The New Adventures of Same-Old Bry

A lady brosef's agreement.

2015-02-18T13:58:00.000-08:00

Several years ago, my friend EFB was explaining to JG why people blog.

“I just don’t get it. What’s the point?” JG asked.

“The point is to write funny things for your friends to read but then you really just reread your own blog and remember how funny you are. Because no one else really reads it except for your Grandma.”

“Yeah.” I chimed in, sipping my whiskey sour.

And that’s the thing. Who really reads your blog when you are blogging just to blog your thoughts and opine on all things humorous about being a hobo-spinster-librarian who stomps around Portland being incredibly self-referential and self-deprecating in what you hope is a really cute way, but is ultimately just fodder for your grandmothers anecdotes at bridge with the girls.

Or in my case, my Mom reading my blog and saying “Oh Bryanne,” out-loud to her five dogs and BN, who is probably playing Bubble Guppies on his Nook and only half listening.

But the thing about blogging is after a while it feels like homework. Which is why 1 in 5 blogs fail.

That is a made up statistic, but possibly fairly close to reality.

Everyone is always saying to other people, “You should start a blog.”

Just today, I read a comment on a friend’s Facebook status that urged said friend to start a blog about the funny things their kid says.

“You should start a blog” is the new way of saying “Write it down so I can read it later so I don’t have to listen now.”

Blogs are like assholes. Everyone has one whether they will show it to you or not.

The thing about having a blog that is about nothing but yourself and your experiences is that you have to talk about yourself all the fucking time and that is just so incredibly exhausting.

I’m not very good at expressing my thoughts on politics or current events. I usually just get really angry and say “What the fuck is wrong with all of you.” And that seems really boring to read on a daily basis. Also, sometimes I care more about what you can find on TMZ than what you can find on NPR.

If I was good at crafts or cooking, I could start a DIY or food blog, but I’m terrible at taking photos so there would be a lot of blurry shots of roasted vegetables and the very valid concern on the reader’s part that that skinny black thing they see in the photo might just be a dog hair and not a garnish.

So talking about myself or my dog is what I’m most equipped to write about, but then I really hate it when people say “I read your blog” in public.

What I’m asking for here is a gentleman’s agreement. I’ll write this blog and you can read it (or not) and then promise not to mention it to me in public.

Deal?

That smallness of all the things.

2014-07-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

I want to leave all the bad things as distant memories that fade away from my mind until one day when I'm going through a box of pictures, or old papers, I come across something that reminds me of a time when I was unhappy. And I will look at that item and shake my head.

"What was I thinking?"

I will ask myself this.

I will ask myself, "Why did you do that?" It will have all been so silly. So easily managed. But in that moment, in that past, it seemed so big.

What was I thinking? I was thinking that the only way to go forth was the way I always had. But sometimes you have to gather the courage from inside yourself and make a change. You have to recognize the things that made you unhappy and you remove them from your life or you put them in a box so that when you see them again, you recognize them for how small they really were.

Evidence of Life.

2014-03-17T11:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged lately and the reason might surprise you. Or not. Since up until recently, I've been a pretty open book when it comes to my life.

I've had multiple existential crises.

Exhibit A | Exhibit B | Exhibit C | Exhibit D

I talk about my hair, a lot. Like way too much.

Exhibit A | Exhibit B | Exhibit C | Exhibit X

I talk about things I find in my clothes.

A | B

And of course, Mondo.

Mondo 1 | Mondo 2 | Mondo 3

But I don't really talk about being really happy. I don't write posts about the great things happening in my life. Sure I do fun stuff and take vacations. But I don't write about things that are going great until they are done and things are not so great. Then I write funny things to make myself feel better about not feeling so great.

But right now, things are actually great.

And a part of that is because I'm out enjoying life and doing things. I'm cultivating healthy relationships. I'm laughing a lot. I'm eating a lot of brunch. I'm having a good time at my job. I'm working out and running. I'm trying to keep my shit together.

So don't take my absence as a bad thing. You should be really, really, really happy for me.

Amends for Poor Spelling

2014-01-03T22:35:00.000-08:00

I was sort of feeling bad about all the terrible grammar mistakes I made in my last post. I swear I read what I write before I post, but commas and extra words are like the cobwebs and dust in your own home, after a bit you don't even see it.

I stopped feeling bad about the mistakes at about 2 a.m. that night when after a rousing Candy Crush marathon (remember how I said I deleted it, well that didn't last long) I decided to bore myself to sleep by reading the news.

Which is when I saw this.

If ABC News can misspell "revealed" in a headline, then I can misspell whatever I want.

And now to change subjects abruptly.

Tonight a strange man came to the door. Luckily our dogs are assholes so there was no reason to open the door too far, but he wanted me to call him a cab. Apparently he was being hassled by someone down the street. So I called a cab. But of course it took forever to get the dispatch on the line.

And then of course the man kept wanting to ask if I'd called, talking to me through the door. I woke AM up and she came into the living room and yelled at him through the door, asking if he wanted a cab or the police.

Which I think is when she scared him into putting some money in our mailbox for our troubles.

Because he lingered for a very long time and because we live in the hood, we also opted to call non-emergency to have someone stop by.

And of course the cop that showed up fifteen minutes later (faster than a 911 call, if you ask me) was super hot. How is it that the cops that come to your house when you are wearing long johns and pajamas are hot but the cops that come to the door when you're looking mighty fine are old and clearly on a donut diet?

Huh? How is that fair.

I told him what happened. I said "And he said he put money in the mailbox." Officer McHottie put on some rubber gloves and opened the mailbox. Two crumpled up dollars sat inside.

"I don't want it," I said.

"Neither do I," he responded. And closed the mailbox back up.

He left shortly thereafter, I'm sure to drive by the park where all of the shenanigans happen late at night.

I'm so happy we keep a bat by our front door. And that Mondo and Seeley are jerks.

I can't decide if I should leave the two bucks in the mailbox for the mail lady or take it and buy myself a PBR.

And I really do owe the mail lady some amends.

Burritos are dead to me.

2013-12-22T14:03:00.000-08:00

"Remember when we used to eat burritos every day?" asked my friend.

Yes. Yes, I do. And I miss them every day. But about 9 months ago I divorced burritos. I left the burrito lifestyle behind and broke free of the oppressive smothering hold burritos had on my life.

Have you ever ate a burrito so delicious that it was like a religious experience? Bit into the gooey, cheesy, warmth, breaking through its perfectly blanketed tortilla exterior?

I love burritos. Present tense. I love them so much.

Steak fajitas burrito from Chipotle, I love you.

Chorizo burrito from the cart pod on 50th and Division, I miss your face.

Thai burrito from that one nameless foodcart on Burnside, I want to take you in the alley and make you pregnant.

Last summer I started a new job and in my first week, a coworker asked me a very important question. "Burritos or pizza, Bry?"

I had to think about it very seriously. Of course, burritos. No question. But what did he want me to say? Did he want me to pick pizza? This was like one of those personality tests designed to tell the asker more about you then you were willing to reveal.

"Uh. Burritos, duh."

He nodded. "You're cool."

The problem with burritos lies not in the tastiness, but in the ingredients. Like any comfort food, it is chock full of fat and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are like hugs that stab you in the back. They're like squatters that move in and live on your hips and in your belly and then they start hoarding. They start spreading their trash until your pants don't fit and you have zero energy.

Eating one burrito is almost the equivalent of all the calories you should eat in an entire day.

Why doesn't anyone invent the worlds smallest, most delicious, teeny tiny, appetizer burrito? The thing with burritos is that everyone is always trying to make them BIGGER and full of more STUFF. Like fries. Or double meat and cheese. Or tortilla's the size of the moon.

We used to go to Baja Fresh several times a week and eat the Dos Manos burritos. Do you know what dos manos means? It means two hands. Burritos for two hands. Burritos bigger than your head, one for each hand.

No one should eat anything ever that is bigger than your head. Or your fist, for that matter.

So even though burritos are my one true love, we are divorced. I left them behind to fend for themselves and I'm much happier for it.

The Thanksgiving Stranger

2013-12-06T22:27:00.003-08:00

I've had many memorable Thanksgivings. There was the time we opened the backdoor to cool down the house and then when we sat down to dinner, during the prayer as our eyes were closed, the goat came in the house to see what all the fuss was about.

I remember one time my mom and her sister got in a terrible fight and I spent most of the night sitting in a dark bathroom with my mom.

Or the time my friend came to visit my freshman year of college and we ate taco salad and watched movies on a deserted college campus.

And of course I've had many a normal, non-eventful, typical low-rent Rockwellian Thanksgivings, too including one spent in Lake Havasu in a campground.

But by far, my favorite Thanksgiving was the first adult one I spent away from home, my junior year of college. Three holiday orphans, me from Montana, RO from Utah, and RF from Hawaii. By junior year, we'd learned that none of us could really afford to go home for the holidays, no matter how many credit cards we had.

RF, RO and I decided to cook the full shabang at RF's apartment. His roommate was off at his family's, something we were grateful for since this was shortly after RF accidently ran said roommate's swiss army knife through the garbage disposal. Something that was apparently unforgivable, even when an accident. And thus earning the moniker "The Angry Boy Scout.". It was shortly after this that RF secretly moved into an all girl's apartment on campus to escape the tension.

But that day we were all alone, just the three of us trying to cobble together a full dinner using the hodgepodge of pots and pans of us three, poor, college students.Our plan was to cook and hang out all day, maybe watch a movie or something.

I arrived in the early afternoon to an already overly warm apartment, RF gleefully basting the turkey with a stick of butter.

"This is going to be the best turkey ever," he said. I nodded in agreement because that's what best friends do even though they secretly believe that while everyone hopes their turkey is the best ever, it rarely is. Turkey is, well, turkey. And there is not much you can do to fuck it up save burning it to a crisp or not cooking it enough.

RO arrived shortly thereafter. She lived close by, a lucky single in a double apartment with a secret cat that I gave her for her birthday. In retrospect, years and years later, giving a college student in college housing a cat for her birthday is probably an example of the poorest judgment I've ever used.

We were in the midst of cooking when RO announced that while in the parking lot she ran into a girl who was here alone and was it okay to invite her to dinner?

We all agreed that seemed fine and RO went off to confirm the invite. What none of us were willing to admit is that we didn't have any idea what her name was. Sure she lived a few doors down from RF and in the same bank of apartments as the two of them. Sure we saw her at the Delta Psi Delta house at almost every party. But her name? That we didn't know.

While we were stirring and chopping and basting, I said to RF "What is her name again?" He lifted his shoulders and shook his head.

And then when our Thanksgiving guest arrived at the door to join us, it became obvious that we should know each other. No introductions were made. Linfield had about 1500 students when I attended but it was a small campus and had a very small town vibe, like we should all know each other. And of course we ran in tangential circles that overlapped at frat parties or in passing at the Catalyst.

Our guest sat with us for several hours, gossiping about some concert or football game on TV and other random Linfield and McMinnville things. The entire time, the three of us were tense with the guilt that we had no idea what her name was. Every time I went into the kitchen, RF and I had to smother our giggles as we tried to whisper names back and forth.

At one point, as dinner was nearing completion, RO came into the kitchen. "Do you remember her name?" she whispered. I shook my head no.

"I think it might be Sarah," RO said. I shook my head. I wasn't sure either but she didn't look like a Sarah. She seemed more exotic than a Sarah.

We whispered back and forth trying to furtively figure out just who was sitting in the living room.

Finally RO said "Hey Sarah, dinner's done." And then a few seconds later she responded "Okay!" And came into the kitchen.

We dished up our grub and headed to the living room. I wanted to talk more to "Sarah" because I felt like I could figure out her name if she would talk more about the people she hung out with whose names I did know. But no matter how much she talked, I just couldn't pull her name from the tip of my tongue.

And I had more important things on my mind. Like the slices of turkey that were melting in my mouth like pieces of sashimi.

"Oh my god RF! This turkey is fucking delicious. What did you do with it?"

"Not much. Just basted it."

"How often?"

"Like every half hour or so."

"It's so good."

"I used five sticks of butter."

"Holy shit."

This will forever be known as that Thanksgiving when we ate with a stranger and RF tried to give us a heart attack.

Dinner was done and followed shortly thereafter by pie. And a Britney Spears concert on DVD. Because that is was ~~our~~ RF's style.

The night went on and finally after five excruciatingly awkward hours, "Sarah" left.

As soon as she went home we all exhaled loudly.

"Her name was so not Sarah." I said. But we couldn't think of a suitable alternative.

"Where's your Lindex?" I asked RF.

The Lindex was a spiral bound directory of all the students and departments at Linfield. It also listed the hometown of every student.

And like every good Nancy-Drew-reading-Encyclopedia-Brown-loving girl, I knew something important about fake Sarah. I knew she was from ~~Vermont~~ Maine and she was a senior. Linfield was many things but it was not an American version of the United Nations. There were very few students from the east coast, let alone more than two from Vermont.

So as Britney shimmied and shook on the TV in the background, I went though the Lindex page by page until I found our mystery guest's name.

Her name was not Sarah. To this day, I can't for the life of me remember what it might be. I forgot. As terrible as this sounds, it doesn't really matter.

Aside from this day, I only have one other memory of her and that involves stumbling into her after too many beers at the Delta house, finding her and her friend knitting in one of the rooms while loud music made the walls shake and the sounds of partying college students could be heard from every nook and cranny.

My hope is that she has the opposite side of this story to tell her friends and family, about that one Thanksgiving she stayed on campus and ate dinner with three junior assholes who kept calling her Sarah.

Zen & the Art of Candy Crush Saga

2013-10-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

I've recently taken up yoga. I'm saying it as such not to make you think I'm a yoga master, but to let you know that it is something that I'm paying actual money to learn and not just cribbing from the internet for free. Though time will tell if I could have saved a bunch of money or not.

The reason I started going to yoga is that I tend to internalize and compartmentalize my life in a way that neatly hides stress, but the stress is still lurking. I'm also what you could call a work-o-holic. Yoga is supposed to be relaxing. Also, I'm starting to get a little creeky in my old age. Release stress, become more bendy. Good goals.

My problem at yoga class is two fold. 1) while doing the poses, I tend to think about a thousand things other than my breathing and other than feeling the stretch. Or feeling "My roots going down into the earth" as the instructor asks us to do. 2) It takes a lot of concentration not to laugh when people are farting and snoring in class. Because I'm a toddler and I laugh at immature stuff.

The other day, as we were in corpse pose (how each class ends), I could hear some other women in the class snoring and I sort of smiled, even though I was supposed to be concentrating on relaxing my jaw and feeling my inner ears. And it dawned on me that I'm doing yoga wrong. I'm trying NOT to fall asleep but isn't sleep the ultimate indication of true relaxation?

But I'm so worried about the potential embarrassment of falling asleep and having to be woken up, that I concentrate very hard on staying alert.

I'm sure that with more practice, I'll eventually get there. But in the meantime, while laying on the mat, I'm thinking about stuff to do at work. Doing laundry. Recipes. Books I'm reading. Danny Castellano. Did I remember to feed the dogs? I should mow the lawn. Oh crap, I forgot to email so and so.

And then suddenly class is over and I forgot to be zen. I did the poses. I feel stretched. I'm mind is not relaxed.

My mind never stops moving. And when I force myself not to think about home or work, I think about really dumb stuff.

Like Candy Crush Saga.

As I was downwarding my dog and trying not to laugh as someone farted, I tried to clear my head. I tried to concentrate on my muscles. On my rib cage. On my spine. All of those interlocking bits of bone that zip up my back. Oh gosh. Its like Tetris. Oh gosh, Tetris is like...

...Candy Crush Saga. And then I was picturing a candy crush board in my head. I was shifting yellow lemon drops and cherry candies around. I was visualizing it so clearly that it was if I had my iPhone in my hand and were playing the game.

Except in my head, during yoga, I was really good at Candy Crush Saga. Which is not true about real life.

Can I just digress here for a moment and talk about how that game is just one big old slot machine masquerading as a game? They make it nearly impossible to finish a level without having to buy extra lives or extra bonuses. And when you run out of lives, they make you wait 5-20 minutes before you get more free lives. OR! or! or! you could buy some more lives! For just 99 cents. I have yet to cave and buy any lives, because that's dumb, and screw you Candy Crush Saga (also, you're sort of geniuses and probably bajillonares so good on you).

But hopefully my yoga hours will no longer be filled with imagining moving candies because I deleted that game off my cell phone.

This morning I found myself watching a You Tube video about how to beat level 23 and it was at the moment that I realized I had to stop cold turkey.

Which means that at yoga tomorrow night, I can think about farts.

Because that's what every 33 year old should be thinking about.

I don't wanted to be here.

2013-10-11T21:32:00.002-07:00

At some point in the thirty plus days since last we spoke, I turned 33.

It wasn't too long in my distant past that I looked like this:

And now this is me.

Thirty-three year old me should have my shit together and I'm sort of working on that. I'm doing adult things. Like cooking meals at home. Drinking good whiskey. Taking a Yoga class. Drinking tea.

Being an adult is fun.

And even though I'm doing pretty good at adulting, I'm still at a loss for some things.

Like I think I'm too immature for LinkedIn. I hate networking. I hate schmoozing.

After what feels like 10,304 requests to join LinkedIn, I finally got on there and tried to figure it out. But it just seems like an online resume. And if I'm not looking for a job, why am I talking about work on the interwebs?

Aside from the issues of figuring out how to use the website, I've also somehow managed to send an email to every single person I know requesting they add me as a connection. And it tells other people if you've viewed their account.

This is alarming. I like to snoop on the Internets. I don't need people knowing I've been up in their business like a low-rent Nancy Drew.

And. How am I supposed to post pictures of the dogs and my weird faces on such a serious website?

If I could figure out how to delete my account (seriously) I would do it (no seriously, someone tell me how to delete it because I looked and I'm dumb).

**update! I figured that shit out. Thank ~~God~~ Google. Sorry friends, adios LinkedIn.**

Things That Carry You, Part 1

2013-09-05T19:49:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago I took a job in a crappy call center. I was desperate for a job, having recently come to understand the errors of leaving a previous job (despite how miserable I was) for unemployment with no benefits. I was 24 and I didn't know much. But I did know that the previous four months of moping around my apartment and borrowing money to pay my cell phone bill were probably the lowest point of my life.

I took the job in the call center so that I could pay the rent while I figured out what the fuck to do with my life. I felt like a total hobo. How does the president of her class at an expensive liberal arts college end up in a call center taking orders for yoga pants and running shoes?

Of course I was good at my job. I’m always good at my job. Being good at my job is supposed to make up for being terrible at life. But excelling at answering the phone is probably not the potential that years of teachers and professors were hoping I would apply when I finally applied myself.

I knew that job was just a stepping stone to pulling my head out of my ass and figuring shit out. Luckily my best friend, the cell-phone-bill philanthropist, kept his mouth shut and didn’t utter the words I was furiously scribbling in my diary.

What the fuck was I doing with my life?

I almost wish I were doing drugs or drinking too much. There are support groups for that. There are steps, 12 of them, to put you on the path to a better life.

But there is no support group for 24 year-old assholes. So I muddled through.

A few months into my tenure, I was waiting at the bus one night. I’d recently moved from a Lake Oswego apartment to Chinatown, a cute little apartment building in downtown that I hoped would turn me into a fun, fashionable, twenty-five year old. But the apartment was so very far away from where I worked and getting home could take forever.

There were always people waiting for the bus, other people I worked with. They would stand around smoking and talking about the calls they took that day. Making fun of all the people we had to talk to. I ignored them. I turned up my music and buried my face in my book.

I felt a tugging on my jacket and I looked over. I could see an older woman talking to me, her mouth moving but I couldn’t hear her words. I pulled my earbud out.

“Sorry? What?”

“Do you know which bus to take to Beaverton?”

I helped her figure out what bus to get on. And then of course I had to talk to her. Why don’t people ever understand that earbuds mean unavailable?

And then of course I had to talk to her each and every time I saw her on the bus. We worked at the same place, not on the same program, but I still saw her 3-4 times a week.

At first I was annoyed. But then I got to know her.

Her name was Sherry. She was living in a women’s shelter in downtown Portland. She had a daughter in college. She was divorced. She worked for a utility company for a lot of years until something happened and she lost everything. She never explicitly said what happened, but I suspected meth or alcohol. She was pulling her life together. She dressed in Goodwill chic. I could tell that she once took a lot of pride in her appearance but lack of money had made that impossible. She kept her hair cut in a swingy bob and had a very sweet face. But she looked older than she was.

When we came back from our days off, she would tell me these funny stories of wandering downtown Portland and reading the newspaper and drinking coffee while she fed the birds. There were rules about what she could do at the shelter, a curfew. And she had to keep a job. She hated her job. But she didn't want to be in the shelter. She was in a program to reintroduce her to society. Not in a court-ordered way, but from what I gleaned, a way to get her used to living in a new world. A world unprotected by money and options.

Sherry wanted to move to somewhere quiet. She had a brother out on the coast but she hated him so despite his offer, she would figure it out on her own. But she wanted to live where there were trees and quiet. And she could walk in the mornings, maybe get a dog.

The only thing we had in common was that neither of us belonged at that call center. We should have been elsewhere. Living a different life. But for a few months, until I got a new job and moved on, we spent 45 minutes together talking while the bus shuttled us downtown. Despite living in Portland forever, she didn't know how to operate in a world where you took the bus everywhere, made very little money, and had to move a lot (apartment living can be very nomadic).

We lost touch very slowly. I moved once, then a second time. I got a new job and worked at the call center only part time for a few months and then not at all. We saw each other sporadically. She moved out to an apartment in Oregon City and took new buses. She couldn't afford her cell phone bill so even though I tried to call her to check-in, I always got an automated message response, “The person you are trying to reach is unavailable.”

The last time I saw Sherry was on the max in downtown Portland. I’d stopped to buy some paints and canvas at the art store on Yamhill. She was headed to the Lloyd Center to watch a movie.

We caught up in quick hurried sentences. She was good. I was good. She was happy but still hated her job. She was moving again because she was renting a room from a man who was a drunk with a jealous girlfriend. She’d only been there a few weeks. I loved my job and was getting ready for a month of weekend weddings, all my friends were getting married. I was turning 25 soon.

“Twenty-five is a good year.” That was the last thing she said to me as I got off the max. The last thing she said to me ever.

Twenty-five was an okay year. My twenties were not my best decade. It was a growing year. A year where I got a job I loved. A year in which I met new friends and lived almost rent-free. A year where I was very lonely. I was still very poor. I got in a terrible fight with one of my favorite people and we didn’t speak for years. And then I moved to California, which turned out to be a bad decision.

About six months after I last saw Sherry, I got a phone call. It was from a company out in Bend, Oregon. They were calling to get a personal reference for Sherry so she could get a new job.

She made it to her woods. To her quiet walks. I've always imagined that she got a dirty little mutt dog.

The thought of Sherry getting even a small piece of the happiness she dreamed about while holed up in an attic room of a woman’s shelter is something that I've carried with me through some pretty dark nights of my own.

Sometimes you get what you need.

Things I've Lost on the Bus: A List

2013-06-22T00:02:00.001-07:00

1. At least 5 umbrellas.

2. Countless books and magazines.

3. An I-pod Nano

4. A bag of cookies

5. Two purses. One of which was later sent back to me with a note that said "I found this in my son's room." The other purse is still MIA and there were a couple of coffee cards due for a free coffee. A caffeinated thief thanks me for my carelessness.

6. The contents of my stomach. Sorry bus driver on the #96 in the summer of 2005. I think we both learned a valuable lesson that night. You need to drive better and I shouldn't mix cheap brandy and cherry coke.

7. A bell jar full of coffee.

8. Rain boots, which I later got back from the transit lost and found.

9. A loaf of olive bread.

10. A bag of dirty tupperware.

I'm a mature and professional adult.

2013-06-20T10:19:00.001-07:00

Yesterday at work I met with a coworker and as we were having a very important talk, I could feel the underwire in my bra very slowly start to work its way out of my bra and up through the v-neck of my shirt.

I tried to nonchalantly look down, only to see that the wire was poking out of my blouse, much like a gopher from a hole.

I had a moment of panic. Do I excuse myself abruptly? Or do I pretend nothing is happening?

But if I pretended nothing was happening, what if the wire continued to slide upward until the wire was so far above my lady shelf that it tucked into my nostril?

This could happen. The nature of my conversation involved looking at paperwork and talking about job expectations. The frequent raising and lowering of my face to study the paper put my nostril in the neighborhood of my décolletage.

And how do I concentrate on talking about very serious stuff when the entire time, I can think of nothing more than one small, but very determined wire.

I could suddenly say, "Hey, look over there! What's that?" and point out the window. Then they would turn their head to look and I could very quickly tug the wire out and hide it under the table.

But then if they turn back too quickly, or I can't tug fast enough, they could turn to see me with my hand down my shirt, pulling as if I were a knight drawing his sword.

The conversation seemed endless. I stared into my coworkers eyes and saw their mouth move. But the gears in my head slowly cranked to a halt as I wondered how my boobs could betray me in such a manner.

And how could Hanes do me so wrong?

The meeting ended. I must have spoken English. I surely was coherent and covered all the important topics. She didn't look at me in confusion or ask if I were having a stroke, and did she need to call 911?

We said our goodbyes.

And then I ran to the bathroom where I locked myself in a stall and jammed my hand down my shirt, with no more grace than a fumbling teenage boy, and pulled the wire out and held it aloft.

Victory.

Spinster Life Lesson #37: Learn to multi-task.

2013-05-14T13:58:00.004-07:00

This blog writing thing would go a lot better if I wasn't also trying to watch the entire season of The Mindy Project in my two days off. It is hard to write anything in the two inches of space I've allowed myself at the bottom of the screen as this show plays out on the top 90% of the screen.

Question, am I multitasking right now? Or is this pretty much the lamest thing you've ever heard of?

It is also hard to write a blog when the dogs are in the backyard barking. Or trying to eat things. And trying to pull garbage out the cat door. It takes a lot of yelling out the second floor window of a house to get two asshole dogs to knock it off. I don't understand why our neighbors hate us.

True story. The neighbors name is Brie. Someone with my same name hates me which sounds more nemesis-ish than someone named Sally hating me.

I could hear some banging around going on out there just now, which prompted me to press pause on Mindy, stop typing, and head to the window to yell. Before even looking I screamed "Goddamn it you goddamn jackasses! Knock it off."

Which is when I realized the dogs were sunbathing and that a homeless person was going through our recycling.

Sigh.

So I have a new celeb crush.

When your best friend texts you multiple times to tell you about some hot dude on a TV show, you are bound by bro code to check that person out. And if it snowballs into wasting two days watching a TV show, then you should probably send that best friend a thank you card.

Early Summer: Use It Wisely

2013-05-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

1. shrimp ceviche / 2. pickled red onions / 3. super duper yummy steak dinner

1. made a yellow banner / 2. planted herbs & flowers / 3. paper mobile

1. Seeley & the Bear / 2. Mondo the Grandma / 3. Mondo the Beggar

I'm so in love with summer. Or spring. I guess spring. Though it was hot, hot, hot for a few days. Now it is overcast and grey, as Portland should be.

But I used the nice days wisely.

I cooked things.

I crafted.

I gardened.

And it was glorious.

Four Days at the Coast.

2013-04-26T13:39:00.001-07:00

Gather round, friends, it is time for the dreaded vacation slideshow.

Not really. But sort of.

On Monday, AM, IK, Seeley, Mondo and I set off on a little mini-vacation. Destination, Beverley Beach Oregon for a bit of camping.

It was a super fun blast. The weather was great. Beautiful. Not a drop of rain. We were prepared with several large tarps and a pop-up awning. But we didn't have a single drop of rain. Thank you, Mother Earth.

What follows is a quick re-cap of our fun and not so-fun adventures through some pictures I took along the way.

Most Photogenic: The landscape and horizon definitely take the cake for most beautiful part of the vacation. Both by day or by night, I always feel most myself while at the coast.

Best Part / Most Exasperating: The best part of the trip was definitely seeing IK. He moved to Seattle at the beginning of the year. It was so much fun to see him and he had a blast. But boy howdy, is it hard to run herd on a 4 year-old.

On our last night, we sat around the fire telling ghost stories, which for IK's sake were really just stories that involved Casper the Friendly Ghost. I told a really long story about a little boy who secretly took a monkey home from the zoo and the monkey got away and was lost in the house. At the end of the story the little boy told his mom about the missing monkey and after Casper reunited them, they took the monkey back to the zoo. The End. Except that IK added this last sentence "And then the monkey sneaked back into his backpack and went home again."

Scariest Moment: On our first morning, I was cooking breakfast. I was not using my Boy Scout skills and being safe. Which resulted in a small incident with the grease in the sausage pan that splashed and burned my face. I was okay, my glasses saved my eyes. But now my face looks like I've been doing meth for the past year. If you hear a rumor about what a wreck I look, please defend my honor. This picture doesn't do the actual damage justice. I currently have what looks like open sores (burns) on my face. Sigh.

Best Side Trip: While we did hit up the Yaquina Head Lighthouse and had a yummy picnic, the trip was sort of a bust since IK was in major need of a nap. So in my opinion, the best side trip we took was into Newport. We ate some tasty ice cream, walked around the bay front. And saw these seals.

I was also able to buy an emergency nose stud as at some point on Day 1, the bar in my nose fell out. I spent a few days worried my nose piercing was going to close up.

Most Miserable: While having a "category" for most miserable seems like a terrible thing for a vacation blog, the good news is that this goes to the dogs.

Mondo was miserable because he was cold, something he solved by putting himself to bed in the tent anytime the sun went down. Seeley was miserable because she was on a leash. She also got in trouble a lot when she was off-leash because she really, really, really, really wanted to play with all the other dogs on the beach whether they were on a leash or not.

Most Delicious: The food, of course! Despite some pretty soggy hash browns the first day, we did eat like kings.

Most Missed: Sort of a throwaway, but technology! We actually used a real map at one point when I couldn't remember the highway that would cut us over the freeway and home through Salem. While luckily IK was able to play games and watch shows AM had on her phone that didn't require cell service, we were pretty much at the mercy of good old fashioned entertainment. Games and reading. Which was sort of nice. Except if you wanted to do something like Google "Tide Pools at Yaquina Bay." And we could recharge our cell phones in the car, which is how I was able to take several hundred photos of the beach. What can I say? I love the beach!

And now we are home. I'm headed to work in a little bit and AM has to drive IK back to Seattle.

It was a fun and fairly blissful four days away from everything and everyone. I can't wait to do it again!

I do what I want.

2013-03-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

I'm clearly very concerned with my appearance.

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than looking like a bum. I usually look like a librarian or a Goodwill (Industries) ambassador. I'm a spinster chameleon.

So when I show up looking like I put some effort into my appearance, people usually comment. I think they are trying to subtly encourage me to continue looking decent.

One day I showed up with some sweet romantic waves. A lot of people noticed it and commented on the general niceness of my hairstyle.

Well jokes on them.

I woke up with my hair like that. Mostly. A few bobby pins to pin up the back. Done.

Thank you to three whiskey sours the night before, a forgotten bobby pin - left in overnight - and the faint remnants of two day old hairspray.

Bobby Pins, Hair Spray, Whiskey Sours. I salute you. You are real American heroes.

I've been wearing this bright orange hat lately. The other night, my roommate AM joked "I can't wait for 2 years from now when you'll look at pictures of yourself in that hat and say 'what was I thinking?'"

The problem with that statement is that I don't really have any shame about my appearance. I don't get dressed - up or down - for anyone but myself.

So I'm going to rock this orange hat until it falls apart. Or Mondo eats it. Whatever comes first.

Bry Hoeg, Reluctant Zombie Hunter

2013-03-12T21:49:00.001-07:00

I'm very susceptible to certain types of imagery.

I see things and then dream of them later. I'm afraid of certain things and any reminder of my fears leads to dreams.

I spent a good five years of my life having continuous snake dreams.

I don't watch scary movies because I will dream about them later. There is no question, the things on the screen will haunt my dreams.

Yesterday I came home and sat down on the couch and reached for the TV remote. As the TV flashed on I thought, oh yeah, I'm not supposed to watch TV. And then, there on the screen, was the unmistakable image of a zombie lurching down a dirt road.

"Yep. That's a zombie," I said, and immediately clicked the TV off.

I immediately knew that this zombie was a harbinger of bad dreams.

One might say, "Bry, you set yourself up for bad dreams by acknowledging that the zombie scares you and what scares you gives you nightmares. You told your brain to dream about zombies."

That is now how this works.

Every night when I fall asleep, I tell my brain to dream about Peter Dinklage or James McAvoy. Or Peter Dinklage AND James McAvoy at the same time.

And I never dream about either of them, let alone the oddest three-way ever.

Sometimes I tell my brain to dream about tropical vacations and cold rum drinks. And I never dream about beaches or booze.

Sometimes I tell my brain to dream about winning the lottery.

But I usually dream about yelling at people.

I don't like zombies. I don't like scary things. I don't even want to watch movies about zombies and Brad Pitt. But that's mostly because I haven't like Brad Pitt in a movie since he was a greasy, hipster, moonraker.

Or this very one scene in a movie in which he was sort of likeable.

So no zombies for me.

I decided, post-zombie shock, I should go outside and do some yard work, since that is one of the reasons I shouldn't be watching TV. Plus some hard labor would give me something else to think about, other than things that could eat my brains.

And then I got locked in the backyard for an hour and a half and completely forgot about zombies while I was trying to think of a creative way to get back in the house.

Long (and boring) story short, by the end of those 90 minutes, the garage was very clean and orderly and then I got a ladder and climbed in a very high window that should have been locked. No time to think of anything scary other than death by cold weather while locked in one's very own backyard.

So when I woke up in the middle of the night, sweaty and panicked, it was not because of Dinklage or McAvoy.

Nope.

Zombies.

I dreamed of zombies. Three times I feel back asleep, only to be woken in fear.

Zombies.

Ack.

I will have you know, in my dreams, I was very adept at snapping the necks of zombies. I was excellent at grabbing their jaws with a rake and tearing their mushy faces off their bodies. But I also cried the entire time.

When the shit hits the fan, you want me on your team.

Just bring Kleenex.

I'm not that kind of girl.

2013-02-19T21:31:00.001-08:00

I made three pillows today. I drank some coffee and cooked a dish that took all day on the stove top. I spent the day talking to my dog, took a walk in the mid-day sun, waved to neighbors as I went.

I did some laundry and read a true crime book.

Drank some tea.

Watched my murder mystery shows.

Talked to my turtle.

Googled stuff.

My name is Bry Hoeg, and I'm old.

Lately, I've been wondering if I occupy my time sewing, reading, walking, and cooking because I like doing these things or if I do these things because I'm old and this is what old people do.

The chicken or the egg question for spinsters.

I just noticed that I wrote "33 going on 63" on that graphic but I am in fact only 32.

Whoopsie Daisy.

Sometimes things happen to me that shouldn't happen to old ladies.

Like when men stop to talk to me because they think I'm a prostitute.

On Sunday morning, I was waiting at the bus stop at 7am. The bus stop is right in front of a "massage parlor."

I was innocently waiting for my bus, cruising Reddit on my cell phone, and trying not to freeze to death.

The bus stop, in addition to being in front of a house of ill repute, is also next to a small strip of businesses. There is the Vietnamese sandwich shop, the Egyptian deli, and a place where you can pay your bills for a small handling fee. It is a busy area and there are often cars slowing to turn into the parking lot.

So I didn't think nothing of a car slowing down and then turning into the lot. Even though it is only 7am and nothing is open.

A man shuffles over to the bus stop and leans against the pillar near where I'm sitting. I look up, see him, go back to reading my cell phone. I say nothing.

(Apparently this is how prostitutes convey they are open for business. I had no idea it was that easy).

"You working?" he asks.

"I'm going downtown for work, yes." I say. I look at him when I respond, but go back to reading my phone.

I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm also extremely tired and learned a long time ago to never interact with people at the bus stop. It never ends well.

"No. You working right now?"

I look up at him, this balding man, wearing sweatpants and Nike runners. I squint up at him as my foggy brain realizes he is asking if I'm working...the corner.

"Ewwww. No."

These words come out of my mouth before I think better of it.

"So you're not working?"

"Uh. No."

He shuffles back to his car, no more words spoken.

I watched his Honda Civic pull away and briefly contemplated heading home just in case he came back. But then I looked to my left and saw the #9 headed down the street.

I got on the bus and went downtown, to my job, where the only wares I sell are books.

Snip, Snip.

2013-02-05T11:35:00.000-08:00

My complicated relationship with my hair has been well documented in this blog and in my blogs of yore (RIP, MySpace).

I tend to make some pretty swift decisions when it comes to cutting my hair.

Such as pausing a movie so that I may go into the bathroom to cut my bangs just because I loved the main character's bangs.

Or dyeing my hair all black because I thought it would make me look tough. Tough. I actually wanted to look tough. Oh middle school. I do not miss thee.

These swift decisions are why instead of looking like this:

I now look like this.

All last week I was completely jonesing for a haircut. Usually in the mornings when I was trying to comb out the rat's nest that developed each night.

I wanted a hair cut every time I curled my hair or put it up in a fancy style only to have it immediately fall down as soon as I stepped away from the bathroom.

I wanted a hair cut every time I zipped my hair into my coat. And every time I woke up late and knew I would have to go to work with partially wet hair or not wash it and look dirty.

But I kept stopping myself because I thought "Think of how hard you worked to get your hair this long."

And about a week ago, I realized something.

I had done nothing to get my hair this long. In fact, doing nothing is why my hair was long in the first place.

There are three types of people who purposely grow their hair out.

1. Brides

2. Soon to be graduates.

3. Members of bands.

That is it. Everyone else has actual life goals.

My accomplishment of having really long hair was nothing more than my own laziness.

So immediately after work on Sunday, without much prior thought, I clocked out and went to the Bishop's just down the street from the bookstore. It was quiet and also double stamp day.

Thank you to the Super Bowl for giving everyone else somewhere else to be.

And note to self, always get a hair cut on a Sunday.

Just another day in spinster paradise.

2013-02-01T00:37:00.001-08:00

Today I wore a dress to work that was somewhat more low-cut than I would normally wear to work. I mean, if I were going to the clubs and hoping to get my free drink on, then it wasn't low-cut enough.

But for work, the dress v-necked to the point that I was definitely aware that my chesty was on display and therefore covered it up with a fun polka-dotted scarf. I normally like to dress like a librarian, but every now and then I am in a big hurry and don't have a proper idea of how appropriately dressed I may or may not be.

But it was really, actually, quite warm today for a January day, and I was in meetings in a stuffy office and it was really a terrible time to be wearing a scarf.

I spent most of the meetings trying to subtly rearrange the scarf so that I could get a little bit of air circulation around my neck but without also busting out my bosom. It was a fine line to walk, trying to balance my body temperature with my need for modesty. A trial run at menopause.

Eventually I ended up with the perfect combination of draping to maximize air flow. Or perhaps my stress over my dress was causing me to sweat and the sweat was cooling on my neck.

About half-way through leading discussion on some books matters, I looked down to realize that I could see straight down my artfully draped scarf into my dress and deep into my canyon of boobs, and there, on the side of my breast, was a discolored spot. Much like a mutant mole.

A spot I had never seen.

A spot that looked exactly like the pictures of skin cancer they used to show in health class in an effort to scare you into wearing hats.

A spot that probably escaped detection because I've been wearing multiple layers of sweaters in our cold and cavernous house.

A spot not revealed in the shower because our bathroom has very terrible lighting and I'm so very blind.

A spot that, as the meeting dragged on and immediately segued into two more consecutive meetings, appeared to grow before my very eyes.

Finally, after three hours of sitting in that stuffy room, I was free to run to the bathroom to get a closer look.

I pulled off my dotted scarf and looked down. It was still there. The spot was in the same place, staring back at me with all the implications of impending doctor's visits. My gut clenched and I reached into my dress top to touch the spot, ready to confront my worst fears as an uninsured, aging, spinster.

Who would take care of Mondo and Wiener, I wondered?

As these terribly sad and depressing thoughts rushed through my mind while I stared down at my boob, I let out a big deep breath.

Which is when the mole flew off my chest.

And when I realized I didn't have skin cancer.

I had a piece of almond skin stuck to my boob.

The Ghosts of 2012 Past, Present, and Future.

2012-12-05T13:03:00.000-08:00

My life has been sort of boring lately. I've been more of a homebody than ever before. I've been saving money to go to California to see my family, and pretty much just trying to survive the month of December. Boring. So boring that even Amazon thinks I'm lame.

Speaking of Amazon, my bestie and I were discussing what we wanted for Christmas and he suggested I make an Amazon wish list, which I did. After making mine, I went and looked at his. Clearly, I'm a toddler and he is an adult.

Mine...

The Bry Hoeg Christmas Wishlist

And his...

RF's Christmas/Birthday Wishlist

RF's birthday is December 24th. It is important to remember, two gifts, not one!

I've been taking lots of walks lately.

And hanging out with ninjas.

And wrangling this butthead takes up a lot of my time.

But mostly I've been hanging out around the house and having dreams about weird things. Like last night, I dreamed it was my job to keep Tracy Jordan's shirt on.

As for life outside the house.

I've been loving my super awesome new job at a super awesome book store.

I'm actually looking forward to the New Year in a very positive and exciting way.

I'm ready to put 2012 behind me. Some not so awesome things happened in 2012 that changed me in some profound ways. I am thankful for the clarity I now have about family and friends and what is important in life.

And 2013 is going to be anything but boring.

These are my 5 goals for 2013:

1. Get a stamp in my passport. Finally use it to go somewhere other than Mexico or Canada.
2. Be healthy.
3. Read 52 books.
4. Join a Yoga class.
5. Have a kick-ass garden.

Get ready 2013. I'm about to own you.

A public service announcement about pants.

2012-11-15T10:59:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I stood in the lobby of my place of business, a locally owned bookstore, for an hour. It was during this time that I realized there is a large cross section of Portland women who believe leggings are a suitable alternative to pants.

I have a rule that if you can see the creases and folds of your lady bits or the outline of your butt crack, then the pants you are wearing are not in fact pants. They are tights or nylons and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Cue Bry Hoeg turning into her great-grandmother. Though I don't remember her, from everything my mother has shamed me with, I know she was a stickler for manners and propriety.

"Bryanne, don't spit. My grandmother would roll over in her grave."

"Bryanne, don't swear. My grandmother would roll over in her grave."

"Bryanne, don't leave the house wearing that dress. It is too short. My grandmother would roll over in her grave."

I feel like it is our job as women and women with friends and as the friends of other women to say "Hey, I can see your camel toe."

Because if there is anything worse than walking around with camel toe, it is to be the friend walking around with the person who has camel toe. People will assume you know your friend has camel toe and that you are therefore an asshole for not telling your friend they have camel toe.

I know this to be true. There is a large cross section of Portland women who walk around with their friends who wear leggings as pants and I think that these women are assholes.

But it is not just leggings as pants that set off my internal great-grandmother.

It is also jeans and khakis with no butt pockets.

Pants with pleats.

Acid washed jeans worn on days other than Halloween.

Pants that sag, on purpose or otherwise.

Skinny jeans on fat people.

Skinny jeans on skinny people.

~~Red jeans worn with red shirts.~~ Any colored jeans worn with a same colored shirt. (You are not part of a rainbow and/or Chris Brown. Please dress accordingly).

Right now you are asking yourself "Bry Hoeg giving fashion advice? The girl that wore the same capri pants and dirty sweatshirt all through college?"

I know that you know I am a fashion icon in my own right, obviously I'm the epitome of Goodwill chic, though I do like to spice things up with the latest Target or Ross designer wear.

But as a life long reader of Elle and Vogue magazine, and a fan of Project Runway, I believe I'm suitably qualified to tell the women of Portland they need to wear a dress over those leggings.

And for the love of all that is holy, please wear underwear.

But that is a blog for another day.

The End.

In which the heroines take an arduous journey into the night.

2012-11-06T09:26:00.000-08:00

I find it is important to admit to doing embarrassing things because the only way to forgive yourself for the behavior is to share it with your friends and family so they can keep you honest.

Which is why I tell you when I do things like drive away from the gas station with the gas pump still in the side of my car.

Or why I make sure you know that I spent four hours looking at pictures of cats on the Internet for no reason other than cats are cute and the Internets is cheap.

Or that I spent the better part of my four day weekend finding and acquiring a movie. And then eventually writing a blog about it that required me to figure out how to spell acquiring.

Yesterday my roommate AE and I decided we were going to watch the movie Eclipse.

Excuse me.

The full title is The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. This is something we learned is very important for quick searching on movie machines.

Luckily, I thought I already had a copy.

I put in the movie, a copy of which I inherited from a friend who rented the movie from the Redbox and never returned it. About thirty minutes into it, we realized were watching The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

The reason we realized it was the wrong movie, other than a vague feeling of deja vu, is that the characters in the movie discussed going to see a new action movie called Face Punch.

Face Punch. That was the best they could do for a fake movie title.

So after laughing for about ten minutes about a movie called Face Punch, I decided to look in the book to see if the fake movie was called Face Punch in the book, too.

That is right. I pulled a copy of the book off my shelf and looked it up. This is the pop culture equivalent of a doctor using medical school textbooks to diagnose a patient. Or something.

After flipping through a few pages of Eclipse, I realized I was in the wrong book and we were watching the wrong movie.

It was shortly after this that we decided to find a copy of it at 10 o'clock at night. So I bundled up little Mondo Fattington Hoegenheimer (which mostly consisted of me saying "Get in the car, Fat Boy" and him happily going along) and we went on a three store tour in search of a crappy adaptation of a crappy book.

And so we drove to two separate 7-11s and a Walgreen's looking for it after the Redbox website lied to me and told me it was available, only to return home in defeat. (Or perhaps two other pajama clad ladies and their farting dog beat us to the Redbox and snatched it up first?)

But never you fear.

Sometimes a great journey can stretch over two days. And the Gods were on our side as I received a free movie code to Redbox. Free. It is almost as thought they knew I was surfing their site the night before and reeled me in with a free movie code. Strange.

So I spent a lot of yesterday stalking the Redbox site to see if a copy of Eclipse would show up. Finally at about 8pm, a copy appeared at the Walgreen's on SE 39th and Belmont. And we were off!

Like two spinsters in the night, loyal pup in ~~hand~~ car, we got to the store with our free movie code and claimed a copy.

We put an awful lot of work into finding this movie and then watching it and I want some sort of reward for not suggesting we just download it off the Interwebs. You are welcome, Summit Entertainment and various movie makers.

As for the movie, I don't have much to say except that AE kept remarking "This movie is awkward." and "This is making me uncomfortable."

I'm not sure what she was talking about? All the shirtless dudes running around for no reason other than eye candy or was it possibly the weird sex noises Belle and Edward make every time they kiss?

And I sat giggling as I knitted a new scarf, mocked the saccharin dialogue, and occasionally thrust my fists in the air and yelled "Team Charlie" or "Team Dad!"

As the movie came to and end I turned to AE and said, "I kind of wish we'd watched Face Punch."

My day is filled with moments like these. Sorry I keep them a secret.

2012-10-17T23:39:00.001-07:00

Today at work my coworker hung a sign above our desk that said "British Steel."

"Sounds like a boy band name," I told him as I was patching together a hobo Employees Only sign out of recycled paper and using tape from a tape gun in lieu of laminating it.

"More like rock & roll band," he replied, as he ate a handful of Runts he stole from the candy machine. The warehouse guys know all the right ways to jiggle the candy machine to get it to drop a handful of candy, rather than coughing up the $0.25.

"God dammit Stop eating those Runts. You are supposed to pay for those." In my fury, the roll of tape popped off the tape gun and rolled away on the floor, pulling a few feet of tape off the roll as it scurried like a tumbleweed in wind.

"Well look at that. Seems like I'm a tape gun wizard today," I said as I went to retrieve the tape.

"Ahh! I shrieked. "Tape Gun Wizard! That's my band name!"

"What kind of music will you play?" he asked.

"We will be conceptual. All black attire with neon sunglasses. And we won't look at the audience, but away to the rafters as we play our old school Casio keyboards like Ross on Friends."

He laughed and then launched into a story about a British comedy about a guy starting a band. I don't remember the show or the details, because, as I told him, "I don't like British humor."

Actually, what I said was "Don't tell E--, but I don't like British humor." E-- is from the UK and actually quite funny. So really, I just don't like British television comedies. E-- makes me laugh daily.

He was shocked. SHOCKED. And appalled.

"Don't worry. I have a big love for British dramas. Oh! And Daniel Craig!"

"James Bond? You love James Bond but nothing else?"

"Well and Jane Austen," I said.

I was called away from our conversation. A few hours later, I came back to my office to find a picture of Daniel Craig set as the screensaver on the computer.

Not to be outdone, I wrote "British Steel" on a post-it and stuck it to the screen, a squiggly black arrow pointing at Daniel Craig's crotch.

It was shortly after this that I got a text message informing me that my dog may or may not have been pepper sprayed.

Mondo has been quite the little butthead this week. Once it started raining, he decided that pooping on the towels in the laundry room and on the kitchen floor was much better than going outside and getting wet.

And then he decided that he should eat a bunch of little blue gel beads from an exploded kids toy. And Nerf gun bullets. This prompted me to briefly consider starting a Tumblr blog called "Tumbld from My Butt" in order to post the things he poops daily.

And then he decided that he should welcome our new roommate AE to the fold by peeing on her feet in excitement.

So hearing that he'd been pepper sprayed was alarming, but not shocking.

When we first moved into this house, very first week, the dogs ran out the screen door and scared the bajeebus out of the mail lady. I had to go down to the post office and sign an official letter saying we would keep the dogs locked up.

Yesterday, MK was taking the trash out and left the main door open but the screen closed. The screen doesn't latch properly.

At this time, the mail lady arrives and the dogs, fulfilling the divine prophecy read in the stars a billion years ago, did their duty, busted through the door, and gave chase.

She retaliated by pulling her pepper gun and sprayed in the general direction of the dogs.

They survived and will live to scare the mail lady again. However, I'm now sitting here wondering if we got our mail delivered today and if we will ever receive it again. Because I'd really like to vote this year.

But I digress.

After the excitement of band names and dog shenanigans, I ended up working late and then heading home in the suddenly rainy and dark night.

I stopped at Safeway and had the glorious luck to hear the following conversation.

Clerk: "Here is your change and this is a coupon to save another 10 percent. Just go to our website and sign up for these benefits and you can save 10 percent on your next purchase of these brands." She then tries to hand the coupon to the man, who looks like an absent minded professor in a news boy cap and tweed.

Man: "Oh, I don't want this. I don't want the government tracking my grocery purchases."

Clerk: "Oh, no one tracks your purchases, you save money and it is free."

Man: "They will know everything I buy and use it against me."

Clerk: (blank faced and confused)

Man: "Can you imagine if they'd tracked Anne Frank's grocery purchases? They would've found her family sooner."

Clerk: "Uh. Thank you. Have a nice day."

While this was probably the funniest thing I witnessed all day, the worst happened a few hours before, at work, when I was informed of the worm suicides.

Worms.

Gross and double gross.

One of the great things about the company I work for is their commitment to reusing, recycling, and re-purposing everything they can. This includes composting on site.

I've tried very hard to ignore the giant stack of compost bins as I know they contain a billion worms.

But yesterday morning I get this news:

W: Just so you know, there are lots of worm carcasses on the ground near the compost bin.

Me: What! Shut your mouth. (I begin mentally plotting how to go home sick).

W: Yes. We think they are either hungry or there are too many of them in the bucket. But either way, they are crawling out and falling to the ground. There are a bunch of them dried up on the ground.

Me: Please tell me you are joking.

W: No.

Me: I have to go home now.

Do me a favor.

2012-09-26T22:52:00.001-07:00

I can't say the word jewelry very well.

I put a lot of emphasis on the first syllable, jew, which just sounds terribly inappropriate to say to customers. I sell a lot of jewelry displays. Yesterday I was trying to say "Try this black jewelry stand, it is made of velvet." But I became self-conscious about my pronunciation and I actually said "Try this black jew...uhl-ree stand."

And the words Black Jew were hanging out there in the air for a moment while I tried to get my mouth to finish the rest of the word.

I'm not sure there is a term for my speech impediment, but I do have one.

I cannot say these words:

bourbon (I say bore-bon)
mural (I say merle. Like as in Merle Haggard)
roulette (I say roo-lay)

I never know when my poor pronunciation will rear its ugly head.

I say dash hound instead of dachshund.

I would consider myself a fairly smart person. I mean, I managed to graduate from college without attending a lot of class. (sorry mom).

And I always got decent grades (for the most part, let's not talk about that East/West Philosophy class my senior year).

My main problem is that I'm too lazy. If I read a word I've never heard or read before, I don't look it up in the dictionary. I try to figure out the definition in context of the story or paragraph. This works well for the definition, not the pronunciation. It is a risky gamble.

Obviously, one day, when I say the word, I probably won't say it right.

Here is a real life example.

"It really sucked that I didn't get the job but you know how it is. Sest la vee."

Or perchance I meant c'est le vie?

If you hear me saying words wrong, please correct me. Say "I think that word is pronounced...."

I mean. Go ahead and laugh at me first. But then help me out.

I'm too lazy to help myself.

I'm prepping for the big three two .

2012-09-11T20:50:00.002-07:00

I've really grown up in the past year.

I'm eating less burritos. I only watch one reality TV show. Like all women of certain age, I find my interest in Angela Lansbury increasing daily.

I'm nesting. I've spent the last year taking care of my beautiful little dog Mondo (his birthday is Thursday! Don't forget to send a present.) and I'm enraged by politicians on a daily basis. I've subscribed to Real Simple magazine and actually read the articles.

It feels so nice to settle into old age so gracefully.

This past weekend I did almost absolutely nothing and I'm pretty sure it was the second best weekend of my life.

I was sick-ish on Friday night and that led to me staying in bed the rest of the weekend, though I was not sick on Saturday and Sunday. I made one trip to the Redbox to rent The Hunger Games. And then on Sunday I was heading to the Redbox to return the movie when I got an urgent call from the KL and LL as they had locked themselves out and I had their spare key. Because I had to drive past Mt Tabor to meet them, I did end up walking Mondo around the reservoir three times.

Then I got home and picked some tomatoes off the vine and also noticed that our backyard was looking a little rednecky so I ended up weeding, cleaning, and sweeping. Two hours of rescuing and cleaning was about all I could handle and I went back to bed to watch another movie.

I'm not proud to admit that I watched The Lucky One and Pride & Prejudice back to back before passing out at 11pm.

Oh yeah. And our lawn caught on fire.

Gosh. I'm so happy I'm an old lady and can still handle all this excitement.