隠し彫り

Checking out my tattoo mid-laundry day. I swear I've somehow doubled my loads. My mom is here, but she washes her own stuff so that's no excuse. I've donated at least half of my clothing.

Part doodle-by-an-8-year-old,
part tattoo artist's rescue,
pre-clean up

Idk. Maybe I forgot how to wash clothes.

I was just trying to come up with how I would explain my tattoo to a random person if they asked about it. Considering the fact that the only people who will ever see my tattoo are a husband and maybe doctors - none of whom will care - trying to shape my thoughts into some form of logic is just for fun.  

I see things in images so my reasons were more like memory captures. I remember how I hated the States when we moved here. I remember my brother mowing the lawn with this loud old rickety lawn mower. And I remember the weeds that would grow right back up after he mowed them.  He would be so angry that he would try to cut out the roots with scissors, but they'd just pop back up the next day. My father called them "wildflowers", but I think that was just for my sake because I tried to make bouquets from the clippings. They were weeds. The whole neighborhood was plagued with them. I remember doodling on my scratch pad under my blanket because the room was so cold. I was obsessed with wildflowers. They were like little superheroes standing up to my brother's persistent oppression.

Anyway, I decided to get a tattoo and found the old book in some boxes in the basement. I decided on my rib cage for a few reasons, partly because I incurred a small scar there recently. It was a pretty random resolution, but not.

I took the page to a tattoo artist in Ferndale on a friend's recommendation and he did this cool thing with a giant printer and turned the drawing into a stencil. The needle on my rib bones made my teeth rattle and I had to cover my mouth a few times but I was a good girl and stayed silent.

Okay that reasoning still makes no sense...it makes perfect sense in my head, though. I'm trying to unshuffle the images into a storyboard but it's not working. So if ever asked, I'll just say that my tattoo is a thing of great personal significance.   

Omg. "300" is on.

The Final Count-doooown

This damn Geico commercial comes on every 2 minutes.

Never heard the song before, but I love it! Unfortunately, it's stuck in my mother's head, so now she's singing it. She sounds like a cracked out cat in heat.

I loooove this song! It's so 80's it hurts. So I bought it on iTunes. 

Now whenever someone's using the microwave in the break room, I run in and blast it and headbang/air guitar. If I'm feeling more chill, I'll stand in the doorway and purse my lips and do the do the coffee stir hip action thing like the lady in the blue sweater.

My coworkers hate me.

Alien Nation

Friends who visited me with coffee routinely every morning now look the other way when I wave hello. People have completely omitted me from their lives. 

Kristyl barely talks to me at work and only responds to my texts after work. 

I have made new friends. Not because I'm losing the old ones, but because I sort of do anyway. But even they treat me as though I come with an expiration date. Like I'll spoil soon. 

Not sure what I might have done to avoid it, but the very glaring reaction has left me feeling sad and alone. People who've been my rock are now distancing themselves. 

Why I'm Cool with Early Morning Meetings

#thebenefitsofpeoplewatching
#3rdmeetinginarow
#hotmessexpress
#archnemesis
#justtakeit

My Booty Hurts

So I had a car accident. Sort of. 

I was putting some party groceries in my trunk and an SUV that was parked in front of my car backed into my car. The force of the hit rocked my car and knocked me a few feet back and onto my butt and hands. 

I guess that still qualifies as a car accident?

Long story short, the driver was genuinely sorry, she begged me let her call 911, it was Halloween and really dark and rainy, my Vulcan ears were glued on too tight, the back of my Uhura dress was soaked, she admitted that she didn't look behind her first because "there wasn't a car here when I pulled in". Between her and her boyfriend (who was in a Jason costume) fussing over me, and me shaking like a leaf, and what I guess was shock (I was incoherent and in a fog?) it was too much and I insisted that I was fine.

Until I got home. Whatever that bone is down at your butt...tail bone?...it kinda hurts. A lot. 

Per my mom's advice, I tapped tiger balm and lavender oil - the same stuff I used on my brother once after my father whipped him - to my back, My mom said I had no idea what I was doing and helped me start over from scratch.

Aaaand I forgot about my tattoo and my mom saw it.  

Dammit. 

It is literally a matter of moments before she tells my brother.

And so it begins.

#killmenow

The ol' "Shifty Eye"

So I'm sitting in the corner of a hotel lobby kneading my sunburn and cursing myself for not using sunscreen earlier today. And for being hopeful that swimming while on your period would be like manna to sharks.

Sigh.

Sitting in the corner of any given crowded room gives you an awesome vantage point.  

"All inclusive" = Free booze and food
wherever you turn.

Case in point: I'm watching this married couple waiting in line to check in to the hotel.  She looks tough. They're like that middle aged WASPy American couple. He works 80 hours a week and tells his wife he's golfing when he's actually cheating on her. She complains about life and cooks meatloaf on Thursdays.

Yeah, that couple.

A slim/blonde/attractive (take your pick...they're all the same, right? #bittermuch) woman walks by.  My eyes dart back to the couple because I'm nosy and I want to read both the husband's and wife's reactions to this ostentatious disruption of reality.   

The wife is busy checking her purse for something, so she's missing all of the action.  The husband, however, is immediately aware that a hottie is in his field of vision. He does a quick glance, and we know what's going to happen next.  He's going to find some way to look again and take in her entire body, then he's going to store all that data...the size of her boobs, the shape of her butt, what she probably looks like naked...and quickly return to whatever he was pretending to do.  But it'll be sooo smooth and quick. 

I love this part. I call this highly-evolved, stylized cognizant method of ogling "The Shifty Eye". It should have it's own theme music, really.

Okay.  It's about to go down. As I'm texting this, he's already turned away from his wife to "check his texts". Now, let's observe how smoothly he pulls the Shifty Eye...

This is awesome. It's like watching a NatGeo promo with the driving background drum beat and the way-too-serious voiceover guy...

Okay, he's "texting"...and "texting"...aaaaaand 

BAM! He pulled it off without a hitch, ladies and gentlemen! He just glanced up very directly at the hottie, practically mentally undressed her, stamped the image and stored it in the appropriate folder in his brain and returned to "texting"...all within like 5 seconds.

I seriously want to put down my phone and write "10" on my napkin and hold it up for him, but I don't want to call him out and disrupt his natural habitat. I wish I'd recorded it.  It's a thing of beauty, really.

Seriously. Men are amazing creatures. Whenever a man pulls the Shifty Eye, it's like watching the marine biologist guys try to catch a whale on camera. You know they're going to surface at some point. But to watch it in action is awesome.

They think they're so slick and shady and entitled. But really, this is proof that they're only as slick as the length of rope their wives give them. In watching the wife, she's busy getting their papers or credit cards or whatever's in her ridiculous giant purse, so she isn't minding the environment. The woman is completely unaware that a private fiasco just went down in his pants. 

Heh..."went down".

Men are great social chameleons. They'll be whatever you want them to be, as long as the room's colors don't change too quickly and give them away. 

People watching at it's finest. Cheers!

Throw Down Thursday

I'm in a mood.

I handled the communication piece for my company's new employee uniforms. Over 2,500 employees will receive new uniforms tomorrow. I set up a photo shoot for a few employees to model the new uniforms and created a wall cling (poster that sticks to the wall) from it. It's gonna be complete mayhem in the wardrobe department tomorrow. But I'm kinda proud of the final outcome, actually.

The photographer used me for test shots without telling me. Each time I looked up into a giant camera lens, I was thinking "Where did I put that damned file?".

But that's not why I'm in a mood.

I can't wear a bra yet because it makes my tattoo burn.

That's not why I'm in a mood.

My period is acting like Satan's bathwater this month.  But that's not why I'm in a mood.

It's that superskank Lisa. 

I had to share a vendor table with her at an event today. She kept telling clients that my side of the table was so cold that they would need a sweater to talk to me.

I'm tired of that bitch calling me an Ice Queen. Just because I don't sleep around like she does.

So I advised them to liberally apply antibacterial gel to every exposed part of their bodies and be sure their prescriptions were up to date before approaching her side.

At which point she happened to cough, which led me into a tirade about sexually transmitted diseases starting the zombie apocalypse.

Why does she continue to force me to humiliate her?

I'm like Zod and she's like Otis.

Just kneel before Zod, bitch.

Ssshhh.  Just take it.

Smh.

I swear imma beat that bitch with a bat.

I'm going to 7-11 to get a slurpee. I swear to God, if they're out of the red pop flavor, imma swing a bitch.

Aww YEAH. Kickin' the Detroit old skool basement house beats, homie!!! 

OMG. Detroit use to have these basement parties on Fridays. This is the real beginning of house music. (Don't argue with me. I have proof.) Everyone would be dancing or eating or laughing or a combination of all three. The neighborhood kids would mingle with the older folks who were usually down there drinking out of those red plastic cups and playing cards or dice together. Usually using one of those folding card tables. And the air would be thick with smoke from the combination of cigarettes and the catfish the homeowner was frying for everyone.

OMG I can still smell it. It was hot and dark and it was always packed wall-to-wall. But people were peaceful and happy and the music was amazing. Even an FOB 10 year old with a stupid bowl haircut who couldn't go anywhere without her chaperon brother could blend in. It was always either really old school like Marvin Gaye or Rufus, or house beats like this one.

Well. That was certainly a rant to end all rants. What was my point?

Ah. yes. I'm still going to beat that bitch with a bat.

#straightouttadetroit