Incoherent

Wow, you people don’t mess around. I booted up my computer today and found that three of my regular reads either jumped ship to WordPress or were thinking about it. You all go help a mutha out. I’m warning you about the Tripod comments now. You will be asking someone to rip your fingernails out for you because it will help you forget about the pain of trying to comment.

In other news…

I’m in workout mode. I’m tired of being a lazy, tired ass. I know what I need to do, but I just spend most of time talking myself out of it. I tried the McDonald’s cardio workout DVD this afternoon, and it was incredibly weird to be instructed my a 2-bit CGI Barbie doll that had more bounce than a 6-month-old watermelon. As I was just getting into it, GadgetGirl decided to bring each and every one of her sharp, tiny toys over and place them at my feet. I felt like Jackie Chan trying to dodge the Dora bullet.

Eventually I finished, and I decided to try the PlayStation 2 Dance Dance Revolution game. I haven’t done this in awhile. The last time I tried it, GadgetGirl got extremely pissed and I had to hold her while I did it. I’m trying to lose weight, not gain a 20-pound toddler. This time was a little better. GadgetGirl let me do a song, and then demanded, “MY TURN!” She jumped on the pad, did a really bad imitation of Charlie Chaplin needing to take a dump, and then promptly jumped off. When the song was over and I stood up, she shouted “MY TURN!” again.

What’s a mutha to do?

So I’m sitting here at the computer an hour past my bedtime, and the fat cells in my ass decided to act like it’s World War III. I’m starting to wonder if that Jello I had for lunch bypassed my colon and headed straight to my thighs. It’s a weird feeling, but I kind of like it. It’s a change that’s been a long time a’comin.

Reasons why WordPress kicks Blogger’s ass

It appears that Blogger recently decided it hadn’t pissed off everybody enough, so it decided to throw a wrench into the rarely oiled machine and introduce a new beta version.  Bad move, Blogger.  Bad move.

Your people are jumping ship.

So, if you’re considering another blogging format, let me count you the ways why I have enjoyed the blog provider, WordPress.

1.  It’s FREE!  So was Blogger, but after awhile you wish that Blogger was paying you.

2.  My comments.  They’re kind of like Flickr’s comments.  You can see the replies to all of the comments you’ve made on WordPress blogs.  I LOVE IT.

2.  Akismet spam catcher.  I had this blog for about 3 hours when I got my first spamment, and it caught it.  WordPress also has the comments “Awaiting Moderation” feature like Blogger.

3.  Blog stats.  It’s not as in-depth as Statcounter, but it still tells you how many visits you had today and the referring link.  It also tracks those smarmy Googlers looking for “jumper cables for Grandma’s pacemaker.”

4.  Post passwords.  Think your boss is a complete dick and want to trash him?  This is your golden ticket.

5.  Categories.  I have a feeling that this would be so easy for Blogger to do, but they were too busy on the beta version, I suppose.

6.  Calendar – It’s pretty, and beautiful, and lovely. 

I’ve only had one time where I couldn’t log into WordPress, and it lasted a couple of minutes.  I’ve never had problems with comments.  I do get an annoying pop-up when I’m writing or editing a post asking to display the secure items.  And finally, I don’t believe you have as much (or any) control over your template unless you pay for it. *UPDATE* It only costs $15 to get access to the CSS for your template.  Of course, then you need to know CSS programming.

But I can live with that.  I refuse to be Blogger’s bitch anymore.

Routine

Although I was only gone for a week from work, it feels like a month.

The guy next to me got a new phone, and his ring tone is exactly like mine.  I have mild whiplash from looking at my phone every time his rings.  And his rings a lot.

One of the male supervisors wore some really weird clicky-sounding shoes today.  As in high heel clicky-sounding.  There are only two women in my area, so every time he walked by, I expected to see the head of HR walking in.  Instead I look up and see the asshole that likes to call me “Sweetheart.”

It’s been a really weird, disorienting day. 

Monster-themed birthday party

On Tuesday, Undercover GrandMutha went in for a quick outpatient surgery to have a benign cancerous mole removed from her lip. She said that if it went well, she’d have a tiny Band-aid on her lip. If it didn’t, then she would have a ball of gauze and an industrial-sized tourniquet Band-Aid plastered across her face.

The surgery didn’t go all that well. Or it did, depending on whether you view your Band-Aid box half full or half empty.

During the procedure, they had to remove a grape sized ball of cells from her lip, resulting in a crater and 12 stitches starting at her nose and ending across her lip line. And she was awake DURING THE WHOLE THING.

Doctors can be masochists. (I still love you, Doc Ern.)

Undercover GrandMutha called me on Wednesday to tell me about it. She said it was difficult to speak with the huge glob of bandages on her lip…as she took a long drag off of her cigarette. In fact, she said she wasn’t supposed to be speaking at all. Aw, feeling the love.

She said that she may not make it to GadgetGirl’s birthday party, which is later on today. She said she was afraid of scaring her 2-year-old granddaughter that loves nothing more than to idolize and worship the woman who plays with her for hours on end reading her books, exploring the yard, and playing dollies during tea time.

Yeah, it’s best you keep your Grandma Monster at home today.

I finally convinced her to come, though. I told her, “We’d rather have your bandaged up crater head in attendance than never to have the opportunity to invite you at all.”

I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures today should I ever get a wild hair to put it on my ass cheek.

And the hits keep on coming

We had lasagna today at lunch during training. Afterwards, a few guys wandered back into the room after their smoke break, and I overheard the following conversation.

“Yeah, they told me they’d do it for $1,000″ said OneK.

“No way, I’ll check with my guy and I bet it will only be a few hundred” said Cheapskate.

I figured they were talking about car stereos, or to be more specific, stolen car stereos, so I looked at Cheapskate sitting next to me, and I said, “What’s that?”

“Tattoos” he replied.

I looked at OneK across the table and asked what kind of tattoo costs $1,000, like I have any idea what even a tiny tattoo costs. These stretch marks are ink free, baby.

OneK said, “It’s a portrait of my dead grandfather.”

It’s at this point where I try not to smirk at the thought of Ol’ Gramps hanging out OneK’s left butt cheek so I say, “Wow, they do the same thing to birthday cakes at Wal-Mart, and it only costs like $20.”

Ignorance

I’ll admit it. Smart men make me hot. Even this guy.

Grrr, baby.

One of my favorite all time movies is “Good Will Hunting.” I watched it over and over, dreaming that it was me with Matt Damon instead of Minnie Driver. I’d try to decipher what I multivariate calculus I could off of his chalkboard scribbles because I’m a dork like that. His brain was hot, dude.

This past weekend I watched a movie that I’ve been wanting to see since I saw the preview for it. I’m not sure if it even made it to the movies. I think it may have gone straight to DVD. It’s called “Proof,” and it stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Anthony Hopkins.

Hopkins plays the recently deceased father of Paltrow’s character. Paltrow toes the line of insanity, most likely the result of caring for her own sometimes insane, sometimes brilliant mathematical genius of a father. Gyllenhaal was a student of Hopkins, and took on the daunting task of pouring over his 100+ notebooks in search of some glimmer of genius through the chaos.

The movie made me reflect upon my own life. I’m no genius, but I’ve always done well in school. In my pre-teens my fellow classmates would tell me that I was smart, but had no common sense. Bitches. What the hell does a 12-year-old know about common sense?

The truth is, I knew that I was a fake. I could copy methods presented to me in class and reproduce them and regurgitate things I read in books, but I had no true original, creative thoughts of my own. I was faker than a bronzed German Catholic from Wisconsin in January.

It still haunts me today. Why couldn’t I be original? What would I being doing today if I was?

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I hadn’t cared so much about learning. What if I had just done enough to get by? What would life be like if I didn’t know about genetically modified foods, safety factors and maintenance for the bridges we drive over and under each day, and the reliability of cars and crash test results?

Would I be fearless? Would I enjoy life more? Would I live each day like it was my last because I had hope or because I was void of it?  The “Proof” website says that “the biggest risk in life is not taking one.”

These movies about geniuses are entertaining, but I’m starting to believe more and more that ignorance is truly bliss.

Rule #1 for starting a new blog and telling people about it…

Rule #1: Post.

Rule #2: Now, dammit.

Yeah, um, here’s the thing. I was busy all weekend visiting Undercover Grandmutha and Grandpa and Spy Grams and Gramps. That’s a lot of work, people. And then I’ve been in this training thing this week, all so-help-me-God week with no computer.

I actually kind of miss reading blogs work.

So let me tell you about yesterday. We’re studying this guy, and the guy who trained him is in our training class. So we’re talking about the guy we’re studying and the guy in our group says, “He moved back in with his mother.”

My jaw dropped, and then I called the guy in my class “an evil bastard.”

What a mean thing to say about this guy who’s got to be about 45-years-old…a guy who refers to his mother as “Mommy” in conversations with fellow employees. What? Wait a second.

Anyhow, we videotaped the Momma’s Boy and reviewed all two oh-God-help-me two hours of footage when the class facilitator says that we’re welcome to take the tape home and show our spouses and what not.

Ha ha. Damn closet comedians.

So I say, “Can I take it home and show my Mommy?”

I’m ashamed. I blame it on the cold hard pit of a stone called my heart. Deep breath. Okay, I forgive myself.

What’s funnier is that “Momma’s Boy” told us today that he wanted to take the video home and show it to “Mommy” for real.

I have a feeling that this guy runs a motel on the side with “Mommy” and sharpens knives for fun.

Time out

GadgetGirl is a sweet little thing with a mind of her own.  She’s old enough to point out common objects and name them, but not quite old enough to be talking in sentences. 

We started putting her in time-out a few months ago, and it’s worked really well.  Almost too well.  After a few weeks, we no longer needed to physically place her on the time-out bench because she figured out that when we said “TIME OUT” that meant she was to walk her screaming little head over to the bench, hoist herself up (replacing cries with grunts), and then resuming said fit of hysterics.

It’s quite amusing…the part where she puts herself in time-out, not the part about the screaming.

Two days ago, GadgetGirl thought she would try to clobber me with her backpack of balls as I lay on the ground.  She was mad at me for one reason or another, so I sent her to time-out.

The screams started, then the grunting as she hoisted herself up on the bench, and finally

“BAD MOMMA!”

“BAD, BAD MOMMA!”

Did someone say free?

I ran across this offer in a Buy.com email.  Lookie, free photo software!

Water vapor

I stayed home with GadgetGirl on Friday given her incredibly high temperature Thursday evening and subsequent kickboxing me out of the bed, resulting in me getting about two hours of sleep.

I spent most of the day on my couch gazing out my front window into the beautiful blue sky and puffy white clouds.  I thought about some of the most incredible women I’ve come to know through blogging: Susie and the Debutant.  There are so many variables and unknowns that come with being that incredibly ill.  I don’t even know where to begin thinking about what they’re going through.

So I pray.  I pray for mercy, and hope, and a cure.

I watch the lazy clouds dancing past my window in a slow waltz when I make out something quite clear.  It was a “thumbs up” sticking out of the cloud.  Perhaps I’ve been seeking an answer for so long that I took it as a sign to mean that everything will be okay.  Or perhaps I’m just reading into things too much.

One thing is certain.  That thing is an answered prayer.  I still have hope.