Short Sleeve Weather!

I just walked outside without a jacket (in short sleeves!) and it wasn't the worst idea ever! HA! Take THAT winter! Spring will conquer!!

Words

When it comes to vocabulary, I'm rather shorthanded...a better way of putting it might be that I'm ridiculously retarded. Oftentimes the word is there, on the tip of my tongue, "starts with k, sounds like chicken...," other times I just KNOW there's a word for this, I know it, I just can't think of it! and still other times I feel like there should be a word for whatever concept I'm trying to define, and perhaps there is, but if it exists, I couldn't pick it out of a line-up...of one.


As an example, today I used the word opinion when really what I meant input. Kinda close, it worked anyway, but I just couldn't come up with the word input at that moment. I mean, input? Is that really a hard word to come up with?? My brain just hates words.


This makes choosing writing as a career somewhat ironic. Perhaps it explains my need for a day job? Definitely for an online connection... dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, wikipedia.com - ah, yes, wikipedia.


If Facebook is my soulmate, Wikipedia is my illicit mistress. Anything and everything you've ever wanted to know about anything or everything. Meeting Wikipedia is like meeting the woman of your dreams...and never having to lose that image. There's no reality of morning breath or ugly jeans. With Wikipedia, if you don't like it, you can change it! If you're dead certain it's wrong, show it a little evidence, give it a few references, and it'll accept it, no arguments! No interest in your hobbies? You'll see to that! Getting too fat in one part or another? Trim it down! No problems! Always new, always changing, always exciting, always willing to take on new adventure; like a 25 year old with a hot body when you've been with the same moderately attractive, moderately intelligent, completely normal but no longer exciting person for practically forever...so long you feel like you've never not known them, never not been with them, met everyone you know through them. It's practically irresistable...a least for a quick look, once in awhile. Maybe a little light flirting. Even if you never really get into the dirty relationship of adding and changing and referencing and fixing...after all, then it would be just like any other relationship.

Facebook

Facebook and I have been on a first-name basis for awhile now. Acquaintances, though, you know. We'd say hi to each other when saw each other around, wave to each other in the halls, that sort of thing. If Facebook went missing, I'd have wondered what happened, but more of a general curiosity than a deep concern. If something terrible had happened, I wouldn't have expected to have been called with the news.

Recently, however, Facebook and I have become friends. Good friends. Maybe even BFF. All right, if I'm honest, if Facebook went missing tonight I'd be out there with my parka and flashlight calling out for dear life all night long if I had to...along with the millions of other searchers who couldn't live without Facebook even for that one night either.

Even with the several recent make-overs, Facebook can't shake us addicts. It's like a nose ring or a tattoo. The first couple times you see it, you think "God, please tell me you were drunk when you got that...?" but after you've seen the change for a few days, it grows on you, and eventually, that's all you know. It's like it's been that way forever. Facebook, changes and all, is like one of those friends you come to feel like you've known forever, even if you haven't. And eventually you start to think you met other friends through Facebook, when really that's not the case at all. But I mean, come on, there are people I'm friends with on Facebook that I literally haven't spoken to/e-mailed/heard from/caught wind of in TEN YEARS. You tell me we're not friends through Facebook? Facebook isn't the reason we're friends? Facebook didn't practically introduce us to each other?

And now, after all these introductions, without Facebook, not only would I be at a complete loss as to how to spend my entire day/month/year/life, I would also be 177 friends closer to lonely! And did you even know you HAD 177 friends? Me, when Facebook and I met, I looked at all the losers with their hourly updated status and weekly upated profile pictures and said 156 friends, my ass. They don't know all those freaking people. They're friending people they barely know. And I made a silent pact with Facebook that WE would never be that lame. WE were going to only friend people we were friends with. At least at one point. Even if that point was 15 years ago. And we couldn't remember their last name. Or the spelling of their first name. And here I am, 177 friends later, absolutely In Love with Facebook. Addicted to Facebook. Can't Get Enough of Facebook. But it's okay, after all, everyone's doing it. That makes it okay, right?

Hi, my name is Penney, and I'm addicted to Facebook...

Parenting Tips

The other day, I walked into the ever-classy establishment commonly known as “Dennys”. I looked to my right seeing the non-smoking section full of families. Looking to my left, I saw the smoking section. Ah yes, we must love the glorious mid-west, the last place in the world to retain a smoking section in restaurants. My hippie California mind cannot even begin to contemplate it’s necessity. But now as I look at the smoking section, I see…families?

I check my memory, turning my head back to what I recalled was the non-smoking section. There indeed were families. There were families in both the smoking and non-smoking sections. It’s one thing to HAVE a smoking section in a family restaurant…it’s something else altogether to seat your small children in the smoking section.

Refusing to further allow my mind to dwell upon these atrocities, I seated myself in the non-smoking section, placed my order, and sat back to enjoy. I didn’t have to wait long before I saw one of the mothers from the smoking section bring over a large glass of soda, and ask a waiter for a smaller glass. She poured the soda into the small glass, grabbed a straw and in one fluid motion stuck the straw in the glass and straight into her toddler’s mouth. He greedily glugged down none other than America’s favorite, Coca Cola.

Sugar, caffeine, high-fructose corn syrup, calories. What to worry about? Perhaps the acidity strong enough to be mandated as a cleaner New York city cops...used to dissolve blood off concrete. Just a thought.

The mother gave her child the glass to hold…the GLASS glass. A 3-year old child holding a glass of Coke heading back toward his seat in the smoking section.

I have no further comment.

An interesting conundrum

At least half the inhabitants of Michigan spend the winter bitching and complaining about how cold it is. Now winter is coming to an end. It’s raining instead of snowing. It’s 40 degrees instead of 10. This is March; this is when it’s supposed to become spring. I’m okay with it.

Yet the Michiganders still complain. “I hate the rain.” “The weather is SO terrible.” “It’s so gloomy outside.” Blah blah blah.

And when it turns to summer, they’ll complain about how humid it is.

And when it becomes fall, how fast the summer ended.

Yet, if a single outsider complains about their weather, they immediately become defensive. “It IS Michigan. The weather changes all the time. If you don’t like it, just wait an hour.” The phrase is said jokingly between Michiganders, but not so much to the outsider. Perhaps disguised as a joke, but said with squinted eyes and tightened lips.

Pregnant? Free Unsolicited Advice, step right up!

So I, of course despite all refusals to believe I would ever be one of these people, have the desperate need to give completely unsolicited advice to all persons pregnant.

It must be a hormone thing. You have a child and suddenly a hormone kicks in that causes a voice in your head to insist that you DO know everything about having a child and everyone who doesn't know everything DOES need to hear you...

Who else in their right mind would see a random person on the street and think, this person needs my knowledge. But NOT ONLY do we mothers think this, we act on this compulsion. We tell this random stranger who we assume based soley on appearance is pregnant all about OUR pregnancy and OUR labor and OUR children and OUR hopes and dreams AND all our friends pregnancies and labors and hopes and dreams and good lord!

So anyway, I'm trying to smack down that voice just a little bit and instead ask friends if there's anything they'd actually like me to blabber on and on about for hours and hours. I CAN control my hormones. I CAN control the voices in my head! But...you're not pregnant, are you?

My Ass

Speaking of my ass, there’s no bruise.

The thing hurts like a bi-otch,but there’s no bruise. I don’t bruise. It is physically impossible for me to bruise. It might turn a little grey in a few days, but I never get that great big black and blue bruise that makes everyone feel really sympathetic. No sympathy for me! No one even remembers that I got hurt. Still hurts just the same, but no great big black and blue bruise. I mean, if it’s going to hurt, you may as well have a big ol’ bruise to go with it.

So I’m running this morning, bitterly thinking about the old man yelling“Reeeeeel graceful” at my back as I walked away, when I feel one foot being angrily yanked out from under me; the foot leaving the sidewalk paying no attention to my internal warning cries and I fall smack on my unbruised ass. Are you kidding me??

“Jesus H!” I yelled. I would like to point out that I live in a very Jewish-populated neighborhood, and therefore have decided that yelling Jesus is not, in fact, swearing at all, really it’s just another stupid American mispronouncing an incredibly popular Hispanic name. Jesus doesn’t mean anything to the Jews!

My butt is clearly well-padded, since today’s fall did not hurt nearly as much as yesterday’s. I’m choosing not to dwell on this fact.

AND at the next section of black ice had the skid marks and firm butt-print of the last runner who was stupid enough to be out in 13 below freezing weather the day after it had rained and the morning after it had snowed, effectively covering any evidence of ice that obviously would have formed.

Thank you to the runner who saved me from my third fall in two days. I sincerely hope that you have a bruise for your troubles.

Black Ice

I run in the mornings. In my past life, I ran marathons. Running is a passion. Running makes me feel good. It’s when I can ignore life or embrace it. It’s what I do. So even in the dead of winter, I run. Every day. Okay…not EVERY day. But almost. 3-4 days a week. And usually once on the weekends. But I run.

So I was out running yesterday morning. Almost done with my 3-mile run, I turned a corner. As I turned, I felt one foot, the foot with imbalanced weight on it as I leaned into the turn, the foot placed precariously at an angle as I went around the bend, felt it begin to slide slip slide out from underneath me. I landed with a loud ass crack right on my hip bone.

“OWWW!” I yelled out at the top of my F*#ing lungs, SO proud of not yelling out the stream of freaking obscenities that were desperately fighting to be let out. I slammed my fist into the concrete to keep them in. And yes, of COURSE this helped. Who are you to question my tactics? You weren’t there.

Now with knuckles pounding as hard as my hip, I try to gather my feet under me well enough to stand when I hear the voice of an old man, “You all right?”

Hm, good thing I didn’t swear after all. See that, self control does pay off. “Fine,” I yell back, “I’m fine. Thanks.”

“I saw you go down, I was afraid you’d broken something. You sure you didn’t break anything?”

“No, I’m fine, nothing broken.”

“All right, if you’re sure you didn’t break anything…you sure you’re all right?”

OH MY GOD. “I’m fine, I’m sure.”

“There’s just a little patch of ice right there. Just right at that corner there. You can barely see it.”

“Yeah, I noticed…thanks.” Telling myself, he’s a neighbor, a neighbor, a neighbor. Hold the sarcasm, you can do it! You can!
“Just real thin, just right at the corner.”

OH GEEZ. “Uh huh, I figured that out already.” Trying to smile, trying to make it playful…but just shut the hell up while I’m still managing.

“Bet you’ll take that corner tighter next time.” He laughed. Laughing at me?

I have to get myself out of here before a non-neighborly side of Penney shows up. I sucked in my breath and pushed up on my pounding knuckles.

“If it makes ya feel better, ya looked real graceful doin’ it. Real graceful. Reeeeal pretty.” The old man was yelling behind me. Oh, who am I kidding, he was still in front of me. My steps were about two inches wide. I resisted the urge to flip him off.

“Yeah, thanks, that makes me feel a LOT better.” My eyes rolled despite the voice in my head demanding that they stay still for ONCE.

As I limped away I thought to myself, take that corner wider next time? Yeah right. That would require fore-thought. When I’m running, I don’t think about RUNNING. I’m thinking a million other things. My mind is nowhere near that corner of lawn, nowhere near that black ice.

Think ahead, my ass.