Gotta Get Goals

Bob got me on this one, and it’s actually a good one, I think.  Particularly good for this time in my life when I just spent a week in Italy thinking through what I want to do with my life. 

Alex Shalman gives us the rules for this meme here.  So, when I stick you with the same task, go there to find out what it entails!

My most outlandish goals include:

1.  Adopting a couple of kids who could use a shot at life.  This goal stands regardless of what happens in the current family circumstance. 

2.  Continuing to love every day of my life as much as I have since I moved to Austin. 

3.  Traveling to: Australia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Spain, France, England, and anywhere else my heart desires on any whim I create.

4.  Paying off my debt!

5.  Falling madly in love with someone so amazing that I’m somehow convinced that being single is not, in fact, the best thing ever in the entire world.

Interestingly enough, since I’ve realized how much I love my life, my goals have shifted away from money and things to experiences and relationships.  And, it’s not because I have money. . . because I soooo don’t (uuh, see #4). 

Passing the buck to. . .
Santi
Jumpee
Carol
Melissa

Why I blog

Alright. . . I’m doing a really bad job of paying attention to meme tags.  I think per blog manners, that’s pretty rude.  Roy got me on this one. . . woo LN!

Why do I blog?  Hmmmmmm.

I started blogging because I moved to Austin, TX from Fishers, IN and within a matter of a few months, I realized how incredibly ridiculous it was to try to keep in constant touch with EVERYONE.  I just don’t have the hours in my day to make all of the phone calls and write all of the emails.  So, I started this blog to keep everyone back home updated on my life here.

I started telling Austin friends about it because they were showing up in my blog stories, and it just seemed fair to let them know where they can find what I’m saying about them.

Somehow, it just started growing all by itself and the pressure of blogging regularly grew, as did the pressure to be funny.  Ack.

Now that I’m ocassionally recognized in public by random people, I can’t stop.  Right?

Who else can we burden with this meme?
Some Go Softly
Jumpee
Santi

Party photos

Last night’s party was pretty cool.  I kept it relatively under control, enjoying only 2 of the free beverages.  Well, ok, 3, but only because someone handed me a third out of nowhere. 

The band was hilarious, and I’m pretty sure they played Jesse’s Girl about 12 times.  They actually got an encore from the crowd which, truthfully, cracked me up.  What, you might ask, did they play for their encore?  Well, what any self respecting 80s band would play, naturally!  Enter Sandman by Metallica.  What the?  Right.

I walked around all by myself for the first half hour because no one I knew was there yet.  I looked relatively idiotic, but I’ve grown pretty accustomed to that, so I really didn’t mind. 

The event was catered by several restaraunts who each had their own little stand.  The best one was the macaroni and cheese from Moonshine.  I’m not kidding. 

I eventually wound up running into the girls. . . and our ninja friend, who kept me laughing for the entirety of the evening.  I think he likes me because I laugh at all of his jokes. . . and I do, sincerely think he’s funny, but I don’t think he knows that I think EVERYONE is funny. 

We wound up at the Belmont later, and I managed to get hit on more in that 2 hour time frame than I believe I’ve ever been hit on in my life.  Which is interesting, because I was standing right next to this guy all night.  One guy actually walked up to us and said to this guy, “You have the same taste in women as me”.  Then he looks at me and says, “I mean, you’re hot”.  What the hell?

At some point, it was recommended that I change my myspace tagline to “Boobs with a sprinkle of bitch” because that’s apparently what I’m putting out there.  A whole lot of boobs with a sprinkle of bitch.  At least it’s not the other way around.  Because a whole lot of bitch with a sprinkle of boobs probably would not cut it.

Making the most of it.

All kinds of things are up in the air right now, and I’m dealing with the stress of trying to find places for all of the pieces.  That’s kinda tough, and I’m feeling increasingly grateful that I have the sort of amazing friends who let me call them at all hours of the day and night, let me vent/whine/bitch/cry/whatever, and don’t make me feel any weaker for it.  That’s pretty awesome.

I’m doing everything I know how to make the most of everything right now because it’s entirely reasonable to expect that EVERYTHING will change with little notice sometime in the near future.

So, I’m enjoying the quiet of a Saturday morning on my patio.  I’m renting movies people have insisted I watch so I can catch up on those instead of thinking I’ll have peaceful 2 hour blocks of time in which to watch a movie.  I’m eating a box of Whoppers for dinner.  I’m taking extra long walks with the dogs at 3am.  I’m going to absolutely every fancy party I can sneak my way into.  I’m sleeping in. 

Tonight, I have one of those fancy parties.  I really couldn’t afford the ticket to that party, much less a dress and shoes.  But, the mantra I’ve been living by since Italy is, “You’ll regret more what you didn’t do than what you did”. 

So, I went out and found myself a phenomenal dress . . . FOR TEN DOLLARS!  And, I got shoes to match FOR TEN DOLLARS!  I swear to you, I’m the bargain queen. 

That’s going to make me feel much better about the event as a whole, knowing I didn’t spend this month’s grocery money to look cute.

I’m going to this party, I’m going to make it worth every cent I paid for the ticket, I’m going to be thrilled to death that I’m supporting a friend, and I’m going to be very mindful of the luxury it is to be able to spend my Saturday night drinking and dancing and carrying on. 

If you would like to join me, go buy tickets:  www.austinhabitat.org/hyp

Only in Austin

I’ve been on a little bit of a very serious trip to find a monkey for this year’s YE for Kids event.  Preferably, a monkey small enough to remain perched on my shoulder for much of the event. 

It’s been brought to my attention that there aren’t really monkeys in Hawaii, so a luau isn’t exactly a very good excuse to have a monkey.

But, I’m calling it close enough because really, what other closer excuses to have a monkey on my shoulder am I really going to have?  Really.

So, if you know me, you know that when I’m stuck on something like finding a monkey, it’s going to be just about the only thing I’ll talk about until I find a monkey.

Do you know why I’m that way?  LET ME JUST TELL YOU.  Because that’s what gets results!

It turns out, I know a guy who knows a guy who trains monkeys for acting and modelling gigs. 

NOW WHAT?!  HUH?!  HUH?!

It’s entirely conceivable that I’ll have a monkey on my shoulder for the YE for Kids event this year.  He was first very confident he could get me said monkey. 

Until I started putting all of the restrictions on it.  Like. . . it needs to be a small monkey so my shoulders don’t get tired.  It needs to wear a grass skirt and coconut bra and know how to hula, on my shoulder.  If it could know how to flip people off, that would be awesome because that monkey in Cancun that flipped people off was possibly my favorite thing ever in the world. 

This guy I know started rolling his eyes at me and then he offered to just dress up in a monkey costume because that was somehow less ridiculous than asking his guy if he has a monkey that meets all of the aforementioned qualifications.

Uuum, but, hello, GUY in a monkey costume?!  1.  Not as cool as a monkey.  2.  Will not fit on my shoulder.  3.  Is just creepy.

Not the same.

Wheee with the fancies!

Yes, believe it or not, yet another fancy party awaits me this Saturday.

I need to chronicle these fancy parties and see how many I actually go to in a year.  Because. . . I just went to one last month. . . I have one in May, one in July, and possibly one in August (pending). . .

I could open an entire second-hand store full of beautiful cocktail dresses.

In case we haven’t covered it, I procrastinate.  A lot.  Like, today is Thursday.  The party is Saturday.  I don’t have anything to wear.

So, the logical thing would be to run to the mall.

Instead, I browse through Nordstroms  online and drool over the gorgeous dresses that are so far out of my price range it’s not even funny. 

Since last month’s event, I’ve been in love with floor length gowns.  I thought I was going to feel silly and overdressed at that event, but I actually felt fancy.  And, girls like to feel fancy.  So, I want more long dresses.

Plus, I’m not a big fan of my knees, so I kinda like covering them up.

Plus, I have these wickedly unsightly bulging veins behind my knees that you can see from 40 yards away.  It’s pretty gross.

Anyway.  I’ve decided that I want this dress.  But, I’m pretty sure you know that it’s not going to get here by Saturday even if I did order it.  But, it’s only $200!  That’s not bad!  And, it’s beautiful! 

Maybe I’ll get it for the next event. . .

So, I’m going to head on over to the mall now in hopes of finding a pretty summery dress for tomorrow’s event.  And, then Sunday, I’m going to clean out my closet and put the 742 dresses I can’t wear again because women are such catty bitches about wearing the same thing twice on ebay for you to buy and go to fancy parties.  Deal?

Today, the Pope called me.

I know you think I make things up.  But, I swear to God, this is the last call that came through:

Date: 4/26/2007 10:14:42 AM
Kall8 Number: 866-439-xxxx (FOR PERFECT GIFTS)
CallerID: 352-746-xxxx POPE JOHN PAUL
Ring-To Number: 1-512-573-xxxx
Duration: 0m 37s

Blog things

Blog thing #1:

The things I can’t blog about aren’t the things you think are the things I’m talking about that I can’t blog about!  The thing you think I’m talking about is so old it’s not even worth blogging about even if I wanted to blog about it.  The things I’m actually talking about that I can’t blog about are new.  Blog rules are lame.

Blog thing #2:

Monkey Fridays sound fun, don’t they?  DON’T THEY?  Yes!  Yes, they do!  Prepare.  Prepare, Internet, for Monkey Fridays.

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha.

This really happened.

I know a lot of you are all like, “God, you spoiled bitch, it must be nice to office at The Oasis and Austin Java and that wings place that I can’t remember the name to and wherever you damned well please as long as it has wireless internet access”.  And, you know, I agree, it IS nice.  I wish you could all do it with me so you’d stop being so fucking bitter.  God.

Here’s the thing, though.  The odds that I’m going to have to start working a suck-ass full-time job in the next few months are pretty stinking high.  That means my very wonderful, fantastic, office in the sun is going to be a thing of the past well before I’m ready to say goodbye.

So, you’re just going to have to deal with the knowledge that I’m spending every sunny day outside somewhere with my soul mate laptop until I am no longer allowed to do so because I’m going to suck every blessed last minute of joy from my freedom until it’s gone.

That all being said, we spent today at Austin Java.  No, as much as it saddens me to say so, I do not have a monkey in my pocket.  Though a monkey small enough to fit in my pocket is pretty much THE. BEST. THING. I could ever fathom having and if you know where I could get a monkey small enough to fit in my pocket, I’d really like to know. 

Anyway, we consists, for purposes of this story, of my fascinating, amazing business partner and myself.

We were sitting at Austin Java, with very good intentions of actually getting some work done.  Instead, we managed to find ourselves situated entirely too close to a scenario that neither of us was capable of ignoring.

Upon first eavesdropping, the man immediately behind me was English and was some sort of life coach.  He was meeting with a woman and there was a lot of, “And, how does that make you feel?”.  I’m pretty sure that’s ALL he said for that entire meeting, in fact. 

Good enough.  That’s fine.  An Englishman can be a life coach and he can make some stupid hourly rate to constantly ask, “How does that make you feel?”.

UNTIL!

His next meeting made me stop what I was doing to listen more carefully. . . and to send this email to my fascinating, amazing business partner, who was sitting 12 inches away from me:

WHAT DOES THIS GUY DO?!He was life coaching 20 minutes ago and now he’s running credit scores.

SOMETIMES he’s English, OTHER TIMES he’s Australian!!!

WHAT THE HELL?!

As you may have concluded from my email, during his second meeting, he was sporting an AUSTRALIAN accent and talking to some woman about her credit score!!! 

Because we were also no more than 12 inches away from this guy, we could hardly TALK about it. . . so we continued email dialogue, laughing hysterically with each message. 

I have no idea what his story was, but holy crap, he was SERIOUSLY English one second, Australian the next.  And, I’m not kidding, he was counselling and then talking finance.  It was phenomenal.

It was probably way funnier if you’d have been there.  You should really start officing at Austin Java.

Jumpee!!! Random entry, with love

Somebody has to save this blog and it might as well be me. This is the story of how yours truly managed to dye his hair red…BY ACCIDENT!!!

 So there I was, eleven years old and sporting a high-top fade; don’t blame me, that was just the style of the time. As per usual, I was running late for the bus. Now riding the same bus my whole life with my bus driver Mr. Sealy was always hilarious. He had driven my older sister to school and had known me all my life. He was a good ol’ country boy and the shop teacher. There was the rumor that he only had one testicle as the result of being gored by bull during a rodeo event. Oh and everyday (and this will explain A LOT TO A LOT OF PEOPLE) and I do mean everyday, he would blare Slippery When Wet on his radio. Now this description of Mr. Sealy holds no bearing on the story of my red hair, but who doesn’t like hearing about a one testicled bull riding Jon Bon Jovi singing school bus driver.

Now on to me and my being late for the bus. You see, I was always a pretty boy. Already late, I didn’t have that much time to fix my hair. I had a high-top fade and it wasn’t appropriately coiffed and action needed to be taken. By this time my sister had moved out so I couldn’t steal any of her hair products, so I darted into my moms bathroom. I grabbed the first bottle that looked like it would be of some use to me. Spritzing and darting out the house in a mad dash to get my morning JBJ fix… ’scuse me for a second’

* (furiously playing air guitar)
Shot through the heart
And you’re to blame
You give love a bad name
I play my part and you play your game
You give love a bad name
You give love a bad name*

Sorry just had to get that out of my system. Back on topic:

Spritzing and darting out the house in a mad dash to catch the bus, I gave little to no thought about my hair and what I was putting in it. I was sure that it would suffice until gym class and then I would have to redo it anyway.

Arriving at school, I go to hang out with some of my friends before homeroom. There was a bully that didn’t give me so much trouble because he knew my cousins would crush him, but he always tried to have something smart to say. So when he made a flippant comment about my hair looking like I had dipped it in kool-aid, I thought nothing of it. However, when my friend Justin informed me that, indeed, there was something a bit more colorful going on with my “do”, I thought I may need to check it out.

I sprinted to the nearest bathroom and found a mirror followed by my crew, who at this point were laughing and calling me “Malcolm”. Upon gazing at my emblazoned visage in the mirror, it was unmistakable; somehow, I had turned my hair red. Shocked and awed more than some country that’s pissed off President Bush, I quickly went into spin control. Knowing that not liking it myself would have only lent myself to more ridicule, I had to embrace the change in my appearance. I was now “Red” just as Malcolm X was before. LOL

That was a long day, but I still had no idea what had happened. I tore through the front door and called my mom at work. “Momma… I turned my hair red.” All she did was laugh. That’s my momma for you. LOL So she asked what I put in my hair. Describing the bottle that I grabbed from her counter that didn’t really have a label, I was informed that I had grabbed this:

*editors note: The original bottle did not look like this. I would have known better to grab something pink. The bottle I grabbed was white with a rubbed off white label. LOL*

When it was all said and done, it was great for my persona. I worked the whole red hair thing and continued to use Sun In for several years. Finally around the age of 14 I discontinued use and went back to my natural color. Six years later I began to shave my hair completely. So that’s the story of one man’s bout with hair coloring. Hope you enjoyed. Now back to your regularly schedule programing.

Neglect

Internet, I’m aware that I’ve been neglecting you.  I’m sorry.

As it turns out, I’m boring.

That’s really not true at all. 

What it really turns out is that all of the stuff I have that could possibly be made into entertaining blog entries is stuff I’m not allowed to blog about.

Sincerely, why must you people put such restrictions on me?!

I don’t even have any interesting things to tell you to look forward to.  Because. . . most of it, I can’t talk about!

So, that blows.  And, I know it. 

You should kinda be happy, though, because I’ve been in a really shitty mood lately.  I’ve been in the kind of mood that makes me want to punch people in the mouth for being stupid.  It’s fascinating how many people are really fucking stupid.

I like baseball.

One of my favorite things to do is go to a baseball game.  It doesn’t really matter if it’s minor leagues. . . or high school. . . or little league.  I like baseball.  A lot.

For most of the past 15 years, I’ve thought that I might have kids just to watch them play baseball. 

Imagine my delight when a new friend called up last week and said, “Hey Steph, a group of us from kickball are going to the Round Rock Express game, and I can get you free tickets and Dog Dinero.  Wanna go?”!

Kickball people!  Hey!  I like to play kickball!

Dog Dinero?!  That’s essentially RR Express cash.  Free hot dogs!  Free nachos!  FREE BEER!  (that would be way cooler if I drank beer)

Hell yeah, I wanna go!

What she didn’t tell me is that we’d be constantly reprimanded by the little old man that monitors the stands because the kickball people couldn’t keep their swearing under control and, um, Internet, it’s common knowledge that baseball is a family event.

What she also didn’t tell me is that when the kickball people refused to heed the warning of the old man, the police would come and angrily threaten to kick us out.  Because families were leaving because of all of the swearing.

I mean, DAMN, people!  It’s a baseball game!  WHO GETS KICKED OUT OF A BASEBALL GAME?!

I sat quietly and enjoyed the game without any swearing.  I felt like swearing because the pitcher sucked ass and we were ahead by 5 for most of the game until Sucky McSuckerton came into the game.  Seriously, and then they let him pitch 3 innings.  Argh!

I felt like swearing when I ran out of Dr. Pepper.

I felt like swearing when I realized that none of the RR Express players are even remotely attractive, so who cares where they work out?

But, it turns out, I’ve apparently grown up and have developed some sort of control over my swearing.  I don’t know when this happened, and I’m a little afraid that it means I’m going to start doing other old people things like buying coffee and hanging out at McDonalds for 4 hours just to get my 40 cents worth in free refills.  Or sitting really close to the steering wheel while I drive 30 miles per hour on the freeway.  Or going to bed at 8pm. . .