An explanation intended to elicit your sympathy/make you forget I'm a horrid blogger

To quote my wife, “Oy.”

We have been absent for awhile. It has actually, in part, been (for me) recovering from my birthday, but that’s a long and drawn-out story. I will begin it with an anecdote.

My sister returned from the gym recently and indicated she had a gross story. She said she was working out on a machine and realized that the guy using the machine next to her smelled like ass. So I said, “Well, perhaps he’d just been working out for a long time and was really sweaty?” She said that, no, that was impossible. He smelled like dirty butt in a way that can only be achieved by not washing one’s ass for at least a week or so. She said that she tried breathing through her mouth but then felt like she was eating his dirty ass smell and, all in all, it was a horrible experience. She ended the story by mentioning that he finished before her and walked over to his girlfriend…

To which I replied, “Wait a minute. GIRLFRIEND? THE MAN WITH THE STINKY DIRTY ASS HAS A GIRLFRIEND???”

Yup. She confirmed that, while she and I are both clean assed but single, the dirty smelly man who cannot bother to clean his butt has a girlfriend – who presumably embraces him, as it was obvious to my sister that she was in fact his girlfriend.

I found this horrifying and have been obsessed with it ever since. The reason for my obsession, and for the bender I embarked upon after my birthday, which subsequently caused me to catch a nasty cold I’m still kind of recovering from, is that I was unceremoniously… dumped? I’m not sure you can say “dumped” but whatever it was, it occurred a couple of days after my birthday.

I hinted on this blog that I was, like, kind of dating someone. I hinted and then removed that part of the post when I realized this blog comes up if you google my very unique name, which I kind of accidentally revealed to him (yes, I was dating someone who did not have my full name for a few months) and I got paranoid (sign #1 you are not meant for someone: it terrifies you that they might find out you actually think about them enough to blog about them). It was bumpy and at times infrequent, allegedly due to his ongoing personal and work dramas. But we got along well, I thought. There aren’t many people I really want to hang out with in a nearly empty bar for hours and hours, but he was one of them. And he liked Daria. Big selling point for me.

It must be understood that I am socially awkward, kind of a drunk, and really bad at male/female crap. So I went back and forth over inviting him out for my birthday celebration, because I’m a wuss, my friends would be there, I didn’t know if they’d like him and vice versa, my palms would be sweaty, blah blah blah. But I did, and he said he’d come… and never showed up. And never contacted me, ever again! Which resulted in me getting wasted as hell, that night and many subsequent nights. And too little sleep. And as a result, my body freaked out at me because I was treating it very badly.

And I’m posting this because I no longer give a fuck if he sees it (not that I’m flattering myself, believing that he’s checking up on me via the interwebs or anything). I’m kind of tired of pretending to be blasé about things like this, and I'm sick of wondering whether it was "serious" enough to get upset over, wondering constantly whether I'm overreacting. Fuck that. I was hurt, and angry, and I’m still kind of both, and who cares if the internets know?! And why would I want to date someone if I’m scared to reveal any kind of emotion in front of them? Oh yeah, I’m a masochist and kind of emotionally repressed. Well, I’m trying to work through that.

So anyway, there is my last month or so in a nutshell! But also I’ve had a good deal of fun. The drinking may have been a sad response to a stupid, pathetic situation but it was also good times, and not too much of it was done alone. Plus there’s pumpkin beer and red wine to be had, scary movies to watch, pumpkins to carve, and Halloween outings to plan. I fucking love fall, so I guess it’s the perfect time to get over the end of a summer fling.

And also – I’m going to be a lion for Halloween! It’s exciting. The outfit is kind of slutty (can you, as a woman, find one that isn’t?) but I’m adding leggings. Which makes it still kind of slutty, I think. Oh well!

Still – I cannot make something work with a misanthropic divorcee with a long arrest record (yes. yes.), but that smelly-assed motherfucker has a girlfriend? Oh. My. God.

Plop Plop

While hanging out this weekend, Boulos and I were watching TV, as we are wont to do. We came across a very strange alka seltzer ad, which I will be forced to describe, as it does not yet exist on youtube:

A bunch of people are hanging out after work at a bar and the older guy shouts "Wings!" and is then seen taking a very hearty bite of what is presumably a chicken wing. Cut to two total assholes at the table who look at one another conspiratoriallybefore one says, "Wings? He won't be in tomorrow." (Maybe he doesn't repeat "wings," but whatever). Then they nod like douchebags and smile wickedly.

Then old dude is at home in the bathroom and makes a face like he has bad cramps. He takes some alka seltzer and feels better. His expressions in this scene are really horrifying.

Next morning, the young ones walk into the office uber-casually (they're HOLDING their suit jackets, not wearing them!) and boss turns a corner, smiles like the douchebuster he is, and says, "Guys, you're late!" The two lame-os look sheepish, realizing they've been outfoxed by the old gasbag. One of the two young ones is freakishly heinous.

We were perplexed by this ad -- the bad acting, the weirdness, the idea that someone's wing-eating habits would be cause to suspect they might miss work.

So, after watching Jeopardy yesterday (which I DVR 2x a day, thank you very much), I made the mistake of staying tuned for the "Jeopardy is sponsored by" ads, which are always super creepy (AARP ads, ads for life insurance you can get even if you are 104, the roll-them-out-of-bed-and-into-the-wheelchair thing that helps you take care of your invalid spouse at home -- basically, they are aimed at people who are knocking at death's door). The first was a creepy ovaltine commercial, of course. God, those people are all robots, especially whoever is offering the children the robot-juice they call ovaltine, in this case a scary-ass mom who says, "well, I guess I'll have to make more ovaltine shakes!" as though she might be saying, "well I guess I'll be eating the children's faces for dinner tonight!"

But up next: the one where the guys think their boss won't be in due to wings! I watched it 3x because I find it very amusing and I have no life. I figured out a few things we had missed upon first viewing, which I think we can be forgiven for because we didn't use the rewind feature last time, and the ad is about 15 seconds long:

1) He is actually drunk, that is why he is so cheerily ordering wings. But alkaseltzer is too subtle to come right out and say that, or advocate their product's use as a pre-hangover remedy, so they confuse and amuse us instead. His facial expression pre-alka seltzer but post-wings clued me into this -- if wings will get you that intoxicated, I'm quitting WW and heading over to Buffalo Wild Wings asap.

2) THOSE ARE NOT WINGS. They are chicken fingers/tenders, whatever you want to call them. They are blatantly fried, un-saucy, and not wing-like.

3) The white underling is SO CREEPY and ugly. He looks like Scott Thompson from Kids in the Hall, but creepier and with fish lips. I want an alternate ending in which he dies.

That is all! Pictures to come, if Boulos ever gets her ass in gear!