Fraidy Cat

I never though I was scared of heights. Sure, I get a couple butterflies in my stomach standing close to a rocky ledge & I get the adrenaline rush standing on a rooftop, but I've never been so scared that I wouldn't climb over the safety rail to have a good view of the fireworks. That was until today.

Today I was watching CSI: NY & had to change the channel because I was getting queasy watching the detectives on the top of the Empire State building. I was watching people on TV & I was scared of how high they were. This never happened with Fear Factor. Why am I so scared now?

literally!

literal (adj): 1. Taking words for their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory. Free from exaggeration or distortion.

So why the hell do people use this word to intensify a statement. "I've had kids literally rip my heart out." No, you didn't. Looks to me like you're still alive, sitting & misusing words. Seriously! Why has this become a way to say something outrageous as a metaphor, but just emphasize it more!! It's an oxymoronic idea & it's seriously annoying.

Literally, annoying.

I hate Great Depressions

There is very little in the world more depressing in the world than riding by the Ferrari & Maserati (Alfa Romeo?) dealership while riding the bus to work (ok, there are few really shallowly depressing things). They are all sitting in the show room super shiny & clean & well lit while I'm riding on the also well lit but grungy & smelly bus. I know that even if I could afford to buy one & pay the insurance & gas that I would probably let my inner tree-hugger win & ride the bus anyway... at least some of the time. They are just so pretty & look like so much freaking fun to drive!! I need to stop watching Top Gear. It is nothing but trouble.

Why are these really nice dealerships always in sketchy neighborhoods? I mean we're talking Italian-freaking-super-cars. & No the neighborhood is not the worst in Seattle (that's where I'm taking the bus to) But it's only a few blocks & big hill away. Do they really expect drastic changes in elevation to keep the hood at bay? I'm guessing that there is a serious security system & maybe bullet-proof glass involved but still. Which brings me to another thought: where do they test drive these things? I would want to be somewhere fast & out of traffic. It's in the farthest distance possible between the 3 major highways in a city with top 10 worst traffic.

Speaking of driving directions, OK so "get there" directions via public transit, have you used google maps lately? I use it almost daily to find the fastest bus to take places, it's way more user friendly than the Metro website & always has accurate bus times (well as accurate as Metro ever is). It now has street views that you can follow to your location & in the street level picture you can turn onto other streets & look all around. It's like someone took a video of your route & then placed still photos online to help you find your way!

P.S. Am knitting really cool socks (the most challenging pattern yet!) will post pictures when completed

Notice?

They power-washed to roof & cleaned off the gutters at my building. Hooray! Just 2 small complaints. #1 It would have been nice if the management also paid them to power-wash the courtyard when they were done because now it's covered with the mud & moss & leaves from the roof. #2 It would have been nice to know that there would be men on ladders outside my windows this morning. I would have put on pants. Or closed the blinds...

UPS came while I was out today, so he left me a nice little note. I can: a) sign the piece of paper & let him leave it wherever he wants (this was bad option even before the courtyard became a swamp) b) mark on the note that I will drive to pick it up (if I wanted to drive to pick it up, I would have bought it in a store instead of online) or c) stay home @ the time checked. Guess what he checked? before 10:30am, 10:00am-2:30pm, 2:00pm-5:00pm, & after 5:00pm (that would be all of the boxes). I can't leave my house if I want my package!?!

This isn't the 1st time I've dealt with this. I asked a driver about this before (OK, not so much asked but told them it was really obnoxious to check all the boxes) & they told me they aren't allowed to specify a time because they can't guarantee they'll be able to be there. So why are the boxes even on the freaking piece of paper!! & guess what time they showed up last time: 4:45pm. So, good, I didn't have to stay home after 5 to wait. WTF? I hate UPS, they are worse than the cable guy

Voting Dilema

I've been pretty stoked about this election. I haven't signed up to get absentee ballots because I sometimes forget to mail them, but I'm a little worried about voting tomorrow. I'm darn sure that Washington is going in the Obama column, unfortunately our governor's race is much closer. Rossi is the scariest possible governor I can think of--the analogy I find most appropriate would be O'Reilly as President. Did your your stomach just hit the floor. He's terrifying & the race was super close last time. When you have 4 years with nothing to do but plan your next campaign, raise illegal funds & illegally send mailers (while your opponent has things to do, like govern the state) you put together a pretty overwhelming campaign.

It's not that I particularly like our governor, she has her flaws & has made some mistakes. But Dino is the worst possible of all evils. Uber-neo-conservative, Religious Right: wants to allow pharmacists not only to refuse to supply emergency contraception but ALL contraception, health care, especially women's health care is going to get no funding, pharmaceutical companies will run rampant & the environment will die, & any hope of Legal Gay Marriage will be a distant thought.

So it's important for me to vote. The lines on TV are really freaking long & I have to work tomorrow; specifically, tomorrow night. So do I make sure I get enough sleep during the day & risk not getting to vote before having to be at work? Or do I risk not sleeping before work & go early to make sure I vote. Before you answer you should know I'm a nurse working in a very challenging ICU & if I screw up at work someone may die. But if Rossi wins the election I'll wish I was dead (& so will most people in this state, even if they don't realize it now).

I'm going with the latter. I can always call in sick, at least until Rossi has the union dissolved.

Happy-ish Halloween

I keep forgetting that it hasn't happened yet. I have to work on Halloween & I already went to the only Halloween Party that I can. It was one of the strangest parties I've ever been to. One of my favorite things about parties is seeing different groups of people meet each other, people whose only thing in common is knowing the host. Sadly, this didn't happen. Throughout the whole night 30-40 people came & went, but they all came & went at different times so there was never more than 15 people there at a time. I think I can differentiate the guests into 4 groups. The party started early & I tend to go out early compared to other people, so it was really early.

Group #1: Quite possible the strangest group, consisting of: the hosts' former neighbor--a 30 year old dressed as a naughty school girl (who didn't know Mary Katherine Gallagher or Molly Shannon). Her mother--a German currently living in Jersey, dressed as the devil; she was quite charming until she got tipsy & became very intense. The former-neighbor's boyfriend--a 45-ish man who didn't bother to dress up & had even less of a sense of humor than his girlfriend. They had to leave early to go to another costume party. Which was funny because only two thirds of the group was in costume.

Group #2: Snobby & older gay men. Friends of both hosts, although I'm not sure how they know the hosts. They weren't particularly friendly to anyone but their own group, even when some of us established that we'd hung out before at a party last year. The costumes were intense, but a little hard to figure out (I think some of them weren't anything in particular, just dressed-up) & got offended if you asked what they were (which I thought was weird when they weren't anything in particular!). They had to go to a bigger party & left pretty early.

Group #3: Under-age Abercrombie employees. They were all very beautiful & all very aware of it. Definitely the most nudity of any group. Despite that, they were the most friendly group--which is shocking considering where they work! They were endearing in an awkward way, & convinced me they weren't at the party because none of them could buy booze on their own.

Group #4: Gay Power-Couples. No one wore a costume. They were on their way to the bars. Kind of friendly, but acted like they were doing us a favor by being there. Nicer than group #2, though.

At this point I went home because I had a free ride home & the awkwardness was exhausting. Isn't the point of parties to meet new people & have fun?

Allow myself to introduce myself

This always happens to me: I think I'm going to have something clever & ground-breaking to say, & then I end up complaining about annoying commercials. Like the new Colgate ad? The one where the girls gets all ready to go surfing (you know with the rash guard & the ankle strap) & then brushes her teeth. I know surfing is this amazing exhilarating experience & maybe the toothpaste is supposed to be, too. But the only thing I can think of watching that commercial is how after swimming (& by extension surfing) in the ocean my mouth is never particularly fresh. It feels numb & the taste of salt is so overwhelming that fresh water actually tastes sweet--like sugar-water-you would-feed-hummingbirds sweet. My mouth stops making spit (I don't know why) & so for an hour afterwards it's like the Sahara, which doesn't really smell good. So why would I want toothpaste that makes my mouth feel salt-numb & extra dry & make my breath smell like a cat's?

So back to the introduction: I live in Seattle, I grew up in the suburbs. I work as a Nurse in ICU, but I may jump to ED or something else exciting, eventually. I love the blood & guts. Which is probably why I like my job as well as zombie movies. I love to travel, but nurses don't make that much money, not to mention my rent in Seattle is exorbitant. This is also the reason I don't out-dress Rachel Zoe; I LOVE fashion & make-up & shoes. I'm afraid of dogs, but I like them. I'm afraid of spiders & I hate them. I really want to be cool, but I know I'm destined to be a geek for the rest of my life. I have the reflexes of a Mongoose (you know, Riki-Tiki-Tavi? they're so fast they eat cobras) but I am a uber-klutz, I'm sure I'll post pictures of my more impressive bruises later.

I can't think of anything else clever or interesting to say, so I'll sign off for now.

PS - Oh, maybe I should explain the pirate thing. I have loved pirates since I was 5--I think it's an extension of my Peter Pan obsession (which I'm mostly over). So now whenever friends & family can't think of things to get me for birthday/Christmas/etc they get me pirate stuff. Pirate band-aids, pirate rubber duckies, pirate books, pirate undies, you get the idea. So what else would I name my blog? & everyone knows pirates' say "Aarg!" This is not to say I dislike ninjas, I like them as much as anybody else. That being said, I would totally kick a ninja's ass.