Seriously?!

Stirring up trouble for myself

Sent the Weekly (more like Quarterly) Update to all my friends yesterday. The majority of them love reading it and find it hilarious, which is gratifying. Brian, however, was most concerned as to whether I sent it to Monica or not. Below is the order in which the emails were sent/received between B&me. They are separated by asterisks.

I know that B cannot keep his mouth shut and that if he doesn't email this to Monica outright then he will definitely tell her about it. So why did I send it? Because it's about time they both knew how I felt about being friends with both of them. They are birds of the same feather - users, pure and simple. (That's the main reason they cannot get along with each other for longer than 24 hours without fussing.) And if the facts piss them off then I don't need either of them as friends. I got enough problems.

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Weekly Update 5/12/04

HA HA, yeah, that's a laugh. It's not even a weekly or bimonthly or even monthly anymore, but everyone I'm sending this to loves me and is willing to forgive me. I hope. (Some of this info is old, but still vital.)

THE BABY HAS LANDED
Conlan Dane Chesser arrived on 2/18/04 a whole day earlier than predicted. He was a 9lbs., dark pink, slightly pointy-headed Aquarius whose primary occupation is yowling at the top of his lungs. I don't know what everyone else is going to call him, but I'm calling him CherryDanish. That's another fantastic Favorite Weird Aunt privilege - the making up of embarrassing nicknames. I'm really shot in the heinie about the whole thing in general. I took a short trip home to see him in March and he was so cool. Cooler than a new kitten, which is pretty cool in my book. OK, so he didn't do much but gaze around myopically, eat, sleep, and go poo, but he was fantastic - a freaking genius in the making.

According to the photo documentation, he's changed a lot since my visit and I'm upset that I'm missing it, but what can you do? New skills added to his repertoire: laughing, cooing, pitching fits that register at 7.8 on the Richter, and generally looking adorable for his grandmas.

BTW, to the powers that are in charge of the digital camera, I am not receiving enough pictures. Monica gets pictures practically every day and she's on her 7th niece/ nephew. I am attaching a picture of CherryDanish taken at Easter so that everyone can be properly appreciative of the unparalleled beauty of my nephew. Oooo's, aaaaah's and donations for the college fund are happily accepted.

THE AMAZING SKYDIVING FELINE
Here's a new and interesting addition to Beckett's List of Bad Habits: Kamikaze Plunge From Loft. I was sitting on the couch watching TV and I hear this BONG noise and nanoseconds later Beckett plummets from the loft like a green-eyed, hairy comet falling to earth. As I'm having a freaking convulsive heart-attack, he saunters over to the cat food and starts eating like nothing happened. Eh, no biggie, I meant to do that. Monica wasn't even home so I know she didn't throw him over, not that I would've blamed her if she had after his recent rash of misbehavior.

WORK
Sucks. ClassManager is out to get me. And it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. I'm pretty sure the master plan is to replace us all with robots.

Lots of departures by the scant remainders of the Old Guard. John Sievers left us for Minnesota where he will join his finance in the bonds of holy matrimony in August; Dave Thompson took his running-the-Bolder-Boulder-in-a-thong physique to Indiana; Christina Persson skipped off to her dream job in Boston; Craig Wagner (Wags) left the Camera to start a video store in Niwot where I will now be going to rent the next fifty-two episodes of Dark Shadows on DVD. Gotta support the homies.

I've decided to work Outdoor Cinema this year. I've got a bit of an "in" since Jeanine is going to be in charge of the hiring and Dave Reipe, the owner, is a friend and former co-worker. What are my qualifiers you ask? Well, I'm a real go-getter, I looooove Outdoor Cinema, and I have a lot of experience watching movies at home. I'm dependable and a good worker and I can also make accurate change from a $20. My favorite movie is the Big Lebowski, with Jane Eyre (the one starring Orson Welles), Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Harold and Maude all tying for second place.

I also applied to work weekends during the summer over at the Celestial Seasonings gift shop. It's like a 10second walk from the condo (another reason not to move) and I'll get great discounts, so if anyone needs tea or teapots or Burt's Bees products I'm your gal.

It's going to be a busy summer.

RECENT TRIUMPHS (MINE AND OTHER PEOPLE'S)
Todd recently won first place in a contest requiring 2 TV news story and 3 radio news story submissions to the OIRB. Looks good on a resume AND he got a tidy sum of $5,000 for his efforts. WOO-HOO! Obviously a genius. He's also graduating this month, which is an amazing accomplishment and would be even better if the diploma was also accompanied by a hefty cash prize.

Tiffany and Jeanine passed their karate test with flying colors and are now orange belts. They looked very intimidating. Once Jeanine gets her black Masters Club gi, her Intimidating Points will take a 5 point jump. Tiffany can knock over a wavemaster with her right hook. Seeing that in action will put the fear of God in you, fo' sho' doh.

My writer's group is still in love with my Wolf in the Fold book. Every time I don't bring pages everyone (except for this guy Bob, but he's an eeeeeediot. More on Bob in next paragraph) gives me crap 'cause they're excited to know what happens next. It's so nice to be appreciated.

COSMIC SLAPDOWN (OR PROOF THAT GOD REALLY IS A WOMAN)
Bob is a very arrogant man in his mid-to late-fifties who looks like a enlarged, angry version of a munchkin from the Wizard of Oz. He called my writing "soft" because, unlike his book, I didn't have a woman (who sounds suspiciously like his ex-wife) found dead with her undies rammed down her throat within the first five pages. Oh, and I use punctuation in my story which he, as a higher life form, is sooo above.

Bob abandoned the group a couple of months ago when he got miffed when someone pointed out for the 871st time that he had to submit in a certain font and font size. When Bob got huffy, the group leader suggested - quite kindly, I thought - that perhaps it would be better if Bob were to start his own group, especially if he felt that the simplest requirements put in place by the group were too difficult for him to follow.

Obviously, other groups he tried weren't as nice because he eventually came back to ours.

Sherry, one of the gals in the group, finally had her fill of him mouthing-off about being a chess champion extrodinaire and totally schooled him. Two weeks earlier, while she was critiquing a story in which he used chess and chess theory, he basically told her she was an moron and couldn't, as a woman, possibly know what she was talking about when he wrote in such detail about complicated chess strategies. There was a stunned silence from the group. No one even moved. A tumbleweed rolled past. Just as my anger was reaching it's peak and I was about to shift into rhino mode, Sherry quietly and calmly challenged him to a game.

It was like watching two gunslingers eyeing each other in the middle of a deserted street in Texas while the rest of the town cowers in the saloon or peers from the windows of the hotel. Bob would be the gunslinger who's all dirty and twitchy and squinty with the brown drool of tobacco running down his chin onto his shirt. Sherry would be ValKilmer as Doc Holiday in Tombstone, pre-TB gauntness.

At the following week's meeting, Sherry brings her chess board and the rest of us cower in the saloon as they go to it, guns blazing. Five minutes later, Sherry check-mated him and we all burst through the swinging saloon doors and raised her to our shoulders and carried her through town cheering. I stopped and gave Bob's unmoving, dusty form a swift kick before joining the festivities.

I guess Bob wasn't listening when Sherry mentioned in her shy, self-effacing way that she tutors a few of Colorado's reining chess champions on her days off.

THE CURRENT READING LIST
I am currently reading several books: No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late by Ayun Halliday, The Final Confession of Mabel Stark by Robert Hough, Walking on Alligators by Susan Shaughnessy, and Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway. See any trends here? Little clue: Mabel Stark was a world-famous female big cat trainer in the Barnum&Bailey circuit. She was mauled at least a dozen times in her career and had five husbands. My hero!

Anyway, the point is, my subconscious seems to be working overtime jonesing for some sort of exotic vacation. Or maybe I should run off and join the circus - Holly West and Her Amazing Six-Toed Skydiving Feline.

CONDO FOR RENT?
Jeanine and I have decided that at the end of our lease in July we're going to find our own places. At first, my thought was that I can't afford to move and that Monica would just take over J9's half and we would live there month-to-month until John finally moved into town. (Who knows when that would be. Hopefully before the wedding.) However, after a couple of heart-to-heart discussions with Jeanine and I've decided that it would be a bad idea for me to stay on at Powderhorn and live there with Monica. I'm extra irritated with her right now, for various reasons. Besides, she should go mooch off the future in-laws for a while. I think that would be best for everyone.

J9 and I decided that the perfect scenario would be that we get apts next door to each other in the same complex. That way we can hang out, get rides to work when cars are broken, feed cats during vacation, generally keep an eye out for each other, calling emergency numbers when we haven't seen each other for a couple of days and there is a strange smell emanating into the hallway, and still have our own separate spaces.

Then there's the possibility of Nate moving into the 2nd bedroom. But that's totally a new idea brought up by Jeanine and not something I've spoken to Nate about at all. She says he likes the look of the place and he's already paying $500 for the place he's in now. He'd be the perfect roommate.

If I have to move out I'm going to miss the little condo though with its fireplace, and its awesome (faux) stainless steel appliances, and its the loft, and its green kitchen floor, and the cool little porch, and the garage and and and...

Must think of all the bad things about the condo... no A/C, a washer that sounds like it's filled with angry baboons when it's in the spin cycle, the toilet paper holder that's loaded with a high tension spring that will launch an empty toilet paper tube with enough velocity to act like a cookie cutter when it hits flesh...

KARATE
I still have not managed to poke out my own eye, but its not for lack of trying. The instructor thought it would be a good idea to teach a form using kamas (see: pair of small, hand-held scythes) that we would need to perform to advance to the next belt. Yeah, that's a good idea (*insert sarcasm here*) considering I'm still having trouble not punching myself in the face most of the time.

Anyway, I passed testing and am now an armed green belt. They should totally make me wear some sort of warning label and an orange vest everywhere I go. The other day I came out of the garage where I have set up my own little training area, all sweaty, breathing heavy and holding a kama in each hand and about gave my neighbor, who was just getting out of his car, a heart attack. He looked at me and down at the kamas and then back at me, gave me this weak sort of smile/grimace, backed away slowly and took the long way around to get into his condo.

I've been, like, totally friendly and wavy with this neighbor since then, but he bolts like a rabbit every time he sees me. I just don't get it.

(Side note: This is the same neighbor who saw me having a very long and involved conversation with Nigel one afternoon in the parking lot. Which would be fine, except that Nigel is a cat. Combine that with the kama incident and I've now been branded the Powderhorn Crazy Woman and have been force to sew a scarlet "L" - for lunatic - on all my clothes.)

We have a tournament on the 22nd of this month. I don't know what form I'm going to do yet, but I'm bringing home a trophy even if I have to knock a little kid down and take it from him.

Last time I was home, Billy (my brother), in his typical laid-back, Zen-like manner laughed off all my challenges to bust him up. I kept trying to get him to threaten my life that way my jumping him would be technically legitimate according to the student creed. He let me try a few grappling holds/breaks on him and found my even my best efforts only mildly entertaining. Not exactly the effect I was going for. Toward the end, he faked a couple of slightly pained whimpers just to bolster my self-confidence, which had rapidly diminished after he yawned and switched TV channels with the remote while I was in the process of putting the hurt on with the Choke Hold of Death.

Did I mention I'm not any good at grappling? Tuesday nights in the adult class we practice grappling. I hate it. And not just because I'm not any good at it. I hate it because I don't like getting that close to hot, sweaty people that I'm not planning to have sex with. (I'm pretty sure my partners feel the same.) And then I hate it because I suck at it.

Case in point, we'd been rolling around on the mat (where in the class just prior forty kids under the age of nine had had their little dirty, stinky, playground feet) for the majority of class with our selected partner when the instructor decides to have us switch up. So we switch and switch and switch again, and by the time I'm at my most sweaty, most disgusting, most exhausted, the instructor points me out and says "Let's go."

O. Crap.

Did I happen to mention that I don't have any idea what I'm doing? Did I happen to mention that the instructor is so good at grappling that he appears to sprout an extra set of arms? Did I happen to mention that when I get pinned down I go berserk? As in the original definition? As in Berserker Rage? As in KILL KILL KILL?

If you're thinking "Yikes!" you would be right.

OK, so I'm doing my best to stay out of range of those extra set of limbs which buys me maybe 2.2 seconds. We cover a lot of ground rolling around like a couple of really pissed Tasmanian Devils. I was actually growling at one point. I have to keep repeating silently to myself, "No hitting! No hitting!" because my instinct is to get off the ground using any weapon in my arsenal (see: kicking, punching, kneeing, head-butting, finger-breaking, hair-pulling, eye-gouging, instep-stomping and groin-punting). Unfortunately, I wind up on the receiving end of a headlock at some point, but I hang in there (who needs to breathe?), but when he really tightens down the whole Berserker thing kicks in and I nearly have my teeth latched into his arm and a handful of his hair before the Mental Referee breaks in screaming "Ack!! What are you doing?! No BITING for God's sake! NO BITING!! Tap out! Tap out!"

I manage to control the baser instincts, but refuse, out of sheer stubbornnessm, to capitulate until my vision goes all wonky. I slap the mat twice and he lets go.

"No fair tapping out," he says with a grin.

No fair? NO FAIR?! I know two, count 'em, TWO grappling moves both of which I'd used to apparently no effect. He's a freaking second degree black belt, I (at the time) am a pathetic orange belt! FAIR?!

Berserker says, rather calmly for a Berserker, "Does he know how close he came to losing a chunk of bicep and a good portion of scalp? And probably an eye?"

Of course our round isn't up yet and I am boiling mad mostly because he has the nerve to GRIN at me. Like this is FUN or something?

Oh, it is ON now!

Three seconds later I land with a huge OOF! on my back as he uses his considerable second-degree black belt skill to flatten me like Wile E. Coyote. I'm - what's the phrase I'm looking for here? Oh, yes - hosed at that point. I resort to curling up my arms and legs in what I like to call the Roly-Poly Bug Defense. I am so angry that despite the continual work of the Mental Referee I am seriously considering inflicting an illegal owie on this guy. Thanks goodness time was called before there was a fatality.

Once I got back on my feet, I was glad he was my last opponent of the night. When I looked in the mirror my face was so red it was nearly purple, I'd torn my gi, lost my belt, and my hair, which had been in a regular ponytail, was now on the other side of my head and sticking out all over like a demented hedgehog.

I don't go on Tuesday nights any more. It's best for everyone, really.

SIGN OFF
Well, that's it for now, ma peeps. Hugs and kisses out to all uh ya'll. Call me, email me, whateva. Love ya', miss ya'!
HW

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Brian's Email To Me:

...needed to vent a little....I was so scared when you metioned the Monica situation and hadn't seen who you sent this to....so when I got there...my eyes got extremely big...and...and...I couldn't get to my mouse quick enough to scroll up to see who you had actually sent this to. Whew! Imagine my relief....

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My Reply:

Nice "Holy Sh*t" smiley. I can totally picture that look on your face... eyes bugging, mouth slack, eyebrows raised into hairline...

What's the big f*cking deal? 'Cause I mentioned I was irritated with her? 'Cause I mentioned it wouldn't be a good idea to live with her, considering? Do you think none of it is justified? Trust me, I was kind. There was a whole section (titled: Cursed? or When the H*ll is Mercury No Longer in Retrograde?) detailing the suck-*ss deals with Jeremy, Donnie, Todd and Mo that I deleted from the update. I was being NICE.

Wow. If, after everything, this weekly update was going to be a friendship dealbreaker, that's just sad. I could use a few more friends sympathetic to what's going on with me for a f*cking change, but a good portion of them are too busy talking about themselves to even ask, or care, or listen for longer than 30 seconds.

I am feeling a little better about the whole thing though. I got to work and there was a message from her detailing what was going on, because she hasn't been able to get in touch with me (even though she knows where I live and where I work and the fact that I have a work cell phone on me 24/7). And when I got home last night around 7:30p there was a note on the table and a check. That helped some.

You may think that I'm being extra harsh. Perhaps I am. Perhaps I need a little time to cool off and that period is more like a month rather than a week. But I would do anything for those people that I consider my friends - and there are really not very many people on that list. It's only when they stomp all over me and I start to feel like the only reason they even bother keeping me on as a "friend" is for what I can provide them with (no reciprocation) that I start getting pissed. And even that takes a while, 'cause I don't just abandon my friends at the first sign of trouble.

oh whatever. who gives a sh*t anyhow. I just need more time to cool off and move my stuff back to where it was originally when I moved in. That will make me feel loads better.