Insects have good taste.

Today I was having lunch with some old pals from Wachovia, when this mantid chose to jump straight to my breasts and crawl up my neck. And then it posed for a photo. It was smart to jump on me, rather than my lunch companions.

7 lbs

Today Cakes and I took a trip to Costco for some cheap wieners and chicken bakes, as well as anything else delicious in bulk that will fit in with my new eats regimen.

I'm not sure why, but due to neither one of us being able to pass up a bargain and my desire to learn how to cook new meats, we ended up with 7 pounds of tofu. 2 cases, each containing three 19 oz packs of firm tofu, summing up to 7.125 lbs of tofu. 3.23184564 kilograms, thanks Google.

At first, I was a little unsure. I had never made anything with tofu before, although I have had friends make it for me and it seemed easy enough, just season until the flavorless, creamy, jello-like mass tastes like something. Problem is, due to my recent health issues, I've been massively cutting back on salt, and being a strong, independent lady like Beyonce told me to be, I didn't want to go straight to the internet. I wanted to wing it and see what happened.

Basically, I threw a ton of onion, garlic and shallots in some olive oil, crumbled the tofu in with that, added a pinch of Himalayan seasoning and some Rosemary. Threw in an egg, which after the fact, I realized was unnecessary. Tossed in some halved cherry tomatoes and red pepper, some very sharp white cheddar... and piled it on top of some lavash bread. It was delicious, but not spectacular.

More boring tofu stories to come, because I am determined to master this thing that barely constitutes as food.

Islands In The Stream

The last couple of weeks had it's number of changes. Most importantly, my dear milli Tequila passed. It's horribly sad. I can't decide if I want to bury her remains or keep them somehow. I can't explain this.

Other than that, I quit my job. I'm working temporarily at Buy.com for the holidays. I had my first day and the pro's out weight the cons. Why would I quit my job, right? Well, for one, this new place pays me way more and caters lunch everyday, but also, I absolutely hate the finance and mortgage industry. Every time I get familiar with those who control the ups and downs the trickle down and fuck "main street", I get angry and vulgar.

My diet was going along excellent, until I ran out of fresh veggies and money to buy more. I'd say I'm going to get back on track, but free lunches. I can deny those. Sorry, body. As for the blood pressure, it hasn't gone anywhere. It's still entirely too high, and that was before my four days of binge drinking that started on Friday. But it was free tequila. And then it was Halloween. I was post-op Charlie Brown, wish I had pictures. Patrick was a guy that fell asleep at a frat party. I painted weiners and "FAG" on his face a lot.

Right now I feel like I'm a straight up mess. Patrick's birthday was today, but he's been at the casino pretty much all day and didn't want much to do with me this morning. He can't stand when I go through brief periods of trainwreck behavior. I don't blame him, I can be really awful. Sometimes the elastic that is my self-control gets a bit stretched out and I have to wash up and recuperate and purge the happy hour from my system. Recuperation is lonely when your closest friends don't have that elastic and only know one way to have a good time. Isn't being 22 the BEST?

On the plus side, my hair looks amazing right now.

Getting My Emergency On

I have a body that just won't quit.

Warning: Longest, most self-involved, strangely detailed account of a routine trip to the emergency room ever!

Yesterday, while at the walk-in clinic for some antibiotics to halt a dastardly infection, the nurse routinely checked my blood pressure, which tends to run a little high. Lately, I've been stressed out at my job, seeing as how I hate it with all my heart, and with stress, I expect a little pressure in my temples. Maybe my breathing was a little short, but I'm a real busy gal, sometimes I don't have time to stop and catch my breath. My eyes have been chronically bloodshot for the past six months, but I figured that had more to do with the chronic, rather than busted blood vessels.

I had been feeling this way for a few weeks, and wouldn't you know it? Turns out, my blood pressure was at 210/151. Now, I'm not an obese person. I don't smoke cigarettes. I do have this kidney disease thing, which might have something to do with it. However, of all the times I have checked my blood pressure at CVS and Walmart, it had never been that high. Highest I had seen was 160/120, LOLTASTIC, amirite?.

Anyway, the nurse taking it just about had her own heart attack and the doctor came in urging me to have someone drive me to the ER, saying he had already made the call informing them I'd be there. He also said it didn't make any sense that I had not already had a stroke/wasn't 300+ lbs or 60. Patrick stopped by and grabbed me and away we went to Saddleback, for a night on the triage.

I was surprised, because it really didn't seem like an emergency to me. I had been feeling the same way for weeks, but upon arriving in the waiting room, I was rushed in, even before the dude in the wheelchair and girl hiding inside her coat and the little kid who had busted his head. I was amazed. I had never ever flown through a waiting room that fast before. Once in, they put me in a bed in a hallway and I watched the real life version of Grey Anatomy, although, I gotta say... the EMTs are waaaaay hotter than any of the doctors. Douches to the max, but dreamy, you know?

I sat around and got pricked with needles and had my blood pressure taken a bazillion times. They gave me some medicine that made me tired, so I conked out for a while, after they moved me to a room. Four hours later, I was a new woman, with new prescriptions and a referral to the free clinic down the road, with strict instructions to make an appointment immediately...

Totally destroyed my plans to go enjoy Oktoberfest! And my plans to eat horribly delicious and unhealthy food the rest of my life! Cakes and I agreed to remove fatty foods, red meats, swine and excessive salts from our diets for the foreseeable future. I went to Trader Joes and essentially had to restock our entire kitchen, because we didn't have anything coming even close to resembling "healthy". I also stopped by the evil major discount mart to pick up a blood pressure monitoring machine and they had one in PINK. Amazing? Yes. I also grabbed a few prescriptions on the cheap.

Now, after all this and taking my meds, I'm sitting here itchy as hell with hives, possibly due to the new medication, not sure, and my blood pressure has been sitting at about 150/110 all day, before and after the new pills and peeing every two seconds, because that's how Hydrodiuril do what it do.

Looks like heart problems are the new kidney problems these days.

If I don't have a stroke first, I'll continue to post about this, until it is resolved.

In other news!

• I think I might start volunteering with a group that assists emancipated youths in their new independent lives.
• I bought sooo many pairs of false eyelashes and press-on eyeshadows today, because Halloween is the best time to buy supplies that make people wonder if you're a transexual. I plan on hitting it again, after Halloween, when everything is on clearance.
• I switched titles at my job and I now work under processing instead of sales, which doesn't change anything, just exposes me to the backend instead of ... oh, I'm sorry, did that put you to sleep? Me too!
• I'm planning on going to visit Ashley and Travis in Berkeley before the end of November. No, but really. I am. I want to go to that bone store for some new hair accessories.
• This is what I look like at work. Notice the dark circles and my headset.
• 
• That Mountain Goats cd is pretty good, huh?
• I went to a wedding the other day and it made me really want to never have a wedding of my own. Ever.
• MC Chris thing on the 30th, Patrick and I are going.
• This is the longest blog ever.
• I'm just making lists now, what are you gonna do about it?
• I'm going to make a list inside this list now, I hope you can handle this. I used to specialize in keyword research, you see, so take whatever meaning you want: beer, showers, loan modifications, pets, vegetables, sex, Bellevue, bones, neon, X-Files, 81 Toyota Corolla, seasonal items, cubicles, purple shampoo, silent talks, Danny Trejo, curses, self-satisfied, unsatisfied with everything else, metallics, inner monologues.
  

Cubes

The Boat Lullabies

Nothing new, really.

• I spend a lot of time in a cube, daily.
• I bought a car that looks like this.
• As adults, we still act like a bunch of teenagers when the office is having tech problems and we can't do our work. Rather than sit quietly, we all converge to be as noisy and annoying as possible.
• I have two Otter Pops, still connected, that I am eating at the same time right now. Name brand, even!
• I'm home on lunch break, but now I have to go back.
  

When I was doing less with my life, I had more to say.

Two Years Since I Did The Most Selfish Thing Ever

And had it work out.

Patrick and I's two year anniversary was last weekend on the 12th. I had muscular men waving their fannies in my face to celebrate, but to be honest, I'd rather have Cakes over muscular men who are doing naked backflips for me any day of the week.

I'm not going to say something lame like "he gets me" because he doesn't. He doesn't think like I do, hardly likes any of the same music I do, books, activities, tv shows, movies, activities... He often has me yelling about wanting to have an affair and sometimes I quietly whisper in his ear that I plan on killing him in his sleep. Sometimes I even reveal some of the details of how I would do it.

But then we have moments like today, where we are doing our best to keep up with Weird Al's Albuquerque and he's driving me all over the place to find a cheap scraper to get me from home to work to bar and back home again. Afterward, we sat on the couch together, watched X-Files reruns and discussed the business we are putting together.

I sort of love him.

The last two weeks are rated NC-17.

Between being driven to madness at work, starting an ecommerce business with Patrick and Megan's bachelorette party in Vegas last weekend, my life has been utter filth. Riding my bike straight from work to the bar and shoving dollars down my shirt for a quick thrill. Very minimal internet use, because I spend any down time either coping in a hideous manner or sleeping.

To be continued...

Haircuts & Co

Sometimes when I have a sense of dissatisfaction, I escalate my reckless behavior until something or someone snaps and then I start over from the very beginning.
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But then again, I can always just have half my hair hacked off.

A "Mission" to "Lake Forest"

Over the last week and a half or so, we have been loading Patrick's Yaris with loads of our unorganized clutter to our new apartment, sans-roommate, in Lake Forest.


It isn't a fancy apartment by any means, but I like it better than the Vista Del Suck apartments in Mission. This complex is huge and lacking in personality, but it does have a trail behind it that goes through a stream and some woods and the complex itself is covered in trees and cuddly raccoons.

The raccoons are great actually, I love them. First night we were moving stuff in, it was about 1 or so in the morning and I saw some and very excitedly, in a bizarre return of my Southern accent, started hollering "COONS! THERE'S COONS UP THERE! COONS!" before remembering my black upstairs neighbor probably didn't appreciate the ruckus. I've kept my semi-offensive language to myself ever since, I just hope she didn't hear the "It's amazing how much like monkeys they are!"

FACT: When I was just a child, we had a pet raccoon. She was simultaneously the best and worst pet.

Anywaaaay, the new apartment is neat and we finally have everything over here, which I was supposed to put away while Cakes was in Vegas for the weekend, but it was really too hot to do anything but lay on the couch, watching Man v. Food in the newd.

Picsplz?

Octopus cookie jar bday pressie from Latisha.

Yeah, I own something with Comic Sans on it. Typography snobs:
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Rape-like bruises, acquired while moving a couch. No, really.

Did I mention it was hot over the weekend? I know up in LA it was well, on fire, and all... but it was 104 degrees down here. Patrick was in Vegas and I had to go to a bar and watch the fights by myself. It was lonely and sad, but where there's a cover charge and a sports bar, there will be douchebags to talk to during which, so it was ok. I drank a really expensive x-rated mojito and left that bar angry as hell and went to the Mule. Glug, glug, I have decided to lay off the beers for a little while and concentrate on eating fatty foods instead, as a hedonistic way of killing myself slowly.

It's like a real game of playing house now. Chuck is back in Banning and we're left to deal with each other alone now. We're even going to start our own business. Cakes and I are partners now, through and through.

Some Real California Gold

I don't have a lot of time, so let's make this quick. I'm not from California, therefore I did not grow up watching Huell Howser. I was vaguely aware based on what friends would talk about, but I was never properly introduced until a Youtube fest with a particular guy named Sean.

Now the Huell creeps into my voice and dialog on the daily, and yet... I still have never seen an entire episode.

Watch the following videos and really feel his power.