I wasn't planning on talking about pandas today, I SWEAR. I was all set to tell you guys about how the impossible happened last night: how I had a great time at a bar in ORANGE COUNTY.

But then I saw this, and I am so, so sorry, but there's no way I can not talk about it:

It's part of my job to buy graphic novels, which I was shopping for when I came across this. It's 168 pages of comic book goodness (it's one of the American Library Association's 2008 Great Graphic Novels for Teens) about a girl and HER PANDA SIDEKICK.

And it gets better. A summary of the book says that "paths will be crossed, alliances will be formed and ninjas will be punched."

Ninjas. Will. Be. Punched.

I mean, WOW. My fingers are twitching at the prospect of getting it into my hot little hands, which is a certainty now that I've ordered a copy for our library.

And since we're already on the subject of pandas...

I know I gushed about Panda Cam yesterday, but that shit is going to give me a fucking heart attack. I checked in to it earlier today and saw little Zhen Zhen climbing.

To the top of some very tall trees:

How high? Very high. Even she realized she may be a bit out of her league. Did you know a panda could make an "Oh, shit!" face? Because they can:

Because she learned to climb earlier this month. So she's not very good at it yet. And yet is scaling large trees, on camera, in front of my very eyes.

I'm convinced that at any moment she's going to misstep and plummet to her death on the ground below, and that somehow only my vigilant watch will prevent this from happening, and if I look away for even a split second then she is surely doomed and it will be ALL MY FAULT.

Because, you know, when I do turn away for but a moment, that will be the precise time at which she'll slip and be left dangling by single paw from a flimsy tree branch. And had I been watching I could have what, picked up the phone and frantically dialed a zookeeper?

But no, since I'm too busy "working" and "getting things done" and "earning a paycheck" she'll instead be left to hang on for dear life, with everyone ignorant to the fact that she is in obvious peril and all because I AM NOT WATCHING.

Seriously, a stroke is imminent.

So enough Panda Cam. For today, anyways. (Seriously, it's like a drug. I can't start, because I just won't stop. Pandas = crack, you know.)

***

To lower what I'm sure is an abnormally high heart rate (thanks, pandas!) tonight I plan to doing my favorite relaxing activity: sitting around and drinking. There will be a brief stop at the bar for a friend's birthday, and then to the boyfriend's for monster movie night (my pick: The Host). It gets no better.

The rest of the weekend will involve a return to Orange County bars, or as I like to call it, pressing my luck. Good times at OC bars are few and far between, as it's only a matter of time until a bro hits on you by saying "sup" and shortly after calling you a whore or a slut for not electing to go home with them. But last night, it involved an Elvis impersonator, a tranny, some friends that I haven't seen in much too long, and a Manhattan that brought tears to my eyes with its deliciousness.

So, for times like that, I'm willing to give OC another shot. Because I'm dedicated like that.

Cheers.

My crush on Zhen Zhen may be getting just a tad out of hand. I think I'm becoming a bit of a stalker.

See, the San Diego Zoo has this thing called Panda Cam. And it is AWESOME.

There's my girl this morning, sleeping at the top of the tree that she just learned to climb earlier this month. And I know that how? From the Panda Blog, of course.

(Go ahead and guess how much work I've gotten done today.)

(NOPE! Less.)

When I finally get to go visit my little love, I plan to stop by the interactive Panda Exhibit where you find out what a panda smells like (I'm betting like WONDERFULNESS). And of course there's also a Panda Shop, where I expect to throw away my life savings on cuteness:

(Panda pillow, panda umbrella, and my favorite, PANDA SHOT GLASS: all available here.)

***

What with all this cutesy baby animal talk, don't make the mistake of thinking I've gone all soft and maternal and shit on you guys. Oh, no.

Take last weekend. In what was totally well planned and completely thought out, I got a new tattoo. Of a gun. Which makes it my third. Not my third tattoo; no, my third tattoo of a gun. See? Bad motherfucker.

(Or VERY LAME NERD. The design for the tattoo came from one of my favorite Batman comic books.)

You can stop laughing now.

Or now would be fine, too.

It's cool, I'll wait.

...

Whatever. Screw you guys. I'm turning back to Panda Cam now.

I will die on a Monday.

I can predict this with some degree of certainty because HOLY CRAP THE WEEKENDS ARE GOING TO KILL ME.

I work a 6/4 rotation, meaning that I work 6 days one week, and 4 days the following week. I've had the option to switch to a more traditional schedule, but it can't compare to having 3-day weekends TWICE A MONTH. It's even worth the (horrible, awful, terrible) 6-day work weeks in which I have to mainline coffee in order to not want to curl up in a fetal position under my desk AND DIE.

As glorious as these 3-day weekends are, they allow me more freedom than perhaps someone with the maturity level of a toddler should be given. (That's a pretty accurate description; I'll howl like a banshee if you try to take away my bottle.) At the end of a 4-day work week I get off Thursday night and the realization that I don't have to be back at work until noon on Monday hits me and my dial immediately turns to WRECK SHIT.

And my entire weekend was spent doing just that. I started Thursday night around 11, and ended last night/this morning around 5am. Ish.

You can imagine the state I was in when I dragged myself out of bed (at 11am), out of the house (11:15am) and into work this morning. Got a mental picture? Not pretty, is it?

So you'll understand when I tell you that I've got jack shit to post because my brain isn't working right now and the only thing my head can do is bang itself repeatedly on the desk?

I knew you would.

***

Sure, I could have not posted at all rather than do so simply to report that I have nothing to post, but there's something else that I'm not particularly good at today.

And that thing is called WORK.

Due to the 70% chance of rain this weekend, the Mayor's Day of Service has been postponed until March 15th. Now, instead of staying in on Friday night so that I could wake up at 6am Saturday morning, it looks like I get to go out, party, and snuggle under a mound of covers until the early afternoon.

DARN.

***

I know you guys have desperately been missing my incessant bitching about schoolwork, but not to worry, it's on its way back.

I started my last semester of grad school today, officially at least. Though the only school-related thing I've done so far is write a check that was so big it made me cry a little.

I don't have any textbooks to buy this semester. No actual classes to attend. I don't even have to set foot on campus. I just have to write this long paper that's supposed to be way important, called a thesis something or other. I should probably start looking into that...

Expect plenty of holy-shit-I-hate-staying-in-and-doing-research posts in the near future.

It will be just like old times.

Over the weekend I finally, finally! won a few games of table hockey against the boyfriend. So this means that I no longer have to resort to punching him in the kidneys while he's lying in bed in order to feel like I have some power in the relationship.

Lovely girlfriend? Yes. Yes I am.

Also this weekend I got 2/3 of the way through Her Last Death (still not sure how I feel about it), bought a new video game that involves dinosaurs and spears (THIS I feel awesome about), had a girl's lunch out that involved 3 mimosas and about two hours of catty wonderfulness, went for a walk in the rain immediately followed by a bubble bath heated to approximately 150 degrees, contemplated a move out of Long Beach (gasp!), and had a nightmare so bad that I almost called someone to see if I could come over to snuggle. (Yes, I'm in my 20s.)

And I planned like a motherfucker. I made tentative research for a much-needed upcoming vacation (since, you know, I never get a chance to just kick back and have a beer or two), set up a visit to go see my little sweetheart Zhen Zhen, looked into local kendo classes, and finalized details for this Saturday's Day of Service.

If you live in LA and/or love LA, I'd encourage you to take part in this event (a .pdf flier and Word document with a list of service projects can be found here and here). Activities such as this are the kinds of things I like to see local government involved in: urging citizens to come together of their own free will and do positive things within their own community, with tangible results. (Though if they try to make me paint over graffiti my answer will be along the lines of "fuck no". Beige paint? NOT A BETTER CHOICE, thanks! I'm angling for either a mural painting project or helping out at the library book sale, though I'll probably get stuck weeding the grounds at Stoner Elementary [heh], and am so, so ok with that because I'm all about GIVING BACK! For a day, anyways!)

Hope to see you there.

From my 2007 Year in Review post: "Things I would like to do less of in 2008: Throw up"

Well. We're still in the first month of 2008 and this resolution is already on its way out.

DAMN.

I'm sure most of you saw things coming. You figured it wouldn't take long for me go out for a night of drinking, overdo it a bit, and lose my shit.

Well screw you, haters! (or, people that know me really well). It didn't go down like that.

I've been sick for about a week now, though it's mostly been just a cough and sniffles up to this point. Yesterday I was feeling completely fine, and only minorly annoying physical symptoms persisted, hinting that I was on the mend. Or so I thought. (Great trick, body! You totally had me fooled!)

Not wanting to tempt fate (having been up quite late the night before), last night I was wrapped up snug in bed by 10pm. And when I woke up this morning for work at the ungodly hour of 8am, I had orange juice for breakfast in lieu of my usual coffee at home/diet coke in the car combo. I know. I am so, so healthy.

I felt a bit off when I got to work, but I brushed it off as that feeling I always get when I'm forced to wake up before noon. But then around 10 I was sitting at my desk when I got that "OH FUCK" feeling, leaned over, and puked into the trash can for a solid minute.

Normally, my experiences with getting sick in this manner are the results of drinking, and after getting sick I feel almost completely better. Not so this time, as this was the result of actual germs and whatnot.

Though I certainly felt like crap (hi, fever! There you are!) I didn't want to leave work as we were already short-staffed, and my workload on a Saturday is pretty much something that I can handle in my sleep. Driving home would actually have been more trouble than staying at work and working.

So I took an hour-long nap on my lunch break, drank some Gatorade (the purple kind, because if I was going to get sick again I at least wanted it to look pretty - and they say women aren't logical creatures), and am now feeling much, much better. (Being light-headed is the ultimate cheap high, did you know?)

So let this be a lesson to you all. Go out, party too much, and you may get sick. Stay in, go to bed early, drink juice, and you may get sick anyways.

I sure hope the decision there is an easy one, people.

***

I apologize for just writing an entire post about vomiting. This will not be a trend (I hope). However, if it grossed you out at all you should probably not read whatever I write next weekend. Just a head's up, because I love you all.

***

It just about brings tears to my eyes to type this, but I got soundly beaten in table hockey, AGAIN. This is not ok. This throws the relationship dynamics all out of whack (the boyfriend was the one handing out the beatings). There are just some things that I need to be better at in relationships (arguing, throwing things, storming out, being the taker) and TABLE HOCKEY IS ONE OF THEM.

Another such thing? Drinking contests. It is back on. This Thursday. (Which should sufficiently explain the "don't read this site next weekend if puking grosses you out" disclaimer made earlier.)

I would like to not get totally obliterated on Thursday (remember the last time I said that? Didn't go over so well! Maybe this time will be different? I sure hope so!), so I'm employing the high, high heels test: I am going to wear the highest heels I can find, and when I fall off of them, it's time to stop drinking. BUT NOT UNTIL THEN.

Should be a lovely night.

***

And now I'm leaving work to go home and nap. And then go out. Because if I'm going to get sick anyways, I might earn it the fun way, by drinking my weight in whiskey.

Plus, whiskey kills germs!

Cheers.

Despite my fierce declaration that I would stay in last night (wait, who guessed it?), I did not. Strong forces were at work (so, uh, a friend called) and propelled me out. It hardly counts though, as I was home in bed by 1am.

Tonight, however, should be a proper late night out. I'll stay up until the sun rises, if that's what it takes for me to reclaim my title as BEST TABLE HOCKEY PLAYER THAT EVER LIVED. Or, you know, maybe just one that doesn't suck as bad as I did last time. That would be fine, too.

Cheers.

I haven't posted much lately since I occasionally participate in this thing called LIFE which tends to get in the way. And last weekend I caught my death (or, a cold) which means that I have spent about 108,374 hours in bed since then. Also last weekend, I got a boyfriend.

(I'm not going to make a joke here about how many more hours I have spent in bed because of that development, because that would just make the whole thing seem one-dimensional and it's not; it's new and nice and sweet.)

(Give it a couple months, though.)

It would seem counterintuitive, but having these two at the same time, a cold and a boyfriend, has been totally fucking awesome. Rub my back because you like me and have to do nice things for me in order for me to like you back, all while I doze in a wine- and NyQuil- induced haze? Then let me sleep in all day and ask me what I want for breakfast (knowing better than to call it lunch even though it's 1pm)? Text me periodically throughout my workday to see if I'm feeling better? Ok!

Apparently some other people saw this coming, this whole boyfriend thing, but I did not, not really. Or at least, not this soon. I did plenty to keep this from happening in the passive-aggressive way I am so good at. And for good measure, in some aggressive-aggressive ways, too, which I also excel at. Consider this line, from an earlier post:

"The [drinking] contest was actually up in the air for a bit because the only other competitor is someone whom I haven't yet thrown up in front of, or tried to hit (with a closed fist, anyways) and I would kind of like to keep it that way."

Um. Well. That competitor I referred to was him. And in the time since I wrote that (less than a month ago) I've managed to do BOTH of those things. In the same night, even. Not my finest moment, certainly. (Though I did tell the story to a small group of close friends I call THE INTERNET, because hey, you've got to be able to laugh at yourself, right?)

And still, this guy came back for more. Which set off alarm bells shouting INSANE! INSANE! And made me think, hey, I can work with this.

So all joking aside (much of which will be forthcoming, I am sure) don't believe for a second that I'm not happy with what happened.

I am.

***

As could easily have been predicted, Thursday's movie night did not go off quite as planned. No, instead it became Thursday bar night, or as it is usually known, Thursday night.

Only Jamie and I, champs that we are, arrived early enough to get in some drinks before the movie. Of course, this was also our downfall, as it meant that we drank enough to lose track of time. Oops.

Once I looked at the clock and realized that I would have to down my drink, run to the theater, and still run the risk of missing previews (no! not the previews!) I made an executive decision to just keep drinking.

Surprised, aren't you?

I got another chance to see Sweeney Todd later in the weekend, though, and thank goodness for that. There's a scene where Alan Rickman (swoon) is creepily singing about his young ward, with whom I happen to share a name. Meaning, I can totally close my eyes, and its almost like he's CREEPILY SINGING TO ME. (I'm downloading that shit so fast you wouldn't fucking believe it, and I'm not even ashamed to admit it. Because Alan Rickman is a total badass and if he cooed your name in his deep, sexy man-voice you would be all aquiver, too. Don't lie.)

***

Lastly, a note on the sickness that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, before all the rambling came in. Being a generally unhealthy person who only drinks water that comes from the ice in my glass of whiskey or from beer AND who regularly interacts with herds of young children, I probably get sick more than is normal.

Generally I just get a bit of a cold which lasts a day, two at most, and is little more than an annoyance.

But this shit? This deep-in-my-bones, hiding-out-in-my-lungs sickness (I'm not even a smoker - where's the justice?!) is putting a dent in my social life, and I WILL NOT HAVE THAT SHIT. Last night two friends made numerous phone calls to prompt me to out, but I didn't find this out until after midnight, when I awoke completely rested and ready to face the day because I had FALLEN ASLEEP.

WHILE READING.

IN BED.

AT 7 PM.

I am not ok with this.

So sickness: tonight is your last night. I am going straight home after work tonight. And staying in. (!!!) I am going to drink orange juice (with vodka). I am going to take vitamins (with vodka). I am going to dive headfirst into a bubble bath with a temperature similar to lava (well, nothing new about this) and sleep for double-digit hours (or this).

I am going to get better, and I am going to do it tonight. I haven't gone out since Sunday night, and then it was for a single beer and I was home by midnight, and according to the rules of partying THAT DOES NOT EVEN COUNT.

So I would like to feel better, by this time tomorrow, because I would really like to go out soon, please.

***

All of that business aside, I promise to not get all soft and sweet on you guys now that I regularly get to cuddle and shit with someone. I certainly won't post cutesy crap like this:

Or this:

(Panda cub Zhen Zhen at the San Deigo Zoo.)

Nope. Won't happen.

From Jezebel.com:

"A heartbroken pooch named Oscar was so bereft over the death of his best friend, a cat named Arthur, that he went out in the backyard, dug up Arthur's remains, and moved the kitty corpse back into the house and into his doggy bed. Arthur has since been reburied and Oscar's owners got him a new feline to play with. A live one, that is."

(Full story here.)

If that doesn't get you all misty, then you're dead inside. And probably one of my friends.

***

Starting tonight I'm off for a 3-day weekend, which I'll be kicking off with one of my favorite activities: getting drinks and going to the movies. (A huge departure from my other favorite activity of just getting drinks.)

Up for tonight: Sweeney Todd + Black Death + Bloody Brain

Big into theme drinking? YES I AM. Though usually the only coherent theme for a night out drinking is "things that will fuck me up", I've been known to get creative with alcohol a time or two in the past. For Comic Con last year I put together an informational binder (shut up, it's the librarian in me; I can't help it) that listed all of the different panels and their times, autograph schedules, and vendor maps. More importantly, the binder also included the recipes for drinks like the Batman, Green Lantern, Incredible Hulk, Kryptonite, Mr. Freeze, Penguin, and Poison Ivy.

I like that even my (theme) drinking tastes reveal that I'm a DC girl. As opposed to my usual drinking tastes, which just reveal that I'm a lush.

Cheers!

Went out with the ladies in full force. Our motto for 2008: There's no crying in drinking!

Made good on one of my resolutions.

Was promised coffee deliveries at work by someone whom we shall call GOD.

Drank vodka, whiskey, rum, beer, wine, and a shot that tasted a bit like NyQuil.

Got my ass handed to me in table hockey. The world, it has stopped making sense.

Received 6 phone calls, one voice mail, and one text from a person who wanted to let me know that they no longer want to talk to me. Way to get your point across.

Kicked someone in the head; got punched in the ribs. (For every action...)

Watched as a painting of me, for me, got hurled out of a second story window by its creator. Heard the glass shatter on the driveway below. Lost my shit.

Settled comfortably into what I'm only somewhat joking is insanity and waited to see, yet again, if it would scare someone away. I keep trying! (My actions are almost too mature sometimes.)

Was momentarily mistaken for a junkie.

Went to bed.

***

I've decided that Into My Arms is one of the most beautifully written love songs ever. There's something hopeful and realistically optimistic about it, and I could use some of those feelings right about now.

To add to the list below of things I would like to do less of in 2008, or how about NOT AT ALL EVER:

run over animals.

I am not even kidding when I say that I almost had a fucking breakdown (which, for me, means that I almost cried) when I ran over an animal for the first time in my life on Thursday night.

It's a little known fact about me (mostly because it's not really interesting and also because it invites mocking) that I cannot kill things. Not spiders, not ants, nothing. I'm big on the "catch it under a drinking glass and let it go outside all while doing The Icky Dance" move.

So you can imagine that it bothered me (uh, understatement) that I ended the life of one these on Thursday night:

It was unavoidable. There was a car right behind me, and one in the lane next to me. I couldn't slam on the brakes, or swerve. I could only look this guy in the eyes, plead with him to head back to the sidewalk, and feel like shit.

I don't care that opossums are disease carriers that are generally despised because they occasionally look like this:

I don't care that an opossum really has no business on fucking 7th street, for crying out loud, which is not some sleepy little one-lane road through a park or something. I just kept thinking of that line in the Modest Mouse song Cowboy Dan: "I didn't move to the city/ The city moved to me/ And I want out desperately".

You're choking back a sob right now, right?

You're not?

How about now?

No? STILL?

Whatever.

I was on my way to the bar when I ran over that poor little thing, and when I arrived my friends were already there to cheer me up. (By "friends" I do not mean "Jack", "Johnny", and "Jim", but sure, some of them helped, too.)

When I explained to them why I was on the verge of tears, they were quick to jump in with "that's nothing, I hit a raccoon" and "oh, even worse, one time I hit a rabbit!" and "I hate opossums, they're really mean!". They then proceeded to make me feel even better with multiple rounds of shots (even the friend that had the court-mandated Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at 9 the next morning).

I love my friends.

The night ended spectacularly, and many, many things happened that made me feel much, much better. (One of which was receiving a late Christmas present: a pair of gloves with 'love' and 'hate' across the knuckles, given in vein of the Murder City Devils song "Left Hand, Right Hand'. Because, if you don't know, I'm kind of a fan.)

The night was almost enough to get the sound of running over a small, furry animal, and thus ending its life, out of my mind. (I'm counting on a donation to the National Opossum Society to fully do the trick. Yes, I am serious.)

***

Tonight: a storm, an art show, and a sleepover. If throwing money away doesn't make me feel any better (it usually does!), I fully expect each of things to do so.

Cheers. (And pour some out for the little guy, please.)

2007 Year in Review
(Geez, what a pretentions title for what amounted to not a whole lot of interesting things. Sorry about that!)

Favorite Movies

• Hot Fuzz

I have a thing for Simon Pegg. Put him in a police uniform? There will be drool.


It was interesting to see a how creative the Brits could get with their violence, since guns were (mostly, until the end) not a factor. And boy, did they!

• Death Proof

For the Nova, the long car chase scene, and the ass-kicking ladies. (I would like to grow up to be Zoe Bell, pretty please.)


Noticeably absent? No Country for Old Men, which made pretty much every best of 2007 list EVER. Yes, I saw it. And I can't for the life of me understand why everyone has such a hard on for it.

Sure, it was good (though, as is always the case, the book was better) and I love emotionally distant/violent men as much as the next gal (and was especially fond of the whole Two Face/coin deal) but how the fuck am I supposed to be scared of Ray Romano's brother sporting a Dorothy Hamill haircut?





No. You do not scare me. Sorry. Just...no.

(And yes, I know that's not really Brad Garrett but sexy badass Javier Bardem, so you can go ahead and spare me the emails. Thanks.)

Favorite Books
(Not all published in 2007, but read in 2007.)

• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

I love it when first-time authors hit it out of the park. A book review for this title summarized it as touching upon "murder, insanity, feral twins, a ghost and a fire". What's not to love?

This book was made to be read at night, or when the weather is dreary. (What, none of you read 5+ books at a time so you can select the right one according to the day/time/your mood? Well, fuck you guys, then.)

• Suits Me by Diane Middlebrook

Still reading this one, which I touched on in an earlier entry here. Though the subject matter certainly makes for compelling reading, the author's writing style flows so naturally that it's hard to put this book down.
• Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan

Already in love with Vaughan from his work on Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, I finally got around to reading this. I don't know what it is about human nature that generally makes it easier to empathize with animals than with our fellow human beings, but Vaughan uses that to great effect in this story. The ending of this graphic novel fantasy (there are talking animals) actually shocked me, when in fact the reality on which it's loosely based should shock me a whole lot more than it does.
• Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

Yet another case of a first-time author just killing it. (Though this is the third book in the Twilight series, the first book was the author's debut novel.) Technically teen fiction, this book has been named to so many "Top" and "Best of" lists (for both adults and teens) that it has gained a wide audience.


I loved this book (and the entire series) which is all about mind reading, vampires and werewolves, with a ton of that teen staple: tortured romance.

(Shut up, guys. Reading teen fiction is part of my job, meaning that I have to do it.)

...

(Whatever. Fuck you guys. Again.)

There's probably like 348,487,237 books that I'm forgetting, but my attention span is short, so I'm moving on.

Favorite Songs
(Again, not produced in 2007, but listened to in 2007. Ugh. Why do I even try with these things...)

• Road to Peace by Tom Waits

I love pretty much anything that this man does, but this song just about makes me cry every single time I hear it, and since my family has seen me cry like three times in my life, that's saying something. If the lines "And the last thing that he said on earth is "God is great and God is good"/And he blew them all to kingdom come upon the road to peace" doesn't get to you, then you are made of stone. Stone!
• Eternal Love by The Sheiks

I just want to lay in bed, listen to this song on repeat, and get high. (Which is something -smoking pot- that I haven't done in ages. And I'm not just saying that for the coworkers that read this site. Really. I just don't like smoking, in general. But what I described above sounds like an absolutely perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon, so I might just be willing to make some sacrifices. Saint-like, you say? Oh, I know.)
• Lunatic by The Bruisers

I don't know how they got a Billy Joel cover to rock this hard, but they did. The lyric "you might enjoy some madness for awhile" is so totally my new pick-up line. (The old one? "Get the fuck away from me. No, I mean it. Go. Die for all I care. Wait, where are you going? Get back here!" Worked. Like. A. Charm.)


I just used the phrase "rock this hard", and for that I am sorry. I'm clearly running out of steam on this topic, because I could go on forever and ever about all of the lovely music out there, and how much I really, really love it all, and the thought of how long it would take to type all of that is overwhelming. So I'll wrap this up, before I freeze up, and mention the words "licks" or "chops". (shudder)

…so I'll just say that I also like a lot of the songs listed here.

Favorite Drink

• Jamesons 18yr. old

I received a bottle as a birthday present, or as I like to call it: The Best Birthday Present That Ever Was.
• Honorable mentions: beer and wine

Two years ago, I hardly enjoyed these two. Now, they pretty much make up a food group in my diet. This is good, as they tend to foster a tender, and very gentle feeling of drunkenness unlike the "brick wall" feeling of whiskey. This is bad, as I then assume that I can drink more of them, or more of other things with them. And that little problem will be touched on, shortly.

Things I would like to do more of in 2008

• Say tired lines that I still find really, really funny

I don't know about you guys, but I don't think the phrase "that's what (s)he said" gets said quite enough. I plan to take care of that. You're welcome!
• Engage in fisticuffs (Please do not confuse with the similar term from Chasing Amy)

I hit someone in the face last Friday night. While most of the night is a complete blank in my memory, my fist connecting with their face is one of the very few things I remember. (THANK YOU, BRAIN!)


I'm quite positive that I didn't inflict any real damage, or even pain for that matter (I was having trouble standing; how hard could I have possibly hit?) so I don't feel too bad about finding the whole thing just a little bit hillarious.

(It wasn't a fight, or at least I wasn't scrapping with someone for reals. I was just being a drunk crazy bitch. Surprised?)

So I would kind of like for 2008 to be the Year of the Fist Fight.

This brings up several problems, however. I think 99% of fights are stupid. There's pretty much no reason for a mature adult to raise their fists.

But then, I've never claimed to be mature.

Already pro at egging houses, hopping fences, and the like, I see fist fights as a logical next step in the "this seems like a good idea when drunk but someone is going to end up hurt and the fun will stop RIGHT THEN" chain.

But since I hit like a girl, and get drunk enough to not be able to feel in some parts of my body (it's how I wear the heels) I'm not too worried about the "fun stopping" part.

Yet.

Things I would like to do less of in 2008

• Throw up

It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's a fucking event. There was that one time earlier in the year during spring break, which was pretty bad. But it's not even close to what happened last week.


(Get ready to love me a little less after reading this.)

(Don't say I didn't warn you.)

(Ready?)

After drinking a bottle of wine with dinner and then deciding it was a super! good! idea! to hit the bars for 3+ hours, I woke up early, early Saturday morning. Why did I wake up early? Because I was THROWING UP. In SOMEONE ELSE'S BED. While they were SLEEPING NEXT TO ME. (Though they woke up pretty quickly after that. Couldn't just be a heavy sleeper, could they?)

I mean, even I have to take a step back and shake my head. New low? OH YEAH. But it's one of those things that I find so completely and totally mortifying that I just have to laugh about it and TELL EVERYONE, like that somehow brings it back around all the way to being ok.

(Please love me, still.)

Biggest changes in 2007

• Moved out of Orange County (praise the lord) and back to Long Beach
• Left my boyfriend of over 3 years
• Bought a new car


I am beginning to feel as emotional about the second one as I do the third one. This isn't a good thing or a bad thing, just a thing.

In 2008, I will (hopefully)

• Move

Preferably to a place all by myself (did it for 2 years and loved it - I'm big on walking around naked, or, just being too lazy to put on clothes), though as I like to buy these things called shoes, that may not be possible.


A couple of friends have offered me rooms at their places, though I can't for the life of me imagine why. (Both of them know about the fist fighting and puking, too. They're fucking crazy, my friends.) However, conventional wisdom dictates that moving in with a friend is the quickest way to kill the relationship. Still, the significantly lower rent is attractive.

So, we'll see.

• Graduate

Cross your fingers, people. No, seriously. DO IT.
• Get a promotion or switch jobs

Decisions, decisions. Perhaps I should start thinking about this one...
• Not throw up

Or maybe just not at a guy's house, as this is where the last two incidences occurred. And these guys weren't friends (if you know what I'm saying, and I think you do, because I'm not really being subtle here) which made it especially embarrassing.


Awesome date? Yes, I SO AM.

***

So there you go. I resolve to puke less, and to annoy people and hit them more. Possibly while living with them.

Should be a really great year!

(Though this shit I'm hearing about Huckabee and the Iowa caucus [haha, caucus] does not bode well AT ALL.)

I'm alive! Though not for lack of trying!

Although I avoided getting sick on Christmas as is the usual tradition (unless you count a hangover - I definitely had one of those) I didn’t actually get sick until New Year’s Day, when I woke up with a sore throat. Which turned into a runny nose. Which turned into HURTING EVERYWHERE.

A recap of the 5 days off in which I did much that I should not have, as well as some fancy-schmancy (actually, not at all; that was a total lie) year in review post may be up later this evening.

Or later this week. I’m sick. Deal.

(Love you guys. Happy New Year!)