not quite a nugget

i'm laying in my bed watching thumbelina on youtube. life is so good.

did you know barry mannilow lends his vocal talents to this screen gem? or is it rod stewart? well, i guess it doesn't matter because THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON. if there is one thing i am certain about in this life, it is this fact. cereal. google it and get on my team.

speaking of legendary vocalists, my first concert was Steven Tyler's aerosmith. i did more than hear good music at this concert. i learned about sex via middle aged strangers sitting below me, and saw steven tyler awkwardly fly across the stage on a trapeze via the help of a not so behind the scenes techie. i'll let you guess which event was more traumatizing. (the second one!)

speaking of traumatizing, i had part 2 of 3 or 4 of a root canal today. for the first time in my life i did not fear loss of consciousness during injections. i found singing a line of a backyard bible school song over and over in my head really calmed my nerves/brought be back to a time before PTSD. i also think i stored up all the nervousness and that it came out in a manic fit of laughter when the slightly masculine dental assistant began describing the "not quite a nugget" of gold she found in her mail order gold panning kit. something about the word nugget mixed with what i imagined myself to look like with a giant dental dam and protective glasses on made for a embarrassing/but not as embarrassing as fainting from a shot moment in the dental chair.

i think the dentist gave me a discount. maybe it's because i made him laugh from my laughing. maybe he feels bad for my root canal that wont stop bleeding, even after a month. maybe it's because i was accidentally touching his thigh the whole time today and didn't realize until the end of the procedure. maybe the price was correct, but i always like to put my faith in humanity. i'll pay it forward. most likely to aflac when they bill me for the remaining charges.

just in case, i am looking to fall in love with someone who has excellent health and dental benefits in the next 5 months. please don't think im shallow. benefits aren't the only thing i am looking for!  they also have to be hot.

i wear lipstick

ok. it's not actually lipstick. it's lip stain. i heard people who wear lip gloss get tipped more. based on the dollah dollah billz in the jar today, i'd say those statz are accurate.

i've always been on the fence with my femininity. growing up, i liked to play with frogs and wild animals. i liked to wrestle with my best friend justin. i liked to play football with the boys at recess. secretly though, i had a doll house. i would put dresses on in the privacy of my closet and look at myself in the mirror and imagine myself as one of the pretty girls in my class. i would decorate my room with flowers and lace and musical record sleeves (ok, that part is just plain weird). i liked girly things, but was embarrassed... so i had a middle part and wore over sized goofy shirts and soccer shorts and watched rudy and star wars and the pistol: the pete maravich story.

i'm not embarrassed anymore. i'm just lazy. i like shaving my legs and doing my hair and wearing lip tint... but no 'body got time for dat. i like cute outfits and decorating...but no 'body got monay for dat. i like boyz and kissing and flirting...but no 'body got patience for dat. i wish i still had that goofy shirt.

goofy is annoying, but i can let it slide because i am more concerned about all my unanswered questions about beauty and the beast. there are many. so so many.

silver ampersand gold

im coughing so hard im afraid i might pee in my pants... or worse. this is a serious problem without an apparent remedy.

i taught my dad to talk in an asian accent. well, i didn't teach him, but i've encouraged him. the other day i called him and he said "your dog got long nail. it hurt me real bad. scratch me in my knuckle". i laughed. he said "it not funny. dat hurt real bad in my knuckle". then i figured out he was saying nipple. i laughed so hard i almost peed in my pants.

laughing is fun, isn't it? losing your mind with happiness is one of the greatest feelings in the world. except for the raging headache you get afterwards. i imagine it's like drugs.

this early morning on my way to work, the moon was so big and bright and beautiful, i almost died. i tried to take a picture on my iphone, but we all know how pictures like that turn out. i only take selfies. and artistic photos of my food.

i think i'm growing up. i made a budget and want to be back in MN. these are both signs of adulthood. and dysfunction. and disillusion. mostly daydreaming.

good friends are hard to find, and when you find a lot of them it's hard to reason as to why you keep moving further and further away from them. some days, as i try to create a new experience and community here, i can't help but think i am a crazy fool. yes, it's true, make new friends and keep the old--one is silver and the other's gold. but isn't gold worth more than silver? based on the amount of gold buying stores in strip malls, i think the answer is yes.

shauna niequist captures my feelings more superbly than i could ever relay --here. isn't she right? i think she is. maybe all my friends could come here? i have plenty of blankets and starburst jellybeans!

i smell bad

i'm writing to you from the sick ward, which also doubles as my bedroom/home theatre/office/everything else. luckily for me, it doesn't smell like the sterile hospital environments i've grown to fear, but of coffee. lots and lots of old coffee.

i work at a coffee shop. i do love coffee. i love how it feels like a hug in the morning. i love the way it smells when the beans are freshly ground. i like talking about life and love over a little cup of brown. i do not love the lingering bitter odor that now follows me wherever i go.

i've never really been much of a shower lover. sure, it feels great if you are really dirty, to jump in that rain locker and wash away the grime. but, if your sweat has been minimal and your proximity to humans is limited, what's the point?

my lack of interest in showers has only increased since smelling excessively like coffee. every 3 days has turned into every 5. you might disagree with my logic, but you're probably stupid. you probably smell better. it's embarrassing, but not enough to make me change my ways. i just apologize to the strangers around me and hope they have a cold like me.

i feel like little gremlins are living in my head, scratching my throat with dirty acrylic nails and shooting very spicy salsa into my sinus cavities. in a stroke of coincidence, my friend broke his pelvis and  i picked up a hospital mask the other day. i'll start wearing it whenever i take public transportation, to protect the masses and look cool at the same time.

accidental hand touch

i saw a man who looked almost exactly like my ex-boyfriend from the back. shiver me timbers! it was a thrilling 30 seconds.

i also saw a man through a window who i thought was my friend adam. adam is goofy, so naturally, i gave him a goofy through-the-window greeting. the man who turned out not to be adam only seemed mildly amused. whoopsies.

mistaken identities are funny. when i was 12 a girl asked me if i was zak hanson from the the critically acclaimed brother band, hanson. i wish i was. he had beautiful hair and could play those drums like no one else.

my friend told me to join christian mingle. i told her i'd rather die sad and alone. she said "it's your funeral". ok, she didn't. but it would have been the perfect time to say it.  instead of joining, i browse the men's sweatshirt section of value village. no luck yet, but next week i may check out the over sized t-shirts. you never know whose hand you might accidentally touch, rifling through over washed cottons.

can't and won't

i put wilson grip tape on my prince racket. i'm a traitor.

i like tennis. i'm not good enough to not be embarrassed if i play you, but not bad enough to not be allowed to use my boyfriends $400 racket. ouch. it still stings.

i usually only like to do things that i know i am really good at. moderate ability makes me feel uncomfortable. i have sat out of many fun things because i am comme-ci comme-ci at them. what's with that? let's blame the scandinavian heritage.

i like to sing, but i won't let you hear it because 2 of my friends in high school are better than me. one time mr. oxly had every single person in choir sing a line and i thought i was going to die.  i said "i can't" when it was my turn. he asked "you cant...or you won't? i said both.


he got back at me. i don't tell a lot of people this, but he made me dress up in a puppet costume for our madrigal dinner. i had to dance around like a marionette doll while derek ledoux stood behind me on a box and was my puppeteer. all because i was the only one "small enough to fit in the costume". there is one picture of this. it is hidden in a box wayyyyyy under my bed.

i love my dad more than horses

today is my dad's birthday. he is probably older than your grandparents, but he is 100x cooler than them.

sometimes i think about how much i love my dad and i cry. I cry because the feelings are overwhelming and i cry because i don't think i could ever love a man more... and that really throws my falling in love plans for a loop. we've got time. we shall see.

this morning i ate a well-balanced breakfast of sour patch kids, cookies and cream ice cream and some fake caramel delights (or as the PNW calls them Samoas? hello, politically incorrect name!). Don't worry-- I brushed my teeth for 4 minutes afterwards.

i saw a mini-pony today and almost drove into the ditch. i love mini-ponies.

one time my family went camping and i pretended my dad was a pony as we went on a hike. i thought it was really funny to hit his butt with a "switch" aka branch. he didn't like it, but i wouldn't stop. finally, he mooned me to show the terror i caused his backside. unfortunately he did so right when another family turned around the corner. i was 5, but i remember it like it was yesterday.

i have always loved horses. when my dad traveled for business, i would always ask him to bring back a pony. 5 years into my request, he brought back a postcard with a horse on it. good enough for me.

my friend growing up lived on a horse farm. is it a farm? or is it a ranch? whatever it was, i would ride a horse named Kitchie without a saddle or harness or any of that business. there was nothing more exciting or frightening than flying through the fields with nothing to hold onto but some coarse horse hair. one time Kitchie bent over to eat and i fell off, but that didn't stop me from loving her.

don't even get me started on horse movies. is there anything better? i've never met a horse movie i didn't like...even the low budget "the rogue stallion" got me all misty eyed and excited for life. a horse movie to me is the equivalent of the father pushing his adult son in marathons to everyone else. SO EMOTIONAL.