Roostercized
I am of the opinion that those big exersize balls are the bane of modern gym life, and have been designed solely to make their users look like some sort of bizarre hybrid between the woodpecker dipper-birds and um... dorks. Sorry, ran out of mental images. The people at my gym who use them without exception have stone serious faces and official branded workout clothes, and you can almost hear their little brains saying, "This is not bizarre. Everyone is doing it. I don't look ridiculous trying to roll this ball up and down a wall with my back." By the end of the work out I could swear their mantra is "I'M COOL! I'M COOL! YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS OF MY BALL AND MY COOLNESS! I HATE ALL OF YOU! I'M GOING TO SQUASH YOU WITH MY GIANT PLASTIC SPHERE OF PAIN!"
Of course I got one, secondhand (honest - no way I'd buy one), and it's been sitting in storage for the past year. I inflated it last week mostly just to see if I could, and soon had a big silver waste of space bouncing around my bedroom. It sat for a long while, but a couple of days ago I decided to try the sit-up thing. Why not, since my experiments trying to turn it into a hobbity horse weren't working (stupid handle doesn't stick without stupid high-strength glue and completely ignored my attempts at attachment via gum and double-stick tape). I looked at the directions and followed the lead of the blonde girl with legwarmers, laying with the ball directly under my lower back, knees bent, feet on the floor, and the rest of my body parallel to the ground.
I got one sit-up wobbily accomplished when Rooster burst into the room to see what was going on. He tilted his head confusedly at the sight of me so precariously balanced, then trotted up and put his head on my stomach so I could pet him. When he did this (did I mention one of his nicknames is Big Head?), he threw me completely off balance and suddenly my feet were off the floor and my head was rolling back. I whooped and started laughing, and he rolled me over to the side of the ball, tail whipping with excitement at having found the Best Toy EVER. His chin flung me all over the place until I finally got one hand on the bed frame and grabbed his head with the other. I thought I'd managed to gracefully exit the Tilt-a-Whirl, but then Roo moved slightly and I fell flat on my side while the ball bounced off to the other end of the room.
Need I say the ball is no longer with us, and Rooster is the only one mourning.
Epiphany
The only truly bad thing about being single that can't be fixed by a combination of friends, booze, or modern technology is that is it impossible, as one person, to easily check and see if you have any brake lights out.
It's been bothering me.
Yes, I could ask my friends to do it but that would entail remembering such a stupid request and then wasting precious time shuffling around when much greater fun could be had. I have also, in the past, used a rock/brick/??? to hold down the brake pedal while I ran around the back of the car to look, but there are no good rocks in my current home and I am unfortunately lacking in spare bricks and ???s. Option 3 (and most used) is to back up really close to a flat-ish wall and try to look at the reflections the lights cast and judge from that. I'm honestly suprised I'm still alive.
So, yeah. Apparently, I need a boyfriend now. Damnit.
Decisions, decisions
Here's the thing.
My car breaks a lot, and every time I have to fix a part of it or spend an evening (as I did recently) freezing my butt off because I have to roll down the windows to get any sort of visibility since the heater/defroster fan thing broke and the rolling down of windows itself is fraught with danger since the passenger's side window squeals with complaint every time it is asked to move, I get a little pissy. And then when the slight bit of heat generated by the still-functioning heater (it's going to break now that I typed that) works its way through the system to get to me, it smells like badness due to some other leak somewhere along the way.
Here is a list of things that are wrong with my car:
*FAN THINGY (I'm angry, I admit it)
*Passenger window is on its last legs
*Key takes forever to open door lock (key is slightly bent due to process)
*Back seat upholstery is ripped up and nasty due to spring malfunction
*Oil leaks
*Something else leaks and makes the warm engine smell BAAAAAD
*Front bumper is askew since my stupid neighbor backed into me a couple years ago
*Trunk interior is covered with primer paint I spilled ages ago and didn't clean up before it dried (the archeologists would have a field day with the random junk glued into the mix - tools, old wedding decorations from a friend's wedding that weekend, random art things)
*Paint spots on other upholstery from my general sloppiness and work on large objects that needed to be transported via my little car
*Shocks are on their last legs
*Car stalls and dies every time I stop too quickly
Here is a list of things I have fixed on it:
*New brake cylinder
*New front axle
*New engine entirely
*New front bumper (accident, happened of course months before the neighbor backed right into the new one)
*New water pump
*New tires (multiple times)
*Couple of visits to the mechanic for the above problems that fixed nothing but managed to still cost me money
It's been broken into twice, wrecked once, is 11 years old and has 183,000+ miles on it. I have driven it to Colorado and back in addition to many smaller road trips, taken it up and across mountain passes, up to snowy trailheads, and flying over potholed logging roads (this may be the reason for the shocks crapping out, now that I think of it). It's limping and tired and I can feel it sigh every time I ask it to do anything (like, say, start). I almost went in for a car loan to replace it last month when the front axle broke, but the more I think about it the more I'm considering keeping it until it unequivocably DIES dies falls apart dead (as opposed to its current state of aggravated whining) and instead using my tiny bit of extra money to get out of the country and get a tan.
This might be because of the recent record rainfall (which I've had to drive through with gloves and hat on, windows open, and sticking my head out every once and a while to make sure I'm still on the right road).
Still, mmmm... tan.
Dear Mr. Big Stuff,
You made me laugh hard last weekend, and now I'm going to explain why.
When your two rather suave friends came over and challenged my buddy and I to a doubles game of pool, we only accepted because we both were trying to avoid the really big guy sitting in the booth off to the side of the bar. He was her blind date, and I was supposed to be the chaperone but I'd quit after roughly five minutes of awkward conversation with him and instead got my friend to play pool with me. Obviously, he wasn't that impressive, and I knew that pool would keep her happy since she always kicks my ass and she hadn't had a night out since she got pregnant many, many months ago (you did notice the big belly, right? And how I was constantly mentioning how the change in her center of gravity was giving her an advantage on trick shots?)
So, basically, you and your friends interrupted my attempt to divert my hugely pregnant friend away from her lame blind date, and in the process get destroyed at pool and try to get some Bowie on the jukebox. I was just a little busy.
Your friends are great. Very smooth. They immediately tried to divide and conquer with my friend and I, and attempted to offend the blind date guy or at least prod him into conversation by asking him which of the two of us he preferred as a wife since none of us bothered to explain the real situation to them. When you moseyed over, I could see you assessing the situation and drawing a blank (which, by the way, was hilarious to watch). I find it amusing that you have to hang in such a nasty dive bar with two middle-aged player wannabes when you are, in truth, a very attractive, well-dressed man who probably has no trouble getting the attention of attractive, well-dressed women. You instead tried to start a few unsuccessful conversations with my friend and I, who were dodging your buddies and dodging the big lump of man off in the booth WHILE trying to play pool. I think I said two things to you. Nothing personal.
Here's where it got good. You were cute, obviously far above the level of any other man in the bar. My friend and I were high up on the female end of the pool (not by choice or manipulation - it was a small bar). When we ignored you (she wasn't looking for anyone at this point, and only met the date dude to make him stop calling her, and I was just in it for the chaperoning and entertainment), you threw an all-out hissy fit that I have honestly never seen in a man. Your exhibited behavior is more likely found in the legions of orange-skinned, over madeup generic blonde girls who frequent the Pioneer Square area trying to find someone, ANYONE who will ask them to lift up their shirt. You yelled at me while I was trying to take a shot, fumed about the Seattle weather, got snippy, and then said rude things about us when we finally left (we lost on purpose, by the way). It was the worst case of "LOOK AT ME" syndrome that I have ever seen, and it was magnificent.
So, thank you. For showing me that men can be as stupid and attention-whoring as women, and for giving me a great impression to do whenever the party gets slow (especially the spitting, I LOVED the spitting).
-Jay
umm...hi
I pulled into my gym's parking garage last night singing/screaming along to the radio full bore (and, it must be admitted, head-banging a little):
"I... WAS... MADE... fuh-LOVIN' YOU BAAAABY, YOU... WAS... MADE... fuh-LOVIN' MEEEEE..."
I parked, turned off the engine and radio, grabbed my relevant cards and passes and hand-towel, and felt unmistakeably like someone was watching me. I looked up to see a middle-aged Asian man in the next car staring at me with his mouth open and his door ajar. I admit my radio was very loud, and my sunroof was open slightly which didn't help muffle the acoustics (my fan decided to not work, so my only defrost is to open a window and hope that the air moves around to do something) (it's cooooold in there, hence the energetic singing and head-banging - it's for warmth, you see...), and my vocal projection is quite impressive when I put my mind to it. And it was to it.
I looked away with no expression on my face and got out of my car, walking calmly to the elevator with the little man close-but-not-too-close behind. We were forced into the same elevator by poor timing on his part (you can't ignore the dinging when one arrives) and and outright gawked at me from the opposite end. I studied the buttons and kept the same straight face until we got to the main level (I did hum slightly - hey, it's a catchy tune!) (and it made him jumpy, which I found amusing), where we both headed to the info desk and got scanned in. I didn't see him again until the end of my workout, when I was trapped on a cardio thing and he walked by sideways, staring bug-eyed to see if I was going to burst into song again and almost tripping over the nearby equipment.
Sorta got the feeling that if I'd approached him with any sort of greeting (musical or non), he would have wet himself there and then. People are funny.
2006, off with a bang...
My friends and I decided to pretend that we are grown ups and celebrate the new year at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley, a local swank club/restaurant known for low lights and pricey tickets. We got dressed up, ascended to our perch (the top of the balcony seating, up two steps and a foot-rail from the main balcony floor). I loved it, the music was was beautiful and the company was grand.
We missed the countdown (the vocalist was in the middle of a good song and decided to skip that part) but Auld Lang Syne'd with the best of them and decided to run outside to catch some of the fireworks at the Space Needle since you could see it from right outside the club. I went to hop off the seat, flush with the excitement of the new year, and immediately plummeted down the two steps and foot-rail distance to land in a heap on the floor, fancy high heel twisted up behind my feet and camera (which was in hand) flung across the balcony. I laughed and immediately hopped up to fix my shoe while everyone around frantically asked if I was hurt. This is one good side benefit from being clumsy for years - I can pratfall with the best of them! Despite the 2-3 foot drop, all I got was a rugburn on my knee and a slight bruise on my shoulder. Though come to think of it I was wearing a skirt, so I may have flashed a few people. Whoops. I straightened my shoe and we ran downstairs to catch the fireworks while I tried to find my new year's tiara (hey, we were celebrating in style). I found it, but it was so crushed that I ended up decorating a SUV outside instead of putting it back on my now-wild hair.
The rest of the night was a similar mix of good music, good friends, and wincing every time I crossed my legs the wrong way. I figure it is fitting that I start the new year on my ass, given that I was already tempting fate by thinking I was all cultured and such. Anyways...
Happy new year from my knee!
