There is a woman out there who hates me.

I don't know why. I'm perfectly lovable and terribly endearing, but something about me just makes her stew.

I came to know her through a mutual acquaintance several years ago. Perhaps it's a bit misleading to present her like this, since she technically surpassed the realm of just being an "acquaintance" about 2 1/2 years ago, but this is how I have her labeled in my mind. I simply cannot bring her any closer to me than that without some serious personal risk.

I met her on a good day, and I didn't think much about her. She must have been in a normal mood because she certainly didn't make any impressions that stick out as particularly good or bad. She just was.

Years past, and I found that I gradually changed her label from "Normal" in my subconscious file cabinet to "Nutso."

She disliked me, obviously. But, like I said, for no good reason. I tried my darndest to make buddies with her, but her moods were so ever changing and menopausal that my attempts were futile.

One of the first times I noticed her refusal to accept me as a now-constant in her life and therefore at least a friend by obligation was last Thanksgiving.

I was very nervous about my part in her Thanksgiving dinner. I didn't know how to make homemade rolls, yet I was assigned to that task. I slaved over the yeast, and fretted nervously that they wouldn't rise. I double-checked with her quite frequently to make sure we wouldn't be starting dinner until 2 o'clock. My rolls would not be ready before then, and I wanted them to be perfect.

When we arrived with my risen rolls that were ready to bake, she announced that dinner would begin right away. No, we could not wait until 2:00. Her food was ready now. Never mind that I slaved over those stupid rolls. Just stick 'em in and deal with it.

I sucked it up and ate several half-baked rolls in spite of her.

And then it was Christmas.

I was nervous about her gift as she is notoriously hard to shop for. I finally found something. A CD of a band I knew she liked. A wrapped it up nicely and crossed my fingers. She opened it without much flourish and said her thank-you's half-heartedly. (Okay, it wasn't that great of a gift, but I really tried.)

But, honestly, what I was supposed to do when I received her gift?

Other people in the room received large items: power tools, mp3 players, books.
I unwrapped a very small container that resembled something purchased at a jewelry counter(!) Instead, I found that I was the proud new owner of my husband's baby teeth. Saved all these years, in order that I might enjoy them.

And before you blame her crappiness on holiday stress, hear me out:

She called Josh some time last February and asked where she could return the CD to because she "didn't really want that one." (She did the same thing a year before with a pair of yoga pants, but I foolishly thought it was isolated incident).

I guess I have to acknowledge at this point that she is a member of the family otherwise the rest of the story wouldn't make sense.

This February an entirely paid-for-by-grandpa family reunion is taking place in Hawaii. Dates have been confirmed, tickets have (nearly) been bought, and the happy travelers were practically packing their bags.

And yet, Josh and I didn't know about it.

Very simply put: We weren't invited.

Yes, we are accredited members of the family. We've been around for a while. We participate in all other family events, but apparently, we didn't make the cut on this one.

An embarrassed innocent bystander stuck their rather large foot in their mouth when they said to me, "So, I don't know about you, but I am ready for Hawaii."

What? Hawaii? Who's going to Hawaii?!?

Well, apparently, everyone but us.

If I couldn't tell already from the blatant disregard for my feelings (the rolls) or the obvious annoyance and indifference at gift giving time (CD, yoga pants), she made pretty well clear her feelings with this one.

Hannah = Enemy

My Friend the Insurance Company

Polite Insurance Client (played by myself): So, I'm interested in finding out if my policy covers certain vaccinations.

Bored Insurance Angent: What vaccinations would you be referring to, ma'm?

Curious Client: Well, my husband and I are traveling to India over Christmas break, and we need to get Hepatitis A and B, Polio and Tetanus before we go. I was just wondering if you cover those.

Bored Agent: No ma'm, we will only cover routine childhood vaccinations and vaccinations for any illnesses you contract while overseas.

Incredulous, but amused, Client: So if I come back from India with Polio then you'll pay for my shot?

Bored Agent: Yes.

Gee, thanks.

Biology...and Other Health Hazards

I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have my memories to get me through.

One of my favorites:

It was deep in the midst of my Freshman year at college. I was the taking the hardest class I'd ever been stupid enough to take. Honors Biology. It was Jessica's fault that I took it in the first place, and someday I'll seek my revenge on her for that, but at that point I was focused only on surviving.

Biology had never been my strong suit. As much as I daydreamed about being a doctor, I knew my fantasies were slightly unrealistic. I didn't want to be a doctor for the constant excitement, or the satisfaction of saving a life or even the paycheck. Rather, I wanted to be a doctor because they got to wear scrubs every day. Not needing to worry about my daily wardrobe was of great appeal to my disastrous sense of fashion, and I honestly considered the medical field for just this reason. But honors Biology was enough to whip some sense into me.

So, it was the end of the semester, and Finals were looming. I absolutely, positively had to make a good grade on the Biology final. It wasn't likely I was going to fail the class or anything, but the idea of marring my transcript with a C in a stupid Honors class I hadn't needed to take was too much for my fragile self esteem. I needed an A.

I couldn't study in my dorm. The half-girl/half-elephant-stomper that lived upstairs was particularly restless around Finals, and her friend, a chick with knack for coordinating her bongo playing with my studying/napping, was at it again. So I headed to the park.

I laid on my stomach in the grass away from the playground. It was a beautiful day, and the park was busy. Kids sailed off the swings, couples walked their dogs, ducks floated by and gobbled bits of bread, and I freaking studied for that dumb test.

Life was seeming unfair.

I was deep in DNA and RNA and chromosomes when a pug wandered my way. He wasn't on a leash and there was no owner in sight so I petted him for a few minutes and sent him on his way (so anxious I was to get back to my studies, you know.)

It was several minutes later, I was again deep in thought, when something happened that (seriously) may have changed my life.

The little pug ran up beside me (I didn't notice him that time) and for no good or logical reason at all, ran at me, planted his little front paws on my scalp and catapulted over my head.

I have no idea why he did it. I wasn't in his way. There wasn't any reason he couldn't just go around me. I wasn't laying in the path of anything he could have wanted. He just did it for the pure fun of it. I can imagine the look of hopeless and happy abandon he must of had on his face as he flew over me. Boy, this sure is fun, he probably thought.

When he landed on my other side, he trotted off and didn't come back. I don't know where he went or if someone was hiding in the bushes laughing at my expense, but I didn't care. I laughed, and laughed and laughed at my own expense.

It was ridiculous. And I got an A on that test.

Musings of an Underworked Mind

So I started a new position at my job this week. I guess it means I'll be posting less since I now have a boss who actually requires that I accomplish something. I really don't post all that much as it is, but for you 1.5 people who are actually reading this, I'm afraid you're just going to have to lighten up and stop expecting so much from me.

Josh is in Orlando this week on a business trip. He claims via phone that he misses me terribly, but I suspect that he is very much enjoying smoozing with the rich people. He's manning a booth at a surfwear trade show where he talks business with companies the likes of Bilabong and Speedo and Body Glove (which I laughed at, and he quickly informed me that they no longer make the neon pink and green shorts my brothers used to wear, but have instead very wisely focused on producing wet suits.)

He challenges other businessmen to rounds of ping-pong at a nearby booth during his breaks, and goes out for Lobster and Sushi with clients in the evening. They talk about things like Rip Stop and purchase orders and the new board short design. He swims in the hotel pool later to exercise his poor, overworked muscles, and then relaxes in front of his cable television and complimentary mini bar. It has been a tiring but satisfying day, and tomorrow he must go back and do it all over again.

Meanwhile...

I start to drool at my desk as I have lost all touch with reality.
The Boredom has come again, spurred on by concepts like Cable Pairs and Drop Sites and CILI Codes (pronounced "Silly" Codes, and has something to do with the location of a telephone line in relation to the main office and, incidentally, is about as silly as my work gets.) I have a brief fantasy about fighting off a masked gunman who hijacks our office. I perform marvelously in my fantasy and disarm him even after sustaining a major gunshot wound to the arm. I may never use that appendage again, but darn it, it was a good way to go.

When I return from my 15-year-old-boy-like daydream, I am morbidly disappointed to see that my arm is still functioning, and therefore I have no good excuse for going home early today. I am depressed and have only Silly Codes to entertain me.

But really... honestly... I have to think positively.

Josh's hotel roommate snores. And I have the bed to myself.

Life is good.

I knew a girl named Claudia once.

She came to my school in about the 2nd grade. She had the whitest skin and hair I'd ever seen. She wasn't allowed to watch the movies we watched in class. She couldn't draw pictures of people or animals. She wore tights and long denim skirts and long sleeve shirts no matter what the temperature. She told us it was because of her religion.

Claudia had a lying problem.

I'm not sure now how I recognized the lies, but somehow my little 7 year-old mind filed Claudia under "fibber." I was never friends with her and didn't want to be. Claudia was weird and likely couldn't be trusted. The other kids didn't involve her any more than I did, and she was pushed even further outside the social circle then her religion ever required her to be.

Claudia came to school one day with a story that made all the kids crowd around her. She told us how her little brother had stolen an eraser from the book fair. It was one of those cute erasers shaped like a pony or a basketball that fit on the end of your pencil and really smudged more than it ever erased.

Little brother had swiped the eraser and when confronted by dad had lied and said it was Claudia. She pulled up the side of her skirt to show us the results.

Daddy had whipped Claudia up one side and down the other. The white, almost transparent flesh was replaced by a black and purple bruise the size of a dinner plate. It was deep and awful and covered the entire top half of her thigh. The crowd gasped and asked the obvious. "Does it hurt?"

I had never seen anything so awful. I'd had plenty of spankings but none of them had ever, ever produced such an effect. Claudia seemed to relish the attention and yanked her skirt up for anyone who asked. She'd probably never been so popular.

I wonder now if I should have known better. Is my childish memory exaggerating the severity? Could Claudia's skin just bruise easily? Maybe she'd just fallen down...?
Maybe I should have said something.

But I didn't. Poor Claudia the Liar had been perversely beaten. I mean, I was just a 2nd grader, and I could recognize that. But I didn't do anything. I ogled the bruise then went back to my desk, forgetting all about her.

She moved away at the end of that year, just as quietly and friendlessly as she had come in. I never told a teacher or my parents about what she had shown us. I filed the memory away, and now it only comes back every so often, for reasons I'm not sure of.

Ahh, Monday. How I hate your guts.

I can already tell that I'm not going to be good at this blogging business. Everytime I start to write I get all wrapped up in trying to make my post sound perfect and witty and terribly sarcastic, like I'm one of those stay-at-home mom's who gets to write clever anecdotes about their kids and not like the boring 8-5er that I really am.

So...

I look like crap today. And unfortunatly, that is the most interesting thing I have to write about. I know you're dying to read on.

I tend to wear the same pair of khaki pants every Monday. I barely have time to heat up the iron, but I do it anyway, for posterity. I'm sure my co-workers have to hide their snarls at my pants. I mean, I don't even try to think of something more creative to wear. It's Monday. Khaki Pants Day. Why worry with creativity?

But probably nobody's looking at my pants today anyway. They're too distracted by the blueish-greenish-gray sacks that kindly lodged themselves under my eyes sometime during the night. I went to bed a tad bit too late and shared an all-to-fleeting relationship with the snooze button this morning. Neverthless, I did not make it into the shower, so my hair is a messy wad pulled back into a snarly ponytail. If that's a word.

I went comando on the make-up today too. Not a good idea, in hindsight. But am I to blame? It's a Monday.

If I were my bosses, I would fire me.

Amy is a good friend

...and my only friend. I must admit that this is my first time to be tagged. And dang it if it doesn't feel good!

Three things that scare me:
1.)Tornados. Tell me that a whirling column of powerful wind and nail-filled pieces of flying trailer house doesn't scare the snot out of you. Just tell me.
2.)Scary cave monsters. Not to copy Amy, but I made the fatal error of watching "The Descent" a few weeks ago. Not only have I not slept since, but I recently had an ultra-realistic dream in which my hubby merely pretended to be one those awful flesh-eating cave-dwellers, and I've been watching my back ever since. Mind you, this was just a dream and he was just pretending in the dream, but I still can't trust him. You just never know.
3.) Carnies. They just can'thave good intentions.

Three people who make me laugh:
1.) Josh. I've honestly had to argue with him more than once over the exsistence of vampires.
2.) My brother Caleb. After being mistaken time after time for my older brother, Jacob, who appeared on Fear Factor recently, Caleb finally just started going along with people and pretending he was Jacob. He answered questions about what fun he'd had, how the cochroaches tasted and what he was going to do with money. Caleb is currently studying to be actor. He's obvioulsy good at it.
3.) Can Hiss from the Disney version of "Robin Hood" count as a person?


Three things I hate the most:
1.) My miniature toenails and their inability to look normal.
2.) People who talk too much. Please, annoying man who comes into my office once a week, please take a hint. I don't have time to hear about your vacation to Alaska. I don't care about your lazy-reared golf game. And though you may not mention it in your incessant chatter, I can tell you've been smoking for the past 800 years, and I appreciate you sharing that thick raspy laugh/cough with me. At least it breaks up the nonsense.
3.) And finally, vomiting.

Three things I don't understand:
1.) Why I got a degree in Broadcasting.
2.) Why God created billions of stars and incredible far-away galaxies for no apparent reason.
3.) Why God created humongous scary-teethed fish that dwell deep in what would otherwise be the nice peaceful ocean.

Three things I'm doing right now:
1.) Pretending not to be looking at the new People magazine.
2.) Chewing on my awful looking cuticles.
3.) Thinking about lunchtime.

Three things I want to do before I die:
1.) Have babies.
2.) Successfully aquire a hobby. So far, in my 23 years, I have tried and failed at all of the following: singing, playing piano, playing softball, basketball, all track and field events, being an extrovert, collecting stamps, making foil balls, making rubberband balls, collecting anything, doing other people's hair, playing violin, skipping rocks and being consistently trendy. This is not an exhaustive list.
3.) Get lovely, sculpted arms.

Three things I can do:
1.) Marry goodlooking talented men.
2.) Identify various beverages in a blind taste test.
3.) Wear my Rainbow flip flops until they get so old and worn out that they simple cease to exsist.

Three ways to describe my personality:
1.) Thrifty.
2.) Casual.
3.) Secret spy-like.

Three things I can't do:
1.) Enjoy running.
The rest of my limitations are too numerous to list. So we'll leave it at that.

Three things I think you should listen to:
1.) I don't know the answer to this.

Three things you should never listen to:
1.) I don't know the answer to this either.

Three things I'd like to learn:
1.) Spanish
2.) How to look in the mirror and think to myself "Wow, this outfit looks incredible on me! I have a great sense of style and feel loved and admired wherever I go, and should for no reason second-guess my choice of shirt, hair color or nose size. I am so freaking confident!"
3.) How not to cry at the end of sad movies. Wouldn't it be wonderful to walk out of a theater after a tear-jerker and not be painfully aware of your shiny red nose and swollen blood-shot eyes when you see your friends in the lobby?
It's the simple things, really.

Three favorite foods:
1.) Sushi
2.) Plain ol' white cake with white icing. Mmmmm...delicious.
3.) My mom's mashed potatoes and deviled eggs.

Three beverages I drink regularly:
1.) Water
2.) Milk
3.) Some ridiculous protein-laced muscle-building drink that Josh forces on me but has failed to produce any results as of yet.

Three shows I watched as a kid:
1.) Smurfs
2.) Saved by the Bell (when my mom wasn't around).
3.) Superbook (about the kids who travel through a retro-digital Bible to experience wonderful Biblical adventures...when my mom was around).

Three people I'm tagging (to do this): My friends who read something like this are limited, so Josh and Luke consider yourself tagged. And Devi...you've been double tagged. Beware the triple tag!

Numero Uno

Before you decide I can't count, allow me to explain. Amy set this blog up for me in a completly unashamed display of peer pressure, so she made the first post. Therefore, for me, this is post numero uno.

I have long waffled back and forth about starting a blog. Secretly I wanted to, but my desire to not log on and see zero comments and zero viewings was overwhelming. I whined to Amy that no one would read it, and I didn't know if my relativily fragile self-confidence could handle failing at yet another medium. But Amy says that she'll read me. So, Amy, consider yourself my numero uno reader. Punny, I know.

Since I don't want my first post to be entirely about blogging (as that is terribly cliche), allow me to introduce myself with three important facts about me.

1.) If you know me at all, in any way, or if you've ever seen me on the street or in real life or you know someone who knows me or has heard of me, you probably know that, and I quote every hairdresser I've ever been to, I "have
the thickest hair" that anyone has ever seen. I am the perfect blend of my mother and father in that respect. But rather than getting my mom's Farrah Faucet-like ability to flip and curl her locks, I instead got her thickness and mousy brown shade of boredom. And my dad, were he to ever take up motorcycling, would never need to wear a helmet as he has not shed a strand of hair since somewhere around 4th grade. In other words, abnormally thick strands of hair with the consistency of wire have been piling up on top of his head for fifty something years now. You can only imagine the density. So if you add one part mom's hair and one part dad's hair, you get me with two parts thickness.

I once had a basketball coach come up and grab my ponytail in the middle of stretching before practice and ask, "Is this all your hair?" Instead of wisely resisting the urge to smart off, I said something very dumb, along the lines of, "No, I picked some up on my way in to school today."

I ran a lot of laps for that comment. Stupid thick hair.

2.) If I could only eat one food item for the rest of my life (and it was fortifide to provide me with all my daily nutritional needs) I would eat cotton candy every single day. Why?, you might ask. Because it's delicious and pretty and soft, that's why.

3.) I have scoliosis. In case you've ever noticed and wondered why I am always slouching or slumping in some way and have been too embarrassed to ask me about it, please, do go ask my parents. I was told after that excessively embarrasing 6th grade meeting between me and the nurse and my tiny bra, that my back is curved like an "S." I took my special note home to parents, looking very forward being that innocent, doe-eyed child who would be rushed immediatly to the doctor where I would be petted and doted over and given popsicles while my health was discussed in hushed and somber tones behind a blue curtain. Instead, dad read the note, spun me around, pulled up the back of my shirt and did a little check-up of his own. "You're fine," was his wise diagnosis. He did, after all, have his degree in Parks and Recreation.

Long story short, thanks to dad's diagnosis I avoided a childhood spent with a metal rod up my back, but I am also now very well on my way to spending my Social Security years hanging with Quasi Moto.

Fortunatly, I liked Quasi's movie, and I can live off cotton candy, and my hair is so thick I can probably hide my monstrosity of back somewhere underneath it. So, really, I'll be just fine.

Every so often, life hands you a hilarious husband, a very small house and a very small dog, and the heart is delighted.