Begging & Choosing

It has turned out to be a good week on the job front after all. I got a call yesterday about a job where my friend Rachel works (it was a phone screen and they'll call next week to set up an interview most likely), and 2 calls today from 2 different recruiters about the same exact job. Weird. The interview I have tomorrow is with recruiter #2, who seemed more on the ball than recruiter #1.

The job with Rachel's company is not anything close to what I'd like to be doing, but I will do if they offer and if nothing else pans out. Beggars cannot be choosers and I'm awfully damn close to begging at this point. Wouldn't that suck though? To go all this time looking and end up doing something totally awful and not remotely on my desired path? I may have no choice but to find out how bad it sucks.

Of course I was awesome on the phone so I'm sure my interview with recruiter #2 will be a shorty as he probably just wants to check me out and make sure I don't look like Mimi from the Drew Carey show.

I'll be sporting my new bob, my lucky tweed pants with my new Liz Claiborne jacket that I bought today at TJ Maxx for $20, brown pointy shoes and tasteful Tiffany loveknot necklace. My standard interviewing uniform. Oh, and a big giant smile..

Jeezus, I hope someone will hire me soon.

MDH has informed me that his vendor partnership is over as of January 1st. Meaning he will lose the office space he has been using at his client's headquarters. The office space he has been occupying for the last 3 and a half years. Meaning he will be working from home full time from then on. Meaning I will be kicked out of my cozy home office as it will become his cozy home office. Meaning I gotta get the hell out of here before then.

Here is a picture of what my office looked like summer before last when I was working from home in-between gigs on the road. Messy (sorry SRU - I'm a slob, but I did eventually pick up the phone bill from off the floor and file it where it belongs)! But what a nice view outside, eh? I'll miss it.

If You Can't Say Anything Nice

or mean,
or funny,
or inspiring,
then post a YouTube video of a band you worshipped when you were 20.

Throwing Muses - Garoux des Larmes, Live in London 1991


The video is of pretty poor quality, but I heard this song in my sleep and wore out the cassette. There weren't any other girl muscians making this kind of noise at the time and I thought they were amazing.

I saw them the year before in Columbus on the corner of High & Blake called Stache & Little Brothers.

Fiddler On the Meme

I was fairly bursting with fruit flavor, excited that I had been tagged by Aunt Dahlia for a meme. I love a good meme so I clicked right away on her blog to see what the meme was about. This was the other day when I was not in the office very much and was in kind of a hurry so I looked at the rules very quickly and then read the rest of her post - pretty cool! In my rush here is what I combed out of it:

List 5 classes you would like to take.

Awesome.

I spent the next two days dreaming up a fantasy curriculum with cool stuff like fiddle lessons with Alana from Hot Club of Cowtown, because I love her and I've always wanted to learn some bluegrass fiddlin', and a cultural anthropology class with a time travel machine so you could actually do a field study in another era. Did you know that I love time travel novels? Yep. I truly do.

Well now that I've had the time to sit down and actually read what the meme is about I have discovered that I was totally wrong and it's not a fantasy classroom meme at all. In fact it's quite the opposite and is called Real Life Curriculum. Yeah. I was way off base.

Here are the real rules:

The Rules are: Devise a list of 5-10 courses you would take to fix your life. It's more fun to be in classes with friends, so include one class from the person who tagged you that you'd also like to take. Tag 5.

My first problem is this: My life is not in need of fixing. It's pretty good just the way it is. My second problem is this: It's hard to maintain this continuous state of denial if people keep insisting on using the words "real" and "life" in the same sentence. Dammit.

I am overly familiar with what my faults are and have spent (wasted) countless hours/days/weeks/ contemplating my own foul humor, laziness, sluttiness, uselessness - well, you name it - I have beaten myself up over it to the point where long ago I (and my therapist) decided I was much happier if I just learned to live with and love myself as I am, warts and all.

My warts and I are living pretty harmoniously together these days.

Because I cannot resist the temptation of a meme, I will reluctantly accept this "Real Life" Curriculum challenge, but I won't like it. I will sit in the back of the class and roll my eyes, throw spitballs at the "A" students and probably have to sit out a couple of detentions for talking out of turn and using inappropriate language.

1. In light of my haste in reading the rules and subsequent misinterpretation of the meme the first class I should probably take will be called: Pay Attention You Fool - Reading Comprehension of Instructions & Fine Print. I have problems with this kind of shit all the time. Last month I got a letter from United Airlines stating that my frequent flyer miles were going to expire and I would lose them if I didn't redeem them right away or transfer them to someone elses account. I immediately freaked out and got them on the horn right away to bitch about this travesty of justice. My anger brewed with more intensity as I listened to a muzac version of Paint It Black and waited for the next available representative. "... over 50,000 miles and I'm just going to lose them because I haven't flown with them for 6 months? Tell me I've got to transfer... how dare you... spent half my goddamn life in yer lousy cramped seat, eating your tiny pretzels and for what..."

and so on...

Turns out my miles don't expire for another full year and I don't need to do anything and if I'd just read the entire form letter I might have known all that and avoided a temper tantrum and an embarrassing phone call. Hee, hee. Haw. Haw. Ahhh... Ahem.

2. That story is a good lead in for a class that should be very useful for me: Keep Your Lid On Psycho - How Not to Fly Off the Handle At the Drop of a Hat. I'm not nearly as bad about this as I used to be. I no longer honk my horn when I'm behind a bus in traffic, or leave my loaded grocery cart abandoned in the store because the lady in front of me at the cashier's decided to write a check, but there's always room for improvement, as witnessed by my bad behavior with United Airlines detailed above.

3. The longer I go without a job the more my agoraphobia is growing. So I think a class called: Get Out of the House Lady - Before You Become A Shut In & End Up Begging Dr. Phil for Help Via Webcam is in order. Seriously, it's getting kind of bad. I never want to go anywhere and it takes me a very long time to get ready to leave. I have to psych myself up for every outing and think of a hundred different reasons why I don't need to go out. The only reason I think it may not be agoraphobia is that I'm not afraid to go out as much as I am weary of going out.

4. The class I will include from the meme of the blogger (Aunt Dahlia) who tagged me will is called: How to Get Through an Entire Day Without Giving a Shit or Even Thinking for One Second About How You Look. I have a serious spending problem with beauty products. MDH refers too them as my "potions" and I posted a scary picture of the linen cabinet in our main bathroom a few months ago that was over flowing with lotions, creams, serums, gels, derived from all sorts of plant and animal extracts. If we had a house fire and all that stuff melts and fuses together I wouldn't be surprised if it creates some mutant superhero creature, named Beautitia, that smells like grapefruit and lavender, and saves the world from crows feet, unwanted facial hair and chapped lips.

5. I've always wanted to be one of those people that have always just known, recognized and been able to pursue their special purpose in life. I have no idea what I'm doing here and no idea what I should be doing. I enjoy my life very much, but I have always wished I had a passion for something. Or at least a thing that I could say - that's what I want to do. A career revelation, if you will. I like to crack jokes, cook and play video games but that doesn't look great in the "Career Objective" section of a resume, so I think I would like to take a class called: Figure Out What You Are Passionate About & Find a Way To Make Money Doing It.

Well, that's my meme. I'm a rule breaker at heart so even though I'm supposed to tag 5, I choose to only tag one person and that person is The Man Who Knew Too Much. I choose him because I think he is funny as hell, I read his blog every day (or whenever he has a new post) and I have never known him to do a meme. Maybe he doesn't do memes, but I hope he will take me up on this challenge anyway. (It's totally cool if you choose not to Del-V. Anyway dude - you're tagged.)

PS - Thanks Auntie Dahlia for tagging me - I bitch, but I still love a good tagging ; )

6. Proof-reading for Illiterate Morons Who Over Use the Words "Always", "Really" and "Very". Jesus.

Fine Vintage Whine

My last entry about pizza, which incidentally I wrote a long time ago and only posted yesterday because I didn't have enough time to write anything new, brought in more comments than any other post I've ever done. Weird huh?

You guys must have been hungry for pizza.

Maybe I should wait for all my posts to ripen, like fine wine.

Nah. I prefer a proper and more immediate whiney whine.

I've spent the last two days in a row exiled in the den with Turtle because MDH has decided to work from home. Jesus I hope he goes back to the office tomorrow. I can't get anything done while he's here.

His bout of working from home was not as fruitful as noted in previous posts as no employers called me. Our track record of me getting calls for interviews when he invades my space instead of going to his real office is broken and now there is officially no benefit to me of him working from home. In fact I declare it officially a detriment because he is stinky, prickly and demanding. When he shuns the office for our tranquil domicile he remains unshowered, unshaven, and in addition to hogging the office which is normally my turf he has the nerve to ask me to cook for him and bring him food.

I pretended all day like I didn't hear him.

On the bright side I got my haircut (I'm back to a tidy bob), did a decent amount of housework and watched a some movies that had been building up on the DVR. I would rather have my office back so that I can look for jobs during the day.

I'm looking forward to getting him the hell out of the house tomorrow and writing a nice long winded post. I've been tagged by Aunt Dahlia and I'm thrilled for the opportunity to prattle on and on about myself in a new and challenging way.

A Town Without Pizza

A new pizza place opened up around the corner from us near the dry cleaners and I was all jazzed about it because we cannot find a decent pizza in this town. Then a few nights ago MDH picked up his dry cleaning and stopped in to pick up a menu. I'm no longer jazzed. I'm actually a little angry.

The place features specialties pies like these:

Polski Pizza:
Kielbasa, sauerkraut, bacon, and onion.

The Grand Coney:
Coney sauce, cheddar cheese, chopped hot dogs, onions, jalapenos, and lightly topped with mustard.

Sauerkraut? Are you kidding me with this shit?

They have normal pizzas and subs on the menu, but I will never order from this place out of sheer repulsion from the image they have burned on my mind's eye of what could possibly be the worst ideas for pizzas ever.

I crumbled the menu and threw it directly in the garbage, where it remained until I realized it might make a good blog post and I dug it out again.

It's back in the trash now.

We haven't really found any pizza we love in the nearly four years that we have lived here. The most decent place we've found is still not quite right. The crust is crispy and has air bubbles, but it has too much flour on it and the sauce is too sweet.

If you live in West Michigan and are planning to send me pizza suggestions - I bet you we've tried it already. But please don't stop, we'll keep trying.

So far our pizza favorites here are Bushy's, an Italian dude with a knack for bubbly crust (mentioned above), but a loud mouthed Bush supporter, and Rude Man's. Rude Man will only deliver to us on slow nights and only if MDH calls (MDH is scary persuasive and they know he's a huge tipper) because we are slightly outside of his delivery range.

We also find ourselves ordering pickup and waiting around in the hellish parking lot of Pizzaria Uno sometimes if we're really feeling desperate. But it's not the same as finding your favorite local pizza joint.

In Victorian Village, our neighborhood in Columbus, we had a place nearby called Adriadicos that delivered a mountainous Sicilian style pie that was a delicious work of greasy art.

There was also available a breed of pizza that I miss terribly and that I'm pretty sure is unique to the Midwest and Columbus in particular - the crunchy thin corn meal dusted crust, cut into squares or rectangles instead of triangles, with very spicy sauce and crispy spicy pepperoni. Donatos (a local chain) specializes in this type of pizza with smoked provolone instead of mozzarella.

I like Donato's fine, but because I'm from the East side of Columbus I prefer a place called Massey's. Their pizzas will make fire shoot out of your ass the next day but it's totally worth the suffering. It also tastes great leftover and cold right out of the fridge. (Picture above of the classic Massy's).

MDH, being from the East Coast and half Italian thinks square cut pizzas are just plain wrong (unless they are Sicilian style). He goes on something fierce about the crime of square cuts and how triangle cuts are the best because they can be folded up. Blah, blah, blah.

Whatever buddy.

A pie is a pie and it gets to my belly the same way no matter how it's sliced - through my pie hole. So shut yours Mr. Man and just enjoy.

We don't bother to get bagels anymore either because they suck here too.

You know what you can get here? Hot dogs. Yeah, hot dogs. There's a buttload of hot dog restaurants here. Three that I can think of off the top of my head that are within walking distance from our house.

That's weird right?

Although it goes far to explain the Grand Coney pizza, there's still no excuse for it. I don't even want to know about the sauerkraut one.

Baby, It's Cold Inside

Our furnace is broken and the temperature in our house 57 degrees and ever so slowly continuing to drop. Why do these things always tend to happen at the worst time possible?

My husband is out of town.
It's fucking freezing outside today.
It's Sunday and we will have to pay extra to get it fixed today.
We have no money.

Fuckity, fuck, fuck...

Kevin, the emergency furnace repair dude has just left to go pick up the part that he will need to fix it. He has been here before when our air conditioner was busted - in the middle of summer when:

My husband was out of town.
It was really fucking hot outside.
We had no money.

Here is what is probably a really boring video of better times, namely last night before I realized the furnace was broken. I was snuggled up cozy tight in a blanket on the sofa in the den and about to enjoy a fine feature film about the life of Edith Piaf, called La Vie En Rose, when I was distracted by the antics of Turtle the cat.



UPDATE: All fixed. Six hundred and fifty stinging smacks. Fuck.

In Response To Your Google Search Query #5

Dear Person Who Found My Blog Via The Search Query "gifts for asshole",

Well bless your heart!

Aren't you sweet and thoughtful to have included an asshole on your shopping list this holiday season? Assholes are so frequently overlooked when it comes to gift buying. You might say they always get a bum rap. (Snort! Guffaw!)

Ahh. Anyhoo...

People keep coming here for gift giving advice and I'm as pleased as you are lucky that the magic and wonder of the Interwebs have brought us together. Like peanut butter and chocolate, lamb chops and rosemary, Lucy and Ethel... it was meant to be. Kismet. You have an asshole problem and I have an asshole solution.

I've created this handy shopping guide for assholes with ideas for gifts to please every asshole for every budget:

For the Vain Asshole
Anal Bleaching
Send your asshole to any one of the multitude of cosmetic surgery centers and "medical" spas, now offering this service.
Is your asshole shy? No problem! Buy an at home anal bleaching kit, a bargain at $9.99.



For the Paranoid Asshole

The Glock G26 9mm Sub-Compact $519.95
AKA the "Baby Glock" - Adorable! What gift says "I love you" with more force than a handgun? Give your asshole this beauty and then back away slowly. Small enough to conceal in a purse or pocket! Available in black or candy pink with rhinestone Hello Kitty logo.

For the Animal Lover Asshole
Home Taxidermy Kit $19.95
A thing of beauty is a joy forever but only if you kill it, gut it and pull the skin over a squirrel-shaped form that you've nailed to mini putting green. A gift that keeps on giving, a home taxidermy kit will keep your asshole entertained for hours and leave them with a cherished keepsake to be admired for years and years.

For the Sexist Pig Asshole
Pole Dancer Barbie $24.99
Guaranteed to piss off every woman in the office! This doll knows how to work that pole! Comes complete with garish make-up, frizzed out over bleached hair, and tiny dollar bills to stuff into her elastic waist bikini bottoms.
(Batteries not included.)



That's all for now! Happy Shopping!
Best Wishes and Kindest Regards!
The Lady