NAH-TAH-SHAH!

When I was 15 years old, I broke up with a guy who can only be remembered fondly if I twist my memories around and think of him as an experience that I learned from…and what I would never do again. For whatever reason, he called me Natash. And looking back, it’s probably because he was too dumb to realize there was an extra “A.” After we broke up, I hated anyone shortening my name at all. It was a reminder of this moron that I dated. Well, lo and behold one fall morning at my high school. I was a sophomore and ready to learn (or ditch…maybe learn a new way to ditch? Yeah, that’s what I was learning!) and he, after a whole summer of us not speaking or seeing each other, insisted on talking to me. When he approached me, I felt like I was cornered. And we did that silly dance that you do with people who are walking in opposite directions, and yet constantly walking into the other one’s path. When I finally broke free, I walked down a stairwell…rather rapidly. And he was following me shouting, “Natash, Natash, I want to talk to you! Natash, I need to talk to you! Natash!” This shortening sent me into mega-mad overload and I yelled to him, “My name is Natah-AH you moron! It’s not like you’re so busy you need to drop one syllable!” That sidelined his progression to a halt. Don’t get me wrong, I would encounter such an episode weekly, and would even look forward to what I could yell at him. It became a game in fact. For the next 5 years or so, I insisted no one change my name or shorten it. I became lax about it when I met one of my best friends in 2001. He always called me Tash. When I got my tattoo (and that’s a WHOLE other story) he would yell to me periodically to make sure I was okay. “Tash! Tash!” When he died in 2005, again, I was apprehensive about shortening my name.
This morning’s revelation: for the last 8 months or so, everyone has somehow decided to call me Tashy. I don’t know if all my friends decided to have a meeting and decide on a new name for me or if I now exude the qualities of a Tashy they once knew, or if I exude the qualities of all the Tashy’s before me. What a conundrum. I’m sure a Sara never had to go through this. Their biggest name qualm would be along the lines of, “ No, there is no H. Sara with no H.” I guess we all have our crosses to bear.

if looks could kill I would be an uzi

Last night we went to a bar, and I think I am the only person in the world not in the Christmas spirit. In fact, I was raining on everyone else’s hijinks too. But, to preface this, the guy totally deserved it. Ok, so we are sitting there, consuming internal sweaters and this dhu-runk older guy comes up to us. He starts talking to my friend and I just look away. This is what I do. There is no need to impede upon Mr. Drunk guy hitting on said friend. She can handle herself. So then Drunkie McDrunkerson (he was Scottish) insists on introducing himself to me. “What’s your name?” insert drunken hand shoved in my face. “Natasha.” “Mamasha?” “No, N as in Natasha.” “Mamasha?” “Yes fine. That’s my name. My mom had marbles in her mouth when she named me.” Insert me yanking my hand away from the over zealous drunk guy. He got the hint and went back to my friend. When he realized she wasn’t responding he staggered away. Ok, so now insert the guy that just makes me hope for Armageddon next week. And then I’ll go into my theory about him. This guy JUST witnessed the OG drunk guy strike out. Why he sauntered over, I will never know. But he makes his way towards us and goes into this whole “Hey man, what happened there? He had no game, huh?” Ok, at this point I’ve takes all I can takes and I can’t takes no more. “Why are you here?” “Well, I was just wondering why he left.” “Oh, do you mean the creepy drunk guy that had no chance whatsoever?” “Well, you didn’t need to shoot him down like that.” “Well, why don’t you two creepy ass drunk guys go conjure up a game plan over there? And when he starts creeping YOU out, then we can compare notes on how YOU left. Up until that time, you sir, also have no chance. Have a good night.” He walked away. Creepy drunk guys-0, Natasha’s verbal kick to the balls-2
Ok, so that may have been kinda harsh. But here is my theory on him. He is the guy that at 28…30…32…36 even was thinking to himself, “there is no way I’m going to settle down! I’m just going to sleep around and hit on girls at bars. And all my friends that got married are idiots. I get a hot girl every night.” Now, fast forward 20 or so years. He is alone, on a Sunday night at a bar frequented by people in their late twenties or early thirties. He honestly believes that he is amazing and hot and can still score. The sad fact remains that he cannot. All his friends that he made fun of are at home with their families during this holiday season. Possibly with children or grandchildren. This is more than a tragic tale. This is a Goofus and Gallant that is way more pertinent than “remember to not take the last apple.”

I wish, I wish, I wish, I were a fish

Things remembered…the night I went to see Sweeny Todd with my friends, I apparently said something in the car that can only be described as “very telling.” Telling what exactly, I don’t know, but telling nonetheless. Let me paint a verbose picture for you. My friend picks me up, I am…how do you say…a sheet or two blowing in the wind, and my stream of conscience just would not shut up. She said she was over some sort of encounter and therefore no longer wanted to be a person. I told her she was preaching to the choir and I’ve been wanting to be a color for a couple of months now. The color thing is harder than it seems. To be just a color and wearing the color SO does not count. After I realized that I could be anything in this little game we made up, I decided I really wanted to be a fish. Now, here is where the telling part comes in. In my state of no judgment and speaking more to myself than to her, I realized I wanted to be an ugly fish so no one would want to keep me in their house. I also came to the fishy conclusion that I wanted to taste horrible so no one would want to eat me. I want to be an unappetizing ugly water creature. I don’t want to be studied, so the cool fish at the bottom of the sea that light up are out. A blowfish would be fun, except that everyone would want to scare me just so I will puff out. Jerks. Halibut would be awesome because they have two eyes on one side of their head and are constantly camouflaged on the oceans bottom. But…halibut are delicious, and therefore a no go. Sharks are scary and make a fine Chinese soup with their fins. So I’ve heard. I wont eat something that could potentially smell their brother off of me during the summer. Revenge is a fish best served cold. Whale, no. Jellyfish…no. (I also don’t want to be in a Sea World type place. And no to aquariums, too) People catch seahorses just to dry them out and pin them somewhere. Huge no. I need to really think about the kind of fish I wanna be. Ugly and unappetizing and no one will want to study. Just left alone to swim all over and do what I want…this has to be textbook psychology, right?

life goes on

It has been a week of work I thought I would never have to experience. Death is easy for the dead, hell on the living. But in the past week, I have also had some really…bizarre situations. My new thing is falling asleep on the couch. I end up desperately trying to catch up on the day’s news events and end up zonked out by the first commercial break. My roommate usually waltzes in at an a.m. time and wakes me to then go to bed. My bed. Not my new couch bed. Another new thing that happened is my roommate and best friend got me a fish. I’ve wanted one for so long. My roommate and I feed it and just watch it eat…and then spit it out. I think my fish is bulimic. No, I really do. My fish has body dismorphic disorder. She thinks her fins make her look chubby. We need to go into counseling. Poor fat fishy. You’re not fat, you’re voluptuous.
Last night my friend’s and I went to see Sweeny Todd. My friend’s friend’s dressed up. It reminded me of when I was in high school and every weekend I would go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show and dress up. At first you think, “ Damn, I am so with it and in the know!!” But then during the movie…your dress starts riding up. Your shoes really start pinching. Was it this cold in here always? I wish I were wearing jeans. Would it be weird if I brought a blanket? Maybe I’ll bring a blanket next time. But then they’re really going to make fun of me. I should bring a poncho that way when they pick on me next week and squirt their water gun at me, I can remain somewhat dry. But knowing that jerk Jeff, he’s probably going to crawl over and shoot under the poncho. Damn, I hate Jeff.
But lucky for me, I didn’t have any of that thought process. Until right now, I mean. I was cozy and comfortable…until we went outside. May I just say I really am eagerly anticipating global warming. Last night was Siberian husky cold. What was the deal with that? Bone chilling. We live in Los Angeles for a reason!!! I mean, in addition to the occasional celebrity sighting and an array of venues to keep our minds from never having to actually think about the important things, we live here for the weather!!!!

Judith Meuli

This morning/last night was single handedly the best/worst time of my life. My mentor in life and the reason for who I am passed away. I was bedside and got to hold her hand as she made her way out. She was a remarkable woman. She was one of the founding members of NOW and of the Feminist Majority. She hid it from me well for quite some time, but as I was working along side her, I quickly caught on. I consider her one of my best friends. But she was so much more than that. She was a confidant and an ally. She was a supporter and made my life into something I never thought possible. The last couple of weeks, I could see her deteriorating, but was really trying to be optimistic. It only gets you so far. Cancer is a nasty disease and all the optimism in the world can’t fight it. Last week we went to the UCLA Medical center and I insisted she play Scrabble with me while she get her blood transfusion. While her partner was out of the room (and Jude was still kicking my ass) she told me that this was her absolute favorite time ever at UCLA because she was just having fun and actually forgot what we were there for. That made my life. She was surrounded by people who love her. We were all telling stories and laughing and having a great time with each other and with Judith. We knew it was only a matter of time; I’m just surprised it went so fast. As she released her last breath I can swear I saw a smile creep across her face. And if it’s only in my head, so be it. But that’s not what the history books will say. Not if I have anything to do with it. I only hope I can have such a beautiful departure.

Late night encounters of the third kind

After a long day in which I learned the fate of one of my best friends, I needed a break. A major break. When I came home, I thought I was just going to go to sleep. It was an exhausting day. So my roommate and a friend and I decided to go to a neighborhood bar. For loud music that makes us not be able to think and drinks that fulfill the same purpose, obviously. So we go and have a great time. It was a much needed diversion. We played songs on the jukebox and sang and danced and end up having a ball. My roommate and I ended up having a discussion about why I was so emotionally detached from current situations and I explained my emotions can only go towards one thing at once. I totally won that round. Anywho, as we were heading out I hear a “HOLY SHIT, NATASHA!!!” And as I turn, I am hoping it’s someone I actually want to see. No such luck. It’s two, count ‘em, two, people that I went to high school with. “Oh my god, how are you?” “ Oh, I’m fine. How are you?” There was a guy that I have actually known since the second grade and a girl that I never really even seen since high school and don’t really remember her that well. The girl would not stop saying how much she missed me and my jokes. Really? I don’t remember even having a conversation with her. But apparently I leave a lasting impression. I asked if they go to the bar often and how I live about three blocks away and bla bla bla. So we have plans to meet tomorrow. I stopped going to malls so I don’t have to speak to these people. There is a reason I haven’t spoken to them since high school. There is a reason I never spoke to her in high school. Is there nowhere safe that I can go to not see people I used to know? I hate the world getting smaller when all I want is an island where I don’t know the people and don’t have to hear “holy shit, Natasha!” on a bi weekly bases. It’s good to be remembered, but things are getting slightly out of had. Maybe a visit to Dr. 90210 will remedy the situation

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...so I hear

When I came home today, my roommate was washing dishes and saw me at the window before I came in. His face was uber excited and I thought he was mocking me because it’s the face I always have. When I went to the door, I heard him running to open it for me. He blocked me from coming in and told me to close my eyes. Ok, I’m down for this game. So with my eyes closed he led me inside. I had no idea what I was in store for. He told me to open my eyes and lo and behold, he got a Christmas tree! A baby LCD light that you plug in, but it’s SO freaking awesome I jumped up and down and just started screaming. I think my reaction was better than he anticipated because he was speechless. It’s the little things…it really is. This is the closest I’ve ever been to having anything remotely Christmas since I was about 12. I’m not Santa just yet, but I’m not Scrooge either. WAIT!!! I may be the Grinch. Doesn’t he end up liking Christmas at the end? I don’t remember since I haven’t seen it or cared to since I was about 12. See above. My roommate can kick your roommates ass!

Talking to strangers is the new black

Bodhi and I lost a member of our family…moment of silence. Please remove your hats. I returned Scooba. It was not that hard of a decision. I get to the mall and holy crap, it’s like St. Nick threw up on the place. I hate Christmas. That’s fine, I just need to get to the store, talk to the worker person, and walk out a ton lighter. As soon as I walk in I hear “MISS BAKODY!!!” Ruh roh. I turn around to see one of my former students that I had during my first year at Madison. “Oh my god, hi…. (I look down and thank god he had a name tag on)…John! You work here?” “Yeah! Do you need help with anything?” “Yeah, I need to get rid of this hunk of junk and return it. Can you help me?” “ Sure.” As I head to the cashier, I realize he is no longer behind me. I end up having to talk to one of the other worker peeps. “Hi, how can I help you?” “Hello, I would like to return this. I have all the parts and packaging and receipt and what not.”
Her- ok, lemme see
Me- here ya go…
Her- (uber long pause)…um, ma’am, you have used this.
Me- Yes, I know, that’s how and why I know it doesn’t work.
Her-Yes, but you used it…
Me- Well, I had to use it in order to see if I liked it, and I don’t so I don’t want it anymore. And I’m within my allotted time frame to return it.
Her- This is dirty.
Me- Yes it is. Its primary function is to remove dirt so chances are it would be dirty. Now see, if I was returning, say, a sanitary device that only was made to be sanitary, it would be clean if I returned it. But being that the Scooba’s main purpose for existing is to clean up dirt, chances are that it would be dirty.
Her- But you didn’t even clean it.
Me- I decided to clean up Scooba as much as he cleaned my floors: not much.
Her-(Rolling her eyes at my constant verbal backhanding) let me go see what I can do.
She ends up leaving for about 20 minutes. During this time my former student sashays up next to me, “So, how are you?” “I’m great thanks. Are you at Grant now?” “No, I’m home schooled.” “WHAT? WHY? You’re so smart. Why did you do that?” “I’m getting all A’s and B’s. I am doing well!”
And that’s when it hit me like a flash: I absolutely hated this kid! He was such a liar. He would look you dead in the eye and attempt to convince you that he was mayor. But he would believe it. I don’t know how many times he would all of a sudden walk around class and I would say, “ John, what are you doing?” His response was, “I’m going to the bathroom.” “Um, dude…you need to ask for permission” (and yes, I used to call the kids dude, amongst other things.) “But Miss Natasha, I did ask you and you said yes.” “John…was I asleep? Did you ask me while I was in a coma? Or, oh wait, were you asleep and this was a dream you had?” Every single day, the same freaking thing with this kid. What a douche! I honestly didn’t like him. Anyway, as I was flashing on how I always wanted to drop kick this kid, the lady came back and without looking at me asked for my card and receipt and completed my return. Oh happy day. I thanked her and wished her a happy holiday. Then, as I was heading out, I bid John adu and high tailed it out of there hoping not to see anyone else I knew. I walked out a ton lighter, my wallet a ton heavier, and my people confrontation skills a ton sharper. My new goal…no more malls till 2009. You never know which ghost from your past is likely to haunt you.

I wanna sell out

Reasons I’m glad I’m not famous:
I went to the bank by our place wearing my yoga pants that say, “get lucky” on the butt. I didn’t think anything of it until I started getting catcalls and what not. I had no idea what was happening until I realized what I was wearing and thought… ”ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I deserve it.” If I were poor Brit Brit, it would have been all over TMZ and Perez.
I rap in my car. And when you rap, you have to do the arm movements. I’m glad it’s not photographed.
At home, Bodster and I make up lame games when watching TV and when one of us gets it right, we crazy high five each other.
People come to our place at all hours on Tuesday’s because they know we’ll be home because we made a crazy TV schedule. We can only speak during the commercial breaks. If we were being filmed…oh boy!
I leave bars…unlike Natasha.
I get excited over little things but in a big way. I embarrass those around me. But not me. I make me happy.
If I don’t know you, don’t be surprised if I ignore you. If I don’t ignore, expect an inappropriate joke. Thank God it’s not being recorded for posterity.

I still want the Waffle Maker though...

I blow out speakers on a regular bases. I listen to music too loud for my own good. The reason: I don’t really know. I like not being able to listen to anything else, my own thoughts included perhaps? I realized it when I was listening to an album on my comp and it sounded better turned down which totally sucks. In my car, same dealio. I still blast it though. It makes me feel gangsta. Just kidding. Or am I, son?
So today I went to Target for some retail therapy. I think it may have made a dent in my current state. I purchased a Hello Kitty water dispenser for my room that is so cute it makes you wanna puke! I also got a five-piece Hello Kitty bowl-plate-cup-silverware set. It was between that and the Transformers one. I decided on the Kitty because I wanted my roommate to question his sexuality if he used it for his num nums. I also got an owl jacket that was made to be worn by a 12-year-old girl. It fits like a glove. I don’t know if that’s sadder for 12-year-old girls or for me. When I was a baby, Clash of the Titans came out and apparently I used to run into things just like the owl in the movie. My dad started calling me owl and it kinda stuck. Well, more than kinda. It totally stuck. Tomorrow my roommate and I are going to the light festival because we are both encountering pretty heavy emotional issues and I’m hoping that seeing a bunch of lights will help. Wait, why the hell would looking at lights help? Oooo, shiny...life doesn’t seem so bad. Wow, check out Santa! I’m in a better place! Look at those reindeer! All is right with the world! That sounds so manufactured and ignorant. If lights helped I would have illuminated everything I encounter. Maybe we’ll just stay home and watch House.

Dear God, make me a bird. So I can fly far. Far far away

My mentor in life, work, and the feminist way is sick. Terminal. Painful. But for whatever reason I keep thinking she’s going to pull through. And I keep trying to convince her partner that she’s going to make it too. I mean, this is one of the founding members of NOW and the Feminist Majority Foundation. Is cancer really going to wipe her out when she is such a fighter? Maybe it’s my naïve youth that is making me the optimist. I thought I was right until I went to a feminist dinner tonight. People that have known her since the 60’s came up to her partner and I during the dinner and told us this is the worst she has ever looked. WHAT??? Why would you say that? What on God’s green earth would possess someone to be so…realistic? Is it maturity that makes someone more realistic? And is being that realistic a form of pessimism? I think so. With maturity comes having to deal with more of life’s trials and tribulations. I get that. I sooooo get that. But here is my question that I have been asking myself for the last year or so of working with her: is it better to know that the person is going to die well in advance, or is it better to be completely stunned and have no warning at all? Almost three years ago one of my best friends killed himself. Talk about no freaking warning! I had nothing but anger towards him for about 6 months to a year. I had to go to therapy because of it. But I got over it. Well, maybe not over it, but I got used to the idea that he wasn’t coming back. But with my mentor, I’ve know she’s been sick for 3 and a half years and it is NOT getting any easier. It’s put me in the foulest mood and I hate talking about it ‘cause it makes me overly emotional and instant salty discharge factory but not talking about it is giving me an ulcer. So I think that writing about it may be the closest to cathartic purging that I can muster up. Sorry to be all Debbie Downer and whatnot, but these are the things I think about when I have mindless work. My mind goes into overdrive and wont shut up because it doesn’t need to focus on anything. And on that note…ciao.

I'm never going to laugh again

Last night was my roommate’s birthday. And because of this we ended up walking to a bar. (Joe and I thought it was the funniest thing ever to speak Farsi half the way down. Poor Bodster) I started doing this really weird thing recently when I walk anywhere. I start thinking my eyes are a camera lens and my thoughts are the narrative and any sound we hear is the soundtrack. This has only started happening though when I am walking. I am officially the best cinematographer ever. I’d like to thank the academy.
Side note: I counted 52 moles on my right arm yesterday. Holy Moley! So, in lieu of playing pin-the-mole-on-Natasha, my roommate and I have decided to “give” every person who comes to our party a mole. And being that there are 52, which is the same amount of cards in a deck, we were thinking that instead of writing names on me, we can just write the card number/suit. Like having a star. (I always thought that that was in and of itself the cheesiest/most romantic thing ever, buying a star.) Then, at the end of the night, we can pull out the card that corresponds to the mole/person out of a hat and they win a new…ladle? Some stationary? A pen? We don’t know what to give yet.
Side side note: Bodhi has written B’s on all his groceries, so I decided to fill them in with “akody.” I also wrote all over the eggs and milk and nonsense that I’m Awesome. I think I was either bored or I figured out something that I thought would pass the time and he’ll laugh at later. Everyone else that has seen it has laughed. I think I should stop doing things just cause they make me laugh. See dad, maybe I am growing up.

give me my dolls

When I woke up today, two things happened: I was not in the mood for idiocy and I realized I was sick. I hate when the cabinet doors are left open, and as if by asshole fate, all of the freaking cabinets were open. Why? I don’t know. But, since I was sick, it seemed to have overweighed my need for perfection because all I did was grumble, look for my dolls (Valley of the Dolls line. When I saw the movie when I was 14, I haven’t been able to say pills. Dolls sound so much more 1950’s housewife. And therefore so much better.) And take them. I went back to bed not thinking that I was going to be knocked out for another 5 hours. I HATE being sick. Despise it! I feel so vulnerable and dumb. I say these things that don’t make sense and I want to be left alone and it’s just not a fun time and then I see open cabinets and…I can’t seem to stay focused one thing, either. One of my friends has decided to bring me soup and the friend that would normally bring me soup wants to cut off all her hair and I think I’m glad that she said she would let me rest because that means she wont cut her hair here and I wont have to clean up after her. One bonus of being sick and is the dreams. I get really weird dreams. Like last night I had this dream that I was constantly jumping out of the water Shamu style and tried to catch a plane that way. And when I couldn’t, I just decided to fly along next to it.

how do you exist when you're living in a dreamworld

My roommate is gone, and in his absents he has missed the following:
Me in the worst mood ever
My friend and I painting the kitchen cabinets
Alice in Wonderland
Jumbos
Good Luck bar, where I went undefeated at thumb wrestling. No joke. I was on a roll.
Across the Universe and my constant bashing of it.
Go-go dancing
Me meeting a Boris and flipping out
My new list-writing obsession and the lame stuff I write because it’s cathartic
Watching TV with the sound off and the music on.
Enchanted
Attack of the detergent monster than will eventually kill us in our sleep.
The fight that doesn’t exist anywhere but in my head and online and which I think is one of the funniest things I have ever done.
E.T. in Spanish

These have all become inside jokes now. Within four days! My roommate was gone for four days and now any time we mention anything like this, we will have to do a back story, which is never as funny as just the catchphrase. And I bet he doesn’t know that Hogan is now getting a divorce. Poor little guy.

Update:: Le sigh

Fun things to do at a goth club

My friend worked at a goth club and being the great friend I am, I went.
WOW-WOW-WOW
When I was in high school I was gothy. The reason I was gothy and not just simply goth was because I was Natasha. My high school boyfriend took me to a Peter Murphy concert and when I went I was told to stop smiling. Yeah, by him. That made me laugh harder…it was an awkward time. His loss.
Before we left to the club we had to figure out what I was supposed to wear. She was better at it than me. I ended up wearing diamond earrings and a pearl necklace. I ‘m like a Banana Republic goth. So we go and I’m immediately telling jokes and trying to blow out the dark goth candles. Then the game I started was trying to figure out what these people did as day jobs. As she is working, I am sitting in a corner of the club. Yes ma’am, this fun tidbit is coming directly from a goth club. I am writing in a corner and singing along. So they’re playing older stuff. I know my music. What can I say?
I told my friend I felt like Lydia from Beetlejuice (Betelgeuse) grew up and wanted to relieve her youth and has realized she's way better off now. Then I laughed too loud and got weird looks, at which I just proceeded to laugh louder.

Other fun things to do at a goth club:
While said friend is working, make silly dance moves. When she responds, gesture wildly. Mind you, this will take place across a large room and goth boys will run for cover when they can’t see who you’re playing around with and automatically assume you and said friend suffer from multiple personality disorder.

It feels like a Griffin and Sabine entry but in the best way possible.

Pretend you own the place and people will treat you as such.

There is nothing sadder than a fat goth girl.

Singing the White Stripes in your head and wanting nothing more than hearing any of their songs does not work in the least and you will feel like an idiot.

Ether moment: go to the bar adjacent to goth bar that shares a patio and they play the White Stripes. WTF. I am now in control of the universe! Let’s see what else I can conjure up.

I go through all this before you wake up

I either have been way too clumsy for my own good, or someone made a voodoo doll of me and is going to town. Yesterday, for some odd reason, I thought it would be rad to cut my freaking finger off. But common sense got the best of me and I didn’t quite go all the way through. Ew, I just made myself nausage. (It’s a hybrid of nauseous and sausage and I came up with a while ago and I still enjoy it.) My friend was with me and I was so ‘meh’ that I didn’t flip out…too much. I hate blood. Especially mine. It needs to stay in me. This vacation that it sometimes thinks it needs to take is not appreciated by moi. Stay in one place and enjoy it, Mr. Hemoglobin. Then last night I totally ran into the doorframe. So hard in fact that my roommate shot me a look because it made him look up from the TV. I looked at him and asked, “When the hell did we put that there?” It’s going to leave a bruise. I’m going to start naming my bruises. THEN…this morning, in my car, on the way to work…wait for it…wait for it…I got stung by a baby bee! While driving! On the one-oh-one! Are you joking me??? Where the hell is the camera? Am I getting punked? And because of this stupid encounter, I haven’t been able to get that “I’m taking home my baby bumblebee” song out of my head all day! Wow, re-reading this, I am on punctuation overload. Cereal. Serial. Syria. All I wanted to do tonight was have an escape from daily life and my new injuries and go to the observatory to walk around. But with the way that things are going one of two things are most likely going to happen. Either A: The Autobots will be holding their meeting and as they “roll out” I’m going to be run over by Bumblebee, or B: There will be some kind of cosmic breakdown and a black hole will appear over the observatory and I will be sucked out of this realm and placed in another. Wait, that sounds kinda amazing. Ok, observatory back on!
Side note: It's Bjork's birthday.

I wish you would have put yourself in my suitcase

Instead of painting my door, I do believe I have a better idea and a crazy new obsession. Instant photographs. Not just Polaroid’s, but the pictures that you take at bars and arcades and stuff. This was recently triggered when I was going through some things and found a fun quad pic of a friend and myself during my “I’m going to wear dresses every day” phase. All it made me want to do was rummage some more and find all that we made last summer. We would go into the booths with stories that we NEEDED to tell. Then we would come out and pound on the booth until our picture came out. As for the Polaroid’s, I do have a camera and actually bought a crap load of the film for an art project, but alas, I have yet to find them. Packing and moving crap sucks. I put up the one quad pic (patent pending) on my newly made dresser (my hand is so sore, you would not believe!) and just looking at it makes me feel better. Better? Hmmm, it makes me feel like I need to take more pictures and find my camera. Not in that order, obviously. The video is from Coconut Records and is called West Coast. It's probably not the best thing to listen to whilst rummaging through old things, but damn, it's freaking great and it makes me want to skateboard. (Side note, in one of my directing classes, I used the word "whilst" in one of my schematics and the teacher accused me of plagiarism. It's an awesome feeling when you're accused of being better than what you thought you were. After I proved that it was indeed I who wrote it, my teacher told me I need to hone my craft, because there was no reason a 25 year old female born and raised in Los Angeles should even know how to use the word "whilst." Damn, I should have taken a Polaroid pic of her to put on my wall.)

I'll take the physical challenge, Mark!

I am super competitive. Like disgusting. I am not a good loser. I love to play games and love even more to beat your ass. My roommate is now understanding this. Which is why he sent me a notification to be on a game show!!!! This is my new obsession. I HAVE to go on a game show. And if him and I go on it together, he can do the math and the…boy stuff, and I can do everything else. I think we can do this. I KNOW we can do this. The notification stated that they needed energetic, (Check!) charismatic (Check!!) people with a sense of humor (Check!!!) So far the only thing they didn’t say was, Natasha, we are waiting for your call. It’s all based on trivia questions, pop culture references, and physical challenges. It sounds like Double Dare for adults. I would so go through a nose to get a flag while being covered in slime. Oh my God, maybe Mark Summers will host it! Truth be told, I was on a game show in high school. I don’t remember what it was called, but I do remember winning. And that was during my Morrissey/ I hate everything phase. Ah, memories. And for the record, I could have SOOO beat these guys and won everything.

Once upon a time...

Last night all I wanted to do was go to sleep. I came home, had a friend over from school, (‘cause I’m five years old? That sounds so lame) we ate and I asked him what was the haps with his life. He gave me some pretty heart crushing news and we ended up talking for about an hour outside. I told him he is now the equivalency of a remote control that you insist on still using and try to make it work by pushing the buttons harder. Not admitting that you need to recharge the batteries or get new ones or whatever you crazy kids do now a days with you and your batteries. He got it and said, “Natasha, that is exactly how I feel! Damn, you are good!” I know. It’s a gift. Random analogies are my contribution to the world at large. Anyway, when I came back inside, I was a little worse for the wear and all I wanted to do was sleep. My dim sum and then some friend insisted on reading me a story. I don’t know why, I don’t get it, I don’t know what spawned this. But, I said fine. She ended up starting to read me the saddest bastard story I had ever come across. What the hell is that? I turned to her and said, “This isn’t going to work. I want a happy book. Let me choose a book.” She got more than a little irritated. As I’m looking, she says she wants to read some book about starfish. I tell her no. Then I start talking to her and I tell her a story about when I was in high school and she had the audacity to tell me to stop talking, she wants to read to me. At this point, I sit up in bed and tell her, “I didn’t want to be read to, I just wanted to talk to you!” She noticed that she was acting more than a little Mommy Dearest and said, “I’m going to the living room to finish my beer.” I am 26. My friend is 27. And yet I still somehow managed to have the worst night of my childhood with someone who wasn’t even present in my childhood. I hope she gets me a toy today to make up for it. Oh my God, that would SO make up for it! I need to go plant the seed of toy in her brain. Toys are so much better than flowers and chocolate.

Mornings at the Bodhi-Bakody-Abodie

Sometimes people do things that I REALLY don’t understand. I mean, just completely bizarre crap. For example, this morning I saw that my friend put up a menu for a veggie dim sum place on our refrigerator. The only reason I noticed was because I needed the magnet to put up a picture of a mermaid throwing up seashells. (I love that freaking picture!) When I asked her why she insisted on putting up the menu, she said it was because if we ever need dim sum, she was going to need the address and menu and number. Okay, fair enough. Until I saw that the menu was from a place in New York. We don’t live in New York. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to New York any time in the near future. And I’m fairly certain she is not going anytime soon either. I am also fairly certain this was not a joke. I ended up walking out of the kitchen, looking at her, opened my mouth to say something but thought better of it, walked back into the kitchen and poured myself another cup of coffee. Side note, this is my new favorite commercial. My roommate said it seems like something I would make. He’s also getting me an Alumni Cal Tech license plate holder because I think it would be funny considering my complete lack of math skills. At least he’s starting to get me.

Take me home daddy!

We got the band back together. We put the fort back up. We are going on one last reunion tour. I’ve been racking my brain about a funny story that happened when I was little, but everything that I have been thinking of has been sub par. Then I find out I have already been comped to go to the Feminist Majority Foundation 20th anniversary dinner. That’s not a childhood anecdote. But it made me have an Ether moment, as my roommate calls it. See, I found out that one of the main performers that was going to be there was Miss Cindy Freaking Lauper! She bowed out, but I feel that it’s for the best, since I would have been a blubbering idiot and would have told her the story of when I was two. Yeah, that story. The crazy embarrassing story. Wait, you don’t know the Cindy Lauper story? Do you want to know the story? Are you sitting down? Sit down. No, that’s fine, just sit down. I’m not going to tell you if you don’t freaking sit down, dude! Ok, when I was round about two and no taller than a grasshopper, I loved the song Girls Just Want To Have Fun. I mean, as much love as a two year old could have, which is a ton, actually. My mother was giving me a bath, and I heard the song. Oh man, I’m turning beet red, maybe I shouldn’t go on. I’ll tell with my eyes closed so I don’t see your reaction. Tjaksnd thsksla hskksdd gtnslkd hflskdsff tjsll!!! Sslksdjkf dfjkd, sfksm, fkfks. Hmmmmm, that didn’t work so well. (Right now, btw, I am totally making myself laugh. I am so my own best audience!)
Enough with the delays: SPIT IT OUT!
Ok, so I hear the song, and before my mom can do anything, I run outside, naked as a jay bird, and proceed to dance and sing. All the neighbors saw me and started laughing and pointing and I thought they loved it, so I danced harder. I was encouraged. My mother, when she realized I had become a baby stripper, ran outside, put a towel around me and carried me back inside. I tried to reason with her that it was Cindy Lauper, but she wouldn’t let me dance until I had clothes on. By the time I was ready to cut a rug the song was over. I actually remember doing this and the faces of the neighbors and my utter disappointment. Sometimes, the rhythm is gonna get ya! Now that I think about it, I am totally Baloo from The Jungle Book.

please, a moment of silence

Our fort fell. And with it, so did my ability to love. This is the saddest day in the history of really sad times. November 11. Never forget. I have to get rid of SO much cardboard now. Because just looking at it is a painful reminder of what could have been. What should have been. Always the optimist though, now I can Scooba the living room. I don’t think I can ever bounce back from this. That fort was my last high. But like they say, tis better to have built a fort and have it break than to never have had a fort at all. I knew it would have never lasted though, it was too perfect. Our fort was too bright for this world. Wow, is it hot in here? My eyes are sweating. Here's a picture of our fort during better times. When we didn't see the end in sight.

I am so happy Bodhi is building me a fort!

I used the Scooba! I made a night out of it. I am retarded. But that means so is my roommate and friend, cause they totally indulged me. Last night, I went to dinner with my parents and my mom gave me a bag of a million pomegranates and a thousand persimmons. So when I came home, the first thing I did was cut open a pomegranate. I apparently was rusty and dropped a couple of seeds, which I then referred to as Scooba food. After clearing out the kitchen of the chairs and mats and shiz, I prepared the Scooba with the Scooba juice (cleaning solution) We all started talking about Scooba like it was a person. We also named the Scooba. Jacques Cousteau. That was my idea, cause I’m a nerd. Bodhi wanted Captain Jacques Cousteau because we have a pirate welcome mat and therefore, according to Dr. Bodster, we live in a pirate house.) (Side note: Bodhi just got a weird spurt of energy and is now attempting to build a fort. Around me. Bodhi’s fun) Anywho, back to Scooba. After I gave Scooba the juice, I placed it in the middle of the dinning room, pressed the on button, and took a step back. Scooba sang a little beep beep beep song and started moving around. This inadvertently made me jump up and down and dance and squeal. I didn’t know I was doing it until I turned to look at my roommate and friend and they were laughing…with me. Right? I am so not used to constantly having an audience. At all freaking times. To make it an all water theme, we were also watching The Little Mermaid. It was the first time I had seen it in a while and I ended up saying all the lines and singing all the songs, much to their dismay. But back to Scooba… I don’t know if I like it. I’m giving Scooba one more chance. In my living room.

I would be jealous too

Being that I have now adopted borderline OCD in regards to cleanliness, I decided that I needed a vacuum. And not just any vacuum. I decided I needed a Hello Kitty vacuum. So I go to the Sanrio store in the mall (which I HATE HATE HATE) and after not being able to find a vacuum there, decide to go to the Little Tokyo mall on Saturday. In the mean time, I will browse the mall. I go into Restoration and have to leave after I seriously contemplated purchasing a 40-dollar Christmas ornament. (I hate Christmas, but am determined to attempt to enjoy it this year.) After peeling myself away from there, I headed to the Disney store, only to talk myself out of purchasing a Nightmare Before Christmas black feather wreath. I’m still on the fence about whether or not I did the right thing. I leave, convince myself I don’t need a giant princess tent and head to Brookstone. I peruse the bizarre gadgets and get to the home area. That’s where I found it. A robot vacuum! The Roomba. But it wasn’t just any Roomba, oh no, it was the Scuba!!! Meaning it actually washes the floors instead of just sucking. Then I see the Scuba is on sale!!!! Then, after talking to my friendly neighborhood Brookstone employee, Chet (Holy Chet!) he gave me an employee discount as well!!! My robot vacuum that should have cost four hundred gorgonzola’s only ended up costing me one hundred and fifty buckaroos! I walked out of the store and literally had to mentally remind myself not to skip in the mall. I hate the mall. With the saved money, I went to Wacko’s and ended up getting salt and pepper shakers, naked lady shot glasses, a pirate welcome mat, and a new purse. And that was after I talked myself out of getting an exact replica leg lamp from A Christmas Story. I am determined to get into the Christmas spirit this year. Oh holy night!

Somedays last longer than others

Things I have still yet to do…
Put up curtains (The neighbors love me. I’m the most popular girl on the block)
Put together my dresser (Had more important things to attend to, like entertaining at 4am)
Build cardboard fort (Which may now be a rocket, which I am totally okay with too)
Figure out if I should participate in No Shave November (I’m thinking nay)
Prepare for party that Bodhi wants to be the bouncer to (click click)
Clean…everything (I’m on a cleaning spree. I got off work early to clean the bathroom)
On a side note…I’m bored!!!
I’m usually very good by myself, but I don’t like being alone here. Unless it’s in the morning. Then I’m cool. I mean, I’m cool regardless, but in the sense that I'm cool being alone in the morning. And my friend gets out of work at 10. And I still need to fix my stuff…ok, I’m getting off my whaaaambulance now. Listening to Rilo Kiley and PJ Harvey isn’t helping. I need a hobby. Besides waiting for friends. Hey, wanna come over?

Things I need to do...

Put up curtains (seeing as how I already gave the neighbors a bit of a show)
Fix dresser (seeing as how I need a dresser and a place to put my computer)
Get my computer (seeing as how I will have fixed my dresser)
Figure out if we have hard water (seeing as how my hair isn’t gleaming today)
Figure out how to get rid of hard water (seeing as how I like my hair to gleam)
Make cardboard fort (seeing as how we now have more cardboard than sense)
Figure out how to make cardboard fort (seeing as how I want one)

Dream a little dream of me

I had a dream that in order for gymnasts to learn how to get from the top bar to the bottom bar on the uneven bars, they need penguin fur. ( it was a dream, I don’t get it) but as they put this poor penguin through what can only be described as a clipper machine, the closer they got the skin of the penguin, the redder the hair got. And then, when they removed the fact feather/ hair of the penguin, it turns out they don’t have a beak and instead have huge ol’ Angelina Jolie lips, huge, made up eyes, and a little button nose. They looked like teeny tiny trannies. This marks the last time that I eat a 12 inch sub and sleepy time tea. I gotta call my mom and see what the hell penguin trannies mean. I hope it means promotion!

The first part of waking up

I don’t think I have woken up in the past two months without muttering the phrase, “I don’t want to go to work today.” I like work. But it seems as though I really need to get into a catch phrase. When I was in high school, every single day I would somehow try to convince my mom to turn around and go somewhere else. This lasted until the last day of school, senior year. When my mom finally said yes, I looked at her and said, “Wow, talk about Pavlov’s dogs! I don’t even realize I say it anymore. It’s like I see the gate and it’s a knee jerk reaction.” I’m fairly certain that my not wanting to go to work thing is the same.
I sleep with three pillows. Two are fluffy and you can actually sink into them. One is firmer and would probably be great to smother someone in their sleep…if that’s the kinda thing you’re into. Which I most certainly am not. Moving on. The two fluffy ones are always in the same color pillowcase and I place them side-by-side. The firm pillow is usually in a childhood pillowcase. Right now Mr. Firm pillow is in a super old Disney pillowcase that has Daisy making the bed of one of those Huey, Dewey or Louie characters. Not Louie, Louie is green. This guy is red. And on the flip side, Donald and Minnie are cleaning up some room. When I sleep, I sleep on my stomach with my head on the fluffies and my arm holding on to the firmie. Every single morning I wake up, and before I can mutter that I don’t want to go to work, I realize that I have removed the pillowcase cover of the firm one that I have been clutching to the entire night. I have done this since I was a baby, apparently. My mom says my dad does the same thing. My mom is baffled by it still. She sleeps in one place. I’m a mover and a shaker, and rumor has it, a giggler.
When I finally get up, I go to my computer, tippityy type out stories, or dreams or whatever feels the need to be saved on my hard-drive. I drink my coffee (3 sugars, no milk) and start texting people. I usually update my Facebook status. Somewhere in there a shower and dressing usually occur. By the time I actually need to leave the house, I have already had 3 cups of coffee and a substantial conversation. (Mind you, last night my substantial conversation was singing the Oscar Mayer song in a low baritone to my friend who was then trying to harmonize with me. Birds of a feather, I guess)
I am writing all this because this is what I am used to. This is my daily ritual. This is my “Get the day started” routine. I am used to this. But as of next week, someone new is going to be privy to this. I guess this just seemed easier than writing out a list of quirks to watch out for. And I am sure there will be a list of quirks that get written. But as far as next week, Bodhi, please take note of how I like my coffee.

Last Goodbye

After my dad read my 2nd fainting post in as many days, he said I was coming across as a sickie. Totally not my goal. I just said that I was writing part two in the post before, and like a wonderful person that always makes good on promises, I did just that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a BLT waiting for me with extra mayo.

Do you poop out at parties?

So as not to make this story a “woe is me,” story, I am imagining myself wearing a gorilla mask. It’s WAYYYY funnier now.
Ok, second pass out story:
September 2006- So I’m wearing a gorilla mask…and stressing again. Appetite gone, conglomerate of issues that are slowly getting out of control, and to add insult to injury…a bowling party. After the bowling party, one of the friends decides to have a shindig at her house. Much to my date’s opposition, I convince him we should go. At the party, I am talking to all of his friends and he's brooding in the corner. In an instant, I get overwhelmingly tired. I drag my tired self to him and say, “We need to leave. I REALLY need to sleep.” Now he has ammo against me, “ Then go outside and say goodbye to everyone.” “Are you serious? I am going to fall asleep at the table. Please, lets just go.” “Nope,” and he walks out to the porch area to say goodbye to his friends. In my gorilla mask, I walk down the stairs and hug the friend’s goodbye. As I get to the last person, everything goes black this time, and I hear my date say,” Are you okay?” I try to shake the black from my eyes, but it’s as though Ursula the Sea Witch has already inked me. “I don’t think so.”
I’m down.
I’m woken to my date lightly slapping my face and calling my name. All of the friends are around us and my first thought, “Jesus, was I really that tired that I fell asleep in the middle of a freaking party??” My first thoughts are always the funniest. As I try to sit up and laugh and pretend it’s no big deal, I get interrogated! “ When was the last time you ate? “ “What are you on right now?” “When was the last time you slept?” Rather than answer anything, I say,” Can I get some juice? Something with sugar?” When the juice is brought back, I take a sip and spit it out, “This is sugarless!” I’m now laughing. This whole situation is ridiculous. I pull my dates collar close to my face, “All I want to freaking do is go back home and go to bed. Can we do that now, please?” Can you believe I STILL got a ‘nope’? So I go to the girl’s bedroom and lay down, periodically getting interrogated with Nancy Drew wannabes. My date is freaking out, and lying next to me. I turn over and say,” I’m going to go wash my face.” I get out of what may possibly be the highest bed in world and make my way to the restroom. I wash my face, look in the mirror and start laughing. What a freaking night! This wasn’t supposed to happen! I didn’t even want to go bowling. In truth, this was the night I had planned to breakup with the guy. Talk about throwing a wrench in my plans! Ok, so as I’m looking at my self in the mirror and laughing about how I actually am fortunes fool, the girl who owned the house came in. I quickly put back on my gorilla mask and sit on the edge of the tub.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, whatever. But if I pass out again, it’s your own fault.” Ha ha? Ha? Hmm, no.
“Do you think you’re fat?”
“No. I mean I think I have trouble areas. But we all do, we’re girls. Like you and your tum…”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Really? What else could ‘do you think you’re fat’ mean?”
“Let’s be serious”
I am, at once, completely in awe of her trying to string together something that makes her feel like she’s Oprah. Yet at the same time, I am rather disgusted by the fact that she also believes she has the skills of Dr. Phil.
“No one here thinks you’re fat.”
“Um, thanks?”
“So you don’t need to not eat.”
Inside my gorilla mask, I’m doing a WTF face.
“You think I’m anorexic?”
“Either that or tweaking.”
“Wow, well, I assure you I am neither.” I get up to stand, get light headed, and sit back down. I start laughing again. “Thank you for your concern.”
This good cop, bad cop thing keeps going on until my date finally comes in and I beg and plead that we leave. I didn’t feel the need to explain what was going on in my life to people who only flip out when their dealer doesn’t answer his phone. He finally says ok, and he helps me to the car, being jell-o leggy still. In the car he tells me that I scared the shit out of him, but that he realized he needed to work out more since when he tried to pick me up, I was a tad too heavy for him. “Are you calling me fat? Are you saying I need to lose weight? Jesus! After what happened tonight, you have some nerve!” He turns to me and before he can say anything I insist I’m joking. I adjust my gorilla mask and stare out the window in a pregnant silence.

Dancing with the Floor

Something kinda funny about me: stress affects me physically, not mentally. Is that funny? Hmm, not really. Say it in an Italian accent. There, now it’s kinda funny. I have a couple of back-stories, that we can laugh about now, but at the time they were terrible.
April 2006: I had just been accepted to Art Center, I was in the midst of a firestorm of controversy at the middle school I was working at, my two best friends had broken up…with each other (time management, trying to be unbiased, and having to be the shoulder to cry on…suck fest ’99!) (as I am trying to hone in on all the things, I realized there was a crap load! More than I had even thought initially. Wow, I’m amazing! But this isn’t a Debbie Downer story, so I'll leave you with those.)
Ok, new paragraph, new start.
So when I’m stressed, I don’t eat. I have no appetite. Some people cuddle up with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, and watch reruns of friends. I, instead, try to remain as normal as possible and do things that I would normally do, but without…you know…people fuel. Ok, so back to story at hand. We were invited to some music recital for a friend that was getting her Masters in Public Performance from USC. As we were sitting in the non-denominational church that also doubled as a piano recital place, I started feeling hot. No big whoop, everyone thought it was hot. But then, during the intermission, when we were all outside, I started really getting hot. So I took off my jacket and sweater. Mind you, it was about 63 degrees out. Very odd for me to NEED to cool down. Anywho, intermission over, we all trudge back in. The church is unbearably hot and I feel…unusual. I ask around for water. Water ain’t helping nuthin’. I get panicky. The guy I was with looks at me and says,” are you okay?” “I just need to use the restroom, I’m okay.” I push my way through the pews and bolt through the doors. I desperately try to find the restroom and when I do, I curse that it’s down a long hall. I start running down the hall thinking, “Please please please just don’t let me puke in a fucking hall.”
Everything goes white.
I open my eyes. Really heavy eyelids. This process takes minutes. I’m staring at the wood molding on the floor. I’m on a marble floor. First thought that comes to mind, “ I CANNOT believe that asshat took me to a party and just let me sleep in some weird room!” I hear music. I have no idea where I am. My head is sore and my knee is bleeding. I try to sit up. That’s when I realize I had fainted. I get up, kinda, and make my way to the restroom. I look in the mirror and have a massive goose egg on the side of my forehead that is just getting bigger by the minute. All veiny and throbbing. I wash my face, wash my knee (that now has a scar from this night) and place my hair in such a way that my new bump wont be visible. I go back to the main hall, steal a cookie (for sugar) and wait for the song to be over to go sit back inside. When I sit down, my date asks me if I’m ok. I say, "Yeah, I was just tired." He smiles and, like he had a freaking bump detector, kisses my freaking forehead bump. I flinch and make a tiny noise. He gives me a look and like moves my hair aside. “Did you get into a fight in there? What the hell happened?” “Nothing, I’ll explain later.” I guess I like being stoic.
Recital is over, we all pile out. I’m feeling uber weak and jell-o leggy. I sit down and, much to my chagrin, start telling him what happened. But not as dramatic. “Eh, I passed out. Not a big deal. Are you going to eat that strawberry?” Before he could get another word out of me, I jam the strawberry in my mouth and take about 10 minutes to consume it. And when anyone came by to ask me questions, I shrugged and pointed to my mouth. This fun encounter also left me with a fun concussion. For three weeks I wasn’t able to decipher personalized license plates (on of my FAVORITE things in the world.) and I was not funny at all. Nor did I understand jokes. It was a very bizarre time.
I have another pass out story, but this got too long. I’ll write it tomorrow.
Anyway, I recently celebrated the fact that it had been an entire year since I last passed out.
And then today…due to everything going on in my stupid world, (which I totally thought I was handling nicely, considering) I get up from my seat to get water and immediately see white and made myself sit down. I didn’t pass out. Imagine: me and Marie Osmond in the same week. At least I would have been in good company…kinda.

Tires make me tired

Barely after noon and I already have had my fill of shenanigans today. After putting off getting tires for my car for a ridiculously long amount of time, I finally buckled down and did it. Kinda. I called my dad on the way over and he said he would go with me tomorrow morning, so just get the estimate and work my womanly ways to get a discount and whatever. Ok, this seems like a task I that should include no story, right? Wrong. So I pull in, park, get out, walk in and stand in line. I wait my turn, and then proceed to Rick’s station. “Rick,” I say, “I need tires. Are you a man that can help me? By the way Rick, I am not getting tires today, as I am already late for work (lie) and I would really just need an estimate.” Rick looks at my tires, asks me about the mileage and INSISTS that I will not only have one blow out today, but that I will have two! Two freaking blowouts! One freaking day! Holy crap! I feign terror. Then I say, “Ok, what time do you open tomorrow?” “I don’t think you get it, Natasha, you will have two blowouts today.” Ok, this is where I am no longer playing the innocent southern belle and am starting to act more like…me. “Well, Rick, considering that I’ve driven like this for a while, I’m sure one more day wont hurt.” “No, I am sure that you will have a blowout. And in this heat? Are you sure you wanna take that chance?” “Ok Rick, I’ll make you a deal. If God forbid, I get a blowout or even :::insert fake gasp here::: two blowouts, you can totally say ‘I told you so’ tomorrow. Now, may I get my estimate, please?”
Rick, at this point, tells me I have a one hundred dollar rebate on my yokuhamoashin whatever tires. Just when I think I am ready to leave, Rick decides to bring in reinforcements. He goes to some guy (I don’t remember his name, lets call him Grease Monkey. Or how about GM for short) and brings him to talk to me. “We can get you out of here in 20 minutes.” “GM, that’s very nice, but as I’ve already told Rick, I’m late for work.”
GM-15 minutes
Me- no
GM-10 minutes
Me-No
GM-5 minutes
Me-NO
GM-We can even drive you.
Me- Why would you drive me for a 5-minute procedure 30 minutes out? And as much as I LOVE awkward chitchat in cars with strangers, I am fairly certain that I have made clear that I am coming back tomorrow. Now, GM, Rick, may I please have my estimate before I end up being even later than I already am?
Rick-Are you sure…
At this point Rick’s words trail off because I am fairly certain he saw my “I swear to God I’m going to cut your throat” face. And yes, I have one, as should everyone else. It helps in situations like this, ‘cause I actually don’t have to cut throats. I just need to look like I could. Thank God I’m going to the zoo on Sunday…then I can get a wax gorilla with Mowgli.

This could easily be a Morrissey lyric

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the stories I have in my head. I have beginnings, a ton of ends, and a couple of middles. Lines I hear slowly make their way into plots that have no idea where the bases were formed. Sometimes a friend will say something I get so moved by that I need to just jot it down immediately and then get bombarded by story lines. The latest one, in an uber miniscule nutshell, has been keeping me awake at night.
It was just a line.
Something that she said to me in passing. It probably wasn’t even a line to her. Just a free flowing stream of thought that somehow managed to navigate towards my inner ear. It was so heart wrenching and so profound and so painful that I already have it being my “As God as my witness, I will never go hungry again,” line. It resonates to the very core, and what is most excruciating is that I can’t just jump right out and say it. It’s too good. It’s as though I need to surround it with Easter grass as to not break how very fragile the wording is.
The wording.
It is in and of itself an English professor’s, “Cellar Door.” The most beautiful combination of words ever placed next to each other in the English language as collectively thought of by the great minds of our time.
Ugh, I sound like Mirada July.
To live in ones head is not always as charming as it may seem from the outside, even when the contemplation has to deal with attempting to invite someone into your world. Fuck peace.

My gradual decent into a life I never meant

Disneyland is always fun. When I was younger and would see adults there without kids and I would think, “ What the hell? They aren’t going to have any fun!” Now that I’m older I don’t think I’ve gone with kiddos at all. So imagine my surprise when my brother and sister-in-law invited me this Thursday to Disneyland. They have three little boys. Jackson is turning six on Tuesday (Hence the Disneyland trip) Rory is four and Tanner is three. Jackson is a lot of talk and more than not will not want to go on anything. Rory is renegade and will ride anything. Tanner…hmmmm, Tanner will probably sit next to me and tell me baby jokes. Or talk about poop. That’s all he does now. I think the adult to kid ratio will work out. Jackson will want toys, Rory will want food and Tanner will want me to sing him songs about Spiderman being a baby and needing a diaper change. The more I think about this, the more I wonder if this is going to be enjoyable. I bet it will totally be fun and exhausting and challenging and at worst, I will have a crap load of amazing stories. Maybe I can convince my sister-in-law to dress them up in their Halloween costumes! One fact remains though, regardless of what kid has what meltdown or whatnot: I am not going on those stupid teacups! That’s not a freaking ride, that’s a torture chamber!

Consider yourself warned.

Have you ever watched or listened to something somewhere where you knew no good can come out of it because you'll laugh? Or what's worse/lamer is when you just remember a funny thing? I distinctly remember being in 8th grade and constantly recalling what happened during lunch or whatever and having to put my head down in class and just shake uncontrollably, desperatly trying to calm down and catch my breath. This dumb habit has stuck with me. I remember being in a Pro-Tools class battling with some guy next to me, making faces at each other JUST to make the other person laugh. We found out the best way to stop laughing was to pinch your nose and just stop breathing. It gives you time to cool down and revert your attention to what you needed to pay attention to in the first place. The whole lack of oxygen to the brain thing really makes you think, ironically enough. Ok, so now comes today. I get an email. I click. I end up not only hunched over and shaking, I started desperatly trying to clutch my nose and then my mouth. When that didn't work, I actually tried to strangle myself. I was in such a bad, painful laugh I thought if I try to inflict injury, it will divert my attention. No such luck. Now I'm bruised on my inner arms. And I will never click on an email link again...yeah right. Who am I kidding? I love crap like this.

Meet me in Montauk

Football season is now upon us, and this season I have decided I’m going to be hardcore. I’ve always liked watching football, and have been known to yell at television sets (especially in sports bars) but I’ve never really had a team of my own. I usually rooted for the underdog or better yet, during the whole U.S.C. vs. Longhorns game, I rooted for the Longhorns. I think I was the only one in Los Angeles to root for Texas. That may have been the sweetest win, too. Well, anywho, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need an actual team to root for this season. I have narrowed it down to three teams, giving me a better chance to have a team in the Super Bowl, and therefore me yelling at the TV. I am ready to jump on the New England bandwagon because (and yes, this was the actual reasoning) I’ve never met a clam chowder I didn’t like. Except Manhattan clam chowder, blech. I am also considering the Buccaneers. ‘Cause they’re pirates. They’ll fight for a just cause, just ‘cause. The third team, I feel, was chosen because I decided to go classic Americana. The Dallas Cowboys. How very J. Crew of me.
I think I totally got my bases covered. I think I have a fighting chance to make it all the way to the Super Bowl this year. I think I need my friends to humor me by going with me to Hooters, drinking beer, and chowing on wings.

I mutate it my way!

If I were to have an esophagus that became irritated, I would be pissed. If I had an esophagus that became MUTATED I would be overjoyed. I already decided what I want my esophagus to mutate into. An awesome robot that sings Frank Sinatra songs. Can I choose what I want my mutated esophagus to turn into? I would be so sad if it turned into a basketball. I hate basketball. And chances are I would dribble all over. BA ZING!

Tanner is wise beyond his three years

Last night one of my friends spent the night. This means I have to entertain someone else in the morning and not just entertain myself. Well, in my half-sleep/ half awake state, I started telling her a story about when I was five. My mom had closed an account and had all these blank checks that were useless, so she gave them to me to play with. I’m sure she thought I was going to write checks to the grocery store, or the mechanic or somewhere where I actually saw her write checks. She was more than a little amused when she saw that I wrote out a check for one million dollars to Toys ‘R’ Us. When she asked me why I wrote it out to there, I calmly stated that it was because I liked toys. Now, if I base this little episode on my nephew Tanner’s logic, that means that I was, in fact, a little kid and not the young lady I was constantly reminded to behave like. My mom still has the check. I still like toys.

road rage is all the rage

I never get mad at who I should get mad at. In fact, when I used to see a therapist (long story, sad story, not a blog story) she said that the reason I have road rage is because I am not able to tell the people in my life how mad they make me, so I take it out on random people that I know I’ll never see again anyway. Ok, this little tidbit of info was made relevant again on Friday. After a bad day at work that left me feeling defeated and deflated, I walked to my car. When I get off of work now, it’s dark. So here I am, this angry little girl, walking to my car in the dark. As I’m walking, there were about five teenage boys walking down the street. One was skateboarding, one was wearing ridiculously tight pants, and the others were just there. In other words, mad Natasha was not scared. As I approach my car, they had to walk past me, and one of these teenage hooligans said, “ hello there young lady.” Wow, what a nice chap. I’m sure he didn’t expect me to yell back, “ I’m old enough to be your mother!!!” and slam the door to my car. As I’m sitting in my car asking myself why the hell I did that, I turn the car on, and much to my chagrin, I started blaring Jay- Z rapping about ladies being pimps too, and getting that dirt off your shoulder. I’m sure they want me as their mother now.

The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me

When I decided I was going to go to Art Center, I kinda went into creativity overload. I was constantly analyzing movies, dreaming up commercials and music videos in my head, writing stories and scripts, etc, etc, etc. It got so intense at one point, my friends couldn’t stand to be around me cause I was speaking as though I was a cartoon. Not voice wise, but as in talking about anvils falling and dodging raindrops and slipping on banana peels. (Okay, that last one wasn’t so cartoony, but I’m not in that mode anymore, so lay off.) Well, during that period, I came up with something that still “haunts” me. I came up with this kick ass music video for the Gorillaz song “ Dare.” I mean I came up with the choreography, the characters (it was a bear dancing and singing with daisies… I’m not going into specifics. I still may do it) and all of the main shots, lighting and location. I was a woman obsessed! So, every time I hear the song, even now, I picture my video, and not the horrible one that the band actually put out for it.
I honestly thought I was the only person who did this. Last night at dinner though, I was informed that not only am I not the only person that does this, but that their “video” is all they picture when they hear the song too. And now, when I hear the song (which for some reason was a TON of times today) all I can “see” is their interpretation for it. And their rendition, even if it only really exists in my head, is 10 times better than the actual video for the song.

Sorry Dad

So this morning, as I was getting ready for work, a couple neurons in my brain started rapidly firing. The memory that they conjured up made me realize I am way cooler than even I thought. So as I get ready, I listen to my music on random. A song I didn’t remember I had came on.
Ok, first back story…last summer I went to Greece. During my trip, I found out that The Bloodhound Gang is HUGE there. Like massively huge. All I really knew of them was The Bad Touch and that Fire Water Burn song. But the song that was being played at all the bars and stuff was new and was actually kind of good. I blamed the ouzo. So when I came back to the states, I was really sad that they never played The Bloodhound Gang. I downloaded a couple of their songs and changed my Myspace page around, including making my song a BHG song and wrote a bulletin about it. I got a tad OCD about them.
Back to this morning…a BHG song came on my random itunes thingy. I forgot how much I liked them. So I went to their website to see when their next album was coming out. They had a new video. They had a new song. I listened to the new song. I loved the new song. They are apparently on tour. I looked to see when they would be coming to a town near me. They aren’t. Apparently Evil Jared Hasselhoff (who is my Myspace friend…OCD) refuses to come to the states until George Dubya is out of office. (He lives in Germany…OCD) I got sad, felt defeated by Dubya, (again) and put my itunes back to random. Soundgarden came on.
Second back-story…when I was 14 I saw Soundgarden in their last ever Los Angeles concert. It was an okay concert considering the company I was with. (Megan, I’m looking at you) It was sponsored by K-ROQ and that’s where I met Carson Daly. (That’s another story unto itself!) Okay, so since it was being sponsored, K-ROQ brought some up and coming band. I hated the band. They were uber frat-boyesk and only into the ladies with big fake boobs. (I was 14…I don’t know why I was comparing myself, but I did.) Then they played one song that I actually knew. My friend and I got excited like giddy little girls and started screaming along since we could yell out “burn mother fucker, burn.”
Back to this morning…when I realized this, I actually said out loud, “ Holy shit! I did see them live.” And then I got jealous of myself. I am too cool, son.

Feed Us Too!!!

I want to go to the zoo. One of my friends says she will go with me, but she's a veggie, so I'm fairly certain she wont play my favorite zoo game, "Which animal do you think we should have for dinner?" (One time I went to Sea World and the smell made me so...hungry. So when the day was over I went to the information desk to ask where the nearest sushi place was. I wish that was a joke.) I told her that when I was little I LOVED the zoo. One time I brought my monkey puppet to the zoo. (I had a monkey puppet. It had a squeaky voice thing too! Damn I miss that monkey) So, anyway, I brought my monkey friend and in front of the monkey section, I pretended to feed it a banana. All the monkeys went wild, but in my head they were all crying cause they wanted me to feed them a banana too. I told this to my friend...she said I was a little jerk. I told her she was a little jealous. I think we're both kind of right. But mine is funnier.
How can I finagle a Jeff Buckley video in here? WAIT!!! I so know. In the original video to this song, they have monkeys that steal bikes. But I like this version better. I love him. But I’m afraid to love him.

Internet Killed the Video Star

Is it wrong that I think this video is so amazing that I'm happy they didn't get the moonman and taint their name? Let's go dancing!

She Should Have Been More Specific

When I was about 20, I went through a break-up. It wasn’t horrible, but it was enough to make me cry. So I called one of my best friends who happens to be a gay male for comfort. You know, tell me how fierce I am, tell me I’m better off without him, and sing to me. My friends and I sing to each other. What? You don’t? So he started to sing “My Cherie Amour” by Stevie Wonder. This should have worked but it made me start crying harder instead. Perplexed, he asked me what was wrong, “What happened? I’m trying to cheer you up.” In between sobs I explained,” I always wanted a guy I loved and who loved me back to sing that to me…but now I realize I should have been more specific!!!”
When I was little, my mom used to sing “Forever Young,” by Rod Stewart to me. I think she was thinking the exact same sentiment of being more specific when I showed her my awesome new purchase…BEHOLD!


It's also a voice changer. Autobots, roll out!

Every Single Year!

Halloween is coming. Yeah, I know I’m more than a month early, but you should have seen how ridiculous this conversation was in June!!! So every year at about this time I start flipping out about what I want to be for Halloween. Do I have plans yet? Of course not! But I do know that I want to blow people away. I was talking to a friend of mine about this and thankfully she gets how this is a big deal, so she indulged me. We both decided that I could never be one of those slutty policeman/ fireman /chef /nurse/ baseball player / whatever. Those costumes are so painfully lame and lack any kind of originality that it has never been an option for me. My dream costume is the Bjork swan dress. I mean, I have had dreams about it! Last year I was Bjork, but it was from the Joga video. Bjork is my Madonna. But more…Icelandic.
Growing up I always had awkward costumes. In seventh grade I was the president of the “ I Love Gumby Satanic Cult.” I still don’t understand that one entirely. I was also a dead cheerleader. One of my friend’s brothers was working on special effects makeup and used prosthesis and coagulated blood. People couldn’t eat their pizza around us. It was awesome! As I got older, I started to do characters. Senior year of high school I was Death from the Sandman comics. Not a lot of people got that. A couple years ago I was a one-night stand. I had a lampshade on my head. That was it, just a lampshade. I was casting shadows of doubt everywhere. ( BA-ZING!) One year I went as Miette from City of Lost Children. Let me tell you about a costume NO ONE got! Even after the explanation! Then I was Jackie O, but as done by Parker Posey in The House of Yes. I was asked why I didn’t just go as Jackie O as done by Jackie O. Well, because that wouldn’t have been fun, duh. When I was at the middle school, I decided to go as myself from when I was a teenager. I had my hair in a pompadour, my shiny red docs, cuffed 501’s and a Morrissey shirt. Any time someone would come up to me and ask me a question, I screamed back “You don’t understand me!!!” That went over well with the kiddos. They got to see their future, ‘cause Morrissey spans generations. I wear black on the outside, cause black is how I feel on the inside…
Ok, so this brings us now to this morning. I realized I want to be a gorilla! I would totally be warm, there isn’t a lot of prep, (maybe practice grunting?) and I would be the belle of the ball! A big, hairy, menacing belle. Hide your bananas! Here comes Natasha!

Indiana Was My Dog

Sometimes, I decide to live my life like a scene in a movie. I don’t know if it’s because I like to tell the stories later, or the things I do seem like good ideas at the time, but I just do random things. Case in point, yesterday I went to a friend’s house to get ready for a meeting. He lives in a condo, and to get into the underground guest parking area, you need to get buzzed in. The buzzer is also on the right hand side of the sloping driveway, so you HAVE to get out of the car to access it. As I pull into the driveway, I turn my car off, pull up the emergency brake, and get out. Just as I am doing so a car comes up behind me to either use the car buzzer doohickey or just come down behind me to the guest lot. I know they don’t live in the building because they just would have gone on ahead of me. At the same time that all of this is going on, a car from within the building is leaving. His departure just negated the buzz I just received from my friend, therefore shortening the amount of time to get in the building. As I see all this happening, I have a decision to make, do I floor it or do I just buzz again? Mind you, this is all taking 30 seconds. I decide to make a run for it. I literally run back into my car, slam the door shut, turn on the car, release the emergency brake, and jam on the gas in a move that can only be classified as ridiculously fluid. I maneuvered my car in such a way that I got inside the parking area with only a third of the gate open. A lesser man would have been killed. The guy behind me also attempts to come in the gate with this miniscule buzz. Little does he know he is not I, Master of All Things Awesome. As the gate came to a close with the guy that was behind me now separated by bars of metal, I could only do two things: hum the theme song from Indiana Jones and reach back for my hat.

My Jem Story

When I was little, I had an unhealthy obsession with Jem. She was the owner of an orphanage (her father died and she inherited it. What? It could happen!) Well, let me rephrase. Jerrica was the owner of the orphanage, but Jem was her hologram self as a rock singer. Jem and Jerrica were the same person. Jerrica had an orphanage filled with kids, and Jem was a fucking rock chick that had pink hair and was in a rock band and had star earring and was a hologram. Show time, Synergy!

One night, when I was about 6 or so, I had a kick ass dream that I had a Jem doll. In the dream, Jem and I went around town, sang in hardcore clubs with punks (I was a little too knowledgeable a child about the punk culture…) and got into fights with the Misfits. Not the Glen Danzig band, but the Jem and the Holograms rival band. Jem was so cool she had a rival band!

All was well and good until I woke up. It was time for school and I was so ready to bring Jem with me to show off to the bastard losers at school. The second I opened my eyes, and realized it was a dream and there was no doll, I had an overwhelming feeling of sadness. A profound loss even. It was as though someone had told me that everyone I knew had died, and before they died, they all said they thought I was ugly. There was nothing worse…ever! So I immediately start crying. The wail of a thousand banshee’s all coming out of my little mouth. My mom came running in thinking I was injured. When she asked what was wrong, I was already hyperventilating. I needed a paper bags to breath into. Finally, when I calmed down, and was able to speak, my mom asked me what was wrong. Telling her I had a dream about a doll and was devastated that I didn’t have the doll in waking life was sooo the wrong thing to say. She could not stop laughing. I never got that doll. And I never fully healed, either. Thanks mom, thanks a lot.

Love me, love my ninja like skills

Sometimes, when an awkward moment rears its ugly head, I take drastic measures to put the kibosh on it. Case in point, in a galaxy far far away and a time long long ago (last year in Encino) I was seeing someone. And no matter how long we were together, there were still awkward silences. Well, this special fact always bothered me, and one day I had had it. We were sitting on his couch and watching a movie of no importance. (probably something about teenagers trying to lose their virginity by the end of summer, he liked those.) I think we had also just had a little tiff. The only reason I think that is because we weren’t sitting close to each other. I’m just laying out the scene for you, geesh! It was a hot lazy day and all of the remotes for the TV, DVD player, VCR, and whatever else were strewn about the coffee table. Well, one remote, the heaviest of all the remotes, was haphazardly teetering on the table. There were two things I could have done since the remote caught my eye and wouldn’t let go: A) push it back onto the safety of the table, or B) be awesome. I of course chose the latter. Since the guy was completely engrossed in the film, it wasn’t hard to be stealthy, but it was going to be hard to get noticed. During a pivotal scene in the fifth act with two teenagers dry humping each other, I slowly extended my leg off the couch and proceeded to lock my knee. I brought my missile of a leg directly over the remote control, and raised it about 6 inches in the air. Then, with a noise that can only be described as me breaking the sound barrier, I brought my leg crashing down, hit the remote and made it fly off the table and into the sliding glass window. The window shook a bit and generated a glass like wail that in window speak means, ” holy shit!” At once I had a smile and look of accomplishment that only the astronauts have. I turned to him for a nod of excitement. I was instead met with a frowny face that bordered on a “what the fuck” face. Never one to back down, I said that he was just mad jealous of my ninja like skills. He told me that in fact he was not jealous but concerned with the window. After I showed him the window and insisted that it was fine, he was more than a little eager to try. Poor guy, he never did make that remote control fly…but it did kill the awkward silence.

My business proposal

Rent-a-Baby

How many times have you ever gone to the park and thought to yourself, “ This would be so much more fun if I had a little toddler with me to push on the swings and buy ice cream for.” Well, if you’re like millions of others, the number of times would be a lot. But in this day and age, what with careers and impending responsibilities, a lot of us can’t very well put our lives on hold to care for the well being of another human. The world has changed. We cannot be as lax and carefree as our parents were. Having babies to achieve a sense of fulfillment is simply not in the cards for us anymore. But that shouldn’t mean that we should not be able to reap the benefits of holding a child in our arms. And thanks to Rent-a-Baby, we no longer have to deprive ourselves.

People of today are too busy to settle down early. In fact, we no longer “settle” for anything. This is what keeps our society as productive as it has been. But thanks to our partnership with local orphanages all around the greater metropolitan areas, we are able to bring you fresh babies with no added stretch marks to you. But the best part about Rent-a-Baby is all in the title…you can rent the baby, not own the baby.

The benefits of Rent-a-Baby are easily identifiable and understood. For you: a little baby, a release of embarrassment (how many baby showers have you gone to and been the only one without a baby? Doesn’t feel so nice, huh?) And a sense of entitlement that money can’t buy when going to movies and toy stores you know you are too old for. For the baby: exposure to all types of cultures and people, they become independent and knowledgeable members of tomorrow, and if you are in the mindset of owning a baby, you will be able to have them on a trial bases to see if you two mesh. Much like leasing a car, Rent-a-Baby babies may be then purchased.

In order to rent a baby through our (patent pending) Rent-a-Baby program, of course there are rules and regulations. For starters, we have a very diligent background check that every applicant needs to fulfill and pass before even glimpsing a leg of a cute and chubby baby. The background check includes: past convictions (if you robbed a back, you can just stop reading from here), driving tickets (we don’t want our babies with reckless drivers) and of course, if you are registered with Megan’s Law, I suggest you stop reading (sicko) and look into one of our affiliates. Possibly Rent-a-Plant.

In addition to the background check, we must insist upon a mandatory donation of $8,000. This money goes directly to the babies’ welfare when not being rented out. It also is used for the upkeep of their living facilities as well as making sure our background check provider is top of the line. (The reason we call this a donation is because you cannot legally buy, sell, or rent a human being in the United States today. But we are working on repealing that law)

Now, how can we make sure Rent-a-Baby doesn’t becomes Steal-a-Baby? This is where collateral comes in. Unlike many things in our past that we have come to rent, an ID is just not going to cut it. We have devised a GPS tracking device that is going to be installed in your shoulder (just a simple shot, not a lot of blood loss) that is going to be identical to the baby’s permanent tracking device. This is so we are able to track our babies down in the event of an emergency. If you do not return the baby within the allotted 6-hour span, we WILL come after you and take every measure necessary to punish you to the full extent of the law. That usually requires 4 years jail time (though we are working on repealing that law as well, and make it mandatory execution.)

In order to see if our babies will enjoy your company, we have one of the most intensive interviewing programs in the United States. (Dubai beat us by three, but we are working on repealing the law that makes Dubai competition) our interview will consist of how many baby games you know, do you know how to change a diaper, how to get a baby to stop crying, and many more that we cannot discuss because our test is also patent pending. This is to make sure that once the baby is in your hands, you will be able to handle any situation our babies may put you through. Though they are (for the most part) trained professionals, sometimes unforeseen circumstances occur, like a boogy man or lizard. We here at Rent-a-Baby understand that, and try to make sure we are putting our babies in qualified hands.

In order to pick up your rented baby, you need to show proof of the following items: Two packs of Huggies brand diapers (our babies deserve the very best), Gerber baby cereal, solids or formula (depending on your babies age), and a top loading, convertible, rear facing car seats (we don’t want a Britney Spears incident, rest her soul.) We do not supply you with these items because we here at Rent-a-Baby need to make sure that you, the client, is serious about taking care of a child. And we have found in the past (through many unfortunate events that one can only hope to learn from) that if we make the client an active participant in the nuances of taking care of the child, as opposed to just handing out what needs to be used, the client takes better care of the child. That being said, we rent out the above items for an additional fee of fifty dollars.

In order to not make certain babies feel left out because of their “unique” looks, we rent babies based on a baby lottery that way every baby will be rented out. But if you are a member of Rent-A-Baby and have a particular baby that you have grown to enjoy, you are eligible to rent the same baby.

Our babies vary in age from 3 months- 3 years. If you decide that our babies are too young for you, make sure to also stop by our affiliates Rent-a-Child, Rent-a Teenager, and the ever-popular Rent-a-Senior Citizen. We here at Rent-a-Baby hope you find the baby that makes you feel like a kid again!

Numero Uno

Every year since I was a teeny tiny ball of awesome, my parents and I have gone to the county fair. If you have never gone, I don’t know what life is like for you, and you should go…but with someone who knows what’s up. You think you already know what’s up, huh? Oh yeah, well then where is the 15 foot alligator? Do you know where you are able to go beer tasting and the “bartender” actually give you fresh hops? Or how about where you can win a steak? And a pretty darn good steak at that!

Ok, so I’ve gone so much, I know the ins and out better than probably anybody you have ever met. It’s a gift. But, on of my absolute favorite things about the fair is the ridiculous food. This goes way beyond turkey legs and cotton candy. This is straight up either deep-fried or on a stick cuisine! And being that I have a date with my parents this weekend to go to the fair, I have looked up the menu and, yes, I am excited.

CHEESECAKE ON A STICK (yes please)

CHEESE ON A STICK (don’t they do this for samples?)

CREAM PUFFS ON A STICK (Wild horses couldn’t keep me away)

EGGROLL ON A STICK (I’ve done it)

CHICKEN ON A STICK (my nickname in grade school)

GINGERBREAD MAN ON A STICK (I will catch you!)

HOT LINKS ON A STICK (meh)

HOTDOG ON A STICK (been there, done that)

KEY LIME PIE BAR ON A STICK(has someone been reading my diary?)

MEATBALL ON A STICK (meh)

PORK & CHICKEN ON A STICK (together, the way God intended)

PORK CHOP ON A STICK (Apple sauce too? That would be awesome)

SHRIMP ON A STICK (the way mermaids eat)

TERIYAKI BEEF ON A STICK (this is a skewer…poser)

TERIYAKI CHICKEN ON A STICK (this is a skewer…poser chicken bastard)

DEEP FRIED AVOCADO BITES (Hot guacamole?)

DEEP FRIED CHEESECAKE (put it on a stick!)

DEEP FRIED COCA COLA (um, is this possible?)

DEEP FRIED COOKIE DOUGH (biggest loser, here I come!)

DEEP FRIED ELVIS (ummmmm, wha????)

DEEP FRIED GREEN OLIVES STUFFED W/GARLIC (hey, wanna make out?)

DEEP FRIED MUSHROOMS (been there, yum that)

DEEP FRIED OREOS (can I dunk it in fried milk?)

DEEP FRIED PICKLES/ OLIVES COMBO ((must be breaded)

DEEP FRIED SNICKERS (had it…gooey comes to mind)

DEEP FRIED TWINKIE (always wanted it, never had it)

DEEP FRIED WAFFLES (OMG, I can eat this with chicken on a stick and have my own Rosco’s adventure!)

DEEP FRIED ZUCCHINI (doesn’t Carl’s Jr. have these?)