June 29, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Dear Gods of the iPod Shuffle Setting,

HA! You? Are a riot. Way funnier than all of the other gods with whom I am acquainted, and that’s saying something.

Like yesterday, for example? When I spent the afternoon freakingthefuckout over some stupid boy, and then got in the car and turned on my iPod, finally using that little iTrip gadget for its intended purpose for the first time ever? It was SO FUNNY how you selected Til Kingdom Come as the first song for me. NINE HUNDRED AND SIX TITLES IN THERE, AND YOU PICK THAT ONE??? Hi-LAR-ious.

And then? Just in case I wasn’t convinced of your comic genius? Next you played The Wallflowers’ I Wish I Felt Nothing. Ha! Ha ha ha! I mean, WHAT could be funnier than THAT? Y’all are a scream.

In short, HA. Next time, maybe just conveniently leave a bottle of poison or a dagger for me on the front seat, ok? Thank you.

Love,

Me

PS - Please do not mention this letter to the Gods of the iPod Battery. I think they already have it in for me, and I do not wish to anger them further, as someday I might want to listen to my iPod for more than two hours in a row without having to recharge it. Thanks.

June 28, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Do YOU know your HIV status? Washington, DC has announced a new public health initiative, encouraging all citizens between 14 and 84 to find out their HIV status through free, confidential, and fast testing.

Even if you don’t avail yourself of this program, ask your doctor for HIV screening as part of your regular annual check-up. Because DC is a high-risk city, most insurance plans will pay for the test.

So, what are you waiting for? Stop reading and go find out!

As long as we’re talking publicly about private parts, I shall share with you some more wonderful information, this time about Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).

Fun Facts (Or, How Women Get Screwed, Again. As Usual. This Time By A Nefarious Little Virus.)

• While HPV affects both men and women, the potential negative impacts are significantly higher for women. (Hello, cervical cancer! I mean, when was the last time you heard of someone being diagnosed with penile cancer, really?)

• No one’s really sure where HPV comes from, how exactly it’s transmitted, how long the typical incubation period is, or why it causes cervical cancer in some women and not others. (We’ll get around to answering those questions, right after we eradicate male pattern baldness.)
• Some women have multiple positive HPV tests; others have only one positive test. Is it the same virus, recurring? Is it a different infection from a later partner? They don’t know those answers either.
• There is no test for HPV in men. And, the HPV test for women is often only done when a Pap test shows abnormal results. So, most people with HPV and most people capable of transmitting HPV? Don’t even know they have it.
• Condoms do not prevent the transmission of HPV, as the virus is smaller than the “trapping capability” of latex. (Please excuse my totally-made-up medical terminology.)

Now, the good news: the FDA recently approved a vaccine for HPV, suitable for girls/women ages 9 to 26. If you’re not too old, ask your doctor about it.

Also, this year the guidelines for Pap and HPV testing changed. The new recommended practice is as follows:

• For women over the age of 30 — Pap and HPV testing every three years, assuming no abnormalities are discovered.

• For women under the age of 30 — Pap tests every year or two are recommended. An HPV test is only necessary if an abnormality is identified in the Pap.

Not that I should have to scare you into doing good, healthy things for your body, but just in case the Don’t Drink & Drive On Prom Night Or You’ll End Up A Bloody Mess Wrapped Around A Tree video did the trick for you in driver’s ed, I will point out that the treatment for low-grade abnormalities is cryotherapy, where, yes, the doctor freezes off part of your cervix. Good times. For moderate to high-grade abnormalities, the doctor uses a metal wire with an electric current running through it to remove the abnormal cells. Nothing says FUN like an electric current in your cervix.

But seriously, don’t let this scare you. The treatments for HPV-induced, pre-cancerous abnormalities are far less invasive and scary than the treatments for, you know, actual cervical cancer.

If your HPV test comes back positive, I suggest reading this, trying not to freak out too much, and maybe e-mailing me. Also, wine. Lots and lots of wine.

June 21, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

I am single. Yes, I know you already know that, as you have probably memorized the information in my profile over there –> since I never seem to update with real stories anymore. But it has come as quite a surprise to people lately, so I thought perhaps I should address the topic with a little treatise here. Of course, 98% of them don’t read this, but let’s nevermind silly little details like that.

How can YOU be single? But you’re attractive and smart and nice and I’m sure you have no trouble meeting people!

Oh, no. I am single. And by single I don’t mean “unmarried,” I mean “not a man in sight.” I mean “it’s just me and the tumbleweeds out here.” I mean “the last date I went on was in the first Bush administration. The George H. W. Bush administration.”

(Ok, that last one may have been a bit of an exaggeration. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t allowed to date back then.)

Used to be, I thought there was something undesirable about me that led to this perma-single status. I wasn’t pretty enough. I wasn’t skinny enough. I wasn’t bubbly enough. I wasn’t popular enough. I wasn’t tall enough. I wasn’t athletic enough. I wasn’t smiley enough. I wasn’t fashionable enough. I wasn’t blonde enough. I wasn’t cleavage-y enough. I wasn’t dumb enough.

(One thing I was plenty of: intimidating. Which I found completely baffling, as I certainly did not feel like I was the alpha-anything. Maybe it was the sausage-making.)

Somewhere in the course of college and my early-20s I managed to shake most of those “not ___ enough” worries. But I realized I still didn’t have a boyfriend on a regular basis. Throughout school that was just fine with me, as a significant other would have been time-consuming and would have complicated my scholastic goals and career aspirations. I knew I was moving, even if I didn’t know where, and I wasn’t convinced that someone would be willing to make the move with me. Even today, becoming Involved With Someone is not high on my priority list, because the last thing I want to do is tie myself to California for the rest of my life. (DC friends: “Damn it, you said it’d only be a year or two!”)

But it’s not just my workaholic tendencies or the geographic difficulties that keep me single. And it’s not that I relish facing this cold, harsh world alone. Or that I’m some ball-busting, man-eating witch. (No, that’s just at work.) I actually like the idea of a boyfriend/husband/life partner. But I hate dating. I have really high standards, and I know it. It’s the little things that trip people up. Like the ability to make plans and show up on time and open car doors and use the appropriate utensils and carry on a conversation that remotely interests me and not attempt to get the waitress’s phone number while we’re out.

I know. I set the bar high.

Male Friend: You need to get out more. You need human interaction.
Me: I’m in meetings and on the phone all day! I get plenty of human interaction!
Male Friend: I mean human physical interaction.
Me: *Blinks.*
*Blinks again.*
*Slight shaking of head.* No, no I don’t need that.
*Thinking, oh my god, the extent to which I Do. Not. Need. THAT.*

What it really boils down to is this: I have a hard time adjusting to new people in my life. Not emotionally, but just re-arranging my calendar, my commitments, my lifestyle, my life to make space for someone else. It’s easier to make room in my shoe closet for someone than it is to keep my calendar flexible enough to enable me to see someone often. I’m happy to do it for someone important. (And there have been some people who are important enough, for which I’m grateful. I hope they appreciate what I did for them as much as I appreciate what they did for me.) But for someone who’s less-than-important? Not a chance. I’m holding out for Mr. Right. I know how to handle Mr. Right This Second. What I can’t do is Mr. Right For A Few Months Or So.

Therefore, I’ve gotten to be really good at weeding people out early on. Maybe too good.

Him: I’d really like to see you again. Can I buy you a drink sometime?
Me: Sure. But please realize that I’m Catholic and I work for [redacted] and those are two pretty big parts of me that aren’t changing. So, if either are going to be a problem, maybe you should consider that.

Nice guy, but negotiating our work lives could have been complicated, and he’s Jewish so if my being a non-Jew was a non-starter, well then let’s not start anything. A friend and I placed a bet as to whether he would call. I said no; she said “of course he will!” I won.

And I could overlook those little things and I could start something, hoping that things get better and I could stop being so damn picky.

But I’m not going to. As the Bee Gees say, “Too many lovers in one lifetime ain’t good for you.”

I don’t date. It’s just not my thing.

June 18, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

After which I may very well hurl the nearest small kitchen appliance at you, provided it’s not the coffee maker.

Every once in a while, I have one of those days where I get to see How the Other Half Lives. And by “the other half,” I mean you freaks those of you who do not greet the morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, just ready to start the day (insert smiling 1950s housewife face here), but instead shuffle around in silence, shooting Death Looks at anyone who dares to initiate a conversation that requires more than grunting in the general direction of the coffee. (Yes, I have lived with a number of you, and I know the ways of the Non-Morning Person. I will be over here, cowering in the corner and making fresh coffee until you let me know it’s safe to speak to you. Bagel? No? Still no on the talking? Ok, maybe around lunchtime?)

Thursday was one of those days. (Please be picking up on the fact that this was Thursday and I am just now getting around to writing about it. Yes. The excuses will reveal themselves in good time. Keep reading.) I woke up and I was just grumpy. There’s no other word for it. (Ok, yes there is, but I like to save “bitchy” for when I do something intentionally. Like when I’m walking across the parking lot at such a velocity that I could get out of your SUV-driving way if I wanted to, but I choose to maintain my current speed, thereby ensuring that you will have to come to a full and complete stop before you honk your horn at me from two feet away. Not that this happened today or anything.)

Anyhow, me. Grumpy. In the morning. Which is just weird. And weirder still, none of the things that ordinarily perk me up seemed to help…shower, coffee, NPR. Nope, still grumpy. Once at work I reached deeper into my bag of tricks and popped an Excedrin Migraine — elixir of the gods, though not so much of an elixir. Nugget of the gods? Pellet of the gods? (Right now I can hear my mother grousing about the irreparable damage I’m doing to my liver…as though the alcohol hasn’t already killed it.) The Excedrin helped, but didn’t provide the nirvana I was hoping for.

Turns out I was grumpy because I needed a little “me time.” I’m not very needy (on this particular measure. Shut up.) so it often catches me off-guard when my subconscious takes over my life for a little while and demands that I do nothing for anyone but me. I know people who need “me time” about once every 48 hours. Me? I’m un-fazed by a lack of “me time” for a good three weeks, after which it takes another week or two or three before my sanity starts to check out.

It occured to me that I *might* need a little time to myself when I realized I was resenting the universe because I would give anything for JUST THREE MINUTES to recycle the Sunday New York Timeses that have been collecting in my living room for the past seven weeks. (Also? Wednesday night? When not being able to locate the wine bottle opener nearly sparked a troop deployment, the scale of which would be appropriate for invading a third-world country, deposing its dictator and searching for weapons of mass distruction? Yes, that was a sign. A sign that I missed, apparently.)

Around this point in the “ohmygod I need some time to myself” cycle, I start looking for *A* night to myself. (If you’re not using your Mike Meyers/Wayne Campbell voice here, you’re saying it wrong. Try again, with a short “a”: *A* night.) And, as is typical, I realized that every night last week was booked.* And every night this coming week. And that the recycling will not be taken care of until sometime in September, let alone anything that might take longer than that, say cleaning the bathroom or changing my nail polish or fully unpacking a suitcase from any of the last three trips I’ve been on or, I don’t know, maybe watching some damn TV.

*And by booked I mean, something is preventing me from being at home, probably work. Like when I didn’t leave the office until nearly 10 pm on Monday. Or how most of my dinner plans involve getting together with people from work. To discuss work things. And possibly some non-work things. But mostly work things.

And then I hurled small kitchen appliances at everyone in my office.

Ok, not really, but I did whine to myself about how I hadn’t wanted those dinner plans tonight in the first place and maybe I should quit Banana to free up my weekends and then I did a quick cost-benefit analysis and determined that wasn’t such a good idea and then whined some more about why is life so haaar-ar-arrrd????

(From a similar day last summer:

Me: I just want to go home, lay on the couch, and have someone be nice to me the rest of the night.
Mom: *sounding a bit surprised* Oh! And is there someone to do that for you?
Me: No. That’s part of the problem. At least he could take out the newspapers.)

And by Friday morning, I was over it. (No, I hadn’t yet had any “me time,” I simply managed to whine it out of my system.) I woke up at 5:00, happy to hear the sound of the alarm and intently listening to the day’s news from my friends at KXJZ. I left the house early and went on my merry way. Woo-hoo! Mornings are great! And at the end of the day? I got a surprise bonus of four hours all to myself, since Banana didn’t need me. I did some shopping, watched TV, and painted my nails. And no kitchen appliances were harmed in the process.

June 13, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Today’s theme is “Things I probably meant to mention to you at some point, all in one scrambled little mess here.” It’ll be fun, I promise!

Why my brother is my (comedic) hero. Oh dear god, if this doesn’t make you laugh, I don’t know what will.

On the subject of my perfect man…it is decidedly not the random guy at the airport. No, try him, him, or him. And, um, if you happen to have any of their numbers…feel free to pass along mine.

Thanks for all of your advice regarding the reunion outfit. I ended up going with option 2B, The Naked Dress, Sans Accessories. Well, sort of. There were accessories, just not of the overwhelmingly red variety. You’ll see pictures soon.

Discussing our national immigration policy over dinner one night, because this is what we do in my family:

Dad: We can’t deport 12 million people. It’s just not practical.
Me: Yeah, we don’t have enough pick-up trucks for that.

I am apparently not accustomed to being in the office, as TWICE yesterday I ran into the corner of my desk. The first time it was one of those banging-my-thigh-against-the-corner-as-I-distractedly-
walked-to-the-printer deals that happen every week or two. But the second time? I managed to whack my sternum against the desk corner as I bent over to pick something up off the floor. Sheer talent, people, right here. And I whacked it good…it’s still tender and I’m watching for the bruise to show up. That’s not going to help the tan!

A friend of mine commented today on the new hair. And asked if I had it highlighted. Hallelujah! The sun is doing its job!

The last e-mail I sent before leaving work today:

I’ve got to go home and have a bottle of wine for dinner.

Which I am currently doing. I’m enjoying what I believe the industry calls “a generous pour.”