It's My Birthday and I'll Barf If I Want To

I've been a real homebody lately. Lola, books, Nesto, I've been reveling in the three of them. I definitely go through streaks in which I prefer to be alone, to be quiet, to listen to myself think. When Lola isn't yapping, that is. Along with this hermit inclination, I consciously decided to exercise regularly, eat healthy-ish and abstain from my nightly glass of wine.

The first two are pretty self-explanatory, I want to look nice and feel nice. The wine though, ahhhh, I LOVE WINE. Cheap wine. Dry, red wine. Yummmmmm.... When I found myself actually wishing I could have a glass of wine for breakfast before work though, I decided to lay off the sauce for awhile. And it's worked out well, I feel good about it.

Well, today is my birthday. And last night I was due to go out with my Wednesday night pals, Roy and Meg. Royboy bailed on me, go figure but Meg and I got saucy.

After some Celtic Crossing shots and during bar dice I remembered the problem with drinking after a hiatus. Those limits I was so comfortable with, the limits I had meticulously researched during my late teen years in a journal dedicated specifically to my limits...had dropped. DRASTICALLY.

So, I ended up giving myself an intimate encounter with the Porcelain God for my birthday...twice.

Being hungover on your birthday should be impossible along with getting sick while pregnant. I guess I could thank my lucky stars I am neither sick nor pregnant but I'm too fucking hungover.

So wise am I in my 24 years.

My Pants Are On Fire!

I know Lola has been conspicuously absent from Blackheart Lola lately, she's taking a long lunch but I expect her back soon. Ugh, my office persona just butted in. No, she's wonderful, thriving and sassy, just as you'd expect a little Lola to be and her updates are coming soon, promise!
In the meantime, I will bore you with my revolving-door love life s'more. Behold:

Saturdays are a day full of excitement for me, the day I love waking up early on so I can get to the bookstore, the specialty grocers, hit up a cafe for lunch, hike and be active with my Lo. Two Saturdays ago, I got more than I bargained for. Lola was sick with a flu/cold combo that was kicking both our asses so when she slept in (past 8am) on Saturday, I thanked my lucky stars and slept on.

Until Nesto called. Usually a great source of joy, he called apologizing right off the bat. Since we haven't even gotten a chance to become close enough to fight, I had NO idea what he was apologizing for. It soon became clear, however his ex had "found" a text from me and wished to speak with me as she didn't believe him when he said he wasn't a liar, a cheat and a very bad man.

He felt really bad so I told him, "sure, have her call me. I'm awake now, might as well." Well, call she did, during a horrible I'm-too-tired-and-sick-to-do-anything-but-lay-on-the-floor-and-cry episode from Lo. Between the bouts of screaming, she framed her questions in a firm and suspicious manner but she was kind and real and believed me as I lied to her.

Granted, this is a Friends scenario where her and Nesto were already broken up but should I have driven him back to his car instead of bringing him home with me? Probably. Should he have answered "car" when I gave him the option of car or couch? Probably. Do I feel bad for "going for it?" No, not in the slightest. Do I feel bad for lying? Yes, more horribly than I could have anticipated.

Lying to her about my feelings for Nesto can only mean trouble down the road (if there is indeed a road) as they have a child together and we will be coming into contact with one another. While she may be a bit high strung, I can empathize with her feelings over their breakup after 13 (!!) years together and I can tell ya what, I sure wouldn't like being directly lied to by the "other" woman after I have to balls to call and question said woman. I feel terrible because she could be me and I could be her, but for a few simple twists of fate. Bad karma is whispering threats in my ear.

Most of all, I feel bad because she was nice. Maybe if I look at it from a "white lie" perspective in which my lie actually helped her, I would feel better. Did I save her unnecessary grief? They were already broken up, she moved out this past weekend. Would the knowledge have helped her heal in anyway, doubtful? If they were broken up, is it any of her goddamn business? White lie status nonwithstanding, the important question is this: Do I still feel like a huge douchebag?
The answer is a resounding "YES."

ADDENDUM:
Nesto just brought me some tea during the writing of this post and while the tea alone is delicious, the thinking of me part really gets my goose. Charming motherfucker. May he be worth the shanking I might suffer at the hands of his ex...

When Fungus Is Amongus, A Post For Stewie

Last Saturday I abandoned my baby to her father's loving arms and fled to the Dells. To any non-Wisconsinites, this is the tourist town you flee to for a variety of reasons, some of which include Noah's Ark, go-karting, indoor water parks, assloads of bars or simply to lose yourself in the kitschy neon lights. Think along the lines of a chlorinated spring break destination for the destitute northerner....

Anyways, we gathered for my friend's birthday and like every other time we gather, there is food, homemade, lots of it. Mari made German chocolate birthday cupcakes, fruit salad, sandwich supplies. I brought along a banana blueberry bread and good cheer. With my Marbar however, you can be sure there will be some sort of culinary plan within a plan, so you have to ask about illicit ingredients in homemade food before chowing down or you may unwittingly find yourself with an altered reality.

Never one to disappoint, a quick search of the guitar bag revealed some homegrown hallucingens, tucked into Lindt chocolate with a decorative pecan topping. An artistic one, that Mari.

I'll skip over the craziness of an indoor water park crawling with people while under the influence, suffice it say that it was fun...and weird. I'll skip over the the hotel bars I got persuaded to visit while under the influence, suffice it say it was tedious. I'll even skip over the sensual massage sessions, suffice it to say they were niiiiiceeeee. Fast forward all the way to the time when I decided to sleep.

After 10 hours of partying, I was tired. I snuggle in next to my Dobyns and begin to crash, only to be jostled awake by Troy snuggling me into an Etta sammich. Ok, whatever, my mama taught me to share. When Megan moved to the other bed with Billy in it, I shifted, allowing Troy a full half of the bed, methinks I was too kind in hindsight.

As I'm sinking into blessed unconsiousness, I feel a hand slide up my thigh and onto my ass. I removed it and flung it back to it's owner...and like a bad penny, it came back. All night.

I tried to find an alternate sleeping situation but that was a no-go, I tried pushing him off the bed, nope. I shook him, in hopes of waking him up enough to list my grievences so he could remedy the situation, ha, dream on. I got snuggled folks. I don't care to be touched while sleeping and not only was I touched, but I was fucking snuggled within an inch of my life. I awoke wrapped in Troy.

After escaping from his clutches, Dobyns went back into our room for her tea and came out laughing.

"Did you know Troy was naked?"

"What the fuck? NO! Eww, no."

So there it is, a moral for all you moralistic folks: when you are happy with the other occupant of your double bed, put it on lockdown.

Honesty, A True Cure for the Mondays

It's a two-parter today foo's, MB gave me an award! Me, Miss-Wins-Nothing-And-Likes-It! Tra-la-la, what a fabulous day! Award first and little things like LOLA'S BIRTHDAY (!!) will come after. Hooray for today.

Here are the rules for this award:

a) List 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!

and

b) Pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap. Here goes:



1. I firmly believe in dying with dignity and support assisted suicide. Furthermore, I think a person's life is the one thing that truly belongs to him/her and ending that life is personal decision that shouldn't always be met with criticism or stigma. (Disclaimer: I don't think that people should go offing themselves left and right, just that they have the complete right to do so.)

2. I had a pig named MaryJane who just died a few days ago. She was living on a farm-type situation and because it was cold, I kept pushing off bringing her food and more blankets. Now she's dead and I feel so frickin' guilty! (Disclaimer II: She had her own shed, with straw and was fed regularly and has survived several WI winters in such a manner.)

3. I cheated on my first boyfriend, a good man, and to this day have not admitted it to him. Should I? Maybe, but what's the point anymore?

4. I prefer the company of my cat and my books to 90% of the people I know and profess to like. I do like them, but I love my cat and books.

5. I only write for BHL at work. So...technically...I get paid to blog.

6. I also smoke pot at work with my boss. So... I definitely get paid to get high.

7. My favorite bookstore is closing. It's a wonderful independent chain of eight stores, in business for 80 years! I've been buying books there since second grade, one of my favorite places in this world. Of course, I am very sad for them to be going out of business and all the employees out of jobs. I am most sad however because I've been working on this employee named Brian for years. I like immediate satisfaction people, years is a long time for me. Brian is cute in a booky-sort of way and while I can barely get him to greet me with eye contact, get this guy talking about fantasy books, or better yet, graphic novels and your ear might be in danger of getting talked off. Jeez, #7 is a novel! Anyway, I have to now take the plunge and ask this nerd out before he's lost to me, effectively ending my wait for better or worse. It's a bit sad to end our tense book-dance.

8. I treadmill 5 days a week with a huge mirror directly across the room so I can see myself walk. This isn't as vain as it sounds because I don't look that great doing it, kind of a step-jiggle-step pattern. This unsightly image paired with a noticeably smaller waist keeps me going at it.

9. I flirt with bartenders, adjusters, cashiers, stockers, waitstaff, telemarketers, truckers etc indiscriminately, in case being on good terms with them will help me in any way. I don't view this as entirely selfish because I'm sure they appreaciate a happy and flirtatioius customer/business partner/consumer etc over a crabby one. Win-win and if I can get something out of it, win-SCORE!

10. I get warm inner fuzzies when Lola doesn't want to go to Tee's mom's house. I certainly won't force her to go and then I don't have to go get her and pretend to enjoy the company of a person whose company I decidedly do NOT enjoy.

As for the people I feel deserve an award...I don't have seven. I know there are about a zillion bloggers out there but I only have a few I follow that don't get paid to do it. Not that getting paid to blog is a bad thing by any means, but they'll probably get awesome Las Vegas convention awards and so they won't get loving grassroots awards like my homeboys below:

1. Emily at Which Goose because she's creative, playful and beautiful. And because she's romantic and names bugs and shares her snappy sense of style.

2. Giyen at Bacon is My Enemy because she's strong, motivated and funny. And because she's a wonderful single mom, so she inspires me.

3. Timmy at The Next Best Place because he's adventurous, giving and fun. And because one of my best friends dated him while the other pissed on his bedroom wall.

4. Jason at Zola Jones because his blog is a perfect mixture of dignity, business (creator of my favortie purse ever!) and personal anecdotes. And because his cat and my kid have rhyming names.

The Schmooziest of Them All

I get paid to schmooze sometimes, which is a-ok by me since I genuinely like most the people (men) I'm supposed to be schmooze. I suppose we can call them "schmoozees" as I can definitely be a "schmoozer."


An aside: Although I'm an office queen bee, I do get corralled into being a charming face (and let's face it, a pair of charming tits) during business lunches. It's nice on my end to meet the voices I hear so often and they can connect a face and tits to the voice that greets them when they are giving us business. Plus, I get free lunch so it becomes an all around win-win.


Again, luckily, I can find positive attributes about most the men I am forced into socializing with; some are big on family (I can relate), some like to drink wine during lunch (hooray!), some like dirty jokes or live music or cigars. Point being that I can usually find something, a common ground of some sort to deal with these strangers on.

You can see where this is going?


Alas, there are others which I cannot. One in particular gives us lots of work, lots of leeway while performing said work, is very talkative and loves to talk to me. But I can't take it anymore! He's so frickin' creepy and tells the most long-winded, sexist stories that I just want to scream.


He has a daughter a few years younger than I am so you would think he would think flirting with me is icky, but when he's with me, I feel like a bought and paid for object. Yuck, it's a bad feeling, let me provide you with an example.


His insurance office has adjusters spread throughout WI, but keep in mind that I've only personally met two of them. One day, I'm forced to meet this adjuster at a storage facility. Normally, I wouldn't have minded so much but I have Lo with me at work and I know this is going to screw up lunchtime and naptime. In Lola-world, these are two "times" of utmost importance, but I didn't really have much choice.


We drive to meet Adjuster and make our way through the maze of hallways to the storage unit. These hallways are really creepy because the lights are automatic, relying on motion sensors to turn on and once you are passed, they turn off. I fully expected zombies to start reanimating at any moment, Resident Evil style.


Fast forward thru all the dusting off and picture taking of contents and resume at the part where Adjuster begins taking pictures of me. HELLO? We are now an hour late for lunchtime and pushing into naptime as well, not exactly prime photo-op time dickweed! Eventually, we skedaddle, breathe a sigh of relief and let the exasperation fade.


Til a week later when Adjuster calls the office. No, he wasn't giving us work, apparently he just wanted to chat. He told me all about how he got his pictures developed and emailed them to all his little adjuster friends! "They are so jealous that I got to be alone in a storage shed with you."

Dude, eww. And we were not alone! We had a rambunctious, hungry, tired toddler there remember? Remember her getting cranky and ornery? Remember why? Because you took f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Because you were too busy taking pictures of me to send to your pervy middle-aged coworkers.

Ugh. Yuck. Ick. I hate being an unintentional object of lust. I wish I could shoot a lust-laser at the people I want to lust after me (Nesto, Scarlett Johannson) and everyone else could just leave me alone.

Cheeky Little Whippersnapper!

I'm sitting in the hallway of the bowling alley where the reception is held, smoking a cigarette (!), nursing my gin and juice and people watching. The date of one of Mitch's friends comes and sits by me, we start chatting.

A group of guys get up and return to the dance floor, leaving one of their sly pals behind, a plant. He proceeds to strike up a conversation with the girl-date and I. With names exchanged and relationships to bride and groom clarified (none) he asks our ages.

GD, embarassed: I'm 18.
Slyguy to me: What about you?
Me: Hmmph, I think that's probably a rude question to ask.
GD: She's much older.
Slyguy to me, again. (Persistant little bastard.): It's not rude, c'mon tell us your age.
Me: I'm 24.
Slyguy: Whoa, I'm only 21. I guess I'm like a baby compared to you...
Me: narrowed eyes shooting a lazer death beam towards his baby face. ZAP! Kaboom! Brains on the back wall.

Ok, actually GD and I ignored him til he left, then laughed. But really, what's worse, telling people I'm 24 when my birthday is still a few months away (I always seem to jump the gun) or agreeing that yes, 21 is too young. I mean, I have Lo, do I really need a baby who is now able to booze it up?

Yikes. I'm definitely getting old.

Shuttering With Indecision

Ho Ho (Lo's personal Santa Claus) was supposed to bring us a camera. Alas, Ho Ho was too indecisive on whether we needed another Canon (as we already have charger, batteries and case) or something a little more Mama-proof.

My first camera was "lost." And by lost I mean taken by someone, ass.

The second one, my beloved chocolate Powershot accompanied me and Nelly in a row boat, to capture the images of the awesome sea-beasts we were about to catch... Unfortunately, we caught ZERO sea-beasts and my poor little camera got a frickin' dribble of water on it and died.

This brings to me a story. Once upon a time, my friends and I created a group named the Waukesha Travel Whores because we are whores for weekend travelling (cheap, little time away from Lo or work) and it is comprised of friends who are good travelling companions (easy-going, has money for gas or willing to drive).

On this particular WTW trip, we went to St. Paul for Grand Old Day, which is similar to Summerfest in WI, only located within a block-sized area. There were blues bands, traditional Indian music, Irish ballads, rap, contests, beer, ethnic foods and lots & lots of drunk people. We enjoyed a few different shows and then it happened....

Max dropped his camera, whack, bounce and sllliiiiiiidddddeeee...into the storm drain. Well, my camera had recently succumbed to a minuet splash of water so I offered my condolences. But wait, Max had hope.

"It's waterproof up to blank many feet!" He tells me, "I'm gonna go get it."

He then proceeds to lift the storm drain grate and carefully lower himself down. After hearing many "ewwww"s, and "groosssss"-es, he found the camera and two of our friends helped him out.

The reactions of some of the Grand Old Dayers were pretty funny but looking at it from the perspective of someone just walking by, I guess seeing a guy getting pulled out of a drain doesn't happen too often. A cop came over to make sure Max was ok, and then made sure his camera was ok. Thing is, it was covered in goop and kind of smelled but it was fine!

So, I guess that leaves me with Ho Ho's dilemma once more. Waterproof or accessories?

Once Upon a Time...

I've been bummed out lately.

Life is going fine, Lo learned how to say "ho ho ho, merry christmas" yesterday, she's wearing her skull and crossbones (arghh) baby legs, sneaking into my bed to sleep, normal stuff.

Tee and I are getting along famously, I'm still resisting the relationship thing though. We got the infamous "So are you guys back together?" this weekend, followed by a long, painful, unsuccessful attempt to pretend like I didn't hear the question. Tee allowed me to answer, to which I gave a "no." But, he requested a X-mas list so he can't be too heartbroken.

Because the elections cleaned my clock, I'm going to tell a story instead of talking about the huge disappointment I feel about CALIFORNIA. Fuckers.

Once upon a time I had a baby named Lola. Because I was still a new mom and money was pretty tight, I decided to go back to work after two weeks of paid maternity leave instead of the four (1/2 unpaid) offered. Due to working for my brother-in-law, I had the perk of taking my baby with me. Initially I told my family co-workers that I would come in to help out for a few hours a day until I felt like I could handle full-force work and full-force momming.

Of course, in my chair and visible to all as the Office Queen Bee once again, the work piled up, people came by with questions they had to wait two freaking weeks (ex-que-say moi!) to ask me, and work came crashing down on my head.

This isn't to say Lola was neglected, no, she was situated on my chest, strapped to it by a length of stretchy orange material, either snoozing peacefully or drinking delicious mom-milk.

This went on for two weeks, still bleeding, not sleeping, crying because I couldn't fit into my favorite pants... One day, I'm meeting my parents, my siblings and my brother in law's family for a Mexican birthday dinner, running late, Lo is screaming her tiny fucking head off and I decide to be a good Samaritan.

Noticing the squad that always sits in the same parking lot, trying to catch people who disregard the change in speed from 45 to 30, I see a car coming the opposite way, and coming fast.

"Ho, ho," thought my sleep-deprived brain, "I'm going to save this poor sucka!" So I flashed my brights his way and felt pretty smug doing it. Mother Etta, saving the world's unwitting speeders from certain ticketage...

And immediately said "oh shit," once I realized the car behind the speeder was also a squad, who was currently whipping the wide, imperial nose of his Crown Vic in a quick U-turn. You know how cops follow you a bit? I think they're probably trained to do that specifically to make us sweat, let the asshole driver stew a little bit...

Sweating I was, along with sleep-deprived, late and stressed with sides of screaming child, hard-as-rock breastfeeding boobs, insufficient iron levels (always a bad idea for me) and I did it. I cried. I started before I even got pulled over, a few tears slipping out which I angerly rubbed away. No, I will NOT be that woman! I WILL NOT be the "crier."

By the time the officer got to my door, I was full-out sobbing, apologizing for sobbing, trying to explain that I was so tired and in the meantime Lo was still screaming. The officer said he understood, he just wanted to make sure everything was ok, was everything ok?

"Nooooo" sob sob sob, "I'm so fucking tired, this baby hates me, I hate my job and I want Mexican food"

He nodded a bit, asked me if I would be ok to drive home (yes) and practically fled. You know when cars stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, and the pedestrian "fake runs?" That was the cop, only instead of walking with the same speed but making it look like a run, he was running but trying to make it look like a walk.

Moral of the story: stay home and enjoy your baby as long as you possibly can, boredom is better than temporary insanity!