If You're Happy & You Know It WTF?

How's your summer been? Mine has been smashing. I can't think of any one thing that stands out that should cause me to make such a positive statement to describe my life in general, especially over such a long expanse of time since my last post, butcha know what? I'm happy. And I know it. Kiss my ass.

MDH and I have had a summer filled with friends, travel and just the right amount of family (except for Knucklehead) and house guests.

Probably the biggest news is that I have a new job. I know, I know, but calm yourself, it sounds more important than it is... It's a new job, but it's still at Large Corporation and I'm still a contractor. I sit at my same desk, have my same parking space, and earn the same wage.

The good points are:

• It's a job I applied for a couple of years ago and wasn't even considered for an interview.


• It's a more prestigious position - when I tell people what I do now they say things like "Ohhh...good for you!" As in I had no idea you were such a smarty.


• Somebody up there likes me, saw potential in me, and specifically asked to have me on the team.


• It gives me an edge to eventually getting full time work with Large Corporation as it's a job with much more exposure and potential to showcase my talents to people who have sway.


• I love my new team and more importantly I LOVE the new work (as I knew I would when I originally applied for the job).

The bad points are..., well, "bad" is rather harsh so let's rephrase that.

The bleh points are:

• Although technically it's a huge promotion, I'm getting paid exactly the same. Boo!
  
• There is still no reason to assume that it might turn into a permanent gig. Boo!

Here are some other bullet points to catch you up with recent doings and goings on in Ladyland:

Went to Boston to visit my mother in law for her 80th birthday. Highlights included:

1. Stayed at a hotel within walking distance to the North End and during the course of the week we ate enough tasty Italian treats to last us the rest of the year. I tried some new things that were surprising and delightful (beef carpaccio - I tend to avoid raw meat, but this was so finely sliced it melted on the tongue like cotton candy) and some things that were surprising and revolting (Campari and Soda - I thought it looked refreshing and chic, but it tasted like what I imagine drinking a urine sample over ice in an elegant glass with a twist of lime might be like).

2. Visited Peacefield in Quincy Mass., homestead of 4 generations of the John & Abigail Adams family, including John Quincy Adams, which brings my list of presidential homes visited up to a whopping 10 (how ya like me now CDP?). Peacefield is a short T ride away from the city. No car needed for this adventure. It is awesome. You should go.

3. Spent a gorgeous afternoon wandering leisurely around Harvard Square, popping in and out of shops, laughing and generally enjoying quality, wholesome family time with MDH and my mother in law.
(Insert record scratch sound bite here.)
At least that was the original plan. Oh, we spent the day wandering around Harvard Square all right, but it was hardly leisurely, wholesome or enjoyable because for some reason my brother in law Knucklehead wanted to tag along and turn it into a shit sack.

These days Knucklehead, fresh from his last tour in the can, is whacked out of his mind on prescription pain medications (which provide only a slight improvement to his behaviour since the days when his drug of choice was crack). So we spent a gorgeous afternoon wandering around Harvard Square with Knucklehead, who stopped every five minutes to smoke, hollered at traffic, loudly made rude comments about me, my mother-in-law, MDH and random strangers that he considered to be "fuckin' freaks and freeloaders" (he was able to recognize his own kind apparently), and generally embarrassed the crap out of us for about 4 hours. It was exhausting.

4. Oh, and now Knucklehead walks with a cane that he occasionally shakes in the air at people and cars and goes, "Baaagh!"

5. He's only 47.

6. Spent some great nights hanging out with my brother-in-law Las Vegas, also in town for the 80th birthday festivities, and his 3 grown boys and their various girlfriends. We're so proud of the next generation of little rakes, not a crack head in the bunch. Although my one niece, Knuckleheads daughter, poor kid, kind of reminds me of (I hesitate to say it) Snookie (only taller and pretty). MDH and I are keeping an eye peeled for her.

Went Up North With Friends:

1. Our friends R&R and their two kids visited us here from Washington DC and we were thrilled. They actually spent their summer vacation in Michigan. People do that. They spent two nights here at our house and then headed up north to Glen Arbor, where MDH and I joined them a few days later for the weekend.

2. I went tubing, which in Ohio means that you get dragged along, bouncing uncontrollably behind a speeding pontoon, piloted by my lunatic hillbilly cousin-in-law Bubby, in a murky brown lake which typically goes something like this:
But in Michigan tubing is something entirely different and I loved it hard. We floated gently, and safely if I might add, down a clear, clean river. I opted for a tube with a bottom so that I could sit indian style. I also snagged a paddle so that I could more easily steer myself away from any potential dirty muck or imagined crocodiles and river sharks. I will do this again.

Went to see Doug Benson last Friday night:

1. He's known for his pot humor, so it might be odd for me to love him so much, since I don't smoke it, but I love his podcast and am very excited for his new show coming to Comedy Central this fall, The Benson Interruption. I think he's one of those people who is just naturally funny and I love him, there it is.

2. Had the beginnings of what I thought was a bad cold, so hesitated to say hello after the show, as I didn't want to make him sick. I know a thing or two about what it's like to travel for a living and be sick when you're on the road, but MDH encouraged me to go up. I am not a gusher, but I assume that when you are an entertainer by trade that you appreciate hearing nice things about your work so I mentally prepared a little mini-speech. Something quick and simple, like, I love your podcast, I think you're so funny and can't wait for the new show and then I move along.

3. I got up there and he tried to shake my hand and I declined, so he gave me a little arm around half hug. Ok. Time for my nice words... here we go...

4. All I was able to say was "love your podcast" and the next thing I knew I was somehow cockblocked by MDH. Yes. You read that correctly. Well, maybe not. I mean I wasn't trying to hook up, just say hi, be nice and move on. And last time I checked I don't have a cock, but still, whatever you want to call it, my own darling husband, my love and partner on my path of life, who had encouraged me to go up and say hi in the first place... People it was freakish. The moment words of my prepared mini-speech started coming out of my mouth, MDH nearly pushed me out of the way to buy a CD, get it signed and started making pothead smalltalk with Monsiuer Benson as if I wasn't even there. If you didn't know we were married you might have thought we were strangers. It was bi-zarre.

5. The ride home from the comedy club was a bit chilly. I'm sure you can imagine.

6. Turns out I had a rotten case of the flu. I am just now recovering. I hope I didn't give Doug Benson the flu. I've been checking periodically on Twitter to make sure he is OK. Very out of character for me to give enough of a shit about anyone to check their tweets (I shudder to even type that out), but I feel a strong sense of personal responsability about this. So far I think he's OK.

Anyhoo... I hope you've been having a great summer too! Tell me about it in the comments please.

BTW: Here are a couple of other podcasts I've been enjoying while I perform my new job this summer (available for free on iTunes):

The Nerdist
Matts Radio

Because I'm Better Than You, That's Why

Sometimes, sometimes I don't wash my hands in public restrooms. Now you know. Don't hate me though. Keep reading. I have my reasons and alternative solutions. I feel a little bit funny about it when I don't, but then I think it's probably OK because typically I don't have to touch my lady junk directly, so to speak, and I don't pee on my hands when I'm using a public toilet (or anywhere else for that matter, at least not on purpose - I felt I must clarify for those of you smarty pant-ses out there) and since it's not physically (it's really a mental block) possible* for me to poop in a public restroom the difficulties that might sometimes arise in cleaning up after that simply don't come up.

Now that I've gotten that important announcement out of the way I'd like to say that what I worry about more than sometimes leaving the ladies room without washing my hands is that sometimes other public women's room patrons (see bullet points of previous post below mentioning my friend Dan's extensive, habitual use of women's restrooms - we don't want to be politically incorrect and assume that all women's room patrons are necessarily women now do we?) seem to notice that I haven't washed my hands and when they do they give me the hairy eyeball, or at least I perceive that they do and this post is my way of giving an explanation. You see most times I do wash my hands in public restrooms provided that the circumstances are such that:

A. There is an option for warm water to be dispensed from the tap. When you live in colder climes having the water blast from the tap at minus ice balls degrees is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing when you'd like a nice cold glass of water to drink and a curse when you would like to wash your hands after using a public toilet and discover the water is not only coming out of the tap freezing cold enough to stop your fucking heart, but also that there is really no option to warm that shit up. Oh sure the tap has an "H" on it indicating that hot water might be available if only you wait long enough, but some middle management penny pinching asshole has turned the hot water off and you are only kidding yourself that it will ever warm up. Not to make a pun, but hell will freeze over first before that water heats up. The hot water is a ruse. I'm not washing my hands here.

B. There is a paper towel option for drying my hands. Those air dryers are for suckers. It takes a year and a day to make any progress and I've got places to go and people to do. The air dryer fritters away my life and I haven't got time for that shit. Half the time when I do consent to using the air dryer the air blowing out is just as freezing cold as the tap water and/or I end up frustrated and drying my hands on my pants or desperately going back into a stall and dabbing at my hands with toilet tissue to dry them. Either way it ends in tears.

C. Please don't even get me started on the cloth diaper towel dispenser type of hand dryer that just spins and spins in filthy, germy circles. I have never in all my travels encountered one of those contraptions that wasn't brownish-yellow and dripping wet with ladies room cooties. No thank you. Even if I had whizzed all over myself why would I wash up and then dry off with that gross spinny diaper towel.

D. The absence of miscellaneous other minor gross outs and inconveniences including but not necessarily limited to:

No soap. No towels. Broken hand dryer. Bathroom filthy in general. Sink clogged with tissues or paper towels. Puddles of water (I hope it's water) on the counter and no place to lean without touching it. Not enough sinks and/or towel dispensers thus causing me to have to wait in line to wash my hands or stand dripping waiting to dry them afterwards. Unable to make the appropriate Ninja moves or otherwise psychically connect with the automatic laser tap/laser soap/laser towel in such a way that causes the laser dispenser to hook me up with the necessary hand washing supplies to make it happen (I'm performing freaking Tai-Chi in a mirror front of ten strangers who are waiting to use the facilities after me and nothing is happening).

So in closing the main reason I don't wash my hands in public restrooms is because I'm a germophobe. Would you like another helping of crazy?

If it makes you feel any better or at least less inclined to hit me with the stink eye, rest assured I usually carry disinfectant wipes in my purse that I employ just in case of such emergencies as not being fully satisfied with the cleanliness of the facilities at hand. I'm not going to pee, leave the rest room without washing my hands and then run off and make you or anyone else a sandwich. It's cool, don't worry about it.

*For those of you that may have been reading my blog for a long time you might remember** that I have previously mentioned being able to poop anywhere. That used to be true but is not anymore. At one point when I was living my life on the road (anyone seen the movie Up In the Air yet?) I adapted my body so that I could poop or sleep anywhere*** and under any conditions.

**It's kinda creepy that you remembered that Dude.

***Anywhere indoors. I have always and probably will always**** be unable to sleep or poop out of doors.

****OK. Like maybe if end of days came and everything was destroyed and I was left here with no running water (how will I make my tea?) and only pine needles for a bed, because I can guaran-fucking-tee you that I will not be called up to Jesus when the rapture comes. When that happens, that's when I'll poop outside.

That's It I'm Outta Here

Michigan winter can suck my dick. That's right. Suck. My. Dick. I'm so fed up with snow, ice, sub zero temperatures and skin so dry that I'm starting to look like someone carved me out of an apple, that I have resorted to speaking like a 13 year old boy in juvenile detention.

The Hawaiian vacation that MDH and I have been planning for well over a year has finally arrived. We are ditching the road salt and snow shovels for a couple of weeks and trading them in for warm black sand and snorkel gear. Fuck yes.

I'm so excited that I don't even care that I'm still carrying around the 50 lbs I vowed to lose last January when we booked our flights. Fuck it. So yes, in addition to having a shriveled dried apple doll complexion, I'm fat, but I'll be shriveled and fat in Hawaii. Anyway, the humid tropical air will smooth out my craggy skin in no time, and all the hotel sex and fresh fruit I can tolerate (quite a lot) will have me trimmed down before you know it.

I don't even care that it's the "rainy season" and when anyone mentions that it probably won't get any warmer than 75 I laugh right in their face (ha ha!), which frankly hasn't done much to win me any friends, but who cares? Rain? Bah! At least it wont' be snowing every freaking day and when I walk around outside I won't have to worry about whether or not my eyeballs will freeze solid and crack into a million pieces.

To be fair to all the people I know and love that live here in the Tundra, I promise to bring back as much sunshine and warmth as is humanly possible. I also promise that when I come back I won't bitch about winter any more. Until next year.

In my absence please enjoy some of the photos we took on our previous trips to Hawaii.

Gypsies Tramps & Thieves

One of the perks of having no children is that we can just pick up and go and do stuff whenever we feel like it.

Last summer I didn't have a job so we didn't do jack shit or go anywhere (except Comfest, of course). But this summer I am sort of gainfully employed so we can afford a few adventures here and there, and for some reason we seem to have squeezed a great many of them into the next three weeks.

Tomorrow MDH and I are taking off for a long weekend in Philadelphia with my best friend Amy and her husband Ted. I've always wanted to do this kind of thing, you know, the grown up couples holiday, but it has never worked out for me and Ames. I was single for a long time and then she was married to Assface and he never wanted to go on any trips except to visit his family. When I finally hooked up with MDH, he and Amy didn't get along very well (they do now), so it just never seemed to be in the cards.

I'm beside myself with glee. Plus Amy and Ted have totally laid back and allowed MDH and I to plan pretty much everything, which is what we like to do.

The weekend after next MDH and I are packing the car for Columbus because it's Comfest weekend and we never miss that. Well, since we've moved away to the Tundra I pretty much drop MDH off at the entrance to the park on Friday morning and never see him again until Sunday night.

If you don't feel like clicking on the link above, Comfest is a community festival in our old neighborhood in Columbus that has been going on since the early 70's. It's totally free and there are no corporate sponsors allowed - the whole thing is funded by beer sales and volunteers. Basically it's 3 days (from 11am to 11pm) with 5 stages of bands all day long. At any given time there is a band playing on every stage. It can cause some serious conundrums for my poor darling when two or three great bands are playing at the same time on different stages. What is a man who has been drunk on draft beer for 2 days straight to do?

Comfest is special to us for a lot of reasons. For me it's a tradition, but a freakin' kick ass tradition. For MDH it's the entire reason that he decided that Columbus didn't totally blow when he moved there from Boston and ended up staying long enough to meet me. He stumbled upon Comfest quite by accident one afternoon while going for a stroll through the neighborhood and fell instantly in love with my city.

Frankly, I liked Comfest a lot better when we lived down the street from it and I could come and go as I pleased. These days it's a bit of a cluster-fuck and I get a little claustrophobic in a crowd. (I also think I have mentioned before that I'm not a huge fan of the port-a-john.) I pretty much go and hang out for an hour or two and see one or two bands that are old friends of mine and then take off for the suburbs to hang with my peeps like Dan, Steph, Amy, Frenchie and Nature Boy.

It is understood among our friends that if you want to spend any time with MDH during the last weekend of June - go to Comfest and you're likely to run into him. I suggest going very early as his state of intoxication intensifies later in the afternoon and early evening and he is highly likely to already be reduced to a wet, incoherent mess, rolling around on a picnic blanket with the remnants of a broccoli burger all over the front of his shirt.

I'll be at Amy's. Or at our hotel. Where there is running water and air conditioning.

I recently discovered that my company will be closed for Friday July 4th and also the following Monday. God I love that place! So fuck yeah - a four day holiday weekend and what better place to celebrate our country's independence from England than Canada? Yes. We are spending July 4th in Toronto. MDH has a big boner because I finally agreed to take the train into the city.

My baby loves the choo-choos.

I, of course have big issues with the train toilets, but I've got to throw him a bone sometimes. Besides gas prices are outrageous and it's easier to enjoy all the city has to offer without being encumbered with a car.

Anyhoo... What I'm trying to say here is that I won't be blogging for awhile. Not to worry, I'm sure wherever I am, I am having a marvelous time and I hope that you are too!

Meanwhile I will leave you with some random photos of summer travels passed.

My first (and last) Red Sox game in 2004

My first (and last) NASCAR race in 2003
(I am silently mocking everyone within a 20 foot radius of me)

Chatham Bars Resort Cape Cod in 2003 - Swanky!

Waiting in line at the beer tent at Comfest 2005

The Main stage at Comfest 2006 - like I said - clusterfuck

By the way the photo at the top is of me at Comfest in 1999 - my first Comfest with MDH. Ahhh. He asked me to crop him out of the picture - party pooper.