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.