Well alrighty then…

A few months ago, I received a friend request from a girl I kind of sort of used to know about oh, 10 years ago. We were never close friends and only knew each other through another girl that neither of us really talk to anymore. I don’t remember much about this girl and couldn’t even tell you her last name, or really her first name if hadn’t already been listed on her profile. But I knew her face. I never forget a face. Anyway, from what little I do remember, I remember thinking she was a nice girl. Or at least I don’t remember hating her guts so she must have been sort of okay.

Where was I going with this again? Oh yes. MySpace. So she messaged me, friended me, whatever. We exchanged MySpace messages and right away she started asking me if I knew whatever happened to “Brad”. Apparently she used to date Brad, but I have no effin’ clue who Brad is or even what Brad looked like, though the name sounded familiar. But maybe I was thinking of Brad Pitt. I asked her for Brad’s last name but she didn’t remember. Guess I’m not the only one with a lousy memory. So I told her no, sorry and she said okay, we should hang out some time, here’s my number. I said okay, sounds good, here’s my number. And then neither one of us ever called the other. Though to my credit, I did program her number into my phone, so I did have good intentions.

Well, I guess she did the same, because tonight I got a call and her name showed up on my phone. Keep in mind it had been a few months since our MySpace message exchange.

Me: Hello?

Her: Liz?

Me: Yeah?

Her: Hey, it’s Robin.

Me: Hey Robin! What’s up?

Her: Are you feeling better?

Me: (wondering how she knew I had a cold? Did I put that on my MySpace page? It’s entirely possible. My memory is shit. Old age will be rough on me…wait, what did she say? Stall! STALL!)

Um, yeah.

(No! She asked if you were still sick, and you are! You have a cold! Or do you always sound like you’ve got clothespins on your nose?)

Uh, well, sort of, actually I still have a cold. I don’t usually sound like this.

Her, completely unfazed: haha, yeah I can kind of hear it. So I wanted to ask you, what are you guys doing this Saturday?

Me: Uh, I don’t think we have much going on, why? What’s up? (man this girl is direct. No chit chat here.)

Her: Well, I was thinking I could come over and hang out with Hailey?

Me: Wait, what?

Her: Well, and Liz. Liz and Hailey.

Me: (who the hell is Hailey?) Um, who’s Hailey? Wait, are you sure you called the right Liz?

AND THEN SHE HANGS UP!

So…

I guess that means she doesn’t want to hang out with me on Saturday.

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Fantasies

I used to pretend that when John Stamos aka Uncle Jesse sang the song “Forever” to Rebecca on Full House, that really, he was singing to me.

This post brought to you today by massive amounts of caffeine and cold medicine.

You’re welcome.

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Stream of Consciousness

I’m bored and don’t feel like doing anything productive so bear with me as I do a little rambling, mmkay?

I don’t like TV. I miss TV from the 80’s and early 90’s. I tried to find something to watch tonight while eating dinner and I saw something about being Paris Hilton’s BFF on MTV. “WTF is that?” I thought. I watched, in horror I might add, at the complete stupidity before my eyes. I’ve been disappointed in MTV for quite some time, but tonight, I was digusted.

Speaking of disgusted, I couldn’t really find anything in my cabinets to make for dinner, so I decided on cereal. I pulled the plastic ring off my fairly new jug of milk. The expiration date said Oct. 31 so I figured I was good to go, especially since it was a newly opened container of milk. I think we all know where this story is going…I grabbed a spoon from the drawer, but put it back in favor of one of those bigger soup spoon so I could fit more in my mouth at one time. Now I remember that gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. I scooped a giant tasty bite of Kashi cereal and placed it in my mouth. When the sweet and sour taste hit my tase buds, I promptly spit that giant spoonful right back into my bowl. What a waste. Then I decided to wash my mouth out using a fun size Snickers bar stolen from the bag that was originally reserved for the trick-or-treaters, so I guess it wasn’t all bad.

And now the dog is knocking on the back door. Either that or he has fogotten that he has no thumbs and is trying to open the door. I’m not really sure. I like to give him the benefit of the doubt though and say, for arguments sake, that he is one of the smartest dogs on the planet because he knows how to knock on the door to be let back inside the house. Then again, he likes to roll in anything dead and decaying, so maybe not. Unless the smell of dead squirrel has special powers that I am unware of. Perhaps it’s some sort of cat attractor, like cat nip, and he’s looking for friends.  Come to think of it I have noticed a few stray cats hanging around. I bet it’s the dead squirrel scent. See, I knew that dog was smart.

In other news, I’m really digging this blip.fm site.  It’s kind of like Twitter, but with music. If you’re on there and would like to exchange music preferences, look me up (MissLiz27). I can’t promise my taste in music will make much sense, but it’s there if you’re curious.

Edited to add: Um, wow. So I re-read this post about five minutes after posting it and wanted very badly to delete it because, um, what the hell am I talking about? I don’t know, but feed readers will prevent me from completely deleting it so I’ll just say “the cold medicine made me do it” and leave it at that.

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205

205. That’s how many miles exist between my house and my former University.

54. That’s how many months it has been since I last saw the place that’s so prominently featured on my bachelor’s degree.

And if we’re being honest here, which I always am, I had hoped that number would be much higher. In fact, I was sort of hoping I would never need to actually count the number of months between visits, because I fully intended never to go back in the first place. But, it was career day and as one of the few alum at my company, I was asked to go do some recruiting. I tried to get out of it. In fact, I’ve managed to dodge this duty for the last four years because, thankfully, one of the other four alum usually volunteered to go. This time however, I was not so lucky. I thought about coming up with excuses, but then I thought about how I came to this company. I recalled the face and name of the intern coordinator that had visited my school, and I felt guilty. How could I let those students down? How could I let my company down by not actively looking for talented interns? Well, I couldn’t. I am nothing if not loyal, which has not always worked out in my favor, but it is what it is and I am what I am.

There are two routes that lead to my University and when I was a student, it didn’t matter which route you took because they both took the same amount of time to reach the final destination. As creatures of habit, once a student picked a route, they would usually travel that way every time. It was familiar. You knew every turn, every speed trap, every decent bathroom along the way. I debated whether or  not to take my usual route, dreading every familiar wheat field and road curve. After all, the drive was a major contributing factor to my disdain for my former University. At the fork in the road, I changed my mind and settled on the less familiar route.

When I arrived in town ahead of schedule, thanks to the newly-completed highway construction, I felt a wave of anxiety wash over me as old familiar signs came into view. The Days Inn marquee, where a former good friend once worked (as did the mother of a former flame). The Country Kitchen and Pancake City signs, places where we would all gather for a late-late night snack. King’s Buffet and the Great Wall. Chinese food was a Sunday night staple of mine. Street signs – Jefferson, McPherson, Franklin…the Super Wal-Mart, the Kum & Go (actual name) gas station…all familiar, all the same, all unchanged, almost as if time stopped in this little college town. I turned down the radio and looked around, taking in my surroundings.

I pride myself on having a very good memory, but now that I was back, I realized there were details missing from my memory of my college days.  Was that Walgreens always there? (yes) I thought King’s Buffet was on the left-hand side. (nope) Why are so many details so fuzzy? It really wasn’t THAT long ago so I don’t know why I couldn’t remember the name of the campus library or what time the University bookstore closed, but I can assure you that the memory loss was not caused by too many drunken stupors. I have a tendency to block out bad memories.

So why all the hatred for my alma mater? I don’t know. I can’t explain why I don’t think back on my college days with fondness. Nothing tragic happened. I just know that I was unhappy. I was homesick. I missed my life in the suburbs. I found myself missing stupid things, like eight-lane highways and traffic. Like stadium seating movie theaters. Like Borders bookstores and shopping malls. I resented my college, the place, the town, because of what it wasn’t. It wasn’t home. What frustrated me even more was that the reasons I chose to go to this school were the exact same reasons I ended up loathing it:

It was far enough away that I wouldn’t be tempted to go home all the time. But temptation usually has its way with me whenever it wants, so I just shrugged my shoulders at the inconvenience of the drive and drove home anyway. 

The town had little in the way of shopping and entertainment. No malls, no decent movie theaters, no fabulous restaurants or stores, and therefore, no distractions from my studies. Except rather than study, I spent a lot of time dicking around on the Internet. I didn’t realize I was such a procrastinator.  

The school was known for its academics, but all that meant was that we were crappy at sports and I had to face the realization that I went to school with a bunch of nerds. (Hello kettle, it’s the pot calling!)

But when you really get down to it, it wasn’t the school. The school was wonderful, and the majority of people that went to my school have wonderful memories and made life-long friends in the process. So really, it was just me. I wouldn’t let myself be happy there because I knew the whole thing was just a necessary stepping stone to get to where I wanted to be. And where I wanted to be was in a big city working for a big company with a big salary. Not in a small town in the middle of nowhere at a school that’s unknown outside of the state making negative dollars. Add on top of that, at the time I had a boyfriend that lived in New York City, and every time I would fly to visit him I only reminded myself just how far away I truly was, not just physically, from getting what I truly wanted.

I stopped the car and the nice boy in his pin-striped suit helped me carry in my materials and stuck around to help me set-up my banner and tablecloth. I had 45 minutes to spare, so I took the opportunity to walk around campus and take a few pictures for my husband. He’s never visited my former residence and the one time he mentioned wanting to take a drive to see where I spent nearly four years of my life, well I shot down that idea immediately. It wasn’t worth the gas, I said. But really, I just didn’t want to take any strolls down memory lane.

I returned just in time to grab a pizza from the student union building, scarf down half of it, and straighten the cards on my table. In four hours, I never had a moment where I wasn’t speaking to someone. I spent about a half an hour after the event speaking with one of my old professors and I also spent some time talking to an academic club, one that I used to serve as vice president for (nerd alert!). And though I had a great time talking about myself (who doesn’t?) I was ready to come home. The drive back was pretty uneventful. It was dark and I was tired. It had been a long day.

205. The distance in miles between my house and my former University.

For the first time since I graduated, I wished it wasn’t so far.

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Weekend Fun

Friday: I was given tix at the last minute for the Blues game, so we invited Jen and Aaron. Pics on her page, because I didn’t bring my camera. I’m not much of a hockey fan (or a Palin fan, who happened to be there throwing out the first puck) but I am a fan of nachos. And Jen and Aaron are a lot of fun, so we had a great time.

Saturday: Day at the wineries (Mount Pleasant winery, to be specific) with Jen and Aaron, only this time, we were the ones being invited. Pics are also on her page because, once again, I didn’t bring my camera. We also hung out with two other cool couples who are friends with Jen and Aaron. I was not a fan of the wind and cold, but I am a fan of wine and good company, so we had a great time.  

After we were nice and toastedy, the hubs and I went home to get ready for ‘Stache Bash at Lumiere Casino. I don’t have any pictures of us, because, haha, apparently I have developed a phobia of cameras (or I’m just lazy, which is more likely), but there are some pretty hil-hairy-ous pics over at the American Mustache Institute web site. Check ’em out. Believe it or not, this was a charity event, and a damn good one too. The bands were pretty awesome, and I’m a big fan of awesome bands, so we had a great time.

After a couple of hours there, we met up with one of my high school friends and his girlfriend and about 20 of her friends at the Ameristar Casino Bottleneck Blues Bar. That 80’s Band was playing, and I’m a big fan of 80’s music, so we had a great time.

Sunday was a lot of sleeping, a lot of money spent at Target, and a lot of me being crabby about my sore throat (I can’t tell if it’s allergies or a cold but I am definitely NOT a fan of sore throats so therefore I was not having a great time.) We watched a few episodes of Season 4 of the Sopranos and rented the movie “Run Fat Boy Run.” I also conveniently took Dairy Queen coupons with us on our way to Blockbuster and convinced my husband to stop off for a pumpkin pie blizzard on our way home. I am a HUGE fan of pumpkin pie blizzards (hey, no fat jokes!) and I can usually get my husband to do just about anything if he knows there’s some pumpkin pie in it for him. His love for pumpkin pie knows no bounds. He’s even went so far as to request that instead of a birthday cake for his birthday (which is in September) that I just get him a pumpkin pie. I refuse because there is no such thing as “birthday pie” but then I think he started researching how to petition changing the name of pumpkin pie to pumpkin cake just so he could win this argument. That is, until I told him there was already such a thing as pumpkin cake, and if he wanted that, I would make it for him, but when he saw it, it was not the same, and lo he was sad and heartbroken. But we are fans of the pumpkin pie and so, we had a great time.

The end.

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I never thought I’d say this…

But I have a crush on a vampire. A completely fictional character from, what else? The book Twilight.

I just started reading it over the weekend and I’m only about 200 pages in, but holy crow is this book addictive. I have to force myself to put it down so I can get a good night’s sleep. And for anyone that knows me and my inability to stay awake while reading, particularly at night, understands that this is quite the big deal.

So now you know, dear Interwebs. I’m cheating on you with a “hard” copy novel. No pun intended. And blame the imaturity on the young adult literature.

Goodnight!

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Malta

I came home from happy hour, turned on the TV and saw that the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun” was on. So I watched the last half of it and immediately started to feel guilty for never finishing the posts about our trip.

But, it was a really good movie and they were at that part where she starts making out with the hot Italian guy and then he took off his shirt and I got distracted and suddenly, blogging about my trip kind of fell back a few spots on the priority list. After that, an episode of Will & Grace came on and I forgot how funny that show was. Karen and Jack are hilarious together.

Anyway, it’s over, I’m here now and I’d like to talk about our first port stop on the cruise – Malta.

But let me back up. The first day of our cruise was spent entirely on the ship at sea as we traveled on our way to Valletta, the capitol city of Malta. We spent a lot of time by the pool, sunning ourselves and generally wasting the day away being lazy on our big-ass boat. That night, we dressed up, went to a fancy-schmancy dinner and caught a show at the theater. If I remember correctly, it was the magic show, which was quite good and had my husband up on stage getting lap dances by the pretty magician assistants. He’s lucky he has a wife with a sense of humor. And half-naked magician’s assistant chick #3 is lucky she can out run me.

Anyway…after the show, the entertainment director came out to make a few announcements about the next day’s port stop. He said, “I’ve travelled around the world a couple of times and have visited more than 150 countries, so listen to me when I tell you that even if you don’t plan on getting off the ship, you must get up and watch us sail into port. Valletta is the most gorgeous port I’ve ever sailed into and with the sun rising over the city, you certainly don’t want to miss it.”

When a guy tells you this, you do as he says.

We were scheduled to dock at 8 a.m., so we got up at 7:15 a.m. to see the supposed spectacle. After I hung the phone up from our wake-up call, I pulled back the corner edge of the curtain and peeked outside. What I saw simply amazed me. Keep in mind that this was our first stop and I had never gone to sleep in the middle of the ocean only to wake up and find I was in a completely different foreign country. I wasn’t prepared to see what I saw.

That was the first photo of Malta that I took. And that wasn’t even my best shot!

I didn’t know much about Malta before this trip, and to be perfectly honest, I still don’t know much about Malta. But I do know that it’s absolutely gorgeous and if you ever find yourself arriving by sea to the city of Valletta, GET UP EARLY and watch the ship sail into the port. You won’t regret it.

Once we disembarked, we were immediately approached to join one of Malta’s sightseeing double-decker bus tours, and for only 15 Euros per person. The tour took us all around the island, and lasted about 2 hours with only one brief stop at Malta’s glass factory. I can’t recall why Maltese glass is so popular, but it is. I even bought myself a pair of blue glass earrings from the factory.

This was not the glass factory, but instead just something I saw on the way to the glass factory.

Churches

The tour dropped us back off in Valletta. This is the entrance into the heart of the city:

The city is rather fortress-like.

We walked along the streets, which mostly looked like this:

And had milkshakes at places like this:

(Or rather, we had a chocolate milk that was supposed to be a milk shake at that exact place on the left.)

And we walked around looking at clock towers, like this:

On our walk back to the ship, we stumbled on this scenic jewel.

(Do you like how I made the photos bigger this time? It’s my newest trick. I learned how to click the “large” button instead of the default “medium” button. I’m so tech-y.)

So there ya go. That was Malta, in pictures. Next stop, Naples!

But who the hell knows when I’ll get around to posting that… (and why can’t I make this text non-bold?)

Happy Weekend! Go to Malta!

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Cardio Capades

Well I decided to forgo yoga tonight and hit the gym instead. I figure, I’m paying for both, and since I can’t be in two places at once, I’ll go to the one I probably need more. So the treadmill won tonight. (Side note: Looking at how much money I spend per month on being healthy, one would be lead to believe that I am, indeed, healthy and in shape. Although I guess, technically, I am in shape. Like the guy I saw at Walmart, his t-shirt said, “I have the body of a God. Unfortunately it’s Buddha.” Gotta love those Walmart shoppers and their sense of humor.)

Back to the gym though…holy hell there are a lot of people that work out. Like, in general, a lot of people that work out in this world. And I’d guess 10% of them use my gym. So after circling the parking lot trying to find a decent spot (for safety people, not laziness) I hopped on the elliptical. Four minutes later (yes, I said FOUR minutes, not forty) I felt a pain on the right side of my groin. I suffered through another minute before switching to the treadmill.

Now, some might not believe this, but the treadmill is one of the best people watching spots in the world. It gives you the persona of someone that is just there to work out, but really, you’re scoping every single person that walks by. And, when you haven’t been there for about two to three months, like me, you try to pick out all the “regulars” and catch up, if only in your own mind, on their lives.

For example, I saw Candy tonight. For those that don’t remember my Candy posts from my old blog, let me fill you in. She’s about 5’5, bleach blonde, with rock hard abs and…cankles. Most people don’t notice the cankles, but when you’re reaching for some sort of bodily imperfection, well, sometimes all you can find are cankles. And butterface, but again, most people aren’t looking at her face either. The name Candy stems from her ability to sweat for an entire hour and still walk out smelling like she doused herself in a cotton candy machine. It’s true. I once stepped too close to her and nearly went into a diabetic coma from the sugary-sweet smell alone. It’s also my go-to name when envisioning a sub-par stripper or the name of one that performs in a circus side-show freak act. Trifecta!

So Candy was there and chatting up every single dude in the gym, as per usual. It seems she’s grown ever more popular since the last time I saw her. I’m sure it’s just her friendly nature. I ended up just a couple of treadmills down from her, which happened to be a huge mistake because it suddenly turned into the men’s water cooler hot spot. At one point, the giggling and laughing became so loud that I had to turn my iPod up just to drown out the noise. But, as luck would have it, there is no iPod volume loud enough to compete with that cackle laugh.

In addition to Candy, I also spotted Womanizer-with-the-Jay-Leno-Chin. He was up to his usual oogling. And of course there was Stinky McCurry – one to be avoided at all costs once he starts sweating – and scrawny-arms dude who actually managed to beef up a little bit in the last few months. I was quite impressed with his improvements. Of course, I also managed to beef up but not in the same way and with little to no effort. I doubt anyone was as impressed with my changes.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get back into a regular gym routine, but I should probably state now that I make no guarantees. When it comes to working out, I’m taking the “set the bar low and you won’t be such a big disappointment” approach. True pessimism at its heart. I like it that way.

On a completely unrelated note, can someone (in St. Louis) tell me what the hell is going on with the radio station Movin’ 101.1? I’ve heard nothing but Christmas music from them for the last 72 hours. It’s terribly confusing. In the shower this morning I started humming “have a holly jolly Christmas”. Someone needs to do something about it soon before I get committed for making obscene amounts of rum balls and gingerbread in mid-October. There’s also something eerily wrong with singing Little Drummer Boy when en route to a gruesome haunted house. That song will never be the same.

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Not a Yogi

My office offers a weekly yoga class. Employees have to pay for the majority of it, but it’s slightly cheaper than going to a studio. A couple of girls from work talked me into joining, so I signed a check, and scoured the house looking for my exercise mat.

I have a little experience with yoga, specifically Bikram yoga (aka hot yoga), which I attempted a few times about two years ago. I enjoyed the cleansing nature of it because I was – literally – sweating my ass off, but the day-long preparation was hard to maintain and it was also taxing on my pocket book, so I quit.

I assumed regular yoga would be different. Easier, maybe. I haven’t been working out as regularly as I should (or at all really) but I assumed that my balance would still be in tact and regular yoga would be a regular walk in the park. Not to mention all the health benefits – mind, body, soul, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Maybe I’m just not doing the poses right, or breathing the correct way, or clearing my mind as much as I should, but…

I don’t like yoga.

There. I said it.

I’m debating whether or not I should keep going. I’ve already paid for the weekly class through December I believe, and it’s kind of like a contract so I can’t ask for my money back. I don’t think it’s the instructor’s fault or that there’s something wrong with the class. It’s me. I can’t get into it. I just don’t like yoga. I’m not seeing the health benefit, and when I think about all the other things I could be doing with that extra hour of my time – like hitting the gym, walking the dog, or doing stuff around the house – I get antsy knowing I could be doing something more productive with my time.

So am I the only person who has tried yoga and just can’t get into it? Am I missing something?

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Um, yeah

We’ve been back from our trip for over a week now and I’ve only told you about Barcelona and the boat.

Wow, I suck.

The thing is, for most of you office-working types, you know how there’s often a lag between returning from a long vacation and getting back up to normal working speed? I somehow missed that lag and jumped back into work almost immediately after walking through the office doors. And work? It has been BUSY. Like, crazy busy.

And I’m loving it.

But what I’m not loving is the fact that after work, my eyes are too tired to spend even one more minute looking at a computer screen and I have absolutely no energy to blog, or even go through my more than 500 photos sitting in my computer. I open the folder and groan because the task of going through each photo, picking the ones worthy of showing, editing them, adding captions, and all that other stuff…well, it’s fun, if you haven’t been staring at your computer for 10-12 hours already.

But, aside from work, and my vacation which I will soon finish posting about, I’ve been doing other things. Like enjoying a lovely Saturday at the Montelle Winery in Augusta, MO with a friend from high school and her husband. And watching the VP and Presidential debates. And helping my grandparents find and adopt an adorable red dachshund named Tubby. OMG is he cute! I’m a sucker for dachshunds. And yes, I have a picture, which I will soon add to the bajillions of other pictures that are currently awaiting attention from me.

So that’s all I’ve got. I know, boring right?

Alright, well, I tried.

So…let’s all go look at photos of Angelina breastfeeding.

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