Spring (In My Pants)

So Spring has sprung, as they say.

Today was warm and sunny and beautiful and I walked around town and let the sunshine hit my face. I feel really good. Strong. Fresh. New. Like I want to go outside and play in the dirt and kiss cute girls and make out with my guy in a field full of wet grass.

Today was a good day.

Sideshow Bob

I slept most of the day away. Got up, looked in the mirror and my dreads were sticking up everywhere. I looked like Sideshow Bob. I just tied them up in a scarf and went about my day.

My old bones seem creakier than usual. Might be the weather. This year will my first anniversary of turning 29. That's a fancy way of saying I'll be thirty. I haven't decided how I want to spend it yet. Honestly, getting older doesn't bother me much. People always tell me you're only as old as you feel, and if that's true, some days I'm 104.

However, lately I feel like age isn't something that applies to me. I've always said jokingly that my inner child was a thirteen year old boy. I'd rather play video games than go shopping, I'd take pizza over five star anyday, and cartoon and horror movies take precedent over romantic comedies. Wow. Come to think of it, it's pretty bad. There are many action figures in my closet as there are pairs of shoes.

Don't get me wrong. I still have an insatiable appetite for lipstick and sparkly things. I just usually prefer to play with the boys. It's actually the strangest thing about turning thirty. The gap between the sexes grows larger with each passing year, and that gap is getting harder to straddle. Most women of my age have settled down into their career or their families, and even though I sometimes feel a bit jealous, that just isn't the path my life has taken. I adore children, but couldn't imagine actually having them, at least not right now. I've finally perfected the balance between sane and crazy for the first time in my life, and I wouldn't want to do anything to upset that balance. And I've never been a nine-to-five kinda girl. Having a low tolerance for bullshit and a huge issue with authority, the rat race has never exactly welcomed me with open arms. But that's okay. I was blessed with wicked ingenuity and a do-it-yourself mentality that hasn't failed me yet.

So what does turning thirty actually mean? Nothing really. Survived another year. An excuse to have a party and demand expensive gifts. So why am I even thinking about it? Who knows. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the first thing I identified with this morning was a cartoon character.

Truth Serum (The Calling-in-Sick Phenom)

Even though I now have the luxury of not having to answer to anyone, there was a point in time when I was someone's gainfully employed bi-otch. Being the sickly girl I am, I would, on occasion, have to call into work to tell my boss that I was ill and wasn't coming in, and each and every time I dreaded it.

It didn't matter if I was bleeding from my eyeballs or had a railroad spike sticking out of the back of my head, I always felt as if the person on the other end of the phone thought I was faking. Nauseous butterflies would take flight in my stomach and I would have to psych myself up to dial the phone. Chalk it up to guilt or paranoia or maybe just a plain old good work ethic, though I doubt that's it.

But now, that same feeling has followed me and applied itself to another aspect of my life.

Weed. Smoke. Action Figures. Ganja. Reefer. Buddha. Green. Gummi Bears. Grass. Lando Calrissian. Sticky Icky. Doobage.

So there we have it. So what does this have to do with calling in sick from work? Anytime I tell someone that I smoke, I feel like I'm being judged. It has to be being raised Catholic. It just has to be. What normal person carries guilt over such stupid stuff? But I digress.

I never smoked weed in high school. Tried it once or twice, but it didn't do anything for me. I'll admit it... I liked the harder stuff, but that was years ago. I probably should have smoked weed back then because my dad has always been a huge stoner and pinching it from him would have been easy peasy.

Many of my friends have been or still are smokers, and my better half likes it to relax every now and again, but never me. Never that is, until about 2 years ago. My nausea meds started to not work as well, and most of the meds I've been on since come with horrific side effects. So a friend of a friend suggested that I try smoking weed. If it works for chemo patients, it was worth a shot, right?

And it changed my life. I know that's a bold statement, but it's so true. I think I always had a misconception about marijuana, about "stoners" and what I thought I would, or rather wouldn't, do for me. But even though it has done wonders for me, I feel like I now fall victim to the same mind set that I had about marijuana smokers before. I'm afraid to tell my doctors about this great discovery because they don't know me. They'll look at my tattoos and my hair and figure I'm full of shit. I'm just a dumb stoner. At least, it's what I'm convinced they'll think. And that's a hard thing to deal with.

It also makes me angry. Angry at the people who don't understand. Angry at the government for keeping it illegal when say, oxycontin, isn't. Angry that it isn't covered by my medical insurance (wouldn't that be nice?) and angry at myself for not trying it sooner and suffering through all that time without it.

Being sick comes with so many emotions attached to so many strange things. And maybe some day I'll get over this baggage and maybe I won't. For now, I've holed myself up in my little cave and I'm not letting a whole lot of people in. I feel like I have secrets that have no reason to be secrets, but it's hard to let go. When you're convinced that you're going it alone, those secrets are the only thing that keep you afloat.

Sunday 5:55

So I'm sitting here on a Sunday afternoon, hanging around in my blue flannel pj bottoms and a Cure shirt that is half as old as me, chain smoking menthols and drinking Oolong. I'm absentmindedly playing with my dreads and debating about whether or not to take a nap. Been lacking energy lately, but it comes with the territory. I keep trucking along when I can, and when I can't, I have to make do. Plus, dealing with people wears me out. I had to respond to another one of my father's shitty emails, my mother always has some sort of drama... they haven't a clue. I'm feeling a bit antsy because I know I should get some work done, but I know I don't really have the strength to get anything accomplished.

Alright, it's settled. Nap time it is.

The Death of Myspace

When I first discovered Myspace, it was because a friend, and recent convert, began pushing me towards the then fledgling site. I had piddled around a bit with Livejournal and Friendster (to the urgings of same friend) and initially was a bit daunted with everything Myspace seemingly had to offer. But after a while I was hooked. I customized my home page and spent hours doing mindless searches of anyone I could think of. I even reconnected to some old friends. Cool huh?

Not really.

I've found that in recent months, I have begun to actually fear my Myspace account. The fact of the matter is that in the real world I'm really not that social. My years of partying and club hopping are long gone, as is my attention span. No longer can you just give me a bright, shiny object to capture my attention. I'm intelligent, slightly insane, completely neurotic, which by the way I am completely fine with, and I no longer waste my time doing things I just don't feel like doing. Why was I striking up internet conversations with people I haven't even thought about in the last 10 years? It's not that they aren't nice people, but it's not like I'm going to have them over for a spot of tea.

The friends that I've lost contact with over the years gained their status for a reason. And furthermore, I'm really not that great of a friend. I'm way too outspoken and opinionated for my own good, and because I'm usually up to my eyeballs in drama because of my fucking family, I have a very low tolerance for bullshit from anyone else.

So now, I avoid Myspace like the plague. It's like the scab you know you just should pick at, but can't help it. I log in about every week or so, and dread it every time. I loathe seeing the message light lit up, or the friend request. Sometimes after logging in, I wouldn't even check them and immediately leave the site. But so far, I haven't had the balls to just up and cancel my account. I don't know why I keep it around, it's like the allen wrench you throw in the junk drawer-just in case you might need it in the future-even though you know anything that requires the use of an allen wrench in the future... will probably come with one.

* Myspace account deleted the very next day.

My New Pet

I have a new pet. My new pet lives on my head. I will hug it and squeeze it and call it my own.

In other news, my news obsession lies somewhere between bagels and Canada.

Another Reason To Hate Scientology

I found this article and it just gave me yet another reason to hate the sci-fi religion (as if Tom Cruise wasn't reason enough...)

John Travolta’s decision to play a woman in “Hairspray” has raised eyebrows among some Scientology watchers.

The actor will reportedly dress in drag to take on the role of middle-aged mom Edna Turnblad in the high-camp John Waters film — a part made famous by the notorious cross-dresser Divine. Edna was later played on Broadway by outspoken gay activist Harvey Fierstein.

A recent Rolling Stone article about Scientology reports that its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, felt that gays “should be taken from … society as rapidly as possible” because “no social order will survive which does not remove these people from its midst.”

Early Morning Woes

I'm sorry, I don't care if I get up at 6am or 3pm, I don't want to talk to anyone until I have had the following:

* One cup of tea, preferably 2

* One Menthol cigarette

* Time enough to brush teeth, check my million email accounts and take out the girls.

Before that... LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE! I'm crabby, tired, and don't have enough sense yet to not kill you.

Yum.

Why is sex so much better when it rains?

My Super Powers

If I were a super hero, my power would be my sense of smell (well that, and my freakishly strong toes). But alas, I am not a super hero and in the real world, my seriously acute olfactory sensors are nothing but a nuisance. I smell odors no one else smells, from extreme distances, leading others to think I am either crazy or having a stroke.

In case you are thinking of a new career as a super villian, my weaknesses are stealing diner forks, fabric softener and fuzzy slippers.