And a side of thick black eyeliner, extra sparkly

I am recycling this from my old blog because that blog is family-friendly and this post really isn't. I probably shouldn't have put this up there, but I didn't have Gini & Tonic yet, so I kind of had to have SOME outlet for this hilarity.

OKAY, SO! I have to tell someone this because it is so damn funny in my head and I suspect no one at work will get it, much less find me amusing. So that "someone" will you be you, Internet Love. 

Someone with whom I graduated high school invited me on Facebook to see his band play an acoustic show……at Hot Topic. At the Oakview mall.


HOT!!! TOPIC???!!!!!!! At the MALL??!?!?!?!?!!!!


I guess they figured it would be cool and fun, you know, cause we're not THIRTY YEARS OLD OR ANYTHING. They'd rock out on some smooth jams in the background while the rest of us pick up that brassy Fall-Out Boy hoodie we've been eyeing (YESSSSS), commiserate over by the Manic Panic and Twilight black tees with pictures of that hawt bare-chested werewolf on them, maybe grab some Nightmare Before Christmas sheets on clearance. They might even have some TrueBlood bumper stickers. Oooh actually, that sticker just might have sold me. But really! I've been needing a new dolphin belly button ring anyway.

Maybe ignore that last comment since I am keeping my nose ring forever and ever amen.

Now, would it be too cruel of me to post this on their invite wall? I bet I'll get internet-slapped by a bunch of tweens and early-twentiers-who-are-sad-they-are-no-longer-tweens. Hm....how is it that prospect delights me even more?

Mister Beer Keg

Today's tall tale comes to you courtesy of office creepers. There will be at least one more of these, but this guy's tale of grossness will be enough for one day. 

When I first started at my job, I worked on a phone team. I was a temp and didn't really ever plan to stay, but I grew to like the characters on my team so much (and the pay was GREAT) that I just kept hangin out. One person on my team with whom I was not really friends was Mister Beer Keg (MBK), so-named because he chose that for his Yahoo! chat screen name (which he shared with me along with a host of other undesirable information) and also because he resembled a beer keg. Which may be why he chose it along with the fact that he loved beer. He was hugely overweight, sarcastic, unpleasant and generally downcast. I didn't have any interest in him for these reasons and ALSO because he was an ogler and extremely obvious about it-- like, did not EVER, AT ALL, disguise that he was ogling a woman. He would flagrantly stare at every part of your body under clothes, and he would do this both while talking and while listening to you talk. Rarely made eye contact. It was really unnerving and shifty and I started to hate being around him. At some point the team went out for beers one night and you know how sometimes there is a lull in talking to people you actually like and that provides the perfect opportunity for a less-than-savory character to swoop in and monopolize your time? Yeah, that happened with MBK. It was discovered during this time monopolization that we shared a mutual love of Guinness. And that is the one and only thing I think we ever had in common. It was the birth of a beautiful friendship. *sarcasm font*

So, I am way too fucking nice. Or was, anyway. When I moved to a new team, MBK began IMing me now and again to chat. And because I like to slack (hello, blogging at work) and because I at least didn't have to talk to him face-to-face, I chatted. Whatever. I didn't care. We sort of became friends, except for the part where I didn't really like him because he was a jerk to people and lazy to boot, OH AND HE OGLED, and so I made it a rule with myself that I never initiated the chatting. I would just answer his chats. Pretty soon he started telling me about the problems in his marriage, and I thought maybe that explained his general attitude, so I gave advice if I thought it would be helpful, and sometimes he followed it. Mostly not. 

And then one day...THEN! He started telling me, in chat, at work, about their problems in the bedroom. IN DETAIL. Here are some examples:

"Isn't the point of being a wife to let her husband finger her hot hole?"

"I exfoliated my balls just for that night and the woman didn't even have the decency to lick them."

"Then after the bitch got me hard and ready she said she didn't want to get pregnant and made me jerk off by myself and sleep on the couch."

"I was hoping she'd get drunk at the wedding and pass out so I could bang her in peace, but she refused to drink anything." 

AT WORK!!!!

I was thoroughly disgusted and tried to deflect the comments and talk about other things, but he would always bring it up. I started to avoid answering his chats specifically so I could avoid his bedroom talk. And because I was a freaking PANSY, I had such a hard time confronting people or saying anything that might hurt their feelings, even at a cost to myself. Even if I didn't like them. I've gotten much better but before, oh, it was bad for awhile. There was more than one person I barely knew dumping personal shit on me at that time, and I was so pathetic. How fucking hard can it be to say "Don't talk to me about this at work. Or ever." ??? One day I raged on MBK about someone else who was telling me detailed crap I had no interest in hearing (hoping he'd get the message-- he didn't), and he told me it was because I was approachable and kind, and I really listened and cared, and it showed. BAH! HA! HA!

Once in a great while, we went to lunch. I tried super hard to avoid it since I hated the way he looked at me, but it did happen once or three times because we were in the same building. One day we were mercifully finishing up and he blurted out that he was pretty sure he hated his wife and that for the first time, he really, truly wanted to cheat on her with someone else. Then before I could say anything, he flushed a deep, flaming red and said his ideal person was someone at work to whom he talked frequently. Oh, swoon, right? I babbled something along the lines of "Don't cheat, that's not cool, look at the time, gotta go." And I never had lunch with him again.

So this IM thing went on for nearly a year-- I remember that because my team got a new manager, and on his third day on the job, I flew into his cubicle and begged him to discreetly help me with this problem. Because that morning, the moment I logged into my work computer, MBK IMed me with this:

"So I got her to do it last night and I know she got off bc there was a huge wet spot on the bed."

IT WASN'T EVEN 8 O'CLOCK YET. Not that it's ever appropriate to say such a thing at work, as we have already discussed, but to start so early in the morning? For SERIOUS?! It was finally more than I could handle.

So my new manager helped me stop it. I knew this was a fireable offense, especially if I divulged how long it had been going on, and I didn't want that to happen-- MBK's wife was a bum and had no job, and they had a new baby, and I knew his paycheck was the only one coming into that household. I told Manager such. And he....he fibbed for me. I felt really awful about it, but he said if I didn't want the guy fired, it was probably the only way to go about it. He told MBK's manager that he had intercepted that morning's chat and I confessed that it made me really uncomfortable but that I was afraid to say so (truth) and that I tried to avoid talking to him at every opportunity. That manager gave MBK a verbal warning that he would be monitoring his chats from then on. And I assume there was more to the warning, given the content of his disgusting message, but I never bothered to find out.
 

MBK also still chatted me now and again, but since he couldn't talk to me about his marital or bedroom problems, there was nothing to chat about. He got laid off last month and I know I should feel sorry for that, but all I can muster is a deep sense of relief that he will never be chatting with me again. I don't give a crap about anything in his life, and I'm pretty sure he only pretended to care about mine so he could eventually (somehow? did he seriously ever think this would be a consideration?) lie on me with his huge beer-keg-shaped stomach.

If I could turn back time....

Today I was laughing over those awesome de-motivational poster emails people so frequently forward, and this one spurred a memory:

Have I ever told you that I went into one of those "free hugs" tunnels? Like super deep inside. No, of course I haven't. Well, I did. I didn't get a hug out of it. But on the up side, I didn't get raped or murdelized either. 

I was walking home from middle school with my best friend, and every day we walked over a huge sewage drain/tunnel thing like this. It was at least ten feet high. Once in awhile we'd stop into the entrance and just hang out and talk or whatever, because it was kind of a novelty. You know kids and their fascination with little buildings with privacy like box forts and tree houses. And it was always daytime so it wasn't scary. We'd stop and gossip (as if we weren't doing that walking together anyway) and dawdle and make plans. One day as we were talking, I heard a faint voice from deep inside the tunnel. "Heeey! Hey you! Come back here. I got something cool!" 

"Is that Matt So-and-so?" I asked my friend. "What's he doing in there?" 

"I don't know. It's creepy though, don't go in."

"Whatever. That's totally his voice. I want to see what he has. Let's go!"

"Seriously?? I am not going in there, I don't want to die!"

"Fine, hang out here then. You can call for help when I die seeing the cool thing. Scaredy!"

And in I went. 

And in and in and in and in and in. Every time I ventured a little farther, Matt's voice beckoned me farther still. "You're not close enough yet! I'm back here!"

"Matt, is that you? I'm getting bored."

"Yeah, sure. It's cool, it glows in the dark! Come on!"

After ten minutes of this, I started to figure out that the closer I got, the farther into the tunnel Matt retreated. I looked back and could only see a little pen cap of light, and I couldn't even see my friend's silhouette anymore. That scared me. Which, good thing?? Because apparently I was too dumbass to be scared of the obvious. I called out to her. No answer.

"HEY, you're almost here!" I jumped and turned, and behind a curve in the tunnel, I could see a face. And that face was definitely not Matt's. 

I turned and ran my stupid ass back to the entrance, ignoring the curses and protests of the mystery man-- not mystery middle-schooler-- behind me. My friend was waiting at the entrance and said she hadn't heard me yell for her. I was that far in. What, like half a mile? Maybe a little less? Jeebus.

I was relating this for co-workers and the looks on their faces were horrified. I hadn't really thought about the incident since, honestly, and thought it would be kind of a funny story. Uh, apparently not. One advised me never to tell my mother, which sparked a conversation about the stupid shit we did as kids, which had us speculating over whether we as kids would actually listen if we as adults could go back in time and warn ourselves. Which led me to make the following list of things I would warn against if indeed I could go back in time. WHICH was actually the original subject of this post but I have a rambly mind. 

-Be nice to Seester. She's so cool and interesting and later you will be good friends. If you have a suspicion her finger's in the door, don't close the door to find out. Forgive the womb-juice incident.

-Your cousin's going to tell your dad you spit on her when really you just blew a raspberry. And you will get the belt. Don't hang around for that one, run the fuck away!

-Pretending to be Vanna White and showing that a razor "works" doesn't exempt you from bleeding.

-Keith A. will turn out to be gay, don't cry over him and his stupid surfer shorts.

-You will never be able to hold a match to your finger long enough to see what the bone looks like. Quit trying!

-Don't swallow your barf because you didn't want to make the school bus stink. No one else was that considerate.

-Dr. Pepper doesn't actually taste like pepper.

-Drowning actually feels good, try not to do it anyway.

-Sadly, 4th grade penmanship just can't emulate a parent's signature very well. 

-Whippets are so not worth the money you paid for the can.

-Just let your friend play Nintendo at her turn instead of "helping her" pass the level.

-Throwing sand in a boy's face will make him cry and he will not man up, regardless of the fact that it was obviously Evilyn from He-Man who did that, not Gini.

-Do not hang off the hallway banister and let go just to see if you break a bone.

-DON'T GO INTO THE TUNNEL!

-Don't go out with that pedophile. The fact that he is 20 and still sexually attracted to your 15-year-old flatness is a big red flag.

-Start sharing, bitch. You should have learned by this 19 already.


Yeah, so I'll probably update this list now and again because I did lots of stupid shit.

Riding the Short Bus to Awesome

I volunteered at the Special Olympics yesterday, both because I was curious to see if I could make myself stop saying "retard" and also because my company offered two days of Paid Time Off to anyone who volunteered for an eight-hour-plus shift. And because I'm a chronic volunteer, for like everything. Except Habitat for Humanity because once I did something like that and got a shitload of fiberglass in my FACE. So yesterday morning I got on the earliest bus to Lincoln EVER (5:15 a.m.!!!!), provided by my work, and proceeded to wait around for hour or so after arriving at the sports complex for "training," which mostly consisted of the following:

"What group are you with?"
"Competition staging."
"You need to go inside for that."

"What group are you with??"
"Competition staging."
"Those people are outside!!"

"What group are you with?!"
*sigh* "Competition staging."
"Why aren't you indoors with the rest?!"
"Because I was told to come out here after being told to go inside."
"That was wrong, only ball retrievers and court captains are out here!!"

OY VEY.

But such is life on the first day of organizing volunteers, right? Once everything settled down and somebody actually explained my job to me, it was pretty fun. I had to figure out the order of the tennis matches and get the scoring docs out to the court captains, line up the special athletes for the matches and keep them reasonably entertained so they didn't wander away before their matches came up, then pump them up with pom poms and clappers as they charged out the door to play. It was super easy and kept me actively engaged with them pretty much all day.

And the athletes? TOTALLY DARLING. I was honestly expecting to have a hard time not cracking up all day because I am one of those insensitive baboons who sheds tears laughing at and happily making sped jokes. But I didn't-- probably because the athletes were all so funny and enjoyable in their own rights as human beings that I never laughed at them. I laughed alongside them. Sure, they were challenged, but they were also all vibrant and really joyful. Maybe it had something to do with being Olympians (read: of course it did). Anyway, they were just different and I really liked them. *cue Full House music*

One highly-functioning guy I met had a bizarre head and neck twitch that was jarring the first time I saw it, but he was so rather well-spoken and charming that I hardly even noticed it after. One girl asked me four times when she was going to play tennis, and each time I reminded her, she smacked her hand to her forehead and shouted, "I forgot, you already told me that! I'm just so excited!" She also announced her entry into any room with "I'm here, you can start the party now!" Some of them you could hardly tell were intellectually or mentally challenged until you got close to them-- then you noticed their off gazes and shuffling way of walking. Some others looked so regular that I actually thought for a few minutes about what it would be like to accidentally hit on someone like that and not understand why you weren't getting the response you hoped for. One such girl, shy but very pleased with her accomplishments, won a gold medal in Italy last year and gave me a Special Olympics pin from her home state, and another brash guy with an expensive racket and tracksuit had like seven different sponsors. Both because they play tennis so well. I watched them. My ass would've been BEAT. And yet another girl got to play tennis with Andy Roddick on Sunday at the complex! These kids are hooked UP.

I sat with the South Carolina volleyball team at lunch and helped the girl beside me open pretty much everything in her lunch bag-- the plastic-wrapped sandwich, the condiment packets, her juice box. And she rewarded me with a heartfelt hug and surprisingly interesting conversation. The boy across from her asked for my autograph and explained the selection procedure in South Carolina for the Special Olympics. Both of them were in awe at how many volunteers there were and said they loved Nebraska because everybody was so nice to them. How could anybody NOT be nice to them though? 

I found it easier to talk to them than to most of my business contemporaries or even people in a department store. Big ups to anybody who automatically thinks I'm hilarious, and they ALL did. I don't think I've ever been a bigger dork with dumber jokes in my whole life than I was yesterday, and unless they were faking it for my benefit (which I rather doubt), they were absolutely rolling. My face hurt from laughing by the end of the day. Well worth it. I'd volunteer again in a second, early start time and 12 hour shift be damned.

I have to say, if I ever had a challenged child, I would be significantly less pissed about it than I would be had I not ever gone to the Special Olympics. Maybe I wouldn't be pissed at all. Maybe I'd be kind of excited at having a child who beat a ridiculously silly joke into the ground with me, never thought I was stupid in her teen years, or hesitated to hug me in front of his friends.

I don’t think I'm going to say "retard" anymore.

United against hate

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be shoulder-to-shoulder on the same side of a protest as the Tea Party and Glenn Beck crowd. 

Even the Nebraska 912 Project, whose leadership, ironically, tolerates the worst kind of racism, homophobia, xenophobia and all other forms of intolerance among its members, was all over this and had a healthy presence this morning. 

I'm talking about the funeral of a very young Army soldier, Private First Class Eddie Wood, which was held at a church down the street from me this morning. He was killed in Afghanistan just a week after he'd been home to visit his family.

Sad, right? 18-year-old kid gets himself signed up, is all gung-ho about serving his country and is promptly blown to bits? So much life wasted. Even though military enlistees are well-informed of what they're getting themselves into, I can't help but feel these brave people, especially the very young ones, really have no idea of the gritty, bloody reality of combat. Even those who survive and come back into regular society, how damaged are they from their awful experiences?

So this nice boy's heartbroken family had to prepare to put their child in the ground and face the prospect of the rest of their lives without him, and then here comes the Westboro Baptist Church. PICKETING. At his FUNERAL. With their SIGNS. I read that they were legally required to stay a "respectful distance" away from the funeral, but really? Exactly what the fuck is any sort of respectful about holding up hurtful, horrible signs at the funeral of a child?? In Nebraska's case, that distance is 300 yards away. It took me a couple of questions to figure out what exactly they were there picketing against, because it's been awhile since I've heard of these people, and I learned that they travel to any military funeral within driving distance of their home base of Kansas to spread their message that there will be no end to fallen US soldiers until we actively prevent homosexual individuals from entering the military. Indeed, the apocalypse will be upon us faster than we can say "eat a dick, you bastards" if we don't repent of our lives of rampant homosexuality and the enabling of it, and grovel before the wrath of the Lord.

Fucking really? Yes. Really.

Of course, Omaha immediately reacted, and in what numbers! I'm still waiting to find out how many people were reported to have created a huge human buffer between the WBC assholes and the grieving funeral-goers, but I would venture to guess it was at least 500. 

There were innumerable bikers there. See:

And the bikers were handing out big flags to the civilians lining the streets surrounding the church:

It was VERY organized, far more so than I expected, especially given that we were asked to come very informally via email forward. There were people handing out little flags, bottles of water, and walking around with garbage bags so the crowd didn't leave a mess. Police everywhere. Husband and I stood with his parents and one of the nice big biker guys. He ended up being our main source of information-- telling us this biker was leaving to bring a trailer of flags to the cemetery (where the WBCs would protest later), that biker was planning to "introduce himself" to the WBCs afterward, that they were standing on a street corner just a block away (straight ahead in this last pic). Haha, "introduce himself." I liked his diplomatic way of putting it. After standing next to such a mild-mannered mountain of a biker, maybe they aren't so scary.

I was interested in having a look at the bad people, so I left Husband and his parents to hold the flag and walked up the street with a friend. They were heinous and loathesome-- so disgusting that I didn't even want to validate their nasty message by taking a picture. So I just peeked at them from around a tree, grimaced, and left. I heard tell they were going to burn the flag there, and while I'm no hard-core nationalist, I just couldn't stomach such a vile display of abject disrespect and ignorance. There are no limits with these people!

There were several groups of Omahans standing all around them, holding up huge white sheets with poles to obscure their signs. Awesome idea. The signs were the usual WBC fare-- vicious words of "gratitude" for IEDs and the oil spill (what does that even have to do with anything?), the title of the URL to their site (hover over the link and see, also nothing to do with this), prayers for more dead soldiers and expressions of hatred for Omaha and the US in general. 

Husband brought up an interesting point just now, that the WBC people are actually accomplishing the opposite of their goal, in that they're pushing people who might not have been big fans of homosexuality in the first place to defend them since they serve in the military like everyone else. Haha! Bitches. Let's all have a laugh at the following. Start at 2:05 to see Colin Firth flirting with Fred Phelps Jr.:

Anyway, that was our big thing of the day. Oh and on the walk home, I saw this really pretty tree with almost neon green leaves.

:D

SARA, YOU ARE SUCH A CREEPER!

And yet I'm going to do it because I heard that if you don't do these internet survey thingies, pus-infested warty trolls with hair like that girl from The Ring and faces like Office Loony crab-attack you with flaming hands while screaming that horrendous Lee Greenwood song, and I'm home alone in the middle of an insane Nebraska storm right now with no bra on and the power's gone off once already, which was terrifying because it's NIGHT and the flashlights are conveniently MIA and I really can't fight supernatural creatures effectively under these circumstances. So I'm going to do it specifically so I don't die a disgusting, excruciating monster-chewy death, Sara, you bitch.

Apparently, these blog survey things are like the MySpace ones everybody did a few years ago with the random questions, you know? Except here you have to link to people's blogs and pick new questions for them to answer. And because Sara loves to make people squirm, she tapped me to answer pretty much the most embarrassing questions EVAR! I'm not giving you the detail you want though, you creepy creeper!

1. At what age did you discover masturbation and how did that happen?

I was 14 and reading The Valley of Horses late at night, and I was like what the fuck are these ladyparts they're talking about. Lo and behold, they actually existed. 

2. What's the worst sexual encounter you've ever had?

Um, my first time. Because I thought that if you did it in the butt, it didn't count and you were still a virgin. Yes, I was retarded, like Juliette Lewis retarded obviously. Plus my boyf was practically a pedophile since I was 16 and he was 21 and was all like "yeah! high school poon! er, ass." JEEBUS that hurt. It wasn't even in a bed-- it was on the floor. AND was totally gross since I had no idea how buttsecks worked, much less what an enema was or how it would have helped me.

3. What is one thing that will get you all hot & bothered almost every time?

Watching Husband hold a baby. ACK!

4. What is one thing that you haven't tried sexually that you think you might want to do. Eventually.

I can honestly say I've tried everything I ever wanted to. However, I would like to do it in an airplane again, nearer to the beginning of the flight this time. Eight hour flight + impulsive  decision to join the Mile High Club = "Try to breathe through your mouth, OMG, don't touch any surfaces but still try to put it in me, mmkay?"

5. If there is one thing that you would change about your partner's sexual technique- what would it be?

I wish he would hum the theme song to Young Frankenstein more often while we're gettin busy.

6. Top or bottom?

Surprisingly, I'm definitely a bottom bitch.

7. Talking or no talking?

NO TALKING

8. Oral sex- yay or nay? 

SUPER YAY!

Um, now off to write a real post so I can cover this one up and hopefully very few of my even fewer readers will see it. And I'm not requesting any of my readers to do this, that's just cruel.

Why couldn't you have been a Jew?

Last night Husband and I went to get a new package of canning jars, because I am a nerd who likes to can and I have a bumper crop of bush pickles and tomatoes. And of course I ran out of jars in the middle of a canning sessions. ANNOYING. So we went to the store and as we were checking out, the cashier said "It's not often I see young people come through here with canning supplies!" I love talking about canning and stuff because once again, nerd, so I started to talk with her when the woman in front of us turned around and exclaimed in a too-loud, too-cheery voice "WELL, GOOD FOR YOU! WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO CAN??" 

I wish I had just kept talking with the cashier, because she was really sweet and I think I might bring her a jam sometime. Or at least let Husband handle the chatty-mouth customer woman. But Chatty Mouth was kind of insistent and being nice to Office Loony has me being nice to pretty much everyone, and she was so enthusiastic about my pickles and it was impossible to talk to them both at the same time and so somehow we ended up walking out of the store with Chatty Mouth and talking with her in the parking lot for like 30 friggin minutes.

At first it was canning tips and make-sure-you-only-freeze-asparagus and did-you-know-you-could-can-meat, BUT THEN it turned into her interrogating me with beady eyes on how exactly I wash my vegetables, why I use that particular ratio of vinegar to water instead of buying vegetable wash, AND THEN she was telling us about her business that is 12 or 17 or 27 fruits and vegetables in a single capsule or something and I was like "oh neat, an entrepreneur, I'll listen to her invention, whatever. She told me not to can asparagus, I owe her one." So I listened patiently, totally believing that she had invented this product.....until I realized she wasn't very familiar with her bottom line, and that she was randomly spewing "facts" about this capsule that sounded scripted and choppy and she wasn't really sure how many nutrients were in the capsule but it did only cost $1.38 per day. At which point I figured out that she was one of those fucking pyramid schemers and was trying to sell us her product.  I should note that Husband (who was carrying my heavy canning jars, by the way) had all this figured out way before me because his head is on earth instead of floating around the stratosphere thinking about what lychee sangria might taste like, and had been shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot in an attempt to get a subtle message to me.

Chatty Mouth was also one of those lonely people who talks and talks and talks because their cats and walls don't talk back so when they're in public and ensnare you, you are one fucking ensnared dumbass and find it nearly impossible to get away. So while Husband is shifting around with my heavy jars, she and I have exchanged business cards and she's chitty chat chatting about how I'm so smart to grill bok choy and could she have that Filipino recipe from me because a Filipino exchange student lived with her family when she was in high school and then she went on a mission trip to the Philippines much later in life and one time when she called Qwest or Cox or whoever about her service she recognized the distinctive accent of her Filipino client service person and got to talking about her mission trip to the Philippines, and then the Filipino lady was like "Oh! What church was it??" and Chatty Mouth said "The born-again church!" and the Filipino lady said "Me too!!!!" and I was screaming in my head BORN-AGAIN???? FAAAACCKKK!! WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE BAZILLION JEWISH PEOPLE WHO GO TO THIS STORE?!?! BACK AWAY GINI, BACK AWAY!!

Because I? am a MAGNET for the people who live to convert others. And I've been a sucker more than once. In junior high, an extremely strange girl name Rose convinced me I was a chosen child to help save the world before the apocalypse came on the eve of the year 2000 (I spent that eve drinking Two Dogs and champagne and calling my brand-new boyfriend by his friend's name), and we used to "speak with the wind" together and use our magical stones to help us find answers and do weird shit. (I still have that rose quartz-- omg, ROSE quartz??-- and it actually did help me find a shit ton of lost things so go figure? And one time I was completely unprepared for a French test but I was sitting near the window and had my stone, so I asked the wind for answers and got a 100%.) 

Throughout my twenties I've unhappily fielded many unsuccessful attempts by my super-religious uncle to talk about the deep spiritual meanings behind the Bible (ironically, he was never interested in the actual historical, political or sociological meanings), not to mention the door-to-door Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses who hate to leave you alone and who apparently like to walk around the Old Market and accost people on the weekends. Another time, I was training a guy at work who asked me about my religious preferences and against my better judgment I answered him, and he was like "I'd like to talk to you some more about that, I'm born-again and I really think you're headed in the wrong direction with this 'live and let live' ideal you got goin on..." and then I was like "Hey, we are totally working right now and being born once was just fine for me and SURPRISE, I'm pressing the button so you get another call." And in between calls he would try to engage me again, insisting that I needed to go to his church and see the Lord, and you know, he didn't really make it in my department. Or at my workplace. I should google that fool and see where he ended up.

Obviously none of these proselytizers are bad people-- they are trying so, so hard to be great people and great citizens and great for their Lord. That's lovely. I simply do not care for it and do not care to be roped into even talking about such silliness, and the easiest way to avoid it is to avoid those people. Call me closeminded, I really don't care, but I think organized religion in general is a bunch of hooha and believing the Rapture is really going to take place is tantamount to believing in magic. I believe in science and proof and that religion simply fulfills a psychological need for direction and structure in many people, and you know, maybe there is an omniscient deity who turns his glaring eye on this blog post and is like "GINI'S GONNA FUCKIN BURN FOR THIS ONE" (or is that every day?), but maybe there isn't. Maybe I really don't care. Because I don't believe in magic, no matter how many times I insist on having a serious discussion with Husband about what we need to do to prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse.

Maybe the answer for me lies in combining Jesus-magic with the Zombie Apocalypse? Then the born-agains AND I would all be happy in Heaven (which is like a Resident Evil game, yessss) together! Oh, except Husband. He thinks all of it is silly. Crap.

Welp, that was short-lived.

After some deep soul-searching (reveling in self-appointed freedom by getting wasted and ahem, knitting, not necessarily in that order) and scraping together enough money to pay the final tuition bill so I could see my gut-wrenching grade, I was absolutely shocked to find that the hard-nosed profesora who literally frightened me into stuttering in Spanglish every time she so much as turned an eye on me, GAVE ME AN A.

A FUCKING A???!!!!!???

I really shouldn't complain. It's an A for Awesome! Or Awesomely Bad. Let's go with that. But how in holey cheese HELL did I get an A?? I know participation was 20% of the grade, and after the terrible Spanglish incident, I pretty much never opened my mouth in front of the class again. Sometimes she called on me and I blathered some more and I wanted to punch myself in the face and the balls at the same time. But I never volunteered my stuttering services. Based on my 20% of FAIL, the best I could hope for was a B and only then if I totally destroyed the tests instead of the manner in which I only slightly shredded them. What about the other rock stars in class who totally deserved their As because they were actually Awesome instead of Awesomely Bad? I realize I'm being a total schmuck by complaining about my A, but I feel like I only got it by being pathetic and making the profesora feel sorry for poor, blindsided, nervously babbling Gini who really, really needed some tonic with that. It's like a pity fuck! WIN but LOSE! Dignity who?

So of course this A for Awesomely Bad has me rethinking my decision to quit school a mere seven classes away from graduating because really, if I super duper wanted to be a CFA, I would be studying up on investment shit right now and mocking up business cards that don't have high heels on them. I really like speaking Spanish and I crazy love planning Husband's and my vacations to Central America (by the way, we frequently vacation in Central America because it's cheap as all get-out and AMAZING), and I would crazy love to plan other people's vacations to Central America. I'd be competitive too, as every single year our trips cost less and less because I am Queen Shit of Research Mountain. But I have no idea how to do any sort of consulting business, and how could I be sure anybody in Guatemala or El Salvador would follow through in picking up my clients and transporting them instead of delivering them into the hands of robbers, or be sure my clients weren't accidentally killed because they rode a chicken bus and got shot or jumped off a waterfall inside a cave, or fell through hardened magma into the fiery heart of a somewhat-dormant volcano?

That's why I'll probably never be a travel planner, and will just think about how cool it would be instead. This is why I'll stay in my cubicle and be a passive worker forever, blogging and reading DListed.

Anyway. Now I'm thinking about taking the Fall advanced conversation class since it's the next logical step in the stupid degree program at stupid UNO because I'd speak even better afterward AND it's by the same profesora who apparently gives an easy A AND PLUS I'd be in class with HCL and that's a win right there and RUN-ON SENTENCES. (By the way, I got the eBay phone condom. Have you gotten any spam texts from me yet?) Get used to this forwards/backwards decision-making nature because I do it ALL. THE. TIME.

I still don't need the degree. But I would like to further my Spanich-spakin edumacation in an accredited sort of way. :)

I SEE YOU

Oh yes. I see you, Secret Follower. I saw you the day you began to anonymously follow my little blog and after a somewhat flattered moment of surprise and glee, I began to obsess because that's just what I do.  

Who was this Secret Follower? Was it someone I knew? Why would someone I didn't know follow my neophyte blog of randomness and bitchy? Then again I guess I don't really know Sara and we follow each other so perhaps this was a flawed question? To what purpose would this Secret Follower keep his or her identity anonymous? To spy on me for work and make sure I'm not blogging company secrets and nullifying my licenses which I earned with Red Bull, bloody tears and eye twitches? Because they actually don't like me and want to know if I blog about them, OFFICE LOONY? Was it one of Office Loony's equally sorry friends keeping tabs and reporting back to her because she is actually crazier than I am? Was it Husband's ex-girlfriend, of whose co-blog I am myself an anonymous follower (hey, I'm curious), here to give me a taste of my own medicine? Was it one of those two ex-roommates against whom I still nurse age-old grudges and know they feel similarly? Was it my ex-boyfriend in Texas, who I am pretty sure googles me from time to time? Was it someone googling that artist in Seattle with my name and thought perhaps they'd stumbled upon her blog and decided to follow it thusly? That still didn't explain the anonymous part though. No no, this Secret Follower was really just for me, aren't you, Secret Follower?

The secret follow began after Kailey started following me so perhaps it was someone affiliated with her? What about one of her ex-co-workers, who are still co-workers with Husband? I went to Kailey's blog and scoured her most recent post to see who had commented after me. Then I went to her Facebook page and looked at who had commented on her status update about writing a new blog post just for me. Then I googled "How to find out who your secret follower is," and several variations on that query, which was, by and large, quite useless.

Then I remembered this one time that I was dinking around with Blogger and somehow accidentally downloaded all my blog information to my computer, and it gave me a whole bunch of information I didn't even know I wanted, including the real name of a blogger I really love in Philadelphia because somehow her blog-specific email address was linked to her personal email address which is comprised of her full name and I was like "oh hey, cool! That's a pretty name I'll be googling later. SCORE." And I thought maybe if I could get Blogger to do that again, perhaps it would show me in the HTML who is anonymously following my blog, so I fumbled and I fumbled and figured out how to make it happen-- and guess what?

GUESS WHAT, SECRET FOLLOWER??

I made it work! And now I know who you are, although I still don't know why you prefer the shadowy hallways of Anonymity. Maybe you won't now that I've flashed a light into your dark corner. Feel free to expound upon your decision, as anonymous followers are still able to comment and/or email the blog owner. But do whatever you want! You can even stay a Secret Follower who is markedly less secret. It's a free country and a free internet and a free Blogger, and you and I can go about our days now-- you with your mask, me with my smug.

Of Waxes and Wankers

I got my monthly bikini wax yesterday. Oh yes, I get it done every month and oh yes, it hurts. But that little bit of quick pain is nothing, NOTHING compared to the agonizing itch of a shaved kitty growing out. No thanks. Right around the three week mark, I start craaaving my wax. There is nothing quite like the compact, aerodynamic smoothness of a perfect bikini wax. (Note I did not say Brazilian-- I don't look like a toddler, thankyouverymuch.)

My aesthetician is awesome. I love her because she's super hippy-dippy and you can totally tell. She has the stoner lilt in her voice and wears the signature flowy hippy threads, and I can SO see her with dreads as a younger woman. She's super fast with the wax, a perfectionist about my symmetry and we chat the whole time so not only is the appointment always fun for me, it rarely goes past twenty minutes no matter what I'm having done. And yesterday, she regaled me with one of the funniest stories I have ever heard.

I had asked her if men ever came in to get their bits waxed, and how that worked. I was just curious. I'd caught Husband manscaping that morning and teased him about how I was going to get my stuff yanked that day and maybe he should think about that. Not that I would EVER ask him or even want him to do it, I just like to see him squirm sometimes, like people do to their spouses! His reaction was so funny that I remembered it while in my appointment, so I asked her. I will tell you her answer in her own words:

"Oh yeahh, I have some guys who come in to see me fairly regularly. I'm the only one here who'll wax men; the other girls are too squeamish because the skin actually comes off quite a bit. Cause you know, the ball skin is so stretchy? You have to stretch it out and hold it really super tight or else it's so delicate it'll come off with the hair. Yeah, had that happen a time or two. Now I just do their regular bikini lines down through the taint area and their little bumholes and encourage them to shave their balls if they want that. OMG Gini! One of my regular guys, he's a cancer doctor, and he likes his shit aaaaallll the way off. Insists that I wax his junk. Okay fine. Well he was in last week and okay, this is kind of a common reaction to the warm wax and you know, my huge rack because I AM seven months preg and my tits? are super bouncy and YUM. (Insert laughter here. Actually, wherever you laughed throughout all this is where I laughed because this is why I love my aesthetician.) But anyway, this doctor was toootally getting a boner and I just ignored it and kept chatting because, you know, it happens. What does NOT happen though, is what he did NEXT. He started strokin it, right in front of me! And I was like 'whoa, hey, hey man! Not cool!' And he just goes 'wha? Oh, sorry,' like he didn't even know what he was doing! Whatever! I totally know he was fondling his woody to see if I'd be fine with it! Like he thought I was soo preg and soo hormonal and horny and seeing him get fresh was gonna make me lose control and jump him or something! And theeeennnnn, the bastard didn't even tip me more than usual. He always tips $20. I mean, if he was really sorry, which he wasn't, wouldn't he at least be like, 'dude, I tried to beat off in front of you, sorry, here's $40 or $50?' because YEAH. I still only got $20. "

By this point she was pretty much done with my wax and I hadn't even felt it because I was cracking up and interjecting my opinion the whole time. So we moved on to eyebrows and she talked some more:

"Some of our massage therapists have gotten propositioned before. And you know, this is a nice place, a nice salon, it's not like we're a massage parlor or anything. But the guys totally don't relax, they get boners and wait for the girls to notice and then they're like 'hey baby, want a nice tip?' One of the girls told me she was offered $500 to 'just graze it.' Like with her arm. You know, it's probably a good thing I'm not one of the massage therapists because, I dunno. If we're at like the week before Christmas or something....I just might graze it. $500! What would I get for like, touching the tip or 'accidentally' sticking my finger up his ass? It would be like, a prostate massage. Yeah."

One of the best appointments I've ever had. My face seriously ached from laughing by the time we started up the stairs to the receptionist. And then!!! I reached the top step and turned the corner, and who should I see waiting for her in an armchair but the Office Loony! For transparency's sake, I should note that while we were friends, Office Loony actually did refer me to this aesthetician I love so much. But I know she's not a regular client because when she started working in my department, I asked my aesthetician if this gal ever came in and she said only like once or twice a year, which confirmed my suspicion. Office Loony only comes to see her when she's met a guy who will actually fuck her, so I was surprised to see her since she usually scares guys off pretty much within hours of her deciding she likes him. So I saw her as she looked up from her magazine and our eyes locked-- and since the laughs had already been flowing from me so easily, and since I know Office Loony's history of coming to the aesthetician, and since we see each other frequently at work and I know she hates it when I so cheerfully smile at her, AND since I knew that SHE knew she would be lying on the same bed in the same room, breathing the same air and being waxed by the same hands, ALL of which TOTALLY pissed her off, you will of course understand and forgive that I simply couldn't stop a sharp, staccato "HA!" from absconding from my wide and grinning mouth.

And I walked past her, belatedly answering a question posed by my lovely and pregnant friend, paid, and left. Still laughing.