Gluttin'- (v.) to really be askin' for it, to really be deservin' of.

"I'm gluttin' for punishment."

Whopping Cough-(n.) a stupendously large coughing disease that they inoculate you for. Not to be confused with the whooping cough, because that's the correct way to say it, (and why say Valentine's when you can say Valentimes, you get me?)

KYMBURLEE-(n.) 1.)a really asinine way to spell your child's name. 2.)a good way to irritate your child for the rest of her life, as no one in their right mind will ever be able to spell her name correctly the first time. 3.)a good way to bring images of large, thick shouldered, short necked, unusually hairy women to mind every time someone thinks of your child and her ridiculous name.

And yes, that is how you spell "asinine".

Unconscience.

"I was hit in the head and knocked unconscience."

This means that a blow to the cranium robs you of your moral code, apparently. Watch out for low hanging objects...(hey-oh!)

So I thought playing Candy Starr was fun, but she's got nothin' on Fastrada. Holy crap, every rehearsal, more and more stuff bubbles out of me (gross) for this character. I don't know where it comes from, and it's a little frightening that I could have so much fun playing a trophy wife with a reverse Oedipal complex, but dang, when you get to mix Katherine Hepburn, Minnie Mouse and John Lithgow in one voice, and get to be over-the-top sexually charged, it's a good time.

Would anyone think less of me if I seriously harmed a child? I have in mind little "Abbey"...or at least, this is what her mother keeps calling her over and over in full voice at the freaking library. "Abbey, sit in your chair right now, I mean it or we're never coming here again." (Child immediately gets up and runs to the magazine rack. Mother pursues.) "Abbey, if you don't sit back down in your chair this instant, I mean it, we're--one...twoooo...sit down! We are never coming here again and you're not getting any icecream, I mean it!" (Child does horrible fake cry and throws herself on ground). "Abbey, we might get icecream if you stop right this minute." (Child gets up and bangs on computer.) "Abbey, we do not hit, Abbey. Abbey, I promise, we are never doing this again. Abbey, I will give you icecream if you stop."

Abbey, I will promise not to hold your nose and mouth shut at the same time if you can shut up for two seconds. Abbey, Mommy will give you an arsenic icee when we get home! Abbey, if you keep banging on the keys like that, Mommy will have to play the "See Who Can Hold Their Breath the Longest" game...in the pool...underwater...while Mommy sits on you.

Oh dear God. That is by far the sickest thing I have ever written. I should delete it. Heather, please do not read this...

Oh crap, I just hit "publish". I must be unconscience.

The goose babies have reached adolescence.

They're hungry all the time, have huge, oversized feet, and adult heads perched atop grey downy baby bodies. At least, the more advanced ones do. These are the ones that get all the dates in the pond...the ones who can have perfectly normal conversations with adults, and exude a confidence well beyond their years. The ones who are already getting laid, have tried drugs and binge drinking, and still look hot the next morning in time for Algebra.

Then, there are the geese who haven't quite made it yet...they're all messy feathers, downy and adult mixing bizarrely and sticking out in random tufts. These are the geese that are in the band, chess and drama clubs, and have a vocabulary that is well advanced beyond their years due to a voracious reading habit (words which they try to insult the popular geese with...which is never, ever a good idea, since a simple "fuck off" from a popular gosling is so much more powerful than a well placed complex modifier from the goose who's a hall monitor), are still sporting an egg tooth, and are most often found following behind their moms at the mall...and of course, they're never wearing the right outfit.

Which goose baby do you suppose I was?

The funny thing is, all geese look alike once adolescence is over. You can't tell one from the other in the V-formation, you only know that they all have to take their turn in the headwind no matter what the pecking order was in the pond (you see what I did there? "Pecking"? Nice.) And, they're all equally annoying what with their huge cigarette-ash looking poop that you can find all over the apartment complex (and I get fined if I don't pick up the Pip's poo...I seriously should be able to "fine" the next goose defecator with a shotgun) and pre-5 a.m. honking right outside my f**cking window.

I suppose you think I'm going to say something profound here and compare my little anecdote to life...

...nah.

Me and Lisa and a real PIRATE...

Sorry for the bluriness...

I want to be a mug.

Fragility is a new state for me. I feel as though I'm affected (effected?) by the littlest things these days...a change in temperature, an off-hand comment, the fluttering of a butterfly wing (minus Ashton Kutcher), the slightest breeze. I hate admitting that I'm in a fragile state, not because being this way is hard to handle (in fact, it's kind of good for me...I'm much more emotionally in tune these days) but because of the pressure it puts on other people...which is why I haven't admitted it before.

Yes, that's right, I'm a closet people pleaser.

Anyway, take for instance, the difference in how you handle a china teacup versus that plastic cup you got at the dollar store. The teacup is pretty and all, with it's thin porcelain lip, handpainted flowers, and smoothly curving bottom (maybe I am describing myself here! Right...) but you treat it differently than an ordinary cup. So I don't want to be a teacup, with people handling me with nervousness or unsure hands because they don't normally deal with china and they feel like they might break me at any moment.

I also don't want to be the dollar store cup...the one you forget about in your bedroom for two months and now smells permanently of rotten milk and old socks...the one you just throw away because you can get a new one. The one that still has a permanent kool-aid stain in the bottom from your brief obssession with Vodka and cherry flavored water. The one you put in the dog food bag to scoop out the brown canine goodness. The one you...okay, I'm done.

No, I want to be an "I Heart Grandpa" mug. It's the mug you don't mind throwing in the dishwasher, but you still have your coffee out of it every morning, because no other mug fits your hand the way this one does, or has that chip in the corner from the time you accidentally banged it into the sink, or because hell, your coffee just doesn't taste right unless it's in this particular vessel.

So yeah, I want to be a mug.

And speaking of mugs, I've been informed I need to change mine on here (ha! You had to know I wouldn't let that one go...yeah, you know who you are.:)) Anybody have any decent shots of me they want to forward on? KL? I'm sure you have some interesting ones from last night...(anytime a pirate walks into a bar is a good time.) I am currently digitally defunct, with no camera, scanner, or otherwise technologically forward thing to help me on my quest. OOoo, maybe someone could give me any one of those things as a present. I loves me some presents.

I've decided "presents" is my "love language".

And now I'm officially rambling. Okay, back to Chuck and his Diary.

Two more for your aural pleasure:

"Drownding"--combining past and present aquatic suffocation in one little word.
"Chipole-tay"--Did you know that they even have a freaking cup there that tells you the right way to say their name (and, incidentally, all the wrong ways, including this one)? Did you know that it seems as though half of Columbus is lysdexic? Geez, people, it's CHIPOTE-LAY, not CHIPOLE-TAY...if I hear this mispronunciation one more time, I might have to spell check someone in the face. I mean, I can understand if someone would mispronounce a word like "insouciance" or "antidisestablishmentarianism" or...

...alright, I'm going to stop now...mostly because I can't think of any more hard words to mispronounce.

Hey! It's the last weekend of my latest show. If you miss this one, you will miss an opportunity to see me with spit curls, and to see me straddling not one, but two men in a matter of minutes.

Why are you even reading the end of this post?!?! Go buy your tickets!

Oh yeah, and everyone else is really good too, blah, blah, blah...

CHIPOTE-LAY.

*Comment posted on 6/9/06 blog post*

Hey Pip,

This is Baskin ... the Commodore's (holy) terrier. I know how it is man. You're young ... you'll get used to it.

Okay, so I am a little smaller than you. I love to jump off of the Commodore's 12' tall bed. One day I stove in both of my front legs and couldn't walk. You'd of thought he lost an entire bag of milkbones the way he was carrying on ... sobbing! A few shots and a couple of muscle relaxers later, I was zippin around like normal. What is it with these humans. They bathe everyday, they eat with their mouths closed, they can't lick themselves ... no wonder they're miserable! Anyway, hang in there, pal, and I hope you're feeling better soon.

Smell you later!

Baskin

Dear Baskin,

First, let me just say, "Woof, woof, mwuf, bark, yip, woof...barrr-ooooo."

Yeah-heah. You know what I mean, Playah.

Second, I just wanted to thank you for your nice note. I didn't know that we could "stove" our legs like that! (I had to ask my owner, whom I think of as "Goddess Who Picks Up My Poop", what "stove" meant, but I feel you now, man, I feel you now.) I will have to be more careful about that. Yeah, Dude, I can't believe I ran into that door. The Goddess is such a wonderful housekeeper that those babies are just clear, you know, like see through, and well, you know how it is when they're like, "Wanna go outside?!" and you're like, "Hell, yeah!" and then your brain just like stops working, and all you can think about is wagging your tail so hard that your whole back end wags too, or the possibility of maybe eating or rolling in something dead or even my own poo...or getting to smell some yaknowwudI'msayin', hello!!

So yeah, dog, thanks for thinking of me. What's the deal with our owners freaking out? You're right, you'd think she was the one who'd thrown out her back and couldn't lick her balls (panick, dude, FOR REAL.) I mean, I was the one who was thinking it'd been like, what, almost 6 months in our time since I'd been able to reach "down there", and she's the one bawling. Geez, lady, calm down and figure out a way to reach dese.

Whoah! Whoah! What was that noise?!!? Holy Crap! Holy Crap! Kill! Kill! Protect! Defend!!

False alarm...it was just the Goddess tapping her fingers on the wall. (Man, I ALWAYS fall for that!)

Alright, suckah, I gotta run. Seriously. In circles. All over the apartment. In a pattern: dining room, family room, hallway, bedroom, jump on the bed, jump off the bed, hallway, family room, dining room, slip on the kitchen floor. Repeat. I don't know what to do with all this energy. I've tried chasing my tail but it's just not the same as chasing some other tail...hey-oh!

Peace and doggie treats,

The Pip

I'm going to tell you a secret...

My self-worth is directly tied to my e-mail inbox.

This is sad, I know, but true. When I check my e-mail and see that I have new mail, even if it's "hOt v-iAgra 4u", I feel loved. I feel as though there are people out there who care about me and my erectile dysfunction. When, like today, I check not once, but twice, and there's nothing from no one, not even my on-line pharmacist friend, I sink into maybe not the "depths of despair", but perhaps the "depths of I-could-eat-a-bowl-of-ice-cream".

I know, I know, I need therapy...blah, blah, blah.

I'm going to tell you another secret...

I can handle other people's problems, but not my own.

Take, for instance, a few years back when my nephew had a seizure, and my sister's freaking out, running around the dining room table shrieking "I didn't give him his Motrin! I didn't give him his Motrin!" I, cool as a cucumber, dial 911 and take care of the situation (his fever had just spiked, and kids often have mild seizures when this happens. Who knew?). I take a cold, wet cloth and sponge him down until his fever recedes (my sister--this is sooo much funnier now--is still running around the table where I now have the boy and taking whole handfuls of water and splashing it on him. I love you, Heather.)

Yesterday, though, my dog has some health issues and I burst into my roommate's room at 7:30 a.m. bawling. Yes, bawling. Me, Sarah J. I-can't-cry-on-stage-because-I-can't-cry-in-real-life Storer. The girl who thought "The Notebook" was a comedy. The woman who couldn't stop laughing when her boss snapped one day and threatened to fire the entire staff. Then I'm freaking out because I'm torn about whether I should take him to the vet or go to work. So then I'm sobbing on the phone to Jen and she hears me freaking out and just tells me not to worry about it. Jai gets me calmed down and goes with me to the vet, where I'm nearly in tears as they give the Pip a shot (he was yelping, for crying out loud).

Turns out he's okay...just so happens that running full force into sliding glass doors doesn't always agree with small animals (don't say, "Wanna go outside?!?!" until after you open the door.) And HE'S the one that gets to take muscle relaxers. For a whole week. Meanwhile, this entire drama seems to trigger latent insecurities in me, and I'm nervous and jumpy the rest of the day, despite the manual labor I put in at work that leaves me exhausted. I couldn't sleep last night, and I woke up (at freaking SIX...in the MORNING) with an athsma attack and a headache today. Siggghhh...this has been a long week.

Good thing I have a pool. And a pack of Djarum Supers (much better than Black's, by the way). And Newcastle. And my dog's muscle relaxers.

Not that I've partaken of ALL of those vices today...

WARNING: DEPRESSING POST AHEAD

So, I've been riddled with bizarre and complex dreams of late, complete with stabbings, snow and snipers (okay, not snipers, but I was going for alliteration. I suppose I could have said "screaming". Yes...that would have made a lot more sense.) One of the dreams in particular has been disturbing to me, because even to this somewhat-skeptic, it seems saturated with symbols and meanings (I save four children, who are me and my sister and brothers as kids, only to abandon them to their imminent deaths later; the protagonist and antagonist are familiar to me but have no faces; my old school gym makes an appearance, and on and on). I usually enjoy dreaming--I often remember my dreams quite vividly--and find it to be very therapeutic, but now find myself going to bed later and later (as if this will forestall dreaming...in reality it only makes me tired and somewhat cranky...and even more prone to be skeeved out the next day by my dreams.)

I've also been asking people for their opinions and been receiving honest answers in return...

...this is not always fun.

I've also found myself slipping back into an old rut of late (warning again: watch for falling vagueness) that is not only not healthy, but also puts me into a sort of daily funk that I have to talk myself out of. I hate this. I feel as though I allow my life to stop for a moment each time this happens...what a waste of time and synapse. I'd much rather waste my time sleeping in, though as I've mentioned before, I don't really want to do that these days either.

On a brighter note, a stranger farted on me in Barnes and Noble yesterday. At first I was like, "Oh yay!! My brother drove all the way from Indiana to make me feel like we were kids again!" But it was really just some old dude in the Bargain Books section (I think he had picked up a cookbook about beans.)

This is why we always say "excuse me", folks, when you'd like to get by someone. It's polite, yes, but also gives people a chance to pinch it in.

AAAaaaaannnndddd...End Scene.

Cuckoo's Nest opened this weekend. I got laughs, which is nice. Okay, okay, I got laughed at because of my second act costume, but I'll take what I can get. Come see the show, people...I think we pulled it off, soap opera and all (www.emeraldcityplayers.org).

I went to see The Last Five Years with Marc and Christopher today, which is fast becoming my favorite show. I thought the guy who played Jamie was great, and I thought the girl was good, but I think any reservations I have about her performance are only because I'm jealous that it wasn't me up there. I love, love, love that role and the music and have now put that character up on my "must play" list. And I will, dammit, I WILL (see previous post about stepping on people and busting kneecaps to realize my dreams...).

My roommate is giving me a massage right now. I cannot type. I cannot say anything witty. I'm in the depths of relaxation. I am purring like a cat. I am cleaning my ears like a cat. I am not cleaning anything else like a cat though, because I'm not that flexible. And because that's real gross.

Seriously, I think I just ruined my dinner.