Dumb Ass In The Ghetto

So, I had another post for today already written and ready to go. But then I did something really stupid, and in the name of you laughing at me I'll post that instead.

This morning I went to the Chiropractor again. This time it hurt a little bit, but it put my sublexation back in place and it really did the trick. I can now turn my head without any pulling in my shoulder blade. I'm a little sore, but it'll go away soon. One more follow up should do it, unless I continue to be stressed out at work.

In any case, I got up, threw on some jeans and a sweatshirt, put my hair in a ponytail and went on my way...or tried. I couldn't for the life of me find my keys. I never lose my keys. Never.

That's weird. Where could they be? My house is only 900 square feet. They can't be far...no where.

I did find them though:

Yup. That is my front door. And those are my keys. And that is where they slept. All night. Nice, huh? Luckily my car was still outside when I looked. That could have been bad. Very bad.

The way my door is positioned to the road is such that no one could really see the keys-except for Scary Boo. And he wouldn't chance having to actually talk to someone, of that I'm sure.

So, my peeps-you're I'm lucky I'm still alive.

Go ahead. You can laugh at me.

Oh. And I don't really live in the ghetto.

Uncertain

Have you ever needed to make a decision that you knew you had to make but have been putting off because you really don’t want to make it? And knowing you have to make it now makes you feel sad, and sick and nervous, and you second guess actually making the decision?

That’s where I am today. I have to make a decision about something very important that I’ve been thinking about for a little while now, and now that it’s time to make it I’m questioning whether or not it’s the right time or if I should just stick it out and see what happens.

Even though in the long run I think I know it will be best for me to commit to this decision, I just do not know. And this is where I falter.

How do you decide if what you think is best really is? How do you know whether to follow your heart or you logic? Which is more important? When does being patient and strong really get its reward?

Does it ever? It never really has in my life. And now’s the time I need some reassurance that now is the time.

Get Crackin

I recently went back to the chiropractor. Partly because I got one of those, "We miss you" cards letting me know it was time for an adjustment, but also because my back and neck have started hurting again. My migranes also started sneaking up on me, which is truly what pushed me over the edge.

The first time I went to the chiropractor, besides falling madly in love with the ever hot Dr. Chris, I was very nervous. I don't know why-perhaps it was knowing someone was going to take my neck and basically snap it. All of those nasty Jean Claude movies flashed through my mind. Luckily, adding to his charm, Dr. Chris was very understanding and patient and talked me through everything he did.

Immediately after my first adjustment I felt better. I literally felt the nerves in my neck and back start pulsing again-I felt the blood rush back to where it belonged. Within a week of intense treatment, my headaches were gone, and it no longer felt like someone was sticking a knife in my shoulder blade.

Well, it's coming back. And so I made an appointment.

Immediately after the 2 procedures (they treat my shoulder blade and my neck) I realized that I am going about my life in the wrong way.

From now on, I only talk to chiropractors. Really. They are the most wonderful people in the world. They are magic and have powers beyond anything I've ever experienced. If you've never gone, I highly recommend it. They treat everything from headaches and ear aches to arthritis and insomnia. Amazing...just amazing.

Everyone, listen up. Go get cracked.

House Broken: Part 12

“Hello?”

“I just talked to the courthouse. Why didn’t you file our papers? This is very important and you didn't file them.”

“I most certainly did. They were filed the day after you were served.”

“They don’t have them. We can’t keep prolonging this. Do you realize what this means? We won’t be divorced for another 6 months if we don’t get this straightened out. How could you do this? I knew I should have taken care of it myself.”

He was always like that-making it seem like everything was her fault, and that he smarter. He always took other people’s sides, but never hers. She knew she should not expect support now, but even still, it stung.

“I did file them. I will call them. We will be divorced. Everything will be fine.” She spoke in an even, clipped tone, as if she were speaking to a child. Sometimes she felt this was the only way to get to him.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m in idiot. YOU'RE the one who made the mistake!”

A tiny smirk appeared on her face. “It gets him every time” she thought.

“Ok. I’m not doing this. I’m at work. I’ll go to the courthouse on my lunch break and I’ll call you back when I’m done. Bye!”

And with that, she hung up. She was sure she would hear more about the fact that she hung up on him later, but at this point, she did not care.

Why was he so bossy? And who did he think he was, calling her up while she was at work just to yell at her about a mistake that she did not make. She did file the papers.

“I did, right? What if I gave them to the wrong people? What if I didn’t sign them right. Oh God. This sucks. Why does he always make me second guess what I do?” She was panicking.

Although she originally did not want the divorce, now that it had been discovered that he had a mistress, she needed it to be over as soon as possible. She was not sure how she was going to get through, or even if she could, but she was anxious to give it a try.

After a few minutes of tiding up her desk, she pushed her chair back and walked into her boss’s office.

“I have to leave for an hour or so. The court is claiming they don’t have my divorce papers on file, and we’re scheduled to be in court in 3 weeks.”

“Ok…I’m sure you can just call them though, right? You don’t have to go down there.” He was trying to tell her that he did not want her gone from the office for that long.

“No, I have to go down in person. I want to make sure that I see the paperwork and that everything is ok. It needs to be done. I’m going to leave now.” Her voice was forceful, letting him know that this was not an optional request.

“Ok. Hurry back.”

“I will. Thanks.” She grabbed her purse and keys and ran out of the office.

It was a warm, sunny day in June. The sun was high and there were hardly any clouds in the sky. “A great day to go to court.” She thought to herself and laughed.

“Why did this happen?” and her conversation with God began.

“I know that I’m not the most devout person in the world, and that I have done things that you aren’t proud of, and I could live my life in a better way-but why me? Why did I have to meet him and fall in love and go through all of this? Why did you put me with him and him with me? Why did you give him a depression that crippled our lives and then heal him only to take him away again? Why God? Why is this my life? Why don’t I deserve to be happy? Can’t You grant me happiness? That’s all I want God, that’s all…please help me.”

She was crying, her silent prayer echoing in her head. As she arrived at the courthouse, she looked over at the harbor across the street. Though it had not rained, she saw a rainbow.

Clear, and strong, and vibrant.

And she knew she would be ok.

Have Your Cake...

I came home from Barnes and Noble last night with my books double bagged. You wanna know why?

I bought porn. Ok, not porn, but surely it was swanky enough for them to double bag my stuff.

I really don't even know why I went to Barnes and Noble in the first place. Thanks to DinaLove, I have billions of fantastic books to keep me happy for months. But, like always, I found myself standing in the middle of the store, drunk with the "new book" smell that only a select few REALLY appreciate. I must've been pulled in by an invisible force, guiding me to it's evil center.

And, when in BaN, I typically wander aimlessly for about half an hour, peaking around shelves and investigating who's in what section, and what are they looking at. I usually find that if I wander long enough, I will either:

A. Be interrupted by my BaN MaN or
B. Be extremely shocked and delighted (simultaneously) to find a biker dude in the gardening section.

Today, perhaps I was the one doing the shocking.

So, there I was, wandering-knowing I didn't need any books, my head still reeling from trying to figure out how exactly I ended up in the bookstore. Again. With 16 new books to read, plus the 2 I'm currently reading.

Yet. I. Can't. Leave. Books. Pretty. Books. New. Shiny. Yummy. Must. Buy. Books.

I found the porn section and started flipping through the "1000 Ways To Please Your Man In Bed" books (or something like that).

Really officer, I don't know how I got there. I must've taken a wrong turn back at the gardening stack...

So, there I was, tucked in the corner of the store-browsing sexy titles, picture books and videos*, as a girl who was, in my opinion far too young to know what sex was, let alone be touching porn, hastily returned a book to the shelf right next to me. It was pretty-a red velvet cover, wrapped in clear plastic. Those of you who truly know me will not find it hard to understand why I immediately snatched it up. It's name:

A Piece of Cake

Incidentally, it claims to have the "Recipes for female sexual pleasure".

So, along with some other titles, I took the Cake book to my favorite chair and proceeded to read 1/2 of the book. Right there. In BaN. I also managed to read all of another book. It was an easy read. And I was very interested in the subject matter-see example above.

When I realized that I was reading the entire book, I decided to purchase it. One of the chapters suggested some additional reading-merely for research purposes-and who am I to stand in the way of research? So I purchased that as well. This, I believe, was the reason for the double bagging.

So, it's official. Though there are no pictures in the swanky book, I got double bagged. It's all downhill (or uphill depending on the way you look at it!) from here.

And also girls-I highly recommend taking that wrong turn at the gardening stack. Sometimes, it's good to be bad. (It says so right here on page 25....)

*There were 2 men sitting at Starbucks right next to me, watching every move I made. They seemed very interested in which books I was choosing. So-when I was leaving the section, I winked at them. One blushed, the other looked embarrassed. I, on the other hand, felt fantastic.

Toosdae ?'s

Hello there everyone. I hope you are all having a fantastic Toosdae! It's time to muster up all you've got in order to answer these questions. Can't wait to smile when I read your answers!!

1. Would you rather have to turn around 3 times before you sit down anywhere (like a dog) or have to do a little jig before going through a doorway?

2. What's the most obsessive compulsive thing you do in a normal day?

3. If you could chose to live in any TV sitcom house, what house would you pick?

1. Do a little jig. Jiggery is fun and amusing and I suspect it would make people giggle whenever I did it (which is a major bonus). Turning around in circles prior to sitting would not only be weird, but also would freak people out..."Does she have to pee...is she going crazy? I don't understand!" definitely the jig. (And I'm picturing YOU do it Pedro. Funny stuff!)

2. I have a small problem with like chapstick and hand lotion. I have to apply chapstick all of the time and if I run out I start to panic a little bit. And every time my hands get wet, I apply lotion right afterwards. Even as I am typing this and thinking about it, my lips feel dry and my hands are tingling.

3. The Growing Pains house. I liked the way there was a little sunroom off of the kitchen, an open living room with a stairway to the upstairs and the fact that it had a home office was pretty cool. I also liked the porch. My second choice would be Who's the Boss because I really liked the stone they had in the house.

Therapeutic Rant Session

1. Instead of yelling, "Mags, are you there?" when you are 2 feet from my cube, simply walk over and say hello. You will be received in a much warmer fashion, and I will want to stab your eyes out with my letter opener in 5 minutes as opposed to only 1.

2. Try looking for something yourself. If you ask me where the legal paper is while you are practically standing on the box one more time, I'm going to punish you by giving you legal sized paper cuts all over your face. When you ask where the bandaids are, I'm going to laugh.

3. If you neglect to do your job, do not expect me to run to your rescue. I'm not the one who forgot to submit something. Why should I be the one to stress? HINT: You're not the most important person in the universe, and though you may think so, Adam didn't give up a rib so that I could be your slave.

4. Wash your hands. You touch things that I have to touch-'nough said.

5. If you tell me, "Mags, here's everything for today" and walk away-I have to believe that's the truth. But you'd better believe that when I walk over to the file and see that it's full and 15 customers missed out because of your stupidity-you'd also better believe I'm going to kick your ass.

6. I know. It was warm out today. I know. It was warm out today. I know. I was warm out today. I know. It was warm out today. I know it was warm out today. I know. It was warm out today. Annoying isn't it?

7. Here's the thing. Goggles and rain gear are not the standard uniform in our office. Fucking chew with your mouth closed and DO NOT TALK TO ME UNTIL YOU SWALLOW!

8. I'm not trying to take your job. I'm trying to take the open one. It's part time, nights, you work full time, days. There's no need to spit daggers.

9. It should be illegal to charge $2.50 per gallon of oil. It should also be illegal to let a customer believe that they still have their "locked in" rate so they take your delivery instead of another companies. $528 to heat a 918 sq. foot home is ridiculous. Especially when it's just me.

10. I love a parade.

Thank you for listening. I feel so much better already! (And I saved $100/hr. Too bad I can't go buy shoes)

Aroma Therapy

Ok. I admit it. I'm a smell freak. I'm a little on the abnormal side when it comes to how things smell. I've been knowing to lean in and sniff a stranger and exclaim, "Mmmm...you smell fantastic!" Yeah. It's true. Believe it or not, it usually makes them laugh and they walk away with a giant smile.

Who cares if they're laughing AT me...I got 'em to smile AND I got a whiff of their fabulous smell. Double bonus for Mags.

And just the fact that this is like, the 50th post I've written on smells should tell ya something. Yeah. I've got a problem.

I love the clean, crisp smell of sheets-the kind that smell faintly of bleach and detergent with a hint of wood from the dresser it's been stored in. That smell takes my right back to sleeping at my Nana's house when I was little. It conjures up memories of tasty pies, brownies and Sunday crumb buns from the bakery.

The smell of honeysuckle growing nearby reminds me of the summer evenings when my high school love and I would walk the track for hours, talking about how we could convince my parents to let me go to the same school as him so we could finally be together all of the time. I can hear the crickets softly chirping in the background and the soft crushing sound our sneakers made on the gravel...our footsteps, and heartbeats, in unison.

When I smell the smoke of a wood burning stove, I am instantly taken back to the hours upon hours spent playing in my cousins basement, making up dances to songs we'd sing ourselves-convinced that we'd one day be discovered and quickly become our small town's local hero's. Though our songs have stopped and we no longer dance together, the stove still burns. I wonder if she remembers like I do.

I love the smell of Sharpie Markers. I smell them. Every time I open one. And I use them everyday at work. Everyday. They remind me of my first art class in college and too much time spent with the door closed in my dorm room while my roommate and I burned through 2 or 3 boxes at a time doing our projects. It makes me giggle when I think about how silly we acted at dinner one night...she went in her slippers-accidentally.

Unlike the majority of people, I like the smell of skunks. It reminds me of the time my Papa and I were watching an electrical storm from his kitchen, looking through the sliding glass doors and marveling at how pretty the lightening was. It wasn't scary because he was with me, and I got to really see a storm as beauty. Looking for the skunk reference? One ran across the yard and Papa went out to see if it made it. It did, but left its pungent smell behind. Papa laughed his crazy laugh and came back inside.

As I am sure you have guessed, I could go on and on for quite some time about what smells I love and what they remind me of. I could also elaborate on which smells I detest and why. Just as music fills your ears and heart with joy, so can a smell; just as words touch you deeply, a smell can also affect you and move you to tears.

So go ahead...sniff a stranger. It might make 'em smile! (Course, you might also get punched...)

Paper Hell

It's extremely hard to stay organized when I get this:

in the mail every weekend. WTF? Do you know that almost NONE of that mail is legit? It's all credit card applications, mortgage offers and basically just CRAP. AND some of it is for my ex-husband-who NEVER lived in the house-never had his name anywhere-AND I haven't had his last name in over 2 years.

I hate paperwork. I hate paying bills and I hate filing. Luckily, I can just throw all of that in the garbage and it'll be out of my hair. Yuck.