Questions To Which I Need Answers

Why do we make the “aww” sound when we see something cute?  I assume it is learnt, but the origin still baffles me.

Is milk okay after the expiration date?  No, it probably is.  Especially if I cooked with it…my tummy hurts.

Why did the GAP ever think they were capable of creating commercials better than the dancing ones?  No one can do that.  Those were great.  Did you know Rashida Jones was in one of those?  Yeah, for two seconds--THAT’S WHERE I KNOW HER FROM!

The Cats

Bart and Di(ana) went to the vet recently.  I mean, they didn't take themselves, obviously, but they were there nonetheless.  I left this apartment with a boy and a girl kitty and I came back with two boys. DIANA HAS BALLS! That is embarrassing.  Not her having balls, but me not realizing it. The conversation went like this:

Vet Tech (holding up Diana's tail): This must be the little boy.

Me (internally): Oh, damn.

Vet Tech (holding up Bart's tail): Oh, and another boy!  Brothers!

Me (outloud): Oh, damn.

Instead I imagine it more like this:

Vet Tech: Oh, and another boy!  Brothers!

Me: Oh, geezum.  That is so embarrassing.  I should have known that wasn't a vagina.  I mean, for God's sake I've got one of those--I see it everyday!  Shit, those are balls.  I see balls everyday too!  I mean, not that I'm like a hooker or something and it's my job to see balls...not that only hookers see balls everyday.  Heck, you probably see balls everyday too.  What are you doing with that needle?

It's just that I should really know basic anatomy.  Even on cats.

The Boyfriend And I Have Been Having Harry Potter Marathons

The other day, he walked over to this rather large mirror that I bought at a town sale that has been sitting against the wall for a while.  He had to kneel to be in front of it.  Then he called me over.  I was reluctant to sit, but The Boyfriend promised it wasn’t something weird.  So I did and he put his arm around me and we looked at our reflections and he goes, “Look, it’s that mirror from The Sorcerer’s Stone.”

FUCKING AWWWW!

So, it’s sweet, People Who Haven’t Seen Harry Potter, because there’s this thing called the Mirror of Erised which shows the "deepest and most desperate desire of our hearts." The happiest person in the whole world would see only himself, exactly how he is.  So that was pretty much ridiculously sweet on his part, not to mention clever.

Gollygee he’s adorable.

An Open Letter To The Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo

Dick move, bro.  Total dick move.

But not for the reasons you think.

First of all, a stereo is just a stereo—it’s a thing.  A thing I don’t need.  You, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, you just took away a thing.  However, with it you took so much more.

When I was eight, I was going to be a star.  Ask my mom; she walked in on me in my room being Shania Twain too many times to count.  Being interrupted during imaginary concerts which I co-performed with the Backstreet Boys and The Monkees (I was a very musically decade-confused child) was my adolescent equivalent to masturbation.  I mean, not that it took the place of masturbation, it was just what I was walked in on doing like in all those teen movies—kids are always getting walked in on during masturbation.  Look, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, you’re making me digress and sound like I learned about my lady parts to “The Last Train To Clarksville.”  Whether or not that is the truth is not the point. 

The point is, you did not steal imminent stardom away from me—my uber stage fright and lack of talent did that at the tryouts for a talent show in the sixth grade in which I could not pull off Monica’s soulful part in “The Boy Is Mine.”  But despite the fact that I can’t get up in front of people without my voice quivering and that I can’t match half of the pitches I hear and that I’ve only got an octave and a half range (alto—and no one gives a shit about female altos), my car was my Ambassador Theatre.  I could scream myself into emo-ridden tears with Gerard Way and Billy Joe Armstrong, I could deafeningly and delusionally try to hit Mariah Carey’s high notes, I could put on the perfect show where I was both Megara and the Muses in Disney’s Hercules.  I was Sandra Dee, Roxie Hart, Jesus Christ Superstar.  But now…now I am the silent shell of a former blindingly brilliant star, throat slashed like the plastic around what used to be my orchestra pit.

Also, you sat in my car seat, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo.  Ew.  I feel totally violated.  I do not like to think about your ass where my delicate derriere goes.  When I was very upset about what you had done, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, I imagined the kind of person you are.  I am an open-minded, liberal sucker for all the criminals breakin’ the laws, but sometimes I get angry and revert to someone who’s lived in backwater, white-bred, red-state Appalachia for far too long.  I see the people who walk these streets.  I have painted your profile.  And you know what I see?  I see your clothes—and they are WAY TOO FUCKING BIG FOR YOU.

Because of this, it makes it much more likely that your ass is hanging out.  Your bare ass on my car seat.  Your bare ass that you have likely not cleaned recently.  Your bare ass that you have likely not cleaned recently and shoved massive amounts of drugs into because that’s why you’re stealing my mother fucking stereo, so you can fucking pawn it, probably to the fucking pawn shop RIGHT ACROSS THE FUCKING STREET, for enough cash to buy some more crack to shove in YOUR crack and sell to little kids and make them crack addicts too so they have to go out and steal other peoples’ personal Ambassador Theatres for crack to shove into their cracks.  Look, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, I don’t know anything about drugs, but I’m imagining them up your butt because I’m angry and this whole paragraph is butt-related, okay?  Cut me some slack—YOU JUST BROKE INTO MY CAR AND STOLE MY STEREO!

But I could live with these things, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, and I could ignore them if you hadn’t caused me a third and final malfeasant.  You made me think that the universe hated me.  How dare you, how VERY dare you.  I am an optimist.  I believe that good ultimately comes from good.  I have never needed positive reinforcement in my life to make me be nice or loving or to put up with peoples’ shit or to decide that it’s okay when things go wrong and to keep on smiling, because I’ve known that it’s more important for me to put out good into the world than to get good back, to even expect good back, because the universe would appreciate good and make other good happen—not necessarily to me or anyone I know, but just any good.  But I’ve been depressed lately and felt useless and hopeless and I just finished Wicked which destroyed a little piece of my soul and then this, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo.  This.

You do this and I become this solipsistic asshole who thinks the universe is so concerned with her that it’s decided to hate her.  What the fuck is up with that?  In a way, you turned me back into that eight year old who sang on her bed to a crowd of stuffed animals only they were throwing rotten vegetables at her instead of panties.  See, I am liberal, really, because I would like to be a lesbian icon whom gets ladies underwear thrown at her, and not just because those are preferable to rotten vegetables, but because they mark adoration and adoration from any group is adoration—I’m not prejudiced.  No, not used undies, new ones bought right before the concert because that would be funny because it’s so cliche, right?  So then this one girl does it and I make a big deal about it and then everyone starts doing it.  See?  Liberal.  Oh, but Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, you are making me digress again.

So maybe I should be thanking you, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, for rescuing me from what could have been a really horrible self-indulgent depression.  (Sidenote: Universe, if this was your doing for the same reasons, thanks.  I promise not to think you’re so concerned with me, Universe, that you’d single me out for anything ever again.)

But, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, I’m not going to thank you because, really, YOU BROKE INTO MY CAR AND STOLE MY STEREO!  That qualifies as a dick move and does not garner gratitude.

And by the way, you didn’t even get the most valuable things in there like the lei I had from Amanda’s bridal shower or Molly’s taekwondo medals or the Homies sticker from Maggie.  So suck on that, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo.

Suck. On. That.

--Ashley

P.S. I got really attached to The Monkees reference I made earlier, and I cheated you out of a way better Shania Twain reference.  I’m sorry, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, but only because it’s a pretty good one, not because I feel bad for depriving you.  Here is what it should have read:

“[My mom] walked in on me in my room being Shania Twain too many times to count…[Interrupted performing] was my adolescent equivalent to masturbation.  I mean, not that it took the place of masturbation, it was just what I was walked in on doing like in all those teen movies—kids are always getting walked in on during masturbation.  Look, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, you’re making me digress and sound like I learned about my lady parts to “Man I Feel Like A Woman.”

P.P.S. I actually do have to thank you, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, because you finally gave me a reason to use the word malfeasant.  I love that word.  But you should just know that I have to thank you; I’m not going to actually say it because, you know, YOU BROKE INTO MY CAR AND STOLE MY STEREO!

OMG WTF IS THIS?!?!?!?

Seriously, I don't even know how many legs it had, but it is copper colored and not like kinda reddish brown--it shines the way copper does.  Is it a spider?  Is is a scorpion?  I don't fucking know but I don't want anymore of them in the place where I live!

This is a shit picture but it's with my phone because I left my camera at Doug's during his pirate themed birthday party, which I already told you about.

Actually, this thing looks like a miniature face hugger.  Oh, Lord.

I tweeted a little while back that my kittens had most definitely saved me from a spider because I found a dead one and I flushed it and I thought it was kinda weird looking, but I hadn't seen a spider in a long time that was that big, so I just figured they looked like that.  To be honest, I don't like killing bugs.  I am perfectly fine with letting them live as long as it's outside, and yes, I will go out of my way (or get someone else to go out of their way) to put whatever bug is in the shower outside.

HOWEVER, I just found the thing in that picture on the floor.  It was already smooshed, like the last one I found, so maybe the cats murdered it--Diana was growling in the kitchen earlier but I figured it was at nothing because she's crazy and kind of a bitch like that--or maybe The Boyfriend stepped on it.  (I never wear shoes so I would have known had my bare foot come in contact with it.)

I am starting to fear that the pimple on my lower back is not a direct result of the monthly breakout I experience due to my period or even a pimple at all but a fucking spider/scorpion bite and these headaches I've been having are not because of the low pressure and/or my period.  This makes me really fear for women everywhere--if we genuinely get sick on our periods how are we ever supposed to know?

But that's a digression and I don't have time for one of those right now.  The point is: I'm scared.  And I'm hoping that The Boyfriend sees this post before he comes home in the morning because I'm leaving the thing's carcass on the back of the toilet for him to inspect while he takes his homecoming wee.

I can't die now; this blog has just started!

A Brush With Death

Right now I feel like I’m going to die.  I am so hungry.  This morning I got up and looked at The Boyfriend’s paper for him which was fine because he’s an exceptional academic writer, but I still told him he had to take me out to eat later because I was doing him such an awesome favor seeing as I am a professional writing tutor and all and normally this kind of thing would be worth at least $15.00 then I had a piece and a half of toast and a glass of milk before I felt all nauseous then I drove The Boyfriend to class and when I was driving back I was like, “I don’t have my phone.  Man, it would suck if The Boyfriend didn’t have class today and tried to run after the car as I was driving away, but his radio station was up too loud for me to hear, especially since it’s raining.”  Then I got home and immediately found my phone: One Missed Call From: The Boyfriend.  One New Text Message: “Come back.  Class was cancelled.”

He didn’t run after the car or anything.  Lame.

Anyway, then he took a nap, which was supposed to be a nap, but his naps never are naps because he tricks me about naps.  One time at like 6:00pm he was like, “Let’s take a nap” and I was like, “Okay!” even though I wasn’t really sleepy because I partially thought “nap” was code for “sexy time” and even if it really were a nap it would only last an hour.  Once midnight rolled around and I hadn’t fallen asleep and was staring at the ceiling, still not tired and sans sexy time to boot I was like, “This is not a nap at all!  This is sleeping!  I have been bamboozled!”  Anyway, The Boyfriend’s nap started at 1:30 and it’s after 5:00 now and we planned to go eat right after his class which ends at 3:18 but usually gets out sooner.

I am like a ravenous wolverine at this point and the kittens are starting to look delicious.

I could just eat, but I really want a turkey sub from Potbelly.

But this isn’t the brush with death I wanted to tell you about.  Back in the day, I used to “donate” plasma for money.  Really I shouldn’t say “used to” like it was a super regular thing because I only did it twice before my heroic act of charity was thwarted.

First, though, let me tell you about giving plasma.  It’s sweet.  Unless your nurse hates her life and has decided to blame you for the fact that her children are monsters and her boss won’t quit making sexual advances towards her so she stabs you repeatedly and without apology, then the whole experience is just like waiting around then getting paid, all for a good cause.  The plasma you donate goes to like kids with cancer or something.  I don’t know--sick people.

Anyway, after this really intense process of questions about having unprotected sex with men who may have had unprotected sex with other men before 1970 and trading sex for drugs or money and lots of other questions you wouldn’t admit to even if they were true, you get hooked up to this machine that pumps your blood out into a bag next to you.  Then that machine reverses itself and PUMPS YOUR BLOOD BACK INTO YOU.  It’s horrifying.  And awesome.  The machine keeps your plasma, a piss-on-a-day-you-drank-an-okay-amount-of-fluids color liquid, in a separate bag after straining it out of your blood.  You get back your plasmaless blood because your body is sweet and can just make new plasma unlike those sick kids which is just sad, so I’m not going to even try to make a joke here.

The end is the only terrible part because once you’ve filled up the plasma bag then they pump saline into your veins to hydrate you so you can go out into the world and keep being awesome.  They tell you, “This part will probably make you a little cold.”  They grossly underestimate your threshold for cold.  I shiver so intensely during this process I think the needle is going to come flying out of my arm and I’m going to coat the entire room in sanguineness and the melted iceberg that sunk the titanic.

But I endured this, TWICE, and wanted to endure more for the mon--for the children.  Except I got a certified letter in the mail from the place one day which told me there was a problem with my blood test which may affect my future as a donor.  I suppose most people would hear, “You have the flu and shouldn’t be donating right now,” but I heard, “YOU HAVE AIDS AND ARE GOING TO DIE A SLOW, PAINFUL, LONELY DEATH!!!”

I called.  You shouldn’t even bother calling.  They “don’t discuss this type of thing over the phone.”  Great, now I have AIDS and should be utterly ashamed about it.  This was on a Saturday night that I got the letter.  The place was closed on Sunday, so I had to wait until Monday to go.  My friends and mother tried to comfort me.  Molly even told me, “AIDS isn’t a death sentence anymore” which was so deadpan that I hated her for suggesting and thus reassuring my fear that I, in fact, had AIDS.  My mother insisted that it couldn’t be AIDS or anything communicable, of course, because she thinks I’m a saint.  Instead she kind of shrugged and said, “Maybe it’s just cancer?”  I think after that I forewent people all together and just watched Rent to prepare for the rest of my life except that when I realized my life would be devoid of singing and dancing numbers I fell into an even deeper depression.

When Monday came I set off for the plasma center as early as possible.  The thing about the plasma center was that it was an hour and a half away from where I lived and I had to traverse the frightening backcountry of rural Ohio to get to it.  I don’t care how politically incorrect this is, but since The Hills Have Eyes, I’ve been afraid of hillbillies.  People in the city will kill you, but people in the country will KEEP you.  I am not locationally bigoted on this subject: if you live any version of off-the-grid and it is very likely that you call you mom “sis” then you terrify me.  Also, you won’t be reading my blog because you have no internets and/or you can’t read, so I’m unconcerned about saying this.

So driving through a place that is mostly forested and dotted with dilapidated trailers and the occasional gas station/diner/place-where-some-creepy-guy-tells-you-to-take-a-shortcut-that-you-sure-as-fuck-shouldn’t-take-but-are-going-to-anyway-and-get-yourself-ambushed-by-inbred-monster-cannibals-who-worship-an-unexploded-warhead scares the bejeezus out of me.  I also have a bad sense of direction, especially when I am by myself, so I of course got lost.  I kept driving up on ghost towns that all looked alike and had one street labeled by random numbers or a term like “Coonpath.”  I drove through the hills crying because I didn’t want to die from my possible AIDS, but it would be preferable to being kept by hill-people.  Then I cried because being kept by hill-people was the superior option in the only two I though my life had at that moment.  Then I felt a little bit better at the thought that I would give the hill-people my AIDS which they would totally deserve after repeatedly raping and then eating me.  Then I cried again because I didn’t want to have AIDS to give them.

Finally, I made it to the plasma place.  I was too dehydrated to cry anymore.  I went in, told them who I was, and they told me they’d get a doctor to talk to me so I sat out in the waiting room.  A plasma center waiting room is never a pleasant place to be.  Honestly, most people who go there need money.  And some of them need it for bad things--or at least they look like they need it for bad things.  Maybe even to buy the rope and chains to tie up the unsuspecting lost people who take that shortcut from Frank at the gas station.  So I sat there, waiting.  It felt like forever.  I was alone and I was going to find out for sure that I was dying and I was going to still be alone then I’d have to drive two plus hours, depending on my capabilities to not get lost, home and be alone there some more.  I magically rehydrated and started to cry again.  This was a quiet, restrained cry where it only comes out the corner of your eyes like when you watch a really happy movie in the theaters but you’re with your friends and they think it’s sappy so you can’t tears-of-joy-and-sentimentality cry in front of them, but you know when the lights come up your eyes are going to be rimmed red and they’ll be like, “Jesus, Ashley, why are you crying?”  And you have to be like, “But they get to be together and it’s so sweet.  She seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees Jake Sully!  Shut up!”

But then the doctor called my name and I went in this little private room with her and she asked me to shut the door behind me and I almost died right there.  Then she told me why I was there and I was like, “Yeah, I fucking know why, bitch; I’ve known for three goddamned days now and you just need to spit it the fuck out!” but that was only in my head because all I was capable of saying was, “Mmhughasdknsriead…”

Then she eyed my chart and said, “You tested positive for syphilis.”

The following was what went through my mind in rapid succession:

WTF.


Stunned silence.


Syphilis is not AIDS!!!!!  YAY!!!!!!!


Wait, what is syphilis?


Don’t pirates get that?


I’m pretty sure Benjamin Franklin had that and he was a whore.


I’m not a whore…wait, who cares if I’m a whore, is this going to kill me?


I’M DYING AGAIN!!!!!  NO!!!!!!!

Then she keeps looking at her little chart and says, “We did a second test though that came up negative.”

“Huh?”

“Your first test was positive, but the second, more invasive test was negative.”

“So…I don’t have syphilis?”

“No.  It’s actually pretty common to get a false positive for syphilis, especially for women.  The test isn’t perfect.  But this still means you won’t be able to donate with us anymore--”

From that point on I didn’t hear a thing she said.  I was just happy to be alive.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized how pissed off I was since I am ungrateful and can’t just be happy that I don’t have AIDS or syphilis.  I was negative for everything.  SHE COULD HAVE LEAD WITH THAT.  Would it have been that much harder for her to sit me down and say, “Don’t worry--you’re perfectly healthy.  BUT…” and then explain to me that even false positives get you kicked out of the program?  This leads me to believe that she gets joy out of scaring people and hates her life and her kids are monsters and her boss sexually harasses her, but I don’t even feel bad for her because whatthefuckever: she made me feel like I was dying!!!

So, that’s when I almost died.  Right now it’s 6:41 and I’ve been reduced to eating raw carrots in lieu of fattening carbs because The Boyfriend is still “napping.”  I am going to chew really fucking loud and I hope he hears it.

P.S. This whole sexually transmitted diseases thing happened before The Boyfriend.  I don’t know why that matters, but I imagine it might.  Also, just to be clear, I DON’T HAVE ANY STDS OR OTHER COMMUNICABLE DISEASES.

Also

I have been neglecting clipping my toenails for a while now. This probably isn't all right and someone is bound to get scarred for life (physically or emotionally), but I am just way too lazy to do it.

Like this, kinda grainy on my phone because I left my real camera at Doug's house during his pirate themed birthday party, they ALMOST look like they were purposely made that way like a French pedicure.

Ew. Do not Google image search "French pedicure." Okay, I know you're going to do it. I don't mind feet really, but those feet are just not okay. Then again, who could live up to the standards my feet have set, right?

And yes, those are a bunch of receipts that fell out of my checkbook. I took this picture this morning. It is now almost midnight. They're still there. My checkbook is still unbalanced.