I call bullshit!

The newest Bachelor is a liar (surprise!). Liar liar pants on fire! He’s a ‘self made millionaire’ who would give anything to have a wife. Says he wants to be a perfect husband, a good father, blah blah blah. If you’re this awesome, why do you need to be on some reality show to get a girl? I never watch the Bachelor or Bachelorette series; the backstabbing and lying upsets me and makes me think I should never date again. But tonight I wanted to find out about this new Bachelor, mainly because it looks like someone shrunk his head. I guess I just can’t comprehend how he can go from ‘I want to be a great husband’ to ‘Sure, I’ll suck the lime and tequila out of your cleavage’. From ‘I’m a respectful Southern gentleman’ to ‘I’m going to kiss a dozen different girls in one night’. I don’t get it.Are guys really like this? My cousins don’t do this, my guy friends don’t either. Or, at least they’re smart enough to avoid doing it around recording equipment. I swear, if I find out that all the good guys are gone… I’m going to take my best friend as my domestic partner and never look back. Although we did inadvertently swap spit once, while licking and wiping our fingers around a plate of powdered sugar, I’m pretty sure neither of us will be doing body shots off anyone any time soon.In other news… since we’re talking dating… I now am on two different dating websites, and I’m not allowed to say either name anymore (you’ll have noticed I deleted previous references), because now my little bitty freelance article has become this huge blown up experiment in dating, relating, and figuring out how the two sites work. I have some good options on both sites-had a date from one this weekend (Mr. Literary-he reads books!). Not really anything spectacular, but better than some have been. I have two awesome guys I’m talking to on the newer site, they will be The Boxer and The Pretty Boy. I have a little bit of an internet crush on both, now lets see if I can score some dates. I’ve already had a few too many-I accidentally texted the wrong guy Sunday night and was almost busted. I am so not good at this. I’m weeding out the extras; I’ll come up with my list of contenders soon. The Pretty Boy and The Boxer are totally in the final cut.

So. Angry.

At this particular moment, I am pissed. I spent all day today cleaning a certain house and doing laundry. I am not going to go into details on what the house looked like. But I am pissed. I can’t get this out of my head. The fucking house looked like it should have been condemned. I want to know what kind of a person can let their house get that disgusting. I want to know what kind of person can allow their children to live in a place that I wouldn’t even let a cockroach live in.I want to know what I can do to make this black anger subside. Because right now, it’s eating at me. I haven’t been this angry in a long time. And I cannot remember how to deal with it. I feel an actual urge for physical violence.

Malibu and rum, please.

I freely admit to having a drinking problem before I was old enough the buy the alcohol. I’m okay with that. What I am not okay with is my inability to stop at just one drink, and my nasty tendency to crawl into a Malibu bottle and stay there when things go badly in my life. So, in an effort to combat this weakness of mine I just plain don’t drink for the most part. I’ve drank about 4 times in the past two years, and all four times it’s ended badly. Now, my reaction to everything is to become violently ill. If I get stressed, if I’m upset, sometimes just because it’s Tuesday. My last ex nicknamed me ‘Pukey’ right before I broke up with him. Turns out he was the reason I was pukey. Anyway, if I drink… it’s guaranteed I’ll be sick. On any given day there’s a good 25 % chance I’ll end up on my knees. Add one drink of alcohol and that ups to about 80%. Add two or more drinks and it’s guaranteed I will be locking myself into a bathroom. You could place a bet on it.So, I was an idiot two days ago when I went to a dive bar and crawled into my Malibu bottle yet again because I was upset. I was with friends, I was playing pool, I was refusing to drink. Then I said “Well, just one”. And I lied.I hate myself when I drink. I get stupid and do things I wouldn’t ordinarily do. I say idiotic things. My grammatical structure gets shot to shit and I use words incorrectly. I am the Human Dictionary/Thesaurus! I am not supposed to do that! I don’t know why I ever even say yes to that first drink. In the back of my head a voice is screaming at me not to do it, that I’ll end up staggering out into the night in a few hours, after I say “Malibu and rum” instead of “Malibu and pineapple”.Ridiculous and embarrassing.

Wouldn't change this for the world...

Within a week of moving back home, I was sent on my first mission. Acquire ‘The Boys’ (My uncle Darien’s sons) from Nana’s, get them clothes from their house, and bring them back to my house, where they would be staying for the weekend. The kids’ parents had just made a decision to separate, and our normally bright, happy boys were quiet now when they talked, and they stared at the floor. Instead of fighting on the way out to the car, the quietly filed in and sat in the backseat. This was nothing like how they normally are. What could I do to make it better?I could speed, that’s what I could do. Going through the neighborhood to get to my uncle’s house, I hit every speed bump at about 30-35 mph. The first bump, they giggled. I rolled down the windows, cranked up the music, and yelled for them to hold on. The second bump, they began to laugh, as “Party Like a Rock Star” blared. By the time we got to the house, they were screaming with laughter as they tumbled out of the car.That’s when I knew that uprooting and coming back here was worth it. I also knew it was worth it when I was right here to help my 15-year old cousin with her speech for Student Council. When I was here for my uncle’s birthday last night. It’s worth it when Branden looks up at me, and with his little stutter says, “You know, you’re kind of a cool cousin”. When Payton runs out of the house and hugs me when I pick her up for our ‘girl’s day’ to see a movie and get lunch. When I stop at Sonic to get all of us limeades as the youngest boy reads to me from a story book in the backseat.I left behind in-state tuition, a boyfriend, good friends, and a good job for this. I don’t think I would ever change my mind and leave here to get that all back. I am most definitely here to stay.

Yaaaay, new book!

I’m in a much better mood than I was for my previous post. Mainly because the evil cheating woman who is causing so many issues has discovered that karma really will come back around to bite you in the ass. Bwahahahaaaaa… Anyway, I’ve had a hellish week of work, and I’m looking forward to the weekend. Mostly, I am looking forward to getting my hair highlighted again so it stops looking so grown out and raggedy. Other than that, not much to talk about, except my new book I’m reading: “Good Omens” by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It’s about Armageddon. It’s hilarious. Let me quote from the back of the book:“The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist”.So. Fricking. Funny. Neil Gaiman is an author who was introduced to me by a now ex-boyfriend. I had looked at “Good Omens”, “Neverwhere” and “American Gods”, but when I flipped through the books, nothing really seemed to grab me, and I always just put them back on the shelf… Then went back to flip through them again when I couldn’t find a new book I wanted. Jeff bought me “American Gods” for Christmas one year, so I kind of had to read it. He’d read it and kept asking me about it, so finally I sat down with it… and loved it. “Good Omens” is equally entertaining, and “Neverwhere” is now officially on my book list.

Hercules ain't got nothin' on these kids.

I have two new heroes. They are ages 9 and 10, and they earned the designation ‘hero’ after each battled with the vicious arcade game in which you use a weak little claw to grab a stuffed animal. They came away victorious, and awarded me an overstuffed giraffe and a fuzzy purple pig, keeping a silver giraffe and yellow mouse for themselves. One of my heroes fell asleep in the backseat of my car on the ride home, exhausted by his encounter with the stuffed animal machine.My prizes are now sitting on my bed, on my 600 thread count pillowcases. The combatants have run back into my bedroom twice to check that I still have them on my bed. The purple pig is shedding fuzz on my pillows, but it is still there, and will stay there, along with the potbellied giraffe.

Warm and fuzzy? Try cold and spiky.

So I was informed today that I need to be more cuddly with my coworkers. And that I need to stop using big words that make people feel stupid. Ok, first up, I don't do cuddly except under certain conditions. Second, why is it my fault that others' vocabularies are limited? Can't we put a positive spin on this? Think of me as the office Word-of-the-Day calendar. "Jess, it's Tuesday, what's the word?" "Anathema. Something no one likes. Me, apparently."Some people just take a little work to get to know... and I'm really not there to make friends anyway. I'm there to work. All of my clients love me, to the point of writing my higher-ups to say so. I do not see the problem here. I just see a lot of people that don't know how to deal with someone who's a little different. Dammit.Anyway, speaking of my being a little different, let's talk about the poor guys that got saddled up with me via eHarmony. There are too many of the same initials now so I've switched to nicknames. I can't believe I'm getting paid for this... Anyway, nicknames. We have:"The Cop" (Seems nice enough, and he has a picture with Dana White. If you don't know who that is, you are anathema)"Mr MMA" (Very attractive. Knows he is very attractive. Very much an ass)"The White Philipino" (I swear this guy is not white, even though he claims that racial designation)"The Banker" (Life's goal? Win the Lotto)"The Traveler" (Has like 4 different workplaces, including one in Alaska)"Mr Biceps" (Another cop)"The Karate Kid" (Owns some martial arts studio)"The Photographer" (Has two chihuahuas, which makes me doubt his sexuality.)"The Volunteer" (Just started talking to him, my only Tucson contender)Then of course we have N, who is apparently not interested, perhaps because I really would need a stepladder to hang out with him. There is also P, who I met without eHarmony's help, and who I cannot get off my back.Too many...

Sept. 11

Every year, without fail, I write a September 11 post. It takes many varied forms, everything from a simple, “Yes, I remember”, to an elaborate story. This year will be a storytelling, a remembrance of that sad day.Sometimes I think people push the memory of Sept. 11 to the back of their minds, along with other things too painful to deal with. The more immediate concerns of the grocery list and the dry cleaning are infinitely easier to handle; we skim through this day thinking of the most trivial things possible, waiting for midnight, for release, for another day when we can pretend nothing happened.I refuse to push it to the back of my mind. I have far too many family members and friends stuck in the Godforsaken hellhole that is the Middle East to be so disrespectful as to push this away. So here goes.I woke up that morning to my blaring radio-the one thing I couldn’t sleep through. I vaguely remember hearing the words ‘plane’ and ‘tower’. I got out of bed and hit the shower, turning on the radio again when I got out. I found out the news through the voice of a slightly panic-stricken deejay, then ran out into the living room to turn on CNN. I watched a live feed from a camera aimed at the towers. I saw the second plane hit. Because this was live, there was no pretty censoring like we have now in the years following. There was no sugarcoating.The memory that sticks with me the most is the memory of watching those battered and bloodied men and women run. The sheer panic, the need to run, somewhere, anywhere, was written all over their faces.That same need to run was the prevailing on my high school campus. I was a sophomore, and my boyfriend at the time had a family member in the NYPD. He was in tears; we sat there on the filthy classroom floor, his head on my chest as he cried, and my eyes fixed on the television screen. Students wandered all over campus, congregating in rooms of favorite teachers, or classrooms with televisions. Some walked down the street to the houses of other students, jam-packing the living rooms of people they’d never met, all to get to a television. Campus security and the administrators didn’t care, they let us do as we wished. Because, I mean, really, we have an ‘in case of fire, break glass’ box, but we do not have an ‘in case of national tragedy’ box.Every year, I remember. They say constant contact with a memory desensitizes you. I disagree. For the first time in six years of memorial posting, the monitor and keyboard are blurred in front of me. I have a balled up tissue next to me, smeared with mascara and wet with tears.For the first time in these six years, I wept when I remembered.

Dear (insert name here)...

Dear Eminem lookalike:While I much appreciate your screech of "California girls are SEXY" first thing in the morning, perhaps you should keep a couple things in mind. First, you really should not hit on a girl driving her very own car, when you are riding across the intersection on your bicycle. Secondly, making a V shape with your fingers and enthusiastically wriggling your tongue between them will not cause me to rip off my clothing and leap on you. It may, however, make me fling my half-empty Diet Coke can at you.Dear Guy-Who-Is-Too-Cool:Would it kill you to walk across the intersection with a modicum of speed? I understand that your pants sagging halfway down your ass may be hampering your ability to walk quickly. But I am sitting here watching you walk as I try to get to work. Perhaps you could hike up those jeans before I help you speed things up by pushing you through the crosswalk. On the hood of my car.Dear Little Old Lady:I understand you would like to get an early start on your day, after all, Ensure is on sale at Wal-Mart! However, if you could just wait until maybe 8:00, after most of us have made it to the office, it would be great. I don't know why you're going so slow anyway-you've got one foot in the grave.Dear Courier:I don't know what is so exciting in your pocket that you constantly need to have your hand moving in it, and no, I do not want to see. It is very distracting when you play with your junk and then use that same hand to hand me the bags. I must then try to determine which part of the bag you have yet to touch, and I always end up squirting Purell all over the damn thing after you leave anyway.

Time for a new vehicle

So… I’m going to be buying myself a new car this weekend. Out with the old, in with the new.I never really wanted my car to begin with. My car was what I could afford, nothing more. It used to be a rental, it has stained seats, and you can only unlock the doors via the driver’s side door. Not a classy vehicle. So now that I can afford something nicer, I decided to go with something bigger, so I could fit my cousins in it more easily, and something a little less… cheap looking. So I’m buying a mini-SUV.The thing is, the new car is going to take some time to really make mine. Granted, my little Hyundai can’t go over 60 without having an epileptic seizure. Granted, if I hit anything, I will die in a twisted crush of metal. But, I’ve also been driving this little thing for about 4 years; I bought and paid for it myself. Not my first car, but the first car that I bought all on my own. There’s a bit of attachment to it.I packed all my crap into it and drove to Southern California, cursing the lazy moving company that left half our stuff behind, and the move itself that was causing me to leave a boyfriend behind. I’ve driven off in it to sit in a parking lot and sob, because I can’t stand the thought of any human seeing me cry. I got caught by the cops engaging in ‘public indecency’ with one of my boyfriends. That car has been the site of kisses, screaming fights, hysterics, panic attacks, shouts of joy, and times where my friends and I have looked like idiots with the stereo cranked up. I love the stupid thing. Or I love what’s happened in it, the memories.Guess I’ll just have to make new memories in my new car. At least I have an excuse to act like a moron. And maybe commit a few more public indecencies.

Cause I'm a midget

I hate the area code thing here in Arizona. If you are dialing from the same area code you’re calling to, the phone shrieks in your ear, then a snotty voice informs you “Moron, you do NOT need to dial that area code, because you’re IN it”. In California, they were happy you took the time to make that extra effort and dial the area code. The phone went straight to ring, not straight to primal scream.Whew. Glad I got that out of my system. It was really bothering me.Speaking of bothersome, I have N on the brain. I got a little kiss last night from him, which was, unfortunately, a bit more awkward than romantic. See, he is literally 13 inches taller than I am. At one point in the evening he made a joke about needing to start carrying a stepladder around for me if he was going to continue to be around. Hey, bring on the stepladders, I say. I sure needed one for a goodnight peck. We hugged goodbye, and there I was, smothered by his chest, trying to figure out how to manage the goodnight kiss. Climb him like a monkey? No. Make him get on his knees? Tempting, but again, no. He said something about me being so short and I had a moment of retarded brilliance.I totally grabbed him by the wrists, dragged him to a curb, hopped up onto said curb, and made it happen. Yaaay sidewalks!