Happy Hore-o-ween

I think the following disclaimer should be on all slutty (ie: woman's) costumes:
This is a "costume." Not a miracle worker.

Because really?

a sexy plumber. including crack.

or this:

a sexy remote control. Sigh.

Hey why are they all blond btw? Because brunettes don't get told enough they aren't enough fun or anything.

But this:

sexy sesame street. Gee, perv much?

crosses a line.
Sesame Street? Whore up your own wardrobe one night of the year fine, but keep iconic children's figures out of it.

So. Happy Halloween!

Shocking

Fall finally arrived! Which means one thing:

The season of every time I get in or out of my car a bolt of static electricity runs through my fingers and up my arm.

I mean, what gives? It doesn't mater if I touch the plastic or metal of the door, if I'm wearing cotton or wool, I'm with or without gloves, if it's raining, snowing or perfectly pleasant out side. I open the door and zap! That telltale crack sounds and I get shocked.

Does anyone else have this problem? No? Just me? Ok then.

Assvice

So my dog's behavior is all my fault. I get it, I f*cked up. Again. I have to train her so I don't continue to have the stench of failure all over me. So I turn to the interwebs. Which is full of assvice.
Like this:

1. You should first start by socializing them as a puppy. Considering she's 3, we missed that step. F*ck up number one. We were too busy trying to be responsible pet owners and not get everyone else's dogs deadly sick when she was a puppy to socialize her. Sorry.
2. Don't physically or verbally abuse. Fair enough, but what exactly do you do when they do something bad? Say no in a pleasant sing song voice to not hurt their feelings? No harmless swat on the nose to feel shame? You know, this hippy dippy feel good shit doesn't work on everyone. Sometimes old school is the way to go. (I am not advocating beating your dog. I am merely saying that a two finger bip on the nose was a good enough lesson for Bailey during potty training)
3. Don't use shake cans because that will trigger aggressive behavior. Yeah, except the shake can works. And the sweet sing song voice doesn't.
4. Have other people outside the family/people who live in the house help with the training. (When getting the dog to stop barking at strangers) Because my friends have time for my problems.
5. Use a firm, controlled voice. Fine, I can do that. However, my dad mumbles and enunciates worse than me, so guess who thinks she's the alpha?
6. Only give treats for good behavior. Yes, I know, that daily slice of cheese was a behavior I should have stopped immediately.
7. Muzzle them to stop biting. Well, that would be fine and dandy if my mother didn't feel embarrassed for Bailey and then stop the corrective behavior mid training.
8. Or use a shake can whenever they start biting. The same shake can I'm not supposed to use so I don't trigger aggressive behavior?
9. Work with a professional trainer. Sure, as soon as I have a free 5-10 weeks and can pay in hopes and crushed dreams, I'll get right on that.

You know what interwebs? FUCK. OFF. I'm going to trust my instincts and train my dog how I want to. Even though this is how she got so "bad" in the first place. Kiss my ass.
So. Anyone wonder why I'm so frustrated over my dog?

Tired

I am tired. Of so many things.

• I am tired of balancing 18 credit hours, a part time job, a long distance relationship, automatically going to worry about my dad, no one listening to me and a misbehaving dog.
• I am tired that as soon as I balance all of the above something shifts and I'm off balance again.
  
• I am tired of not acknowledging how stressed I am.
• I am tired of Bailey being ornery, being embarrassed over my dog's behavior and her lack of basic obedience.
• I am tired of hunting for time to train her and not finding it.
• I am tired of all the training "assvice" on the web that says my dog's behavior is all my fault. (read all about it in tomorrow's blog).
  
• I am tired of accepting my dog as is, but that other people do not, and the assvice from those people on how to take care/discipline her.
• I am tired of knowing no matter what training I implement won't ever be good enough.
• I am tired of the line in the sand dr soc and I have over her.
• I am tired of his dog being so much better than mine.
• I am tired of banging my head against a brick wall when trying to get my dad to have better health habits.
  
• I am tired of worrying about the best way to take care him and that I need to do so in the first place.
• I am tired of always f*cking multitasking, inevitably dropping something while doing so and the feeling of ineptness that accompanies that.
• I am tired of trying to be perfect for everyone else.
• I am tired of being in fear that I will fail again, and people telling me it will be ok when they have never been in my position before.
• I am tired of that even though I'm working my ass off and doing well in school I'm still not proud of myself.
• I am tired of walking a few miles to and from school even though I take the bus to campus.
• I am tired of my bus being more of an inconvenience than a benefit.
• I am tired of being a poor college student.
• I am tired of not having the time to regularly work out even if it is just to clear my head.
• I am tired of my jeans not fitting and not having the time or energy to fix that, or even the money to just get new ones.
• I am tired of back burner stuff becoming front burner stuff. Especially when the front burner stuff remains on the front burner on high.
• I am tired of having burners.
• I am tired of micro-managing my day into half hour increments.
• I am tired of constantly revamping those half hours into my schedule, and having to shuffle things around.
• I am tired of stressing when something goes wrong and not being able to competently deal with it like I have before.
• I am tired of not having time to see my friends.
• I am tired of not being able to see my boyfriend.
• I am tired of when I do get to do something fun , that I have to plan for it, and that I have to do so much work before hand that I can't enjoy myself fully.

I. Am. Tired.

Vroom Vroom!

So. I got a new car yesterday!

my new car! shiny! squee!

It's a 2005 Toyota Corolla, so it's used, and it's all mine mine mine!

We traded in my beige 98 Mazda protege, which we got for my sister and I in 2001. It was a good car, it was just old and on it's last legs/wheels. With me moving in a few months, we (me, dr soc, and my mom) were worried that it wouldn't get me to where I needed to be safely. And even if it did get me to Charlotte, when it broke there, we wouldn't know who could fix it.

So. New car for Sarah!

Just a quick far thee well to my protege (who's name was Davy btw). I was a smidgen sad when I handed my keys over to the dealer. But then I got the keys to my newer shinier model (much like a midlife crisis trophy wife trade), hoped in, opened the sunroof and drove away with my Corolla, happy as a clam.

Vroom Vroom!

Secrets Secrets Are No Fun

Unless you share with everyone. Which I call bullsh*t on that because having a secret is super duper fun in my opinion. Not that I can keep a secret anyway. Well, I may not tell you the exact information that I have, but I will let it be known that I know something and I won't tell you what that something is!

Well anyway, dr soc and I are both of the opinion that when the time comes for us to have children, we're not going to find out the baby's sex (not gender, because gender is a social concept and I don't really want to get into the semantics of why sex and gender are not the same. But they aren't and my sociologist future husband/baby daddy will agree with me on this). But it's because we both want that surprise and the "it's a ___!" moment for ourselves. And the only way to ensure we get that moment, is for us to not know. Which may annoy some people, but pfsh, it's ours and we'll do what we want.

My friends found out what they were having but managed to keep it surprise until their daughter was born. Which, props to them becasue I couldn't do that. (I think they are planning on doing that again too, so squee!) If I knew, I would undoubtedly slip at some point and refer to it as he/she. Then I would start telling everyone once I slipped.

I mentioned that dr soc and I are simpatico on this, which is just another reason how awesome we are together. At some point the do we find out or not came up in our conversations, and we discovered that we of the like mindset. Phew. But I mentioned my friends who were able to keep the secret, and then also said that would never work for me. He agreed:

"As much as your mouth moves there's no way that news would stay in there."
Snort. Oh, how he knows me so well!

Career Girl

After a night at work where I spent more time kid wrangling than book wrangling:

me: I've changed my mind, I don't want children. Ever.

Co-worker: sure ok.

Me: yep. I've decided that my life long dream of being a mother is a silly endeavor. I will now be a career woman.

--pause--

Crap! Now I have to want a career...

Unicorn vs Dragon

Pumpkin 2009: Unicorn!

Pumpkin 2010:
Dragon!

In the battle of Unicorn vs Dragon, the winner in terms of:

• Use of exclamation points: draw.
• Simplicity of pattern: unicorn.
• More wiley pumpkin due to thickness of rind: dragon.
  
• Amount of details: dragon.
• Intricacy of pattern: dragon.
• Use of greater knife wielding skill: dragon.
• Amount of curse words used during carving due to more complicated pattern: dragon.
• Impressive factor: dragon.
  
• Has greater potential to scare trick-or treaters thus leaving us more candy: dragon.
• Bad assness: dragon.

Clear winner:
DRAGON. ROAR!!!!!

Urban Planning

Lexington did a mad dash to improve the downtown street scape before the World Equestrian Games. So they repaved (thus making me fight the urge to throw up bile every time I left work) and prettied up the sidewalks doing I don't know what.

However, someone in the (urban) planning office did some miscalculations...
Behold.

The traffic lanes before:

The lanes lined up and there were no lines in the intersections because the lanes lined up.

And even though they didn't move any of the buildings' facades (you don't have to be a designer to understand why you can't simply move an entire building), or give us any additional lanes or take any traffic lanes away...

The traffic lanes after:

The lanes clearly don't line up, and they had to put guide lines through the intersections because of it.

Planner fail. (Perhaps they are an Itt tech grad?)

Sophomore Snots

It's been a while since I've done just a judge to be judgy post hasn't it?

Have you ever notice how awful sophomores are? Seriously, they're just annoying little piss ants. They know everything since they've "done the college thing" for a whole year now. They're always, always the one who tries to argue with the teacher or start a debate in class but all they do is stir sh*t up.

Yeah, these kids are roughly 10 years younger than me, so by default they fall into they will annoy me category. And usually when something/one annoys me, I place an unwarranted judge to be judgy judgment on them for my own personal fun.

There's this one girl in my inequalities class who is always confrontational in her comments and tries to start a debate. Needless to say, I don't like her, and neither does anyone else. Plus she dresses in pseudo grunge/emo way, and, ugh, she's just giving me more ammo.

In fairness I do know that most 19 year olds are just that, 19 and young*. And young people are just trying to find their place and "who they are," and the wise assness just comes with the territory. But that doesn't stop me from rolling my eyes and dismissing that girl every time she opens her mouth (which is often).

*I know I was very typical 19 year old. Though I didn't argue with the teachers or my classmates. But then again, I've never been a confrontational type of girl either.

Real Estate Makes Me Stabby

Considering how much I hate apartment hunting, I figured house hunting would be along the same vein. After one day of tagging along with my dr friend last summer as she house hunted, I was exhausted. So I knew when it came time for me to be a grown up and own property, I was in for an arduous (which, btw, is my new fave word) process.

I like the concept of house hunting. Going into other people's homes and judging (what?), knowing you can change ugly, all the possibilities, and the excitement of finding a place to call your own and place to come home to. That sounds cozy and homey and totally squee!

But the actual hunting? Uhhhh. It's much more taxing than I had anticipated. Not to mention the financial aspect of it is about as clear as mud. While I didn't expect the process to be as fun and carefree as running through a field of daisies, (which, way fun!) it's certainly not as idealistically romantic as you hope it will be either.

So, to all you house hunters out there: god speed. May you find something you love with little process. Or, or, you can always go the way I did. Which is to have your boyfriend buy himself a house, then you claim a spot in the garage and make plans of what colors you want to paint the place. Thus, I avoid the stabby of real estate and I get to live with my favorite socasauraus. It's a win win for me. (The financial aspect if still clear as mud though. But I'll figure that out soon enough)

Name Calling

On my birthday I found out that my friend's dad had a first name.

Me: Your dad's name is Bob?
friend: yeah... always has been...
me: I don't think I knew that.
dr soc: wait, you didn't know his name? What had you been calling him?
me: Mr Train!

Call me old fashioned, but I was taught as a girl you call adults by Mr and M(r)s so-and-so until they tell you other wise. So if I was introduced to someone as a kid (or high school student) and they were mr and mrs so-and-so then, to this day still call them mr and mrs so-and-so, because they have not told me other wise. (w/the exception of my other friend's parents. Them I've always called Daddy and Mommy P)

This Is Why We're Friends

me: have you seen the previews for the movie Burlesque?
dr friend: no, what's it about?
me: it has Christina Aguilera and Cher.
dr friend: we're there.


http://www.sonypictures.com/previews/movies/burlesque/clips/2596/

Stuff

Both times that I've visited dr soc in Charlotte I've moved a few (snort) things to him in the same trip. Which no big deal, except when he wants me to bring something that's oddly shaped.

The first trip he wanted his vacuum cleaner, which I had a whale of a time getting in the car. It's bulky and awkward. I was running an hour behind schedule, had a 7 hour drive ahead of me, and my dad was trying to help but was just getting in the way not to mention was the reason I was an hour behind schedule. My mood was testy to say the least. So here I am, trying to shove his stupid vacuum cleaner in the backseat of my rental car, when it slips and jambs my finger and drew a little bit of blood plus a string of curse words. I then start cursing at him in North Carolina (where he can't hear me), and informed the moving gods that he better vacuum ever god d*mn day for all the trouble this mother f*cker was giving me.

Having not learned my lesson, the second trip, I brought him more stuff. This time it was some extra bedding in this giant tupperware crate and a filing cabinet. They were just a little too big to get into the trunk, but they fit in the back seat, so that was fine. However, this time, the weaselly bastard piece of furniture was the ironing board. Because it won't bend and is just a little too big to fit in the trunk as well. With some angling, trickery and brute force, (and cursing, of course), I managed to get that in the car and be on my way.

So I call him to tell him I'm on the road and to give an eta, but of course I give an account of all the injustices his stuff gave me as well. What kind of helpful girlfriend would I be if I didn't. And after wresting with the ironing board and definitely coming out more worse for the wear, I decided I'm not taking any more stuff. Because "you're stuff has the inherent ability to to pissing me off!"