A.S.S--Anglo Saxon Sex

Ok, so I want to make a little extra cash since everything in my life is costing way too much or is starting to break down and cost too much. I went today to a local career college on an interview for an adjunct composition teacher. The interview went well, as did the teaching presentation, but the questions they asked were just odd.

Dean: So how comfortable are you with the Anglo Saxon 4 letter word for sex?

Me: [quizzical look, resisting the urge to say, "You mean FUCK?"] Um, in what capacity?

Dean: Well, these students get off work in their work boots with mud all over their shoes, and most likely they'll sit in the back of your class uttering that word like it's appropriate for formal dinner conversation.

Me: I've taught in inner city schools and in Pasadena; I'm not really bothered by foul language. [resisting the urge to say, "I say FUCK all the time. It's like second nature, especially in formal dinner conversation."]

**Question 2**

Dean: So the syllabus is written out for you already but there's a little room for creativity within the strict barriers. Are you ok with that?

Me: [ after naming some examples of creative ideas I've had in the classroom] So would I be able to use blogs in lieu of normal classroom journals?

Dean: Where would you get this--blog--you speak of?

Me: [startled again since I am applying for a job at a fucking technical school] Um, they're out there everywhere. Blogger. Live Journal.

Dean: I've never heard of this--Blogger--you speak of [he's sounding way like Captain Kirk right now]. How do you do it?

Me: [brief intro to blogging]

Dean: Hmm. That sounds really nice. I bet the students would really like that. Just make sure they don't write anything derogatory about the school online. One time this student had a sex website going that was dedicated to the school. The board didn't like that much.

Me: yes, I'll add that to my syllabus

**Situation 3--the teaching presentation**

I did a presentation on freewriting, where I passed out pictures and asked the two interviewers to write about what they see, feel, think about the picture without stopping until I tell them to stop.

Dean's response to his choice of a classic black stiletto with clippings of blond hair all around it: This picture is totally cool. I can totally see the students picking this one. It's like a midget crossdresser.

Me: [stunned silence]

Yeah, so so weird.

Lubbock or Leave It?

Ok, so I got accepted into Texas Tech's family studies doctoral program. Lifelong dream--phd.

And then there's lubbock. Home of bad weather, idiot rednecks, and water badminton. It is also home to cops and apartment residents with issues, and open air preachers.

You Tube has some other wonderful footage of goose hunting in Lubbock (I'll spare you) and some important political footage.

It's dry, too, of course, but you can go outside the city limits to the strip and get some liquor if you want to. Here's the weirdest part: you can consume alcohol in Lubbock at a restaurant (if you join a membership) but you can't buy it anywhere; however, outside the city limits, in the county, you can buy alcohol but you can't consume it. ????

Still, some people have fun in Lubbock, so maybe there's hope.

What do you think, gentle readers? Do I have what it takes to withstand Lubbock?

Post turkey day meme

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? I haven't looked yet.
2. What’s a word that rhymes with “DOOR?” Whore
3. Favorite planet? Saturn
4. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone? my apt front gate. Sad, that means someone came to see me, and I wasn't there.
5. What shirt are you wearing? a pooh pj tank
6. Name the brand of the shoes you’re currently wearing? I try not to wear shoes
7. book closest (in proximity) to you? Pencil Dancing
8. What does your watch look like? I love my watch. It's an Ironman. Purple. Does intervals, has a timer, chrono, and 3 alarms. It's big and bulky, and I wear it even with formalwear (just in case I need to time a sprint in heels)
9. What were you doing at midnight last night? logic problems
10. What did your last text message you received on your cell say? Call me sometime today
11. Pick up the first pen you see. What does it look like? It's a Darth Vader lego pen.
12. What's a word that you say a lot? 2 words. Bite me.
13. What is the last type of Thanksgiving food you ate? fruit salad
14. Your worst enemy? perfectionism
15. What is your current desktop picture? bamboo forest
16. What was the last thing you said to someone? Cosette
(my cat), I know you are hiding in the bathtub. Mama doesn't want to play hide and seek right now.
17. Current ringtone? Happy Birthday to you.
18. The last song you listened to? "Knock on Wood"
19. What time of day were you born? mid day
20. What color are your sheets currently? blue and green plaid
21. Look at the closest window. What's going on outside? absolutely nothing
22. What should you be doing besides writing this meme? unpacking (I still haven't unpacked boxes)
23. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it? Crap, I don't know. Can you still buy stamps? ;o)
24. Can you change the oil on a car? I can. Do I? No, that's what other people are for.
25. Your first love's name? Dax
26. The last time you dressed fancy, what did you wear and why did you dress fancy? Fancy? It's a funny word, fancy. Anyway, um, it was new years. I wore my sexy spanish harlot dress. After all my running, I think I'd look better in it now, though. Maybe I should wear it today to clean house with my cats.
27. Does anything hurt on your body right now? Oh, my glutes!
28. Last alcoholic beverage? red wine
29. Final thought? yeah, why does this meme end at 29?

Turkey Day Review

This year was the year of no turkey for me. I actually don't like turkey but do the obligatory taste every Tday. Yesterday, I just bypassed it. I don't get the marketing for Tday. Why have cute pictures and giant balloons of things that you are going to slaughter? Eating a turkey on Tday is like eating Santa Claus. I just can't do it. My decision was validated further from watching the news yesterday. A turkey wandered out of its farm and through the drive thru at a local donut store. The workers were feeding it donut holes. I just think that's too cute.

Made it through family time, and now am enjoying time with my cats away from work and chaos. Ran (if you could call it that) the turkey trot yesterday. My ass is killing me. I ran 26.2 miles less than a month ago, and I barely hurt afterward. I run a 10k, and I'm walking like a penguin.

Shoved up a turkey's butt

You Are The Stuffing

You're complicated and complex, yet all your pieces fit together. People miss you if you're gone - but they're not sure why.

What Part of Thanksgiving Are You?

To my atheist friends

Yes, G, there is a God--one with a sense of humor and one on my side in office politics.

The CP was just told via email that his sermon echoed that of the Big O. Yes, he's been linked with Joel, and nothing could make him feel worse. Heh heh.

Karma may kick me in the ass for laughing at him, but damn, that was the funniest thing I've heard (or read via email) all day.

Actually Karma did kick me in the ass. Today I was locked in my friend's house because my key got stuck in the door. I won't get into the details or the physics of it, but yes, I was stranded.

Whole lotta crazy, the Houston edition

G just wrote about her last Denver outing, describing the girl that sat next to me last night at Puburbs (the other suburban bar that is not bizarro catbirds). Seriously, this girl had to be that girl's sister.

But let me begin with setting the stage. Puburbs (name changed to protect the drunken teachers who imbibe there every Friday) is actually a nice bar. We used to meet there once a month, and now it has somehow turned into once a week. The number of patrons has also increased from 3 to 13. Word gets around. This increased attendance poses a tiny problem: it is no longer our retreat away from crazy. Now the crazies come party with us.

Let's start with Crazy #1. C1 reminds me of this guy I used to work with who stalked me regularly--stalked me to the point that he actually sold his condo and moved a street away from me. I used to hide under my desk with the lights off at lunch, so that he thought I had left. Well, 2 weeks ago, I made the mistake of having an offhanded convo with C1, and now he thinks we should date. He brews his own beer, and I just wanted to hear about the process. Somehow, that translated into: "I want to have your babies and dress in a Princess Leia costume while you brew beer and write code." This was not my intent.

C1 is a starer. He is bald with dark eyebrows, somehow making the stares much more spine chilling. He'll ask you a question and then stare at you, and it's the kind of stare that lets you know that he is in no way listening to what you are saying. And he's persistent. If you walk to the other side of the table, he will follow you and pull up a chair, squeezing in next to you. It got so bad that when I went to the bathroom last night, my friend grabbed my purse and pulled up a chair next to her. HE SAT IN IT! Then when I came back, everyone was all squooshed up next to each other, and she says, Hey Kim, why don't you sit next to M________ (who will be C2). So I did.

C2 is actually a nice girl. She talks a lot and is much much more blunt than I could ever be. She reminds me of someone in a movie, but I can't place my finger on who it is. Ah yes, remember the sister in Notting Hill? She's the one who went into the loo with Julia Robert's character. Anyway, she reminds me of her but with long dark hair. So despite her frantic anxiety ridden chatter and frenetic movements, you kind of want to like her, but then she goes bat shit crazy on you.

I mentioned casually to my friend that we should invite another friend out with us sometime because I haven't seen her in awhile. Said friend is about to retire and was apparently C2's English teacher back in the day. That simple comment, not even made to C2, set her off on a tangent of unparalleled proportions. She gets so close to my face that her nose touches mine and screams, NOOOOOOOOOO. I keep backing my face up, and she keeps coming forward screaming. She goes off on this tirade about how my friend was the worst teacher in the world and singlehandedly caused all of the mental/emotional problems in her 25 year old life and was somehow inadvertently the reason she recklessly forgot to use a condom and had a kid "accidentally," thus ruining her life. This is all one sentence and is being screamed with unbelievable venom, plates flying everywhere, knives swirling around like a conductor's baton.
And I have to reiterate, that she's 1/2 inch from my face.

At this point, I can't even make sense out of her explosion, but she keeps going. Allegedly, my friend told her that she was an idiot and kicked her out of class repeatedly. Instead of going to the office, C2 went to the library everyday where she "expanded her repertoire of knowledge and became the well read person [she is] today." Then she starts rattling off an Alist of authors: Nietzsche, Machiavelli, Socrates, Plato...all of whom, she claims, made her who she is today. Oh, and she went to Rice. She was accepted into Harvard, but she went to Rice. People who are idiots don't get into Rice, she says. They don't get accepted into Harvard, she rants. OMG. She went on raving like a lunatic for a good 15 min. Finally, there was a reprieve, during which time I made the mistake of saying, "Sorry. didn't mean to bring up all of your scars." And she goes the fuck off again on another 15 min tirade. Unbelievable. This time it was about how she was a professional skateboarder before she accidentally had a kid and my friend probably wouldn't even believe in her for that either. Then she gets her red face closer to me and screams with furor: "I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE HER. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE HER. HAAAAAAAAAAAAATE HER." Her veins were vibrating in her head. I said, "Ok." and then she went of on #3. I didn't even listen to this one. I just grabbed my friend's Fin du Monde and poured some in my water glass (I wasn't drinking due to antibiotics) and sipped. Crazy bat shit nutso.

Then in one second, someone asks her an unrelated question allowing her to talk about how awesome she is, and she turns back into nice C2, the fluffy, featherheaded, lovable girl from Notting Hill. I felt thunderstruck.

So G, I felt your pain. Luckily I was not one on one with her.

freaky woodland creature part deux

Ok, I forgot that at 3 in the morning, there was this loud skittering across my roof and this screeching sound going by. It was either an opossum or a screaming banshee ghost. I'm not sure which. Perhaps it was Radford. I don't know. Creepy.

Freaky spiders

I've said before that I moved to the forest of abnormal sized creatures (yes, so big that they don't fit under my awning ass), and that includes arachnids. There are some seriously scary ass spiders around here, and they are getting a little too close for my comfort.

This morning, I put up my garage door, and from about 30 feet away, I could see the damned thing moving toward my car. It was a spider whose body alone was the size of a freakin' oreo, not to mention the 2 inch leg span. OMG. It was brown and cream. The thing is, from pictures, I can't tell if this spider was a brown recluse or a huntsman spider or what. It's just a big damn brown spider and creepy as hell. OMG. Ok apparently brown recluses are small. This one was HUGE!

I hate killing things, but the thing was blocking my car like a bouncer. I took a deep breath, and ran to the passenger side (it was in front of the rear driver side wheel) and crawled over to the driver's seat. I started my car, revved it, blew the horn (I'm thinking here that maybe the vibration would move the spider) and backed up. I can't see the spider anywhere, so I just hoped I didn't hit it. Well, I did. Smushed it. Her name was Violet. I sang Amazing Grace.

Then I get home tonight, verified that Violet was indeed dead, but Violet's lover was right there looking at her, angry that I had killed her partner! I pulled in, looked all over the ceiling and booked my ass out of my car as fast as possible. Tomorrow, I am wearing a hat, long sleeves, pants, and closed toed shoes. I don't care if it is 90 degrees outside. Ugh. Hell hath no fury like a widowed spider.

Older and Wiser

Things I learned from this year's Kimday:

1. When hanging out with people who are in the local brewing club, one should always check the labels on the beer. Some of them are 9% alcohol. Some are 11%.

2. After unknowingly consuming beer with high levels of alcohol, one should never try to pack for a trip the next day.

3. When packing after #1 and 2, if all one can think to pack is undies and a fez, don't worry. You will be able to buy electrical tape and a ukulele at your final destination. If you happen to forget this fact in a panic, just text Glinda. She'll remind you.

4. There is a distinct difference in drinking all night and having 4 hours of sleep when you are in college and doing the same in your thirties. This is why most people settle down and have kids. They have an excuse to avoid a horrible hangover.

5. No matter how much they claim to be conservative, San Diego is infinitely more moderate than anywhere in Texas.

6. Running in California feels like flying compared to humidity and pollutant saturated Houston.

7. Never tell people in an airport bar that it is your birthday. They will buy you shots and expect you to drink them. A good comeback, though, when they scream alcohol abuse as you walk away from 4 shots sitting on the bar--"No, I don't abuse alcohol. That's why I can walk away from it." (This is also another sign that you have reached your thirties).

8. Never work for a company that at your little bday party expects you to tell them 3 things about you that they don't know. I mean, wtf do you divulge? The best thing to do is make something up: "My aunt is a crossdresser who is addicted to chocolate covered ants." It shuts them up, and some more astute people enjoy the pun.

9. If you do work for a company like this and choose to divulge something true (like I did), make it something benign and then breathe a sigh of relief because they aren't listening to you anyway.

10. 33 year old boobs still have magnetism!

11. Kitty cats throw you the best parties ever.

12. Buon Appetito on Holcombe has phenomenal food.

13. Learning Chinese has made me start to forget Italian. This saddens me.

14. Always, always, always request a hard copy of an invitation to an event. Never rely on word of mouth. You'll end up wearing a slinky tank and black pants to a formal Shriner's military ball when you thought you were going to a club to hear her husband's band play.

15. If you leave your fez in San Diego, never fear. Someone will invite you to a Shriner's Ball for your birthday.

16. No one, NO ONE can give evil elevator stares like the wives of Shriners.

17. At some point in life, it's time to reassess footwear. At the Shriner's Ball, one woman fell and twisted her ankle dancing the fox trot. Another fell and cracked open her skull sending blood down her dress like Steven King's Carrie. And, well unrelated to footwear, another man had a heart attack, causing them to have to break open the $7400 defibrillator that was donated to the center. He lived, btw.

18. Apparently, if you see a shriner wearing big MC Hammer type pants and a little arabian outfit and a big scimitar, you are (women only, please) supposed to pull open his pants and drop in a few dollar bills for charity. I was requested to do so. I declined saying that I only carry plastic.

19. Never decline saying that you only carry plastic. Shriner, who is most always a politician running for office, will ask you to use plastic online to donate to his campaign.

20. The Volcano will not allow you in if your ID is expired or if you left it at home.

Mild Kimday for all. I was supposed to go out again last night, but my tonsils kept me down. As it is right now, I'm taking a break from sleeping. Back to sleep now.

Still the size of a Brazil Nut

So my tonsils never went down, despite the allergy medication from the doc. And I've actually felt pretty run down for a few weeks, keeping Kimday pretty low key. Yesterday, I came home from work and felt the urgent need to take a nap. Crashed on the bed, woke up 4 hours later, and couldn't swallow. It felt like someone was slicing my throat apart.

Knocked out with Nyquil and wriggled my way into a doctor's appointment (really, it is a pain in the ass to get into a doc office), and a throat scraping later, I've got tonsillitis. Yippee.

So the Kimday posts will have to wait because I am too zonked to write. I've got my Odawalla and my Zpack and my FuFu Bunny (all staples for an illness), and I'm crawling into bed as soon as I hit publish post.

Elektra

Ok remember when SBC/ATT told me years ago that I was like .0001% of the world's people who conduct electricity? She said it to me matter of factly like she was reading off of a script. This is because I sometimes blow up tvs and in SBC's case, I screwed up the telephone/dial up system, resulting in the need to completely turn off my electricity for an entire day and then power back up.

For the past few days, I've been setting off store alarms for no reason. I just walk in, and they beep like crazy.

But tonight, I was going on a run, and I saw two streetlamps out. They flickered and went out yesterday as I was running by. Today, though, I stopped running and looked at one of the lights. It started kind of glowing, and I kept focusing on it. Pretty soon, it lit up.

Next I ran up to the other light. It was completely dead--no flicker. I thought for sure that the other light was a coincidence, so if I could get this one to light, I was officially a mutant freak. I stared at it for awhile, focused myself, and it started glowing and eventually lit up completely.

Explain that people! Freaky as hell.

No Vault needed

A year ago I wrote this poem. Today I'm feeling just fine. I think I suffered more mental anguish yesterday than alcohol anguish. Seriously, though, the new Catbirds is evil, and I should not venture out there without my friends and chaperones. Darth was too busy at the real Catbirds, and 2shirts (in lame suburban fashion) was passing out candy at a coworker's house. Come on! You boys should be blocking me from the evils abounding in Clear Lake. It's an easy task now that Glinda, the greater evil, is not here to lure me into the "dorksided". ;-)

A shout out to Darth, though. He bought a new sith crib with hot tub and swanky pool. It's 1/2way between Clear Lake and the 'trose, so it might become the new new Catbirds for a future Kimday event.

Seriously, though, not all that excited about Halloween this year or Kimday. what the hell is wrong with me? I'm a curmudgeon.

omg

I was so blinded by my first naked woman boob, that I forgot to mention the other weird parts of the night.

Some man commented on my "cute Bambi ass." Apparently, he could see the woodland creatures huddling underneath it.

Another said it was sexy that I would come to a bar with a "natural look," codeword for homely.

Another said that he was a contortionist and would gladly hide in my carry on bag for my trip to Cali.

Another said he just wanted to be my friend and in the same breath asked if friendship to me meant that we would have sex.

Another argued (I use that term loosely bc I barely argued) with me over the exact age Jesus was when he died. He looked it up on his I phone.

And then, a man asked me to save his seat at the bar, and handed me a condom for collateral. It was purple.

Helloween

The suburbs are evil.

Spent the evening at the new catbirds. The bartender felt that I wasn't smiling enough for him, so he gave me shots (in martini glasses). Seriously, I paid for 1 drink all night. Crazy.

Costumes abounded. Beaker. Ms. Spider Piggy. Hulk Hogan. Carlos Colon. Rey Mysterio. Jack Sparrow. The Chicken Avenger. Eve. And then a bunch of tramps.

Girls were drunker than ever. Men were taking advantage. And I was the savior of all. For some unknown reason, girls in the bathroom kept asking me to help them take their pants off. I don't know what this was all about. I'm in line, waiting for a stall, and I hear this crying, and everyone ignores them. I finally walk up, and a girl needs me to unbuckle her belt. Then she asks me her name, and from then on, I kept getting calls: "Kim! Kim!" Every girl in town needed her damn pants unzipped. WTF? I would think I was the product of a lesbian toaster initiation, but they honestly couldn't unzip their pants.

Then one girl shoves her boob in my face, and I mean a naked boob! She makes me touch her (pulls my hand over) and says, "He thinks they are saggy. Are they saggy?" What do you do with that??? I just muttered something about not caring what some stupid man thinks about your boobs. they aren't for him anyway. blah blah blah, and then I slipped out of the bathroom.

Spent the next few moments with young military men who have been in prison.

Then I went home.

Catbirds ain't got nothin' on Bizzaro Catbirds.