My Life as Jane

What do Wal-Mart, poop and Joan Crawford have in common?

2011-05-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

It's an age old question, really....the answer whispered upon the winds of time and scrawled in cryptic markings on cave walls and Egyptian pyramids.

Actually, its just three things that made me laugh recently. Sorry to disappoint you. There are no universal truths to be discovered here today.

But the whole laughing thing is significant to me because there hasn't been a whole helluva lot to laugh about lately it seems.

I mean this whole blog is just shit that is funny to me. It may or may not be funny to you too, but I try not to worry too much about that. However, it's hard to write about things that make you laugh when nothing's funny.

Sad, right?

I hate sad. Life has just been WAY too serious lately.

Anyway, I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And this is partially attributable to an unsuspecting friend and, shockingly, the Ex-husband...two people who unintentionally made me laugh when I really really needed to laugh.

I'll start with the unsuspecting friend. During the bin Laden drama that unfolded last week, he decided that it was the perfect time to watch "Mommy Dearest" and post quotes from the movie on Facebook. I think probably because the Osama bin Laden thing was WAY too serious to deal with. And because, really, bin Laden couldn't hold a candle to Joan Crawford. Bin Laden did his nefarious deeds from thousands of miles away in the comfort of his own cave. Joan Crawford attacked her children with hangers in her rose garden and got dirt on her dress in the process. Joan wins.

So my friend's post sparks a conversation...like, for instance, was Joan really at fault in the whole wire hanger thing? Could she have been driven to it? Anybody who has kids knows that it is more likely than not that Joan had told her children at least 500 times that they shouldn't have wire hangers in the closet. And did they listen to her? Of course not. So she goes off the deep end. But what if it hadn't been the wire hangers that put her over the edge? What if had been, say, dirty tube socks left in the middle of the floor. Would Joan be as infamous today if she had beat her kids over the head with dirty tube socks? Would her daughter have been able to sell her book?

This was funny. Or maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, it made me laugh.

The second oasis of laughter came at about the same time courtesy of the Ex-husband. He drove down for the weekend to see the Princess's last softball game. Since her birthday was coming up, we decided to get her a new TV and thought that we could go pick it out together in a rare instance of parental solidarity. I voted to go to Best Buy. He insisted on Wal-Mart.

I hate Wal-Mart.

I hate the way it smells. I hate the way the customers smell. I hate the way it's sticky. I hate the way the customers are sticky. I hate the blue vests. I hate the long lines. I hate the sad grey-ness of the place. I hate their business practices.

But nooooooooo....he had to go to Wal-Mart. "They have the best prices," he says. "We'll be able to save some money," he says.

Now, let me remind you that I live on the San Francisco peninsula and the nearest Wal-Mart is, like, a gazillion miles away in Mountain View. OK, at least 20 miles. San Francisco hates Wal-Mart too. Because we're all inherently snobs.

But we own it...our snobbiness. And we're ok with it. We look down our noses at Wal-Mart. At least until Black Friday when they have ginormous plasma screen TVs for $19.99.

Anyway, for the sake of parental solidarity, I caved and we drove to Wal-Mart.

The whole way, I reminded him of how much I HATED Wal-Mart. He knows I hate Wal-Mart. He would laugh and say things like "I remember when you were a girl from Ohio who drank beer and shopped at Wal-Mart. What happened to you?"

Fucker.

(And for the record, I love beer, but it makes me burp and nobody loves burpy girls.)

So we go to lunch and I have a glass of wine to steel my resolve. And then we go to fucking Wal-Mart.

Of course, by the time we get there, I have to pee because I was drinking wine (as all good Northern Californians should) so I tell him that I have to stop in the restroom but to go ahead and start looking at TVs and I'll catch up.

And he looks at me and says, "Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Of course, " I say. "How bad could it be?! It's a Mountain View Wal-Mart for chrissake...the middle of fuckin' Silicon Valley!"

Famous last words.

I walked in to the women's restroom to this scene...

Large child of probably 2-3 years of age. In the middle of the bathroom between the stalls and the sinks. Pants around ankles. Crying. Bare ass hanging out. Giant turd hanging from ass...like a large brown tail. I didn't know kids could produce turds that big. Seriously.

So I stifled a shriek, turned around and hightailed it out of the restroom.

I was on the verge of complete laughter-hysteria by the time I made it to the electronics section. I grabbed the Ex's arm and tried to quietly explain what I had just witnessed. He looked at me sadly and said, "Wal-Mart karma...serves ya right".

And I laughed until tears streamed down my face.

We bought a TV. And it promptly broke 3 days after we set it up. So now I have to take the piece-of-shit TV back to the only Wal-Mart on the peninsula 30 gazillion miles away. Or 20...depending on my frame of mind.

But it may just be worth it because it made me laugh.

So thank you Joan and Wal-Mart for some much needed lightness in my life.

Sometimes you just never can tell where those bright moments are going to come from. You just have to be thankful that they keep coming.

Update: In case any of you were silently hating on me for finding hilarity in the lonely bathroom turd girl...please know that an adult-type figure was yelling reassuring utterances from a nearby stall. Or at least I think she was...it was a language I didn't understand. Frankly, she could have been telling her to shut the hell up and I would not have known the difference.

Cleaning house

2011-03-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

Yah, that's right. I'm blogging again when I should be packing. There is no greater blogging motivation than having 10,000 other things that you should be doing. Don't expect it to last.

So a few days ago, I was bitching and moaning about all of the things that I needed to do. The act of packing up an entire household and moving being the primary target of said bitching.

But since then I've had a lightbulb moment. A mental change in direction. A eureka.

Moving is a golden opportunity to purge yourself of the past.

I don't think that there's a conscious element to this, but I realized that when I end relationships, I move. Both of my last big moves were primarily the result of monetary decisions, but they also both coincided with the end of my last two major relationships...the Ex-Husband and the Boy.

Go figure.

"And the Boy?" you ask. "Didn't he go away awhile ago?"

Interesting story that. With a conclusion that brought me to my eureka.

Yes, we did break up. I was frustrated and angry over a variety of issues. I said things. He said things. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't handle it well. Hindsight is 20/20 and if I had to do it again, I would definitely have tried issue resolution through communication rather than "get out". "Get out" tends to leave scars. No, really. But I was angry. I felt like I wasn't being heard. I felt like I was never being heard. I will always be sorry for that.

But then right before Christmas, we started the process of reconciliation. We made plans to see each other. We started to say "I love you" again.

And then the universe intervened and said "OHHELLNO!".

He cancelled his trip to see me because of a sick family member. And then he came down with something himself and the trip was delayed indefinitely.

We started to argue again. A lot. I was hurt and angry. He was hurt and angry.

Spring arrived and he had to go back to work. He went to Florida and the texts and calls became few and far between.

I would get frustrated by what I perceived as a one-sided attempt to make things happen and would try to break the conversation off permanently. To obtain some finality and some closure. I don't cope well without closure.

Each time he would tell me that wasn't what he wanted, but he didn't have a solution either.

I offered to go to Florida. I hadn't seen him since November. He said what was the point.

I tried to put a stake in it again, and once again he balked. He said again that wasn't what he wanted. So I kept trying to continue the conversation. I promised myself that while there was a chance that we could put it back together, I would keep trying.

I wish that I had put half this effort into the end of my marriage. Maybe I wouldn't be paying alimony today.

A month ago he promised to call. A day later he texted to say he couldn't call because he was sick and could he call when he felt better. Sure, I said.

Two weeks later, I texted him to make sure he was still alive. Yes, he said, but still sick. He would give me a call.

A week later, irritated, I texted him again. Still sick.

A week after that I threw a fit. Not my finest moment, but I was feeling, obviously, like maybe I was being avoided. I said I was done. He said he would call.

And he did. We had a decent heart-felt (I thought) conversation. I laid it out. Either we take the next step of continuing the conversation or we put this thing out of its misery. It's not a tough choice. You either want it or you don't. He said he had to think about it. He'd call me.

Huh?

He then successfully avoided and dodged for another 4 days.

And then I realized that I was being played. And not even kinda played, I mean PLAAAAAAAYED.

I set myself up. I'm such a fucking idiot. I've seen "He's Just Not That Into You", after all. I should have known better.

I'm so stupid.

Semi-fearing that if he did actually call, it would be, say, during my grandfather's funeral or while trying to help my father grieve, I told him I was done...out. I told him that he won.

And he did. He never ever has to hear from me again. And he inflicted maximum pain in the process.

I have to admire a well-played hand when I see it.

But back to moving. Moving sucks. But moving is also an opportunity to clean house. And I mean in the metaphorical sense...in case you were thinking that I was actually referring to cleaning behind the toilet. A task which I have obligingly hired out.

There is a cathartic element to removing all traces of your past while you pack. Instead of packing the cute teddy bears and other remaining gifts from a painful past, you, say, shove said gifts down the trash chute. I totally recommend this. It's awesome.

So this week, I will bury my grandfather and end one era of my life. My grandfather was occasionally a sonofabitch, but was mostly a really good man.

This week I will also move into a new place, and leave behind me another era of my life. The Boy was also occasionally a sonofabitch, but was also mostly a really good man. And an excellent player.

And this week I will also allow myself to move on. I think I need to find a good man, settle down, and maybe get married again. I realize this may take awhile, but I'm not in a hurry.

I need somebody who's in it for the long haul. I don't want to move again.

This is Jane...frozen in a stress-induced state of inactivity

2011-03-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

I sat down on my couch tonight and couldn't move. Do you know that point that you get to when you have so many things going on at one time that you can't think, can't move, can't function?

I'm so there.

So here I am wasting a few minutes blogging...something that has absolutely nothing to do with ANYTHING that I need to get done. Go figure.

I decided that maybe if I started to put it into words, it wouldn't seem so overwhelming and I'd feel better.

OK...here goes...

I'm moving a week from Sunday.

I have boxes piled everywhere. I have a large number of boxes stacked around the doors to my balcony. I can't use my balcony since it's been continuously under construction, so it seemed like a good place to stack boxes. Today, I was just notified that the construction workers need to enter my apartment next week and I have to clear a two foot area around each door. Are you kidding me? I'm moving a WEEK FROM SUNDAY! I'm seriously thinking about creating a wall around each door - with a two foot cleared area adjacent to the door, of course.

I have a paper due for school on Sunday....which I haven't started because I've been packing. Come to think of it, I may have packed my school books. Shit.

My daughter seems to have either a softball game or softball practice every day for the next two weeks.

I have to be out of town for 3 days next week to attend my grandfather's funeral. Oh yah, did I forget to mention the death in the family?

Which means that I have to have everything packed up by next Wednesday.

And arrange the piano mover and the painter to return the apartment to "original condition" and change over the cable and electricity and all the other stuff that goes with moving.

And be kick-ass at work.

And deal with my mess of a personal life. Things that should have been resolved long ago are still trying to figure out how to resolve...now...during this perfect storm of shit.

No...this little exercise didn't make me feel any better.

So here I sit. Frozen into inactivity. Staring at American Idol. Not really watching it. Although I do kind of dig Steven Tyler's sparkly purple jacket.

I acknowledge that this isn't the least bit entertaining for you. It's actually starting to stress me out a little more that I'm about to post something so fucking lame. So I'm going to quit here. Consider it your good deed for the day for listening to me vent for a minute or two. It's good karma.

There is some consolation that the stress does not seem to be affecting the Princess. She's sitting next to me on the couch, sipping sparkling cider out of our one unpacked coffee mug and laughing hysterically at Steven Tyler's sparkly purple suit.

It's good to be eleven.

Toilets and Blog Awards (and is there really much difference?)

2011-02-24T16:19:00.000-08:00

I've been sick. Like laying-sprawled-out-on-the-bathroom-floor-with-a-bucket-and-a-crucifix sick.

It hit me like a piano on Wile. E. Coyote Monday afternoon. One minute I was watching People's Court and cranking out work emails, and the next minute I...was...SICK. (And - NO - snide commenters, it wasn't People's Court that made me sick. I will hear no blasphemy against People's Court!)

I spent most of Monday night on the floor of my bathroom with, like, nine comforters, trying to keep warm and yet remain within hurling distance of the toilet.

And, man, I really need to clean behind the toilet.

I managed to crawl into bed sometime Tuesday morning, just in time for the construction workers to start drilling into the wall three feet from my bed.

Now I live in a newish building. But for some reason the company that owns the building has decided that it was improperly constructed and is now rotting because of water damage and will probably fall in on itself during the next large wind storm so they need to demolish all of our balconies and rebuild them or something like that.

I don't understand it either. I just know that every morning at 7:58, workers show up on the scaffold outside my bedroom and start pounding things and drilling things and yelling at each other in Spanish.

And I really wish that after four years of high school Spanish, I could understand more than "biblioteca" and "cerveza". It could be so much more entertaining if I knew what they were yelling. Or not. Who knows?

It's hard to be pissed when you're sick, but I was pissed. So I called the "resident liaison" for the apartment management company.

Me: I am sick...like, really really sick. And the workers are pounding on the walls and every time they pound on the walls I need to hurl again. Can you please ask the workers if they can work on a different part of the building today? Pleaaaaaaaaase.

Him: Well, I'd like to be able to do that for you but we are on a very tight construction schedule.

Me: Sir, I don't really give a shit about your construction schedule. I only care that I'm sick and I want to be in my bed under exactly 19 blankets. And I want it to be dark. And I want it to be quiet. Very very quiet.

Him: I guess we could offer you one of our empty apartments in one of the other buildings. It's furnished and it would be quiet there.

Me: Um. No, no. I don't want to vomit in somebody else's toilet. I want to vomit in MY toilet.

Him: Oh. Well, we're on a very tight construction schedule.

I hung up on him. I buried my head under all 19 blankets, tried to ignore the chainsaw right outside my bedroom window, and dreamt of removing scaffolding screws.

I'm more or less back among the living, but because I had to pay my respects for many days to the porcelian goddess, I have not been able to properly respond to Suldog's "award".

Yes, Mr. "IHATEAWARDS" Suldog gave me a "Versatile Blogger" award or some shit. I think he either ran out of things to write about or just really hates me.

Bad Award

Those of you who have been with me for awhile know that I'm not such a big fan of awards either. I appreciate the sentiment, but, really, what's the point. It's like proudly displaying your 4th place bowling trophy when there were only 4 teams.

And I'm not versatile. Versatile means to be able to do many things competently. I can't even do one thing competently.

Well, except vomit. I found out that I do that pretty well.

But because I find Suldog somewhat tolerable, I'll abide by some of his rules. I think I had to link back to him (check), list some things about myself (see below), and pass the award to some other poor slobs (not gonna happen).

Random facts about Jane:

1. I eat paste.

2. When I was sick and delirious, I needed to call in my daughter's absence at school because she was in Portland with her dad and couldn't come home yet because I was too sick to go and get her at the airport and I so called and left a message on the absence line at her old elementary school instead of her current middle school and then acted all indignant when my ex called and asked why her school was calling him and saying that I didn't call. I did call! I just called the wrong school. No fuckin' perfect attendance this year...thank gawd!

3. A couple of weekends ago, I stretched out on the couch with a bag of take-out Tai food and watched five straight hours of "Pawn Stars".

4. I know every word to "Paradise by the Dashboard Light".

5. I think men will be totally attracted to me when they find out #4.

So, that's it.

But I don't want to completely kill the award. So I made a new one. In honor of Sully's newish teeth.

And I'm giving it back to Suldog. Cuz I don't want this shit.

Jane punts...and scores a male counterpoint!

2011-02-17T13:05:00.000-08:00

So about a week ago, my friend - we'll call him Tommy Traddles - emails me and says something like, "Hey, why no Jane lately?". And I say, "Because I have school work to do and I can't write Jane until it's done." And he says, "Screw school work. Just subscribe to the 10-year grad school plan like I did." And I say, "You're an idiot. And if you want to read Jane so bad, why don't you effin' write it." And he says, "Ok...I will".

And I thought, "Wow, that was easy. Sucker!"

I also figure that, hey, even Johnny Carson let Joan Rivers fill in once in awhile.

So today Tommy is providing his male counterpoint to my Valentine's Day post. I should tell you that Tommy and I have known each other since we were kids. He has pictures of me in bat-winged shirts with rainbows plastered across the front and I have pictures of him sporting Jon Cryer hair. He is also much more worldly than I, and can tell you all of the best places to go in Europe to drink and/or watch tranny prostitutes. I keep him around as a friend for these reason specifically.

So, without further ado...here's Joan, er, I mean, Tommy...
____________________________________

After reading Jane's anti-Valentine's Day tirade, I realized that I could probably offer some advice that may help a few of you next year. For the record, I've never been much of a fan of the holiday, nor have I ever been very good at relationships, although I think I may have stumbled on three key ideas that have helped me out during this tough season.

(1) The first is the issue with settling. We seem to be too picky when choosing someone to spend the day with. Around mid-January, you should really lower your standards. Issues that are typically show-stoppers, like a curable STD, chronic halitosis, chronic unemployment, or serious psychological issues should be overlooked at the start of the new year. If the goal is to get some free candy, flowers, and not spend the evening with your cats on February 14th, start looking for next year's special person in new places. Mr. Right may just be standing on the corner with the "Will Work for Food" sign you pass by every morning on the way to work. On the 15th, stop returning calls and move.

(2) The second issue is with communication. I have always subscribed to the Homer Simpson theory that the problem with relationships is communication - too much communication. I recently started dating someone who doesn't speak my language. Adding to the magic is the fact that I don't speak hers'. Before you accuse me of being shallow and only concerned with her looks, let me explain that she does have an ass you can bounce quarters on.

Never mind, that was the shallow part.

The non-shallow part is that I am making an honest attempt to learn her language which really works out well because I do have to listen intently and nod my head every few minutes while I pretend to understand. From a relationship perspective, she could have serious mental health issues, an irritating personality, or one of the other countless issues people have that cause relationships to end. I just don't know about any of them, and it is wonderful. As far as Valentine's Day is concerned, I would highly recommend attending English as a Second Language classes at the start of the New Year to help find that special someone.

(3) The third issue is phoning it in. There is really nothing wrong with half-assing something. I have never been a big fan of the holiday. Blah, blah, blah crass commercialization, etc., but in reality I am too lazy to actually but much effort into making any relationship work...however, I did learn at an early age that a minimum effort on the 14th typically results in some sexual reward.

I hope my three suggestions have helped some of you develop a game plan to make next year's Valentine's less painful.

I'll see you at the soup kitchen around January 2012.
_______________________________________

Thanks TT. I'm inherently lazy and I'm sure all four of my readers would love to hear more of your sage advice.

I'm thinking regular punt.

Dear Valentine's Day, Suck it! Love & Kisses, Jane

2011-02-12T19:26:00.000-08:00

Ahhh...Valentine's Day.

The holiday most likely to make you feel like an absolute, complete, total wretch.

Even if you are in a relationship, the expectation of the holiday is enough to drive anyone mad. No matter what you do, it's never enough, is it?

And speaking as a female, it really is all about us. Valentine's Day is a holiday where, you - the male - must bring us - the females - many presents. You must make us feel beautiful and special and appreciated. And face it, with only one day to work with and crazy expectations, only the power of magic Valentine fairies could make us feel beautiful and special and appreciated.

If you bring us chocolate, we won't eat it because it's fattening and will wish that you had given us flowers. If you bring us flowers, we'll smile but then toss them in a day or two and wish that you had given us jewelry. And if you bring us jewelry...well, maybe we actually will feel beautiful and special and appreciated...and you'll probably get laid.

And if you're single on Valentine's Day...oh holy hell. You're faced with constant reminders on television, in the mall, in magazines, online and even in the grocery store of what a lonely loser you are.

Why has one day been set aside in the calendar year specifically to make everybody miserable?

I made the magnificent mistake the other day of watching the movie "Valentine's Day". I wanted to stick my head in the oven halfway through.

Good thing I don't know how to turn on the oven.

But I'm coping. I find that if I put on blinders and turn the cynicism up full blast, it makes it much easier.

Last week, I saw roses in the grocery store and felt sad. Today, I saw roses in the grocery store and thought "what a crap gift...they'll be dead in a dumpster in two days".

Last week, I saw a happy commercial for some "real" couple who met on eHarmony and knew INSTANTLY that they were each other's sole mate and thought "awwww...that's sweet". Today, I saw the same commercial and thought "I bet after they made that commercial they started having wicked fights about the fact that he only wants Kool-Aid instead of wine with dinner and won't move in with her because he would 'miss Mom'".

Last week, I saw a website that was featuring a stunning diamond necklace and thought "wow, that would be an amazing Valentine gift". Today, I surfed by the same site and thought "wow, that would be an amazing Valentine gift".

Hey, everybody has a price.

I'm not completely alone in my cynicism. The Princess has a crush on a 12-year old "older man", who apparently doesn't know that she is alive. She saw the same flowers today in the grocery store and said "flowers are stupid".

We bumped fists. Solidarity!

So on Valentine's Day, I'm going to grit my teeth, ignore the fuss and take the Princess out to dinner.

And maybe, just maybe, hope a little that there is love out there somewhere.

XOXO

Oh, Marriott...say it ain't so...

2011-01-24T21:40:00.000-08:00

Marriott International announced today that it plans to "phase out" adult pay-per-view movie options in its hotels worldwide.

And another one bites the dust.

Sigh.

If you haven't been following me for long, you probably are not aware that I believe that hotel room porn is a fundamental right. Like free speech. And shooting dolphins with assault rifles.

And NOT because I spend a significant amount of time watching hotel room porn.

I just like to read the titles. Seriously.

Fine, don't believe me.

I first took up the cause back in March of last year when I accidentally (no, really) discovered that the Ritz-Carlton didn't offer pay-per-view porn options - and then face-planted into a glass door. NOT related incidents, I assure you.

So I contacted the Ritz Carlton to voice my opinion on the injustice of it all. I mean, the primary demographic for the Ritz Carlton is repressed rich people (and when I say "people", I really mean "men") who likely consider a night at the Ritz Carlton as an opportunity to escape their lives (and when I say "lives", I really mean "wives") and so they pack some lube and a toothbrush and settle in for an evening of pay-per-view fun and maybe a hooker or two. Imagine their disappointment when they can only find MSNBC and the Disney Channel.

What a missed marketing opportunity. Tragic.

The Ritz-Carlton people obviously didn't appreciate the genius of my logic. Their loss.

But now Marriott is following suit (like the Ritz-Carlton wannabes that they always were). But I LIKE Marriott. I have all of my "frequent flier" points with Marriott.

My business travel usually involves a Marriott.

Oh NO! All of those poor George Clooney/"Up In the Air"-esque business travelers! What will they do? There's a reason that half of these guys get into a business that requires ass-loads of travel...so they can get away from their families, order beer and steak topped with bacon and cream sauce, and watch porn in the privacy of their Marriott hotel room.

Now they'll have to...I can hardly say it...

...balance their computers on their laps and watch free porn on the computer!

((SOB))

Marriott says that the reason for the phase-out is due to a "transition to the next generation of in-room entertainment" that definitely does not include porn, and it is definitely not because they were getting lots and lots of pressure from "family values" groups (likely led by the high-strung, sexually repressed wives of the men who travel all of the time and stay at the Marriott to get away from them) and CERTAINLY NOT because Mitt Romney stepped down from the Marriott board after criticism that he didn't pressure Marriott enough on the whole porn thing and is about to announce his presidential aspirations - or at the very least to be Sarah Palin's butt boy...er, I mean, running mate.

Marriott also says that their revenues from adult pay-per-view content have been steadily decreasing... which is why they want to do away with the revenue COMPLETELY!

Makes total sense.

I guarantee that the people who are crying the loudest about the evils of porn are the ones who - when nobody is around - are holed up in their basements with a ball gag, a gallon of Crisco, a vibrator the size of a chainsaw and a subscription to www.1800JACKOFF.com.

I made that that last bit up. The domain name still seems to be available if anybody's interested.

FREE THE PORN!!!

At least there's still the Westin.

So who's on your team?

2011-01-17T23:02:00.000-08:00

Every year for the last few years, my friend, B, has invited me to go to Tahoe over MLK weekend for skiing, sushi, drinking, and general debauchery. And every year, I have bowed out because (1) I don't get on things that slide, (2) I don't eat sushi, and (3) it seemed kinda lame to go just for the drinking and debauchery.

But I rethought my position this year, had no other obligations and decided to go. What the hell.

Magnificent place, Tahoe. Stunning views. Snow-covered mountains. Beautiful sunsets.

And the best people watching EVER!

How did I not know about this?

Saturday night, we went to one of the South Lake Tahoe casinos and B and the rest of the crew introduced me to my new favorite game..."Your team!".

The concept is this...

Step one: Drink.

Step two: Observe. Watch for passers-by who are strange and/or grotesque and/or crazy and/or freaky and/or just plain slutty and awesome.

Step three: Call out "Your team!" and point to the friend nearest you or the friend who has irritated you last - by, say, winning $50 at video poker.

Step four: The freak is now assigned to your friend's "team" for all eternity. The concept is that when you die, you won't be able to spend eternity with your family and friends (unless, of course, one of your friends is a freak and has been assigned to your team). You must spend eternity with the fabulous specimens that your friends have kicked to your team.

There are bonus points for mullets.

Now, at first glance, this may seem a bit cruel and juvenile. And I assure you that I considered this for about 5 seconds before I was rolling on the floor laughing because it was SO MUCH DAMN FUN!

Conscience cleared.

Now you may be wondering how we had time to gamble when there were so many obvious potential team members in a Tahoe casino.

The good news is that you can collect team members for your friends WHILE you gamble.

The mother-load find of the night, however, went to our friend, R. She spotted "Tiger Man" first...

When Tiger Man strolled by our little corner of the bar, we shamefully erupted into uncontrollable laughter and a chorus of kitty growling noises.

I wish you could see the detail in the picture - it was really dark. What you might NOT be able to see is the following:

the tiger stripped labels on the jacket;
the matching tiger tuxedo stripe down the side of each pant leg;
the tiger stripped jacket pockets;
the red skull cap and tortoise shell glasses;
the Puma tennis shoes - in keeping with the kitty theme; and
the Johnny Depp (circa Alice in Wonderland) wanna-be friend sporting the top hat with two feathers (because one feather wouldn't have made any sense) with him at the bar.

Tiger Man is now on B's team - probably because she had just won at video poker.

My buddy, E - he's so funny - he said he was going to go over to Tiger Man and invite him over to meet the cougar.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh wait, I'm the...

Shit. Nevermind.

After the rest of us left to head back to the hotel, B stayed behind to consume about 15 more drinks and claims to have spotted a mullet - which of course would mean that she had trumped us all for the night. She got a picture of the gentleman at a Blackjack table - but only from the front. Frankly I'm not buying it. If you're going to call mullet and document the business in the front...you also have to document the party in the back.

I'm calling foul.

There were many many MANY other worthy nominees for our respective teams. Too many really to showcase here. Suffice it to say, we will all be having a grand freaky spandex-wrapped time in the afterlife.

But in the spirit of true self-reflection, two of the biggest freaks this weekend were actually me and B.

This is B and I in a local hardware store with our faux-fur critter hats. In other words - totally team worthy. So now B is on my team and I'm on hers. And this makes me kinda happy because now I know that I'll be spending the afterlife with B in her roadkill cap (gopher maybe?).

Go team!

The Patriots want Jane...and, no, not the New England Patriots

2011-01-09T21:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes things happen in the universe that really make me start to think that there is a God...things so ironic that they could not POSSIBLY have happened by accident.

Example - I have been added to the Patriot movement's email distribution list.

Not the fun football Patriots, but rather the gun-toting, Obama-hating, Bible-thumping, anti-tax, grammatically-challenged Patriots. (Note: I'm really not calling people names here. This is more or less a Patriot self-description made available on a t-shirt. See below.)

Those Patriots.

((shudder))

I have a junk AOL email account that I use as a catch-all for general email crap...pizza coupons, make-up tips, Vegas deals, fur recommendations from Rachel Zoe. I hardly ever look at it - I mean does anybody actually use AOL anymore?! So imagine my surprise when, right after Christmas, I started receiving daily Patriot Update emails in said account. My reactions went something like this...

Get the fuck outta town!
Hey, this shit is funny!
Ewww...this shit is disturbing.
UNSUSBCRIBE! UNSUBSCRIBE!
Oh wait, there's a blog topic in here somewhere.

Patriot spam. Really. Each email was primarily a list of links to very important Patriot-related "news" items followed by a series of ads for very fun Patriot-related items. Such as...

The 1599 Geneva Bible - back in print AFTER 400 YEARS! The Bible that "Obama does NOT want you to read!" I'm not sure why Obama doesn't want me to read this version of the Bible, but there wasn't an FAQ section to the ad, so I guess this will remain a mystery...unless I buy the Bible. Awesome marketing idea.
The 2nd Amendment t-shirt - "The 2nd Amendment: America's Original Homeland Security, Right to Bear Arms"
The D.A.D.D.D t-shirt - "Dads Against Daughters Dating Democrats". Get it? Like Mothers Against Drunk Driving? I'm a little disappointed that I didn't come up with this one myself.
The "I'm a God Fearin', Bible Believin', Gun Packin', America Lovin' CONSERVATIVE" t-shirt. Conservatives evidently hate g's. Unless it's capital G in God. I believe this purchase comes with a free bumper sticker: "I'll keep my guns, freedom, & money...You can keep the 'change!'".
And my personal favorite...The 2011 Cruise for Liberty. Only $599! "Makes a great Christmas gift for that conservative who needs a break from Obama and the Democrats!" I guess this is what conservatives do with the money that they kept - along with their guns and freedom. Maybe they'll be able to shoot dolphins from the ship!

I didn't dig much deeper at the time that I first discovered my newest email resource because of all the other shit that was going on in my life. But I made mental note, logged it under "possible blog topics" and moved on.

And then yesterday, I turned on the TV to watch football and came face-to-face with the horrifying coverage of the shooting in Tucson of U.S. Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords.

I wish I could say that I was surprised that this happened. Given the hate spewing from both sides of the political spectrum...given the unbalanced fringe of audiences hanging on every word...how could it not?

It was sad and frustrating and so completely senseless.

I remembered the Patriot email and was curious. So I decided to have a peek at the site.

It's not for the faint of heart.

The articles are obviously written with a Tea Party slant but are, for better or worse, not completely offensive.

But the comments - holy shit, the comments!

Here's a taste...Nancy Pelosi in a body bag, Barack Obama in a body bag, solve the country's problems by taking away White House Secret Service funding, Barack Hussein Obama, how all Muslims are generally evil and want to kill us, Obama is not really the president, the goal of healthcare reform is to control the people, Obama is a socialist, Obama is evil, "Barry Odumbo" is a power-hungry Muslim, Allah is a god but has to bow to God the Father, you can't take the "slum" out of Obama, and on and on and on. A lot of it is incoherent, grammatically indecipherable rambling - a bit similar to what we've been seeing from the YouTube videos allegedly created by the Tucson gunman.

And I'm not sure who this Barry Odumbo is, but he sure sounds like a dick.

But the most chilling - for me, at least - was this comment, "In Arizona we saw a tragedy yesterday. The assailant was 'pissed off' at his Rep. She backed the healthcare, and abortion. In November, We The People have spoken against this Tyrannical Government and their Socialism Run Regime...yesterdays result is from the after-affects of this healthcare, someone finally 'had enough'....I'm saddened for the little girl who passed, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But for the Rep., she represented Obama." (sic)

In other words, it's ok. She had it comin'.

And this is only one comment that I chanced across on one site. What the hell else is out there??

I'm going to step back here and say that I firmly believe that everybody deserves a voice. If you have an opinion, you have the right to make it heard. But...BUT...if somebody is already on the edge of crazy, and is prone to seek out fringe opinions such as the one stated above...that somebody might start to think that crazy is ok and, worse, actionable.

My goal here is not to preach. God/Allah knows, I hate preachy. And if you're a card-carrying Patriot or Tea Bagger, don't just fire off on me here because - you know what - I'm bringing awareness to your crazy and maybe somebody will seek out your site as a result of reading this blog and will be so taken by the strength and conviction of your crazy that they decide to become a Patriot/Tea Bagger too.

Or not.

And if you're a "main stream" Tea Bagger with legitimate issues and are interested in engaging in a conversation to find a productive solution to what ails us, doesn't it bother you that the crazy in your fringe have taken over the conversation? That you are now lumped in with them?

There are valid points to be made on all sides of every issue. But - for the sake of all - let's take a step back, breathe deep and quiet the crazy.

Or just put it on a t-shirt.

Observations from a way sucky holiday

2011-01-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

I haven't been blogging for a few reasons. First, the holidays have been brutal and it seems that brutal doesn't translate well into entertaining reading.

Second, I generally don't dive deep into my personal life here. There are a few people who read this and who know me and my life. The trouble with telling people that you write a blog is that sometimes you want to write about something but then you don't because you're afraid that somebody is going to read it and take it the wrong way or get their feelings hurt. Every time that I have tried to write something lately, I've stopped because it feels too personal and I don't want anybody to feel bad.

I'm done with that now. This is my blog. If you don't want to see what I have to say - don't read it.

Alrighty then...moving on.

Breakups, in general, are hard. Breakups during the holidays are worse than awful. Breaking up and then talking about reconciliation only to get your heart stomped on again during the holidays is practically unbearable. I don't recommend it.

But out of this unique experience has come a few minor, rather unentertaining observations. I apologize in advance for the uninspired nature of this post.

Observation No. 1 - Being a quality, attentive parent is nearly impossible when you are trying to survive a broken heart. It is assumed that to be a good parent, one has to shove all personal emotion aside. Kids are not stupid and are likely to notice when your eyes are swollen, there are tissue pieces stuck to your nose and you haven't showered in three days. Kids don't like that. So you push your emotion aside and try to throw all of your attention to your child. The result is a half-assed constantly on the verge of a break-down style of parenting. Or in my case, staring blankly at iCarly while my daughter tries in vain to engage me by filling me in on the finer plot points and calling that quality time.

She knows I'm a mess right now and I hate that. It's not fair.

I'm learning that this is a constant single-parent threat. A single non-parent person falls in love and then breaks up - only that person gets hurt. A single parent falls in love and then breaks up - the parent and child get hurt. No matter how careful you are. No matter how much you protect your kid. I'm learning that people without kids don't get that. It's too easy for a non-parent to compartmentalize the parent that they are dating from the child. The parent understands that it's an intractable package deal.

Observation No. 2 - The holidays were intended for couples - not single people. Every kiss may begin with Kay, but Kay can kiss my ass.

Observation No. 3 - Exercise really is the cure for what ails you. I learned that time on the treadmill with a chick-lit book on the iPad is time spent not being sad. I just have to learn how to time my workouts better. I keep walking in to the workout room right after Smelly Guy has left. Which sucks because then the next person that walks in thinks that I am the one who has generated this fabulous scent combination of sweat and ass. Eau de Smelly Guy can be detected on the elevator on the way back to my apartment an hour later. He's a gem.

Observation No. 4 - This whole instant movie Netflix thing on the Wii is AWESOME! How long has this been available?

All right. I realize that, like me, this is a big ol' mess so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. I have better stuff ahead...better writing, better life, better attitude.

Better year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Thanksgiving Comes First (even if you want to tell the whole holiday season to suck it)

2010-11-21T23:09:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this for my new friend, Suldog, who writes fabulous blog entries that I need a thesaurus to interpret but inspires me to be a better - or at least a more loquacious yet articulate - writer (like that?!).

Sully hates the fact that Christmas is now officially celebrated for a quarter of the year. And I tend to agree, although for slightly different reasons.

It used to be when I was a kid that I looked forward to Thanksgiving for the pure reliable family traditions. Every year, me and my mom, dad and brother would walk up the street to my grandparents' house for the yearly Thanksgiving feast. The men would watch football while the women finished up the meal preparations. Around 2:00, everybody would sit down to turkey, potatoes, cranberries, rolls and some kind of veggie/fruit jello mold thing.

To this day, Thanksgiving just isn't Thanksgiving without a mystery-fruit jello mold.

After dinner, everybody would lay around like giant slugs, maybe play a game of Scrabble or cards and then reconvene in the living room for pumpkin pie and the inevitable showing of The Ten Commandments or The Sound of Music on TV.

There was a lot of comfort in this familiarity. Family spending time together before the advent of cell phones and Twitter.

The next day, you would start to see traces of Christmas here and there. Christmas lights on the neighbors' houses, candles and poinsettias in church, holiday trees in the department stores. Christmas had officially begun.

The sales circulars didn't show up in the newspaper until Thanksgiving Day. It was fun to sit around after Thanksgiving dinner with a 10-pound newspaper and piece together an imaginary Christmas list.

But Thanksgiving always came first.

I don't know exactly when it started to happen, but Christmas started to creep. Some years ago, I noticed that stores started to kick-off the season the day after Halloween. And then it started before Halloween. In a year or two, I imagine that we will start to hear Santa Claus is Coming to Town on July 5th.

This year, I admit, I haven't paid much attention to the holiday creep. But now with Thanksgiving just around the corner, it's hard to ignore. Something about being newly single again tends to make the holidays seem not so warm and fuzzy, and more like a axe hanging over one's neck.

Perspective changes everything.

To me it's not so much that Christmas is taking over, it's that I don't want to deal with the holidays... period. How does starting it so much earlier sound like a good idea to anybody...except maybe Best Buy?

The holidays as an adult are tough as it is - parties you don't want to go to, gift-exhanges for people you don't like, forced jolliness, fruit cake. Add into it the pressure to singly provide a fun and memorable holiday for a 11-year old when money is tight and your entire family lives 2000 miles away, and the holidays are downright frightening.

I'm not in the mood for the neighbors who never took down the Christmas lights from last year but turned them on the day after Halloween with a "look how on top of things we are, fuckers".

I don't want to hear Christmas music on the radio before Thanksgiving...or Halloween...or the first day of school. It's bad enough to be depressed and flipping through the radio stations and have to deal with occasionally landing on the easy listening radio station that plays "all love songs all the time" - or as the newly single like to refer to as "stick-your-head-in-the-oven love songs". But throw in deck the halls and chestnuts roasting and Frosty and I'm ready to forego something as elaborate as the oven and head straight to the George Foreman grill to see what kind of damage I can inflict there. I'm not sure I know how to use the oven anyway.

And I'm definitely not in the mood to hear how my ex-husband is already Christmas shopping, mostly with the alimony checks that I'm sending him.

Let's not move this shit up on the calendar any earlier than we absolutely need to! Sheesh.

But there are things for which I am grateful and I will remind myself of those things on Thursday when everybody takes a break from a full month of Black Friday and gorges themselves on turkey and jello molds.

I am thankful for my amazing 11-year old daughter who, with one smile, makes me forget everything else.

I am thankful for my friend, B, who has had pity on me and invited the me and the Princess to Thanksgiving dinner because she knows that we are alone and I don't cook and I'm a vegetarian and the Princess should definitely not have to suffer without turkey and would likely be served Oscar Meyer processed turkey if we didn't go to B's. (Note to B - shall I bring the jello mold?)

I'm thankful that the Princess's Christmas list has gone down from "everything in the Pottery Barn Teen catalog please" to a pair of Uggs and a new cell phone.

I am thankful that I have a job. And that I have a job that only makes me want to stab myself in the eyeball with a fork about half the time.

I am thankful I have good friends who still love me even when I'm sad and anti-social.

I am thankful that I don't have any cavities.

I am thankful for my friend K, who let me cry on her shoulder even though she was 3000 miles away. And then I forgot her birthday, making me the worst friend EVER.

I am thankful that I have my health and good shoes.

Even though I will likely only receive a hand-knitted slightly crooked Princess-made scarf for Christmas, I am thankful that I will be receiving a hand-knitted slightly crooked Princess-made scarf for Christmas.

And I am thankful that I know when I am coming dangerously close to insufferable self-pity.

So for me...no candy canes until after the tofu turkey. No Christmas shopping until after the actual Black Friday (or the next paycheck, more likely). No holiday music...ever.

I'm going to stop and be thankful.

And then I can be a Grinch.

"Touch my junk" and other reasons to feel better about the world in general

2010-11-17T19:21:00.000-08:00

I was fully planning on sulking for a while longer, but then I heard the airport security tale of John Tyner. And nothing will temporarily pull me out of a funk faster than hearing somebody bitch about TSA security processes.

In case you haven't heard, John Tyner - a software engineer from San Diego – chose to “opt-out” of the new and improved full-body naked airport scanners and was asked to submit to the new and improved full-body pat down by a TSA agent. Mr. Tyner decided, that, no, he didn't want his crotch grabbed by a complete stranger, told them so and offered to go through the regular metal detector like most of the other passengers. The conversation soon escalated and Mr. Tyner was told that he not only couldn’t board his flight, but also couldn’t leave the airport AND he was likely now subject to civil charges and a $10,000 fine. Mr. Tyner left the airport.

The best part is that he recorded everything on his cell phone and now the phrase “touch my junk” can be inserted into polite conversation.

Awesome!

You can read the first-hand account through this link.

Much like the Jet Blue guy who grabbed a beer and exited his plane via inflatable ramp, Mr. Tyner has received both resounding praise for his actions, and loud derision.

I, for one, am a fan.

I started writing about my experiences with TSA at the San Jose airport back in September. Back then – which I can now refer to safely as “the good ol’ days" – my biggest issue was continuously setting off the security metal detector with my underwire bra and having to face a friendly “back of the hand along the boobs” pat-down to ensure that I hadn’t stuffed an uzi or exploding breath mints in my bra.

Then it was the backscatter scanners – or the porno scanners as I've now heard them lovingly referred to. I submitted (and I really can’t think of a better word here) to the new naked Kodak box in September and then was surprised on the other end, without warning or notice, with another friendly “back of the hand along the boobs” pat-down. The TSA chick just reached and started working me over – although, truth be told, I DO have nice boobs.

Anyway.

Now, because somebody tried to ship something in a box…on a cargo plane…that was definitely NOT a passenger plane...TSA has been given permission to feel you up with the front of their hands. They are allowed to reach until their hand "meets resistance", like your crotch or testicles or tampon string. In other words – and as John Tyner implied – government-condoned sexual assault. Where else in the world would you allow somebody to do that to you?

I’m still waiting for somebody to coherently explain to me how cupping my breasts and taking naked pictures of me is going to make flying safer or stop bad guys from shipping bad stuff on planes. Evidently, the porno scanners likely wouldn’t have even detected the underwear bomber's tighty-whitey bomb because the scanners are not good at detecting plastics, liquids or other low-density materials.

I am, however, pretty certain that there will be a few TSA agents who like their jobs a whole lot more.

In TSA’s defense, there are some pretty awesome officers out there. I've encountered several at security checkpoints in Oakland and, yes, even San Jose. I didn’t want to like them – but they were nice and professional and didn’t show any interest in touching my boobs. This, of course, is the quickest way to my heart.

In fact, the last few times I’ve been to San Jose, the big porno Kodak boxes have been unused and roped off. I hope it stays that way. I hope that the TSA receives so much flack on the issue that they have to let their expensive new toys sit and collect dust. Maybe they can cover them with wreaths and tinsel for the holidays.

Big, expensive, dusty Christmas trees.

Now THAT is something to cheer me up.

Jane is going to curl up in the fetal position for awhile but not forever

2010-11-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life is fun and easy and sometimes it just sucks. This is one of those times when it just sucks.

I'm sure that in a few days blogging will be a welcome distraction, but right now I got nothing. I'm going to take a few and lick my wounds and will be back shortly. I promise.

Try not to have fun without me.

When hippies have a baseball team...

2010-10-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Baseball fever has struck San Francisco. The Giants are in the World Series.

This has come as much of a surprise to most residents of the area who weren't really aware that San Francisco had a baseball team...or that there is a sport called baseball.

But they seem to have - after likely inhaling large quantities of pot - adapted quite well to the idea.

This is a city that prides itself on many things - the intellectuals, the liberals, the pot, the tree huggers, the techies, the arts, the pot, the environmentalists...the liberal intellectual tree-hugging art-loving environmentally-savvy pot-smoking techies...

When you ask your average sports fan to name the greatest sports cities, however, chances are San Francisco is not going to be at the top of the list.

After all, it's hard to swing a bat when you're high. (Pitching is apparently an entirely different story.)

The city is exited about the Giants. Everybody wears orange. Giants flags flutter proudly from the back of the city's fire trucks. Coit Tower glows with orange lights.

The local newscasters are giddy. OMG, they have something to talk about besides shootings in Oakland and fog!

Now, I'm not a fan of the local news reporters anyway - we have one or two that would make Ron Burgundy jealous - but hosting the World Series has seemingly pushed them over the edge of reason and good taste. Case in point...I watched a report the other night about the "cultural differences between Texas and San Francisco". Right out of the box, the over-excited reporter deducted that the difference was, and I quote, "gays and pot." Seriously...gays and pot?! So on the flip side, did his Texas counterpart deduct that the difference was "steers and queers"?

He then went on to - not kidding - interview the homeless people on their thoughts on the Giants. It went something like...

Reporter to homeless man: So how about those Giants! Are you a Giants fan?

Homeless man: Dude, can you spare some change?

Reporter: Have you seen lots of Giants fans out here on the street?

Homeless man: Do you have any food?

Reporter: Will you be heading down to AT&T Park to enjoy the excitement of the crowds during the World Series?

Homeless man: Do you have any pot?

I wish I was kidding.

Candace got me thinking about the differences between the Ranger fans and the Giants fans. Go here for her observations on deer antlers and the "claw". Let's examine the San Francisco side of the story.

The panda hat.

Adults wearing stuffed bear heads. This is homage to Pablo Sandoval, the Giants third baseman who is lovingly referred to as the "Kung Fu Panda".

I don't get it. Pandas are fat and slow and don't do much except eat and shit. Frankly, I think this is a uniquely west coast passive-aggressive way to make fun of the fat kid on the team...but who am I to judge?

My friend, S, who is my friend despite this look.

San Diego Zoo panda taking a dump...not exactly the symbol of stealth and speed

The beard.

At some point towards the end of the regular season, Giants pitcher, Brian Wilson, started growing a beard in solidarity or something stupid like that and dyed it shoe-polish black. So Giants fans decided it would be fun and stylish to attach foam beards to their faces....or tape them...or glue them...or whatever seemed sensible after a bowl and a bag of Cheetos.

They carry signs that scream "Fear the Beard!", which, like the strange choice of the claw or the deer antlers in Texas, doesn't really seem to inspire all that much fear.

This really speaks for itself.

And I won't even go into the "Jersey Shore Fist Pump" dance that is featured between innings.

I think it's fair to say that both cities have lost their fucking minds. But in a week or so, Texans will remember that they actually shoot deer and San Franciscans will remember that foam beards are not biodegradable, and both will recover from their World Series hangovers and return to their roots.

Except by the time the World Series is over, pot may be legal in California and San Francisco probably won't remember any of it anyway.

Jane has baseball post-traumatic stress disorder

2010-10-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't been around lately. I admit it. I've been a bad blogger.

It's all baseball's fault. Stupid playoffs.

Baseball is an agonizingly long season. My boyfriend, the Boy, leaves for spring training in February. If his team sucks, he is done by early October. Unfortunately, his team is pretty ok. Which means that - depending on how far they go into the postseason - I don't get the Boy back until late October/early November.

This year they made it to the playoffs. So my October has been a whirlwind of travel and baseball games. I think I beat my own record this year with 5 games on two coasts in one span of 6 days. Combine that with work and single-parenting and now the cold from hell and I think I'm officially brain dead.

My October has had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I have enjoyed the obnoxious but mostly friendly fans of my team and the obnoxious but mostly angry fans of the visiting team (which is - mostly - how it should be). I have been hugged and high-fived by some strangers and yelled at and flipped off by others. I have had to explain new interesting words to the Princess.

I have flown across country in the middle of the night to get to the next game. I have driven endless miles back and forth to the stadium. I stayed up late and got up early. Ate erratically, drank occasionally.

I had a blast.

I am officially exhausted.

But the Boy will be home soon. And we can be exhausted together.

And since I'm tired and creatively brain-dead and have nothing really constructive to say at the moment anyway, I leave you with a picture I took this summer during my trip to LA. It has absolutely positively nothing to do with baseball.

I give you George, my tranny Lego bodyguard, at the Hollywood monument to his hero.

George - overcome with bliss

Jane...out.

Dude, there's a big dead bear outside your store.

2010-09-29T18:23:00.000-07:00

When I saw the title of Salt's most recent post, I immediately thought that she was writing about a bear incident that has been making the news in the Bay Area.

I was COMPLETELY off on this one (sorry Salt), but it made me think about this poor headline-making bear some more.

Click here for a link to the news story.

In a nutshell...

A guy walks into a meat market (sounds like the beginning of a great joke, right?) and mentions to the clerk that "Hey, there's a huge dead bear on the sidewalk outside of your store!".

And, sure enough, there was a huge dead bear on the sidewalk outside of the store.

It appears that the 300 lb black bear had been fatally shot in the shoulder and dumped outside the residential area market.

So how does a 300 lb bear end up in front of a meat market?

The Bay Area is just all aflutter with the possibilities. Even though this is Northern California and we have lots and lots of bears and lots and lots of stupid people and it is bear hunting season, one of our crack local news teams called the Oakland Zoo to make sure they had all their bears.

Reporter: OHMYGODTHERESADEADBEAROUTHEREDOYOUHAVEALLYOURBEARS?!?!

Zoo Representative: Huh?

Reporter: BEAR! DO YOU HAVE ALL YOUR BEARS?!

Zoo Representative: Yah, um, why again?

Reporter: THERE'S A DEAD BLACK BEAR IN SAN LEANDRO!

Zoo Representative: You know it's hunting season, right?

Reporter: BLACK BEARS! AGH!

Zoo Representative: The Oakland Zoo only has Borneo Sun bears, sir. We don't have any black bears.

Reporter: IT COULD BE ONE OF YOUR BEARS....OH MY GOD WHAT A GREAT STORY IT WOULD BE IF IT WAS ONE OF YOUR BEARS! "OAKLAND BEAR TRAGICALLY SHOT TRYING TO ESCAPE LIFE IN OAKLAND!" OH MY GOD KATIE COURIC MIGHT WANT TO DO ME AFTER THIS!!

Zoo Representative: We don't have black bears, sir.

Reporter: GO COUNT YOUR FUCKING BEARS!

Zoo Representative to colleague: Norma, please go count the bears.

Norma: Why?

Reporter: AGH!

Zoo Representative: GO COUNT THE FUCKING BEARS!

Needless to say all bears in the Oakland Zoo were present and accounted for. I can just picture them raising their arms one at a time as the zoo personnel called out the roll...

Zoo personnel: Bob?

Bob: Here.

Zoo personnel: Sheila?

Sheila: Yup.

Zoo personnel: Ducky? ((silence)) Ducky?

Ducky: here

Zoo personnel: What's wrong with you, Ducky? Bob, you can put your arm down now.

Ducky: nothin

Zoo personnel: Ducky, did you have anything to do with the dead bear? Bob, seriously, put your arm down.

Ducky: ((silence))

Sheila: Ducky ordered the hit.

Zoo personnel: Ducky???

Ducky: Shut the fuck up, Sheila! Man, dude was an ASSHOLE! Owed me MONEY. DUMPED my sister. Fuckah DESERVED what was coming. He's TACO meat now, man!

That's one theory at least.

Frankly, my own personal opinion is that the poor thing offed himself after having to watch hours and hours of Meg Whitman / Jerry Brown ads for the California governor's race. Lost his will to live.

I understand completely.

San Jose Airport Security - 5, Jane - 0

2010-09-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

I'm going to vent for a moment and then I promise to maybe shut the fuck up about this for awhile.

Let me start by saying that I'm not an overly sensitive person. I usually roll with things pretty well. I don't get upset very often. As a single mom, I've learned to be pretty tough.

But today, Friday, September 24, 2010, I admit complete and total defeat to the San Jose Airport TSA.

Since the unveiling of the new security equipment at SJC in June, I have passed through their basic security scanners 5 times.

And 5 times I have been subjected to a full-body pat-down.

Today, I went to the airport totally prepared....no metal, no jewelry, no belt, no watch, NO BRA. Yoga pants and a tank top, baby! There was NO chance that I was going to have to endure the pat-down.

The Princess and I waited in the security line for a good 30 minutes, made it past the boarding pass checker, and then waited another 5 minutes or so to load everything in the bins to pass through the scanners.

Only today, I was greeted by one of the new full-body backscatter scanners. People, these things which have until now been just a vague future impediment - are now operational and way way WAY creepy.

For those of you who aren't familiar with our newest weapon in the war on scary underwear and exploding mascara, here's how this works.

You stand between what looks like two large blue refrigerator-size boxes, hold up your arms and freeze. A x-ray type scanner takes a full-body (essentially naked) picture of you. The image is reviewed by a TSA agent in another room who pinky-swears not to make a copy or take a picture of it with his or her phone and post it on Facebook. Once the image is approved, the hidden TSA agent radios the TSA agent in front of you with the "go" or "pat the fucker down" signal.

The whole process takes a few minutes, holds up the entire security line, is completely and totally demoralizing...

...and, today, ended in a pat-down anyway. Even though I had on me no metal, no jewelry, no belt, no watch, no bra.

So somebody I'll never see or meet saw me bare-ass naked today AND I got patted down anyway. Without - I might add - notice or permission. The TSA woman just moved in and started working me over.

I hate it.

I get that we need to have security to protect us from scary things. I get it.

I know that TSA says that the full-body scanners are "optional". But their definition of "optional" is full-body pictures or full-body pat-down. I'm not sure which is worse. The "option" is printed in tiny print on signs in the security area. These signs also provide you an example of the image that the scanner takes....which is detailed enough to show if you need to lose a few pounds and are hiding it under a big sweatshirt, if you are Team Tampon or Team Maxipad, or - for the boys - if your penis is playing scared turtle.

For the record, this is not me

I've also heard anecdotally that TSA seriously frowns on passengers opting out of the scanners and treats those passengers to aggressive full-body pat-downs. I don't know what an "aggressive" full-body pat-down entails, but I've had the regular kind and it isn't much fun.

So you submit and hope like hell that the TSA agent that you can't see is actually a decent, respectful human being, who is definitely not making copies of these naked pictures of you and your daughter so that he use them to spank the monkey in his basement later.

When these controversial scanners were first introduced by TSA, I remember thinking that it wasn't really a big deal. Whatever.

But it is a big deal. Maybe it doesn't bother everyone. Maybe it's because I'm a female that it bothers me so much. I do know, without a doubt, that the actual experience is completely and utterly humiliating.

I wish that I could avoid it by booking my flights out of one of the other two area airports in the Bay Area, but it is estimated that there will be 500 of these damn things operational in airports across the country in the next few years. There's no getting around the future. It seems that the future is 1984.

Big Brother is here and probably judging your muffin-top and penis size.

Just sayin.

Since we're talking about boobs and flying...

2010-09-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

And we really were. Awesome, right?

I was in Philadelphia over Labor Day weekend. In order for me to get home in time to meet the Princess's flight from Portland, I had to leave pretty early in the morning on Monday. So I booked an 8 AM flight out of Philly, which left me with more than enough time to get back to San Francisco.

Of course, since I had to leave so early, it didn't make any sense to actually - you know - sleep, so the Boy and I spent Sunday night in Atlantic City. And when I say "spent Sunday night" I don't actually mean booked a room and slept. I mean we played craps, had dinner, drove go-carts, played skeeball and walked around aimlessly until about 3 in the morning. The Boy even won a pig/cow thing for me by throwing darts at balloons as hard as humanly possible. I was glad to see that all those years of training had finally paid off.

I had never been to AC. It's fun, in a "I really don't want to come here a lot but it's kind of entertaining once in a while" kind of way.

Pig/Cow came to dinner with us at Buddakan

The Boy took this picture. And since he's not here to defend himself, I can tell you that I totally kicked his ass and lapped him at least once.

Caesar's was a little excited about Boardwalk Empire

We also saw the best sign EVER on an ATM in Caesar's that said "We're sorry, this game is out of order". I wanted so badly to take a picture of it, but I was afraid that if I took a picture inside of the actual casino, the cast of the Sopranos would come out of nowhere and kick my ass.

We drove back to Philly, I picked up my stuff and went to the airport.

And it was EARLY. And I was tired. I dragged my tired ass through security (without setting off the scanners...go figure) and went in search of some breakfast.

I found a Le Petit Bistro, ordered my food and got in line to pay.

You know how when somebody breaches your personal space, your radar goes off and you shift your position to put more space between yourself and the offender? This is exactly what happened to me in line. I felt a woman move right up - and I mean RIGHT UP - behind me. So I moved forward as much as I could without invading the space of the person in front of me.

And then she moved forward too. She's yelling to her husband across the room, grabbing drinks, reaching around me for silverware...all of it IN MY SPACE.

Now I'm irritated.

I move up as far as I can to the cashier to pay.

The cashier hands me my breakfast and my change. I can once again feel this woman inching closer. I turn slightly to put my change in my purse and I can actually feel this woman's boobs IN MY BACK.

At this point, I'm not just irritated - I'm pissed.

Me: Lady, BACK OFF!

Lady: What?! I don't touch you.

Me: Lady, you imprinted your boobs in my back. I can tell you your bra size.

Lady: ((huffy silence))

Thankfully, she wasn't on my flight.

And I'm still not sure if I should feel amused or violated. Or maybe both.

Regardless, I have decided that (1) I definitely need a break from the general population; and (2) on future flights I need to wear the sharpest Madonna-like bra possible in order to properly defend myself from this situation in the future.

It might even be worth setting off the security scanners.

TSA considers my bra a threat to national security.

2010-09-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

Flying sucks.

I know this is not any kind of earth-shattering revelation, but it seems to have sunk to new levels of depravity and humiliation.

And sometimes you don't even have to actually fly.

Every other weekend or so, the Princess flies to Portland to visit her father. Since the Princess is 11 and in order for her to be able to fly on her own without an adult, I have to pay a super-special fee to the airline of somewhere between $25 and $100 - depending on the airline - each way. This extra fee is very important and compensates the airline for....

((crickets))

Actually I'm not sure what this fee is for. Maybe the extra pat on the head from the gate agent? Frankly, I think the airlines find it somewhat comparable to checking a heavy bag....they put a sticker on her and everything.

Regardless, because she's a minor, I'm allowed to take her through security to her gate and wait there until takeoff.

Lately, she's been flying out of San Jose because the rates to Portland are slightly less expensive. The San Jose airport is very cool and mod and screams "I'm the Silicon Valley airport, bitches!" It is also in the process of a massive remodel, which has included the purchase of new high-tech security scanning equipment that I'm pretty sure can see what I had for lunch.

Everybody needs a nemesis, right? The San Jose airport security scanners are my nemesis.

EVERY TIME I walk through these damn things, I set off the alarm. EVERY TIME.

Now, I'm a pretty seasoned traveler. I know the security drill inside and out. Laptop out. Liquids in baggie out. Belt off. Scarf off. Shoes off.

I usually stick with my "safe outfit" when I know I have to face security in any airport...cotton cargo pants (with no metal rivets), t-shirt, wrap, ballet flats. All comfy and metal-free.

But every time I walk through the damn security scanning machine at San Jose I set off the alarm and am then treated to a super-special pat down that includes what is essentially a breast exam by a TSA agent in front of a large crowd. It's so great.

I've come to the conclusion that it must be the underwire in my bra that is setting the damn thing off. So each time, I try a different bra. Each time I am hopeful that THIS is the bra that TSA will finally concede is not threatening to national security.

This last time, I kinda lost my shit. I was wearing metal-free sweatpants, a tank top, simple bra with thin underwire and socks. I intentionally broke every fashion rule in the book JUST so I wouldn't set off the damn scanner. I was ready. I was pumped. There was NO way any beeper was going to go off.

So I sent my daughter through the scanner first. Nothing. Good to go. Whew.

And then I followed her.

BEEEEEEEEEP

Fuck.

WHAT THE FUCK?!

Me: I have NOTHING on me to set this off? Do I look like I have metal on me????

TSA: Ma'am, do you have an implant?

Me: What? It's my bra. I'm telling you it's my bra. It's got to be my bra. I like nice bras and they set off your scanners. Please don't make me go through the pat down.

TSA: Please step over to the screening area, ma'am.

Meanwhile, my daughter, who has witnessed this interaction a few dozen times already, is rolling her eyes and trying to pull half a dozen things off the security belt by herself.

Me: My daughter needs help. Can I help her get our stuff?

TSA: You can't touch your things. Sorry.

Me: Fuck.

They then proceed to once again feel me up in front of a large crowd.

Me: I haven't been to my OB/GYN in awhile. Do they feel healthy to you?

TSA: I'm sorry about this, ma'am.

Me: They're nice, right?

((silence))

TSA: It must be your bra, ma'am.

Me: Ya think? Now can you please explain to me how I can wear a bra and NOT set off your scanners?

TSA: I don't know, ma'am.

Me: Should I take my bra off in line? Put it in a container with my shoes?

TSA: You can go collect your things now.

It's here where I decide this is a battle I'm never going to win and leave in a huff.

This whole series of events has now left me in mortal fear at the security checkpoint at every other aiport. I break into a sweat at about the same time I'm putting my shoes in the bin. I hold my breath and pass through the scanner. AND IT NEVER GOES OFF.

The Princess flies out of San Jose again next weekend. I swear I'm going to reach underneath my shirt while in the security line and do the under-the-shirt bra removal. Set the girls free and sail through security.

There's no rule against that, right?

How come Lady Gaga doesn't have to put up with this shit?

Forgive me, San Francisco...

2010-09-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

Everybody knows that when you live in an area that attracts tourists, that you never EVER go to those places where tourists congregate. Ever.

I grew up in northeastern Ohio and never once visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or the Football Hall of Fame. Ohio is evidently very good at "halls of fame", but not much else. That's really all Ohio has. Oh, yes, and Amish places. But I only went to see Amish stuff when out-of-town family members visited and my parents threatened me with bodily harm if I didn't shut up and show proper awe and appreciation in front of our guests for the dozen or so Amish cheese factories that I was forced to endure on any given trip.

So when my brother called to ask me if he and my niece could come out to California and stay with me for a week to "see the sights", I knew I was fucked.

As a current resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I have intentionally avoided many of the most well-known attractions in the area. Don't get me wrong...I'll admit freely that I've caved on a few. You try living in San Francisco with a child and NOT take a ride on the cable cars. I dare you.

However, I have gazed across the bay at Alcatraz hundreds of times and never felt the slightest interest in joining the herds of tourists who make the pilgrimage to the Rock.

But my brother wanted to see Alcatraz. He's from Ohio and technically a tourist, so he's allowed.

I'm a resident. Visiting Alcatraz is most definitely against the "code of residents".

Shit.

I wanted to be a good sister and aunt and host though, so I caved, loaded my houseguests and the Princess in the car and headed to the pier to catch a ferry to Alcatraz.

For breaking the code, I fully expected the ferry to sink or for Clint Eastwood to pull me into a cell and take me from behind (oh, wait, that one isn't necessarily a bad thing), but it was uneventful and moderately entertaining.

So strapping Clint Eastwood to my body under a large coat and impersonating a pregnant woman would be frowned upon?

You can't just "take the tour". You have to "live the tour", right? I wore a stripped scarf for costume authenticity.

Yah, yah...there's pretty scenery too. I tried to blend in by asking my fellow tourists what large beautiful city this was in a non-specific European accent.

I inevitably had to pay the karmic price for breaking the resident code. I came back from Alcatraz to a big fat ticket on my car for parking in a private lot illegally. Evidently, the dude that I paid $20 to in order to park my car wasn't actually technically "employed" by the lot and walked away with a nice crisp $20 bill.

(For the record, I argued with the company that owned the lot and made the - I think - valid point that they should really do a better job of monitoring their lots in order to prevent this type of fraud. No response. I paid the fine. CENTRAL PARKING CAN SUCK MY ASS! I may start off every posting from now on with CENTRAL PARKING CAN SUCK MY ASS!)

I feel better now.

Anyway. I had already tempted fate and lost so I figured that I had nothing else to lose and volunteered to take my guests to the mother of all Northern California tourist spots....Monterey. Home of wildlife, beaches, golf courses, and shameless John Steinbeck souvenirs.

If you follow the random goings-on in Northern California, you would know that the famous sea lions of San Francisco's Pier 39 up and left for the most part a few months ago. They were predominantly male and I suspect that they were just kinda pissed off that their marriages had been revoked by Prop 8 so they deserted in protest. Just a theory.

Nobody really knew where these proud gay sea lions went.

Well, I found them! In Monterey, baby!

Proud gay sea lion.

Proud gay sea lion pack (or herd or flock or gaggle or swarm or something) in Monterey. But, seriously, no proud gay anything should smell this bad. Can nobody quietly slip them some Axe Body Spray and a breath mint?

So, forgive me, San Francisco. I have sinned and broken the code...but I paid $20 to the universe and found your damn sea lions.

We're even.

"Fuck you, Jane. I smell fabulous!"

I have a note from my mom...

2010-09-01T22:02:00.000-07:00

Actually I don't have anything that good as an excuse for my absence. It has more to do with surgery / bad head cold / single-parenting an 11-year old / travel / and back-to-school.

Yah. That's about it.

More posts coming very soon. Thanks for not leaving me.

And thanks to Candice for poking the body to make sure it wasn't cold.

Things they don't tell you on ESPN (Part 2) and how to order All-Star room service

2010-08-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes. I realize it's been a couple of weeks. I have very valid excuses, but listing them would take effort.

In my last post, I had started yapping about my experience with the Boy at the All-Star Game and how I almost sacrificed myself to the elevator gods to save a couple of All-Stars. I decided to break it into two posts because I ran out of wine while writing the first.

I have more wine now.

So let me dazzle you with the remainder of my All-Star discoveries - things that you won't necessarily learn on ESPN. No. 1 involved elevators and how if you get your hand caught in one, All-Star baseball players will look at your blankly.

No. 2...Obscene amounts of money do not necessarily guarantee refined good taste.

My first day in Anaheim, I passed by a woman in the hotel who I assumed was one of the ever-present "cleat-chasers". Cleat-chasers are the women who inevitably show up wherever there are baseball players. They're in the bar. They're in the lobby. They're not hookers. They're just eternally optimistic that they will sleep with and/or marry a player.

This woman fit the usual stereotype...bottle blonde with an orange-y tan, cheap-looking vaguely slutty clothes, clumpy mascara. Like a former pageant wanna-be who was never quite pretty enough to get the crown and always had to settle for shit like "Prettiest Smile".

I didn't think twice about it....until I saw her at the brunch the next day on the arm of All-Star player followed closely by their two cute, but inappropriately dressed, children.

I know, I know. I passed judgement, applied stereotypes. I'm going to hell. Whatever.

But I wanted to sit her down. Explain to her that she had more money than she could possibly spend in one lifetime. She could get subtle highlights and a hairbrush to actually brush out the curls created by the velcro rollers. She could buy clothes that fit and shoes from Barneys, instead of from the Spearmint Rhino. She could find alternatives to dressing her children like pimped-out ballerinas.

But at the end of the day, she still has the last laugh. I can work my ass off from now until I'm 80 and I still won't have the kind of money that her husband makes in a year...or a month, for that matter.

Maybe I need a cleat-chaser makeover.

(Note to Boy...just kidding, sweetie.)

No. 3...All-Stars order room service like rock stars.

I have photographic evidence of this. The Boy and I stumbled across this discarded room service cart outside of an All-Star room the night before the All-Star Game.

With George (my tranny Lego bodyguard) - he gets around

That's pretty much it for the All-Star Game. Oh yes, and for those of you who were wondering what one does wear to an All-Star Game Gala in Southern California...

THIS is what you wear! Jeans...go figure. The Boy was right. Shhhhhh.

Things they don't tell you on ESPN and how All-Star baseball players generally don't give a shit if your hand is stuck in an elevator - Part 1

2010-07-20T22:45:00.000-07:00

I realize I'm a little delinquent in my posting lately. It's summer. I'm lazy. Whatever.

That...and my hand was practically mauled in an near-death hotel elevator incident in Anaheim last week which makes typing painful and very, very difficult.

Actually my hand is fine. My psyche, on the other hand, is traumatized.

And I will be suing the horrible negligent hotel chain responsible for this near-tragedy.

Actually, no I won't. But only because it was a Marriott and not a Ritz-Carlton. Suing the Ritz Carlton would be fun. There's no joy in suing a Marriott.

Let me back up a bit.

So last week I went to the All-Star Game/Home Run Derby festivities in Anaheim. The Boy was "working" so, as guests of Major League Baseball, we stayed in the official Marriott with the All-Stars, press, agents, entourages and a few hundred smart autograph hounds. And while the Boy "worked", I generally did nothing and took stupid pictures.

Case in point

Of course, George, my tranny lego, came with me.

Case in point #2

George with the Boy's Chilean Three-Legged Good Luck Pig - I really have no explanation

It was a surreal experience. Walking through the hotel lobby was a bit like trying to walk past the Ivy on Robertson Avenue...head down, shoulders squared, hold out hotel key for three layers of security, brace for line of autograph seekers and the disappointment that radiates from them when they realize we're nobodies, slide past last layer of security before elevators, and then SCORE...collapse in your room.

I learned a few things at the All-Star game...things I never learned on ESPN.

No. 1... If you get your hand caught in an elevator, All-Star baseball players will look at you blankly and absolutely not help you.

So since all the autographers tended to hang out in the lobby, the All-Stars tended to congregate and socialize in front of the elevator banks - two levels of security past the lobby. It wasn't sexy, but it seemed to work for them.

On Sunday night as we were headed back to our room, the Boy and I ran into All-Star Pitcher and All-Star Outfielder in front of the elevators. The Boy knows them both and struck up a boy-style conversation with lots of grunts and hand slaps while I stood nearby feigning interest in the conversation while really mentally piecing together the next day's outfit. At some point I hear the Boy start to say things that would indicate the conversation is ending so I push the "Up" elevator button because it's midnight and I'm assuming that since we're all standing in front of the elevators, that everybody wants to...I don't know...GO UP TO THEIR ROOMS.

The elevator door opens and nobody but me moves towards the door. So I hesitate and the elevator door closes. I hit the "Up" button again. I look at the Boy to make sure we are indeed still going up. He's oblivious and still yapping but takes a step towards me.

The elevator door opens. I make a move towards the door and as the door starts to close - yet again - I throw my arm in between the doors so that they will stay open. Except they don't. The door closes on my arm.

I panic and look at the Boy. And he just looks at me. I look at All-Star Pitcher and All-Star Outfielder. And they just look at me too.

In my head I'm screaming "What the fuck?!" and "Ouch, goddamn motherf***er" but, as I glare daggers at the Boy, I calmly throw all of my weight into prying the door open with my other hand and extricate my dented arm from the offending elevator.

"Now are you ready to go up?" I say, holding my dented arm and shattered ego.

The Boy looks sheepish and nods. We all get on the elevator. All-Star Pitcher looks up as the floor numbers light up one at a time and says "Did that just happen?".

Sigh.

More things I learned at the All-Star Game (Nos. 2 & 3) and more stupid pictures are coming soon. Frankly, I started writing this and it got long and I ran out of wine, so I think a sequel is warranted.

And I'm lazy. Whatever.

How to find cute pants, practically run over an Olsen, and mow down the paparazzi in LA and only surrender part of your soul in the process...

2010-07-10T23:01:00.000-07:00

I don't get LA.

I finished up my work type stuff early today, so I decided to drive up to Beverly Hills and see what all the fuss was about.

TMZ tells me on a daily basis that the best (non Rodeo Drive) shopping in the LA area is on Robertson Avenue, and I figured that if it was good enough for Lindsey, it was good enough for me, so I fired up the GPS and headed out for alien territory.

And alien indeed.

I parked in a garage on Roberston and headed out into the daylight...and almost crashed headfirst into an Olsen twin. I don't know which one, but I saw her and she saw me and gave me a look as if to say "how dare you venture into this territory without permission or a Black American Express Card and why aren't you wearing anything from my clothing line, you bitch", but whatever.

I headed down the street in pursuit of good shopping.

Some places were great. Some places treated me like I should forfeit my financial and any potential trust fund records before they would hand over a $58 dollar belt.

And then I got to the Ivy.

For those of you who aren't familiar, the Ivy is the famed LA hotspot....THE place to see and be seen. And any celebrity who shows up there and claims that they don't want publicity is LYING through their shiny white veneers.

I approached the Ivy with curiosity. It was, after all, the Ivy. It was then that I deduced the challenge of being a mere pedestrian on this most famous of blocks. In front of me, blocking my path, were at least 5 valet parking guys, 4 paparazzi, 3 people who were waiting for their car, and 4-5 random people milling about.

I had a choice. Turn around and go back, or venture forward to the crosswalk and promises of Intermix and Vince.

I glanced up at the patio in front of the Ivy and happened to notice that the people in these privileged spots were mostly interested in what was happening on the sidewalk. Who was arriving...who was leaving...who was getting their picture taken.

It was through all of this that I needed to pass.

So I squared my shoulders, angled my head down, positioned my shopping bags in front of me...and charged.

In the process, I'm pretty sure that I sliced up a paparazzi with my shopping bag. I also have a very clear recollection of an SUV pulling up to the valet, containing people who were clearly "somebody", and saw the self-imposed look of distaste on their faces at being forced to expose themselves to the waiting cameras. Even though NOBODY goes to the Ivy unless THEY WANT TO BE SEEN and PHOTOGRAPHED. The food can't be that fucking magical, people.

Regardless, I made it through the gauntlet and survived.

(Note: turns out nobody took a picture of the people in the SUV...they looked disappointed.)

Interesting place, Robertson Avenue, but I won't be going back.

I made some friends at Splendid, LF and Surly Girl. The attitudes that I encountered at the rest of the boutiques on that street (with the exception of Lisa Kline) left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

This is definitely not a confidence issue. I can walk into Prada or Sears with the same level of attitude. I can only guess that business is off the charts for these places, right? If they can afford to drive away paying customers with disinterest and attitude.

And the famed Kitson? Ugh. Like Claire's Boutique on steroids.

I went to Beverly Hills out of curiosity and a need for cute pants.

I found cute pants, but I feel like I kind of surrendered a piece of my soul in exchange.

And if you see a cameraman on TMZ with a gigantic paper cut? All me!

Boys are basically useless

2010-07-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

Real boys, that is. Tranny lego boys are totally useful.

George and I are in Southern California doing business type things before the fun All-Star Game type things commence.

George taking in the view from our balcony

This is George's entire role here...to take in the scenery. And to be my bodyguard. But bodyguards don't seem to be in high demand here so he's resting.

Packing for this trip was a nightmare. I have 3 days of business type things and then 2 days of All-Star festivities. What the hell am I supposed to bring and how much shit can I stuff into one suitcase?

I can handle packing for the business stuff. This generally includes things that are not ripped, stained or navel-baring. Although, truth be told, this is California and stripper shoes might be the only real deal-breaker in business out here. Most of the time.

But the All-Star Game is a whole different, um, game.

This is easy, you say...it's a baseball game. Dress for a baseball game.

OK...I GOT that part.

So I just decided to ask the Boy what I should bring for the full 2 days of activities. Bad idea.

Me: Any thoughts on how I should pack for the All-Star stuff?

Boy: Well, there will be a gala and a brunch.

Me: Are we going to the gala or the brunch?

Boy: Maybe.

Me: So I should bring a dress for the gala?

Boy: Nah.

Me: ???????

Boy: I don't know...how does one dress for a gala?

Me: ??????

Boy: It's in California. I'm sure jeans are ok.

Me: ??????

Useless. I should have known.

So I packed everything. I'll let you know if I was right.

Why I now have a tranny Lego but still, surprisingly, need a life

2010-07-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

I've been lazy...I admit it.

There's something about summer that makes me want to, well, NOT sit in front of a computer during the 4 hours of the day that I'm not working.

I've been lulled into non-blogging complacency. I work, I come home, I eat/read/watch Real Housewives of (insert city/state/region here), I make phone calls, I sleep. The Princess is in Portland with her father for the summer, and the lack of "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" in the apartment has contributed to my sense of comatose.

But all of this has changed.

I have a new pet.

Busted Kate (who should officially consider me a fan) held a give-away to raise money for the JD fund a few weeks ago, and that's when I saw him. And I knew I had to have him.

Meet George, my new tranny Lego.

George is what I call him because when I opened the package from Kate, I could hear in my head the lines from the Bugs Bunny Abominable Snow Monster episode and/or John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" (same thing, really) - "I will name him George and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him and pat him and pet him and rub him..."

George was donated to the JD cause by The Bloggess, who, of course, is the only one in the world who would have shit like this to begin with.

The Bloggess is actually the one who brought the logic of tranny lego fabulousness to light. You see, I am a huge Eddie Izzard fan - who is, in his own words, an Executive Transvestite. The Bloggess pointed out on her site that another Eddie Izzard fan had transferred Eddie Izzard bits into Lego stop-action shorts on YouTube.

Behold the genius!

"Why the Spanish Inquisition would never have worked with the Church of England" or "Cake or Death?"...

And "Building empires through the cunning use of flags"...

In short, the logic behind this acquisition goes as follows...

I love Eddie Izzard.
Eddie Izzard is a transvestite.
There are Lego stop-action shorts of Eddie Izzard bits on YouTube.
There are - by accident of God and nature and the Bloggess - transvestite Legos.

Therefore...I must have a transvestite Lego.

Many thanks to both Kate and the Bloggess for helping me realize that the emptiness in my summer could be filled through the creative use of tranny Legos...and, more importantly, for contributing to an excellent cause.

George shall be accompanying me on some of my travels this summer. Next stop - the All Star Game.

There will be pictures.

I seriously need a life...or a hobby...or sex...or something.

My tranny Lego will have to do for now.

This break in the action is totally the fault of the East Coast and Kim Kardashian

2010-06-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

Ok...well it wasn't completely Kim's fault, but she does factor into the story.

I'll get to that in a bit.

So I went to the East Coast last week to see the Boy. I took the redeye last Friday to Boston for a day. From there it was on to New York and then Philly. I TOTALLY planned on blogging throughout the week, but, well, you know how it goes. Stay out late, sleep until noon, baseball, rinse, repeat.

There are bits and pieces of the week that are deserving of their own posts, so I'll limit it here today to a few observations.

First, Susan Sarandon is a genius.

Sure, she's a great actress and all. I mean, Bull Durham is like the greatest movie EVER. But Susan is also the brains behind the greatest drinking concept EVER....martinis and ping pong!

I had heard about this in theory, but never appreciated the beauty of it until the Boy convinced me that we had to witness it firsthand.

Susan is the part-owner of a New York club called Spin. It has Olympic-quality ping pong tables for rent, a full bar, table service and bangin' music (I've never heard Simon and Garfunkel next to techno, but, hey, it totally works).

So last Wednesday night, after the game, the Boy dragged me and my BFFFFF, K, and her husband, B, to Spin. B was happy and still somewhat energetic because he got to watch baseball, but K and I were BEAT. It had been a full day of shopping and drinking in the steakhouse at Yankee Stadium (an experience that is probably worth its own post) and occasionally wandering out to watch the ball game and doing jazz hands to "New York, New York" at the end of the game. By the time we cabbed back from the stadium to the hotel, we were t-i-r-e-d.

But it was our last night in NYC and the Boy wanted to play ping pong.

And we had a blast.

How great is this?

The Boy and I - yes, I'm aware that I just hit the ball into the net, but, damn, I got moves!

K, trying to figure out how to make the the paddle hit the ball. But she looks fabulous doing it.

There's just nothing better than booze, ping pong and a place to put your feet up.

And I learned a couple of new things about my friends K and B. I learned that B fancies himself a professional-ish ping pong player...just like the Boy! He and the Boy fired ping pong balls across the table at each other like blind-folded, slightly tipsy Chinese almost-pros. B also is not afraid to fire balls at K, who, I learned, moves like Elaine Benes on the dance floor when this happens.

K and I played a more civilized "girl ping pong" - the kind where nobody gets pelted or mauled - and then let the boys have it out while we sipped on wine and vanilla milkshakes.

So much fun! We will be going back.

So what, you ask, does Kim Kardashian have to do with my lack of blog posts last week?

Well, Kim and I were seated across the aisle from each other on the first leg of my flight home. I could tell that she was dying to ask me all kinds of questions about my life and what I was wearing and my thoughts on achieving world peace, but she was polite and let me sleep. She was busy anyway...looking through a massive stack of glossy gossip magazines...I assume, for pictures of herself.

One five hour flight later, she still has perfect makeup and not a curl out of place, while I have smeared make-up and flat hair. And once she finished up her gossip magazine homework, she got to sleep. I had to speculate to the guy next to me for about 1000 miles how he might theoretically be able to highlight Bible verses if he bought a Kindle and then downloaded the Bible. The Bible?

So at the end of the flight...first class passengers were treated to this...

Kim

And this...

Jane

I was so traumatized that I couldn't write for days (or at least a day).

See...it was kind of Kim's fault.

At least that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

To iPad or not to iPad, that is the question

2010-06-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not afraid to admit it...I have a Robert Pattinson level crush on the iPad.

I haven't committed to purchasing one yet, however, because - like Robert Pattinson - I haven't quite figured out if it has substance or it's just a pretty face.

I thought I would be immune to the siren song of this newest offering by Apple. But then I saw it live and my heart melted.

It's thin. It's sexy. You can use it to play GIANT solitaire.

I could even forgive the stupid name which makes me think of this...

I'm so confused.

I could read books on it (but I have a Kindle).

I could check my emails and play games on it (but I have an iPhone...two, actually).

I could watch movies on it (but I'd have to find something to prop it up on).

I could...

I can't justify it, I just want it.

I'm so confused.

So what do you know? Give it to me...the good, the bad and the bloody. Oh wait, I mean ugly. See? I'm confusing the pads again.

Jane has questions

2010-06-06T21:14:00.000-07:00

I've spent the weekend with a child who continues to cross the border between "sick" and "not sick", which, as those of you who are parents know, is something akin to parental purgatory. The Princess has a hacking cough that she inherited from me, which she cannot seem to shake, and a fever which fires up every 4 days or so. So sometimes she is fine and wants to do things and sometimes she is miserable and wants to make everyone around her miserable as well.

Truly my child.

So I've had a lot of down-time to ponder some of the world's great riddles.

Like...would more women enjoy sports if they weren't subject to male dominance of the remote-control?

This occurred to me as I flipped back and forth between the NBA playoffs and the Stanley Cup.

WTF?

I never in a million years would have watched either of these events when I was married. My Ex would do the flipping back and forth between sporting events and I would ignore it all and read a book. Now that it's MY remote and MY TV, I can't get enough. I'm interested. I'm involved. I don't get it.

Sometimes I flip between Toddlers & Tiaras and Sportscenter. Explain that.

Or this...why is it that you only see The Club installed on the cars that nobody would want to steal anyway?

I happened across this hoopty gem in the parking lot of Whole Foods nestled between a BMW and an Audi. What you can't see in this picture is the fabulous fur trimmed pimp coat tossed across the front seat. And the pile of similar apparel piled high in the back seat. Which leads me to believe that the use of the Club in this case is not dissimilar to a home alarm system.

And, speaking of Whole Foods...why does it cost the same to eat unhealthy for 2 weeks as it does to eat healthy for 4 days?

I've almost completely cut meat and processed crap out of my diet and have decided that I officially need a raise. Fresh food is fuckin' expensive. No wonder we're all ginormous...Cheez Its are WAY cheaper than veggies. Which leads me to...

How is it that we haven't found a way to completely eliminate food from day-to-day life anyway? Food is a nuisance. I want to just take a pill in the morning and be done with it for the day. And not just like a 'fun' pill that makes you forget everything...I could do that now. I want all my nutrition pre-calorie counted for me and in pill form, please. And we could solve world hunger in the process. If we, as a society, can figure out how to recreate the Big Bang AND Heidi Pratt's face, why can't we do this?

I have other questions, but it's Sunday night and I want to watch the Milwaukee v. St. Louis game, which has gone into extra innings.

All answers welcome.

Banana slugs and songs about poop and your tax dollars at work

2010-06-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a few weeks back that the Princess was going away to camp for a week. She went with her 5th grade class to a campsite in nature somewhere to learn about nature-stuff that, God-knows, her mother will never be able to teach her.

It's pretty cool actually. It's an opportunity that has been offered to every 5th grader in the county since the 60's.

Needless to say, the Princess was absolutely jacked about this trip. She loved every second and was very very sad when she got home because she missed nature and friends and being far away from parental oversight.

Her teacher made a video of the highlights from the week and in true California "we need to raise money any way we can because you're fuckin' lucky that we still have schools" fashion, the PTA made it available to the kids for $25.00.

Definitely money well spent.

The Princess brought the DVD home this week and we popped it in.

And I walk away from said DVD with two observations about this week in the woods...

First, California is teaching our children to terrorize innocent slugs.

If the kids kissed - yes, kissed - a banana slug, they were admitted into the "Banana Slug Club". If you're not familiar with the banana slug, it is a large yellow slug that looks like - wait for it - a banana. The Banana Slug Club is apparently quite the little badge of honor. The Princess tells me that they were taught to kiss the slug with their lips curled in, however, so as to not damage the frail slug.

I doubt this makes the slugs feel any better things.

I can't help but think that banana slugs in the greater San Francisco Bay Area must HATE the month of May, when these 5th graders are turned loose on their habitats. Imagine how horrifying it must be to be minding your own banana slug business and casually look up only to find a giant pair of pre-adolescent lips coming at you...

I give it another few years of evolution and those slugs are going to be fucking READY...

This can't end well.

Second, California is teaching our children songs about shit.

Near the end of the wholesome camping DVD (slug kissing and all), there is a wholesome shot of all of the kids sitting around the campfire with their camp counselors singing their little hearts out.

The only problem with this scene is the song.

I'm smiling as I watch this part because the scene is so cute. The Princess elbows me in the ribs and says "Watch this...I LOVE this song!". And I watch in amazement as 100+ 5th graders belt out...

"CUZ IT STARTS WITH AN 'S' AND IT ENDS WITH A 'T'! IT COMES OUT OF YOU AND IT COMES OUT OF ME! ((dramatic pause)) CUZ IT'S SCAT! SCAT! OOOOOO...."

Scuse me?

Let me start off by saying that, until fairly recently, I was only familiar with the word "scat" as: (a) something you say to a stray cat; and (b) whatever it is that Scatman Crothers used to do.

I was educated on the other meaning for scat not long ago during a drunken conversation that involved one-upping the last person on "grossest human behavior". Sex and poop? You win, dude.

But these 5th graders were so damn happy. The counselor could even be heard telling the kids "How many times in your life are you going to be able to sing about poop during school hours?"

How can I argue with that?! Sigh.

Poop. We'll leave it at that and assume that the state of California is not familiar with Urban Dictionary.

***NOTE***

A couple of comments on the last post.

1. Y'all are Cheese Nip HATERS! Ok ok...I was wrong...it is actually Cheddar Jack CHEEZ ITS (CHEEZ without an "E") in my pantry. And I'm not just saying that because I want to be cool. Although I do. Regardless, there needs to be a little more Nip tolerance in the world, people.

2. And for those of you who were evidently hoping for some kind of juice-related digestive trauma story, I got nothing. In fact, my ass was so happy after all that healthy juice shit that it could kiss, well, my ass. (I'll leave you to come up with a visual for that one.)

I drank nothing but juice all weekend and didn't kill anybody. Yeah!

2010-05-31T22:06:00.000-07:00

So I decided to try something. A cleanse. A cleanse of body and closet.

It was the perfect time, really. The Princess was going to be with her dad all weekend. I could lock myself away for a couple of days and see what happened.

Cleanse of body, you ask. How would one do that?

JUICE!

Notice the kick-ass bendy straw.

Yes, juice. All juice. Nothing but juice. All weekend.

And not just any juice. Juice with veggies and fruit and nuts other shit I'd just rather not know about.

About a week ago, as I lay on my couch with a box of Cheese Nips and a glass of wine, I decided that I needed to kick start some healthier living. So I did some research online, ordered the Blueprint Cleanse for Friday delivery, poured another glass of wine and toasted my impending healthiness.

On Friday, I locked myself in and started.

The idea is that you get 6 juices to drink over the course of the day. Just juice. No food. This gives your digestive system a chance to take a break and eventually curbs your craving for processed carbs and Cheese Nips. Or that's the theory.

(I should note here that the Blueprint Cleanse people don't actually claim to curb cravings for Cheese Nips. That's a claim that is just so fantastic that the FDA would most certainly want to regulate their juice as a drug.)

I also decided that this was also the perfect opportunity to cleanse my overstuffed closet.

My non-scientific findings...

Oh, who am I kidding. I've got nothing interesting to write about. I drank juice, I was a bitch to anybody who dared call me, I lost a few pounds, I tried to bribe a friend to bring me a steak, I took five bags of stuff to Goodwill and I found a Marc Jacobs bag in the back of my closet that I forgot about.

Also, I am happy to report that I have been back on solid-ish food for a whole day and have not yet had a Cheese Nip.

I give it a week.

Perfect attendance needs to die a sad, lonely, horrible, painful death

2010-05-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

Perfect attendance sucks ass.

The Princess has perfect attendance. Every day that school has been in session this year, the Princess has been in the classroom at her desk.

There have been mornings that she's felt horrible. Every time I have asked her "Baby, do you want to stay home?" and every time she has said "No, Mommy, it would ruin my perfect attendance." And so off to school she would go.

She was so proud of this achievement. As we got closer and closer to the end of the year, she got more excited. School ends on June 11th. The last day is almost here. And she will have PERFECT ATTENDANCE.

Or at least she thought she had perfect attendance. And I thought she had perfect attendance.

Turns out that perfect attendance is a slippery bitch.

The Ex stopped into the Principal's office today to find out if taking the Princess out of school an hour early tomorrow would affect her perfect attendance. And the Principal said "She doesn't have perfect attendance."

Wha?

It turns out that because she was tardy a few times - on those mornings when she was dragging and not feeling well - she will be denied her perfect attendance. She walked into the classroom 2 minutes after the bell rang and it was over. She dragged her tired sick self to school and the FUCKING SCHOOL GOT PAID it's fucking 'per student per day' amount from the state the minute she showed up. But because she was moving a little slow...no award, no certificate, no recognition.

We had to break the news to her today. And she cried. And my heart broke for her.

And now she's just sad.

And I'm just all kinds of hate right now.

PERFECT ATTENDANCE SHOULD DIE!

It is an unattainable standard that cannot POSSIBLY be met by anybody that isn't completely anal and inhuman.

I did a little digging on the school district's website to find out where it actually SAYS what this "perfect attendance" thing means. It's not there. BUT I did find out that if the Ex or I were to die in a horrible fiery airplane crash, the Princess would be allowed one excused absence day to attend the funeral.

One day. Seriously. I can't make this shit up.

Fuck it. Next year I'm taking her out of school for a week to go to Disneyland. And they can stick their truancy letter where the sun don't shine.

Fun and Phlegm

2010-05-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

So what does one do when one is sick in bed for 3 days?

Here's a list of what I did. Feel free to poach these ideas for yourself the next time you're sick...

Sleep
Create a Facebook page for your blog and then realize that that's just silly because only, like, 3 people know you have a blog - so really, what's the point
Read 153 pages of a new book
Realize Bloomingdales is having a huge shoe sale online and buy two pairs (and immediately realize that you loved those 2 pairs because they are identical to 2 pairs that you already own)
Watch Season 5 of "Weeds"
Give in to book whoredom and buy 2 Kindle books off of Amazon
Immediately ditch previous half-finished book in favor of new Kindle book
Watch "Avatar" - twice
Try to lick elbow
Watch at least 15 hours of back-to-back Law and Order episodes
Sleep
Think about brushing teeth but don't actually do it
Read a few blogs
Comment on said blogs
Realize that your comments are incoherent but don't care
Go back to sleep
Check TMZ hourly to see if Lindsay has been arrested yet
Realize the Princess is now sick and drag sad tired sick ass out of bed to take care of her

The Princess and I are now kind of back on our respective feet. Leaving the darkness of the sick den this morning and walking outside into the sun for the first time in 3 days was a bit harsh...

We've spent most of the evening coughing at each other. I have better quality of tone, but she can produce more phlegm...so she wins.

I'm going to go work on my phlegm.

Jane sick

2010-05-21T15:24:00.000-07:00

Jane feel like somebody stabbing her throat with sharp knives. Jane also delirious and talk in third person.

Milwaukee must be responsible.

Jane be back soon.

Random observations from Milwaukee

2010-05-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

So I've just returned from a mildly interesting 3-day stay in Milwaukee. And to tell you the truth, I'm not sure I know much more about it now than I did before I left.

Here are the highlights...

Milwaukee is a beautiful, bleak, sad place with great people and some fabulous buildings...

...and some buildings with lonely trees on top of them...

...and some buildings that are being attacked by large insects.

It has large wieners...

No. 3 has either just been kicked in his sausage delicates or really has to pee

...and some of the coolest freakin' jewelry I've seen in a long time!

All cut glass. The colors are gorgeous but hard to see here.

I got a little carried away. I had to buy some for BFFFFF K too. (I have a matching pair that didn't make it into the picture.)

We stayed at the Pfister Hotel, which is over 100 years old and rumored to be haunted. Frankly, I was more concerned about the giant ladybugs down the street than the ghosts.

The Boy was suffering from a sinus infection all weekend and I got to enjoy several hours each day watching him try to 'pop' his ears. Those are some fun faces, let me tell you. Total turn on.

The Boy's sexy face.

I didn't come across any brown sauce. Very disappointing.

I waved across the water in the general direction of RN Mama and gave Cathy a mental shout-out for telling me where to go (Third Ward is kinda small and awesome!).

I left Sunday morning, but ended up spending another 4 hours at the airport bar because AirTran sucks ass.

I can now officially check Miller Park off of my stadium list and Milwaukee off of my "cities I never wanted to visit but went to anyway" list.

All in all - a successful trip.

Super excited about putting brown sauce on my dog

2010-05-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

I'm getting my bag ready for my trip to Milwaukee or Minnesota tomorrow. Now that I know some stuff about Milwaukee and/or Minnesota, I'm pretty excited.

Here's what I've learned so far...

Milwaukee may be near Canada. We are still unclear as to whether or not Canada is a state.
Milwaukee has many drinking establishments and cheese. I'm not sure if you can actually drink cheese at said drinking establishments.
There is water.
There is an art museum and, therefore, "culture". I think the art museum just houses the city's beer can collection.
Milwaukee is clearly not the Morman place because it has booze and caffeine and its not warm enough to ride a bike year round.
It's cold.
Milwaukee has brown sauce. Nobody really knows what brown sauce is but I'm told that people put it on their dogs. I am assuming that this means hot dogs, but, given the part of the country that we're talking about, that may be an incorrect assumption.
Milwaukee Ale House is THE place to go for booze, cheese and brown sauce.
FabuLeslie wants to marry her cheese. Don't judge. Frankly, I think that she and her cheese will have to settle for a civil union.

Milwaukee = phallic meat, cheese and beer in elf cups. Fabulous!

Candice - this sausage is totally your chainsaw dude

I'm ready! I'll let you know what I find up there and if all of you are just full of shit.

On a completely unrelated note...

I have been totally delinquent in thanking somebody. Elle over at "A" for Effort ("B" for Blog) graciously tried to give me an award a week or so ago. I'm not really an award-y person, but I love Elle for doing it anyway and for saying that she was still cool if I didn't 'do' awards. Thanks Elle! Go check her out. She's way sweet and has some very interesting stories to tell.

On another completely unrelated note...

C Bellabell has come up with an really interesting idea. She has started a blog called "Dawn to Dusk: a day in the life". The concept of this blog is for you to submit an accounting of one day in your life. Through this site, you will be able to live a day in somebody else's shoes, somebody in a different culture, in a different income level, with a different job, with kids, without kids, and so on. Given the breadth of bloggers and blogger experiences out there, I think this idea is fantastic and I can't wait to see how it develops. For guidelines and instructions on how to submit, go to Dawn to Dusk. And to top it all off, Cbella is donating all profits to Habitat for Humanity.

See you in Milwaukee...or Minnesota!

I'm kinda here, but I'm kinda not and will somebody please tell me where the hell Milwaukee is

2010-05-10T22:17:00.000-07:00

I've been completely scattered. The Princess is camping with her 5th grade class for the week - all week. I ran into a friend yesterday and, in response to her comment that I looked stressed, happened to mention this whole camping thing and that I wouldn't be able to talk to my child all week and I was completely crazed by this concept. This woman, who has 3 kids, looked at me like I was nuts, shrugged her shoulders and said "lucky".

I'm still scattered, but now at least I'm laughing and scattered.

Oh, yes...laughing. I can't promise you anything like actual laugh-type sounds, but the Lafflady is letting me hang out with her on Tuesday at Laugh Out Loud.

Come say Hi...or not. At least come say Hi to the Lafflady and read all the other posts. They're funny.

What was I talking about?

Oh, yes...Milwaukee.

So, since the Princess was going to be gone this week, the Boy said "Why don't you come see me in Milwaukee?" and I said "Say again?".

I thought about it and thought about it and decided what the hell, I'd never been to Minnesota.

I leave on Thursday.

Funny thing...when I told the Boy I had booked my trip to Minnesota, he said "You're coming to MILWAUKEE, right?!"

Of course, I said...Minnesota.

(It's a place that starts with "M" in the midwest...close enough.)

Regardless of where I end up on Thursday, I still don't know much of anything about this Milwaukee place. Here is the extent of my knowledge on the subject:

Laverne and Shirley live there.
They make beer.
Wayne and Garth went to see Alice Cooper there and Alice Cooper told them that "Milwaukee" is Algonquin for "the good land".
They have baseball games.
There are giant running sausages.

That's pretty much it.

A little help here...anything to add?

Oh yah, and go see the Lafflady.

To the Princess (warning: this is a snark free post)

2010-05-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the Princess's 11th Birthday.

When she was born - she cried. And then she cried some more. For 12 months this child cried. I would walk in circles holding her in my arms while she cried and then I cried. When I would try to put her down, she would cry louder. The only time she stopped crying was when she was in the car. She would sleep until the car would stop and start crying again. I had to drop her off at daycare for the first time when she was only 6 weeks old. I had no choice. I left to the agonizing sound of her crying, ran back to my car and bawled. And then I realized that I had forgotten to take in her diaper bag, so I had to go BACK into the daycare and torture us both all over again. She had stopped crying - I had not.

When she was one - she stopped crying and started laughing. This child had the world's greatest baby belly laugh and I would do just about anything to hear it. She took her time learning to walk, but as I've learned over the years, she doesn't do anything until she is damn well good and ready to do it. And when she decided to walk - she ran instead.

When she was two - she glided through the terribles with finesse and spitfire. Her father and I were pretty much scared to death of this bundle of attitude. It was during this time that we moved from Tennessee to Indianapolis. We had a second story apartment, a toddler and a dog. The Princess adjusted much better than the dog, and eventually the terribles were a thing of the past.

When she was three - we built a house in the burbs of Indianapolis and she discovered the joys of grass and swingsets and playing with chalk on concrete.

When she was four - she had a Princess and Pirate themed birthday party and she learned how to ride a bike.

When she was five - she started kindergarten. The bus picked her up right at the end of our driveway, and I struggled to keep it together. She wasn't afraid at all. She loved every second.

When she was six - I was offered a job in California that could not be passed up. I moved to California in February and went back and forth to Indy until she finished school in June. We moved into a small cute rental home on a waterway. The Princess loved California and the ducks who liked to hang out in our back yard. She missed her friends at home but looked at it all as an adventure and never asked "why".

When she was seven - she warily started a new school and glided without incident through the 3rd grade. And then her parents separated and divorced. And her father moved to another state, that was nearby but still faraway. I had to move out of the small cute house on the water and into an apartment on the other side of town. The Princess was sad. She asked a lot of difficult questions. I never knew whether she accepted my answers, but she seemed satisfied. There were several times when she would take my hand in hers and tell me to not be sad.

When she was eight - she started 4th grade in yet another new school (her 3rd in 3 years - my across-town move disqualified her from attending her old school). She was terrified of once again being the 'new girl', but she gritted her teeth and did it. She made friends. She liked the new school. She was tougher than she thought. She also met the Boy for the first time. We had been dating for months, but I wanted to wait until I was sure that he wasn't going anywhere before introducing her to him. So one night, when his team was in town, I took her to a Giant's game and then took her down to the field where the Boy was throwing. He came right over to her and gave her baseball. Since he was in the team uniform, all the other kids were crazy jealous and looked at her like "what the hell?". She sensed that she had just received special treatment and smiled shyly, said thank you, and nervously inched behind me. After the game, I took her downstairs to see the Boy again. He immediately realized her discomfort with the scale of the things around her. He got on his knees in front of her and explained that the job that he had was nothing compared with the job that her daddy had, and he hoped to do something as important as her daddy did some day. She smiled and they've been best buds ever since.

When she was nine - she heard some of her school friends making fun of a new girl at school and immediately shot them down with a "it's harder than it looks". She invited the new girl to play tether ball with her during recess. She began to hate the fact that she had to fly to see her father every other weekend. She loved spending the summers with him but hated that she couldn't play team sports at all because of the custody schedule. She started to look forward to the trips that we would take to see the Boy 'at work'. Early in the spring of that year, I took her to New York and then Philadelphia. The Boy arranged for both team mascots to surprise her in the stands. This is just one of the many many reasons that we both love the Boy.

When she was ten - she started to give me glimpses of the teenager to come, and not all of it was bad. There are the hormones and the temper. There are the snarky text messages and the slamming of the bedroom door. There is also the sweetness. The handmade gifts. The breakfast in bed she brought me this morning. The insatiable need for knowledge. The never-ending stream of questions. The moments when she puts her head on my shoulder.

My 11-year old ham in San Francisco yesterday

Happy Birthday Princess. I can't wait to see what's next.

Why yes, my 10-year old WOULD like a beer can necklace...thank you!

2010-05-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was Cinco de Mayo. The Princess had been doing Mexican-type things at school all day to celebrate (like learning how to carry identification papers and stuff like that), so when I went to pick her up, I thought it might be nice to take her out for dinner at the local Mexican restaurant/chain.

It was only 5:30. "It's early", I thought..."we'll get in and get out before the party crowd shows up."

And I could get myself the "margarita as big as your head" that this place was known for. Bonus.

There were still parking spots and we were seated right away and it was mostly families. The revelers weren't there yet. I'm a genius.

We order and we're just sitting and chatting about school when all of a sudden the Princess spouts off with an "OMG" (no, not "Oh My God"...literally "O-M-G"), at which point I start looking around for our waiter because I think maybe she's just commenting on the size of the margarita I've just ordered.

She takes off across the restaurant and disappears for a few moments. When she comes back, she's grinning from ear-to-ear and wearing some shiny gold beads.

"Look what they're giving away, Mommy!"

"Oh, cool. Let me see."

She hands me the beads and I realize that I have failed to notice the blinking LED Corona beer bottle dangling from said beads.

"Wow. That's entirely inappropriate."

"What is Mommy?"

"The beer bottle hanging from your neck, sweetie."

"But I like it!"

Before I can utter another word, she has darted back across the restaurant and disappeared again. Thankfully, my ginormous margarita shows up and I nervously begin shoving chips down my throat.

It's during this pause that I start to look around. And I notice now that there are indeed many families there in this Mexican restaurant enjoying Cinco de Mayo. And I notice that their children are ALL wearing gold beads with blinky Corona bottles around their necks. Teenagers, toddlers, tweens, babies...all of them.

Trippy.

I'm not quite sure this is what the Corona company had in mind when they sent their giveaways to the Mexican restaurants to distribute on Cinco de Mayo. Or maybe they did. Start 'em early!

At this point, the Princess reappears with a gift for me and I become the proud owner of a Dos Equis laser key chain, which when pointed in just the right light at just the right angle, shows a "XX" logo...kinda like the Bat Signal. For my own sanity, I'm assuming that the "XX" stands for Dos Equis and not X-rated.

She's so excited about how cool this keychain thing is that she goes back and grabs one for herself. I guess because she has super-secret invisible keys that need chaining.

I'm not really taking breaths between margarita sips now. Chips are forgotten. Straw in mouth, I'm internally debating my obligation to be a good parent and take this beer-labeled crap away or just let it go. Or keep if for myself.

I compromise and tell her she can keep the beads as long as she doesn't wear them. I'm starting to dig the keychain. The "XX" is a lot funnier after half a ginormous margarita.

The restaurant host stops by our table. "How is everything?"

"It's good, fine...everything is peachy."

And then he grins stupidly and hands us an "XX" branded maraca and something called a castania drum - also Dos Equis branded.

The Princess is ecstatic and immediately starts up with her own double-fisted percussion section.

Every kid in the place looks at her enviously and the stampede to the host begins.

I am now the proud owner of one string of gold beads with a blinky Corona, two laser "XX" keychains, one "XX" maraca (which the dog HATES) and a Dos Equis drum thingy (also not popular with the dog).

Yes, I know...the irony of "This is not a Toy" sticker has not gone unnoticed

I should know better than to try to do something wholesome on Cinco de Mayo. It's like trying to take your kid to Vegas without running into hookers (I have a story about that too...don't judge).

Ironic headline of the week: Porn star f**ks the Ritz-Carlton

2010-05-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

The Ritz-Carlton is horrified that it is in the news this week, and all because of a porn star. Ironic, no?

Poor Ritz-Carlton. They try so hard to distance themselves from the unsavory elements of proper society only to end up face-to-face with scorned porn star hate.

According to the New York Daily News and TMZ, Ms. Josyln James - porn star extraordinaire and ex-Tiger Woods mistress - traveled from LA to Charlotte for an appearance at a local strip club. When she tried to check-in to the Ritz-Carlton in Charlotte, she was told essentially that there was "no room at the inn" and "oops, we cancelled your reservation but only because you're a media-whoring tramp".

Ms. James was PISSED and immediately called her attorney (because this is what everybody does when their hotel reservation doesn't work out...right?).

Ms. James' attorney, Gloria Allred, who has made her name of late as the "Tramps 'R Us" attorney (motto: You screw 'em and then I will!), quickly fired off a very business-like, official-looking letter to the Ritz-Carlton in the defense of her poor tired bedraggled porn star client - and then leaked it to TMZ...

Real letter...(with commentary, of course)...

*****

David Rothwell
General Manager
The Ritz-Carlton, Charlotte
201 East Trade Street
Charlotte, NC 28202
David.Rothwell@ritzcarlton.com (in case you want to email your love and supportive comments)

Dear Mr. Rothwell,

I represent Veronica Siwik-Daniels aka Joslyn James (I think she should've stuck with "Veronica"). It has come to my attention (i.e. she was screaming at my assistant on the phone) that a reservation was made several weeks ago for Ms. James to stay at The Ritz-Carlton, Charlotte, North Carolina for April 29, April 30 and May 1, 2010.

Ms. James is a well known celebrity (celebrity?) who was scheduled to appear and perform at a local nightclub (strip club) during her stay in Charlotte. At the time that the reservation was made, the booking agent (part-time strip club manager) informed your staff that Ms. James was a high profile guest (is notorious the same as high profile?) and provided her name to your hotel in order to be sure that appropriate security (to protect her from screaming fans?) would be provided at the Ritz-Carlton, Charlotte, N.C.

(This is where I speculate what happened. The strip club manager says to the Ritz "um, a Ms. Josyln James needs a reservation" and the Ritz says "ok" and the strip club manager says "she'll be needing 'security'" and the Ritz says "ok, yah, whatever" and then the conversation is over. THEN for shits and giggles, the Ritz googles this Josyln James person and says "OH HELL NO". Anyway...)

Ms. James is aware of the high-standards of the Ritz-Carlton (does she know that they won't show any of her porn?) and was very much looking forward to her stay (this is relevant...because...?). She knew that by staying at the Ritz she would be able to experience the service and quality of hospitality that would help to prepare her for her performance (booze from room service, complimentary lotions, Disney channel). Unfortunately, however, after a long and tiring journey from Los Angeles, Ms. James was shocked (SHOCKED!) to learn when she arrived at the airport in Charlotte that her reservations had been cancelled (shit...she didn't even have to go all the way to the hotel). Alternative arrangements to stay elsewhere had to be made quickly (there's a Travel Lodge down the road, sister). While this was disturbing (happens to us little people all the time - shrug), even more troublesome appeared to be the reason for the cancellation.

Your staff indicated that the reason for the cancellation was that she was a high profile guest (i.e. fame-whoring slut) and they were concerned about media attention (we have the text (Joslyn texts? Get OUT! Oh yah...) from your staff that proves this). This made no sense, because we know that other high profile guests have been welcome at the Ritz-Carlton in the past.

(This is my favorite part.)

For example, I am a high profile lawyer (Oh Gloria, stop it!) who has stayed at the Ritz-Carlton (Bachelor Gulch) and I was permitted to do television interviews for the Today Show and other television shows inside the Ritz-Carlton, when I was a guest there. (But Gloria...you're only a media whore...not a real whore.)

Our concern as to the real reason for the cancellation was heightened when we later (realized that we could get some free press?) learned that Tiger Woods was in Charlotte, N.C. and might (might?...lawyers never ever use the word "might") have been staying at the Ritz-Carlton, Charlotte, N.C. for the same weekend that Ms. James planned to be there. The issue of whether or not Mr. Woods was staying at the Ritz was reportedly mentioned on the radio (96.1 The Beat) (so it MUST be true!). As a result we are now forced to ask the question, "Was Josyln James cancelled at the Ritz-Carlton, because Tiger Woods was staying there or was expected to arrive?" (Say it ain't so Ritz...)

If so, we are appalled to think that you might have chosen to accommodate a rich, famous golfer who admitted lying to his wife, his fans, his business associates and others over a woman whose (this is my second favorite part) heart he has broken, and whose only fault is that she fell madly in love with Tiger Woods. (It seems to me, again, that these are all words that should never EVER be used in a letter from an attorney.)

We believe that Joslyn is owed an explanation for this cancellation of a reservation. (Explanation - Yo Biatch, the Ritz didn't want to be associated with you!)

No guest or potential guest deserves to be treated in this thoughtless manner. If in fact you were trying to protect Mr. Woods, I have to question your decision. As a now infamous golfer (as opposed to your now infamous porn star client?) who has been involved in scandal for many months, Mr. Woods certainly must have adequate security to protect himself (but apparently no condoms). Also, Ms. James has no desire to see, speak to or be in the presence of the man who has deliberately hurt her in the way that Mr. Woods has (i.e. from heavy spanking).

On her behalf, I respectfully request that the Ritz-Carlton conduct a thorough investigation of this regrettable incident, and at it's conclusion we look forward to an appropriate remedy. (Just send her some goddamn pens and maybe show her movies on pay-per-view. Yeesh.)

Very truly yours,

Gloria Allred

*****

Actually, the only one that I'm judging in this whole incident is not the Ritz, or even Ms. James (who can strip or do porn or sell her story or release private text messages for fame to her heart's content...whatever).

The only real revelation here is that GLORIA ALLRED WRITES LIKE SHIT!

WTF?!

Why it's really too bad that apartments don't have fences

2010-05-02T22:25:00.000-07:00

I have an apartment that faces the San Francisco Bay.

If you step out onto my mini-balcony you can see this...

And this...

If you stand on your tippy-toes, you can see real live water!

But these are not the only views that I have.

"Get OUT, Jane!"...I'm sure you are saying right now. "How could it get any better than that?!"

Well, if you stand on my mini-balcony and look down, you can also see this...

I have a mini-feud going with the woman in the apartment underneath me, of which this poop thing may or may not be a part. I haven't quite figured out if there is bitchy passive-aggressive poop intent or whether it can all be attributed to sheer laziness.

Some background is required here...

When I moved in to this complex almost three years ago, the Princess was eight. As many of you may know, eight-year olds, as a rule, don't walk anywhere - they run, gallop, skip, prance and cartwheel. Within the first month of our being in this apartment, the woman below us had called the police on us TWICE for, get this, "running noises".

Let me add that the alleged running noises were reported at approximately 7:00 in the evening each time. Prime after-dinner cartwheel time.

Each time a sheepish-looking police officer would show up at my door and explain the reason for his being there. I, in turn, would explain that eight-year olds RUN and what would he, exactly, like me to do about this. Never having a good answer to this question, he would blush and look totally embarrassed and mumble something to the effect of "maybe ask her to slow down?".

Both times, the Princess cowered behind me and was traumatized by the fact that the police had shown up at her apartment because, in her eight-year old mind, she had done something bad.

I'm a single-girl, so I don't generally go pounding on stranger's doors - but trust me when I say that I would have gone down there in a heartbeat with my pink baseball bat in hand if I didn't think that she would've immediately called the police on me.

After the second time, I went and had a long discussion with the complex manager about the rules surrounding noise restrictions and what exactly the concept of 'harassment' might look like.

In turn, the complex manager sent a very nice "yah, um, please shut the hell up because you're ALLOWED to run around your apartment as long as it's before 10:00" letter to the woman downstairs.

Turns out that the Princess and I can make as much damn noise as we please before 10:00 pm! She can practice her violin or pound on the piano (which I am VERY supportive of - in the interest of artistic development, of course) and I can hold happy hour parties and fart loudly out the window if I am so inclined and it's before 10:00.

I haven't heard from her since.

So what, you ask, does this have to do with poop on the patio?

Well, it also turns out the woman downstairs has a very large dog who makes very large poop and she rarely takes this big power-pooping dog outside.

So it just shits all over her balcony. This somewhat distracts from my pretty view.

I happened to mention this in passing to my leasing office buddy the other day. He laughed and told me that, with all the rain we'd been having lately, the dog shit on this woman's balcony had drifted to the drain in the balcony and clogged it up. So all of the rain water and dog poop, having nowhere else to go, flooded into her apartment.

Ah, karma.

Technorati is not speaking to me. A drama.

2010-05-01T00:43:00.000-07:00

So last weekend, I explained how I was getting uncontrolled spam from Technorati to the tune of one email every 2 minutes for 3 days.

I posted my plea to Technorati to please stop sending me love spam on their "support" site which actually is only sort of associated with Technorati and is ironically called GetSatisfaction.com.

I would like to wrap up this little relationship melodrama by reporting that, alas, Technorati is giving me the silent treatment and behaving like a scorned ex-lover.

I've had some time to think through the tragic end to our relationship now and I think I know what happened.

OK...so after my first plea on GetSatisfaction.com, a girl tech-y type person, who goes by the name "juicypeanut", answered and said something to the effect of "I'M ON IT!". That was Friday.

The emails kept coming.

On Saturday, this same peanut person came back and promised something to the effect of "OH YAH....we are SO on it...eventually!".

And the emails kept coming.

On Monday morning the emails stopped.

This ALL actually gels with my original theory that Technorati has been taken over by robots and this small girl tech-y type peanut person was being held in the Technorati dungeon with the sacrificial goats.

Stay with me here.

This peanut girl saw my plea and WANTED to help me. I know this because she said so.

The stalker Technorati robots were obviously hurt when I spurned their stalker emails and forgot to send them a sacrificial goat when I asked them to claim my blog and took out their robot angst on peanut girl (who is obviously the last human being at Technorati) by throwing her in the dungeon.

But peanut girl KNEW that she needed to stop them! She HAD to make it stop. If only she could get to a computer...

So she asked the robot dungeon guard if she could pee. The robot guard was confused by this "pee" thing and said "whatever" and let her out of the goat dungeon. Peanut ran to the nearest computer and posted her promise to me that the EMAILS WERE GOING TO STOP and she...(I'm getting emotional now)...APOLOGIZED for the inconvenience. So noble, this peanut girl.

Of course the robots discovered her clever ruse and threw her back in with the goats.

And that's when she saw it. The emergency Stop Spam button... partially obscured on the wall outside of the dungeon.

All she knew was that she had to save Jane from the crazy stalker Technorati robot emails. So early Monday morning, in the ultimate disregard for personal safety, she distracted the robot guard with the clever "hey, your fly is down" line and bolted for the Stop Spam button.

I didn't have room to draw the goats.

And then the spam stopped.

I haven't heard from juicypeanut girl since.

Or Technorati for that matter.

I think juicypeanut girl is probably dead and the Technorati robots have been scooped up by the Arizona police because they looked "foreign".

I clearly need to get something better to do on a Friday night.

So...what'cha been up to?

2010-04-29T22:32:00.000-07:00

I bet this is what you have been asking non-stop for the last few days.

What the hell HAS Jane been up to?

Well, outside of the whole Technorati stalking episode, let me fill you in.

Friday:
Work.
Flight to Phoenix.
Check in to Ritz Carlton.
Check to see if Ritz Carlton has had change of heart with respect to porn policy because of artfully-worded and emotional letter from Jane.
Nope. No porn. Bastards.
Dinner with Boy at sports bar. Drink bad chardonnay.
Back to hotel.
Watch SportsCenter with Boy.
Sleep.

Saturday:
Sleep in.
Pat Boy on head and send him on his way.
Shop.
Baseball.
Drink bad chardonnay at baseball game. Why, you ask? Because I can.
Dinner with Boy and Boy's family and Boy's friends and people that the Boy doesn't really know but who came anyway.
Go back to hotel.
Still no porn. Fuckin' Ritz.
Watch SportsCenter with Boy.
Sleep.

Sunday:
More sleep.
Boy leaves at some point. No idea when. Just really really early.
Blame lack of morning comprehension on bad chardonnay.
Flight to San Francisco.
Drink bad chardonnay on flight. Hair of the dog.
Get car. Go home. Pat Princess on head. Re-pack suitcase.
Thank Ex-husband for watching Princess. Remind him that he still needs to get a job.
Meet Boy at hotel downtown (not Ritz).
Watch SportsCenter with Boy. Sadly, too tired to watch porn.
Sleep.

Monday:
Wake up.
Pat Boy on head and send him on his way.
Annoying work-type stuff.
Meet friends for many margaritas.
Baseball.
Room service.
Drink good chardonnay.
Watch SportsCenter with Boy.
Sleep.

Tuesday:
Wake up...sort of.
Super annoying work type-stuff.
Fabulous lunch with the Boy.
Pat Boy on head and send him on his way.
More annoying work-type stuff.
Think about shopping but get caught in rain as soon as I leave the hotel. Take it as a sign that I definitely shouldn't shop.
Shower.
Red Bull.
Baseball.
Bad midnight food with bad chardonnay at only diner open in the entire city of San Francisco.
Watch SportsCenter with Boy.
Sleep.

Wednesday:
Wake up EARLY.
Go home.
Pick up Princess early from school. (Excuse: She has an "appointment". No need to mention baseball.) School gives me dirty look.
Drive back downtown to stadium.
Baseball with the Princess.
Eat bad food and great ice cream. Drink bad chardonnay.
Extra innings baseball.
Meet up with Boy after game for approximately 8.5 seconds before he has to get on a plane.
Go home.
Help Princess with homework that she conveniently forgot she had on the way to the game.
Remind Ex-husband that he still needs to get a job and move out of my living room.
Collapse.
Definitely don't watch SportsCenter.

This may or may not have happened. I have no actual recollection.

Any questions?

UPDATE - Dear Technorati

2010-04-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

From the Technorati "support" board...

But I really really meant to give you a sacrificial goat! I'm so sorry Technorati. Please love me again.

2010-04-25T12:58:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, a little girl named Jane decided that she wanted to write a blog because it seemed "in" and she wanted to publicly and anonymously make fun of her Ex-husband someplace where he would never read it. But she didn't know anything about the blogging.

So she bought a book. And she learned about this thing called "Blogger". Jane thought that Blogger was way cool but also way snarky because every once in awhile Blogger would fuck with her by changing all of her fonts and spacing and picture alignment and sizing. Jane would spend hours trying to change everything back only to be told by Blogger "Nope, not today bitch."

But Jane accepted that she was now in a relationship Blogger - for better or worse - and so she would overlook Blogger's quirkier and/or more masochistic qualities for the greater good.

So Jane read more of the book and the book told her that she must go and befriend Technorati. Technorati is a blog-claiming service that "claims" your blogs and then uses some super-secret technology to help other people find your blog in their directory. I guess.

The book evidently forgot to mention that when one submits a blog to Technorati for "claiming" that one should also provide a live goat for sacrifice as well.

Goat

Jane submitted her blog to Technorati on February 15th. When she didn't hear anything after a month, she checked the Technorati FAQs which said that this was somewhat normal and that it takes a lot of time to sacrifice all those goats and just chill the fuck out for a bit.

And then Jane forgot all about it.

So it was somewhat a surprise to her when on Friday, she got an email from Technorati that stated...

"This is an automatically-generated email.

Thank you for submitting your blog claim on Technorati. Unfortunately, we encountered a problem reading your blog (bad writing? not funny? no goat?). Our engineers are investigating and we will update your claim status as soon as we are able (to sacrifice more goats?)."

"Well, ok," she thought. "There's a problem but they're looking into it. Sometimes I encounter problems reading my blog too because it's not funny. I understand COMPLETELY."

But then 2 minutes later she got the same email. And then 2 minutes after that she got the SAME email. This started on Friday. It is now Sunday. Every 2 minutes without fail the same email shows up.

Jane found this slightly amusing and then really annoying and has slowly graduated to full-on pissed off.

And this only reflects the emails that I didn't already delete in various fits of crazy

So of course you all are thinking "So did Jane contact Technorati to stop this madness?"

As a matter of fact, she did. But Technorati is so advanced and so all about itself, it has figured that it doesn't NEED customer service. It has outsourced all technology issues/questions to another service, that...ok get this...asks you to POST YOUR QUESTION AND/OR EMERGENCY on a public discussion board and then you have to wait for a techy-type person who may, or MAY NOT, work for the company that you are pissed at to post a response to your question.

I am certain that this is because there are no longer human beings at Technorati....only robots.

"But I don't HAVE a goat!"

Anyway, Jane did as she was told and posted her question with the appropriate number of exclamation points to vocalize her pissed-offness. Sometime around 4 AM on Friday night, a techy-type person who says she actually WORKS for Technorati, but who I think actually just lives in the robot dungeon with the goats, promised that she'd get on it ASAP.

That was Friday. It's Sunday and every 2 minutes I get another email.

It won't stop.

Help.

I need a goat.

The Douche Douche Award of the Week (because sometimes one “Douche” just isn’t enough)

2010-04-21T21:44:00.000-07:00

I realize that this is old news by now (relatively speaking), but since there are some of you out there that are still asking “Volcano? What volcano?”, I figured that there are also many of you out there who have not heard about this…

Sometimes sports fans vomit on each other. On purpose.

This is so great. And horrible. But mostly great, because of this picture, which will likely go down in the Nick Nolte Mug Shot Hall of Fame…

There are somewhat varying accounts, but let me see if I can give you the high-level.

An off-duty cop takes his 15 and 11-year old daughters to a Phillies game.

Two couples sitting behind the off-duty cop and his daughters are drunk and unruly and stupid. They swear and yell obscenities and spill beer down the backs of the cop and his daughters and are generally douche-y to everyone.

The cop is trying to ignore it. The 15-year old tells them to please mind their language.

Bad idea.

The friend of drunk fat kid in the mug shot (the co-douche, as it were) hawks a lugee into the hood of the 15-year old’s sweatshirt. This is, sadly, the least gross part of this story.

The off-duty cop is PISSED. Security is called and the co-douche is dragged out of the stadium and summarily dumped on his douche-y ass in the parking lot.

Fat kid is now left with the dates (and I bet they are WINNERS, these dates). He’s kinda upset now that his friend is gone and is thinking that his women are going to think he’s a giant pussy if he doesn’t, like, show everybody what a bad-ass he is and make those little girls PAY for having his friend tossed.

So he STICKS HIS FINGER DOWN HIS THROAT AND INTENTIONALLY VOMITS ON THE 11-YEAR OLD.

Oh yes. He. Did.

The cop and some neighboring fans move to subdue fat kid. Fat kid starts swinging. Fans try a little harder. Fat kid begins to projectile vomit – probably not so much intentionally this time. After all, there’s only so much beer and hot dogs and beer and nachos and beer and crab fries that one can consume and not throw up after being punched in the gut and, evidently, the eye.

Fat kid is arrested and charged with assault, harassment and resisting arrest and immediately goes down in "bad fan" history.

I wish that I could take credit for the following comparison...

...although this seems monumentally unfair to Sloth.

Joe Sports Fan has some other fantastic separated at birth comparisons.

I'll be wearing a rain coat and football helmet to the game I'm going to on Monday.

****

In totally unrelated news and in a minor victory of technology, Lazy Jane's Reader Fav blog roll is up and running ------->>

And there are some late additions (better late than never!), so make sure you also check out...

...by Jeff Tompkins

Cricket and Porcupine

Dose of Reality

House of Lime

The Smitten Image

Somewhere on the Masthead

Too Many Mornings

I'll be updating the list periodically so make sure you continue to send me your true blog loves as the mood strikes.

I now have so many freakin' awesome blogs in my personal blog roll that I can no longer dedicate any time to working, parenting or housekeeping. Your fault.

Lazy Jane's Reader Favs - The Inaugural List

2010-04-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

It's official. Y'all kinda rock.

I asked for fantastic blogs to read and you sent me fantastic blogs to read...and I didn't really have to do a damn thing (which is absolutely the best part of all this). I'll be creating a blogroll of your favs, so let me know if you have someone or something that you want to add.

Here we go...something for everybody...blogs that you can't live without...

2 much testosterone

Adventures of a Yankee Girl

Cafe Fashionista - ...life is a runway

The Checkout Girl

The Chloe Conspiracy

Facts Are Strictly Optional - Life lessons and wisdom from a not so diplomatic diplomat

Fluid Pusher - It's not just a man's job

The Girl Next Door Grows Up - Building character for over 30 years

Glammed if you do...Glammed if you don't

How Could You Not?! - The Boob Nazi

Hyperbole and a Half

i live here: SF

Kat Wilder - A divorced mom muses on life, love and single parenting

Knucklehead!

Life According to Candice

Life By Chocolate: Robyn Alana Engel's Blog

Little Girl. Shiny World - I be bloggin like it's my job

...love maegan

Martinis or Diaper Genies (MODG) - An almost 30 something's dilemma between babies and the selfish life

The Mother Load - Finding sanity in the daily grind: double time

My Fantabulous Wonderful Life - Randomness and all the fun stuff in between

Nicole is Better - More is Better - deliciously vulgar

Out of my Head...Into Yours

Peter DeWolf

Steam Me Up, Kid

A Suburban NYC Housewife-in-Training - A little wine is all it takes...

Suldog - Serving the public need for obvious jokes, maudlin sentimentality, and self-righteous claptrap, since 1957

Unhappy Hipsters - It's lonely in the modern world

What Were You Thinking?

You've Got To Be Kidding Me - Seriously.

****

In addition, I'd like to award triple dog extra points to Mrs. Newlywed Giggles and RN Mama for nominating themselves and to Christine at I'm Here for suggesting her ENTIRE blogroll (which must be seriously awesome because it includes me - just sayin).

But the "non-award" Lazy Jane award of the day goes to Amanda over at Dating is Miserable, who not only gave me great suggestions but is drawing her dating life in stick-figures and gave her boobs their own Twitter account. It doesn't get any more fabulous than that, my friends.

Got blog?

2010-04-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

I want your daily blog crack.

Let me explain.

I started blogging a little over two months ago. One of the goals of this undertaking was to find blogs that I wanted to read and authors that produced interesting and/or funny stuff regularly.

This, it turns out, was harder than I anticipated.

It’s a lot like playing “Duck, Duck, Goose” only more like “Duck, duck, duck, duck, (break to pee) duck, duck, duck, (get another drink), duck, duck, duck, (check TMZ to see what Jon & Kate have been up to today), duck, duck…OOOO great blog – GOOSE”.

There’s so much great content out there. The number of talented and entertaining bloggers that I have discovered during my search has been heartening. And it has restored my faith that the entire world has NOT forgotten how to put together grammatically correct sentences – even if I’m not always one of them.

There are also some fabulous blogs with the sole purpose of showcasing talented bloggers. These are great too!

But I'm impatient and greedy and I want to find more, like, now. I imagine that many of you would like to find more too.

So in summary, I want you do to my work for me, but still make it seem like I’m doing you a favor.

So…

(1) Send me the 3-5 blogs that you love/can’t live without/read without fail. You can either provide your list in the comments section or – if you’d prefer to be a little more anonymous about it – send me an email at mylifeasjane@gmail.com. (If you throw a few bucks IT's way at Well, Oh Yeah!!, I’m sure he’d be happy to send in your blog for you. He seems pretty entrepreneurial.)

(2) I will compile and publish the list of those blogs that have been reader-identified. No awards, no self-promotion….just sharing the other blogs and bloggers who you enjoy on a regular basis.

I know that many of us visit the larger/most popular blogs on a regular basis. You can send those too…just don’t forget the little guys!

Let’s see how it goes and maybe I can keep a running list of reader recommended blogs so that you can check back occasionally and maybe find a new gem or two.

What do you say? Got blog?

Dusting off the volcanologists for their 10 seconds

2010-04-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that up until yesterday, I didn’t know what a “volcanologist” was. If you had asked me, I probably would have said it was something from Star Trek.

After the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland, all of a sudden they were everywhere. The TV was erupting volcanologists.

I learned from Matt Lauer that volcanologists are volcano experts – which seems logical enough. I had assumed that somebody was out there keeping an eye on rouge volcanoes, but never really gave it much thought until now. I also learned that this eruption is big and important – big enough and important enough to fly Al Roker to Iceland to show us snowball size chunks of ice covered in “ASH!”, which I think just looks like mud, but I’ll humor Al for the moment.

Volcanologists must be giddy. I bet nobody pays them any attention until something erupts. And when was the last major volcano eruption that caused this much disruption – 1980?

I can just picture them sitting around in their geeky volcanologist cubicles, trying to get dates online, looking at volcanologist porn and dreaming about the next big eruption (interpret as you will).

So now that something has really erupted, all the TV stations are calling them and begging them to sit down for interviews and explain to the public that volcanoes occasionally erupt and spew ash and stuff and, well, that’s about it because by the time they get to that part of the interview, the entire viewing audience has changed the channel to Judge Judy.

But now that I’ve pondered this for a few seconds, I have questions…

(1) How does one become a volcanologist? Can you major in “Volcano” in college? Do you just have to sit through “Joe vs. the Volcano” (this would, of course, explain the small number of volcanologists in the world)?

(2) Do volcanologists have seismologist-envy? I bet after this eruption they were all “IN YOUR FACE, you stupid seismologists” because the seismologists have been getting all the TV time lately, which is not necessarily a bad thing because the seismologists seem to be, as a whole, a more attractive and socialized group than the volcanologists.

(3) How much do volcanologists make? I actually found the answer to this in a Google search because I had absolutely nothing else to do. Volcanologists evidently make between $37,000 and $50,000, with the highest salaries hardly ever exceeding $100,000 – unless you become involved in upper management. Volcanologist upper management? I’m intrigued.

(4) What the hell kind of volcano name is Eyjafjallajokull? Don’t Icelanders know that the American media can’t POSSIBLY wrap their heads around a name like that, much less pronounce it? Most American journalists still can’t pronounce Ahmadinejad….or Bob, for that matter.

So I’ll feel very sad for the volcanologists when the giant Eyjafjallajokull ash cloud clears and nobody cares anymore and they have to retreat back into their volcanologist cubicles (unless, of course, they are volcanologist upper management and have offices). I hope we see them all again when Mt. Bob erupts.

My phone has turned into Sybil and is not sure if my daughter or Henry Kissinger is calling

2010-04-14T13:23:00.000-07:00

Technology and I haven’t exactly been buds lately. First, my Netbook decided that location of the cursor on the page wasn’t all that important and jumped to wherever the hell it wanted to. I would be happily typing along and then the cursor would just say “fuck you” and jump to somewhere in the previous paragraph and I wouldn’t look up to discover this until two sentences later.

And then I purchased MobileMe.

Let me restate – I purchased MobileMe to ensure that I never EVER lost all my contacts because a friend of mine lost all of her contacts and she had to go begging on Facebook for everybody to send her their contact information and I bet a lot of people didn’t respond and now she feels sad because they didn’t love her enough to resend their information. In fact, I’m fairly certain that several people did this on purpose so that they didn’t have to deal with her anymore.

I can’t cope with that kind of rejection.

So I signed-up for MobileMe, which is a service offered by Apple to store all your very important information in the Apple "cloud" so that you never have to worry about losing ANYTHING! Great idea, right?

I thought I was so cool and tech-y and bragged to the Boy that he should definitely get MobileMe too because what if he lost his phone and then lost all of HIS contacts – which he hasn’t figured out how to sync to his address book – and then he would be getting texts for the next year from numbers that he can’t identify and would have to ask “Who is this again?” every time, which makes him very nervous. So he said "Great idea!" But in usual Boy fashion, he procrastinated. And then I lost all MY contacts.

Actually, it seems MobileMe just threw all of my contact information randomly into the “cloud” for shits and giggles and when it landed it was like 52 card pickup and everything was a mess.

Here’s the first sign that things might have been amiss…

My phone did not know if I had a voicemail from my 10-year old daughter or from Henry Kissinger.

I don’t really know Henry Kissinger. I labeled one of my former business colleagues "Henry Kissinger" in my phone because I could and it amused me.

So that was weird.

And then I got home and looked at my phone contacts…and that's when things went totally bat shit crazy.

Here’s how a contact might now show up in my phone address book…

Contact Name: Mom & Dad

Address: (Address of Dentist)

Phone number: (Phone number of Ex-husband)

Email: (Email of boss)

-Or-

Contact name: The Boy

Address: (Address of Cousin in Austin)

Phone number: (Phone number of Ex-mother in law)

Email: (Email of Princess’s elementary school teacher)

Note to the Boy – Sweetie, if you’re reading this, I think we need to lay off the sext messages for awhile until we get this straightened out. (AND OMG…if you EVER even so much as SNICKER that this happened…)

So I was on chat support (when did we as a society stop speaking? Never mind…rhetorical question) until 2 AM because every time I tried to fix something, I evidently fucked up something else.

I now have about half of my original contacts restored. I have NO idea if the phone numbers or addresses are even accurate. I’m not going to beg for contact information on Facebook because then people will have the option of not responding to me and dumping me forever and I want to be the one who dumps people – definitely not the other way around.

I’m guessing that this year would be a good year to cease the tradition of sending vulgar Christmas cards. With my luck, one will go to my grandma, who’s address was supposed to be the address of my best friend, and who also had the email of my mechanic.

Houston has random presidents and shopping carts!

2010-04-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

I just wrapped up my time in Houston where I saw a couple more baseball games, another president and discovered that stunt-riding in shopping carts is the inevitable result of boredom in Houston after midnight.

So about these presidents. I saw President Obama on Monday in DC and then Bush Sr. in Houston on Friday AND Saturday. I think that this may be their new, but rather extreme, interpretation of the wiretapping law - just have a president follow you around.

It seems that George Sr. and Barbara Bush like to take in the occasional Astros game. They sit in the front row, right behind home plate. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this.

This is George seemingly trying to text something. In fact, when I first saw him take his phone out I was all "Awww, I wish I had my camera out." And then 5 minutes later, he's still staring at the phone and again I'm wishing I had fished my camera out the FIRST time I had the thought about the camera. And THEN ONE INNING LATER, I was all "geez, dude has no idea what he's doin'" and I took the picture.

The Bushes do, however, need to figure out how to leave with a little less fanfare. Friday was a long game. George and Bar made it through the end of the 6th inning but then waited for the game to START again before getting up to leave. When a former president and first lady get up and walk out, people tend to notice. In this case, people stood up to see what was going on and then started to applaud - while the batter was standing at the plate. The batter, of course, was not an American and doesn't really speak English all that well and seemed very confused by all of this. The next pitch - amid near hysterical applause for the Bushes - was popped up to center. Actually, come to think of it, I think the Bushes know exactly what they are doing and are secretly trying to fuck with the visiting team. They seem shady like that.

"Take note, kid. Real men don't use wimpy tissues."

I've posted about Minute Maid Park in Houston before. This is one of my favorite parks in MLB to visit. The beer vendors sell wine (which they pronounce "WHYNNE" and which always makes me want to buy one from them just because I like the way they say it), the food is not horrible and the whole place kinda smells like BBQ - which is never a bad thing. There is even a mac 'n cheese eating contest - if you are so inclined.

Last time, I drew a picture of my favorite spot in the outfield where you can drink at the bar and watch the game on TV - even though the game is going on live right behind you.

And just to prove that my drawing of the outfield bar is SCARY ACCURATE, I took pictures. So SUCK IT, you disbelievers. (Actually, there really weren't any disbelievers. I just added that for effect.)

View facing the bar

View if you were actually inclined to turn around

It's further proof that I really don't need a camera and could just draw pictures of everything on Paintbrush.

My only real complaint about Houston (correct me if I'm wrong here) is that there just is NOTHING open after 11:00. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to eat. The Boy and I got out of the ballpark around 10:30 on Friday and there was NOTHING open - except strip clubs. If the strip clubs had been serving steak, I would've been all over it. But they weren't, so I wasn't. Just sayin.

So after much wandering, we found a place to eat, had a drink or two (at least I did) and started to walk back to the hotel. So I ask you...it's late, the parking lot you are crossing is mostly deserted, and you see a lone shopping cart stationed temptingly in the the middle of nowhere....what would you do?

The Boy and I

Yup...us too.

Why the world would blow up if the Ritz-Carlton offered porn

2010-04-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

Well people, I tried. For those of you just joining us here, I have selflessly taken it upon myself to point out to the Ritz-Carlton that their decision not to offer porn in their hotel rooms is a mistake of epic proportions.

In review, about a week ago I sent this to the Ritz-Carlton...

Dear Ritz-Carlton,

I recently stayed at your Key Biscayne property. Good job. The windows were really clean and sparkly.

But, seriously, why no porn? This oversight might be enough to force me to take my business to the Holiday Inn.

Thank you.

(P.S. Love the pens!)

I was not really expecting a response, but HEY, whaddya know...Patrick, Edward and Charlie's assistant kindly responded to my inquiry...

Hello Jane,

Thank you for your comments regarding the cleanliness of our hotel, we certainly take pride in that. To answer to your question, it is world-wide company policy that we do not offer any adult pay-per-view options.

Please let me know if I may be of any further assistance.

Regards,

Texa Gaya
Executive Administrative Assistant to
Patrick Franssen, Hotel Manager
Edward Boylan, Executive Assistant Manager/ Rooms Division
Charlie Zha, Director of Food and Beverage
The Ritz-Carlton, Key Biscayne
455 Grand Bay Dr.
Key Biscayne, FL 33149

"Miami's Only AAA Five Diamond Resort"

So what I have surmised from this... (1) the Ritz-Carlton thinks that they are too good for porn and has a snooty no-porn "policy" that says this; and (2) Texa must have taken a super-long lunch and pissed off Patrick, Edward and Charlie and now they are punishing her by making her answer my inane emails.

When I first received the email, I was actually staying at the Ritz in Washington, DC and was all like "Phfftttt...snobs!" but then I went downstairs and saw a huge sign directing military-looking people to "German/American Bi-Lateral Discussions" and I said "Ohhhhhh....."

I get it now. I guess you can't offer porn if you are going to be hosting very important international bi-lateral discussions because if you had porn in the rooms, nobody would come downstairs for the bi-lateral discussions and then the world would explode. So I get it now. The Ritz is only trying to protect world peace.

Regardless, I am happily ensconced in The Heavenly Bed at the Westin in Houston and I love the Westin. I checked....the Westin has porn. Whew.

"All Sex and No Plot" - Yeah Westin!

Washington, DC has demon devil bunnies (no really)

2010-04-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that Washington DC is not all politics and old men and sex scandals. If you knew absolutely nothing about DC and you were me and went on a trip to our nation's capital, you would think that Washington DC is really just baseball and bars and creepy Easter bunnies.

But let me tell you my story in photos...

"You try throwing a baseball like a man while wearing a bullet-proof vest...haters!"

So I did get to see the President. Which was cool because he was the President and he gave away boxes of presidential M&Ms (I know I know, I didn't ask why either), but which really really sucked because it took FOREVER to get into the damn ballpark and I don't particularly like being watched by an army of snipers who could shoot me at any moment for any reason or because they don't like my shoes (which, of course, could never happen because everybody likes my shoes).

Pretty sure they're checking out the waitresses at the bar across the street.

After the baseball stuff, the Boy and I debated whether to see historical stuff, or monument stuff, or legislative stuff and so ulimately we decided to stop debating and go shopping. We got on the Metro and headed over to Georgetown, which I have to say was a damn fine choice.

Georgetown is fantastic...great shops and restaurants. Georgetown has run out of room though and must have horrible zoning headaches. The Boy and I stumbled across this interesting neighbor situation on the walk from the Metro station.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a bar so close to a church, but certainly not a bar so close to a MORMAN church. That bar must get a helluva clientele. And just to make this a 'super-fun' block, zoning-wise, the bomb-resistant Egyptian consulate is one more building down to the right.

So we wandered around Georgetown for awhile and then called the concierge at the Ritz to give us a good recommendation for dinner. And he gave us this...

Now let me preface this by saying that I have no real issue with holiday decorations. I think a stuffed bunny is as cute as the next person. But when we walked into this Italian restaurant, I had a literal physicial reaction to the Easter vomit that was exploded in front of us. It was EVERYWHERE! Bunnies hanging from the ceiling, bunnies behind the bar, bunnies in the restrooms, bunnies hanging from the walls, bunnies next to, on top of and over the tables. The Boy took one look at my face and started to back me out of front door. But I said, "No, I'll be brave and tolerate the scary bunnies because they have homemade pasta and Clint Eastwood likes the cannoli" (food above all) and so we stayed.

Just a taste of what bunny hell might look like in your mind, were you to imagine such a thing...

Creepy bunny babies on donkey

World War I flying bunny in plane

Super creepy demon devil Alice in Wonderland bunny who is ready to kill you if you touch the desserts

And my personal favorite...

Naked Grecian statue with bunny ears...you know...for the kids

And because one naked statue with bunny ears is never enough

I am firmly convinced that this recommendation is the Ritz-Carlton's revenge for questioning their no-porn policy (and there WAS a response, which I will be writing about when I get a chance and my netbook stops being an evil bitch).

Am headed to Houston now, where I have been promised there are no politicians or phallic monuments or naked bunny statues. Too bad, really.

I would be posting things but my Netbook is evil

2010-04-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

I'm still in Washington DC and have all of these cool things to tell you about like presidents and German/American relations and Easter vomit, but I left my beloved Mac Book at home and my netbook is evil and makes me want to chew my hands off at the wrist so this is all that I have come up with and this took me an hour and now I want to go drink heavily and hide under the covers and, since I'm at the Ritz, definintely not watch porn.

Meanbook

Maybe tomorrow.

The IRS loves me and is way excited to have my tax return! Yeah!

2010-04-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to filing my taxes. It’s something I put off…and put off…and put off every year because I ALWAYS end up owing money. Owing money sucks. And it has reached the point of absolute pigeonshit ridiculous since my divorce. It turns out the government hates single people.

I know! I was shocked too!

And then I found out that they really really REALLY hate renters.

As a single non-homeowner, I’m not exactly feeling the love.

In fact, the federal government is making me feel pretty small and unloved and I’m starting to wonder if I can start seeing a therapist to deal with these feelings of being small and unloved and then deduct the expense from my taxes.

But this year I used TurboTax and TurboTax felt sorry for me. I entered everything I was supposed to and winced, as usual, at the amount owed. And I could tell that TurboTax was thinking “This poor pathetic girl. She doesn’t have a husband or a house and, OH IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, she’s paying alimony? WTF?! What can I do to make her feel better…even a little…as she arranges to pay the IRS another ginormous mountain of money?”

So TurboTax stepped in and tried to make it seem like the IRS actually liked me and was super excited to hear from me.

Congratulations to me! I’ve been “accepted” by the IRS! Yeah! ((Implied love and fireworks!))

Thank you TurboTax.

My 10-year old tax deduction and I are going to go paint Easter eggs now.

It's my civic duty to convince the Ritz to offer pay-per-view porn. You're welcome.

2010-03-31T20:56:00.000-07:00

I’m headed to our nation’s capital this weekend. The success of the trip will be determined by (a) how much sleep I get, and (b) whether or not there are any cool and/or mildly psychotic protests going on while I am there. I’m staying at the Ritz, which makes me happy, because I’ll be able to steal some more pens and, hopefully, replace the sad grey chocolate at the bottom of my purse.

It’s been a month since I’ve stayed at a Ritz so they’ve had some time to get their affairs in order. As previously discussed here, I was alarmed to discover last month that the Ritz does not make porn available to their customers. They should know that porn is a necessary feature of all the best hotels, almost as necessary and important as the minibar. Doesn’t the Ritz-Carlton know that people who stay at the Ritz can AFFORD porn and are likely repressed and not getting any at home and are probably ordering hookers up to their rooms anyway?

I’m really not unnaturally obsessed with porn. I swear. I don’t even (ok, hardly ever) order it. It’s the PRINCIPLE of the thing. Why can I get porn at the Holiday Inn, but not the Ritz? The Holiday Inn doesn’t even have a minibar.

My theory on the whole no-porn thing has something to do with a high-level executive of the Ritz-Carlton getting busted by his wife with a MASSIVE porn collection and after unsuccessfully trying to deny that the mountain of freaky porn in the basement was his, having to promise that he will never EVER be around porn EVER again and especially, for some reason, not at work. But this is just a theory.

See? Even the phallic lion symbol wants it.

I consider it my civic duty to correct this injustice (and point out the obvious flaw in their business plan) so I sent a strongly-worded email to the Ritz Carlton “Contact Us” people. It went something like this…

Dear Ritz-Carlton,

I recently stayed at your Key Biscayne property. Good job. The windows were really clean and sparkly.

But, seriously, why no porn? This oversight might be enough to force me to take my business to the Holiday Inn.

Thank you.

(P.S. Love the pens!)

I’ll let you know if I get a response.

******

Evidently, some of you were concerned about the enormous amount of crap that I carry around in my purse on a daily basis. I deeply appreciate your concern and because I care that you care, I have consolidated my lip balms and now carry only one instead of three. XO

Why I suck at tag and have month-old hotel chocolates at the bottom of my purse

2010-03-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

So Jessica challenged me to go into the deepest darkest recesses of my inner being and disclose everything that I carry in my purse. I said "why" and she said "because I tagged you" and I said "ok" and that was that.

(I should probably mention that I wasn't great at tag as a kid. Some kid would come up and whap me on the shoulder and say "YOU'RE IT" and I would say "ok" and then just stand there. Obviously, not much has changed.)

So I emptied out my monster bag and looked at the contents.

And it wasn't all that interesting.

What does this say about me? Quite possibly that I just have too much shit in my purse.

Let's break it down, shall we?

(1) Two iPhones. (Yes, two. One for work and one for not work. I believe in separation of church and state.)

(2) Ear buds for iPhone because you can't hold your phone and drive and talk and put on lip gloss and change the radio station at the same time in California. So if you put in ear buds, you can drive and talk and put on lip gloss and change the radio station at the same time and that is completely legal and ok.

(3) Bottle of Advil. Because my life requires Advil and I like to rattle when I walk.

(4) Mexican restaurant brochure that was handed to me by random street guy that presumably works for said Mexican restaurant.

(5) Hair spray. Duh.

(6) Business card holder. Not that my job is awesome or important enough to require business cards, but I like to have them on hand to put in glass fish bowls at local restaurants so I can "Win a Free Lunch!" I've never won. I think this could be a wide spread scam. Dateline should definitely investigate.

(7) Tiffany's jewelry pouch which came with Valentine's Day present from the Boy. Not sure why pouch is still in my purse. Not sure Valentine's Day present was actually from Tiffany's. Just sayin'.

(8) Business card from sales person in Louis Vuitton. Just looking.

(9) Three pens. I steal hotel pens. Don't judge.

(10) Wallet, tissues, ponytail band, checks (do people still write checks?), and fortune cookie fortune from three months ago.

(11) Way cool electric blue iPod Nano purchased on Sunday to replace poor, sad, broken iPod Classic that died right after I tried to upload Neil Diamond song. May be a connection there.

(12) ClubBev! membership card. No explanation needed.

(13) Lip gloss, three lip balms, two eye liners, hand lotion, perfume, hand sanitizer, deodorant, mints and plastic baggie for all of the aforementioned in case I get a call on the Bat-Phone and have to go through airport security on a moment's notice.

(14) Memo book for super-fly blog ideas or grocery store lists. Actually contains only grocery store lists.

(15) One open DayQuil packet. Left over from Florida debacle.

(16) Ritz Carlton pillow chocolate from A MONTH AGO. Possibly provided by Ritz Carlton as consolation prize for not having porn.

(17) Motrin packet. (See also Florida debacle.)

(18) Gas-X. For those special times when I'm shopping for greeting cards (and if you don't already know this story - forget it - I'm not repeating it).

(19) Movie receipt from Alice in Wonderland. Trippy.

(20) Face blotters that don't really work but I carry them JUST IN CASE I am ever confronted with an emergency face-blotting situation.

*******

So I think the rules say that I'm supposed to 'tag' some other people and challenge them to empty out THEIR purses, but since I suck at tag and am generally lazy and would secretly be devastated if I tagged somebody else and they were all like "fuck off", I'm not going to do that. If you feel the urge to disclose your purse-type secrets and write about it, please let me know. I'm always into looking behind the blinds of other people's lives - in the same creepy way that I love it when people leave their curtains open at night.

Personally, I think we should all dump out and talk about the contents of our bedside tables. Or not.

By the way, in case you hadn't noticed, there is no Honey, It Ain't from Target Tuesday today because, yah, um, I don't feel like it. Try to get over it.

Random stuff I've learned over the past 2 years at 67+ baseball games

2010-03-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

I hate hotdogs. I can’t repeat this enough.

Don’t wear white pants on a hot day. Your ass WILL sweat in the stadium seat and then, when you get up to go to the restroom, it just looks like you couldn't wait and pee’d yourself. The Boy calls this ass sweat phenomenon “swamp ass”. To wit, “Baby, wear dark shorts today cuz it’s gonna be swamp ass-y.”

Yankee Stadium will let you bring in a really really REALLY big purse, but will make you leave a backpack outside.

Always keep a baseball hat in your purse. Frizzy hair looks good on no one.

Denver gives me headaches.

I should never drink in Denver.

Minute Maid Park in Houston has a great bar in right field. I sometimes go there and watch the game on the TV above the bar. I can turn around and watch it live, but there is some satisfaction in not doing that.

Taxi drivers in New York City do not know the difference between Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. No matter what, they will take you to Yankee Stadium.

Actual conversation with NYC cabbie...

Me: Citi Field please.

Cabbie: Huh?

Me: You know, Citi Field? Mets? Shea Stadium? Baseball? Citi Field.

Cabbie: Ohhhh…baseball.

Me: Yes, Citi Field. Mets.

(Minutes later we pull up to Yankee Stadium)

Me: No no….not YANKEE STADIUM. CITI FIELD. METS.

Cabbie: Baseball here!

Me: OTHER BASEBALL. You know, the one that is at least another $35 from this one?

Cabbie: Yes…Mets. I take you Mets.

If it starts to rain, throw your body over the fabulous purse first. Keeping the rest of you dry is optional.

Have I mentioned I hate hotdogs?

At Yankee Stadium, you can drink beer in your seat, but mixed drinks and wine have to stay behind a steel barrier in the bar area.

If you’re sweet to the official-looking “bar guard guy," he will let you sneak your drink out of the bar prison. Just don’t then get caught on national TV with a big ol’ cup of wine in your hand (true story…oops).

More to come....maybe.

******

At this point I would like to acknowledge that I am fully aware that the Paintbrush pictures here are very sad and sorry and only really entertaining to me. If you want to see funny, artfully drawn pictures that don't look like they were created by a 3-year old, this is SO not the blog to be reading and you should go RIGHT NOW over to see Allie at Hyperbole and a Half, who actually draws really really REALLY funny stuff.

And if you want to place blame for the horrific images seen here today, go talk to MODG who told me about Paintbrush in the first place and will probably be regretting that disclosure for a long long time.

Dr. Drew has driven me to this...

2010-03-26T23:22:00.000-07:00

I just discovered Paintbrush and am WAY excited and had nothing else to do tonight except watch Sober House with Dr. Drew and drink wine.

I apologize in advance.

Doggy

Dateline needs hookers!

2010-03-25T17:21:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to have my camera with me when I saw this sign on a major street in a town south of San Francisco.

My first thought was...GET OUT!!! My second thought was…DATELINE! Where are they? Are they hiding? Are they watching to see what I'll do when I see the sign???

So following is my theory on the sign…

*******

Dateline Producer: OK, this “To Catch a Predator” thing is PLAYED. The predators are on to us and the last poll showed that Americans think that Chris Hansen is waaay annoying and slightly creepy. We need us a new idea.

Keith Morrison: How about a story about a dead blonde white girl?

Dateline Producer: We’ve already done all the dead blonde white girl stories. We’d have to wait for another blonde white girl to die and we need something now.

Keith Morrison: Um, how about something to do with sex?

Dateline Producer: Fantastic! Sex! I love it! Ok…what’s the angle?

Keith Morrison: Prostitution?

Dateline Producer: Genius! Let’s do something fresh, new, exciting, ground-breaking.

Keith Morrison: We could call it “To Catch a John”. We could bait potential johns with the promise of hookers and then when they show up, we POUNCE with the cameras and chase them and try to ask them really embarrassing questions. I could run after them with a microphone yelling “I’m Keith Morrison with Dateline NBC! Come talk to meeeeee!”

Dateline Producer: But how are we gonna find us some johns to pounce on?

Keith Morrison: We could put up a REALLY BIG SIGN letting the johns know where the hookers are going to be. And they’ll just…well…show up.

******

In reality, this sign is probably the handiwork of somebody with too much time and too much tape, and a fabulously warped sense of humor.

The sign usually says, “WORKERS located at 5^th Avenue at Railroad”.

I’m afraid that if Dateline and their potential johns actually did show up at 5^th Avenue at Railroad, all they found were some confused elderly Hispanic gentlemen who were just hoping that somebody might want help building a deck.

**UPDATE**

I am an idiot. I was all inspired by the fabulous bloggers that I met tonight in San Francisco and totally came home and was all like "I need to change things up" and then I started fucking with the comments settings and lost a bunch of comments. I'll get it figured out, but until then PLEASE DON'T BE SCARED AWAY BECAUSE I'M A MORON. I'm really not an idiot all the time. Just some of the time and especially after tequila.

Clips from a Facebook Cat Fight

2010-03-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

Monday made me sad, but was pretty damn entertaining. Is that possible?

Let me see if I can explain.

As a rule, I try to stay away from ANYTHING CLOSE TO POLITICAL on Facebook. I think the most ‘out there’ thing that I’ve ever done is to stupidly post a clip from The Daily Show – which elicited comments from both sides of the ideological spectrum, condemning each other for the other's egregious misunderstanding of healthcare reform. By the end of the day, I felt battered and bruised…and pissed off….and I wasn’t even involved in the discussion! I really just thought Jon Stewart was funny.

It is this type of thing that has nudged me into a self-imposed Facebook ban.

I have been skipping along under the false impression that Facebook was supposed to be, I don’t know, fun?

Monday, I couldn’t resist. I knew the healthcare bill was going to cause apoplectic fits. I quietly logged in and assessed the war zone.

Following is a small sampling off of my friend’s FB page…

(Actual quotes edited for length and coherence…I seriously couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.)

Mary’s (FB Page Owner) Post: And the health care reform bill passes!!! (Sunday, 7:52 pm)

Bill: “That is very bad....might as well plan your funeral...there will be a waiting list for treatment...most will die before treated...this is so bad :(“

Translation: YOU ARE GOING TO DIE (with a super sad frowny face).

Sally: “I just pray that you or family has nothing seriously wrong. Good luck getting the treatment that you properly need and quickly get it administered. Remember how happy you are today...because you and your daughter and daughter's children will be paying for this for years to come.”

Translation: YOU ARE GOING TO DIE, but I would like to express insincere concern for you and your family.

(Omitted - several Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire posts)

Bill: “What's next? Maybe take our guns away…that way the government can totally run us and we won't be able to make a stand. I guarantee that's coming...its a constitutional right, but the current administration doesn't care. Its their way and no other way...I'll be waiting to say ‘I told ya so’"

Translation: YOU ARE GOING TO DIE BECAUSE OF HEALTHCARE REFORM AND IF YOU DON’T DIE FROM HEALTHCARE REFORM YOU WILL DIE BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND TAKE YOUR GUN AWAY AND THEN SHOOT YOU.

Mary’s next post: Well Rush...can I send you any boxes?? (Monday, 3:10 am)

(Oh, no…sweetie…didn’t you learn from the last round?)

(This conversation starts with several anti-Rush sentiments, dissolves into the next logical chain of thought - WMDs and WHO STARTED ALL THE WAR-TYPE STUFF and ends with….)

Elly: “All lies! All lies! All lies!”

(Ok…catchy. We’ll run with it.)

Mary’s third post: I am once again AMAZED at the venomous hateful comments directed towards our PRESIDENT! Not being in agreement with his choices is one thing and I can respect that, but there are so many disrespectful things being said that it's just ridiculous! The folks that refuse to call him by his TITLE (President) ...wow. (Monday, 5:06 am)

(Please stop. Darlin’, I love ya, but omg.)

Terry: “He is black, educated and the President.”

(uh oh)

Sally: “I can say the same thing for you and all of your friends about Bush. And quit being so racist Terry. If anything, you voted for him because he is black...not because of issues!”

(Oh, no she di’int)

Elly: “All lies! All lies! All lies!”

(Not sure what Elly stands for, but I’m starting to like her.)

Mary: “I said his being Black had NOTHING to do with why I voted for him. Yes, that was a plus, however my decision was based on my thoughts and feelings. I was not raised to have color issues, thank God. You're taking this to a whole other level with me. It does NOT have to be this way! I feel let down. TRY to have a nice day.”

Sally: “I don't like the man, his beliefs or what he stands for...PERIOD! Nothing to do with his color!”

Elly: “And I didn't like Bush because of his beliefs or what he stood for. Nothing to do with his color!”

Mary: “I believe in etiquette...it's MY FB page, I can say what I want. I don't even have a problem with folks who disagree with my opinion. However, I DON'T agree with going to another person's page and causing drama because you don't agree with what they said. Again, healthy civil debate is fine, but otherwise, spew it elsewhere...But that's just my opinion.”

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

And THIS I believe is the crux of the issue.

When did it become ok to conduct comment drive-bys on other people’s FB pages?

I don’t give a rat’s ass what side of the issue you come down on. I’m still gonna like you. But PLEASE don’t feel you need to comment on my ideological stupidity EVERY time I post something. If you want to post on your page in big sparkle letters that you hate the President, that’s between you and the Secret Service. I don’t give a shit.

But if I write in big sparkle letters on my page that I like macaroni and cheese, don’t post 101 reasons on MY page why I’m a dumbfuck for liking macaroni and cheese.

I emailed Mary yesterday to check on her mental state. Good news: she is doing just fine, thank you very much. Bad news: the 20-year friendship between Mary and Sally is OVER (or maybe this is good news, depending on how you feel about it).

And Elly has started taking her meds again.

Honey, It Ain't from Target Tuesday - Follow-Up Edition

2010-03-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a follow-up HIAFT Tuesday and a brief one, since it seems there is a smack-down going on over at Facebook over the new health care bill and I hate to miss a good cat-fight between friends.

I was asked how I would style my Vince “2legit2quit” pants (as they were aptly dubbed by Jessica) that I featured last week.

This is one way, which I realize is a little Flashdance-y...but hey, if I can rock MC Hammer pants, I can channel Jennifer Beals.

Top - Vince

Tank top - James Perse

Pants - Vince

Shoes - Juicy Couture

I just ordered the same Vince top in khaki - which I think will actually work a little better. You can easily substitute the black booties for pumps.

I think it needs a more substantial necklace though. I'm on it!

And I did track down the J Brand Skinny Cargos from two weeks ago…and I LOVE them.

Top - Vince

Pants - J Brand

Shoes - Juicy Couture

Bracelet - J Crew

I really don't know why I felt the need to take the picture in this exact place. I guess I wanted to show off my super cool electrical outlet. Jealous?

I also wanted to mention that I found the Joie Soft line that I mentioned previously and HOLY CRAP - it's soft! Thus the name, I guess.

OK...I'm off to catch a little more Facebook cage match.

How to volunteer in Africa without taking babies

2010-03-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, I stopped by my friend Bethany’s bon-voyage party. Bethany is a much better person than I. She would do anything for anybody and I adore her spirit. She and I have bonded over mutual friends, shoes and red gummy bears (long story). And now she has decided that she wants to give a year of her life to volunteer in Africa. And not in a Madonna-buy-some-babies-from-Africa kind of way. She is actually GOING TO AFRICA and NOT COMING HOME WITH SMALL CHILDREN.

"Bitch makes me wear stupid overalls, but gives me junk food. Viva America."

At least that’s her goal.

It turns out that actually becoming a volunteer is tougher than one might think. Bethany networked, she made phone calls, she set up meetings with organizations who do fantastic things in third-world countries.

She said, “Yo, I have a year I’d like to donate please.”

And the volunteer-y people said, “Um, ok, it will only cost you $(enter large dollar amount here).

And she was all “GET OUT?!”

(I’m totally making up this conversation by the way…but you get the idea.)

It turns out that there are a lot of people out there who like to do volunteer-y type vacations. I certainly don’t want to dis the volunteer-y vacations (it’s slightly more noble than an all-inclusive, drink-yourself-silly, fall-off-the-pool-bar vacation), but it evidently makes it more difficult for people who want to dedicate a significant chunk of their lives to volunteer service, like Bethany. Who knew?!

So she said, “Really – a year, you can have a year.”

And they said, “OK…six weeks.”

Bethany leaves tomorrow morning for six weeks in Africa (South Africa, Rwanda and Zambia). She is going to be working with two organizations – Seeds of Empowerment and TeachAIDS.

Have I mentioned that she is a MUCH better person than I?

You can follow her story over at her blog: "Hanging Up My Manolo Blahniks for Humanitarian Service”. She has promised lots of pictures (and she is a FANTASTIC photographer).

I told her that while she’s off making the world a better place, I’ll be home writing about poo and shoes and to try not to miss me too much.

How to not lose to a cat in the NCAA tournament pool

2010-03-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

Every year, my brother puts together a family pool for the NCAA basketball tournament. No money, just fun and bragging rights. Everybody plays...my mother and father, my brother, his wife, his 3 kids, the Princess, the Boy and my brother's cat.

Now you may wonder how the cat makes it's picks. I'm not quite sure about this myself. My brother says it has something to do with purring and picking all the low seeds.

Regardless, up until today, I was getting my ass handed to me by the cat.

I like to take a more scientific approach to my picks. One year I chose based on superior mascot, another year on locations that I would most like to visit. My mother, I think, choses her teams based on "prettiest uniforms."

This year it was all about the coin-flip.

I flipped a coin for every pick. Heads for the higher seed, tails for the lower.

And I'm in second place bitches!

Granted this probably won't last long. The coin decided unwisely that Robert Morris was going to the final four.

The coin says "Go Xavier".

The cat is goin' DOWN!

So you thing your sh*t don’t stink?! (Part Two)

2010-03-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

Well, my shit don’t stink. Take a whiff…it’s true.

For you innocents out there who haven’t been party to the riveting poo-related discoveries we’ve been making over here, go here for a recap.

So the Poofdrops arrived here a few days ago. I apologize for the delayed results, but YOU CANNOT RUSH THESE THINGS.

Poofdrops Clinical Trial Recap:

Clinical trial parameters: one participant (n=1). (The Boy is waiting on the findings before committing to post-trial activities. Coward.)

Clinical trial questions:

(1) Does my poo smell of Japanese Mint?

(2) What does Japanese Mint smell like? (like poo?)

(3) Does the subtle, fresh and clean aroma of my poo take me to a far away, exotic land?

SO HERE ARE THE RESULTS....

(goosebumps)

Clinical Trial Observations:

Box is very cute and in relaxing poop-inducing shades of soft green. Box also contains very very important warnings.

DO NOT PUT POOF IN YOUR EYES.

DO NOT CONSUME.

There must have been problems with this in the past in order to necessitate such dire warnings. It really is too bad that you can’t drink Poofdrops and shit Japanese Mint. The world would be a much more pleasant place.

Directions for use: "Immediately before using toilet, squeeze one or two drops of Poof into toilet bowl water to release a refreshing scent. Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after each use." (Interpretation - don't put directly on ass - and if you have to be reminded to wash your hands after taking a dump, you are too stupid and gross to live.)

Marketing promise on box: "Poof was developed with the bathroom conscious in mind. This innovative liquid toilet deodorizer will provide a new way of doing your business." (haha…”doing your business”)

Packaging: Poofdrops bottle is covered in a thick plastic seal that requires scissors, nail clippers, box cutters, a torch and an axe to open.

Clinical Trial Findings:

Question: Does my poo smell of Japanese Mint?

Answer: No, my poo actually smells of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum.

Question: What does Japanese Mint smell like?

Answer: Evidently it smells like Wrigley’s Spearmint gum.

Question: Does the subtle, fresh and clean aroma of my poo take me to a far away, exotic land?

Answer: Almost. But neither does Wrigley’s Spearmint gum.

Result?

POOF MAKES YOUR SHIT SMELL LIKE GUM.

So my opinion...

I followed the directions and heeded the warnings. I did not put it in my eyes.

AND IT FUCKING WORKED! It’s delightful. It’s fresh. It's minty.

WTF?!

I swear I’m buying 10 more bottles. I wouldn’t recommend it for the day after tequila, chili and corn on the cob, but it holds its own with bran muffins and Activia. It also can't help with farts. That's a market gap that is still waiting to be filled.

I know that some of you out there are all "Well I don't want my shit to smell like gum." My response to you...the alternative is that it smells like, well, SHIT.

Wait and see people…Poof is going to make the world a better, gum-scented place.

My name is Jane and I am a baseball widow

2010-03-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

I am a baseball widow. And I have earned that title.

Let me start by saying that the Ex was a college baseball coach. We moved to a different state every time he landed a better job. I went to hundreds of games to be supportive. I went to Lamaze class by myself because I was inconveniently pregnant during baseball season.

The irony that the Boy works in baseball has not escaped me. When he told me what he did for a living I said “Oh, cool!” and thought “Oh, holy hell!”

Life with baseball is a constant for me.

Sometimes it’s cool. Often it’s not.

I get free tickets. I can hang out in the family lounge if it rains or snows or gets so cold you can’t feel your ass anymore. During the playoffs, they loosen the rules and let girlfriends fly on the team plane.

And I love love love baseball (thank gawd). You will rarely hear me complain.

The downside is the distance. I have a job and a child. The Boy travels 9 months out of the year. I fly to games when I can, but it’s often hard to get away. Sometimes I can take the Princess. She loves it. She has recently learned that baseball has 'runs' and not 'points'. I’m so proud!

I spend A LOT of time in airports.

The 5-star hotels that the Boy stays in definitely don’t suck. But he has to leave me at the hotel to go to the park at the crack of dawn . I’m usually left to explore cities (or, um, shop) on my own. I get a cab to the stadium, pick up my tickets and hope that the game ends early enough that I’ll get to spend a few hours with him after the game. We've been in so many cities together that we can recall a good memory and have NO idea where that memory actually originated.

Sometimes I know a few faces at a game. Sometimes I don’t.

I hate hotdogs.

The Boy collects awesome signed baseballs for me. I don’t have the heart to tell him that it’s actually the John Cusack ball that’s my favorite (I worship at the shrine of Lloyd Dobbler, after all).

(My Lloyd Dobbler ball)

I sometimes get to meet the legends in person. I get to go to cool parties.

I miss him. All. The. Time.

I saw the Boy last week in Florida. I won’t see him again until mid-April when the Princess is on Spring Break.

I have it good. It’s fun. It’s exciting.

It’s really, really lonely.

The Boy is worth it.

I’ve earned my title.