Facebook Keeps Me Lazy

It is so much easier to post a status and go...and then come back, post again, read someone else's post, comment, and end up wasting an hour. I used to use that hour to blog here. For the past few years, I forgot I even had a blog. I used to think, "Wow, now there is something to write about!" and put fingers to the keyboard. Now I think in "statuses" - which generally are less than 30 words. I don't begrudge a status - it's good practice for my editing skills when the statuses in my head start out as a paragraph.

But, maybe it's time to get back into the habit of blogging. I write for a living, so I write all day long. I love what I do, but it's not my stuff. It's someone else's. With lots of rules and no swearing allowed.

Here I can write what I want. I can vent a little. Maybe it will progress into a daily "me" writing habit and I'll get my ass moving on the middle grade and YA novels I've had in my computer for years (so long that I had to remove a pay phone reference and replace with texting). And then I read my novel in progress and think wow, what happens next?? And I don't know because I didn't write it yet. Duh.

So hopefully this is a start to what happens next. :)

I Am A Big, Fat Snooper

I’m a big fat snooper. I think pretty much everything is my beeswax. When I say this, I am actually referring to poking around in the big giant underwear drawer known as the World Wide Web. The internet makes it so damn easy to just FIND OUT STUFF about people. I mean, if you are going to throw your dirty laundry into that proverbial underwear drawer, then be prepared. I think I may be obsessed with Googling. It is part of my everyday vocabulary and I have inducted the word Google into my personal Verb Hall of Fame. “I’ll Google it for you.” “Oh, I need to Google that.”

And with the fast-growing personal beeswax websites such as Facebook, Yahoo Personals, AIM, and MySpace – it is just that more tantalizing. If you put stuff there, I want to know about it! And I have found some juicy stuff. I know who is looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend. Who is lying. Who has PhotoShopped their face. Who is snooping into “married but looking” sites. And it’s not as if people are advertising their activities with their full first and last name next to the web site – but through some basic information and a little detective work, it takes about five minutes for me to find out what kind of profile, nickname, or information someone might attach to said sites. Did you know that many towns have a police blotter right on the web? Forget buying the newspaper. Find out who got pulled over for disorderly conduct. Not your favorite person? Copy and paste it into a mass email. I know who has been in jail, where, and when.

So my philosophy is this… I don’t put anything on the web that I wouldn’t want posted on a bulletin board. It’s enough that someone can find out where I live, what sexual predators live in my town, how much I have paid for my house or in taxes, when I graduated high school, and any time I have been quoted and posted somewhere on the Web. That is all without me doing anything proactive. So, I guess I feel like, hey – if someone put it out there, it is for me to find out.

Is it healthier to self-examine my own motives or even my own dreams and goals – of course! But it’s not as fun. And I have this little “shit” file to go to should anyone ever cross me ;-)

*Addendum 2013  I originally wrote this post around 2006ish. It is so old that I thought using Google as a verb was new and hip AND that I made it up (I'm pretty sure I did, though, now that I think about it. Either that or Gene Simmons did - because he did invent just about EVERYTHING). Now I read this post and the Google reference, and I appear to be this dumb, pathetic girl who has been living in a cave for 7 years. Yeah, I wish.

Hey, Wanna Go to the DMV?

Department of Motor Victim, that’s me. And one would think it is in the realistic sense that perhaps there was a long line, obnoxious personnel, a demand for the removal of one of my ovaries as proof I’m a woman and, in fact, me. But no. Actually I was a victim of my own making.

You see, last year I got a new license. And the picture was pretty good! Imagine my dismay when I discovered I have to renew the whole license a year later. And a new picture. Being the day before the license actually expires, I choose lunch time to head over. Just for kicks.

So I take a shower, do my hair, wear photograph-appropriate attire, and put on lipstick. I mean, God forbid a zitty 16-year old at a retail store or a 50-year old man-woman security checker at the airport should see my picture and it doesn’t look good. I don’t use ID for clubs any more because A) I don’t go to clubs any more and B) who would card a 41-year old? But I digress….. I still have the vanity that is pushing me to get a good license picture.

So I take the 20-minute drive to the DMV and woops.... I left my other (almost expired) license at home. Need the old to get the new, and no Ma’am I don’t happen to have my birth certificate on me. So I schlep back…. get the license…. put on more lip gloss and wander back in the DMV. It's pracitcally empty. No line! Miracle.
(the whole renewal process(and nice personnel to boot) took just 10 minutes).

So in the midst of the process, as I walked up to Picture Lady and whooshed my hair back a bit and cleared my teeth of any potential debris…all ready to SMILE. She pulled up last year's license and said, “Do you want to just keep last year’s picture?”

If you want to know what I did, you’d have to either 1) be a cop, 2) work for the NTSA, or 3) convince me to go clubbing.

My Boyfriend's Ex Wife is in My Freezer

To quote my good friend CJBlue, "Sometimes the headline is really much more interesting than the story."

No need to call the cops. Or the Jeffrey Dahmer Fan Club. It's not what you think. Another friend of mine had a great suggestion to rid oneself of a bothersome person. According to an American Indian Shaman, you immerse a photo of the offender in water, then place it in the freezer. Perhaps it's a placebo effect. Maybe it really works. Maybe there is an ex-wife walking around wondering why she needs an extra sweater.

When I asked what kind of container I should put the photo in, she replied, "Whatever... tupperware is fine." I didn't have tupperware, but I did have a Glad disposable container.

So now when someone is really bugging me, I don't get mad.... I get Glad.

Ludicrous Lyrics

Have you ever been singing along with a song… and then it clicks in your head… “OH….is that what they’re saying?” This notion first came to mind when I realized that during Simon and Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair” they did not actually sing “Sagebrush, parsley, Mary and bright.” And then I asked around. A lot of people have had wrong-lyric incidents. Even if you know the real words, sometimes it’s hard to sing them once you’re used to the wrong ones! So here is my small collection of wrong lyrics… any to add?

One song I had never learned the chorus to was Earth Wind and Fire’s “September” I just sang along “Oh dee do, Saturday Remember….oh dee do, Saturday September.” So then I looked up the lyrics. It appears I wasn’t that far off: "Ba de ya - say do you remember… Ba de ya - dancing in September".

My daughter sang with all her might in the back seat at age three “Bob the Build-ahh aaa-er…” to the chorus of “Born to be Wild”

A friend of mine had a friend who sang “I have a little Moe, he rides in the back…” from Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good”

And Donna Summer… “Someone left the cake out in the rain…and I don’t think that I can take it, because it took so long to bake it…” Oh wait, those ARE the real lyrics, they just don’t make any sense.

Melting...

So, not to point out the obvious, but it's been HOT the last few days here. Aside from many of my brain cells melting, I'm dealing with a hot, crabby, melting 7-year-old. All I can muster to "cook" are microwavable dinners. Today's lunch is LeanQuisine pot sticers. She just announced to me:
Her: "Ewww! The kitchen smells like salmon."
Me: "It's not salmon. It's Asian food." (okay, not that LQ is Asian...but you get the drift)
Her: "Well, then if it's not salmon it smells like the guys at the bowling alley."
Me: "Huh?"
Her: "Everytime I went to get a drink, I could smell guys' hairy, stinky armpits and it smelled like salmon."

Heat and all, it gave a chuckle. Guess I'll go eat my stinky, hairy armpits now.

Tagged My Own Self

Why am I doing this? Because I can....
1) Do you remember playing 45s? Surely
2) What is the worst band you ever liked?Air Supply
3) Have you ever done the macarena? Once. Against my will.
4) Are there books/magazines are currently in your bathroom? (if yes, what?) Yes. Trash. I like to get the poop scoop.
5) Have you ever done one of those embarrassing group dances at weddings? Who hasn't?
6) Coffee or tea?Coffee
7) Whip or no whip?Whip it good.
8) Did you ever have an imaginary friend and if so, what was he/she/it named?No.
9) Do you know how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver?Yes.
10) Do you still celebrate your birthday? Yessir.
11) Do you or have you ever cross dressed? (women in overalls and men in kilts don’t count) no.
12) What is the worst food you ever ate? chitlins.
13) How old were you when you had your first real kiss? 12. At choir camp. I rinsed my mouth out.
14) Have you had your 15 minutes of fame? Does an interview at the airport for News Channel 4 count? It was about 10 seconds.
15) What is the longest you ever went without sleep for? Probably 24 hours.
16) If your hair could be any color, what would it be? I like it blonde.
17) What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Mint chocolate chip (white, not green)
18) Wax, bleach, pluck, or shave? pluck/shave... interested in Brazilian
19) If you were a super hero, what would your power be? Time travel.
20) If you had to pick, what is your favorite National Lampoon movie? Vacation.