Check yourself before you...

Some days my stress level is just ridiculous.
Like a heart attack dancing on my shoulder.
Why is that? 

I'll tell you why, because I can't control everything.
And I don't want to, or anything... It's just that I feel like I should?

Hm... work on that. Maybe.

Tasteless, with a bad after taste...

If you need a more detailed breakdown of why Seth MacFarlane was a bucket of sexist and offensive jokes last night, here it is

http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/not-just-another-sexist-night-at-the-oscars--nope--this-one-took-the-cake--thanks-to-host-seth-macfarlance--155352960.html

My personal "favorites"?

The Rihanna/Chris Brown Domestic Violence is Funny Bit... Not only has it been done before (by other assholes) but it's also a big fat punch in the face to anybody who has ever been assaulted. That's 1 in 4 women and 1 in 11 men. Way to lose your audience, MacFarlane.

Introducing Salma Hayek by making fun of her accent, but then saying it's ok that nobody can understand her...cause she's so attractive. Great. Just be real hot ladies, and that's the only message you'll ever have to worry about.

Where are the jokes about prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction? Oh yeah, duh. Can't joke about that shit, cause that's not funny. To men.
Any jokes, any.... even a small one, that had nothing to do with objectifying women, would have been cool.
End rant. Moving on.

Home

After too many days of restaurant, catering and fast food, it feels pretty great to be eating food out of my own kitchen. Don't get me wrong, I've had a lot of good food during the days away from the kitchen.... fried calamaris with banana peppers, glazed brussel sprouts with pine nuts, cheddar waffles(!) tuna sashimi... food that's like eating art.
Our friend Ryan who showed me around Lexington is a cook and a foodie, in case anybody was wondering.
But I've also had plastic looking and tasting sandwiches, breakfast danishes made of nothing but sugar washed down with crappy coffee and greasy and flavorless bar and airport food.
I've missed my fridge.

Change of scenery

I felt kinda stupid asking the lady at the front desk last night, whether Lexington was a very safe place to walk at night.... but damn, there's a siren going off outside my window every three minutes, I shit you not.
She said it was.
So we took her word for it and ventured out.
Picture (for those of you who can) downtown Poctello showered with TLC (and $) and boom, that's downtown Lexington for ya.

Successful lesson

I'm explaning the word tacky to my students today. I say things like "not quite appropriate" and "kind of having bad taste, especially when it comes to clothes, usually wearing too much make up or jewelry" and try to give some examples.
They all think about it really hard. Really wanting to understand what this word tacky means. So they can use it too, make it theirs. Stick it in their vocab-bag.
Finally, one guy exclaims, with a look of pride and excitment, his finger pointing to the ceiling
"Yes! I know this! I know somebody who is tacky!!"

Happy Valentine

When I was little, before Valentine's Day cards in school became an indicator of how popular one was and the pressure to love and be loved started building up, my dad would bring home roses on Valentine's Day. Or a rose. Or a pink lollipop. Or something. And there would be a family dinner that was just a little bit fancier than the regular potatoes and fish sticks. And we'd get heart shaped jelly candies (which I've always thought were really gross, but I liked the way they looked and I used to lick the sugar off of them).
I don't have a problem celebrating love. Not at all. Love is wonderful. It's just that it'll never again be as pure and simple as it was back then.... Ah, childhood.

Hippie much?

Planning on beating this thing with Elderberry syrup, kale and green tea.
You never know.

How to be good

I feel like the 2013 version of the
"if a tree falls in the woods where nobody can hear it, does it still make a sound?"
question is
"if you don't have a facebook account, can you still like something?"
I've seen numerous posts lately saying stuff like "you have to click on the link to like it, you can't just like it on my page.... duh! then it doesn't count!"
If you don't click on the right link, your opinion is worthless.
But hey, on the upside, as long as you do click, that's all you ever have to do. Karma points just rollin' in, as long as you like it on facebook.
Cancer, poverty, sexual assault, injustice and crime everywhere, we can all fight it with the click of a virtual button.
Just be sure to click on the right link first. So it counts.

It's like I have a ball of guck pressing behind my forehead. Making me feel like my eye balls are going to pop out of their sockets.
People always say "there's something going around" and I usually don't get sick, or that thing never goes around to me. But this time I think it did.
Still, not going to waist sick leave on this.
I'm not sick, sick.
And since most everyone else is home sick anyways, who am I going to give it to?
Now, pass that bag of cough drops.
They don't help. But they're tasty.

But it's free to dream

We woke up yesterday and the Tetons were right there. So peaceful. So pretty. After breakfast, the others decided to spend $18 a pop to do a elk watching safari of sorts... but the wind and the price made me and Dylan opt out. Instead, we went for coffee and bagels at a little cafe downtown. Looked through a real estate magazine.... just to see what we could possibly afford in Jackson Hole. We could afford our coffee and bagels. Barely.

Welcome to the building

I go home to grab lunch. Run into a girl outside my house. About to enter, so she clearly lives there.
I say:
-Hi! it's nice to see you again, and I'm sorry if I was kind of short with you when we first met...
- We've never met....

But I'm sure we have, so I go on to tell that I'm sure we have. She knocked on my door to let me know the cat wanted in and I was about to get in the shower and thought it was Dylan who forgot his keys so I opened, wrapped in a towel, with an angry "What!?!" in her face. Surely she would remember...?
- That was not me... but probably my roommate.

She has a roommate? You mean to tell me there's two of you up there?!? That apartment is tiny. We could hardly stand it.
I tell her.

(So to sum up, at this point I've insulted her apartment, told her I can't remember her roommate's face and sort of let on that I may not be a very friendly neighbor when you ring my doorbell)

To change the topic of conversation I ask her if she met any of the other neighbors yet. She says no. I tell her that right here (point at the door) lives an old gentleman who is really nice. Really. He's nice. Do I know his name? Nope. Anyways. Across from your apartment lives a Chinese guy, I say. And just as I say this, he walks up.
- Oh, here he is! Hey, this is.... (the hand gestures you do for introductions)...euhm...You guys are neighbors!

 They shake hands and exchange first name information.
(At this point, new girl knows I don't know anybody's' names. China (he has a name, it's Sadik...dammit why is that so hard for me to learn?) must think I'm a jerk for not knowing his name)

She says "Ni hao"
He says something back.
I leave them to it and go inside.

Welcome to the office

Considering how much time you spend with your co-workers...
A lot, a lot, a lot.
Especially when you work in a small department.
It really does makes a huge difference whether you get along or not.
So today we got a new co-worker and she is moving into the office next to mine. This means a face, a voice, a breathing human being with habits and quirkes and good days and bad days to get used to.
The first 8 hours went well, I'm not gonna lie, she was nice.
But then so was I, and God knows that's not always the case....

Whenever someone says....

”All I’m saying is…”       – rest assure that’s not all they will be saying.
“Don’t get me wrong I love him/her to death, but..”     – they are about to talk shit about this person.
“I don’t really care, but..”    = I do care and here’s what I want to do.
“We/I might go…”       – I really don’t think it’ll happen, but I want to keep the option open and also avoid rejecting you and your invitation to your face.

F-f-f-future

We've been talking about the future lately. A couple of weeks back we made a pro and con list on the backside of the shopping list as we drove out to Winco.
Yep, that's how serious this is.
I kept the list too.
Now, last night, we touched on it again. And sorta made a decision- ish.
Yeah, we're adults.