Have Job, Will Grumble

Waking up for work in the morning is never an easy thing to do. I think it must be at least 11 times harder when you haven’t done it in 11 months.

After starting a new job earlier this week, I was reminded of that unwelcome gut punched feeling first thing in the morning when you realize you really, REALLY can’t go back to sleep this time. No matter how (very) tired you may still be. No matter how much (5 hours) more you could sleep if given the chance. No matter how much you can think of nothing but doing this:

for the rest of your life. You simply cannot. You must awaken and you MUST get this party started.

The first thought that enters my brain each morning that I wake up at 7:00 am is “Ugh. Seriously?” followed by: “Urrrrgh… this is fucking brutal.” then: “I can’t do this somebody please kill me kill me now.”

What makes it all the worse is the fact that it’s September (BLARF!) and this brings back all sorts of crippling memories from the ghost of 1st week back to school past…

***

It’s the RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RI_[lazy two finger click] of 5:45 am, followed by the RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*RIE*R_[irritated palm slap] of 5:54.

It’s the staring at the ceiling in utter frustration and anger from 5:54 and 6 seconds – 5:57 while slowly facing the reality of the responsibility that awaits you; brushing teeth, getting dressed, walking around places and making sounds come out of your mouth all the while trying to look cool and seem normal enough not to become a social pariah at least for one more day. Truly horrific shit…

***

Finally managing to pull myself off of the mattress is at once one of the simplest and most difficult tasks I will encounter all day. Get past the point of actually laying down and you’re golden. Unfortunately, it’s usually not until around noon before I actually start to feel good about the decision I made this morning. The time leading up to that is pure and total hell full of doubt and remorse and daydreams about sleeping while simultaneously eating, watching television and reading internet gossip. Of course, by 2:00 I can’t help but feel irritated that it’s NOT 5:00 yet so it’s really just a ceaseless nightmare.

At least it is for me. For others, waking up is the least of their problems.

It’s not a hit, it’s a holiday…

I’m not entirely sure why I can’t seem to keep up with this blog but I can’t. I just cannot seem to muster up the strength to do much anything creative anymore.

*****

It’s been a strange few months. Lots of changes in lots of ways. Finally made it through the winter and now full steam ahead into the burgeoning spring. It seems there’s reason once again to get up in the morning. With temperatures high enough to allow the fresh air to sail through the screen door once more I actually find myself making way to areas of the world that don’t exist solely within the confines of my house.

The bee has a new job and works long, late hours. Because I’m so ridiculously co-dependent that means that my schedule has taken a shift of course as well. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just a different thing.

You would think this would mean I’d have all that much more time to spend writing and being creative blog-wise but I’ve found myself seeking out joy and solace in catching up on books I’ve always meant to read and leisurely but methodically learning how to play the guitar.

There was a time when I thought I could have been a “good” blogger. Now I know that was just a hazy pipe dream. It’s kind of sad to admit but it’s also OK. Not everyone can be everything they want to be all the time. Still, I continue to hold onto the hope that I can be something someday.

I’ve just started to realize that the sweeping ribbon of emotional rollercoaster highs and lows in my life can actually manage to balance themselves out if given some time and self-determination. After leaving my job in October and going on with life without medication I decided it was probably important for me to document my moods to gain a better understanding of what all this internalized mania means.

I began to keep a journal. A diary, if you will. Entires are sporadic but frequent enough, I hope, to help me in the future when I begin to somersault into the dark unknown as I’m biologically prone to do.

I don’t know what exactly is to become of this blog but this admission of a decided lack of focus and motivation isn’t necessarily a towel thrown down in defeat.

*****

There’s a great song from a great band that keeps playing itself over in my head lately:

No one wants to pay to see her happiness
No one wants to pay to see her day-to-day
And I’m not buying it, either
But I’ll try selling it… anyway

I love the hypocrisy of the lyrics. I live them all the time. I claim to hate the internet; its over-saturation in our culture but I’d be lying if I said I don’t check my phone hourly for email and that I don’t consult the web for practically every question I can’t answer with my own under-utilized mass of grey matter.

I tell myself that I should desert blogland, just do it, find some other way to feed my ego that isn’t so self-indulgent but then who would hear my furious cries for attention?!

I find myself thinking about how much I need it especially while absent from it. There’s a lot of uninspired twaddle plastered on the internet; this post only failingly aspires to be something more. Even still my lack of enthusiasm for my own creativity is just pure laziness. Doing nothing is almost always easier than doing something.

And my writer’s block? It don’t mean shit. I just need to throw it against the wall and see what sticks…

Origami Envelopes: In Rainbows

After almost 5 months in the works, here are the wedding thank-you notes in their final form – signed, sealed and now in the hands of the Postal Service:

Since I can’t seem to manage to do anything simply (or in a timely fashion for that matter *ahem*), I decided I would make the thank-you notes from scratch, including envelopes, much like we did with our party invites.

When we sent our invitations out last autumn we also included an origami paper crane in each envelope:

to tie-in with the origami boxes we made to hold our favors:

As a means to bring this whole endeavor full-circle, now that the party is over, I also used origami paper to create the envelopes for the thank-you notes.

And it was pretty simple to do!

Watch… I’ll show you.

First, you’ll want to select a large (9 3/4″) square piece of paper (color side down):

Next, fold your paper into a triangle:

Take the top layer of the triangle and fold down to meet the center of the base:

Fold the right corner approximately 1/3 over to the left (it’s really hard to make them perfectly uniform so this part is somewhat inexact):

Then do the same with the left corner:

Fold the corner of your last fold (left flap) back onto itself so its edge continues the straight line made from the top right edge of the envelope:

Here’s where it gets a little tricky…

Now, take the point of the flap you just made and fold it toward the top corner of the flap:

Unfold this last fold, exposing the crease, as it is there to guide you through the next step:

Open the creased fold so it looks hollow inside and then “squash” the folds until you have a “sideways” square:

Fold the top point of the envelope down so that it meets about 3/4 of the way down your “sideways” square:

Then tuck that point into the sideways square; flatten the envelope by pressing gently on all the creased areas and PRESTO! – origami envelope:

I found that I needed to add some strategically placed tape around the bottom as well as over the tucked square in order to secure the envelope for USPS transit but if you just plan on using these for hand delivery or table cards or WHATEVER else, then your origami envelope is good to go!

Air Kicks

the bee: You can go on into the bathroom first this morning.

me: UGH.

b: What?!

m: Well, thanks and all but it’s just so CA-CA-CA-COLD in there. *jitterbugs around the bed in a fetal position to really drive home the point*

b: *slowly turns body in opposite direction*

m: I wish you could air kick me like the Transporter into the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to touch the cold tiles.

b: Do what now? Like who?

m: You KNOW. Like the Transporter. Jason Statham. He is like a master of air kicks.

b: What are “air kicks?”

m: You’re kidding me, right?

b: But aren’t all kicks “air kicks”?

m: Pffffffffffffffffffft. No.

Air kicks are when you are specially trained in martial arts or something and you can make your body fly through the air with your legs shooting straight out, readied like a fist so you can kick-fist someone in the face.

b: Wouldn’t that be called a “flying kick” then?

m: I doubt it. Jason Statham can’t fly, but birds can. Flies can fly. Even planes can fly. You know why? Because they have wings. Jason Statham does not have wings, therefore he cannot “fly kick“, he air kicks.

b: Well, since you’ve presented your case with such an overwhelming amount of logic and reason, I suppose I have no other option but to agree with you.

m: I’m glad I could help you come to your senses.

Now.

Ready?

One, Two, Three… aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand GO!

Note to self:

A Day in the Life

When I decided to leave my job I figured it would give me an overwhelming amount of free time to write and take pictures and just be generally creative. I thought at this point I would have created so much amazlingness that I would need to tell myself to slow the hell down and just relax already. Instead I find myself unable to wake before 10 and then frantically running around all day in the hopes that I can get something worthwhile accomplished. Most days lots gets done, just nothing worth mentioning.

Or IS it?

Since I’m unable to come up with anything original, I’ll just give you a basic rundown of a day in the life:

12:37 AM – Wake up on the couch with intense neck pain after dozing off while watching something uninteresting on the TiVO (probably Chuck since I don’t find any humor on that show save for Morgan but the bee begs to differ because he just loves it. choose your battles wisely, people.)

12:38-12:41 AM – Attempt to rouse a sleeping bee from the sofa, at first with sweetness and love, whispering things like “Hey, sleepy. It’s late, let’s go to bed, OK?”. When that inevitably doesn’t work and I’ve paced the room for the next few minutes after multiple futile attempts to wake his comatose ass it becomes “FINE! I’m going to bed, with or without you. You can sleep out here, ALONE, where it’s scary and there’s no one to protect you. Good luck.” Within moments a groggy bee will rise as late-night threats of impending fear and abandonment will almost always work in your favor.

4:23 AM – Wake to the sounds of “A-BANG-A-BANG-A-BANG” coming from the weird, dwarf-sized, pseudo-closet underneath our bed where the cat has decided for the umpteenth time to try to see if he can exit through a set of unnecessary double doors that lead only to a wall. Directly under our heads. Where we sleep at night.

This is then followed by the “SCRITCH-A-SCRITCH-A-SCRITCH” when the stinker realizes that his first tactic wasn’t completely fortuitous so he’s moved to the set of drawers built into our weird elevated bunk bed in the hopes that THIS will wake us up so we can git on down thar and play with his fuzzy little monkey butt.

4:24-5:05 AM – Unsuccessfully bargain with a cat, pleading for a decent nights sleep and some peace and quiet if he would only just let us have it: “Just two more hours, buddy. Then we play with flying string-feather alllllll day, OK?” which quickly turns into “WOULD YOU SHUT UP YOU HELL SPAWN JUST BE QUIET GODDAMN IT I’M LOSING MY MIND YOU JERK I SWEAR TO GOD I’M GONNA KIL…” until, finally, the cat gets bored with this charade and resumes sleeping peacefully wherever it is he wants to sleep and we are forced to separate (as it seems to be the ONLY way he’ll ever give us peace), one of us staying in the bed while the other mans the pull-out in the living room where we both end up passing out miserable and overflowing with rage.

Let me just say: It’s awesome.

VS.

note the slight shift in location and the subtle difference in eyelid presentation in both photos. i mention this because these things matter little. in either instance he is ready to take your sleep schedule and make it his bitch.

7:35-8:05 AM – I half-wake to the sounds of the bee getting ready for his day at the office. I remain barely fazed by his knocking about the house  and only regain consciousness again briefly as he stops to give me a kiss goodbye before he leaves the house.

I’m not gonna lie. I’m a huge fan of that part.

9:56 AM – I awake to the sound of “Meeeeeeer, meeeeer” and a little orange face staring up at me from the floor telling me to get the hell up already because he’s hungry, so let’s get this party started. This is closely followed by the “Bzzzzzzp, bzzzzzzp” of my phone which is the bee texting me to get the hell up already because he’s bored, so let’s get this party started.

10:02 – approx 1:30 PM – I begin frantically running about the house in attempt to get things done. I start by putting the kettle on for tea and feeding the cat while I work on straightening up the house because, for whatever reason, collectively we manage to make a mess of things on a daily basis so much so that each morning I have to turn the bed back into a couch or rearrange furniture that was moved to provide sufficient space for the flying string-feather obstacle course or, you know, because I am highly OCD and I just have to. During this time I will also drink my tea, eat my breakfast and manage to make myself feel sub par for not having accomplished more in the way of actual “work” all while sitting in the same dirty pajamas that I’ve worn all week. (that last part is more statement of fact than complaint because I LOVES me the time in my dirty ‘jams)

1:31-4:12 PM – Commence freaking out because it’s almost 2:00 and that’s when the bee goes on lunch which means he’s gonna call me and ask what I’m doing. Also, because technically I think I’m supposed to eat again but that’s so much work and I really don’t have the motivation but I better do it anyway because otherwise I’ll get yelled at (see: the bee). It’s around this time that I realize that I still haven’t managed to do the dishes from the night before and it never ceases to amaze me that no matter what the meal and regardless that it’s just the two of us we still have a towering mound of crap in the sink on a daily basis to deal with.

Also? I should probably shower. It’s been a while. Oh yeah, and the teeth. Still haven’t brushed the teeth.

4:15 PM – Decide that just brushing the teeth and putting on real clothes should be good enough in the way of grooming for the day. Attempt to go online and read-up on blogs and maybe get some writing done. This never happens. Instead I find that Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead is on Cinemax for the 11th time this week so I should probably watch it again because I’M RIGHT ON TOP OF THAT ROSE.

5:30 PM – The bee arrives home and any prospect of writing goes out the window. I’m totally fine with this. At least I will be until tomorrow morning (see: 1:35-4:12 PM) when I’ll just make myself feel guilty for being unproductive again. We catch up on the day’s happenings and the bee complains about some shitty thing that happened at his shitty job and I nod and roll my eyes because I totally get it and then I tell him about how fucking crazy MY new boss is. And he’ll do the same because he knows the deal with that too.

6:45 PM – We decide that we should probably start to think about what it is we might want to eat for dinner. Considering the time we look in the fridge to realize we only have 2 week old baked beans and some white-slime coated hot dogs and since it’s too late to defrost anything “real” in the freezer we realize we need to choose from the only two options left: Wendy’s or McDonald’s. Lately Wendy’s wins out since they have those new salads. You know the one’s with the nuts and cheese and berries? Yep, tooooootally love those. Have I mentioned I should be in sales?

7:55 – 10:15 PM – Return from Wendy’s and begin scarfing down dinner while watching hours of mind-numbing television programming. Remember all the things I had wanted to do during the day but didn’t and then realize that I’m just going to have to do all those things TOMORROW and I begin to panic. I don’t handle stress well. At all. So instead of beginning to relax and enjoy my time with my husband in a low-key laid-back scenario I start to obsess and voice my worry about all my shortcomings and past failures as a human. This makes for really shitty T.V. viewing. Thank god for TiVo. Again: sales?

10:30-ish – Regardless of what is happening, I begin to lose my ability to maintain consciousness. We could be in the middle of playing Dance Dance Revolution and the indefatigable need to just “go lay down for a minute” would sweep over me and that, my friends, is usually where I completely check-out. Sometimes I can pretend like I’m still with it enough to carry on a conversation or, at the very least, add commentary to something seen on T.V. but the truth is, anything after 10:45 for me is 100% auto-pilot which brings us right back to where we started.

Basically I’m just a manic-depressive, obsessive-compulsive, slightly neurotic, unemployed, over-sleeper with less than stellar hygiene, who loves her freak-show of a cat even though he’s *this close* to getting thrown out a window if he wakes her up again with his one-man-band percussive late-night music hour, with a very unhealthy relationship with fast food who really needs to get dressed and put on some make-up. Like now. It’s either that or cover up this pimple with my finger forever.

Last Minute Halloween Costume Ideas for the Recently Unemployed and Habitually Underpaid

Halloween is right around the corner, kitty cats and if you’re anything like me you wait until the absoLUTE last-minute to decide what the hell you’re wearing for the big day. That is why I have constructed this brief, yet immeasurably helpful, guide to turning something everyday into something uniquely Halloween-y.

Be a hipster zombie!

First off, this works incredibly well if you already happen to BE a hipster. For one you can just say you’re going as a zombie and, for two, you already have enough v-neck t-shirts and skinny jeans to start your own sizeable army of ennui, so clothing yourself shouldn’t be a problem. If you happen to be the antithesis a hipster, fret not. Get thee to a thrift store, post-haste!

If thrift stores are out of your budgetary range for this season’s scare-fest think familial! Do you have grandpa? Grandpa’s have an EXCELLENT assortment of ironic hipster garb so if you’ve got one, watch him CLOSELY. Hipsters are lurking everywhere just waiting for the moment to strike and steal that oversized cable-knit sweater with the mothball smell that won’t come out.

Now for the zombie part. Get some red lipstick and dark eyeshadow and apply liberally to your face parts. Go for gaping head wounds and festering sores, blood dripping from the mouth and eyes will really set you apart from the other store-bought zombies. If you ARE a hipster, obtaining said face-paint should be rather easy since most hipsters live within yelling distance of their mommies anyway. If not? Real blood and bruises work just as well too.

Be a human lint-brush!

If you have a cat, like I do, then you know that cats shed copious amounts of hair. Usually on places like your clothes or bath towels so that when you go to dry yourself off after a nice hot shower you find yourself coated in a fine layer of sweet kitty cat fluff and dander. Since it is a well-known fact that cats enjoy sitting on a freshly dried set of clean clothes, first wash your clothes (choose dark colors if your cat is light-colored and vice versa if your cat is dark) dry them in the highest heat, set down on the couch, chair, bed or table of choice and let the magic begin!

Before you know it, Mr. (or Ms.) kitty cat will be snuggling and leaving their fur mark all over your freshly laundered! Once the hair transferral process is complete, commence wearing said outfit and off you go! You have become the human equivalent of a walking-talking lint-brush. Other party-goers won’t know what hit them! Unless they’re allergic to cats. Then your presence will basically be like a sucker punch to their sinuses.

Be a pile of leaves!

Where I live, the ground is currently covered with fallen leaves that will eventually just get collected into large trash bags or burned in autumn bonfires. I say: Why waste all that potential costume fodder by handing it over to the garbage gods?! It’s time to put to use all the crafting options around us.

Since dead leaves are like nature’s velcro, this is probably the easiest cheap Halloween costume to construct. Step 1: Put on some clothes. Step 2: Go outside and roll around in the leaves. The leaves will adhere to your clothes and hair with ease. It’s like the two of you were MEANT to be together this way. Once an adequate amount of rotten foliage is stuck to your person you are ready to go!

Now, for those of you who live in slightly more temperate climates during the colder months and don’t have fallen leaves readily accessible to your person, I suggest you then go jump in a lake. Or the ocean because you probably still can since it’s like 85 degrees wherever you are.

Assholes.

**********************************************

In other news:

A photo of mine was recently featured over at Indie Ink for their Autumn Writing/Photo Contest and I’m super proud and flattered to be included so make sure  you hit them up and check out all the awesome submissions!

Also…

A TRUE ghost story of mine has been published over at Midwestern Mama Holly’s blog. The past week on her site has featured real-life stories of the strange and paranormal from some of her readers and they be FREAKY. So, go forth! and be prepared to be scared!

Look What *I* Found! Friday: Phallus in the Sand (but that’s not all folks! tell ’em what else they’ve won…) Edition

On Wednesday we went to the Atlantic City Airshow scheduled to take place over the beach and boardwalk that morning into afternoon. 

Here was our view of the show from the balcony of a penthouse condo because that, my friends, is how we do: 

A picture my shitty camera took of some of the plane action: 

oh my god. look. it's some planes. flying. in the air. it's blowing your mind isn't it?

I’m not sure how but I managed to fall asleep during a portion of the show even though every time a plane flew by it sounded like it was going to rip the roof off the building and cause the windows to spontaneously shatter and shoot flaming hot shards of glass in my face. 

I might be a Libra and that might be an air sign but apparently that matters little because my real interest that day was in seeing what kind of pictures I could get of the massive crowd roaming the boardwalk below: 

faces obscured to protect the not-so-innocent (and kind of make it look like they have giant clown noses)

 Wait. 

Is that? 

Nooooooooooooooo… 

GREENman? Pourquoi?! 

Ummmmmm… Greenman? 

You do know it’s August, right? And it’s like 90 degrees? And that I can kind of see your balls and now I can’t stop imagining just how hot and sweaty they HAVE to be in that skin-tight body suit baking under the mid-day sun. 

although no longer posing for pictures, his presence didn't make things any less awkward...

Now we can pass the stupidity and ignorance down through the generations. Start ’em young, I say! 

 

coincidence? i think not...

And if you started reading this post only because of the what the title promised, then here you go: 

as much as i would love to claim ownership of this masterpiece... alas, i just cannot. for the record? i would have made mine WAY girthy-er...

Look What *I* Found! Friday (except it’s not, because it’s really Wednesday, but i’m thinking you knew that already) Edition

So… 

I’m toying with the notion of introducing a new feature here since the bee, Ah-HEM!, has apparently far better things to do than to update his blog any longer therefore leaving me without any weekly rejected photo content that I can steal and put on my blog on Sunday night so it seems like I’ve got a lot more going on here than I actually do. 

The. NERVE. 

I know it’s not Friday. Since I am a sucker for alliteration (does it count as alliteration if it’s just two words that start with the same letter?) and can’t seem to get my act together in time to prepare the post I had intended for today, I am bumping up the first of: 

Look What I Found! Friday (insert something here) Edition 

to today so that I can probably still not finish the post I had planned to put in this spot by then but it always feels so good when you buy yourself some time even though it rarely works out the way you imagined it would. 

Anyway, for the past few weeks, upon leaving work for the day, I have noticed a peculiar hole in the mulch near the parking lot. The first time I saw it I did like a QUA-DRUPLE take because, to my surprise, there was something in there! 

NATURE!!! 

More specifically? 

A tiny little mulch living-loving frog. 

betcha can't find him!

 No. Really. You’ll never find him. 

You wanna know why? 

Well APPARENTLY that lil’ wart-y shithead who has been chillin’ in that hole for weeks now has moved onto bigger and better piles of dirt (kind of like someone ELSE mentioned earlier in this post *coughcough* YOUknowwhoyouare *cough*) now that I come prepared with camera readied to snap pictures of him.  

What a dick. Doesn’t he know this totally screws the “Looky, looky here!” nature of this post?  

Or… does it? 

This is supposed to be a Friday thing so maybe it’s fitting that by posting on Wednesday not only are my readers let down with my “discovery” but so am I. 

*sigh* 

it was only AFTER i had done this whole thing in paint that i realized the red was really hard to read over the photo. i was too lazy/disenchanted to actually fix it. so... yeah, this post has reached a whole new level of suck.

Sorry guys. The next edition will be better. 

Probably… 

not.

Weekend Bee-ject’s #23

Sooooooooooooo… the bee has been slacking. 

You should go visit him and tell him as much because obviously just the amount of guilt he gets from me isn’t enough. 

Plus, I’m kind of tired of being “the nag”. Now it’s your turn. 

I’m not saying I’m the most motivated person either. I usually have trouble just convincing myself to brush my teeth on days when I don’t come into contact with others. 

So… 

Since I’ve given you a taste of stinklefritz’s newfound love, I thought I’d give you some photographic evidence to back that ass up. 

I caught him like this: 

So I thought I’d see what he’d do if I turned on the faucet he loves so much WHILE he was still in there: 

either this cat loves water or he's INCREDIBLY lazy. or both.

Let’s take a closer look, shall we? 

* 

* 

* 

* 

* 

 

 

 

If I can teach him how to turn off the faucet when he’s finished… I think I’ll give him a set of keys to the house.