No, I didn't spend last week passed out in a gutter somewhere as the aftermath of birthday festivities. (I wish!) Rather, the lack of updates here has been primarily caused by the amount of school work I have had recently.

No, really.

Though I went out both Wednesday and Thursday last week, I was awake by 10am each of the following mornings ready (if not exactly willing) to work on school stuff. (I took the second half of last week off from work.) That's right. I went out (at night! to bars! with friends! to celebrate my birthday!) and each morning after got up BEFORE NOON to do HOMEWORK.

Sad, I know.

But on to the good things: the birthday. The birthday was awesome. Thanks to some travel plans I have in the works for the near future (New York, here I come) the actual birthday events were pretty low key, but fabulous nonetheless. There were 3 birthday dinners, 2 birthday nights out drinking (double digit shots, people), and 5 (FIVE!) birthday cakes.

And the gifts? I made out like a bandit. Perhaps the two best things that I recieved were the tickets for a 5-day cruise and an 18 year old. (Yes, these people? These people that give me things? They know me well.)

I also received a wonderful surprise just in time for my birthday, while doing homework, of all things. For my genealogical research class I discovered a bunch of records for relatives on my mother's side, with a family name of Labusky. They came from a historical geographical area known as Bukovina, and it appears that the family name was originally Lebowski.

LEBOWSKI. MY ANCESTORS. L-E-B-O-W-S-K-I.

I am not even kidding when I say that I just about wept tears of joy when I discovered this. To say that I dove into my research with renewed vigor doesn't even touch the manic pace at which I hunted down records for this ancestral family that I now love more than my present one.

(During my research I uncovered an accident report from a railroad company in Washington State that noted the date -July 19, MY BIRTHDAY- when my great-great grandfather was CRUSHED when a tunnel collapsed. The person who transcribed the entry from the accident report to the web site noted that while the incident was marked an injury, it sounded like a fatality. But it wasn't. Pete Labusky, age 50 at the time of the accident, went on to live into his 80s. Tough motherfuckers, my family.)

So it turns out that while I can't focus on school work for the sake of getting a good education, throw in a family name that is tied to my favorite movie? Hell, I'm a star student material now, WATCH ME GO.

Everyone that called, commented, or wrote in to send birthday wishes: thank you. As a person with a horrible memory and a knack for losing touch with people quite easily, your thoughts meant a lot.

And no, I don't know why the scrollbars are all fucked up. And no, I don't plan on fixing this anytime soon.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and in anticipation a couple of you have written in to ask if I have a wish list with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or say, Frederick's of Hollywood. (I love all of my readers, but you, dear readers, those of you that want to buy me stuff? I love you the best.)

But the answer is no. I'm more than capable of picking out reading material and frilly underthings for myself, and in fact spend probably 60% of my life doing just that. (The other 40%? Split between drinking, sleeping, and eating macaroni and cheese.)

However, if you really MUST get me something for my birthday, then how about this, pretty please?

Or, you know, a pony would be pretty great, too.

[Edit: Or you could be like The Bartender and have a gorgeous vase full of my favorite flowers delivered to me at work. Because that? That would be just grand.]

Turns out that I deal with my problems in the same way, both emotionally and physically.

I run.

For a little over a month I have gone out running at least a few times per week. It gets me (and usually my dog) out of the house, keeps me from going to the bars before midnight (I DO NOT need 4 hours to drink, I'm too efficient), and helps me sleep in 10-hour stretches that I like to call heaven.

Last night I went out for a run. As with most things in my life, I excelled at it, and spent over an hour absolutely killing the pavement. (By the way, is it a bad thing that my sprained ankle still isn't totally healed?)

So, me, jogging? I know. Weird. Don't expect me to be "getting healthy" or "losing weight" or any of that nonsense, however. Whatever benefits one would normally expect to see once they start exercising (before last month the most exercise I got was when I misplaced the remote - one horrible fucking week) will likely be erased by the fact that running makes me thirsty.

And we know where this is going.

After my marathon last night I came home and drank a bottle and a half of wine.

And then, because diets are not for drunks I proceeded to eat anything and everything that took two minutes or less to prepare.

I figure with the running and the alcohol consumption and the late night snacking it will all just even out, and I will remain exactly the same. Which is absolutely fine by me, because change? Fuck that shit.

And now I'm off for a 3-day weekend. There will be more running (some), more drinking (lots), and probably not a whole lot else.

Cheers.

It's July. Temperatures have been hitting over 100 (though mostly just in the Valley, where the herd could use a little thinning if you know what I'm saying). And as per usual, there is some brush, somewhere in the state of California, that is burning out of control.

There's more than enough proof that summer is well underway, but it wasn't official, at least not in my mind, until Sunday evening.

It was balmy outside, and downright muggy inside Safari Sam's. For comfort (of course) I was wearing a tube top (pure fucking class, people), alternating between shots of Patron and Coronas, and listening to Wayne Hancock croon away.

I was there with one of my besties (she of porch/heaven fame) and another friend (the proprietor of this lovely little shop) whom we will refer to as GOD because she volunteered to drive that night. Understandably (I was in LA! At a show! In a tube top! With a designated driver!) I drank up a storm, enjoyed the eye candy, and loved every minute of the show. I can't imagine a more perfect summer evening.

And since "ending a night early" or even "at a reasonable hour" is one of those skills that I JUST DON"T HAVE (see previous entry), the evening turned into one of those great summer nights, too:

There was a mad dash back to Long Beach for shots (more? a great idea!) before last call.

And then I stopped over to have a drink (why not?) with The Bartender.

And then I didn't fall asleep until shortly after 7am.

Which of course necessitated me calling in sick on Monday.

And then I proceeded to sleep until 4pm. (Glorious.)

I have so got this summer thing down.

I'm sorry, but you won't be getting a good post out of me today. Last night I went to bed around 8am, and I had to get up for work this morning at 11.

Yes, OUCH is right.

(Actually, besides being quite ready for a nap, I feel fine. This is very, very bad, as I take this to mean that I CAN GO OUT AND DO THEM SAME THING TONIGHT!)

Needless to say, summer is off to a great start. Some of the highlights, so far:

Drinking Records
I tied my earlier record of drinking for 12 hours. I don't know if it is sad or awesome that I was at the bar late Thursday night, again early Friday morning, and then once more Friday evening.

I'm going to go ahead and go with AWESOME.

I seduced him over to the dark side. Or just the lazy side.
The Bartender has this really annoying habit (hi honey!) of being all productive and shit. He works the weekends and gets off around 3am, and we usually meet up for a drink or two, which at 3am? Not really something I need. (While he's been working all night, I've been drinking all night. You really should feel sorry for him.)

Since we usually keep drinking until 5 or 6 in the morning I generally end up in a state for which "destroyed" would be a nice word. Luckily, I have a surefire hangover cure: sleep through it. A solid 9+ hours does the trick for me, but for some ungodly reason The Bartender feels the need to spring out of bed at the crack of dawn (or 10am, same difference) and like, do stuff.

I KNOW. He's crazy. But he gives me alcohol. My hands are tied.

But (!) things are starting to change. After going out Saturday night we took a cab back to his place and proceeded to do a whole lot of sleeping. After waking up we went out for lunch, and then we went back to his place and (are you ready for it? Are you? I'm actually getting excited while typing this) WE TOOK A NAP.

I see this change as a very good thing. He is starting to become more like me. And that? That is pretty much the best thing anyone could ever do.

(Unless he decides to adopt my charming habit of getting drunk and throwing things. There's only room for one intoxicated hurler in any relationship, and THAT POSITION IS FILLED BY ME.)

The law
I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I love cops. Love, love, love them. This could be due to the fact that I've been pulled over about 10 times (no exaggeration), and have yet to ever get a ticket.

Until last week. When I got pulled over twice. IN ONE DAY. Given, the ticket is just an eensy fix-it ticket, but it's a ticket nonetheless.

And then I got pulled over again two days ago. That makes it 3 times in under two weeks.

Thankfully, one of my friends took it upon herself to remedy this situation last night. There were drinks and shots galore, there were 4 cop cars, and in some drunken and misguided (but still hilarious) attempt to restore my karmic balance with the Long Beach police force, there were her tits. I'm still not sure exactly what or how it happened, but I do know that THAT IS A TRUE FRIEND.

And that's what went down last week. See why I've been too busy to post?

I'm really looking forward to rest of this month since due to some much needed time off I'll be working 4 day work weeks, max, until August.

Thank god.