Stop (Auto) Correcting Me!

As a self proclaimed member of the Grammar Police Brigade, I daresay their’s nothing more embarassing then comitting a foh pah.

Ha. Ha.

And yet...I have a love/hate relationship with the Institution of the Auto Correct & Format.

I’d say it sways more toward love a lot of the time. But there have been so many instances lately, mostly on the good old iPhone, where I simply want to gouge out Mr. Auto Correct’s metaphoric eyes. Stop watching me auto correct, you sleek, slender creep!

(And let it be said that I know auto correct can be added and taken away...a technicality for the sake of this entry.)

Fine, I appreciate auto correct most of the time. It’s better to be shamed by an electronic genius in the privacy of my apartment than to cringe and cower when I notice that I’ve spelled something as simple as “occasion” wrong on the world wide web. (That word! Always! Dammit.)

I fear that Microsoft Outlook (GASP!) deserves a big shout out too. Buddy boy tells me when I’ve messed up words in my work emails. He even capitalizes my name for me when my Shift-key-reach doesn’t take. Kitschy lingo flies on Urban Dictionary and Gmail, but it don’t so much fly in an office enviro, got my drift yo?

And though the instances may be (very) few and (very) far between (ha), I am grateful for the time or two where auto correct has called me out on my erroneous homophone usage.

But other than THAT. Seriously auto correct, you pompous ass you! If I’ve made a fragment, then it’s probably on purpose. So shut UP, no I do NOT want to “consider revising” thank you very much. Otherwise I’d screw up the whole point I was trying to get across.

And why the red and green scary underline colors? Though I love, love, love Christmas, I think that’s a little small-minded of you, auto correct. Get some culture up in there.

And update your dictionary. I should not have to “Add” words for you. Get off your lazy ass. It is not my job to

overhaul your entire electronic system. Bonafide is, actually, a real word. So quit it with your threatening dotted red line.

Perhaps I’m more readily able to forgive Word and Works and Pages and, fine, Spell Check in general (though Blogger’s spell check is horrendous - I’m talking dark ages vocabulary), because they prevent abysmal mortification.
But iPhones? In. Sane. Insane I tell you! Yes, texting is faster and easier and lovelier than having to press actual keys. But the downside is that your clumsy fat thumbs get in the way a lot and, so, misspellings are quick to transpire.

iPhone is great when he hits his stride, when he’s being telepathic and reading my mind. I get so excited when a word that looks NOTHING like what it’s meant to be actually pops up after you hit the space key. WAHOO!!



Then there are times that I completely lose faith with the phone. I want to shout at it and, again, gouge its stupid eyes out.

For instance: twas becoming tWas. Why the capital W, iPhone? What language do you speak? Don’t you think that capital W is a little unnecessary? Far too excessive iPhone, shame on you.

And stop capitalizing my abbreviation for tomorrow. I don’t have any friends named Tom.

Quit trying to make “etter” into “errrr” - that’s three letters off! Add ONE letter instead and you’ve got “better” - DUH. Get with the program, iPhones!

Your Maker (Mac-er) is totes brill - so why aren’t you up to snuff yet?

Oh Hi, Dry.

That was a very begrudging “Hi” indeed. An extremely dry “Hi” if you will.

Cause you see, I did NOT miss you at ALL, dry skin.You know, I don’t think I will ever run out of things to No Dankes when it comes to wintertime. And fall and early spring, for that matter.

I’m gonna knock it up a notch. I daresay I hate the bitter cold that is descending upon us for the unforeseeable future.

But when it comes to winter, I despise one element most of all. You see, with winter comes fake heat. And fake heat squeezes the shit out of any moisture our skin can muster. Squanders it. Squashes.

Add to this the superfluous amount of germs. flu germs, namely (which have been running exceptionally rampant this winter! Which translates to more hand washing. Incessant hand washing, actually. (For me, at least.)

I dread the time of year when the heat comes on and the flakes come out (skin not snow). Dehydrated epidermis is awful yo. Awful!

Hot showers are no longer soothing, they’re your worst enemy. I can literally feel my skin contracting, tightening, shriveling into itself after a hot shower. So I make some sacrifices and have a far less enjoyable warm shower instead. Under five minutes (as all showers should be).

Radiators and heat vents are no longer beacons of inviting warmth, but lamentable purveyors of the dreaded - eek - cracked, raw skin.
 

And beware of that pipe running through the corner of your apartment - it is most likely HOT and will undoubtedly BURN YOU. Trust me, I speak from experience.

As if it’s not bad enough that every square centimeter of our winter bodies are red and split and flaking and itching and painful, there’s not a single good remedy for it.

Sure, drink more water. Yeah, like that will do anything. That’s like telling a plant to go find some shade in the middle of the Sahara.

Then there’s: Go put some put lotion on. But of course! Let me just sting the shit out of my poor, poor skin even more. And while it’s burning and flaming and apparently being zapped by a thousand little needle heads, let me try to pick up my can of soda.

But oh, wait, there goes my drink everywhere because it slipped through my slick, greased up hands (this happened to me last week...all over the book I was reading - devastation).

With the advent of wintertime, we become a society of geriatrics - what with our Head and Shoulders, our Lubriderm, our moisture sockies and glovies, our nonstop, 24/7 humidifiers, our omnipresent Vaseline.

It’s a battle, I tell you. A fight against the radiator, the institution of showering, against itchy wool sweaters and bottles of alcohol-based hand sanitizers (60% minimum!), against the icy, cutting wind outside, and hot-air, thirst-inducing office vents within.

It is a very serious, very expensive, very painful battle.

Painful and expensive indeed! This may be a little TMI but my come winter, my legs get so dry they could moonlight as a dried up lake in Death Valley under a microscope. And dry (for me), means itchy. Obviously the last thing you should do when something itches is scratch it.

That’s what landed me an Rx for Cordran Lotion. Liquid gold - literally. That little 60 mL bottle is $50 - with insurance. Without it, gah...I shudder at the thought.

Cordran is a lifesaver. It has saved me from my rabid, scratching self on many occasions. But as it’s pretty much the price of gold, I restrict its usage to very exception(ally bad) occasions. For everyday I use Lubriderm - 13-15 pumps worth for each leg.

That’s.a.lotta.lotion.

While I’m whiling away winter cause it empties my pockets, Johnson & Johnson is loving every second. Rolling in the dough. Man oh man they must sell a shitload of lotion. Ugh.

Reduce.Reuse.Recyle, Retards!

I’m not gonna pretend I’m all “Save Mother Earth” all the time. Of course I waste electricity, paper, water. I am human. But I think what sets me apart from a whole slew of other peeps is that I’m hyper aware of it.

I’m aware of what/how much I waste and put forth (some) effort in curbing it. I don’t take long showers (though that’s twofold - I don’t want me no dry skin), I turn the water off when I brush my teeth, I use a Nalgene bottle, I b.y.o.bag when I go grocery shopping, and - most importantly - I recycle.

Yes friends and foes, kiddies and cousins, moms and pops and grans and gramps, remember those three clever R’s - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle? Well you need to start abiding by that mantra. Like, yesterday, yo!

I know, I know. We city dwellers have it made. It’s as simple as dragging our bags downstairs and eeny, meeny, miny, moe-ing between garbage (plain aluminum), glass and plastic (blue), and paper products (green). Yes, it’s even color coded. Foolproof!

But for you non-city folk, recycling takes effort. It’s different when you’re the one in charge of properly disposing of recyclables (i.e. making trips to da dump - Papa P’s favorite pastime). It’s a pain in the ass. I hear ya! But I’m telling you, you need to suck it up and comply. No ifs ands or buts.

Last week I had dinner at Whole Foods and, come clean up time, was utterly befuddled by their trash system. They’s got a shit ton of garbage options!: landfill, food and dirty napkin waste for compost, clean paper products for recycling, glass, cans, excess COFFEE, omg can’t even remember what else.

I stood there dumbfounded, reading and rereading the instructions before Kelly led me by example. It was bananas.

I know, guys. Not only is recycling a pain in the buttocks, it can also be intimidating. You might feel stupid and silly for a couple of minutos. Perhaps you’ll even feel put-upon (how DARE you ask ME to do some of the sorting, Waste Management!! Who do you think you are, huh? Huh!?!)

This is understandable. Whole Foods and some new fangled sports venues (à la Yankees Stadium) do guilt trip you into recycling - I concur. But they do so with good reason. Don’t you leave those trash cans feeling like you’ve accomplished something, like you’ve made your carbon footprint smaller? Infinitesimally so, yes, but still. Smaller.

And that, my friends, is what it’s all about.

Now please, I don’t henceforth want to be called Preacher Parry - but come on peeps. Get off yer lazy asses and at least, at LEAST start taking proper care of your glass and plastic containers. Maybe even b.y.o.bags when you go shopping. Sing it Maria: Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start!
I cringe - literally cringe - when I see people tossing their Mountain Dew n’ Bud Light bott’s into the garbage right along with their Big Mac leftovers (yikes, musta gotten sick before they could even finish!) Or when I see people swigging out of Poland Springs bottles at the gym. Or when I see piles of soiled newspapers sitting on the sidewalk.

I hate it when certain stupid, lazy citizens of this country - people with full use of their legs AND complete access to recycling bins - toss their no good, very bad toxic containers into landfill-bound garbage cans. They do so without a second thought as to where it’ll end up.

To those of who could care less about doing a good deed, about helping out our planet (oh BOY do I sound mushy or what?? Shut UP Parry!), at least do it for the cash incentive. 5¢ surely ain’t much, but if you collect a whole bunch of 5¢-ers, you could at least buy yourself a few rounds of PBR!

I’ll leave you with this:

“Every year, Americans throw away 50 billion food and drink cans, 27 billion glass bottles and jars, and 65 million plastic and metal jar and can covers. More than 30% of our waste is packaging materials. Where does it all go? Some 85% of our garbage is sent to a dump, or landfill, where it can take from 100 to 400 years for things like cloth and aluminum to decompose.”

That is deeeeesgusting. So let’s quit it, shall we?

(Whew, have I missed my mission in life? Environmental Activist? I think not. But the least you can do is check out recycling areas near you. And yeah, I fully expect a PBR paid for by recycled cans when next we meet.)

FU, Fall-izing

Ooooooobviously you all know my disdain for fall. And winter, for that matter. I don’t really enjoy dead leaves on the ground, no leaves on the trees, everything brown, nothing green, days getting dark so early, days that are freezing and windy and rainy and grey.

What I like even less, though, is the prep work that goes into getting ready for these depression-inducing months. Serotones is slipping! Seriously, bears have it MADE. I wish I wish I wish I could hibernate the fall and winter and early spring away!

Alas, we humans have no such luxury. Life is just so unfair! We must slip and fall on stupid slick leaves and plod through dirty, icy, sloppy slush. And to do so, we need to be somewhat prepared.

I have held off for as long as I possibly could. But it’s been in the back of my mind: I had to succumb to fallizing sooner or later. So I sucked it up and ripped that band aid off. Major ouch.

For some people, fallizing is “fun”. It’s “enjoyable”. Something they “look forward too”. These people are the reason serial killers exist. (Hence why Ocean State Job Lot is still in business). For them it’s all excitement all the time. They just cannot WAIT to break out the red and orange table cloths, the apple and cinnamon candles, the faux pumpkins, the goose-neck gourds. Me oh me oh my!

If only “fallizing” was that easy pour moi.

But no. You see, unfortunately my rabbit hutch can only accommodate two seasons at a time. Fall/winter and spring/summer. In other words, my entire closet, shoe rack, dresser, and all of my under-the-bed storage bins much be switched out.

Thankfully I have Tim and Trissi for parents and they dutifully bring in all my winter clothes, or summer clothes, to be swapped with the opposite season’s goods. (Hmm...I wonder how old I have to be for that super-duper-favor to stop...)

My horrific-cold-weather clothes have been trickling in since last month. But, ever the dreader, those freshly dry cleaned sweaters have been forming a formidable mountain on the floor in my one available corner.

So last night, after bickering back and forth with myself, I made a compromise. IF I didn’t go to the gym, THEN I had to change over the ole wardrobe and clean.

An hour and a half into it, I surely wished I had chosen the stupid elliptical. Dust bunnies GALORE. I’m telling you, there was enough furry grey particles full of hair to cover a giant rabbit. It was deeee-sgust-ing. So disgusting I can’t even bring myself to read what else dust is comprised of - hair and dead skin particles are enough to induce vomit.

I packed up strappy sandal after strappy sandal (thinking, perhaps, that I have too many strappy sandals), open-toe flats, flip flops. I tearfully unhung flowy, flowery frocks and replaced them with drab, sweltering sweater dresses. I neatly removed the mountain-o-sweaters from my floor and piled them on the top shelf in my closet. I sadly pulled out heap after heap of tank tops and short-sleeved shirts and put turtlenecks - TURTLENECKS - in their place.

Then I attacked the bunnies. Boy were they crazy, hyped up bunnies. Flying all sorts of everywhere, sticking to my legs, dashing just out of reach the second I tried to scoop them into the dustpan. It took a very, very long time. I swept my floor for fifteen minutes straight - that’s practically a minute per square foot. Nuts! And I washed it. Twice.

Then I dusted. But again, I’s not gonna go into details cause I don’t want to think what’s in the dust.

I tackled the bathroom, the “kitchen”, I Windex-ed the mirrors, the hanging pictures, cleaned the surface of my TV, the top of my fridge, my microwave, my stove. Then I thought, wow. I’m not just fallizing. Oh no. It’s much worse than that. I’m spring cleaning. But it’s fall.
I’M SORRY, THERE’S FALL CLEANING, TOO?????? Omg.

Sure, the bunnies wouldn’t be so bountiful if I kept after their grey, furry little asses. Fine. All I can say is I’m soooooo happy that switching out seasonal wardrobes is something that only comes but twice a year.

All Hail, the Dummies!

One can’t conjure up New York City without thoughts of the Empire State Building. Or the Statue of Liberty. Or steaming, delicious pizza (folded in half, of course).
Or bright yellow taxi cabs.

Now I know that I’ve No Dankes-ed cabs who creep up in crosswalks when the light is red. And those who zoom around corners so fast that we pedestrians have to pause and let them by even though it’s our turn to cross. And those who just don’t know where they’re GOING.

So yeah, I kinda hate them.

Alas, the rare occasion does indeed present itself when I must - gasp - take a cab. These instances are fairly few and far between - seeing as how I pay my life away to my landlord and thus have little cash for anything else - but yeah, I take cabs if necessary.

A whole lotta New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers do too. But let us focus on the latter. The Faux Yorkers, if you will. Out-of-towners. Tourists. Stupid. Idiots.

I know, I know. The subway system is pretty intimidating if you’re unfamiliar. If you don’t know uptown from downtown, local from express, orange line from blue line. If, in short, you don’t know the rules - then the subway can be positively terrifying.
But believe it or not, there are also guidelines when it comes to cabs. Yes, yes, hard to believe but this super classy mode of transportation has protocols, people. And it drives me positively bonkers when I see Flaky McFlakerson from Flakeston, FK flailing his or her arms all sorts of ways, trying to hail a taxi that is off duty.

Look. At. The. Light.

You know, that beaming little bulb on display atop the cab. From this battery operated gleam of illumination, one can deduce anything and everything they need to know.
 
There are but a few simple rules and this light explains them all.

Rule #1: If the cabbie is passengerless, the light will be ON. A lighthouse beam guiding you to your destination! A nightlight guiding you back to bed! Come hither!

No light? No ride.

Rule #2: If the cab is in use, if there are people in the cab being driven to a hood of their choosing, then the light will be OFF. Blackness. Do not enter. You are not welcome.

Rule #3: Now pay attention peeps, this is where things get complicated. This “rule” is neither here nor there. Sometimes, sometimes, a cabbie will be driving home after a long shift (4 a.m. to 4 p.m. or vice versa, YIKES!) and their little light will say OFF DUTY.

This can be quite arbitrary. Off Duties will either blow right by you, or, if they are feeling magnanimous, will stop and ask you where you’re going. If it tickles their convenience fancy, they’ll bring you. All aboard!

But if they’re not headed in your destination’s direction, or if they don’t feel like it, you’re on your own.

(Unless you’re rolling with my crowd of my spectacular lady friends. A few weeks ago a cabbie picked up FIVE of us - more than the “legal limit” and drove us all the way uptown, telling us we “Brought him happiness” - how wonderful!) 

Sorry, I digress. Per usual.

The point of all this nonsense is to berate those nonsensical people who attempt to hail cabs that are full or cabs that are off duty.
These extremely annoying people are like mini-Hermione’s. Like little annoying middle schoolers that insist on waving their hands about, screeching, “Oooh, oooh, I know, call on me, ME, Teacher, ME, right here, MEMEMEME!!”

I know - we all know - I am judgmental. So FINE, I’m sure a whole lotta these wannabe hailers don’t know the rules. Lit from unlit. On duty from off duty. Heads from asses. Fine.

But why must they torture me so? They’re everywhere! Every single day I see people with their arms raised high, jabbing and stabbing the air, restless, impatient, trying to flag down cabs that just aren’t available. Then they get pissed and swear and swat the nothingness with heightened frustration.
 
I want to shake these fools and explain to them, like a parent telling a child why you cannot hit, that taxi’s without lights on will not pick you up. So stop, stop, STOP trying to get their attention. They will ignore you. They do not care about you. They’re full or they’re off duty.

If they’re not picking you up, then stop trying. THEY’RE JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU.

But I do not scold. I keep calm. Stay cool and collected. And I laugh a little on the inside.

Christmas in July?

Is anyone else super confused and ridiculously thrown off by the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been enjoying?

And yes, I am fully aware that I said enjoying. Cause I, for one, have been enjoying it.

Even though it’s dark at 5 o’clock, any extra day outta 365 (well, really it’s more like 120) that I can wear flip flops, that my nose isn’t dripping with snot the second I step outside, that my hands relinquish their dryness for 24 hours - well, my friends. That is just pure gold.

El problema? - because there must be one, obvi: T-shirt wearing weather, on top of the outrageous holiday onslaught, reaaaally riles up my disdain for the holiday season.


I mean, we’re talking onslaught. Is it just me or does anyone else feel like summer isn’t over yet???



Sure, the über early descending darkness is a huge indicator. But I feel it’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s really simply unfathomable that Christmastime is once more upon us.

Can. Not. Believe. It. Thanksgiving in less than two weeks! Then only four weeks till Christmas! Then one week until 2013 hits! Omg. I’m dizzy.

I really hate how goddamn early they Christmas-ize. (And Halloween-ize and Easter-ize and Valentine-ize, OKOKOK.) But The Holiday Season is a never-ending barrage of baked goods and candy canes and decorations out the wazoo. Come ON people! Hold your jolly horses (as K. Cobb would say).

Just two weeks ago the denizens of this city were slutting it up as naughty nurses and skanky sailors. But that feels like two months given this Christmastime overhaul we’re experiencing! It’s sick!!


(Miss Shannon Burke, Queen of Halloween, had the briiiiiilliant idea to dress as a Rockette - amazing costume, and extremely timely to boot! Christmas rolled out the very next day! GAH!)

Whole Foods with their holiday bags, Starbucks with their red cups, white lights wrapped around trees and shop windows, glitzy gaudy frippery hanging from street lamps - and (gasp) - perhaps worst of all, those three ginormous bags of decorations chilling on my apartment floor (the ‘rents had to bring them down last week and I’s got no where to store ‘em). Talk about hitting close to home!

Stop the insanity, people! Quell that mad-dash urge. We’s got time. Christmas isn’t going anywhere - take a pile-o-chill pills, would you?


Let it be said that I tried...really I did. I made a concerted effort not to be so Grinchy McGrincherson this past weekend. I pulled some decorations out of those bags - a super cute silvery reindeer - and posed him on my mantle. I plugged in my white, pearl lights and lit my Holiday Bayberry candle.

I went to CVS and took in all the tinsel and bows and lights and cards (but my blood was boiling so badly, being so keyed up on gaudiness, that I had to buy some Raisinets to mollify myself).


I EVEN went SO FAR as to listen to BING CROSBY. Sure, this might have had something to do with the fact that I’d just finished watching The Country Girl and wanted to hear some more of his sultry voice...but still.

No matter how hard I tried to put myself in a holiday state of mind, I just could not. I cannot change who I innately am. I have not been, nor will ever be, one of those people that gets excited when stores roll out their fall clothes before the 4th of July.

No, nein, non. Not I.

So could you puh-lease just QUIT it, retailers? And grocers? And coffee shops and cafés and restaurants and drugstores and offices and streets? Stop acting like overeager, annoying, excited little puppies. Cause we the people are over it. Ov-aaaah iiiiiiit.

Down with the silver reindeer, down with the Bing singin’, off with the lights, out with the candle - nevermore, nevermore!!

At least not for another two weeks. And even then it’s a crapshoot. Cause like I said, it really is quite impossible to get into any sort of spirit at all when your AC is pumping and the window’s open and people are wearing tanks and shorts and sandals.

Well actually, that’s a lie. I am in a summertime spirit. So it looks like, if nothing else, we might at least enjoy a little Christmas in July this year (er, “enjoy”).

Daylight Savings Depression

As if the dead leaves are not enough. As if the cold weather, the necessity of wearing coats and scarves and boots is not enough! Oh no. Now it has to start getting dark early.

Spring ahead, fall behind. Fall behind - so depressing! So depressing.

I don’t understand why people like autumn. Sure, I did enjoy the long weekend in lovely East Bridgewater, MA (I love you, New England). There was apple picking and Ivy League football game watching and fire pits and partying in plaid with the Cobb family (thanks again!!) - and fine, I did enjoy it.

And I guess I’ll admit: I do enjoy Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Mellowcreme Pumpkins and Candy Corn (even if they all make my tum hurt).

But seriously, autumn is such a dead season. Everything coming to an end - Indian summer, twilit evenings, green leaves.

Why fall is anyone’s favorite season is beyond me.
(But yikes - so back and forth! Kelly’s family put forth such a concerted effort in convincing me to cross over to the dark side - what with their mulled cider and Oktoberfest and yard full of pretty red and yellow leaves. Fine. So maybe I like fall after all. But it is not, I repeat NOT my favorite season.)

Anyway, this is all besides the point. My most dreaded, most abhorred fact about the commencement of these never-ending, abysmal months is that - drumroll please - the days are shorter. That darkness creeps up and rears its ugly, ugly head before it’s even struck 5 o’clock.

Daylight Savings is one of the worst inventions ever. Arizona and Hawaii have the right idea - no need to set back the clock, to move the clock ahead. TO MESS WITH TIME!!!!!!
Sure, I get that there is a method to the madness. I understand the principle behind it. The need to add an extra hour for the farmers. But it’s the 21st cenutry and peeps aren’t really bringin in the ole harvest. And there is such a thing as electricity. So why do the rest of us have to suffer through the falling behind?

(And come on people - Daylight Savings doesn’t save electricity! People turn their lights on earlier in the evening! It wastes!)

There is nothing worse - nothing in the world worse than seeing the sun creep below the steel and glass horizon of Jersey City before the work day is over.

Nothing, I tell you.

It makes me not want to cook or clean or gym or TV or move. I want to just snuggle up under the covers and go to sleep. When the sun goes down, the day is ova.

Believe it or not, I was quite the athlete in high school. One day I came home after field hockey practice and, understandably, passed out. My mom called up to me around 7:00 and I JUMPED out of bed, tumbled down the stairs, and fell into the shower. I was going to be late, late, LATE for school!
After three minutes of scrubbing, I sped back upstairs and got dressed, panicked, cursing myself that I hadn’t done my homework - OMFG! The horror of not having an assignment completed.

But - oh, wait - it was actually 7pm, not 7am and I was not, in fact, late for school. Dinner yes, school no. Silly me.

It was the stupid, stupid Daylight Savings. Out to get us, I tell you. Messing up our internal clocks. Screwing with our heads. Precipitating seasonal depression en masse.

Let the countdown begin till spring. Fingers crossed we can make it till then.

Ocean State Job Terror Lot

I spent this past weekend in the lovely state of CT, where the leaves were falling as fast as my serotonin levels (countdown to doomsday aka Daylight Savings: T-4 days).

My mom and I went shopping in Avon on Saturday. All day. We were almost ready to drop, but I was on a mission. A month-and-a-half-long-overdue-birthday-present mission.

Unfortunately as one of my followers I can neither reveal the gift receivers’ identity, nor can I disclose the nature of the present. Suffice it to say, it was something we thought Ocean State Job Lot might carry.
Never have I ever been so petrified of a store.

Lordy, lordy. That place is all kinds of fright-inducing. It begged the question: Why pay for a haunted house when you can go shopping at Ocean State Job Lot for free?

I feared for my life. And of course the all-around eeriness was multiplied threefold by the stormy weather. (Puh-LEASE, October! Quit letting your fright flag fly! Halloween, big deal, we get it. No need to hit us over the head with all scary, all the time. It’s tacky. Get a life, October. Shame on you.)

So yeah, it was downpouring. And it was dark (did I mention how I am dreading the advent of Daylight Savings?) And the wind was howling, obviously. Leaves were flying from branches in a hurried flurry.

It was, in short, a scene straight from a horror film - a scene so familiar because I have seen it sooooo many times. You know, that part where they pan out and show the building in the rain where the girl is about to be killed. And so yeah, I was scared before we were even inside because I knew I should be - my killer radar was up - the setting was just that good.

Just when I believed it could get no worse, I passed through the doors.

Fluorescent lights and dirty white-black-grey tiles, fine. Whatever. But the jam-packed shelves, the items on the shelves - jarred mushrooms and green beans reminiscent of rotten brown eyeballs and slimy green fingers.

Puzzles and books from the eighties. Discontinued shampoo, mousse, gel, toothpaste, detergent - all looking pathetically desolate and undoubtedly expired.

The clothes! Oh dearie me. If you’re a hunter, this is the store for you. A hunter of people, that is. For I daresay, serial killers shop for their essentials at the Lot. I surely coulda pointed out a few.

The rows of creepy Christmas decorations (minus MAJOR points, Ocean State Job Lot, for rolling out the ho-ho-ho-ness before HalloWEEN!), of “decorative” candles and bows and bags and fake trees and melamine Santa chip n’ dips. Scary, scary, scary.

But even more frightening was the man in the costume aisle picking up hooks and masks and scythes, making odd noises and shouting gibberish to himself.

I couldn’t get out of that store fast enough. Sure, it has its redeeming qualities - my mom likes that they carry Freezer-Tite (no other stores do, apparently).

And...umm...yeah, that’s about it.

But the dim lighting, the odd Costco-warehousey smell, the hodgepodge of products, the dirty floors, the people, the people, the PEOPLE. And the thunderstorm! Holy shit yo. I felt like I had entered The Twilight Zone.

And all for nothing! Ocean State Terror Lot didn’t even have the item I was looking for. But I think I learned my lesson - I surely will not be making my way back to Ocean State Job Lot for any reason. Ever. Again.

Krazy? More like PSYCHO Glue!

I am an adult. I know how to read directions. However, that does not mean that I always follow them.

Case in point: Last night’s encounter with Krazy Glue.

It’s not all my fault! I live in a society where there’s an antidote to everything. Instant gratification nation, yo. Don’t like something? Change it, fix it, get rid of it. Wham bam thank you ma’am.

However. However.

The warning label on Krazy Glue should be much more threatening. Should be highlighted in neon yellow (I would say pink, but I think that might clash with the red and green). It should read CAUTION in no less than size 20, Times New Roman font.

(I was also going to say that they should not sell the stuff to non-adults...but, like I mentioned earlier - I am, unfortunately, one of those. I forget sometimes.)

Needless to say, I should not - not ever - be allowed to use that stuff.Last night I was gluing part of a vintage ring back together. And of course in my overbearing, overeager, overcompensating clumsiness, I squeezed the crap outta that difficult-to-squeeze, tricky little tube.

And it went all over the place.

I watched it drip down the sides of the ring as I cleverly (so I thought) pinched the pieces I was gluing together with my best tweezers.

Not only did that stinky shit get all over my tweezers, IT GOT ALL OVER MY FINGERS (sorry ya can’t see it too well in the pic).

And it’s still there. The tips of both index fingers and middle fingers were covered in the crap. But little did I care, I thought I was totes in the clear - hello nail polish remover!

Sadly, I was mistaken. Nail polish remover does not in any way make you invincible to the wrath of Krazy Glue.

What a naïve little dummy I was. Maybe it was non-acetone. But still, whateverrrr. Didn’t help one iota. My fingers felt like they had been dipped them in battery acid - I lost all sensation below the affected skin. Poor things looked like little shiny snakeskin’s.I tried scrubbing with a Dobie, a pumice stone, dish soap. I used my sad, glue-covered tweezers in an attempt to pick it off. But that stuff don’t peel. It don’t budge.

After all that poking and picking and prodding, my fingertips were fairly sore. And red. That’s when I got the brilliant idea to perform outpatient surgery on myself. To cut - with nail clippers - the glue off.

Finally - finally - something worked (...a little). But not without PAIN. I clipped a fair amount of skin off. Boy did it hurt.

And yet...the g-d glue is still spotty in some places! UGH!

It goes without saying that I will be steering very, very clear of the Krazy Glue from now on. That stuff is psycho.

Chronic Christmas Morning Jitters

A switch has been flipped. Hallelujah AMEN, I’ve finally (re)joined the ranks of the sleeping! 


Kind of.
 
 I sometimes have insomnia. And it blows. But the past few months I’ve enjoyed a delicious sleepfulness. I have somehow learned - sans aids! - how to will my melatonin forth.

It’s been pretty great. Wonderful in fact. But, per usual, all things good things must come to an end. And lately I have been experiencing something I’m calling the Christmas Morning Jitters.

I am utterly spent when the day ends at 5 o’clock. But I go to the gym. I make dinner. I go out. I read a book. I catch up on DVR, on Netflix, on magazines. I talk on the phone. I text. I blog. I run myself ragged and wish for nothing more than to curl up in my ridiculously comfy bed and sleep sleep sleep.

(I sometimes think sleep is my most favorite thing in the world. Then Ri’s charming smackdown reverberates in my ears: “You can sleep when you’re DEAD!”

This is true.)

But apparently I’s back to square one in the sleep department. Every night feels like Christmas Eve, I tell you! No matter how exhausted I am. 

It’ll be 12 a.m., say, and I want to drift away into dreamland. But oh no, wait. Actually I don’t want to. Not exactly. Who knows WHY, but I’ll excited about the next day, or there will be something else I’d rather be doing. A pastime more desirable than laying horizontal (in a G-rated way).

It’s so ironic that as soon as I’m able to pass out with little-to-no coaxing, I don’t want to. That snoozing suddenly seems so pointless. Such a drag. That I, Katie Parry, Queen of 10:30-Lights-Out Land, would rather stay awake than get me some zzzzz’s.

As the hours roll by on the fluorescent clock that lights up my apartment (my shitty broken cable box - is that an 8? a 6? no, it’s a 5), I honestly feel like a kid waiting for Santa Claus. But deep down, I know it’s not even gonna be a good Santa. It’s like I am looking forward to a drunken, polyester donning, flammable beard wearing imposter of a St. Nick!
Does this recurring phenomenon happen to anyone else? I mean, I know there is pretty much nothing super special about the coming day. And it’s not like I forgot to do something at work. I’m not going on vacation. There’s no cause for any additional anxiety (aside from the daily norm).
And yeah, I realize that the story is going to start back up on the page I left off on in my book. That my DVR can be counted on to remember where I paused a show. My Facebook page will not be deleted. No Dankes! will remain intact and live to judge another day!
And yet - I don’t want to sleep, my mind is that excited. Ain’t no sugarplums dancing in my head!

Oh no. My mind bounces like a pinball from thoughts of pseudo fictitious candy canes to stockings to the roast beast.

It cracks an incessant whip over the rest of my body, willing unrest. And, yet, this is a somewhat welcome wakefulness.

That is, of course, until the alarm goes off and the only thing me and my stupid crazy mind gets is a D-rated, sans presents & kielbasa workday.

I am crazy.