Sweet Blogger High

Despite the massive, uncharted size of the information superhighway, blogging is starting to feel more and more to me like attending high school in a small town.

Technorati tells us who our most popular bloggers are, but that is mere confirmation of what we already know. We run across the names of and links to these cooler cats on nearly every Blogger nav bar. Go Fug Yourself. Defective Yeti. We even have a prom queen, and she resides at Dooce.com.

Blogger relationships are also similar. When a new kid makes his way onto the scene, you either embrace him by linking and tell your girlfriends about him, or he is at once relegated to the lunchroom table status of fewer than 25 hits a day. When a regular visitor doesn't comment on your site, but leaves a comment on a blog you regularly visit, it is at times a pang akin to running into your best friends at the mall when they both said they'd rather stay home.

Blog relationships don't always survive, either. A solid friendship established in your freshman year of blogging can change almost overnight:

She's funny and all, but she makes fun of fat people when she's out with her other friends.
Please don't push your religion on me. Not even remotely cool.
I got the sense that he wanted to push things too far, so I'm going to back off of that one. Quickly.

By sophomore year, the friendship landscape often looks pretty different than it once did.

The Jake Ryans of the Net generally write about sports and women/cases of beer consumed the night before. There's a good bit of iambic pentameter and haiku in the writings of the AP kids. And the artsy students have beautiful, intricate and incredibly frustrating anime pages.

True to my memory, my stat counter reveals that most foreign exchange students come to class regularly, but rarely speak up.

The loner kids on the verge of a blossoming conduct disorder are also represented in our blogging community: they're called trolls. When they aren't in the basement talking about the latest in pipe bomb technology, they're online sending nasty-grams to a blogger near you.

And finally, there's the One who is unattainable. The blogger you'll crush on because he or she always has a better pop culture reference, more comments or a much sweeter site template. The one who always had the well-placed locker, a date for homecoming and Oxy-clean skin FOR ALL FOUR YEARS. Damn her.

Oh well. I'm late for 2nd period. Maybe later you can sign my yearbook.

Trading spaces

I am moving. There are many things I have enjoyed about my present, tiny DC apartment.

I live in a great location.
I can walk to restaurants and coffee shops.
I have a bed and life-saving oxygen occasionally squeezes through the window bars (oh, the amenity!)

There are, however, several things I will relish living without. Ahem.

1) The National Zoo pandas won't be looking at me as the caged one.
2) My office > my kitchen table.
3) The ladies at the corner store won't have to pretend they don't speak English when I'm at the register.
4) I will no longer have to do my precious laundry in the "It puts the lotion on its skin" basement.
5) Passing by each other in the doorway won't feel like foreplay.
6) Gone will be the days of having a toilet whose chain is Magyvered together with paper clips, denture cream and a child's floaties.
7) Brand new icemakers are hot!
8) When Bug licks himself, I won't be dry showered due to proximity alone. We'll only take that step when we're both ready.
9) Wine and cheese parties will consist of more than 40s and Lunchables eaten on the floor.
10) And for the love, male interns in full seersucker attire. Dammit kids, not hot! Guys, please don't make me repeat myself on this one.

Sure you don't want to visit before I leave?

Alright, fess up

Alls I need to know is which one of you bitches took my good black bra.

Give it back.

Honesty is such a lonely word

This topic has been trying to hatch in my brain for some time now, but I successfully had convinced it to remain in its shell for at least a few more weeks. That was until Pink Lemonade Diva - or more specifically, her mother - unplugged the idea incubator and handed me the pen.

You see, PLD's mother told her that during her weekend visit home she wanted to:

A) teach her Gammy's secret recipe for double chocolate brownies? Delish, but no.
B) talk about their annual summer trip to the Cape? Not even close.
C) DISCUSS THE CONTENTS OF HER BLOG? Ding ding ding ding!

What does she win, Don? In my world, this would equate to standing on my head in front of my parents and my 1991 youth minister with nothing on but barrettes.

I had an immediate visceral reaction to this posting. Alert! Alert! It was the sick feeling you had in high school when your mom came home early; your underwear was somewhere in the hallway and you and your 17-year-old, acned boyfriend were engaged in heavy petting on the bottom bunk. It was the reaction when, in the heat of an argument with a parent, you first immaturely blurt "I hate you!" only to see the slap of disappointment hit them square in the face.

My uneasiness only circled the issue in big black ink yet again: despite a close relationship, my parents only know part of who I am.

The Kris they know and love was an honors student who did the right things. She sang Neil Diamond's Coming to America in the fourth grade talent show clad in a white ruffled shirt and aqua pants. She didn't drink her first Bartles and James wine cooler until she was almost free of high school. Their Kris ran coffee hours and screenings of Cary Grant movies at nursing homes. She was awful at sports but knew how to make a mean chocolate milkshake.

Their Kris would never have hitched a ride across town from an unknown Camaro-driving man who she met pumping gas at the Chevron next to her house (and she certainly would never have gotten into his backseat). She would not have picked up a smoking habit - even one she for all intents and purposes would eventually kick. God love her, she would never, ever have gone further than heavy petting, and wouldn't under any circumstances have done it anywhere near the living room floor of her childhood home.

And another thing. She would certainly never share with perfect strangers those things to which her parents would never be privy.

But would it be so bad if she did?

I bet you think this post is about you

Well here she is, kids. As trite and average as can be, the hair is three parts blond and the eyes are blue. But the shine is all natural, baby, courtesy of DC's recent 98% humidity streak.

This will now be embedded in my string of past posts, so someday my grandcats can uncover it in a dusty album in the attic. I didn't set the pic as my profile photo so fear not - we won't have to see my mug on every one of my posts here and elsewhere on the information superhighway.

Consider yourselves extra lucky that I didn't upload the one with the fedora and the pink feather boa. Baby steps.

Serious Cleanup in Aisle 9

Bug is on a diet. I compared his body to the drawings of acceptable and “yo mama is so fat” feline bodies in Cats for Dummies and Bug is decidedly the latter. So I’ve cut back his food in attempt to trim him down.

This is causing him to a) wake me up twice nightly in the hopes that I will feed him something, anything, and b) chew on my hands and hair in an attempt to grab a morsel I may have left behind. He is grumpy as all get up, and he is practically snorting his kibble the minute I put it down.

Bug’s behavior is understandable. He pimped on the harsh streets of Leon County, Florida for many years and only became a house cat one year ago. I now surmise that this has contributed to his figure problem (that and the all-day feeder I used to use). A past of little now causes him to knock over the coffee table candlestick and my water on his way to his bowl. To lick and crunch and lick and crunch and ultimately leave nothing but the plate in his dust.

I’ve seen this behavior before. My maternal grandfather lived through the Depression and his family lost everything. Although we didn’t notice the tendencies as much while he was alive – although in retrospect he did spend 6 of 7 days hunting sale items at WalMart – they became evident after he had passed away. While cleaning out his house, we found unbelievable stashes of goods. Two Dustbusters still in the box. Three Clubs (the car safety kind, not the triple-decker sandwich). Radios. Expired Tylenol. Unlimited quantities of canned corn, tissues, paper towels and soap (do they even make Lifebuoy soap anymore?) If it was on sale, he bought it and put it someplace for safe keeping.

Bug’s incredible consumption must serve the same survival purpose; his behavior is based on trying to protect him as in the past he may have gone without. It makes me sad to think that either my grandfather or my kid lived thinking that there might not be enough to eat the next time they were hungry. I picture my grandfather watching over us from the Tar-get in heaven, waiting for Bug and holding up a clearance-priced bag of Meow Mix.

Bug will stay with me for now, and will continue to Hoover his food until we wean him off of his dependency a la Leo in Basketball Diaries. I just thank my lucky stars that Bug has restricted this behavior to little bits of kibble, as I presently have no room for any more soap.

Me love food long time

Since I was born - nay, since the dinosaurs created the universe - I have loved to eat. It occurred to me today, when I lied to my Subway sandwich artist and told him to the contrary, that I have never, ever, and I mean EVER forgotten to eat.

At my most intoxicated I have always known how to call for food. At any given time I have at least two pizza joints pre-programmed into my phone, so in my first five drunk dial attempts of the night I am bound to hit one of them. The victim of a flash flood while in graduate school, I forgot to shower, brush my teeth and even call my family, but I distinctly remember the Power Bars I ate during the two-day ordeal. I once had food poisoning and threw up for 14 hours straight. Even then, over the bucket, the toilet and later the tub, I'm pretty sure my thoughts eventually turned to pizza.

That said, it should not surprise us that over time I have fluctuated a good bit - up 10 pounds, down 20, up 25, down 30.

This brings to mind a time when I was up a few baker's dozens. I attended a wedding in downtown DC, and to my surprise a woman I went to college with, a time of single-digit dress sizes, greeted me in the church hallway.

"Kriiiiiiis," she said, her Estee-Laudered lips parting slowly. She put a hand on my shoulder. "Do you remember me? It's me, Steph-a-nie."

She was talking to me in the way that people a) talk to foreigners who have given them the incorrect amount of money at a 7-11, b) talk to old people with both dementia and hearing aids, and c) ignorantly yell at the deaf as if this will suddenly clear their ears.

At first I was sure something terrible had happened to her. Clearly, she had been in a car wreck, and was only now recovering the use of her left hemisphere. Maybe she had been dropped on her head while doing keg stands at Homecoming. Oh, God, or possibly worse - had that old wives' tale about the detrimental effects of blonde highlights really come true?

No, I finally realized. She was talking to me that way because she hardly recognized me in my chunkier body, and in her small-minded way, this translated into me not recognizing her.

I've since lost most of that weight but not the memory. It's funny that the image still comes back to me sometimes. No, not the one about her treating me differently due to my weight - this image is the one of me dropping her on her highlighted, Estee-Laudered head.

Help me Honda

Good morning, road! Twenty-year-old pedestrian, I'll wait on the green light while you and your latte cross the street. I know you aren't as nimble as you were at 18, and your feet must simply ache from that walk of shame you made at 6 this morning! You - take - your - time.

And well hey there minivan! Wow, you are a pretty shade of teal. Yes, I wish I had DVD screens in the back of my headrests, too. Oh well, there you go - welcome to my lane! Didn't know you were coming, but who doesn't understand the need to get to Safeway before Sunny D goes back to full price? I know! See ya at Jazzercise!

Oh no, please, Mr. BMW. Let me slow down so you can assume your rightful place at the front of the line. No, no. We weren't waiting in this mile-long string of cars for any particular reason. BTW, I really like that cologne you're wearing. That's right. I can smell it in here. That's the good stuff. One of those Imposter body sprays the teen workers guard behind glass at the CVS. I bet it's a hit with the servers at the Ruby Tuesday happy hour. Megarita, anyone?

Attn: yeah, you in the bright blue Honda Element. My tampons called. They want their box back.

Hey Lincoln! No, Abe. No turn signals needed here! And no worries about your blind spot. It's all a myth anyway. Of course, no one else on the road really exists behind the LINEUP OF STUFFED ANIMALS IN YOUR BACK WINDOW. Toodles! You have a great day too.

Oh avid listeners my silent visitors (that one's for you, tao)

Dale from "Hey, those are my Nachos," TX is calling out lurkers on his blog today. He has got me thinking, which his insightful, inspirational, innovative, sparkly, cool, rad, mint, swell and effervescent blog often does . . .

Bloggers and Blogettes, what are your views on lurkers? Fun visitors, do you lurk here and elsewhere, and if so, would you be able, even anonymously, to say why? Don't feel like commenting? I'm a case study for your Psych 101 class? Mom, is that you?

That said, if you lurk, know that I'm glad to have you.

In other news, try not to put new skin care products near the eyes. Said products produce extreme orbital swelling, snarky comments from co-workers re: seldom worn Tina Fey glasses, and inexplicable craving for small-town carnival funnel cake.

Note to self: cancel Saturday night date with Darrell

Darth Kitty: The Phantom Menace

Hello everyone. Kris can't come to the blog right now because I've injured her in a most thoughtful and, of course, unintentional way.

While Kris was sleeping this morning, a true picture of beauty and tranquility, I did the deed. I began the luscious episode by licking myself repeatedly, even hoisting my left leg over my head - taking sheer delight in exploring every nook and cranny of my hairy, ample body. My tongue still moist with my body bits, I left her side and walked gently into the bin of crystals she so generously supplies for my hygiene. I moved to and fro and scraped the bottom with my finely-manicured nails. I'm not sure a better time was ever had.

Back to work it was then, as I had a purpose. I re-entered the bedroom, pacing myself to avoid breathing too heavily. She was still not awake. I crept up beside her on the pillow, and gently hit her on the nose with the pad on my right foot.

Kris didn't stir.

Undetered, I purred softly in an effort to awaken her. Minutes passed. Rejoice! I think she finally may have heard me, as I saw her lower lip move. But the rest of her didn't.

Growing tired of this dance, I saw no other way. I extended one body-bit-and-litter-encrusted nail, and I hooked it through her bottom lip, while screaming "You will rise and feed me now, bitch!"

I'm pretty sure she didn't hear me, as later on she only mentioned the lip.

"We're not a taxi service, ma'am"

My best friend got so drunk on Saturday that she called 911 for a ride home. Twice.

Crickets.

Crickets.