Best Songs, Like Ever

I don't think there's one song out there that is my absolute favorite tune of all time. Instead, there are so many songs that remind me of good times and bad. More importantly, for me, I identify music with very specific situations that may arise in my life. I've compiled a short list for your reveiw:

Best attempted slam in a song ever
"Laura" by The Scissor Sisters
This song must be the motto for every beauty school student out there. I can never get enough of the final few lines of the song when what may be the cruelest comeback in stylist history is uttered: “This will be the last time I ever do your hair.” Let this tune be a lesson for us all. Never tick off your hair dresser.

Best song for versatile use in almost any movie montage
"You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall & Oats
I mean, come on, who doesn’t think this song totally rawks in an ironic sort of way? The duo of Hall & Oates practically owned the music charts in the 80s. But if you count Oats’ mustache as a third band member, which I do, they’re actually considered a trio. These men, and all their hair, mullet, ‘stache and otherwise, still hold a soft spot in my heart.

Best song that serves as a reminder that you can never have enough fiber in your diet
"Slave To Love" by Bryan Ferry
If you’ve never seen 9 ½ Weeks starring Kim Bassinger and a young Mickey Rourke (yummers, see below), then this reference is lost on you. But then again, so would the beauty of a fully stocked fridge of fresh foods. Rent it. Watch it. Mourn loss of Mickey's before-face.

Best song that explains how Jeremy used to pick up women
"Short Skirt, Long Jacket" by Cake

I believe the line in the song is, “At Citibank we will meet accidentally, we’ll start to talk when she borrows my pen.” For all the women in the Northern Utah region between 1995-1998, you should know that if a handsome stranger approached you in a bank and asked to borrow your pen, this was most likely my husband using his famous ‘missing pen at a bank‘ technique to meet women. His next move was to take the pen-having ladies to a sensible dinner at Tony Romas followed by a few hours of Crash Bandicoot on the PlayStation at his apartment.

Lucky for me, by the time we met, Jeremy had advanced to more a sophisticated means to pick up the ladies. By 1999, his game was staging paper jams on copiers at work, dinner at the Olive Garden, followed up by watching South Park reruns at his apartment.

Best song that was on the very first album I bought with my own allowance money
"Too Much Time on My Hands" by Styx
I love Styx, seriously I do. But not all that Dennis DeYoung crap like "Lady" or "Mr. Roboto". Those monstrosities just go on and on forever. No, "Too Much Time On My Hands", sung by Tommy Shaw, not only has the funkiest start up of a rock song, but it also has thee best clap-along chorus ever written. “Is it any wonder I’ve got too-ooh much time on my hands?”

Best song that I claim to dislike, but in reality, it’s on every play list I create
"Mr. Roboto" by Styx

Okay, seriously, how could you NOT love this song? It’s the tune that you randomly hear when you‘re, say, mingling with friends at a party. You hear the first few bars and your heart instantly skips a beat because you freakin’ LOVE THIS SONG. Your posture straightens up and you have to concentrate really, really hard not to mouth the words along to the music because you’re afraid everyone around you will notice that you know all the lyrics to this strange, overly dramatic song by heart. No? Just me then?

Best song to roller skate to in my parent’s unfinished basement (circa 1983)
"I Just Want to be Your Everything" by Andy Gibb

Oh, Andy, how could you leave us so soon? In my humble opinion, this 70’s hit is nothing short of a disco master piece. I request it at every wedding I attend. Coincidentally, I also get strange looks from DJs at every wedding I attend. If you were my friend in the early 80‘s, chances are you and I strapped on our quad skates to glide around in my parents basement and listened to Andy sing to us from my parent’s 8-track player. Chances are also pretty good, that you and argued over who was better looking, Andy or his older brother Barry.

This list of best songs ever brought to you through my participation in the Spin Cycle brought to you by the ever lovely, Sprite's Keeper. Check her out!

Fattie Update: Involves Cats, Lack of Judgement and Donkey Parts

HASAY. So we meet again. It’s time for another fitness update. This one’s not a stretch, I promise. I actually exercised almost every part of my body this week with the exception of my better judgment area.

A little over a week ago, my husband offered to give me a Sunday to myself sans kids. I jumped at the chance thinking about all the projects I could finish up around the house without being interrupted every ten minutes to replenish chocolate milk or reset the DVR so that a new Spongebob Squarepants would play. And those are only my husband’s requests, I haven’t even mentioned my kids’ needs yet.

As my Jeremy pulled out of the driveway with both Henry and Reese in tow, I waved and shouted “Goodbye! I love you!”, but in my head I was thinking, “See ya later, suckas! I’m taking a nap!”

I immediately ran up the stairs, peeled off my go-to-town sweats and threw on my screw-the-world-I’m-laying-around-in-these-holey-sweats sweats. I then proceeded to have myself a cat nap. Not “cat nap” in the traditional sense where I nod off for twenty minutes and wake up feeling energized refreshed. No, I took myself a two hour doozy of a nap surrounded by my two cats. Meesha slept at my knees as usual and Taz took his regular position curled up on my head. That nap will go down as one of my top three naps ever, just behind the accidental nap Henry and I took last spring and a six hour nap I took my Sophomore year in college.

Anyway, I’m counting this most recent nap as a workout because when I woke up I was a tad bit sweaty and I was still tired. Feels like a work out to me. Since then, I’ve been trying to re-create the magic of that relaxing Sunday afternoon. I’ll call both cats into the bedroom and pat the bed and try to coax them into a nap with me. So far, neither of them are game. How is it that I can’t get these lazy cats to lie down with me again? Am I that horrible of a nap partner?

One time I even resorted to bringing cat treats into the bed to entice them, but they were having none of that. Taz sauntered into the bedroom, took one look at my ratty sweats and even rattier hair then turned around and made a run for it the other way. Actually, that’s not entirely true. He licked himself before he ran away from me.

The lack of cat cuddling eventually put me in a bit of a depression so I did what I typically do when I’m feeling low, I went for a walk to sort out my thoughts. I headed over to the nature trail system, a fifteen mile winding path for biking, jogging, rollerblading and spray paint tagging near our home. The cool air and liberal use of “sucks donkey ballz” written on the winding path was doing wonders for my funk and by mile two, I felt almost completely better about the cat situation. I was however becoming a little worried about the spray painter’s in depth knowledge of the anatomy of local donkeys.

Then suddenly, an unfamiliar ball of orange and white darted out of a bush along the trail. The quick motion caught me off guard and I stopped my pace to get a better look at the object scurrying in front of me. It was a cat. It looked well kept, so I knew that it wasn’t a stray, but probably just a house cat out for a stroll. I called out to it “Hey, kitty, kitty.” and was on my way.
Over the next few days, I continued my speed walks on the trail, and spied my new little orange and white friend along the way. Some days, he even had another cat or two with him. It was on day four when a stroke of genius hit me. If Taz and Meesha wouldn’t nap with me, maybe I’d recruit outside cats for the snuggle time.

I ran home, grabbed all of Henry’s art supplies and quickly whipped up what I thought was a genius marketing campaign to invite the local stray cats to spend some quality down time with me.

I nailed these up all along the nature trail that evening and anxiously counted down the days until the weekend arrived.

To my knowledge, to date, I’ve received no takers on my very generous offer. I did however receive a visit from the local code enforcement offer, who just so happens to be my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Hollingsworth. He forced me to sit through an uncomfortable half hour lecture on why it’s not safe, or sanitary to invite stray cats to sleep in your bed. He informed me it’s also illegal to use public property as a venue for advertising without a permit.

I was all, “Then you’d better talk to whoever’s been spending quality time with the local donkeys in town, Mr. H.!”

That outburst earned me a dirty look and five demerits from my former teacher. As he left our home, Mr. Hollingsworth turned to me and said that he didn’t know what upset him the most, that fact that I had no common sense or the fact that he’s responsible for not teaching me to spell “common” or “sense” properly.

Not sure what HASAY is? You should! Click here to find out more about the challenge.
My previous HASAY updates can all be found here.

I Cleaned House Then I Had an Idea That Seemed Much Better in My Head

I totally had another post ready to put up today, but then I spent a good deal of my early morning cleaning out my inbox and I thought, “Hey this would make great blog fodder!” (I’m telling you, I’ve been MIA for so long, I actually thought this was one of my greatest ideas ever.)


People, if you learn one thing from Steenkybee, let it be to never step away from your blog for too long. If you do, you'll stop thinking like a blogger. If you learn two things from Steenkybee, it’s that it’s never a good idea to talk, or write, in the third person. People hate that crap.

So anyway, back to my inbox. I had 4528 emails in my inbox. All of them had been read with the exception of two from the Irish National Bank, one from my accountant and four from Barnes & Noble. Yes, I neglected the important tax information tip from my accountant and decided to read IMPORTANT BUSINES DEALINGS CONFEDENTAL from Mr. Asa Redlnikerneter. (And, yes, is would seem that Mr. Redlnikemeter does not know how to spell ‘business’ or ‘confidential’ but I thought I would hear him out anyway.)

Now, over 4000 emails may seem like a lot, but don’t be fooled. I’ve had my yahoo account for years and have never tidied it up once. But today I created folders and folders within folders to classify and file almost all of my correspondence. As I was cleaning house in my email account, I came across all the correspondence that I’ve had with one blogger for almost a year.


That person? Captain Dumbass. I’m going to take the high road and not divulge how many emails I had from him because the sheer number is borderline embarrassing. I will, however, feel free to share with you some of the subject lines of the emails.

Twenty-one of those emails had JENNY POSTED! in the subject line. For months the Captain would alert me whenever The Bloggess posted. If I cracked the top 25 comments on her site, I only had him to thank with the exception of one time in the produce section of our grocery store when my iPhone crashed while I was posting a comment to Jenny’s site. I screamed “I HATE YOU!” at it, but my husband thought I was talking about the oranges. We then proceeded to have a very involved conversation on how nobody should have hard feelings toward any fruit, let alone oranges. I have never let my husband forget that that “fruit talk” cost me a top ten spot in Jenny's comment section. I wound up somewhere in the thirties. The Bloggess is powerful.

The moral of that last paragraph? I’ll never let fruit, or Steve Jobs come between me and reaching my commenting goals. Never.

Okay, back to the subject lines from the Captain:
6 emails had OMG! In the subject line.
2 emails had YOUR MOM in the subject line. (I didn’t go back and read them, but I assume he was talking smack about my mom which is unfortunate because my mom is an occasional reader of his blog. It’s even more unfortunate that I have become cyber friends with the Captain’s mom.)
8 emails had YOUR PACKAGE in the subject line.
3 emails had MY PACKAGE in the subject line. (I did not dare look at any of these.)
12 emails had no subject line but in the body of the email, the Captain simply wrote what he had for lunch or dinner.
7 emails simply had NEED HELP! in the subject line. (Boy, did he ever.)
In 1 email he quoted Vanilla Ice lyrics to both me and Jeremy. (Jeremy now has a serious man-crush on him.)

In the end, I didn’t have the heart to delete any of these emails, so I gave the Captain his own folder in my organization system titled 'Dumbass'. I did this not because I’m sentimental, but because some of them have some good dirt that I will use on him later. And since times are tough, I’m accepting bribes from anyone (including you, mom) who would like to harass the Captain.

P.S.: This post didn’t start out as a ribbing (tribute) to Captain Dumbass, but it sure did end up that way.

P.P.S.: Way back in November, before my break, I promised a few other fellow bloggers that I would spotlight them. I haven't forgotten. You'll get yours next week.

P.P.S.: Wow, that came off a little threatening. Sorry.

Fattie Update: I've Touched Someone Who Has Touched Oprah

I forget which week of the HASAY challenge it is. It feels like it’s about week 40, doesn‘t it? But it couldn’t be, I haven’t known Casey (HASAY founder) that long. I think we found each other in August or September, but it seems I‘ve known my blonde, BMXin‘ friend forever. (In a good way, Casey, in a good way.)

Anyway, I’ve stopped counting the weeks I’ve been participating in HASAY. For me, crossing another week off the calendar does absolutely nothing for my motivation to get healthy. You know what does motivate me? I’ll tell you.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing motivates me to lose weight. I’ve been waiting around for years, yes, years, looking for motivation to get up off my comfy sofa and lose weight. As a matter of fact, I did so much sitting and waiting for motivation, that one day I decided that my green suede sofa was no longer a suitable place to waste the days away. So you know what I did next? I convinced Jeremy that we needed a new sofa set and a few days later, we were the proud owners of a pair of chocolate leather sofa recliners. Can you say heavenly? Everything wipes off those suckers. Nachos, cream soups, cheesecake smudges, everything. And that's just breakfast.

So yeah, I’m not easily moved or motivated to lose weight it seems. But a wise woman once told me, “Sometimes you can’t wait around for the motivation. You’ve just got to get up and do it. The motivation comes later.”

Brilliant huh?

That nugget of wisdom came from one of my very best friends, Julee. You might have seen a few of her comments on this here blog as JuleeSLC. She’s my own personal Oprah. Not because she’s beautiful, and has a fiancé and the best wardrobe, like ever, but because she pronounces “John Travolta” as “JOHN TRA-VOL-TAAAAA!” just the way Lady O says it.

Oh, and did I tell you that Julee lost over 125 lbs? Yeah, she did. Without motivation.

She also met Oprah.

Oh. Yes. She. Did.

My dearest Julee appeared on an Oprah weight loss special featuring women that had lost weight, and more importantly changed their lives by adhering to a more healthful way of living prescribed by Bob Green. Here’s Julee’s before and after pictures as featured on Oprah’s website.

Now, let me just clarify one thing. I’ve known Julee for over a decade and she's never, ever looked like the before picture on the left. Sure she was a little heavier, but she never dressed frumpy like that. Lady O’s producers forced her to dig up the oldest and potentially unflattering photos she had. To me, Julee’s always looked like the woman on the right. She’s absolutely stunning. Always has been.

I was so proud of her for losing all the weight. I still am. After her Oprah episode aired, I called her and just wept to her over the phone. We cried together. (You should know that I also called Julee crying after the Sex and The City series finale, as well as the Will and Grace and Friends

finales.) She nice to let me call and just whimper into the phone receiver like that.

Funny side story about Julee’s Oprah adventure. When Lady O's producers initially contacted her to see if she wanted to fly off to Chicago, meet Oprah and appear on national television, Julee actually suspected that I was playing a trick on her. She asked me if I had set up a fake phone call from third party posing to be a producer from Oprah's show.

I was all, “Honey, no. Although I do have a history of pranks on the phone, it’s just not my style to go into such elaborate detail for a joke. No, it’s much more my style to just relentlessly call you and hang up.”

Anyway, back to Julee’s brush with Oprah. I guess I would have to say, the only disappointment I had with the whole ordeal is that when she went off to Chicago to meet Oprah, I sent her with three specific goals. 1) Find out if the big O has six toes on one foot. (I’ve heard rumors.) 2) Get Oprah to say “John Tra-vol-taaaa!”, and 3) Mention my name on national television.

Julee, wisely, did none of these things.

So what’s my point here today? Well, I guess my point is that I’m copping to the fact that I have no motivation to lose weight, but lately I’ve still been getting up off of that comfy, stain-free sofa to exercise my sorry, out of shape bootie. I think of Julee whenever I search for the will to pop in a Pilates DVD or take a brisk walk on our neighboring trail. She accomplished something wonderful without needing any motivation to get her started.

Julee set her sights high. She lost the weight, kept it off and was driven through the streets of Chicago in a limo while she snacked on Chicago-style pizza, all courtesy of Oprah. If I stay focused, stay disciplined and lose some weight, maybe I can live the dream too. But for now, I’ll settle for exercising four days a week and being shuttled through the streets of Salt Lake City, eating a meat-lovers pizza in the back of my friend’s van.

Scratching your head, wondering what the heck HASAY is? Go here to find out.

My previous HASAY posts can be found here.

Being Topical is Not One of My New Year's Resolutions

Instead of writing a resolution post during the New Year’s holiday, I fought the urge and held out until now to draft my list. My reasoning was simple. I wanted to wait it out until everyone had posted their resolutions already. After a few weeks, most items on those lists are probably shot or close to being broken. If I post my resolutions later, chances are that I can hold out until early to mid-February, thus making it look like I was able to stick to my goals for the new year a little longer.

I'm tricky like that.

This approach is similar to my long-held belief that I’ll somehow trick myself out of bed on time if I keep my alarm clock running 20 minutes fast. It hasn't worked in the fifteen years I've been trying it, but as you can see by resolution #67, I'll never give up the hope that someday it just might.

So, here’s my New Year’s Resolution list. I’m sure it’s just like yours.

1. Lose weight
2. Weigh my options
3. Get in shape
4. Accept “round” as a shape
5. Be more comfortable in my own skin
6. Get new skin
7. Listen to Barry White
8. Stalk Betty White
9. Watch more Golden Girls
10. Eat more Golden Grahams
11. Cooking school
12. Charm school
13. Wizard school
14. Too cool for school
15. Catch up with old friends
16. Ketchup with new friends
17. Work it out
18. Feel the burn
19. Pay the price
20. Buy two, get one free
21. Never gonna give you up
22. Never gonna let you down
23. Never gonna run around
24. …and desert you
25. Stop listening to Rick Astley
26. Start listening to Rick Springfield
27. Save more money
28. Find out if mo’ money means mo’ problems
29. Bust a move
30. Fix that busted move
31. Be a better mother
32. Turn this mother out
33. Snuggle with Jeremy
34. Buy a Snuggie (that’s for you, Bejwell)
35. Be more like Bejwell
36. Less pain
37. More joy
38. More Almond Joy
39. Dazzle my husband
40. Bedazzle my husband’s jeans
41. Find the perfect jeans
42. Call a friend named Gene
43. Make friends with someone named Gene
44. Stop
45. Collaborate and listen
46. Stop
47. Hammertime
48. Stop dating a**holes
49. Whoops! Number 48 is a leftover from my 1999 resolution list.
50. Party like it’s 1999
51. 99 Luftballoons
52. Perfect my German accent
53. Teach Tom Cruise to speak in German accent
54. Keep my position at work
55. Keep my composure at work
56. (…when someone says “steel erection”. It happens a lot.)
57. Form a band
58. Name it Steel Erection
59. Set it
60. And forget it
61. Bring “snazzy” back
62. Bring sexy back
63. Take sexy back
64. (for in-store credit only)
65. Re-read Great Expectations
66. But with mediocre hopes
67. Never give up hope
68. Find out if Bo and Hope are still together
69. Conquer my fears
70. Develop a fetish
71. Develop more film
72. Accept my feelings for one Rachel Maddow
73. Accept that my feelings are not returned by one Rachel Maddow
74. Accept the cease and desist order from one Rachel Maddow
75. Be taller

The Economy Has Forced Me To Take Drastic Measures

I think it’s safe to say that no one wants to lose their jobs or carry around a beverage mug bigger than their head. So far, I have been faced with one of these grim realities. I have become one of those women you see toting those giant plastic insulated mugs filled with carbonated soda. And you just know that these women are trying too “even things out” by filling that sucker with diet coke, only mine is filled with regular coke. Ha! Fooled you.

As far as the losing the job thing, I sure hope it doesn’t happen, but the construction industry has been hit hard by the troubled economy. In turn, the architectural community (our job field) is experiencing a slow down and some companies are laying off employees or even asking employees to take a reduction in salary. Most likely, Jeremy and I will have our salaries slashed in 2009, and that’s if we’re one of the lucky ones.

I say we’d be lucky because just the other day I threatened to light my co-worker’s chair on fire. And you should know that we all have Aeron chairs at work, so yeah, it was a pretty big deal. People go nuts for those things.

In my defense, my threat was only in jest, but perhaps my timing was not the best. I think management took it pretty well, all things considered. They even pulled me in a closed-door meeting to make everyone outside the closed-door meeting think I was in serious trouble. My superiors even went so far as to have the HR department type up a paper, which I signed, stating that I would not threaten to cause harm to any Aeron chairs so long as I was employed by the firm. Apparently I’m free to put a flame to the cheap Costco chair in the break room, but not the fancy designer chairs. See? I told you it was a pretty big deal.

Anyway, I seem to have gotten side-tracked here. You see, this post is about how I discovered a small way to tighten the old purse strings whilst still indulging in the occasional fountain beverage.

Allow me to explain. I am only in the office three days a week. On those days I require a 44 oz carbonated beverage at my desk in order to successfully make it through the day without “allegedly” threatening to inflict unprovoked harm to inanimate objects in the office. The price I pay for pleasure/sanity in a plastic cup? A cool $1.47.

Now, you coffee drinkers out there are probably scoffing at me right now as you sip your frappuccino from Starbucks at just over $5 a cup. But think, people. I live in Utah. Coffee is barely legal here and if you’re caught drinking it in public, you can be subjected to a hefty fine. Don’t even get me started on what happens to you if you’re caught dancing in public. You do know that Footloose was filmed here don’t you? Remember how those kids won in the end and got their dance? In public? Yeah, that trouble maker Kevin Bacon and those evil dance-seeking kids would never be able to so much as do a jazz square in Utah.

Anyway, back to my fountain drink addiction. If you do the math, at $1.47 a pop, three times a week, adds up to $4.41 per week. If you multiply that by four (average number of weeks in a month), that winds up being a whopping $17.64 in soda pop.

Notice that I wrote if YOU add it up you’ll end up with 17 bucks and some change. When I added it up, it looked as though I was spending $176.40 on soda per month. I immediately freaked out and phoned up Jeremy hyperventilating to him that I was spending almost 200 dollars a month on fountain sodas and that I could see no way to rectify the situation because I wasn't willing to give up my sugar-filled caffeine high. After Jeremy did some deep breathing exercises with me and showed me exactly how decimals points work in multiplication, eventually I settled down. Moments later, my dear husband walked past my work desk and slammed this sucker down with such great force that it shook my family size bag of M&Ms to the floor.


Yep, it’s my Maverick 44 oz super insulated soft drink mug. When it’s filled up with soda, it’s a chore just to lift the thing. I count it as part of my resistance routine whenever I lift it to my mouth to take a sip. A gal can never have too much wrist definition, you know? Annnnnnd, it costs only 59 cents to fill up. It’s a win-win really if you think about it.

As an aside, ‘Maverick’ refers to a local convenience store chain throughout the Intermountain West. Their slogan is “Adventures First Stop!” But I submit that it is actually adventure’s last stop. I’ve been in our local Maverick at odd times and the folks that show up there at the wee hours of the morning are definitely on their way home after an adventure gone wrong. I mean, who shows up to work wearing no pants and only a coat? Let me clarify: who shows up to work wearing a coat holding their pants rolled up in their arms? Someone who doesn’t want a job, that’s who. Ironically, the pant less person I saw at Maverick was an off-duty Maverick employee. I never saw him at that particular store again. Pity, he was one of my favorites and he had great legs.

As a second aside (as if this post wasn’t chock filled with tangents already) I’m totally counting this as a HASAY post because since that giant sucker of a mug came into my life just over a month ago, I have filled it up with ice water. Healthy. Also, if you were paying attention, you would have picked up that I use it as a weight when doing resistance exercises. Again, win-win.

*A third aside, everything in this post is true except for the part about me being pulled into a closed-door meeting. When I threatened to set a chair on fire, my boss only looked at me for a few moments then went back to working. After eleven years, he's pretty much heard it all from me.

I'm Back...Not With a Vengence or Anything, But I'm Back.

No, one, I repeat, no one has been dying to know what I’ve been up to on my five week hiatus from the internets. Not even my mom. True story. I called her up to let her know that I would have a post up within the hour and she was all, “Oh, are you still doing that blog thing?” Well, at least she got the name right this time. She used to call it a ‘blob’. Baby steps, people.

Well, during my self-imposed, and much needed break, I’ve been up to many, many things, all of them legal. For example, I saw Twilight three times. I said all my activities were legal, I didn’t say they were the least bit awesome. So, anyway, back to Twilight. You know, Edward’s not that creepy after you see him for the third time. Honestly. You know what is creepy though? The woman in her mid-thirties who sneaks off alone to the theater down the street when her children are both napping and her husband is preoccupied so that she can see a movie geared toward undead, chaste-loving, teens. My husband and I have finally reached an agreement that as long as he stops accusing me of being a cougar, I’ll no longer request that he strap me on his back and shout “You better hold on tight, spider monkey,” as he piggy-backs me through the neighborhood. Deal.

So, what else did I do? Hmm, let’s see, I had vomit in my hair. Twice. Both times, it was vomit that didn’t even belong to me.

I witnessed a man actually getting a ticket for jaywalking. JAYWALKING? YES, JAYWALKING. I even asked the guy after his citation if I just saw what I thought I saw. He showed me the ticket to confirm it. And yes, Steenky is that callus to hang out around a semi-crime scene just so she could ask a stranger if she could see his ticket. If I would have had my camera on me, I would have asked for a photo with the guy.

Oh, I also witnessed a lewd act in a Chuck E. Cheese’s bathroom that I’d prefer to never discuss or remember ever again. I can’t, or won’t go into details, but I’ll give you a hint: it involved someone I swear I recognize from high school wearing hot pants, dirty socks and an obscene amount of glitter. In order to protect myself, and my gag reflex, I will divulge no more. Oh, I will say this, HE wasn’t alone either. Yeah, chew on that one for a while.

I also ate a lot of toast, an embarrassing amount of toast. I’m not sure why, but it just felt right. Hot and buttery right. Now tell me how many things you can say that about? Not many.

I finally came to terms with my Brad Pitt issues. I know, it may come as a complete shock to most of you that I have issues with Brad Pitt, but I feel it’s time to come clean. I just don’t care for him. For years I’ve been silent about this, just sitting by at purse parties listening to all my girlfriends go on and on about how gorgeous he is. But, Steenky can keep up this exhausting charade any longer. So, here I am world, shouting that I am afraid no more of your harsh judgment of the fact that I’d rather see a love scene starring Gary Oldman any day over a shirtless Brad Pitt.

I have decided, however, that not everyone is ready for my new found boldness on the Pitt issue, like, for example the man in the check-out line behind me at Target. When I shouted out loud to the world that I wanted to see a semi-nude Gary Oldman he gave me the dirtiest look, covered his young daughter’s ears and quickly left to find another check stand. Not everyone feels the same way I do about Gary I guess.

Oh, yeah, and I may have accidentally re-designed the look of Steenky Bee. You might notice that things look different around here. Now, nobody likes change less than me. For realsies, I am sort of terrified of change, both literally and figuratively. The literal change, as in money, just gives me the heebie-jeebies. I don’t like the sound of it jingling and don’t even get me started on the smell of coins. And it’s cousin, the paper dollar? Pft. Do you people know where that stuff has been? Let’s just say, that I bet I could find more traces of vomit on a one dollar bill than was in my hair during the month of December. And you people have no idea how much vomit was in my hair. It was a lot. Trust me on this one.

As for the figurative change, as in the new look and feel on Steenky Bee, well, what can I say? I was bored with my old look. I tinkered around with a few things, changed some colors and added a big a** bee on the mast head. Serious. That bee is huge, ya’ll and I know it.

In closing, I would just like to say, that when I started writing this post I had no intentions of talking about vomit so much. Honestly, I’ve got better things to lay on you in ‘09, I swear I do. Vomit is just the tip of the iceberg.

I also want to thank everyone that checked in on me over the past weeks, to just poke at me to see if I was alive. I missed everyone dearly and can't wait to jump back into all your sites to see what you've all been doing. I bet none of you saw a cross dresser at Chuck E. Cheese's, did you?

In closing, once again, I think I’ve given you all enough ammunition to scare the bajeesus out me if you ever meet me in person. All you need to do is shout, “Things are gonna start changing around here!” and then throw a bunch of quarters in my face. I will instantly be crippled with fear at the prospect that things will somehow be different and at the fact that you subjected me to filthy coins.