein I peddled some wares…

Sleep was fail.  I had to be at the vendor hall early because I had a load of my friend Kace’s patchwork skirts in my car and had to get them to Journeyman Leather so they could be sold.  If you’re in Ohio this fall you should come see us at Silver Squirrel at the Ohio Rennaisance Festival.  You should also buy a skirt while you’re there because they are beautiful, you can wear them year round, and they’re guaranteed to match everything in your closet.  (Can you tell I’ve been doing that pitch for 7 years?)

Wherein I was nearly exterminated …

While delivering skirts I discovered there was a Doctor Who booth run by Who North America which is semi-local (within a reasonable drive if I have other plans in the area type deal) and I was like how could practically everyone I know have been here for 3 days already and nobody thought to mention this?!?!  And then I was all like HOLY CRAP A DALEK! How did nobody think to tell me there was a Dalek here?!?!  … and also a Tardis but who doesn’t have a Tardis these days?

Wherein my cheese curds were disappointingly not squeaky…

After that it was off to lunch at North Market with a few friends.  Good food and good times were had by all.

Wherein my friends totally geek out …

While at lunch my friends Steve and Ofelia asked what I had planned for the day.  I said I had promised to go by and demo “Four Taverns” so I needed to go do that but otherwise I was free.  They said they’d like to demo the game too and could they tag along.  I said sure and off we went.

Turns out, Steve and Ofelia are huge Ghost Hunters fans and were hilariously star struck over meeting Grant Wilson.  They couldn’t stop grinning and taking pictures the whole time.  It was fun though and Grant was an awesome sport.  He even agreed to talk to Steve’s sister on the phone.

Look at Steve cheesin,! He was just a little excited. haha

While we were demoing “Four Taverns” no less than 15 people came by to see me.  It was awesome and I was reminded that at least once or twice a year I am surrounded by people who find me more awesome than awkward, and I am totally okay with that.  As for the game, it’s great and I’m going to post a review today or tomorrow. Please check it out. If you can’t wait that long, here’s a link to Rather Dashing Games. I was originally going to post the review here but this post is already a bit too long and Mike and Grant would probably rather have a review in which I’m not also geeking over Daleks and talking about nipple juju anyway.

Wherein Ofelia loves you, man …

Moving on… Saturday was also Ofelia’s birthday and you can’t have a birthday at a con without your friends getting you drunk.  Con’s, however, aren’t like Vegas.  What happens at cons ends up photographed, videotaped, blogged, and otherwise spread all over the interwebz.  That said, here’s Ofelia drunk dialing everyone she knows while her husband videotaped it.  I’m not sure what she was talking about because it was loud where we were, but at one point I was put on the phone with her sister-in-law to explain why I was being mean to her in our game.

Wherein I discover the awesome evil power of my left nipple …

The game was Risk and I always think I want to play Risk but then I remember that I totally suck at rolling dice.  I don’t care what anyone says, dice rolling is a skill and it’s a skill I don’t possess.  I even got personalized dice with my name on them.  It didn’t help.  Those dice hate me the most of all dice and it makes me sad.  I also suck at playing green no matter what the game.  I don’t know why, I just suck at green.

Anyway, we were playing Risk and Steve’s teenaged nephew was kicking my butt and I was about to die and be out of the game when it came to me.  Andy does this thing where, when he needs a good roll he rubs his dice on his nipples.  The sad thing is, it works.  This is like the whole sucking at dice and green thing.  I don’t know what weird forces rule the gaming universe.  I do know, however, that nipples are like little portals or beacons of power or something that link the gaming forces to our mortal world.

For reasons I won’t go into my left nipple is evil.  It occurred to me that if I could properly harness this power, I could sabotage everyone else’s rolls and catch back up in the game.  So, before the child could attack me again, I grabbed his dice and rubbed them on my left nipple while singing the evil nipple song (which I made up as I went).  I then made weird jinxing hand motions from my left nipple to the board and handed Michael back his dice.  He rolled all 1’s.  It was doubly awesome because 1’s totally look like nipples.  Maybe that’s why nipples are beacons through which game powers are channeled?  hmmmm

The amazing thing was, he couldn’t stop rolling 1’s.  Roll after roll 1’s kept coming up until the poor boy screamed “What have you done to these dice?!?!  Take it back!  You have to take it back!”  You don’t want to mess with my evil nipple.  It’s bad news.

So you might be thinking there’s a flaw in my bad nipple juju strategy in that I will eventually have to roll those same dice to defend my dudes.  Not so.  You see, the universe must remain in balance so for every evil nipple there must also be a good nipple.  I’m pretty sure that’s a Taoist principle.

Believe it or not the powers of the gaming universe being channeled through my nipples was so powerful that not only did I not die, I came back and won the game!  and then I wrote “nipple” on the board.  True story.

So that’s how I spent day 2 at Origins.  I saw lots of other people and did lots of other things but it wasn’t any of those people’s birthdays so whatever, they got left out.

Please tune in tomorrow for my review of “Four Taverns” and a few more pics from the con.  G’night everybody.

It’s not herpes!

PSA – This is a pimple.

It is a very large and disgusting pimple, but a pimple nonetheless.

Pretty much the only place I ever get pimples is right next to my lip.  I think this is probably because I lick my lips a lot.  I also have the unfortunate nervous habits (or neuroses?) of chewing my lip, chewing on my nails / fingertips, and rolling my lower lip between my thumb and index finger when I’m concentrating.  I try not to do these things, but I don’t always succeed.

Before I continue, I want to say, I mean no disrespect to people who have the herpes virus and unfortunately have to live with herpes mouth sores.  I don’t think it means anything negative about you and understand that most people actually contract it as children through harmless daily interactions.

That said, I hate looking like I have herpes.  It’s awful and makes me more self-conscious than I already am.  Plus just having a lip pimple is bad enough without having people think its herpes.  Lips are very sensitive.  Lip pimples are, in my experience, huge, very puss filled, and cause a lot of swelling.  They also take FOREVER to heal.   Plus, because my lip pimple makes my lip swell, it feels funny so I unconsciously keep touching it, which only prolongs the eternity in which I have to live with it grossing up my lip.

If I had other pimples, it probably wouldn’t be as bad.  But when it’s just one, and it’s on your lip, everyone assumes you have the herps.  I am so neurotically worried about this stupid pimple that I have actually questioned whether it might prevent me from getting  a job and have wondered if people go behind me disinfecting things in the office after I leave.  Yes, I know this is irrational!  Haven’t you figured out yet that I am a highly irrational person?

I have had my current facial monstrosity for about a week and it hasn’t improved in the slightest.  Because I can’t stop touching the stupid thing, today I resorted to drastic measures and covered it with a waterproof band-aid.

Somehow this is better in my mind.  I mean, anything could be under there.  Rather than a pimple, maybe I was punched in the mouth during some domestic violence, or maybe I was in a car accident and a piece of windshield cut my lip, or maybe I have such chronically dry skin that it just cracked open.  None of those things would make people wipe down my keyboard while I’m at lunch, right?

These are seriously things that I worry about.  It’s no wonder I’m socially awkward.  I don’t even know how to function inside my own head!

Conversations in bed … random babbling

For those who may not have read my previous “conversations in bed” posts

like this one – Conversations in bed: Your guys suck at Star Wars.

or this one – Conversations in bed: Cats are punny.

I have a very difficult time falling asleep most nights.  I also have adult A.D.H.D. and like to talk … a lot.  All of this typically culminates in me annoying Andy until either he falls asleep despite my chattering or I wander off to fall asleep on the couch while watching Family Guy.  Here are a few of last night’s bedtime story gems.

Me: I was thinking, if I had a kid named Jubal, I think I’d make his middle name Lee.  I mean, why not?  If you’re going to stick a kid with with a name like Jubal, may as well go for broke and make him Jubilee.  Lamest mutant ever, by the way.  Ohhh, fireworks.  Stupid.

Andy: You were just thinking about what you would make the middle name of a theoretical kid you don’t plan on having based on a first name you don’t like anyway?

Me: Yup, that and a X-Men character I don’t like.  The name “X-Men” is a bit sexist, don’t you think?  There were plenty of X-Women.  Really cool X-Women at that.

Andy:  (ignores me and tries to fall asleep.  Somewhere in the house his phone says “droid”)

Me: Phone’s droidin’, dude.

Andy: mumble charging mumble

Me: I think if I have to go into practice by myself, and open my own law firm, I think I should legally change my last name to Droid but spell it like a last name, like D – R – O – Y – D or something.  Then, on my sign and business cards and ads and stuff, I can put “Droyd Law Office, this IS the Droyd you’re looking for”

Andy: Why do I let you speak?

Me: Seriously, you know what kind of cool clientele I’d get?  I’d have the best clients ever.

Andy: I don’t really think it works like that.

Me: COME ON! If you needed an attorney and were looking through the yellow pages or Google or whatever and you saw “Droyd Law Office, this IS the Droyd you’re looking for” would you continue to browse attorneys?  Heck no!  You’d be like, ‘Frick yeah!  This attorney is AWESOME!”.  This is pure gold here!  I could get elected to office with a slogan like that.

Andy: snnnnnnn

Me: Fine!  You know, you used to share my vision.

Andy: snnnnnn (if you’ve ever heard Andy snore, you know this is dead on how he sounds)

Me: sigh Family Guy it is.