Laying on the couch tonight, I put my left foot in Darren's lap and told him, "This foot loves you." In other words, rub my foot, fool.

For whatever reason, Darren had to check and see if it SMELLED like love. He smelled it and said, "It stinks."

"Seriously?" I was, understanably, in a state of disbelief.

*Sniff* "Yeah, it smells like cheese."

"They're new socks. Maybe that's why they stink."

*Sniff* "No, they definitely smell like bad cheese."

Also, I just got goosebumps from watching five minutes of a Made episode. AND tonight I bought perfume from T.J. Maxx.

That's all. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week.

On Friday I did something I don't think I've ever done before. I stayed sober while everyone else around me got vision impairingly drunk. I got a pep talk from Chuck about how I need to throw a few back, and in a hurry, if I wasn't going to ruin the party. That happened at about midnight when all I could think about was getting to bed. An hour later I snuck up to get ready to turn in for the evening. Just as I was about crawl into Angie's bed, I heard my dear sister squeal, "WHERE'S RED?!" in a fit of anger. Always eager to please his sweet little berry, Chuck came searching and found me about to hit the hay. Chuck proceeded to whine about how I HAD to come back down and drink because Angie's neighbors with cute dogs just came home. I knew he was full of shit, so I said that if Tana the sweetest dog ever, belonging to Neighbor Tom, came up to Angie's room, I'd come back down.

A couple of minutes later I heard a bark, head the door open, and heard Chuck and a certain four-legged darling come stumbling up the stairs.

Shit.

A half hour and half a beer later, I was in bed again, only to be awaken by Chuck AND Angie AND Chuck's brother an hour later. I eventually got to sleep at about three, but even with a short night's sleep Friday night, my weekend seems twice as long when I can remember the whole thing and I didn't spend any of it hungover. Maybe spending an entire Sunday vomiting violently a couple of weekends back was all I needed. Maybe I'll never drink excessively again!

Then again, maybe I will.

The first installment of...

Why I Hate it Here/Why I Love it Here

Why I hate it here:
5:30 a.m. - 80 degrees...expecting 95
Past two nights - four shootings in the area. But hey, only two of them died!

Why I love it here:
I walked to Target on my lunch break yesterday. I've grown accustomed to a half hour car ride to the nearest Target, so this is pretty overwhelming.

This weekend I went home and celebrated Father's Day with my old man. On Saturday my mother, Darren and I went out for lunch and I saw one of my old high school classmates whom I haven't seen since...well, probably since graduation. He was there with his adorable three-year-old daughter, and when I asked him what's new with him, he said, "Living in Rapids, working in Rapids. Going through a divorce, fighting for custody. Going to fight in Iraq in September. Other than that, not much."

Holy crap, talk about prematurely old. I'm pretty content with being a kid stuck in the city at this point.

All in all, I had a great weekend. Much better than last weekend when I spent all of Sunday projectile vomiting. NOTE: It was not entirely alcohol-induced. Also, my sister turned 24 on Friday...my she's getting old.

If this fucking CAT pisses on my clothes ONE MORE TIME, I swear I am going to kill him. The only question is how. Snap his neck? Satisfying. Lunch him off the balcony? Tempting. Bring him to the humane society and let them do the dirty work? Probable.

Apparently the world (my sister) needs to know about (TELL THEM WHAT THEY'VE WON, JOHNNY)... MY BRAND NEW IN-LAW!

Yesterday Darren's sister (I shall herein refer to her as Marissa) had her second child, an itty bitty baby boy with cheeks so big there are no room for his lips so they pucker out like a pinchably lovable little fish. We went to visit last night and Marissa looked absolutely great for giving birth less than seven hours earlier. She was totally normal...not tired and crabby with messy hair. You can't help but have a little bit of hatred for someone who looks beautiful even after giving birth a few hours earlier.

His name is Blake and he has low blood sugar so they have to keep pricking his tiny little feet to draw blood, then they have to squeeeeeze the heck out of his little leg to get enough blood. Not the most pleasant to watch, but at least he was healthy otherwise.

Also, I realized that I probably should try to marry into this family. Why? Because Darren's mom brought two bottles of wine up to Marissa's room last night for everyone - mostly Marissa - to celebrate. To celebrate the baby, yes, but I think mosrly to celebrate the fact that she can now have a drink if she wants! My mom better bring me booze if I ever have a baby.

Now I get to go baby shopping! And I have a job! This is a first. Somebody hold me back, make me control myself...

I woke up yesterday horribly unexcited for work. I was tired, the weather sucked and it was Monday. What's grosser than that?

I woke up yesterday to an air conditioned apartment, flipped on the light in the bathroom, took a nice hot shower, came out, turned off the light, turned on the light in the closet and picked out clothes that (I thought, anyway) matched and put on my make-up with light flowing around every corner of the apartment, making things VISIBLE.

This morning I woke up to a sweltering hot apartment with no air conditioning. I took a cool shower in the dark and stumbled around the apartment, trying to get pieces of clothing on their corresponding body parts. I waited patiently for the sun to come up, then scrambled to put on my make-up by the light brought in from the balcony door. I opened the apartment door to go out to wait for the bus and, just then, I realized that the lights were out for ALL the apartments in the building. I felt my way down the darkened hallways, hoping not to grope a Somali on the way. The real kicker was inching my way down the stairs in the dark. I kept on thinking, "If someone else comes out of the darkness, I'll shit my pants and I can't go to work with my pants shit and if I go back to the apartment to change my shitty pants, I'll miss my bus." Alas, my pants were not shit, but I did come frighteningly close to missing the bus.

The moral of the story? Quit your damn whining - there are starving children in Ethiopia, you know. I mean, I need to quit my damn whining, not you.

It’s been a month and a half since I started my job. In that time, four people I would have been working directly with have “moved on.” That’s quite a lot considering there are only about, oh, fifteen or so people I work with. Apparently my stench is more than they can handle.

In a meeting this morning, the general manager – one of the four people I assist – praised us for all of our hard work, told us what wonderful people we are and explained that we’re the reason clients stay with us. Then he broke down, started crying, and announced he had been offered a GM position at another, very appealing property that he had to decide on, pronto.

I honestly felt my heart sink and I sat at that table with my fingernails dug into my palms until they nearly bled to keep from crying. This man is goofy and fun and hard-working and gracious and not perfect (he’s flawed and he acknowledges it – I love it!) and just about the nicest guy I’ve ever been in contact with. And here he was, leaving me. After being there for ten years and completely turning thst hotel around, I had managed to scare him away in just over a month. (Note to self: with income, one can afford deodorant.)

I glanced around and realized I was the only one fighting back tears. Sure, I was probably the only one who didn’t know the news before then, but how could I be the ONLY ONE tearing up when I was the one who had been there the shortest amount of time? I have a policy, unintentional as it may be, and somewhere in that policy it states that no one in my presence can cry alone. Aren’t I kind?

The good news is our fearless leader has decided to stay with us, and I couldn’t be happier. I never knew I could grow so fond of people in such a short period of time, but these people seem to be creeping right into my heart and finding little spots where they can curl up and get cozy. And I’m just fine with them staying there as long as they please. Now I only need to find some way to keep them from skipping town.