The Sarah Show

The Answer to All Your Financial (and other) Problems!

2009-06-19T13:52:00.005-07:00

Some of us are really suffering financially right now. The car industry is crashing in the United States, people are losing their jobs and houses, and many of us just don't have the extra walking-around-money that we used to.

I found inspiration when I heard about an upcoming fundraiser to take place in Ruidoso next week. A couple who has been trying, unsuccessfully, to reproduce is having a private party that you can go to (yes, you) for just $30 to help them raise money for whatever treatments are necessary for them to win at the game of making a mini-me. Chefs from around town are volunteering to prepare the donated food, and drinks will be served as well. I'm not certain if the booze is included, but it doesn't matter because I won't be attending.

Personally, I find this event wrong on so many levels. Whether or not these folks are feeling the pinch from the economy is really besides the point. If they don't have enough money to have fertility treatments, they probably don't have enough money to properly rear a child, clothe it, send it off to school, help it survive on the $20K he or she will make post-college, etc. It seems that many of these "deals" also result in multiples that the parents can't afford, in which case they sell their souls to TLC for diapers, Juicy Juice, and Johnson & Johnson baby hygiene products.

I may sound incredibly harsh to an innumerable amount of people, but I more or less subscribe to natural selection, and if you can't do it on your own, you probably weren't meant to spawn. But as humans, we have options. There are the fertility treatments/procedures that can have great results for responsible parents, or they can result in multiples that have to be terminated, or the ol' trial and error miscarriage. Why can people who want children initiate a risky pregnancy that will likely result in miscarriage, or initiate a pregnancy that will likely result in multiple embryos that must be removed, but the women who seek, and the doctors who perform, abortions are persecuted and killed for their choice? This seriously has ethical debacle written all over it, but I doubt many people here (including myself) would be brave enough to say something publicly.

Another option is adoption. I don't know how much it costs in comparison to fertility treatments, but why doesn't the couple in question consider taking on a child who was abandoned or whose parents could not care for him or her? Why bring another child onto this already crowded planet when there are plenty here already who need homes?

You know, have kids if you are so inclined, but please be responsible adults in stable relationships and in stable financial situations. I encourage you to give the world intelligent, well-mannered individuals that you can care for until they are well and able to care for themselves.

And in the meantime, I'll be planning my superficial fundraiser so I can get Botox and liposuction. If you need financial help, you should plan one too...

Last Chance...

2009-05-30T06:40:00.004-07:00

This is not exactly an important post. I guess none of mine really are, right? Anyways, as some of you may or may not know, I went to see Kings of Leon last week in Phoenix. They rocked. Melted my face off a little. The concert was sold out (packed) with die hard KoL fans and a bunch of posers who looked a lot like they just had a season pass to the Mesa Amphitheater.

I've been a Kings of Leon fan since I heard them on Sirius (I think on Alt Nation) like two years ago. Believe it or not, as young as they still are, they've been making music for many years. If you're not a fan yet, or haven't heard of them (which amazingly many people haven't), this is probably your last chance to check them out before they blow up Sunday on the MTV Movie Awards. I imagine they'll play "Sex on Fire" or "Use Somebody" and the rest will be history (along with their now somewhat-over-thought hair styles... except the drummer; his flair is expressed with a glittering silver drum kit). But seriously, if you haven't heard Caleb Followill sing yet, you're missing out.

Tangent: My other new favorite band just happened to open for KoL. They're called The Walkmen and have a really cool sound. Kinda old rock. Like ghost guitars being played by some really unassuming guys. I love to see a band before a stylist gets to them. They had cheap jeans, un-ironed shirts and probably self-cut hair. But I loved Hamilton Leithauser's Wayfarers. I know what you're wondering: Were they Ray Bans? I don't know. I do know they moved out to the grassy knoll after their set and awaited girls to wander towards their rock star magnetism, after which they seem to have disappeared. I have a feeling some chicks missed KoL to party with The Walkmen. Anyways, check them out too.

I'm not a music critic. I just know what I like and don't like, which ranges from Guns n' Roses to The BeeGees. So judge for yourself, but check them out. You won't be sorry! :)

Updates and Whatnot

2009-03-06T12:28:00.002-07:00

It seems like not much has been going on, but maybe a lot has. The year wasn't off to the best start, as one of my friends passed away, and his funeral was the same day that my own brother died three years ago. I went to Farmington for the services, which was basically like an out of body experience, going back to my hometown, seeing a couple of high school/college friends, and sleeping in the house I lived in for most of my teen years.

Death trips aside, I've been staying busy at Landlocked, bartending, making the desserts, planning killer beer and wine dinners, etc. Business seems pretty good despite this slow season and the economy and I'm just having fun, doing nothing with my degrees, and starting to really not care about that fact.

Aaron and I got a Great Dane puppy in December and her name is Penelope. She is awesome and huge and just a great dog. I had to get Willie neutered because he fell madly in love with her about three weeks ago for some reason. It was pretty pathetic watching an eight pound poodle try and get it on with a 50-pound Great Dane...

I'm looking forward to a great rest of the year and hopefully I'll be more inspired to write interesting and witty things like I used to soon...

Ignorance is Bigotry?

2008-12-15T12:00:00.003-07:00

I'm not sure who I will eventually freak out on, but I am becoming more and more sickened by the jokes, emails and comments about our President-Elect. I received an email today from a friend that had photos of all the former Presidents' vehicles, mostly limousines, with the names of the Presidents who rode in them underneath, ending with a picture of some asinine-looking orange low rider and "Guess who?" typed under it. Amusing...

Aaron received a text message the night of the election from an unknown number that said, "What do Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama have in common? Nothing... yet." When did death threats become funny?

Recently I became involved in a conversation about how the White House will be redecorated for the new President. To keep a longer story short, mentions of beaded doorways and dinners of fried chicken and collard greens were made. I just kept quiet, silently taking stock of the complete and utter ignorance of some of the people whose company I apparently employ.

What shocks me is my/our tolerance of this type of speech. I'm am clearly not opposed to free speech, but our individual lack of awareness of the people who surround us and what their personal views may or may not be disturbs me. Why do people assume I would find a racial joke about our next President funny? I am proud to say I voted for Barack Obama, but I am beginning to feel ashamed that I tolerate the ignorant-speak all around me. I was worried that my vehicle would be vandalized if I put any sort of Obama-Biden paraphernalia on it before the election. Actually, in Ruidoso I'd be afraid of what might happen to my car even though he won!

What I am not afraid of is the competence of the rest of us - the rest of the world - who celebrated the election of a new President who undoubtedly has more couth, grace and diplomacy in his little finger than our current President has in his entire body. President Bush had shoes hurled at him in Iraq. I am sad to admit that one of the few countries that may happen to Barack Obama is our own, a country that was supposedly founded upon tolerance and freedom.

Be aware and educated if you are going to share your bigoted opinions. And next time you want to push racist jokes about a President who has already begun to alter the negative impressions most of the world has of the United States, be ready to debate.

Three Moments Defining My Age (thus far)

2008-09-12T16:06:00.004-07:00

I first started to "believe" I was getting old last year (or possibly the year before) when my laugh lines started to stick. And by stick, I mean they don't go away when my smile does. It was mildly devastating, but there's not much I can do about it besides freeze my face with Botox, which I may eventually do. Never say never!

The second happened to me last year around this time. The cover of Rolling Stone featured a saucy-looking group of hooligans... thin, smoking, leather-clad, with hair bigger than mine was after my last perm. Otherwise known as Guns n' Roses, circa 1987. The cover was in celebration of Appetite for Destruction's twenty year anniversary. Picture an 8-year-old Sarah jamming out to Mr. Brownstone, unwittingly singing along to the bitchin' tunes, "...and when you're high you never, ever wanna come down." I had no idea what it meant, I just knew it ROCKED. However, seeing the cover of The Rolling Stone, knowing it was the second album I fell in love with after John Cougar Mellencamp's The Lonesome Jubilee... It just really made me feel my age.

The last incident happened quite recently. I purchased tickets to see Beck next week in El Paso and was bragging to a couple of Landlocked employees about it, one of whom is approximately 17 years old. Said teenager had no idea who Beck was (even though he has a new album out) and was disturbingly unfamiliar with such classics as "Where It's At," "Loser," and "Devil's Haircut." I promptly conducted a YouTube search to school this young mind in the ways of Beck, only to realize he has gone from pop star to indy jammer. His newer stuff is just as good as the classics that I popped into my $300 CD player ten or eleven years ago. Maybe he just needs to fire his public relations and/or promotions people. Check out Gamma Ray, and just try to lie to me and say you don't want to get up and start doing some sort of a dance involving mime-swimming.

But alas, I am still going to concerts, and I haven't had anyone guess my age lately, maybe for a reason. So I can't be that old, can I? I ran a 5K last weekend, I text message more than I talk on the phone, I have an iPod as of earlier this year, I'm up on the lingo (Right off!) and the new tunes that are tolerable. I may not know what Ne-Yo is, but I'm rockin' to Kings of Leon, My Morning Jacket and Santogold! Ah, who am I fooling? I may be old, but I am still f@cking cool.**

**This opinion belongs to the author. :)

Long Time, No Blog

2008-09-12T13:30:00.004-07:00

For shame. It has been months since I've blogged, or written anything besides restaurant orders or checks. I wonder if anyone even checks to see if I've written anymore. The last three months have been strange and great and fun, but I'm glad they're over. Working eight-plus shifts at Le Bistro a week, plus making super-fantastic desserts for Landlocked, plus desserts on occasion for Bistro, plus trying to keep up with yogging... was trying. One week I had to work about eight shifts and make twelve cakes for a party of 200, which also happened to be the same day of the wonderful floods. Good times, Mother Nature!

The summer has ended on some fantastical notes, though. I am officially working with my awesome-o boyfriend at Landlocked and it's been fun so far. We'll see if he's ready to fire my whiny butt anytime soon. I also got to play bridesmaid in Evelyn's wedding last weekend, which was wonderful. So wonderful, that when I got to give my #2 speech, I cried the whole way through and undoubtedly made a complete tool of myself (and embarrassed the crap out of Aaron by catching the bouquet later... WHOOPS!). But it was incredible to see all of my college friends. It makes me sad that we all don't live in Las Cruces and hang out at The Brew after happy hour at Si Senor, but it also makes the times we do get together even more special.

Anyhoo, I am hoping my new slave arrangement will allow for more writing time, ergo more blogs in the future. Birthdays are coming up, so some fodder much come from getting old. OLD. Check back...

Fellow Elitists Sought

2008-06-16T10:41:00.003-07:00

Elitist seeks like-minded individual(s) for general social purposes, probably just some drinks and heckling, maybe some lively pop culture discussion, attendance at a movie from time to time, etc. Magic christians, hippies, drug addicts, those with sub par intelligence and/or offensive body odor need not apply, as well as people with identifiable neuroses they take seriously. Interested parties please apply via witty, entertaining, and grammatically correct comments to this blog.

This is basically my way of saying I miss all of my friends, who are spread all over the country, and I can't wait to spend some quality time with my girls this weekend in Albuquerque (a.k.a. The Artist Formerly Known as Steve, or TAFKAS). Do 90 percent of the people in Ruidoso just suck, or am I so much of a snob that no one dare find out that I am actually a pretty easygoing person?

*Visit again soon because I will certainly be blogging about the Texans and my dining experiences with them very soon.

Death Dreams and the Turnaround

2008-04-21T12:48:00.005-07:00

I like to try to keep my blog as un-diary-esque as possible, but sometimes we all need to write a little something when attention trumps opinion.

Yesterday morning I woke up for a while, very early, and had some trouble falling back to sleep, but when I did I had a dream starring my dead brother. We were building or creating something, like a painting or a sculpture to our right side. I was sitting in front of him, and working with one hand, not seeing who was behind me, but knowing. Then I heard him sort of sniffing, crying, and whatnot, so I turned around and asked what was wrong, "Why are you crying?" He said he was sad because he missed Matt, but he was Matt, so I awoke confused, missing my brother more than usual, and wishing someone in this stupid world knew what it is like to lose your sibling and have your entire family dynamic crushed to bits, and have it become clearer and clearer every day that it is irreparable; that it will never, ever be the same, and probably won't even come to a point where things are even mildly comfortable.

Who can you convey your feelings to when it seems like no one wants to hear about death and grief? I use paper, a pen, my keyboard. It even seems taboo in my own house, with my brother and mom, who might be two people who understand, but things are so strained, I find it hard to even discuss the album I bought yesterday with them.

So anyways, I suppose my dreams that I remember with my brother are about as frequent as they have been since he died. It made me more sad than usual for a while, I cried, then I realized it wasn't doing me any good to be morose and depressed, so I let my mind wander and, in my crazed mind of minds, came up with a name for teeth that are half-covered by gums. Jack White on the cover of the last Rolling Stone is a great example:

If you can't see it, it's got to have some sort of a label in the medical lexicon (I couldn't bring myself to scroll through the Google Image Search), but I have officially dubbed them "mummy teeth." It has yet to be listed on Urban Dictionary, but I'll see what I can do about that. Dolphin teeth, you aren't the only classification for weird teeth anymore!

Anyways, by this time I was cracking up at myself, which I often do, and ended up having a good day on 4/20, opting to have some beer instead of smoking a bowl. Good times!

Sober Snapshots?

2008-04-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

As I listen to Tool’s "Sober" and browse the photos on my MySpace, I notice a recurring theme in about 95 percent of the pictures taken - I’m drunk or most likely well on my way to an enhanced version of myself. The thing is, I really don’t think I drink that much. I know I used to... drink and drown in Mexico on Thursday nights and a subsequent absence in History Friday morning my Freshman year at NMSU. Tailgating in its many forms... whether it was Delta Chi’s jungle juice or Cold Duck with professors at Texas Tech at nine in the morning, good times, pictures taken. Weddings, wine festivals, Tom Selleck’s birthday (Amanda, you are my hero), it seems like it doesn’t take much to convince me it’s a holiday worth celebrating with a totty.

I guess my pending trip to Phoenix this weekend got me thinking about my crap camera (hate you) and the fact that we’ll probably be taking loads of pictures of drunken times with Jenny... I am actually kind of scared. I can’t drink like I used to and the last two times Evelyn and Jason had destination drink fests where I was involved, I vomited (once in Ruidoso, once in Dallas). But there’s nothing quite like telling the story of trying to stealthily remove a full beer from the Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Club after a Mavs game, only to be stopped by the security guard, whom you take a photo of moments later to document how bad he sucked for not letting you take an open container into public.

Ah, so many classic drunken photographs, so little time. My all-time favorite has to be with the walker outside of the CVS by Amanda’s in DC... That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I so took advantage of it. Killer.

So, wish me luck and look for a new album of photos posted next week if you’re so inclined. Hopefully I’ll find some other cool stuff to pose with (don’t get any weird ideas)...

On death and dying and euthanasia

2008-04-04T16:10:00.003-07:00

It was a very long time ago that I decided I didn't want to be one of those people who lives a horrifically long life. I don't really understand people who want to live until they are so old and decrepit that they have regressed to an infant-like state of being. Truly, youth is wasted on the youth, and if we started old and grew progressively younger, knowing what age has taught us, perhaps we could live richer lives, but that's just not how it is.

A very old woman came into the restaurant yesterday. She looked very familiar to me; one of those people who isn't quite regular enough for me to know their name, but enough that I know she's local and has been here before. The cook came out to greet her while she was eating, only to discover her husband had passed recently. So here she is, dining alone, using a cane to walk, and expressing the sadness of her husband's death. Not the life I want to leave.

Another older couple who are regulars at the restaurant lost one half of their partnership a couple of weeks ago. I can remember they used to come in holding hands, struggling a bit to get around, until they were both using walkers to even get from the car to the door, twenty feet away. It's been sad to see their health go, but they were clearly still very smitten with each other and now I wonder how long the wife will last without her husband. Also not the life I want to leave.

Yet another instance of death surrounding the restaurant, a woman who had been battling cancer for many years finally succumbed to the disease. I would say she was in her mid-to-late fifties and was spry until the very end. She went quickly, which I suppose is fortunate, but her devastated husband remains with the rest of his life to live. Maybe the way she went is one way to go... Knowing you probably don't have long to be here, and living the way you want until you can't function any longer, slipping into a painless coma and moving on.

Maybe I don't know enough about life or death to be talking about it in this way, but I do know I never want to be in a position where someone else has to feed me and wipe my ass and I have to use a motorized scooter to get around. Now senile and functional is totally cool with me. If I can make it to the bathroom easily and think I'm on a throne of solid gold and am talking to myself about the conversation I had yesterday with Franklin Roosevelt, that is fine. It's the thought of me in an old people's home, drooling on myself while I watch Jeopardy! with my ass exposed that freaks me out.

So when is a good time to go? Why can't we choose? I know some people presently who'd be perfectly happy to go now because their health and wits are not entirely about them, which begs another question, why can't we make a decision when we're lucid to end our lives when they become less-than-beneficial to ourselves and our families? I am writing this right now... if I am ever in a vegetative state, pull the plug. Seriously. I should probably talk to a lawyer about this, but I mean it. None of the false hope that medical miracles will bring back a dead brain, ok?

Speaking of medicine, is it really extending productive lives when people cling to whatever sub par lives they have with whatever synthetic concoction the pharmaceutical gods decide to hand them? Or is it merely meddling with evolution and the survival of the fittest? We all know I loathe prescription drugs, and this is just one of the reasons. It comes from the same part of my brain that disapproves of in vitro fertilization and the crazy hormone treatments people go through in order to have children. If you can't make babies the regular way, there's a reason, one way or another. It doesn't matter. There are plenty of kids out there who are already born and need someone to take care of them. Angelina Jolie and Madonna have taught us that. Sorry... tangent.

A belligerent part of me feels somewhat entitled to talk freely about these things because I lost my brother. I count him lucky, and not in a sick, masochistic, feeling-sorry-for-myself-and-want-to-die kind of way. All I mean is that life is hard, no matter what way you look at it. I definitely touched on this in "Reproductive Prowess". This is not to say that wonderful things will not and do not happen to everyone, and a lot of it has to do with your own perspective on life and state of mind, but it is the struggle of mankind to just survive, and this is quite obviously not the same lot it was when we first started walking upright. Even if you have all the money in the world and it seems like you shouldn't have anything to worry about and be depressed about, and no Saber-Toothed Tigers are trying to eat you, you'll probably find something to be pissed and/or sad about. Mo' money, mo' problems, right, Biggie Smalls? Biggie Smalls... Biggie Smalls... Biggie Smalls...

I guess I don't really know what the point of this blog was. Just some random thoughts in support of euthanasia, generated by a contemplative sadness in being confronted with death and just getting old. Biggie Smalls.

Waiting Squared

2008-03-30T11:34:00.001-07:00

You may or may not know I am a server at a smallish restaurant here in Ruidoso and normally I like my job. Or maybe I just like the money and lack of stress to take home with me when the day is done. That’s not to say that many a night during the summer I didn’t have crazy awake-dreams where I thought I was still at the restaurant, or that customers were at my house waiting to eat or something, but usually most of the manic stress happens at the P.O.B.

This is also not to say that I haven’t broken down from time to time (what my boss refers to as "cracking up"). I try to keep those instances to a minimum and just keep my adrenaline to myself until later, but I have been formulating a list in my head about stuff that makes me NUTS about restaurant customers, and thought I’d share what I can remember here....

Special eaters - Go the F*CK home. No one wants to deal with your aversion to butter or salt or peas or cheese or meat or eggs or capers or cumin. That’s why you go out to restaurants... the food tastes better because the cooks use more of that "bad" stuff to taste up your normally bland food. And your server pretends to care, but we don’t. We secretly loathe you and honestly, unless someone has a severe allergy, I probably don’t even say anything and neither do you because -GASP- your food tastes good that way! ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time someone designed a recipe one way because it works. They know what they’re doing. Leave well enough alone.

Ten percenters - The year is 2008, not 1958. The norm for tipping these days is twenty percent. If you can’t afford to tip your server, you can’t afford to eat at an establishment that employs people to refill your drinks, bring you your food, ask you if you need anything else. Go to Arby’s. They don’t expect tips because they get paid more than three bucks an hour. And seriously, I don’t think restaurant patrons know how much this means to a server. Give them the twenty percent, and maybe give them a dollar more. ONE DOLLAR. You have no idea how you could make someone’s day.

Well-done steak eaters - Stop kidding yourself when you try to order a steak medium-rare by saying, "Wellllll... What’s medium here? I like it just pink in the middle, but still juicy." "Medium is still going to be a little bloody, dear patron." "Oh, no, no, no. No blood." Mental note: Hmmm, ok. How about medium-well, you nasty bastard? And when you say it’s too dry and ask for steak sauce you can kiss my ass because we don’t have any.... Just effing order the steak how you want it. I won’t say anything to your face...

Flavored tea drinkers/straw users - Let’s start here with a question: Who started this flavored tea trend? Trust me, I love a flavored tea as much as the next idiot, but I would never expect an establishment to carry flavored teas unless it was like "Aunt Bea’s Flavored Tea Emporium". So stop acting so surprised when I tell you we only have regular iced tea. And to those of you who require a straw to drink a beverage... I don’t get it. If you have serious tooth sensitivity, you should carry your own straws with you. If you don’t like your lips to touch a restaurant glass, you are a lunatic. And if you’re a kid, too bad. You need to learn how to drink out of a glass like the rest of functioning society.

Obese people - You gross me out and I don’t even want to feed you because it’s like enabling an alcoholic. You ask for a fourth basket of bread and extra butter and another Diet Coke, and I die a little bit inside. Then you can’t decide if you want to get dessert because you’re so full. Just get it. You know you’re going to eat that half gallon of rocky road when you get home regardless. Might as well add another six bucks to my sales...

Old people - You don’t have an appetite, so don’t go out to eat. You want your coffee at temperatures that cause evaporation. You ask for ice to put in your wine. You tip badly. You smell. You ask for salt and pepper before I have even given you a menu (Which reminds me to tell you that you are an uncouth jerk if you season your food before you taste it). You complain more than anyone and that makes me hate you.

Wannabe sommeliers - Having you taste the wine before I pour you a glass is NOT to see whether or not you like the wine. It is to make sure the bottle has not turned because of the cork, etc. If you don’t like it, that’s your fault because you don’t know what kind of wine you ordered/like. And by the way, smelling the cork is for morons. If you want to squeeze it to make sure it’s not dry or rotted, be my guest. But smelling it forces me to probably give you a look of severe disdain that you don’t recognize because you don’t know me. And to those of you who drink white zinfandel... I am not even going to go there. You are just revoltingly lame.

Table movers/chair swappers - I’ll keep this simple. The host seated you in one place for a reason. Stay there unless there is a REALLY good reason to move. And leave the chairs where they are. If you have a bony ass or hemorrhoids, carry around your donut cushion because that is not my fault.

Wow. I honestly probably have a list ten times this long with more nuggets you can’t live without. It’ll get worse. Maybe I’ll get some more written down. Until then, if you haven’t seen Waiting, watch it. It’s incredibly accurate where restaurants are concerned and if you’re never going to wait tables to see what it’s like, you need to be taught a lesson by Ryan Reynolds and Luis Guzman. Watch it immediately if not sooner. If nothing else, it’s funny as hell.

Exaggerated perceived benefits of big city life

2008-03-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

I desired to move to a bigger city for three main reasons that I can think of:

More people
Music scene
Shopping

Not sure why you’d want to live in a friggin’ huge city otherwise, because as I have learned, it sort of sucks (well, Dallas sucked kinda). I have found that there are as many things that I love about living in a small town as there are things that irritate the hell out of me.

ONE.

Right now the number one item on my list of aggravations are tourists – from Texas and Mexico. They drive like shit, act like shits, look like shit, and even smell like shit because they’re all over-cologners. But on the flip side, they leave (they come back, but they do leave). In a big city, you have idiots driving all over the place from out of town, or even from the other side of town, constantly. They have no idea where they are or what’s going on… I have been this idiot on many an occasion.

So there’s one part of the "more people" item on my list. I figured, "There’s got to be more cool people in a big city as compared to this tiny mountain town…" No, not really. Maybe in some bigger cities the average age is lower, but as the city grows, so do the number of assholes inhabiting it. I believe that’s what we call correlation. So in a large town you’re just as screwed as you are in a small town. It’s all about statistics.

TWO.

Next on my list is music. I really enjoy going to concerts of bands I like, and there aren’t a lot in Ruidoso, or even New Mexico for that matter. I think Smash Mouth (You remember them… they’re on all the bad 90s compilation albums and the Shrek soundtracks!) just played out at the Inn of the Mountain Gods. Awesome, no? I check on tours of bands I’d like to see, and the list of venues maybe goes something like this: Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco (three dates), Seattle, Denver, Dallas, Washington, D.C., New York… you get the idea. The thing is, I really don’t have too much to complain about. We have a decent live music ring here and I am pretty sure I am dating the ring leader, who can talk DJ Pete into letting my East Coast BFF touch his afro (and there is definitely a picture of said ’fro-pulling in my pics, so check it out). So we have a good time regardless, I suppose.

And then because I am lucky and know like five people, sometimes I get cool opportunities to become the lucky recipient of two $100 tickets to see Willie Nelson out at the Inn before he stops touring. And by "stops touring," I mean dies, because we all know he’s going to smoke dope and sing songs until that day, right? That concert would have been insane if the venue hadn’t sucked and crazed hicks weren’t screaming, "WILLLLLAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!! WILL-(gasp)-layyyyyy…" Actually, that was incredibly entertaining all by itself.

THREE.

Shopping. All I can do when confronted with this topic is sigh. Too much thought could send me into fits of tears. There are a couple of cute shops in Ruidoso that may seem quaint and novel to visitors, but to me they’re just a bunch of Forever 21 clones in a charming store’s pajamas. The one shoe store SUCKS ("These shoes rule… these shoes SUCK!"). J. Roberts carries decent jeans from time to time that are reasonably priced, but unless you’re into buying $70 tops that fall apart after one outing, you’re effed. There’s no way someone else could borrow your top, betch. My purchases usually occur online or out of town, unfortunately. The good thing about this, however, is that I don’t do a lot of impulse buying. I give online purchases more thought and dedication because it’s a chore, and you can never be quite sure if what you’re getting will fit right, etc. A good Coach bag always fits, but anyways. I think I’m going to go to Walgreens now and look at the hair care products…

There are a plethora of other reasons why big cities suck or little towns suck in comparison to each other, like public transportation. Equally scary and entertaining if you ask me… wonky eyes on the Metro, the BP-riddled DART, breaking down on the El, Mohammed the cabbie in DC…

This blog brought to you by Sack, Amanda, and the letter B. Sack gave me the title and Amanda wrote a similar, but less cynical blog not too long ago. Thanks, yo!

Tales of Carbon Monoxide

2008-03-05T12:24:00.003-07:00

I find myself at my house less and less these days, thanks to my own personal Latch Key program, also known as my boyfriend. When I am at my house, I'm tucked away in my "lair", tooling around on the internet, getting ready for work, doing laundry... Things that do not require my presence at the front of the house, which is maybe why I have the little bit of motivation it takes to do the things that construct my life. I suspect that some sort of a carbon monoxide leak is happening in the front of my house, ergo whenever I come home my family is mimicking the lives of house cats: sleep, eat, play (which equals watching TV), repeat. I really do think some sort of a gas leak must be the culprit.

I get it. I do. When I moved backed to Ruidoso from El Paso last April, I was (as Amanda has me saying) in a "bad way." Although I don't think I slept any more than normal (P.S. my "normal" is like nine hours... seriously), I think I had a daily routine of television and just hanging out, but that got old after about a week. I went and got my old job back, started jogging again, had my usual conversations with friends abroad via the computer and phone, etc. That's when I stop getting it. After two weeks of being a zombie, don't most people start to get stir crazy and need something other than programs hosted by Bill Kurtis to fill their days?

It's not like I do anything important, either. I'm not running marathons, or curing the HIV, or devising a plan to eradicate hunger worldwide. Monday I spent two hours at the tire place to find out I have to buy two new tires for my Jeep (while writing in my Moleskine about living with crazy people, which I have deduced I am really, really good at). I go to work every other day. On days off I run errands, go to the ever-popular shopping mecca of Ruidoso (Wal-Mart), have a meal or two with my beau, yog if the weather's nice, paint the lair... things like that.

But coming here, where narcolepsy reigns supreme, disrupts my well being for a few moments out of every day. How to motivate people, though? I'm not very good at motivating anyone by means that do not include "Dr. Philling" them, because I think most things are incredibly obvious (unless you're dealing with people who communicate on a purely metaphorical level daily). Por ejemplo, if you know you're not happy, don't you usually know why? Don't you know what could probably make it better, whether it's getting a pet, or exercising more, or finding a new job, or buying a new bag, or keeping your distance from crazy people? Someone send me a link for a book about lighting a fire under someone's ass without simultaneously destroying the shred of self-esteem they may or may not have left...

I am going to stop now. Before I become one of those idiots who blogs about their life as if other people actually give a shit. For some reason I have nothing interesting to say. :)

Sarah needs to figure out what the f*ck she's doing in this life.

2008-02-13T23:06:00.003-07:00

Lately I have been enjoying utilizing the "Status" feature on MySpace. My status may or may not change a couple of times a day, depending on how busy I am or how "ninja" I feel. Tonight I am feeling particularly disappointed in myself and where my lot has taken me, so I made it known on MySpace. Talking with a friend today made me wonder if my problem of not knowing what I want to be when I grow up is just an issue of an unlucky few, or a generational flaw. I am grown up, but I have no real idea what the heck I want to do for the rest of my life, however long or short it may be. Or maybe I just don't have a plan.

Don't want: To work in an office ever again. To have people demean my intelligence on a daily basis. To be treated as lesser when I am better. To end up as the saddest person I know, whom I also happen to live with. To grieve anymore.

The pathetic part is my wants are so not focused. I want to write what I want to write, and get paid for it because I know I will never be fully satisfied in my life working to live as opposed to living to work. I like to listen to music, read about it, write about it, and maybe talk about it with people who aren't retarded. I want to write about my life (I put the ordinary in extraordinary, so we'll see where that goes). I need help with those things. I want love, fresh air, mountains, and to hang out with my friends and my dog. Ah, the things I like seem few and far between at times. I bitch about the same shit over and over again, but for some reason it doesn't do any good... Imagine that.

I've been composing a manifesto of sorts over the past day (since I had my keyboard replaced by one of the nerds from the movie Nerds) and have some great and thoroughly inappropriate one-liners I want to share with the world that made me wonder how - should I ever find an opportunity to publish some of the terribleness that is my private life - how could I openly be held accountable for what I write? Scathing rips on my family life, relationships and sex, the occasional illegal activity (ah, yes... use your imagination because that's probably more fun than my reality), death, friends, work, and so on and so forth. I'd become a pariah of all trades. Maybe it really is time to start posting on my other anonymous blog...

Gawd help us all if I should die before I can destroy all of my journals and the Dell's hard drive and an assortment of college notebooks I used for random thoughts after they'd served their scholarly purpose.

My "i" Problem

2008-02-06T15:09:00.000-07:00

Trust me, i have wanted to blog at least three or four times since my last post, but pretty much right after i clicked "Publish Post" my "i" key on my Dell's keyboard finally gave out. My huge dog inadvertently hopped on the Dell about a year and a half ago or so when i was in Dallas and popped off the "n" and "i" keys. The "n" snapped right back on, but the "i" was on a road to slow death, ending in me having a horrible callous on my right pointer finger from pushing so hard where the key used to be, and finally having to Control+V every time i need an "i". And i am far too lazy to copy and paste uppercase and lowercase because i really like to talk about myself...

Anyways, a new keyboard is in the mail, ordered from William at Dell, also known as Nacho Libre ("Chancho, when you are a man, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room. It's for fun.") or Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. i guess i was just thankful to not have an indian guy on the other line because they are hard for me to understand, and was the case when i called last week to order my keyboard (the guy's name was definitely not "Brian" like he said). So i hung up. Spanish accents i am used to. Clearly. So William/Pedro ended up not only selling me the keyboard, but also more memory for my beloved Dell. Sneaky, Pedro. Very sneaky. Tripled my cost, but whatever. Maybe someday i'll be cool and have an iPod and download music from the mystical force known as "iTunes".

More later on my indefinitely suspended move to Denver. Sometimes things seem to work out exactly the way they are supposed to, but then again, you never know. The older i get, the more i am learning to just go with the flow. i can say with great certainty that i am a spoiled person, and to have to live like i did in Dallas is just unacceptable at this juncture.

in other great news, my BFF from DC is coming to The Land of Enchantment via the a$$hole of Texas (a.k.a. El Paso) in like two weeks. i am very excited, and looking forward to drinking abnormal quantities of alcohol at inappropriate times of the day, making fun of and/or taking pictures with midgets at Quarters (a.k.a. Ziggy's, and Cheech and Chong's), spending quality time with the Pistachio in Alamogordo, maybe a Grease duet, all interspersed with sweet dance moves and viewing of Hell Date on BET. A splendid time is guaranteed for all!

I vote Sam!

2008-01-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

For a while now I've been contemplating a fantastic blog about The Bravery versus The Killers, since they have an openly public feud, are on the same record label, and have similar sounds. I really liked The Killers when they first came out, back in the day. I distinctly recall seeing the "Somebody Told Me" video on MTV2 when they still played a lot of alt rock (now we know they play reruns of Run's House). That was in about two-double-ought-three, I believe. I got Hot Fuss in 2004, I think, and it was great. My favorite song off that album is still "Believe Me Natalie." Great drums...

Anyways, I started to like The Bravery as soon as I saw "An Honest Mistake," also on MTV2 (probably). Cool video, and Sam Endicott's vocals are seriously sexy, as opposed to Brandon Flowers', whose seem forced to me (read: suck it, Flowers). It cracked me up when The Killers had to cancel shows because of Brandon's voice going out or something last year and Madison on Alt Nation (Sirius) was like, "Uh, what voice?"

I sort of forgot about The Bravery after I saw that video, though. Maybe they should hire a new publicist (you know, call me, whatever). My love for The Bravery grew exponentially when I heard "Time Won't Let Me Go" early in 2007. I bought The Sun and the Moon the very next time I was in a real city and in its entirety is an incredible sophomore album, unlike Sam's Town, The Killers' failed attempt at another Hot Fuss. It's so monotonous, I could cry. Maybe that's why Brandon Flowers decided to talk smizzack about The Bravery and a bunch of other bands whose records didn't blow. Or maybe Flowers is jealous that every member of The Bravery is really, really ridiculously good-looking and The Killers are Brandon Flowers (little person) and a bunch of haggard dudes.

My partiality to The Bravery grew even more when I saw them on Halloween with Amanda in Washington, D.C. Rock and roll at it's finest... small venue, synthesizers, who could ask for anything more? Oh, except I am a huge fan of the two slower songs on The Sun and the Moon ("Tragedy Bound" and "The Ocean") and would have probably passed out if they would have played those... So has been created a life-long fan of The Bravery, necessitating me to judge The Killers very harshly.

Herein lies the fodder for this blog. I was getting ready to write about something else entirely, but the new Killers' single (no, not the Joy Division remake) came on IMF. The song's called "Tranquilize" and features legendary rock star, Lou Reed. If you don't know who Lou Reed is, you don't know much about rock n' roll. Or you don't know as much as I do, which is forgivable... you probably didn't have a hippie mother who took you to see The Rolling Stones when you were in high school (or The Grateful Dead while you were in utero, for that matter) and a dad who's worked in radio and played "Yellow Submarine" for you on his guitar when you were little.

But back to Lou Reed. Lou Reed's heel has probably seen more action than Brandon Flowers could ever imagine to experience in his little Mormon life, in his tiny Mormon body. How did these two meet and how did Brandon Flowers not spontaneously combust in the presence of heroin, punk rock, and bisexuality's poster child? They idolized Lou in Trainspotting. He dated a tranny for years. Brandon Flowers isn't allowed to smoke or drink, but maybe his selling point is that he's a cult member, I don't know. He'll never be tranquilized unless he gets stung by a bee or something... That I know.

Here's the rub: I like "Shadowplay" (the Joy Division remake) and "Tranquilize" so maybe I'll like Sawdust. All I know is that if Brandon Flowers and Sam Endicott ever came to fisticuffs, I vote Sam.

Short Thoughts on a Sad Day

2008-01-07T01:08:00.000-07:00

It was two years today (January 6th) since my brother died. I have tried successfully not to dwell by sleeping until almost 1:30 this afternoon and then dulling my mind with TV, the internet, and making a ridiculous purchase from Sephora. When I finally stop watching TV and try to go to sleep is when it will be hard. I've also successfully avoided all contact through my phone today.

I do remember that day like it just happened, though. The feelings are just somewhat different. Sometimes that chest-crushing, broken-hearted feeling returns, but back then it was all day, every day. I couldn't sleep, and when I did, I had nightmares, or woke up crying. It was so hard. It still is. The hardest part is I don't think anyone understands on any level still. My family's dynamic was completely destroyed two years ago and we still haven't figured out how to make it work. How to just be around each other and not feel uncomfortable because someone is missing.

I still don't understand how someone can be here one day and gone forever the next. We're way beyond that point that maybe he's off fighting fires and he'll be home in a few months. This is a situation where you have to figure out how to adjust and live your life with a huge piece missing. It's like being an amputee or something. I last saw my brother on January 1st, 2006. He called me on January 3rd. On January 6th, he was dead.

On The Wheeler Blog you can read what Josh and I wrote for a printout for his memorial service. That was about the worst thing I've ever had to do. We should not have had to do it, and it felt like nothing could be good enough for Matt. I still don't feel like I can do anything to honor his memory. So I watched cartoons all day.

Reproductive Prowess

2007-12-17T01:08:00.000-07:00

This rant brought to you by the people on MySpace who deem it necessary to post photos of their babies everywhere and the letter G.

While thumbing through my MySpace friends today I couldn't help but notice a recurring trend: Everyone with kids has a photograph of the child as their profile picture. First of all, why? I understand you are proud that you had sex and maybe something went "right," but why? I feel like it's an Amber Alert waiting to happen. A poster saying, "I live in _____ zip code, am __ years old, and this is my tiny, adorable and vulnerable baby!"

Which begs more questions. Why do intelligent humans reproduce? Just to see what "it" would look like? To have a Mini Me? Testing the parenting waters (would you be a good one)? Are they sadists? Because even people who have led the most charmed lives have pain and suffering inflicted by life. Life is hard, and even if your life is "easy" by other people's standards, you are going to find something fucked about it (Like why is Paris Hilton like that?). Do you really believe you can make a better life for your child(ren)? Do you really think having kids will fulfil you?

What frightens me is that stupid people truly are reproducing at an alarming rate. Smarties are waiting until they're financially stable and have truly taken the time to accept that their lives are about to be forever altered. They know how to use birth control. Stupid people apparently missed that day in life when the memo went out announcing sex begets babies and babies are goddamn expensive, and in my observations cause their parents equal amounts of joy and grief.

So let's do the math... If fewer intelligent people choose to reproduce (or have less kids), and the dumbasses are reproducing at a rate of how many 40s of malt liquor they can imbibe in any given hour, squared, evolution will eventually win and the human race will be retarded, hence leaders around the world like GWB, war abound, and then end of civilization as we know (knew) it. So that may be a dramatic oversimplification, but you wait. I will be the one laughing my ass off in the spirit world.

How can people be so idealistic and naive to think that "My kid is going to be different." Different how? Are you converting to Anabaptism and moving to an Amish community to keep your kids from all the horrible stuff in the media and society? Trust me, your kids will harbor resentment if pop culture is forbidden (and by pop culture, I mean all things cool). My mom sent us to school with a PBJ, an apple and a yogurt when everyone else had Lunchables, Fruit Roll-Ups, Snack Packs and Doritos. No MTV. No "Blossom," for chrissakes! And look at me now... the most cynical of all.

Which brings me to my last theory of the day: There are three types of people. Idealists who believe life should be one way, and because it isn't one way, they are depressed and/or angry. You know who you are. The second are realists who know life is what it is, there are ups and downs, downs, downs, but you go with the flow and accept that it will never be like it is in the movies (but you have movie moments to look forward to). Then there are the opposite-end idealists, who probably know that life will never be as satisfying as they had hoped, but they fake it. They're the magic Christians filled with the "light" and who also secretly (secretly) go home and cry or pop pills or beat their kids after a day of saccharin smiles and God-bless-yous.

Call me what you will... Cynic. Pessimist. Panda jerk. Genius. But I fall into that second group I mentioned above and even though you may not believe it, I will be happy for you if you choose to have or adopt children as long as you know what you're doing and don't kid yourself. Final Deep Thought: Christina Aguilera, get off the cover of Marie Claire before I vomit. I'd rather see naked Gene Hackman than that! Geez.

Attack of the Emo

2007-12-10T00:51:00.000-07:00

Does anyone really know what "emo" is? The most popular (read: funny) definition on Urban Dictionary says:

Genre of softcore punk music that integrates unenthusiastic melodramatic 17 year olds who dont smile, high pitched overwrought lyrics and inaudible guitar rifts with tight wool sweaters, tighter jeans, itchy scarfs (even in the summer), ripped chucks with favorite bands signature, black square rimmed glasses, and ebony greasy unwashed hair that is required to cover at least 3/5 ths of the face at an angle.

Wikipedia tells me it originated in Washington, D.C., which makes sense to me because it's utterly depressing there if you might want to express yourself through any channel that isn't a political campaign. And fashion is like shopping at a country club uniform warehouse, so we can deduce that the emos "rebelled" in a sensitive yet angry manner. But I don't believe that it's a version of punk in the least.

I've compiled my own short list of bands I think are emo that you may or may not want to avoid, and here they are for your warning pleasure...

AFI
Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy
The Used
Saosin
Tiger Army
30 Seconds to Mars

We had three dishwashers over the summer who qualified as emo (I think). The first one, Emo Tim, age 19, looked emo. He even had an ever-bloodshot eye and a Friar Tuck haircut with the I-could-care-less-if-I-get-anywhere saunter. One day I asked him what emo was and he said, "It depends on who you ask." His protege, a lad about five years younger than Emo Tim, whom we lovingly referred to as Mr. Frodo because of his tiny stature, modeled himself after Tim, but couldn't quite pull it off with his blond hair and 14-year-old cherubic face. He did, however, have an emo-bang that covered his eye, so maybe he's gonna make it.

Really quick, I'd like to add Coheed & Cambria to my list. Here's a picture of the lead singer. He's on the far right.
The third dishwasher came after Mr. Frodo and Tim and claimed he was the one who Tim got all of his fashion ideas from, which pretty much were limited to fashion eyeglass frames, very thick belts, and skinny jeans. His name was Andrew and I asked him if he'd rather be called "Andy" or "Andrew" (I'm bossy, I need to know people's names so I can boss with convincing faux-authority) and he said he didn't care. This alerted me immediately to his feigned emo-ness. I think the correct emo answer would have been, "Drew," or "Robert Smith of The Cure." Not really. None of those dumbasses even know who Robert Smith is.

You can be pretty sure that any bands with a completely unnecessary "The" preceding the lame band name can secure a place in the emo bizzarro world along with some or any of the following characteristics:

-Any band members who wear eyeliner
-Music videos in grayscale
-Hair that "appears" dirty or flat-ironed (or both) or over an eye
-Skinny jeans
-Too short/tight t-shirts
-Fabricated and practiced sullen or pained facial expressions

Do we know what emo is yet?

Post Script: I just saw a commercial for Rockband.com, where the actors address the "The" phenomenon I wrote about a couple of months ago. Collective subconscious? I think not... Who's reading my blog besides Jaime?

Don't Worry, I Still Think Nickelback Sucks

2007-10-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't blogged in a long, long stretch, but please rest assured that I still strongly believe Nickelback sucks. And I stand by the musings in my last blog concerning "newer" bands with names starting with "The".

Speaking of, I am so fortunate to have my former life partner in our Nation's Capitol looking out for my musical interests, and informing me that The Bravery are playing there at the end of October with tickets available for the low low price of only $25 (and Straylight Run is opening, so LUCKY). My trip has been pending (for well over a year) and is now scheduled. So look out D.C. and hot hot Sam Endicott. I CAN'T WAIT.

Ok, so clearly opposite of my future fourth ex-husband Sam is Jackie McKeown of 1990s (this is the name of the band). Their single "You're Supposed To Be My Friend" pretty much rocks and the video is effing hilarious (so check it out). Now, Jackie is fugly, and we know how I have a problem with fugly stars spotlighting their genealogical misgivings in my face on TV (please reference a blog from last year about Death Cab for Cutie). He quite literally looks like the lovechild of Shelly Duvall (The Shining) and Steve Buschemi (while Chad Kroeger looks like the lovechild of the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz and Danny Bonaduce). And for you Dallas friends, 1990s are playing on November 14 at The Palladium Ballroom, so I highly advise wearing your Fugly Protectivewear (whatever that may be) when you attend. And you should attend.

What else... Yeah, that's all I'm feelin' right now. It was an arduous summer sans Internet, so I didn't blog. Now I should be back to my normal, Internet-addicted life. I look forward to entertaining the three of you with minutes of jaded ramblings again.

"The" Trend

2007-06-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

I found out a couple of days ago that Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs is a hip hop star in France and this bothers me. His video was on IMF and it was like a train wreck in a foreign tongue. Apparently he was raised in France and is undoubtedly rapping about their new president, the Eiffel Tower, and rims/grills. Granted, I can’t understand a word of it except for when he says, “Tony P.” and the text message his lady, Eva Longoria (who cameos in the video), sends him on his phone. Anyways, I keep hearing hip hop is dead, but I think Tony P. can single-handedly resurrect it. That is if he can cross over to the English language and try not to mirror the musical careers of other bi-talented stars like Shaq and Bruce Willis.

Other than T.P., I just want to give fair warning about emerging bands with names that start with “The”. Now historically it seems that more of these that bands broke through in the 60s, had a noun following “The”, and are visionary rock n’ roll mavericks. I just have this lingering suspicion that these new bands failed to come up with a decent name and felt like “The” (placed before whatever they could manifest over a bowl and some Arbor Mist) gave them a nonexistent edge (read: Manolo’s Shoe Blog). The only way I could accept their grammatical blasphemy is a band member with an advanced degree, and as far as I know there aren’t any Rivers Cuomos or MENSA members in those bands.

Beware The Almost, The Higher, The Used (who used to be cool…), The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, The Nickelback, and any other new band that looks like they have a preteen who abuses flat irons and straightening serum as a lead singer (or the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz… Chad Kroeger!). Fear not The Bravery, for their music rocks and might make your face melt. The National, The Fratellis, and The Kooks have yet to offend me with visuals or horrible music (I actually like all three bands), but it’s sort of like, “The National what? The National Mattress Sales Event?” And yes, I did refer to these bands as “emerging” although they may have been together since they were like 12 or 13 years old. Which was like last year.

Moving on, you may or may not have gathered that I am back at the French restaurant I have been employed by off and on for like the past three and a half years. It’s probably the most fun job I have ever had, and even when it’s slow I make more money than I have at any job I have ever held. Ever. So I can’t complain when I owed two grand to the apartment complex at which I broke my lease last month. I expect by the end of the summer, not only will I have had that paid off for a month or two, but will have a couple of new leather best friends from Coach and a zero balance on all of my credit cards. Glorious! How hard is it to find a “real” job I like this much and make this much money doing? I eagerly await your answers to this burning question.

I think next time I may blog about the merit of our current presidential candidates based solely on their names… It’s just too easy and abnormal to ignore.

Nickelback Sucks, Part I

2007-06-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

So my life consists of: working, reading books, journaling, listening to alternative rock on Sirius on my television, and occasionally going out on the town (I mean village).

Work is pretty awesome. We have a chick who works only at lunch and keeps a knife in her biker boots. She also has a seemingly mentally challenged son who washed dishes one day, which brings me to our newest dishwasher… We “affectionately” refer to him as Pedro because he had hair like Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite until he shaved it all off. Like Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. He talks to himself and our “sous chef” caught him talking to himself – no, more like having a conversation and taking the task of being the female he was talking to upon himself. In other words, he may also have multiple personality disorder and one of them is a female. I have also been delegated the task of firing the knife-wielder before Jeff gets back. So I may fall victim to work-related violence when she goes postal. Never a dull moment.

Going out is a little like going to an ugly conference. There used to be at least a few attractive people in Ruidoso. I guess they all died or moved away for fear of catching the ugly disease. Sorry, I shouldn’t make fun of these people because I know I’m not perfect, but seriously… I think global warming is more being caused by all the heat obese people conduct than pollution and the destruction of the rainforests combined.

Alt Nation 21 on Sirius is my new best friend. I can’t tell you how much I love Peter Bjorn & John (a little pissed yet intrigued that Kanye West sampled “Young Folks”), the new White Stripes song (well, you can’t be a pimp and a prostitute, too…), the synthesizers of Shiny Toy Guns and The Killers, and scary Amy Winehouse and bitchy Lily Allen. My Chemical Romance is even starting to grow on me a little. Everyone should check out The Bravery (if you haven’t already), Plain White T’s (not to be confused with Plain Brown Wrapper, a.k.a. Wet Brown Paper Sack, from Lubbock), and Cold War Kids. Yay! I still hate The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Switchfoot, though. I also still loathe Nickelback, but luckily they never play that kanuck bullshit on this station. Boo Nickelback and all of their fans who willingly allow themselves to be exposed to mediocre music, thereby supporting the modern day equivalent to Air Supply, and creating an arena for more bands just like them. See you in hell, Chad Kroeger!!

I listen to Alt Nation when I’m off work and reading or sleeping or writing. I just finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. What I need to do is finish re-reading the last three Harry Potter books before the new movie and last book come out this summer and J.K. Rowling breaks my heart by ending the series. But I’m about to start The Time Traveler’s Wife, which I am told is amazing. So we shall see!

The Internet and I have all but ended our long and sordid affair as of about two months ago. I check my e-mail and MySpace about once a week if I’m lucky. And can I please tell you that not being attached to that crap is absolutely liberating? I hope we don’t get the Internet back because it will undoubtedly suck me into its electronic communication wiles. The bastard. But not blogging regularly sucks because I know how much like three people out there enjoy reading my musings. Maybe you all should tell other people about my blog and give me subject suggestions and feedback… I’m aiming for a weekly posting.

Planned highlights for the summer include Harry Potter and paying off my debt, minus my student loans. We’ll save those for my future third ex-husband, Peyton Manning, to settle when we get married in the next decade or so. My life is entirely too exciting!

Busy, busy, busy...

2007-05-28T18:28:00.000-07:00

So all I pretty much ever do now is work and it's pretty fun again! I miss my partner in crime, Fancypants, but there are plenty of new characters to entertain me. This is merely a teaser blog since I have no time to blog right now while I sit at Schlotzsky's, using the internet since we have none, but anyways...

I will work on some sort of a manifesto about all of the interesting things that have occurred since I got back to Ruidoso (Sarah's back, back again...), like being called "evil incarnate" and hanging out with friends from years ago. And maybe I might bitch some more about music and the return of the synthesizer (UPGRADE!).

I should probably blog about my trip to Las Vegas, too...

Falsetto Madness

2007-04-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

So I’ve happened upon the new Maroon 5 video a couple of times lately on Fuse and Vh1 and I’m undeniably unimpressed. What the hell was: a.) the video’s director thinking, and b.) the band thinking when succumbing to the idea that the video should just pretty much be a three-minute long head shot of Adam Levine?

Don’t get me wrong, Adam Levine is a good-looking dude. But apparently he’s so incredibly handsome that the whole band is just short of nonexistent. Might as well change the band’s name to Maroon 1. And who does he think he’s fooling, trying to gain street cred by “playing” the guitar (while wearing a scarf tucked into a blazer)? After studying the video, I’ve come to the executive conclusion that he can play guitar about as well as Mick Jagger, or those chicks in the late Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” video.

Levine should stick to what his bone structure dictates – Gillette or Axe commercials. Maybe he and David Beckam could start a club for famous guys with superhuman good looks who are clearly in the wrong profession. Or better yet, Levine should get in touch with Barry Gibb, Justin Timberlake, and Robin Thicke to form a falsetto force with a presence so formidable it would rival the likes of the Cosa Nostra.

This may be a premature judgment, but I don’t see Maroon 5 sticking around. Maybe they can take the hot dog route to band formation a la the Velvet Revolver and Audioslave, and get together for some jam sessions with the former members of N’Sync and 98 Degrees. I’ll leave that to your imagination, but I posit there will be much Zima consumption, pirouettes, and pensive looks into outer space.

Here's to the Artists!

2007-04-20T18:23:00.001-07:00

Where in the Bible does it say, "Judge not, lest ye be judged?" Anyone? Bueller? Christian or not, I feel like that's a testament to live by. I used to live this way… then I went to college and developed a superiority complex. Don't get me wrong, I have some of the best friends ever and would not give them, or any of my experiences in college, up for the world. But I am so sad that he dreamer inside me was suppressed by an idea of what I'm supposed to be.

I've talked about this before – society's expectations. I used to write and draw. I used to be an English major. Then I was told there was no money in that, so I switched to Journalism. Then I was told there was no money in that, so I focused on PR – where the "money" is, apparently. Yeah… I was making $19K before taxes when I graduated and got my first job in PR doing mostly data entry. Anyways...

Now I look back and it's not quite regret I feel because I have learned so much, but it's sadness that I allowed money to influence and stall my dream. It laid dormant while I tried to make the bucks, went back to school to delay having to make the bucks with hopes of making more with my advanced degree…

Then something changed on January 6, 2006. Something that put everything in perspective and created complete chaos simultaneously. I don't really care about money anymore. I don't care about having the house, the car, the stuff.

What matters is my family, what few friends I have who understand (or at least try to understand) what I've been through and why I've made some of the random decisions I've made in the last fifteen months. Call it stupidity, call it post-traumatic stress disorder, call it whatever the fuck you want to. I'm calling it enlightenment because my dream isn't dead. I love to write. I feel lucky to have a passion for something I've been told I'm sort of good at. So I'm taking another chance – I call it an opportunity – to realize my dream.

Because I'm not that person who can run the rat race. I'd rather die. I don't like dressing up for work and having to wear a thong and heels every day. I hate having to hide my tattoo and take out my tongue ring because clearly those things affect my ability to function in the workplace (oh wait, maybe they do… maybe they're a sign of my contempt for the man). I hate, hate, hate being told what I can and cannot do between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. I work just as well at 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. as I do at 8:56 in the morning when I'd rather be watching Matt Lauer tell me about a new way to detect breast cancer on the Today Show than checking my e-mail.

And why should I be up in the middle of the night, stressed out to the point of tears because I am miserable doing anything less than what I dream? I'd rather wait tables and leave work at work, and be able to sleep at night for the rest of my life.

So here's to the artists! I know too few, which is why I feel I have to write an explanation for my erratic behavior. I wonder if Kerouac or Hunter S. had this problem… wondering what their peers thought. I'm going to go ahead and say not so much.

I'm not sorry I keep trying to find something that makes me happy and not discovering it. I am sorry if I'm a failure or that I can't handle pressure. So many things are no longer important to me, but I am learning what is. I don't want to waste any more time. My circumstances may not be the best, but maybe they are.

Don't you think crazy people make the best artists? Plath, Brando, Van Gogh, Bea Arthur (lol), the great Jeff Curtis, Jerry Seinfeld… you get the idea. Mental illness and/or a tortured life equal massive amounts of creativity that can be enjoyed by all. Even the sane ones.

ROSALITA???

2007-03-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

Today I talked to the first celebrity I've talked to since telling Bruce Willis he wasn't allowed to catch his daughter (it was probably the condom-lover, Rumor) from the diving board back in '98. I mean besides heckling Sammy Hagar in Lubbock and telling Dave Matthews to take off his pants in Dallas...

Ok, so maybe she's not as famous as the Bruce or Dave, but she's clearly one of my personal heroes due solely to the fact that she was in The Goonies. I know you're thinking, "Wow, Sarah talked to Martha Plimpton!" No, not so much. "Kerri Green?" No... "Anne Ramsey??" No, she's dead. Ok, I'll tell you. It was Rosalita, also known as Lupe Ontiveros. She played Yolanda Salvidar in Selena and has most recently been "Mama Solis" in Desperate Housewives. She's also from the illustrious town of El Paso.

So I guess what's important is not that I talked to an Emmy-nominated actress. It's the ass I made of myself the three-ish times I talked to her assistant "Enrique" before I talked to her.

The first time I talked to him, I forgot who I was trying to score an interview with... "I'm calling in regards to... uh... uh... oh my gawd I'm drawing a blank... uh..." Did he help me? Not so much. Kind of an ass, actually. Said I would not be able to meet with her in person because they wanted to get more publicity for the event she's coming here for. So I had to ask my editor because this is not protocol.

Check.

Next time I talk to "Enrique", I am cool. I say we need photos since we aren't going to be meeting with Ms. Ontiveros, and we'd like a still from Babel since she was also nominated for an Academy Award for that film, which is what my publisher's wife told me. Yeah, that's not her. It's someone named Adriana Barraza. Wow, thanks publisher's genius wife. But, I schedule the interview and go home.

Check.

I get home and realize I have to be at City Council all day. And by all day, I mean during the time I had erroneously scheduled the interview. So I am frantically trying to get a hold of "Enrique" to reschedule. Thankfully she was available today because I was at City Hall for about six and a half hours. NOT thankfully, Enrique told Lupe about my faux pas. Who knows if he told her about the Babel thing.

Then yesterday after City Council, I'm telling Nick about the whole series of events and as if I'm not nervous enough about talking to a movie star the next day, his boss informs me that the Ontiveros wanted to be paid for the interview originally, so I went into the interview assuming she didn't want to talk to me...

All I can say is I.B.S. to the extreme.

Luckily my 45-minute chat with her went fairly swimmingly, although my publisher asked me to ask her how much money she made. I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Somebody kick this kid in the shin.

2007-03-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

So you may or may not recall a while back that kid who was kidnapped in Florida by some sick-o pederast, only to escape and be rescued. The boy was touted a hero in his own right and I could not agree more. The child was taken against his will, was undoubtedly scared out of his gourd and was sharp enough to get away, unscathed.

You must have seen the story develop over the past few days of the 12-year-old Boy Scout who wandered away from his group camping trip and found himself lost in the woods. He, too, is being praised for his survival skills and seeming tenacity. For one thing, I'm sick of hearing about it when there's a presidential election coming up next year and people are dying in the war and Africa. If you want to warm my heart with a tear-jerking story about heroism, I'd rather hear about a mentally challenged person who saved a parakeet from a house fire, because that person clearly has more wits than this kid in my opinion.

The kid decided to take off on his own because the friends he liked didn't show for the camping trip, i.e. he was "homesick". I used to go to camp for an entire month during the summer when I was a kid in the mountains near Santa Fe. I got homesick sometimes. Common sense even at 10 told me I should not embark on a trek back to Farmington because it just wasn't a good idea. Did he think he'd pass a phone booth in the wilderness?

So when did this kid's common sense fail him and the foreshadowing of the rest of his certain failure of a life set in? I'm not sure, but luckily after a few days in the North Carolina woods at "freezing" temperatures, a woman and her dog named Gandalf found him. Reports say one of the first things he requested was a helicopter ride. Then food and water and whatnot. Then his dad tells cameras that he told his son before the camping trip that if he didn't have fun, dad would give him five dollars, and said he'd pay up. Dude, after the initial relief wore off that I was alive and well, I guarantee you I would not have been given my five dollars or a helicopter ride, but rather a grounding and incessant lectures on my bad decision.

And this child is being heralded a hero. He is being called a hero for making a bad choice and somehow, amazingly, surviving for a couple of days without his ADHD medication. Shocker... when he was off the meds, he somehow managed to make calculated survival decisions. That's amazing.

Please let's keep on rewarding mediocrity and see what happens. I can't WAIT for a kid who grew up on Ritalin and without dodge ball to be running the United States. We might as well elect Clay Aiken as President right now and get it over with.

Sun City, hangovers and stripper vans... OH MY!

2007-03-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm writing for a living now, so I haven't been feeling like blogging, although I have had some ideas. Let's just bullet through some of the happenings of late, shall we?

-I moved to El Paso for an awesome job at a weekly paper. I LOVE IT!!

-I stayed at a friend's apartment while he stayed at his parent's house for a week before I got my apartment, and I have some thoughts on guys decorating their spaces without the assistance of an interior design professional, or at least a female friend with some fashion and aesthetic sense to her being. In short, my content analysis over the years reveals that guys should never embark on interior design unless they have that special flair, should never allow their mothers to help them (unless said mother is an interior decorator, and even then you should proceed with caution), cheaper is never better. Save up for the good stuff.

-El Paso women make me look really good. I mean, I'm like fucking Gisele Bundchen compared to most of these chicks. And if you live here, you know I'm not being conceited. At all.

-I hate when radio stations play "Tainted Love" and cut off the snappy ending. You know the part that goes, "Baby, baby... where did our love goooo?" You know what I'm talking about.

-I have an idea for a funny column that includes me riding the Sun Metro for a month, but I'm afraid it would be so hilarious, my own head would explode.

-Sunsets and sunrises on mountains or mesas beat out a sunset or sunrise on building any day, any time, forever.

-I started thinking about it today, and I estimated I have spent at least 7,000 hours being hungover over the last ten years. And that's probably on the modest end...

-There is a huge difference between Hispanics and Mexican Nationals in El Paso and in Dallas.

-Being a pedestrian in El Paso is like having a contract out for your own death. I would not recommend walking here. Or driving, really. I have been passed on Mesa, driving 40 miles per hour, by people drag racing. Today it was a newer model Cadillac sedan and like a 1998 Mustang... WTF? I did, however, go for an exploratory walk the other evening and actually stopped traffic near my apartment. Granted, I was waiting to cross at a crosswalk, but there was no light. Some guy was nice enough to stop and about 15 other cars had to follow suit. It was quite touching! Thanks to that guy for being so polite.

-Riding around in the Jaguars van (Jaguars is a strip club in El Paso) is pretty fun. So is drinking Dom Perignon. And no, I am not moonlighting as a stripper... that would be scary.

-I had a Novocaine shot (actually two sets of shots) about four hours ago and my lip and chin are still numb.

I think they were Muslim.

2007-02-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

This past Friday I experienced a documentary that has inspired me to vote from here on out. I'm not quite left wing, not quite right. I believe I'm what you call a social liberal, fiscal conservative. However, I don't vote in presidential elections because I think the electoral college is completely whack, and in fact, I almost wrote a paper about it in grad school...

Anyways, I watched a film called Jesus Camp, and it seriously blew my mind. The filmmakers basically follow a few kids around right before and during a time they spend at a church camp in North Dakota. Seems pretty boring, except for the fact that these kids come from fundamentalist evangelical families. In other words, Pentecostals. And by Pentecostals, I mean those people who get all jiggy in church, seize up on the floor, speak in tongues, etc.

The woman who organizes the church camp is more or less brain washing these kids into joining an army of God, who are here to support the United States of America and George W. Bush. A particular scene in the movie portrays a woman holding a life-size cardboard cutout of GWB, to which the children are all asked to send a blessing, and welcome him to their camp. Riiiiight... But the truly frightening part is that if these children don't grow up and end up as strippers or crack dealers, they're going to be trying to take my social freedoms away or will be the next Timothy McVey.

This film is also set during the time when Sandra Day O'Connor left the Supreme Court and GWB's ultra-conservative nomination gained the position (can't recall his name now). We also get a visit with Ted Haggard, the "leader" of the evangelical nation, who turned out to be paying a male prostitute for sex and meth. Watch the movie... he is a complete jerk to this young kid with a rullet (a rat tail that is nearly a mullet) who likes to preach the Word to his friends (or whoever will listen), and is clearly totally self-absorbed, being the leader of a group of delusional Jesus freaks. I can't even imagine a more hypocritical situation in my wildest dreams...

I don't want to spoil the uncomfortable moments and ridiculous ideas these ignorant zealots hold close to their hearts, but they include anti-abortion (of course), the "fact" that global warming doesn't exist (and they're trashing the planet while they're here because Jesus is coming back tomorrow), and the idea that people who don't go to the crazy, clap your hands and scream to God churches don't have God in their churches at all (I guess this includes me and my Episcopalians, who do the stand-sit-kneel routine). The point is, we social liberals need to exercise out right to vote and be heard, because unfortunately people like me who are just sort of incapable where politics are concerned are not as motivated to go stand in front of the Lincoln Memorial in freezing weather at a Pro-Choice rally as these people are. And they don't know any more about it than I do. The difference is that they don't care if they're made a fool. In fact, I don't even think they know they possess such a wide range of misinformation and have made complete imbeciles of themselves.

I will share with you the moment the title from this blog came from. One of the young zealots approaches a group of middle-aged-to-elder African American men in a park who are playing cards or dominoes or something and says, "If you were to die today, do you know where you'd go?" The man answers, "To Heaven," and she says, "Well, are you sure?" to which he replies, "Yes." So she says, "Ok," and proceeds to run back across the street, fellow Magic Christian children in tow, and says, "I think they were Muslim."

These kids are frighteningly ignorant by no fault of their own. I feel so sorry for them and their home-schooled asses.

TV is life.

2007-02-07T17:15:00.000-07:00

Life sans cable is barely livable. Days like this (i.e. my days off when I don't have many errands to run, etc.) make me want to claw my eyes out. If I had money, I'd be at Target (and then I'd watch TV later). If my eyes weren't burning and I didn't have a lingering sinus headache from this cold I'm getting over, I might read. The boredom has caused lethargy and all I want to do is watch some flipping A&E (or Bravo if they're showing Top Chef or Project Runway reruns).

I don't feel inspired to write about anything of consequence, unless you all are interested in hearing about how sometimes I park in my parking garage and start to walk to my apartment until I get this very "The Shining" feeling and realize I'm walking down the corridor of the third level, when I live on the fourth... When I figure it out, I'm always waiting for two little girls to start pedaling after me on their plastic three-wheelers.

Being broke and not having cable really sucks. I should probably start donating plasma so I can at least get some basic channels to flip between and a sweet scar on my arm...

I need help.

2007-02-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

So most of you know that pretty much my only passion (if you can call it that) is writing. I do it for fun, when I'm bored, when I'm angry (or sad, clearly), when I think something is amusing and/or confusing, etc. Anyways, so I need to narrow it down a tick so I can start writing for the riz-eal, get my stuff out, and if my Karma turns around, get paid for doing what I totally heart.

So how can I narrow it down? Many of you who read my MySpace blog haven't (or won't) read my Blogspot blog, and vice-versa, but fortunately since like September or something of last year, they contain the same posts. Now before that, I have humorous postings about Ruidoso, music, fashion, bartending and waiting tables, grad school, etc. on the Blogspot blog. I could blog leagues (yes, I just used a nautical measurement to describe writing) about love and relationships a la Carrie Bradshaw, but I don't want my family reading the sordid (or lack thereof) details of my personal life (or lack thereof). I have secrets... from everyone except my mom, so if you want to know anything about me, ask her. Somehow she's managed to know me better than I know myself...

What do you think? If I keep writing about Matt, he's going to kick my ass eventually. Those writings and others yet to be may someday be a book, but for now I'd like to focus on something people want to read (unless someone knows about a magazine for the bereaved...).

Should I stop caring about what my dad might think and start writing about relationships? Should I get Fuse and start writing about how Jared Leto needs to choose between music and acting? Should I blog about Starbucks and the fleecing of America (hahaha)? My dog?

I highly value your opinion. Thank you.

Why does it hurt so bad?

2007-01-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

I've often said to myself and others that I think my brother was the lucky one, having died so young. He doesn't have to go through the pain and trials of living, getting old and decrepit, losing more loved ones. That may sound morbid to some, but clearly if you think that, you have not been through what I have been through. I would gladly take his place. Matt is an irreplaceable link in a chain that is now broken and feels unrepairable.

Why is it always the people who live their lives how they want to and are essentially happy and content die? Is that called irony, or poetic justice, or cruelty? Should I ever reach a point of contentment, will I die?

In my mind I still find it impossible to fathom that he is gone. Physically I know I cannot talk to him face-to-face or on the phone. We won't go to the bar and chant "Wheeler!" ever again, he'll never give me snowboarding lessons again, or send me funny pictures of Murray accompanied by recordings of his voice. We'll never watch South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, or Futurama together ever again. We won't play Trivial Pursuit and get mad because Josh always got the easy questions. We'll never have another Chinese buffet eating contest, which was probably followed by some sort of a bowel sounds contest. No more C-walking contests. No more anything but hypothetical conversations with the air, dreams, and memories that I am completely and utterly terrified of forgetting (any more than I already haven't forgotten or written down, anyways).

My blogs seem sad, right? Well, they are, but I want everyone to know that I do have a light at the end of the tunnel, albeit dim. I don't believe I will be despaired forever. I'm just trying to come to terms with reality and decide what I need to do to make it better.

TEXAS IS THE DEVIL!

2007-01-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

Yeah, you read right. TEXAS IS THE DEVIL! I came to this melodious conclusion while I was driving home from work this afternoon, which took all of about five minutes. A quick and dirty mental content analysis told me that everything shitty that's happened to me and my family over the past two and a half years started when I moved to Lubbock in August of 2004. Because, really, before that life was good!

Before that I'd spent a year in Ruidoso, waiting tables and bartending, pseudo-dating a fun guy, going out and having a blast every weekend, driving up to Albuquerque to visit Eve, went to go see my dad in 2004, my friends came to visit me pretty often, etc. Generally it was a stupendous time in the life of Sarah, but unfortunately, Sarah has to have a purpose and a goal, or she feels worthless, so she went to graduate school.

First things first. Like two weeks before I moved, Richard hired Satan Incarnate, also known as the Psycho Hose Beast, otherwise known as the skank my brother Josh "dates". Josh met her at Le Bistro and the rest is sordid history. She's been nothing but bleach poured into an open and festering wound since they got together. I won't discuss it here to protect my brother's privacy, but it hasn't been good and has caused my mom more stress and heartache then I think anyone will ever realize. So this has been a continual challenge for two and a half years.

Then the following Spring I meet the man of my nightmares, who I will refer to as "Hick Boy". I met him while visiting Evelyn in Albuquerque, and found out that he didn't live far from Lubbock, so we started a "long distance" relationship, fell for each other (gag me), and then he asked me to move in with him in a terrible, terrible, smelly, poor excuse for a town in the Texas Panhandle. Well, it was either move there with Hick Boy, or back home to Ruidoso and continue the stress of a long distance relationship, so I took the plunge against my own judgment (notice I didn't say "good" judgment). Had I not been living in Texas, I don't think this relationship would have gone past the night we met.

Most of us know how that relationship turned out... For brevity's sake, let's just say f*cked up.

Shortly after that move, I got some bad news about my mom's health and returned home to be with my family with Hick Boy in tow. This was New Year's, 2005/2006, and the last time I got to see my brother, Matt, before he died on January 6, 2006. Still unbelievable to me. That event led to other traumatic events, mental processes, and behavior I don't care to elaborate on.

Hick Boy and I parted ways sometime around the end of February or beginning of March last year, and I moved home, having to travel to Lubbock once a week (not exactly every week because my professor was awesome) so I could finish my Master's degree. That's a three and a half hour drive, one-way, for anyone who's interested... But I did finish.

I visited Dallas twice last spring and really liked it, so being spontaneous and wanting away from New Mexico and all of that horrible-ness regarding my brother's death, I moved here in July, thinking I would easily be able to find a job. Not. So. Much. Ok, so I have had three jobs since I've been here, but none of them are in Mass Communications or writing, so I'm back at square one. However, I have to say that I have learned that I am not really interested in advertising or public relations anymore. Just journalism and writing. So that's a plus, I suppose...

In September of last year, my mom came down with a terrible case of pneumonia that almost killed her. That was fun, let me tell you. Apart from the passing of my beloved brother, this was an incredibly disturbing time. My mother was in rare form and I don't care to ever see her or anyone in that condition ever again. I hope that I, and everyone I love, dies before we come to that state of being. It was horrible.

Other "complications" from aforementioned events have taken place, but I think I've made my point. Texas is jacking with my Karma and I am so over it. "Land of Entrapment"? Fuck you. I want to go home.

*Do you like how I edited the first F-bomb, but let the second one go? That's called accentuation. And I like it.

Manic ___day?

2007-01-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

I'm toying with the idea that I may be bipolar (yes, it's funny, and no, it's not). It's really weird because I can go from the last blog that I wrote (see MySpace blog), as morose and pessimistic as it (read: I) was, to being perfectly happy (or as happy as one can be when his or her life is in utter and complete, but totally entertaining, disarray). The feeling is sort of like that excited feeling you have in your gut and your chest when you're about to see someone you have a crush on, or you're going to go to your favorite theme park or something, or (if you're me in grad school) you found the perfect scholarly peer-reviewed article to compliment your research paper and quite literally you just want to squeal, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" All. The. Time.

It's like my thoughts are racing, I can't think or type fast enough, I can't say everything I want to say because there's too much information. Like I'm on some sort of amphetamine (no, I am not on some sort of amphetamine, and I have stopped drinking coffee as of like a week/week and a half ago). It's like I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a... t-t-t-t-today, junior!! Hopefully you get the idea.

Nothing happened to make me feel this way, and it's not the first time by far. I go to work, I don't go to work, I work out, I don't work out, I eat, I don't eat, whatever. I didn't like win the lottery or find out my brother is alive and secretly living on an island with Tupac and Elvis. I just sort of morphed from goth kid to pep squad. And I can't quite pinpoint when it happened.

There are a lot of things I do or don't do when I'm "blue" as opposed to when I want to squeal. Por ejemplo, today I did not take a nap, I filed away all of my paperwork from the last 2+ months, I actually cooked myself dinner (I cooked... for like five minutes!), and I haven't cried or wanted to cry, I put away the clean dishes, and some other stuff... it's all very bizarre to me because two days ago I would have done the opposite.

I have never truly bought into the whole "depression" scene and I'm not sure I do even now. Even after considering anti-depressants (and trying them for a very short period after Matt died), I am not truly convinced they'd do anything. When I feel the way I do now, I all but forget what that other bad feeling is like, when two days ago it seemed like it was consuming my very soul. Yet inside I know that feeling lurks dormant and will return. When? Who knows??

Maybe it's just ups and downs... moods, if you will (but most moods I've heard of don't make you want to either scream in anguish or squeal with delight). Maybe it's the anti-PMS. Maybe I'm just excited that I bought my toy poodle a camoflauge coat yesterday. Or maybe, just maybe, all I need to do is take advantage of these times of glee because clearly my writing is a lot - or a least a little - better (unless I'm writing poetry, because poetry and happiness do not cross paths in my world).

I don't have much to say...

2007-01-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow marks one year since my brother died and I just don't even have words. Thinking about some of it makes me feel literally, mentally, clinically insane. Today actually marks the last day he signed in to his MySpace a year ago. Now we have a MySpace dedicated to his memory (he's my #1 friend, if you want to see the page). I guess it makes us feel better in a sense.

I had a blog once upon a time dedicated to me and my brothers - The Wheeler Three. If you want to check it out, click here. Actually please check it out. Maybe it'll help people who didn't know us all understand why this has changed my life forever and profoundly. He was my and Josh's brother and best friend, and friend to so many others. We're only beginning to realize how many lives he affected positively.

It's been rough being home. I'll probably write about it later.

And this computer/Internet connection is so f*cked up I can't even upload a picture of Matt.

Recent Experiences in the Big City

2006-12-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

I've been writing about some pretty unsavory things lately, but thought I'd take a break from the heartache and write about my recent experiences in Dallas (since I apparently tricked Scott with the title of my last blog on MySpace). Funny, I was thinking about this earlier today...

To put it simply, my recent experiences include a lot of improvement upon my gaydar. I work in the Gayborhood. I work at the Gayborhood Starbucks because I have failed to land a job in Mass Comm thus far (and have turned down a couple of interviews because now I don't want a job in PR or advertising). The amusing thing is, I love working at Starbucks. Time flies, the people I work with are uber-nice, and it has good perks. It's also a lesson in downtown life, as opposed to suburbia (and I'm not-so-much feelin' the downtown vibe... the suburbs are safer and cleaner). So, for simplicity's sake, I'm just going to bullet through some of my experiences so far...

-The BPs love the Caramel Macchiatos, and sometimes the White Mochas. I don't know why, they just do.
-The homeless love Starbucks as much as the rest of us do. I learned this when I picked up a shift near Deep Ellum (Gaston & Haskell, if you're wondering).
-A corpse was discovered across the street from the store I work at, behind the Gloria's I had eaten at just days earlier.
-Dorky cops love me, and gay men love my earrings.
-To make myself more astute in the ways of human sexuality, I have been trying to differentiate between the definitions of drag queen, transvestite, transsexual, cross-dresser, etc. Like, there are some men that come into my store who are clearly trying to look like women (like he grew his hair out and got breast implants), and then there are some who are clearly just men in a BAD wig, coral lipstick, and a push-up bra to accentuate their man-boobs. I know for a fact that most gay men are not this fashion-retarded. Most of them wear nice lip gloss like the rest of us girls... So what are their classifications?
-People have become so lazy that they can't even put their own condiments in their beverages and Starbucks caters to this. Which, in reality, is pretty unsanitary. We're not required to wash our hands between duties (doodies, yes, but like from cash register to bar, no) because we never actually touch what you ingest, and then we go rip open your Splenda after taking sweaty money from the man prostitute named Troy... YUMMY. When you end up with some sort of VD and you're not sure why, try to remember to quit being a lazy f*ck and put your own sugar in your Latte.
-My content analysis of lesbians thus far tells me they have a generally cranky demeanor.
-Some people (actually a lot of people) spend upwards of $200 a month at Starbucks. It truly is an addiction like cigarettes. Or crack.
-Check out the calorie content of the tasty snacks at your local Starbucks. And if you're watching your weight, never get a scone. They have between 650-750 calories a piece.
-Plastic surgery is never a good choice. I have seen some effen freakish faces due to collagen injections, Botox, and some bad boobies at BlackFinn (but that was in Addison). If you're going to get Botox or collagen injections, do something to make it look less rubbery and creepy. You're scaring the kids! I have a feeling if we saw the celebs who've had work done in person, they'd look totally monstrous... like you could bounce a quarter off their face because it's so tight, but they wouldn't feel it because of the Botox...

Anyhoo, that's my diatribe for now. I'm sure there'll be more to come, and if you have any Starbucks-related questions, feel free to ask. I may have the answer...

What's a girl to do?

2006-12-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

Want to know the equation for boredom? Well, I don't know exactly what formula it would come out to be (I bet my roommate could figure one out), but it comes down to having spare time, but no spare money to spend on doing stuff.

Everything I enjoy doing costs money, and therefore I really can't do anything because I just started the new job about three weeks ago and haven't had time to figure out what I can or can't spend in order to still be able to pay my bizz-ills. Usually you'd find me shopping, eating out, buying booze for a night out, driving myself to said night out, etc. Last Monday I got my tip out and spent it all by Tuesday night, having grocery shopped, put some gas in my Jeep, and gone to the Stars' game. See how quick it all goes?

Anyways, I'm being forced to lay low until my finances smooth out in a month or so. I'm trying to be frugal so I'll have the scrilla to get home and be with my family during the beginning of January because it's going to be a rough time, but there again, when I get to the Dizzle, I know I might want to go get crunk and go snowboarding with my brother in honor of Matt... all this costs money.

So what do I do with my spare time? Hmmm... well, I usually come home from work around noon, eat, check the e-mail and the MySpace, maybe chat up some kids on Gmail, go yogging, and by then it's like 4 p.m. So then I have about four hours before I "should" go to bed (I've been getting up between 4 and 5 a.m. for the past couple of weeks... time to make the doughnuts!!!). I should write, but I feel uninspired right now to blog about anything but subjects I want to keep private presently. I should read, but I have trouble concentrating on one thing at a time and I get reading ADD (Ty, I need to borrow some books!).

Sometimes I watch TV (Law & Orders: CI and SVU, The Office, My Name is Earl... are you seeing a NBC trend??? Unless I unknowingly change the channel and watch FOX all night, thinking NBC is broadcasting FOX shows for some reason... Yes, it happened last night.) and luckily Eve got me pretty much the best present ever - all three seasons of Arrested Development - so that's been on a continual loop at the Wheeler/Curtis dwelling since like Friday. It was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for like the week before that, so thanks for saving us, Eve, from another week of watching Voldemort come back and bad acting on Emma Watson's part.

Ergo, there's only so much yogging, playing on the Internet, and watching of the television I can take. When the new year arrives, I am probably going to be in dire need of some fun times at the discoteque.

P.S. - Remember when I blogged about chinos? Well, I had to buy a pair today at Target. I've been wearing a pair of quasi-expensive dress pants to work and they're my favorite because they have tiny pinstripes, and I don't want them ruined. So now... I own black chinos/khakis. I have not purchased pants of the chino variety since 2000 and they were from Abercrombie & Fitch and have a button fly. I'm fairly certain I used to pair them with other items from A&F and Doc Marten's... I can't believe I just told you that.

Goffman: The Bane of My Existence

2006-12-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of blogs I've written that I haven't posted this year. Some I deleted, some are just lying in wait, perhaps forever doomed to be a Draft. I have tons of things I've written: Journal entries, poetry (usually I hate poetry, but sometimes there is no other way to accurately convey your feelings, but with a series of abstract and descriptive incomplete sentences and thoughts), short stories, letters... what-have-you. Anyways, my point is that I censor myself. We all do. I don't care who you are.

You could be the most blatently honest Tucker Max-ish, Rush Limbaugh, Rosie O'Donnell (I just typed the first people who came to mind that say stupid and offensive things sometimes), and you're still hiding something. You can be rude, judgmental, crass, but within you lies more. You might be super-sweet, the person people name as the nicest person they know, and harbor ill feelings inside. We all censor ourselves in different situations with different people... I think this is Impression Management Theory (Amanda! Your boyfriend Erving Goffman returns to stalk us with his Social Science theories!).

I was actually chatting with my dear buddy Amanda earlier today when this all just sort of hit me... When I am around certain people, I feel compelled to act a particular way and there are few people I can just relax around and not worry about what they think about what I say or do. Around most of my friends, I feel like I have to be funny, smart, and witty. Unless I'm hearing gossip and reacting, I'm shooting the shit about whatever is going on in my (or other's) life(ves), and cracking jokes about it all to boot. I don't know why. I'm just conditioned to do so. Maybe many who do this are like so many "comedians" who josh around to cover their neurotic tendencies (thanks Joel, I had to look up the word and use it).

The number of people I can completely be myself around can be counted on two hands, I think. In fact, I could probably just name them all here and let them know they have experienced the Uncensored Sarah: the mom, the bros, Geoffrey, Josh the ex, and probably anyone who came in personal contact with me in the first two months after my brother died and witnessed firsthand my verbal diarrhea got a little Sarah Show.

I'm not mean, but I'm not overly-fake nice. I'm forgiving, I try to forget, but I will make you remember when I think you need a little kick in the shin. When I feel the need, I can say something so horrible to you that you would not believe it came out of my mouth, but I have to be provoked and cornered for this to happen. I also always assume the best about people, not the other way around (I like to think all people would never act maliciously until they do, which gets me into trouble a lot). I'm funny with or without trying, but sometimes I try harder than others. I'm very self-conscious and I never think I will be as cute, stylish, kind, flirtatious, interesting, as the other girl (I don't care who it is). I'm hard-headed and once I make up my mind to do something, I am not easily persuaded to change because I do not like to admit I am ever wrong. I try to act tough and I'm not, but I'm tougher than I internally give myself credit for. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I have to start censoring somewhere...

I miss the people I could be myself around. No offense to anyone at all. You have probably witnessed me to a degree. Maybe I am myself entirely, but I feel like I can't cry in front of you, or that you will judge me for something I say or do. No worries. This is just the uber-censored, highly-trained-to-act-normal society we live in. Now go pretend to be yourself.

Experience vs. Acquisition

2006-11-30T16:43:00.000-07:00

There’s something about money that makes me want to claw my eyes out. Oh, maybe it’s the fact that one person can worship his or her things as much as he or she wants to, and never be satisfied with themselves or anything they have in the end. I don’t have a lot of possessions, but what I do have is nice (in my humble opinion) and, for the most part, paid for (sans my education, but that’s not something that the repo man can take away from me… it’s also proving very useless, but that’s for another blog).

I have come to realize that some people are one way, and the rest are another where earnings are concerned. Some can work to live, others have to live to work. I have found that I belong in the latter group, even though I have to work to live at the moment. I would rather do manual labor than be stuck in an office from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. every day, hating each moment I spend wasting my time because I’d probably just be surfing the Internet anyways. Don’t get me wrong, I completely respect someone who enjoys it. I, unfortunately, am not one of them. Perhaps if I found an office job where I was doing something I liked, I could handle it, but that has yet to happen…

There is also a fine line between ambition and greed I am starting to recognize (although if you look up both words in the dictionary, there is little difference between the two, so let’s assume for the sake of this blog that ambition is a sincere desire to better yourself and achieve your goals through noble means, while greed is the Kenneth Lay route to personal gain). There are people who will do anything to have money and things, including sacrificing their true dreams, believing that drudging through life in an unrewarding career will somehow pay off in thirty or forty years with an awesome retirement. So then you can enjoy your “Golden Years” playing golf and Yahtzee, before the arthritis and dementia set in, resulting in your funds being used to put you in a nursing home. Who knows if we’ll even make it that long…

So why not experience your life now? By no means am I saying don’t save for retirement because obviously at some point you’re not going to be able to work anymore, but if you do what you love, you’ll always be willing. Travel while you’re young. Meet new people. Try new things and discover what you enjoy. Stop caring about what other people think and live the life you want to live, not the one society says you should.

Too many of us get caught up in the suburban circle of life. We think we have to graduate high school and then go straight to college, find a job straight out of school where you’ll use your degree somehow, get married, have kids, keep working at your lame-o job, take family vacations when you have the time and money, see your psychiatrist regularly because you can’t figure out why you’re so dissatisfied with your life… retire as soon as you can, because if you wait too long those health problems I was talking about earlier will ruin your hard-earned permanent vacation when you’re 65.

I don’t have to live that life. No one does. Right now what I deem a success may not be worth dirt to another person, but right now I what I want is to stay mobile, have a good time, and keep writing until something comes of it (therein lies my ambition in noun form). The car I drive, clothes I wear, and things I have are not an outward manifestation of my success or satisfaction. Those things only show that I drive a crummy Jeep that’s paid off, I have little-to-no sense of style, and don’t buy a lot of things because I have a hard time justifying the purchase of items I don’t need unless it’s beer or girly stuff like lotion and bubble bath (or better yet, beer to drink while I take a bubble bath)…

And how I make my money right now does not define what kind of person I am, and is not my be-all-end-all (I may sling coffee, but I’m having fun doing it!). But maybe it’s not greed I perceive - perhaps everyone’s definition of success just varies.

Your Questions Answered Here (well, one anyways)

2006-11-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

I've been in Dallas for about four months now and am still lovin' it, although I do find myself homesick for mi familia in the 505. Sometimes I need them to grieve with me, you know?

But the phenomenon I have now encountered, having come into contact with what is commonly known as "employment" (not to be confused with "career"), is the need for a justification for people I meet in regards to why I moved here. So here is the story (of course I realize that if you are reading this, you probably already know, but whatever):

I visited Dallas about four or five times before moving here (three times in the last two years, I think). Upon visitng back in February of two double aught five for Gavin DeGraw, I added it to my list of potential places to live after graduation. I wanted to live in a bigger city, but not too big, as having come from small(er) New Mexico towns and villages, I didn't need too much of a shock. Also on my list were Albuquerque and Denver.

So why not Albuquerque or Denver, you may ask? Well, shut the hell up and stop talking about how beautiful you think New Mexico is even though you live in Texas, and I will tell you (that's exactly what I want to say to these idiots who ask me). Albuquerque is cool. I have my BFF and BFF Squared there and it's close to my family. However, in my heart I felt like I'd be a cop out if I didn't at least get a little ways away from NM for a while and experience something else. I also recently experienced the devastating death of my youngest brother, Matt, and without realizing it at the time, wanted to get away from all of those memories and pain... which has not worked out so well, but that's how I roll (we don't need to get all depressed now...). I assume I'll probably end up in New Mexico again someday (who knows when) because I love it there - the scenery, the people, the food (CLEARLY the best ever), the memories...

I've been in Denver several times as well, but mostly have just driven through on the way to visit my dad in South Dakota over the years. I LOVE Colorado and mark my words: I WILL live there at some point in my life. So why didn't I go to Denver? I don't know a soul in Denver besides my married-with-kids friend Kevin. Maybe when Allison and Brady move there, I'll go live on their couch for a while... But at this juncture in my crazy life, I thought it might not be a good idea to be absolutely alone in a new city.

Where Dallas is concerned, I had a couple of good friends here (although I never see one of them - effen Kelly B.!) and have made many more, all of whom are fabulous (especially Dirk... we like to go get frozen mimosas at Breadwinners after strolling around the West Village)! I thank Sack for being a great host to a couple of my visits and showing me some of the finer drinking establishments in the area, in addition to the aquarium and the BP mall in North Dallas (which I had to go to a couple of weeks ago... scary!).

There is also the story of Jeff, where he wanted to move, and his bet with himself concerning the NBA playoffs and finals, which can be found in a June or July entry on my Blogspot blog. It's nice to know your roommate is up for drunk grocery shopping, or going to lunch with you at El Fenix downtown when you're playing hookie...

And if people still wonder after I tell them all of these things because they think New Mexico is so fabulous, I'll just have to kick them in the shin and ask why they don't live there.

All in all, I am quite pleased with my living arrangements, although as long as I am unattached and able, I will keep my options open. I want to live in several places so I have stories to tell my 87 cats when I'm old, alone, dipping biscotti in a gin martini, wearing a boa, and spritzing myself with an atomizer filled with some sort of Estee Lauder perfume brew...

Sherlock's: The Greatest Bar Ever?

2006-11-02T08:31:00.000-07:00

Sherlock's in Addison may or may not be my new favorite bar. Maybe it was the people dressed like it was still Halloween, the restroom attendant, or the Bo Bice clone cover band, but I loved it.

After an outstanding meal of family-style Indian food at The Saffron House, we sauntered over to Sherlock's. Upon entrance we were offered free Jaeger shots and spotted "The Dancing Man", a later-middle-aged man with a flair for dancing like he's on acid when no one else is on the dance floor. I've never seen anything like it before in my life, and I hope to see it again soon. Picture Dennis Hopper dressed in khaki slacks and a pale yellow polo tucked in, and you have a pretty accurate representation of this guy. Now imagine this character prancing around, "gracefully" waving his arms about a la the hippies of Woodstock or the ravers of late. If I would have had my glow sticks on me last night, I would have immediately given them to this man as a gift because the entertainment I would have received in return... priceless.

The beer was cheap. I'm talking like $1.50 for a pint and $2.25 for the big beers, and the more I had, the better the band sounded... especially when they obliged our request to play "Your Love" by The Outfield. Rest assured I was singing and dancing... Josie's on a vacation far away... I think I've been inspired to change my MySpace song. I don't know what the name of this band was, but the fact that most of them had long hair and they had a playlist straight off of Helmer's Pub's iPod made them nothing short of stellar. Either that or it was a Jaeger-enhanced auditory hallucination.

I really didn't notice the rest of the crowd until The Dancing Man took a break, as I was obviously hypnotized by his amazing skills on the dance floor. But when I finally took a look around, I noticed a most motley assortment of people. The first to grab my attention was a man in some sort of a shiny-ish mock-houndstooth collared shirt in lovely hues of black and teal. He was talking to a woman who was wearing tapered jeans in an identical turquoise hue, and a matching shirt with the fabric on the shoulders cut out, only to be replaced by joined circles of silver. It wasn't tacky at all and no, I didn't say they looked like they were from New Jersey or that the guy resembled Joey Buttafuoco...

There were the bi-curious girls, the one in skinny jeans and leg warmers, a guy in a red, too-tight shirt that said SELF TAUGHT DOCTOR in white block letters (might as well have just said "Girls, Stay Away" on it), various lap dancing incidents, horsey lady and her Elaine dance... the list goes on and on. But don't take my word for it. Have some Indian food and then walk over to Sherlock's in A-town. I highly doubt you'll be disappointed.

The Pacifier Blog

2006-10-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

So I haven't been blogging very much because not much is going on since I started my new job. I had a birthday, which was outstanding. It started in Albuquerque with Eve, Jason, and Chris. Eve and I started at our favorite place for chain restaurant Italian (bellinis!), Macaroni Grill, and then met her beau, Jason, and his roommate Chris for some asininity downtown. We went to Maloney's (a.k.a. Logan's-West) and headed to OPM, where I proceeded to push a girl who rammed into me while we were plowing our way through the crowded dance floor. She (or someone) punched my right shoulder and I walked away because I was loaded and didn't care... you don't mess with the cholas. Chris kept challenging me to robot dancing contests, and Jason tried to teach me how to do some sweet Jiu-Jitsu moves and subsequently put me in an armbar, causing temporary paralysis in my arm. Good times. :o)

Back in Dallas, I also celebrated my birthday on the same day as the TX/OU game here in Dallas. Many shots were taken, beers drank, and again, I did the robot but this time I was unprovoked!

Holy cow. And then sometimes I get drunk on a Sunday night, because my roommate buys seven bottles of wine and gets a 10% discount at Albertson's, and remember that my new job has a new "Happy Hour" program in which we visit bars/clubs/restaurants that "need love" every week, and that approximately 89% of the employees show up to work hungover/still drunk every day (so not my style). We are also offered various tickets to all sorts of metroplex events like (in the week that I've been there) tickets to Trace Adkins, Bocktoberfest, Jamie Cullum, Running with Scissors, Rent (which I attended Friday night and it was grandtabulous), et al.

Then I think about how I'm going to a Mavericks game (Dallas season opener) in a couple of weeks and how I'll walk to it since I live so close to American Airlines Center, and how Dirk and I will probably go shopping for designer shoes and hair products afterwards at Northpark. I also think about how I will hopefully be going to the Texas State Fair soon and how I will be eating something that is not intended to be fried, but is anyways, because this is Texas and that's the cool thing to do. And how I will insist on perusing the Dr. Pepper display at the fair...

THEN, I think about going to Las Cruces next weekend and how I am so excited to see all of my college friends, drink stupid amounts of beer, and eat dirty green chile burritos. Unfortunatley, it will only be Maud waking me at un-Godly hours as opposed to Maud and Lesgar, but she knows we'll be thinking of her as we cheer on the Aggies (and hopefully sleep in, in my case). You all know how I love to sleep in after an evening of frivolity...

Anyhoo, this is mainly a blog straight up for my friend and former neighbor, Jaime, because he's my only fan! Love ya and I hope I see you next weekend, playa!! :o)

Unreasonably Arrogant

2006-10-02T20:36:00.000-07:00

I am oftentimes at a loss for words when it comes to describing someone who is self-centered. But some people I know are so egocentric, they border on a narcissistic personality disorder. Most of these people have no reason to be this way. And by that I mean they are neither ridiculously good-looking nor incredibly wealthy (not rich... wealthy, as Chris Rock would say), and are not of above average intelligence, which begs the question, from whence does this superficial delusion develop?

For celebrities (usually attractive and mildly wealthy), supermodels (considered beautiful by some and can earn more than most), Steven Hawking (genius, loaded), or Bill Gates and Donald Trump (neither are attractive, but both have managed to find a way other than being really, really ridiculously good-looking to make a fourtune), I can understand the arrogance. For anyone else, the feelings are unfounded. I don't care what your mom told you, you are probably not the best at anything. Sorry.

So yesterday I was chatting with Amanda and coined the phrase "unreasonably arrogant" to describe these people who are so far deluded that they think they are God's gift. And by "God's gift" I mean they think they are so great they could be a gift given to God. How did this happen? Do they have a magic mirror that makes them look like David Beckham or Heidi Klum? Or a psychic who told them they would be coming into a ludicrously large inheritance sometime soon? Did their parents tell them they were actually very smart and just weren't applying themselves when they were in school?

Maybe I'm just a negative realist. I know I don't look like Halle Berry and therefore will not be dating someone like Josh Duhamel (although his girlfriend is not so cute in my opinion). I do not know everything there is to know about everything, although I may be able to kick your butt at various forms of trivia. I am not the best dressed person you know, I don't have very much money, and I will probably never cure cancer, world hunger, global warming, or be the next President. I am not exceptionally talented at anything except picking things up with my toes and untying knots.

I'm just me and I'm not trying to kid myself or anyone else into thinking otherwise... or am I? Maybe I'm just as deluded and I somehow don't know... Hmmm. I guess that's something for my incredibly pretty and intelligent head to think about.... ;o)

For Maud and Jaime...

2006-09-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

Since Maud can't get MySpace at her P.O.B. and Jaime remains too-cool-for-school when it comes to the MySpace cult, here is my latest blog! :o)

A week and a half in Albuquerque is enough for me. Especially considering I have spent the majority of my time in a hospital room or trying to entertain myself with the Internet at the Flying Star nearest to me. I love my friends here and the mountains and green chile, and I usually have tons o' fun here because I'm getting plastered at Maloney's downtown... Anyways, I've managed to make a few keen observations during my stay here.

There is a restaurant called Cesar's (not Caesar's) on Lomas that serves Mexican and Greek food. No, not Mexican/Greek fusion... they serve Mexican. And Greek. Maybe you can get a lamb taco? Anyways, I'm thinking you don't find this anywhere else.

Fellow New Mexicans know this, but for my Texan and other readers, it is commonplace to have your last name or car club plastered in white Old English letters on your whip's rear window. You might also want to garnish with a nice outline of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The brown girls STILL wear purple lipstick, acid washed jeans, and attempt to dye their hair blonde, when it really just turns an odd shade of red/r'orange/yellow.

You can get green chile as a condiment on the hospital menu, and pretty much everywhere else you go.

While jogging in Eve's 'hood I have passed houses with BURRO lawn ornaments. Yes, people here have donkey lawn ornaments.

An outdoor sign at a Walgreens read: IMMIGRATION PHOTOS WHILE YOU WAIT.

Minivans are very popular here. The older and more delapidated, the better. You can fit yourself, your mamasita, your primos, and still have room for the ninos. Extra points if your primo and his knocked up ladyfriend are making out in the back seat.

If you didn't understand some of the words in the last sentence, you're not from New Mexico.

I've also made an interesting observation at the hospital: I think that minorities and people of lower income brackets get sick more often than everyone else does. Preventative medicine means nothing to these demographics. What matters are rims on the '91 Accord and speakers so loud they threaten to damage the already feeble vehicle's state.

Geez, there's more, but I can't think of anything right now. However, I want to send lots of love to Eve for putting up with me for a week and a half at her home. Hopefully I'll be exiting South stage back to the Dizzle here in a couple of days and then to Dallas... to start my new job!!

P.S. - I mentioned in comments on MySpace that I failed to mention the Native American grannies in men's shoes that are always two sizes too big and all of the breast feeding PSAs on television that make me ill...

UNM SUCKS.

2006-09-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

So if you didn't get the memo, I am in Albuquerque (a.k.a. The Artist Formerly Known as Steve) because my mom has come down with a very nasty case of pneumonia. I am currently escaping the beeping of the computer she's hooked up to at the Flying Star with a massive headache. So I could blog about a lot of things so far regarding this trip, including but not limited to catheters, my faintness at the sight of blood, my frustration with my family, the love-hate relationship I have with nurses and doctors, and sub par healthcare. I'd like to touch on the last one and elaborate more specifically on where I am and why I blame this place for my issues. So here are my reasons why I hate the University of New Mexico Hospital, and more (or less) specifically, UNM.

1. Hippies
2. Average student age of 57
3. Hippies growing at a rate of three per hour
4. Lobo (or "Puppy", as the Colonel would say) sports
5. Adobe housing infecting the area surrounding campus
6. Hippies crossing the street
7. Ugly people
8. Construction
9. Movie and/or mini series filming keeping me from getting to Starbucks
10. Hippies in their cars
11. Hippies on bikes
12. I am an Aggie and therefore will hate UNM until the day I die
13. UNM is in Albuquerque and not Las Cruces, which means it is automatically inferior
14. Do I have to say "hippies" again?

Seriously, I have never spent this much time around the UNM campus and now I see more clearly why NMSU is far superior in every aspect possible to UNM. More later, friends...

Ultimate fear, manifested... or festered?

2006-09-04T16:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry, this is not my usual funny, sarcastic, and witty blog...

Emotional rejection is the feeling a person experiences when disappointed about not achieving something desired. It is commonly related to a quest of emotional relations, usually by a man to a woman, or vice versa. A person may reject for several reasons: lack of reciprocal interest, circumstances like societal codes, desire to make the other person perceive difficulty ("playing hard to get") and fear of placing himself or herself in a situation of vulnerability and heightened interaction. -From Wikipedia.

Dealing with rejection is not easy and I don't think it's escapable. It is omnipresent, and I have heard it described as the "ultimate fear" of the human species. It can be humiliating, hurtful, and damaging. Me, I'm a fairly positive individual. I've been handed some hard knocks since last December and it seems they just keep coming. Trying to make the best out of it all, however, is becoming exhausting.

Top of the list will probably always be dealing with my brother's death. I want to say it gets easier. It doesn't. It gets harder... then hopefully it gets easier. In hindsight, I probably should have done some serious soul-searching before making a big move, but being in Ruidoso made it hurt even worse and I wanted away from that house, the town, and the constant reminder that he was the one who made me want to go home so we could hang out. How does this relate to rejection? I feel like I was literally rejected by God, and the continuance of hard luck coming my way makes me wonder what's next, and not in a good way...

Shortly thereafter I broke up with my boyfriend instantly upon finding out he had "cheated" on me after we'd been dating about three months (I put cheated in quotes because it's not like we were married). We'd been dating about nine months when I happened upon this nugget of information. This came as a major blow, pretty much solely to my ego. How could he cheat on me? But having just suffered through the loss of Matt about six weeks earlier, this was seriously small potatoes, and so goes everything else following.

I've become apathetic in most situations. I feel like what people have described being on Prozac is like... you just don't give a shit. And I think this is sabotaging me in certain situations that I should care about, namely finding a job and to put it simply, men.

I'm doing things wrong in both situations, yet I'm not quite sure what. On the employment front, I'm educated, talented, but unfortunately not extremely experienced. But why is this keeping me from getting a job like I had in El Paso, fresh out of an undergraduate program? I was an account executive... I've been applying for AE positions... go figure. So I'm being silently rejected by employers, save three I've actually had the opportunity to talk to. I'm probably just too picky, which brings us to the second half of the apathy diatribe...

Men. Some of them are easy to figure out, especially when they're honest, yet you still wonder why they are the way they are. Like my ex for example: He treated me like a princess, babied me, bought me whatever I let him, wanted to spend time with me, yet it took him a night with another woman to figure out how much he "cared". Why? What does that even mean? Then on the opposite end of the relationship spectrum is the possibility of a new relationship... I can honestly say I don't know how this works, never have, and my lack of knowledge/apathy is probably being misconstrued as me being an ice queen.

I can't help it. I don't know how often you're supposed to call, text, e-mail, "MySpace" someone. So I usually just don't do it. I don't know if me asking a guy out and maybe calling every day is going to be perceived as overbearing or just normal. Based on the last paragraph, I have no idea how I ever had the relationships I've had. I obviously don't know what I'm doing and am apparently not as awesomely awesome as I think I am. Again with the ego: How could he not want to date me? Damn that!

Now how does that relate to rejection? Ah, very easily. If you've been rejected by the opposite sex, you know what I'm talking about. Someday when I figure out exactly why we fear rejection, I'll send you all a memo.

Don't get me wrong... I don't feel sorry for myself, and I don't want to appear as if I'm complaining. I'm merely "thinking" aloud. I think that's what writers are supposed to do (hahaha) and I'm still positive about the future. Maybe I do give a shit still and that's why I'm writing this (?). My life is blessed with a family and friends who care for me, I live in a fabulous city now with one of my best friends for a roommate, and gosh darnit... people like me! Oh, Stuart Smalley, you are a shrewd and erudite self-help sage. Thank you for your infinite wisdom.

I feel like I need to recite the Serenity Prayer now...

I want mall gift certificates for my birthday. I need new clothes.

2006-08-25T18:42:00.000-07:00

When I lived in Lubbock, I'd go weeks and weeks (maybe even two months) without doing laundry. Residing in an apartment without washer/dryer hookups forced me to choose between washing my clothes, etc. at the lint-covered community laundromat, or get to the point where I had absolutely no choice but to wear scandalous undies, even though I would not be wearing pants necessitating the hiding of the panty line. I chose the latter most of the time, waiting until I'd drive to Ruidoso for a holiday or snowboarding to do laundry at home.

These days, I don't know how I accomplished this feat because I refuse to wear about 80% of my wardrobe due to the fact that I hate it, and every last pair of fancy underwear I had remains mysteriously in my ex-boyfriend's possession. Mostly I believe I did this because I was in school and didn't care what I looked like, unless I was going to the bar, at which point I'd bust out my Citizen jeans, a David Bitton shirt, and some BCBG heels. But this got me thinking about how I acquired a stock of clothing, most of which I will not wear but for some reason cannot part with?

"But what if that baby blue sleeveless tee with the ruched sides from Express three years ago comes back in style? It's not that bad..." I say to myself as I try and sort the keepers from the trash.

Some of this sick attachment must stem not only from the fact that I wore many of these items once, twice, or not at all and I feel guilty, but the fact that I paid for it all with my own money, and in the case of all the crap I bought from Express in college, am still paying for. Why did I buy this stuff? When did it become uncool, and how did I like them at one point, and then turn on my once-beloved garments?

I think I once heard on What Not to Wear that if you haven't worn something in a year, you should throw it out. Honestly, if I did this, more than half of the clothes living in my closet would be gone. Could I bear tossing the uni-sleeved shirt that has only been worn once (and not even by me)? What about those khaki pants from Abercrombie I got in like 2000... do I even wear chinos anymore??? What are chinos?

Thus defines my love-hate relationship with clothing. I love clothes, but I want clothes that look cute and won't go out of style so that I will not have wasted my money. But that never happens. Because even if I buy the most simple, classic item on the rack (a black tee for example), it will go out of style for one reason or another. Take into effect that I usually don't wear colors (unless it's my green Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show t-shirt) and this is not a formula for success. I should probably just move to a nudist colony or become a hippie.

Louis Vuitton: Handbag or instant fashion makeover?

2006-08-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

So there is a recurring trend here in Dallas that I felt obligated to write about. It's less about a trend and more about a status symbol or a disease aptly designated as extravagance. It's sort of like a spending spree, followed by bad credit and the repo man, threw up all over Dallas. You'll pass one car on the street and it's a Lexus. The next one will be a Cadillac. The next a Carrera Porsche. The next a BMW... Bentley... you get the idea. Tuesday nights on McKinney, you'll probably even see a Lamborghini. The same goes for the styles of the Louis.

The Louis I speak of is Louis Vuitton, but more specifically, Georges Vuitton, who is Louis' son and the jokester behind the famous monogrammed bags and leather goods so many people own today. The great part is that Wikipedia tells me that just over ONE PERCENT of Louis Vuitton signature goods are NOT counterfeit. Now I know why they all appear to be constructed from textured brown plastic.

Here is what bothers me beyond the fact that the most inexpensive bag they offer still costs about $500 and is the size of a cigarette case: It is the idea that if you carry a Louis bag, it apparently does not matter what you are wearing. It's like the bag is some sort of a magical fashionista cloak (a la Harry Potter's invisibility cloak) that transforms you from dumpy and mismatched to chic and glamorous. I have yet to see a woman put together an outfit that looks good with the bag. I saw a woman at the mall wearing army green capris, a faded black fitted t-shirt, flip-flops, and a like a giant bucket LV bag. Am I supposed to be impressed?

I think that the brains behind Louis Vuitton are disturbingly marketing-savvy and have wicked senses of humor. "Hey, Walter, how do you think we can get women all over the world to buy these grossly overpriced and hideous bags?" "Well, Marie, let's start giving them away to quasi-famous fashion whores and see where that gets us. I hear Jessica Simpson has a new reality show on MTV... we should probably give her a complete set of luggage immediately, if not sooner." "But what if she ruins it, Walter?" "It's ok. We'll give her the counterfeit ones from our factory in Kazakhstan." (insert evil, maniacal laughter)

My advice is save your precious dollars for bags, shoes, designer jeans (guilty!), and whatever else your precious heart desires. If you have Paris Hilton's money, buy every Louis bag that exists, or better yet... have Paris' money, get famous for no reason, and have the bags given to you free of cost, even though you have more money than God. If you don't have the endless supply of money, buy numerous leathery-smelling Coach or Dooney (but not the ones that look like Skittles melted on a styrofoam plate) or Michael Kors or whoever's bags instead of one LV bag that will only hold the trial size of your lip gloss. I personally heart the one at right and my birthday is coming up...

Sorry this is short and has no pics...

2006-07-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. So nothing entirely earth-shattering has occured during my first week in Dallas, but I have learned a few things that you might find insightful, and perhaps even amusing. Here's a list:

-Deep Ellum does exist, for I have been lost in its depths with a U-Haul still attached to my Jeep.

-The main DART station also exists downtown. I randomly came across it while driving around in The Big D.

-I am now required to hate every other city in Texas, which isn't very hard to do when all the other cities I've been to in Texas pretty much suck. Austin is for HIPPIES! ;o)

-You can be in a really posh neighborhood and then the slums in a matter of one block (or by crossing to the east side of Highway 75 down here).

-There really is a Starbucks on every corner. Seriously.

-Gay men love to go walking together on the Katy Trail about one block west of my apartment, but so do a lot of other people, including Mexicans who look like barrels without shirts on and their obese ladyfriends sans bras.

-I never knew how much I used a microwave until I didn’t have one… speaking of which, I should go buy one today, but I looked for a Wal-Mart near here and the closest Supercenter is on the other side of downtown by railroad tracks and that scares me a little.

-Living with my family in close quarters for more than two days is entirely unacceptable.

-You are a total loser who should be quaratined in some sort of a concentration camp if you don't have a TollTag. I fall into this category.

-Miami Vice is probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but it has some cool pink mist shots and really awesome cars, boats, and airplanes.

Hello, Goodbye.

2006-07-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

As Friday nears, I am bidding my farewells to Ruidoso... fortunately I pretty much hate everything about it save for a few people, the mild summers, my former days of snowboarding for free, and The Links at Sierra Blanca (no, I don't golf there, I yog around the course).

My bon voyage sort of started when Jeff and I got our apartment in Dallas because I immediately packed everything I could (that wasn't already packed) and started counting down the days until July 22. It pretty much ended Sunday morning when I was having a yomit session after partying with Evelyn and Jason, and a few select Ruidosoans. I'll blog about that later on Eve and Wheels, I think.

Anyways, tomorrow I'll be in the LC having my hair dyed by the famous Alex, who has moved to another salon (if anyone's interested) that doesn't have a grody English sheepdog sauntering around in it (can dogs saunter?). At least I hope it doesn't have a big, shaggy dog roaming around... I hated that dog.

I'll also be dining at Si Senor, and taking pictures of my burritos and probably sending said pictures to Colonel McAdoo. Mwa ha ha ha ha. Maybe Amanda, too... she loved the Si Senor like a native New Mexican.

My mom is also going to the Big LC with me and is apparently going to get a new phone at Sprint, so I may or may not be changing my phone number... I don't know if I can part with my beloved Las Cruces/505 number quite yet. I'll keep you all updated, of course. Not that any of you call me unless you have to ask questions about anatomy, sloths, or what to do if a centipede crawls out of your drain. I like to think that if any of you were ever on Who Wants to be a Millionaire (or whatever it's called), I'd be your lifeline because I pretty much know everything that you don't need to know, which is not valued by society in any way, shape, or form, but helps me beat people at trivia. :o)

So, bub-bye 505 and chel-lo again to Tejas. I shall return in October for Homecoming and more burritos, and possibly another hair-dyeing, depending on whether or not I can find someone in Dallas who does colors other than bleached blonde. ;o) Scary.

It's also scary that I can probably sing the entire song Hello, Goodbye by The Beatles... also the title of this fair blog entry. Jeff, you are SO going to miss me singing the soundtrack from Fiddler on the Roof (but so are Eddie and Donica) for like two weeks until you get to Dallas, but fret not, for then you can hear me sing all the time. LOL! Sucker.

All I want is some Subway.

2006-07-10T14:44:00.000-07:00

Here is your list of fast food places to eat at in Ruidoso: McDonald's, Sonic, Taco Bell, Schlotzsky's, Mr. Burger (not that fast), Burger Trolley (not that fast, either)... um, yeah. That's about it. Oh, and Subway, which is consistently inconsistent in every aspect of their business practice.

There used to be two Subways here, as well as a Burger King and an Arby's. I can't get flame-broiled goodness here, or the joy of an overly-processed roast beef sandwich doused in fake cheese sauce. I should have moved the second Arby's closed, but I hardly ever go there and didn't know they'd shut their doors forever until a few months after the fact. I can, however, "eat fresh" at Subway and make sure Jared and Jon Lovitz get a paycheck this month. Or so I thought.

Last week I wanted Subway when my mom and I went to Wal-Mart (which I failed to mention also has a Subway in it, but I'm scared to eat at it). So, we drove past the normal Subway and the parking lot was packed. Forget it... we'll just check out the next Subway down the road at Funtrackers, where I went go-carting not too long ago. Nope. It's closed, and Subway executives failed to send me the memo.

Now when I do actually drive the 17 miles to Subway, I can expect to find ridiculously rude employees who are obviously working paycheck to paycheck and crack hit to crack hit, and make it apparent that they hate me for even considering visiting their fine sandwich shop. I can usually assume they have only about three of the normal 15 chip varieties other Subways in real towns have. The same goes for the soda machine. In addition, your friendly Ruidoso Subway will be out of at least half of the breads other Subways have. Normally they have three day old Honey Wheat at all times, so they got that goin' for 'em.

But here's the zinger: Today I made the arduous drive almost all the way to the Downs, pulled into the Subway parking lot, only to find one of the employees standing in the doorway telling something to this other lady who was parked as well. Rather than waste my precious energy and get out of the car, I merely roll down my passenger side window to hear what news this disgruntled sandwich artist had for me... "We're out of bread."

WHAT? As Eddie would say, "Are you SERIOUS?" Why the f*ck are you even open, you dim-witted meth addict? Did you think I came to Subway for the SOUP or the shredded iceberg lettuce salads?? Don't insult me. Just close.

Here is my other question: How does a sandwich shop run out of bread, especially when they make the bread at said shop? You would think that when they notice the bread supply is running low, they'd throw a couple more frozen slabs of dough into the ol' oven, right? Or, hey... we're low on dough - do you think we should order some more? No, don't be foolish... let's go take another hit off the crack pipe.

I hate this town, you guys. Trying to explain the hate would be futile. I can feel my blood pressure rise when I think about going anywhere here. If I make it through the next ten days, it will truly be an amazing feat.

The only thing that would make me happy right now is if Jared himself would come to Ruidoso, fire the crackheads, and then make me a sandwich. For free.

Die, white zinfandel, DIE!!!!!

2006-07-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

"A good starting point when discussing bad wine is White Zinfandel, or as it is known in certain circles of connoisseurs, 'the Pink Scourge'." -John Weidman

There is no way I can explain my hatred for white zinfandel. It's a "wine", it's a putrid shade of pink, and it tastes like watered down Arbor Mist, sans the light carbonatory (new word) properties, with a touch of rubbing alcohol added. It's repulsive and no one should ever drink it.

I am by no means a wine snob. Set out two unlabeled bottles of red wine in front of me and I probably couldn't tell you which was a cabernet and which was a merlot. What irritates me largely are people who are just like me (don't know shit about the vino), but act like they are editor in chief of Wine Spectator, when really this person has had exorbitant amounts of various wines from boxes or Gallo jugs, and watched Sideways (that movie can die right along with white zin).

Why this angry diatribe about wine, Sarah, you may ask? Well, my friends, let me tell you a quasi-tale of Le Bistro and a shower of Texans that has invaded this quaint mountain town for the Fourth of July holiday...

We have two wines by the glass at Le Bistro. The restaurant is way too small to compensate for anything more than that. The selection varies from merlot and chardonnay, to red bordeaux and sauvignon blanc, to valpolicella and pinot grigio. You never know what great surprise Jeff and I have in store for you when you ask what wines we have by the glass. It's really quite exciting (insert sarcasm for that last comment)...

And let's not forget that we don't have a wine list at Le Bistro. Richard keeps it real and is usually bringing new and interesting wines every few weeks, so a list is just a waste of time. I made one two summers ago and it just ended up being a list to pacify customers, while we never had half of what was on it. What we do have is an attractive display inside with the many wines we have available by the bottle. To me, this is not a big deal. I would never walk into a family-owned restaurant and expect it to run like Olive Garden. To me, when you walk into a place like Le Bistro, you want to try something different.

Back to the Texans. The men and the women of the Texas love the Coors Light and the white zinfandel, respectively. Personally, I truly believe they do not know that any other beers or wines exist (besides pinot noir because of fucking Sideways), and while I am always true to my Miller Lite, I'm also up to try new alcoholic beverages (as long as they don't contain tequila or any of the Malibu varieties). The Texes are not. We usually have Coors Light in stock, but never, ever, ever white zin. During the summer Richard will buy a case or two of Rosé, which is his personal stash (except for when Jeff and I drink two bottles of it like we did Friday night). So, we don't have a pink wine for the hicks, and oftentimes they become quite irate. Such as was the case this evening.

Long story longer, I had a four top of two middle-aged couples who seemed pissed off from the beginning. I gave them my usual spiel, which is pretty much the following script: "We don't keep a wine list because the owner likes to change the wines often, but they are on display if you would like to look them over, or I can suggest something for you." Pretty polite and articulate, if you ask me. Well, Fatty-Bo-Batty's Fatty Wife at table P6 tonight wanted a blush, even though I had already explained in English that we have one red and one white wine by the glass. To this she tersely retorted, "I guess I'll just have a Diet Coke." I'm thinking, "Yeah, lady... order the Diet Coke because that's going to solve your weight problem." But Fatty-Bo is mad that his portly Yellow Rose can't have her pink drink, and this is my fault because I'm obviously the owner, chef, and person who orders what we keep in stock. Obviously.

As I am leaving to retrieve their beverages, Richard walked up, doing his owner-thing and just asking people how it's going, blah, blah, blah. Fatty-Bo-Batty starts immediately bitching about the lack of a wine list. Two years ago, this would have warranted a "Take your fuck out of here!" from Richard, but it was a slow winter, and we all need the money. So Fatty's friend follows Richard inside to peruse the selection, and is still being rude...

At this point, I'm crying because I can't deal with the rudeness for another hour. Eddie is threatening to kick them out, and I'm sheepishly asking Jeff if he'll take them. Jeff is not pleased. Not to mention that by the time their food came out, it was discovered I failed to write down how Fatty's buddy wanted his ribeye cooked (which happened to be medium well, so of course it was very apparent these people were classless to start with)... it was a big disaster and this is my public thank you to Geoffrey for stopping my crying by taking that group of nasties (I know you read my blog, Geoff, so you better start commenting).

This is also my public plea to anyone and everyone to stop drinking white zinfandel. I know I don't have to worry about Amanda (because she's well on her way to editor in chief of Wine Spectator) or the Colonel (because I doubt he'd drink wine, let alone pink wine), but I am really worried about everyone else in this world. Take the intiative. Paul Giamatti's most famous line from Sideways was, "I will not drink any fucking Merlot!" If they would have just replaced "Merlot" with "White Zin" it would have been my favorite movie of all time. I will not drink any fucking white zin...

"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is the new "Arrested Development"

2006-06-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

So there are approximately three people I can think of who actually watched Arrested Development religiously. One of them is me, one is Amanda, and the other one is no longer with us. Unfortunately since we were the only three loyal viewers of pretty much the funniest television series to grace the small screen, it was cancelled. A little bird told me AD might be picked up by Showtime, but it hasn't happened yet to my knowledge.

Fortunately there is hope in a show that debuted tonight on FX called It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It appears to be a show about a brother and sister, their two mischievous friends, and all the shenanigans they get into. I'm watching it tonight and I have never laughed at people in wheelchairs, racial slurs, flaming bags of poop, and Danny DeVito so much in my life. An added bonus is that FX has managed to skirt around FCC profanity regulations because they definitely say "shit", and they use it abundantly (I'm easily amused). Of course you already know about the "S Bomb" if you watch another one of my favorite shows on FX, Rescue Me. Must have something to do with Safe Harbor shizz (I'm trying to think back to the late Dr. Pasternack's Media Law class with Maud, but even though we both got As, I can't remember all that garbage).

Try not to think I'm callous about the wheelchair thing. You'd have to watch it to fathom the hilarity. It has to do with running over your best friend with your SUV, strippers, and faking polio for sympathy at a shopping mall (followed by a wheelchair duel in said mall). I love it. They also do a MAD redintion of Extreme's "More Than Words".

If you're not sold at this juncture, our senses of humor are obviously disparate, and for that there is no remedy. For those lackluster individuals, I recommend reruns of Friends (which, relatedly, IASP mocked the "fountain" scene in one of their show promos... cops are involved and I couldn't be happier!).

Countdown to D-Town

2006-06-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

If you couldn't tell by my sermons on my trips to Dallas, I was impressed with the city and everything that comes with living in a ginormous metroplex. In Ruidoso, I can't overnight a package from the Post Office (I know this because I needed to overnight my final paper for my last class at Tech and they were unable to process my request). I can't go out to eat because I know that besides the restaurant I work at, everything sucks and will not only probably make me sick, but is most likely to have body hair of some sort in it. If I want something dry cleaned, I need to be prepared to wait at least a week to get it back, and that's for one item.

Well, my helpmate Jeff (not to be confused with the famed Colonel McAdoo), has been trying to escape the wiles of Ruidoso ever since I met him in 2003. After returning from my first excursion to Dallas, I suggested that Dallas would be a great place to escape (read: move) to. He initially scoffed at my suggestion, claiming the Spurs were going to win the NBA championship, and that meant he'd be moving to Austin, since he made a deal with himself, equating where he would move to who was the best in professional basketball. Well, shortly after I returned the first time, Dallas booted the Spurs, so Austin was out. I immediately text him, saying he was going to have to move to Dallas, but he also had Hawaii in mind, should any team from a shitty city win, like the Pistons. I explained in simple terms that he was far too pretentious to attempt to live as a surf bum in Hawaii. He agreed and started looking for an apartment in Dallas. And yes, this was just an opportunity to post a gratuitous picture of Dirk and his hair.

We had some stipulations for the apartment. On his friends' suggestion, we looked in Uptown. I had to be able to take my doggie, Willie, because he's cool and doesn't like having to wait a month to get groomed in the Dizzle. The apartment had to have two separate bathrooms, and bedrooms on opposite sides of the space, for obvious reasons... when Jeff brings the ladies home, I really don't need or want to hear what's going on over there. You know, which video game they're playing or whatever.

So I think one day while Jeffrey was at work, I narrowed the search down and he picked Post Square. Selling points: Dry cleaners in the ground floor of the building, along with a smoothie shop, and a Starbucks. I guess I need to start drinking coffee again because I can't live three floors above a Starbucks and not spend half of my money there on fancy, caffeinated drinks. I'm going to be like Tweek on South Park... anyways, here's a pic:

Here's another of what I understood to be the main entrance when I saw it:

Here's the floorplan, if anyone's interested:

Tentative move-in date is July 22, although I'd love to move in sooner. I'm sort of going between just getting the eff out of here on the 21st, taking the fam for a weekend in Dallas (full of fun-filled activities like moving furniture and extended periods of time in a vehicle together), OR working that last weekend and then moving Sunday or Monday (still with the fam, of course). I'm leaning more towards just leaving ASAP...

No, I dont have a job yet. Yes, I am looking. And I tried to put one of those cool countdowns on here, but none of them would work. :o(

These are a few of my favorite things...

2006-06-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

Out of sheer boredom comes a comprehensive list of things I highly enjoy and loathe presently. Not to worry, it does not include raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens. Or warm woolen mittens for that matter.

In television I love:

Fuse. If you don't have it, get it. Unless you're gay and you still watch all that crap on MTV. Those of you who know me, know how I feel about MTV. It can go to hell and die.

The 4400. I watched it religiously on Amanda's TV in Lubbock and I will continue to do so here in the Dizzle. Long live Tom Baldwin, Kyle Baldwin and Shawn. May they be seen in their underpants frequently (but not together, please) on the show.

In TV I hate:

MTV. We have already covered this.

Reality TV. Especially the talent competition ones (besides Top Chef, but that's over).

In music I love:

Pretty much anything where the band sings all whiny and screamy. I love it and I can't get enough. Is that genre called screamo (as opposed to emo)?

In music I hate:

Lil' John and all the beepy rap songs he keeps putting out. Since when did the beep on my mom's answering machine (circa 1989) become a musical instrument? Stop. You were cool when you hung out with Usher. Thanks for bringing crunk to light, now it's time for a nap.

The bands who keep trying to make videos that look like Stanley Kubrick films, or bands who make themselves up to look like Alexander de Large doppelgangers from A Clockwork Orange.

In cereal I love:

Lucky Charms. I had forgotten how delicious they are... magically delicious. My renewed love for the Charms is recent. I hadn't eaten them since I lived in the Zeta house and we had the generic kind that came in a bag. The real thing pretty much has a 50/50 cereal bits to marshmallow ratio. Really, it's a little more 'mallow than I like, but what the hey. I can't knock the marshmallow goodness. What I especially appreciate is how the cereal turns the milk a manufactured shade of grey. Grey = Magic.

In cereal I hate:

Anything that doesn't have "sugar" listed in the first two ingredients. And anything that claims it's good for my "heart".

Topics to discuss at work I love:

Passive-aggressive. I like to call Le Bistro "Passive-Aggressive Island". I think everyone is a little passive-aggressive. It's the modern way to avoid direct conflict with another (or yourself), but still make them think about what's wrong with them.

Shtarnsh, Eddie, and the new sweaty kid.

I don't think there is much I won't talk about at work...

People I'd love to party with:

Probably that sloth from the Dallas World Aquarium. I bet he's a wicked good time. I'd like to have a drinking contest with him.

People I'd hate to party with:

Charles Barkley and any magic Christians.

What I hate about Ruidoso:

The Texans driving around at 15 miles per hour, up the road to my house. This really makes me angry because I like to drive about 35 mph on the same road. It's fun! But when I get to see the looks on their faces, I see fear. It's my belief that they believe they are lost in Brady Canyon and cannot find their way out. Ever. Then I laugh.

What I love about Ruidoso:

The same thing. It gives me the opportunity to drive like a stock car driver and yell obscenities at people I'll never see again.

Stuntastic!

2006-06-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

Another fabulous weekend in Dallas, kids. Good times, good Miller Lites, great heckling... about to be continued here. Friday night we traveled from Addison to the Greenville area. I'm not quite sure if we were in Upper or Lower Greenville because we drove around so much, which I could tell Ratheen really enjoyed. We ended up at a place called M Street, which apparently brings out everyone's inner gay with its house music, candles, and velvet booths. I wasn't such a big fan (primarily because of the bad music and warm beer), but I think Phil and Ratheen really got into it, which you can see by this picture:

I think it's great that you two are out there and proud. The way you two stare into each other's eyes is so touching. You probably can stop the mom jokes now... we all know what you're trying to cover. ;o) Here's a fairly heterosexual picture for any of you who are feeling uncomfortable (I don't know about that look on Jeff's face, though...):

I decided I should pose for a pic with Phil's blouse of the evening at the other bar we went to (not sure what it was called). It was pretty cool (and I am referring both to the bar and Phil's shirt). We hung out on the roof of said bar with an awesome view of Downtown. Here's a kick ass shot of Phil's striped shirt du jour:

What Ratheen is doing is anyone's guess. I'm fairly certain it has something to do with Phil's nipple, though.

I also got to hang out with Badger and Rooki- I mean Michael from NMSU. Badger had fun reminiscing about "college". I know this because if the Pee Wee's Playhouse word of the night was "college", everyone would have been incessantly screaming at Badger's stories. Or Jeff saying, "That's classic Badger!" Here's Badger getting animated about something at M Street. I was too busy trying to find some ecstasy to make the house music more bearable to know what he was talking about.

So I found out I have a feature on my Kodak Photo Software that allows you to make a photo look like a cartoon. Or more specifically, the famed A-Ha video from the 80s, "Take On Me". So I decided to make Jeff look like a member of the band. Watch out for those guys with tools chasing you...

Take on me. Take on me. Take me oooon! Take on me. I'll beeee goonnneee, in a day or twoooooooooo!!!

Probably my favorite part of Friday night was eating at some taco place on Greenville Ave. It was like being in Mexico... delicious. The salsa was super hot. So hot that Ratheen and Phil were whining about it, and Jeff had the guy put like seventeen times the normal amount on his last burrito. The eating contests you have with yourself, I will never understand, Jeff.

Anyways, Saturday Jeff and I headed Downtown and after we drove around in a circle for about an hour, we ate at Hoffbrau Steaks. I ate the greatest hamburger of all time, called the Roadhouse Burger. I think it would have made Dalton proud. It had Dr. Pepper barbeque sauce on it, which may sound weird, but it was very tasty. I also had fried pickles for the first time, which is pretty much like eating fried salt... delicious and crunchy fried salt, dipped in ranch dressing, that is.

After we ate we walked over to the Dallas World Aquarium to check out the wildlife. It was an aquarium, but so much more. There were bats, spiders, poisonous frogs, snakes, sharks, monkeys, a SLOTH and his human companion... here's a picture I took of a dog:

There were also people fish and some "actors" dressed up in Mayan costumes, playing with those sticks that sound like rain. I saw a little more Mayan man-leg than I had expected to that day, but it's all good.

Saturday night included drinking big, stoopid beers at Logan's with Phil, his friend Brandon, and eventually Larry. What you need to know is that the giant mugs at Logan's are never clean and Phil's shirt was black. I finally got to eat some P'Eatzza that night. It was everything I hoped it would be and more.

Sunday... damn... I was drunk again on Sunday. I started at Bread Winners in Uptown with a frozen mimosa, which was incredible. Jeff had some entree named after Dirk Nowitzki, which I thought was great. I'm probably going to become BFF with Dirk when I move to Dallas and we'll have sleepovers and play Trivial Pursuit and tell each other secrets and trade hair styling tips. ;o)

So what is important about Sunday is we had to get to Humperdink's in Addison like six hours before the game to get a good seat, and of course we started drinking right away. It's also very important to note I beat Ratheen and Jeff twice at NTN Trivia and won the entire game once. A few other people showed up, including Baer, who I mentioned in my previous Dallas blogs. This time I was a little more coherent and realized he reminds me of the Scottish Soccer Hooligans from Saturday Night Live... like you never know when he might go postal.

What else from Sunday... oh, Neil should probably know that if he tries to steal my sunglasses next time I see him, I will defeat him with a karate chop or a C-walking contest. On that note, here's a picture of Larry from Sunday night:

So anyways, it was a great time. I left very early Monday morning, watched the sun come up at Dallas Love Field, flew into El Paso and drove to Las Cruces so I could eat some Si Senor and tell Jeff about it. I must enjoy good Mexican food while I still can!

Dumb and Dumber.

2006-06-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

stu·pid ( P ) Pronunciation Key (stpd, sty-) adj. stu·pid·er, stu·pid·est
1. Slow to learn or understand; obtuse.
2. Tending to make poor decisions or careless mistakes.
3. Marked by a lack of intelligence or care; foolish or careless: a stupid mistake.
-From dictionary.com.

It has come to my attention (or rather been pointed out to me by certain individuals) that my I.Q. (high Q, or haiku) has taken a turn for the mildly retarded side after graduating about three weeks ago. I used to build sentences with words like "generalizeable", "socialization", and "academia". Now I say things like "dude", "whatever", and "mud butt" (is mud butt one word?). It's kind of like that book, Flowers for Algernon, where the guy gets really smart and then turns dumb. Except for there are no mice in my story.

I can no longer complete simple tasks like spell "warrior" correctly, or just grab one piece of paper to cover a table at the restaurant. I'll get two pieces even though I only need one. I have forgotten how to count. Currently, I employ a calculator for simple mathematical equations, although I can quickly determine, based on the price of someone's meal and the tip they left, what approximate percentage they left me.

My reading consists of Harry Potter and Cosmopolitan, while my television viewing includes cartoons like The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, and Spongebob Squarepants. I used to watch a lot of A&E, I think... I went to the new X-Men movie the other day and I liked it. I LIKED IT. Grad school Sarah would have never even gone to that movie.

Formerly in my possession was Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but I have apparently misplaced it. I wanted to read it, but now I am afraid that the ideas in the book may cause my feeble mind to implode, so I should probably just start the Harry Potter series over again and continue my quasi-intellectual conversations with Jeff and Donica about where all of the Horcruxes are located, whether or not Snape is good or evil, and who R.A.B. really is.

Amanda wanted to get her sense of humor back. I think I'm still pretty funny. I just don't wanna be dumb anymore...

Emotional Overload

2006-06-01T23:56:00.000-07:00

Today I endured a bombardment of emotion. So much that I ended up shedding a tear or three on two seperate occasions. For the most part I can keep my emotions in check, unless I'm made victim of a surprise attack, which has really only happened three-ish times in my life (all three in the past six months... yesss).

Hey, guys, I know what you're thinking... premenstrual syndrome, right? Not so much. For one thing, I think PMS is just a huge conspiracy theory/hoax/excuse, and another: I am a person who believes in changing your attitude as much as you can when you notice it turns sour for no apparent reason. I believe you can apply the line, "Get over it. Go out with someone else," from Wayne's World to a plethora of life's situations. And for another thing, it's just not even PMS time.

Today I was strongly persuaded to finish a certain section of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince while I was at work. Yeah, a perk of working at Le Bistro is I can read sometimes, but reading this chapter while at work was not so much a good idea. Said chapter got me all misty-eyed, I text Amanda and she said she didn't know how I was controlling my behavior, I replied and said I'd had a lot of practice in the last five months.

Continuing with the chapter, it became even more depressing, and I was sitting next to Richard on the patio, nonchalantly turning away so he wouldn't notice me crying at work. I think (no, I know) the last and only time I cried there was when this broad told me I'd made her the worst cappucino of all time (even though I made it the same as all the others and have had no complaints), and Jeff just had to capitalize on the heckling opportunity. Of course he didn't think I'd start crying because that's very un-Sarah, but it happened.

So Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, more specifically the chapter titled "The Lightning Struck Tower", or chapter 27, or page 596, got me started.

Then I went to the new X-Men movie with Jeff and Caryn. *sigh* Dude, a movie about mutants totally got me all choked up. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but there were two instances when I was seriously crying, and trying once again to conceal my asininity (yes, it's a real word because I said so and I have an advanced degree, which permits me to make up words on occasion). Stupid X-Men and their stupid sexy powers of love and destruction... GAWD!

So then (wait, actually this happened before the movie) Jeff and I went to the Coyote Cantina to have an after-work tottie (I had Coca-Cola) and see my mom, who was hanging out after having endured the wiles of my bitter grandmother in Roswell for four or five days. My mom pretty much immediately starts in on how the medical examiner who performed my brother's autopsy had to talk to my other brother, Josh, about what happened the night before Matt passed away. Josh was very upset, obviously, but managed to hide it from me yesterday and today while my mom was gone.

The mom, however, made it a point to tell me all about it, which in turn upset me. Josh didn't tell me about it because he knew it would upset me, I'm sure. The bar is not the place to discuss these matters, but whatever, it's sometimes the 90s. When we first got the results of the autopsy, my mom came to my bar when I was still working there and told me. Yeah, always a good idea... not. I changed the subject this evening as soon as I could by saying, "Hey guess what? Richard said 'style-life' instead of 'lifestyle' today." "Ha ha ha ha ha..."

You know, a couple of people have tried to talk to me about Matt when I've been drinking, they've been drinking, or both. It's really just not a cool idea, for future reference. I'll talk about it when I want to, but if I'm out, having a Miller Lite, chances are I came out to have fun and not talk about the devastating circumstances surrounding January 6.

The flipping point is that all the sad deaths in the books and movies I read and watch remind me of my brother sometimes. Especially now as we're approaching five months without his physical presence. A lot of people took it upon themselves to ask me what happened to him in the days and weeks afterwards, and I really took offense. First of all, who's business was it, and secondly, why the eff does it matter? What matters is he's gone. Now that we "know" what happened, I think most people probably asked because they just didn't know what to say, and could not fathom why a perfectly healthy 21-year-old would randomly die in his sleep. We don't know why, literally and figuratively. It's a medical anomaly. Pehaps a heart arrhythmia, they say. And by "they", I mean the medical examiners (plural).

Sorry if this ruined anyone's moment, but don't worry, the moment will come back to you. If you've gotten this far in this uber-long blog, take a few things away with you: Sarah is most definitely not a robot, she doesn't want to get philosophical when she drinks (unless it's about Anchorman or the cultural significance of Duck Tales), and she wants you to make sure she didn't spell warrior wrong. Don't you feel better already, great blog warrior reader?

Girls, girls, girls.

2006-05-31T21:18:00.000-07:00

I am a girl. A female, chick, lady, woman, whatever. Sometimes I don't want to claim my species, though. We're hard to get along with, moody, conniving, panda jerks.

These thoughts have been coagulating in my mind in this manner:

1. My female counterparts known as my friends.
2. My friendship with my helpmate, Geoffrey.

So there are my friends who I love more than anything, and somehow manage to get along with all the time. I've had my small share of ex-BFFs, but we all know they were crazy-ass bitches. Anyways, why can't they get along? Why do they shut one person out, ignoring them, getting all butt-hurt about something stupid like a small difference of opinions? Am I only able to get along because I don't live in the same town as them? I don't think so... I never got into fights with anyone when I was living in the same house as them for two years. What's the effin' deal here? DRAMA.

Then there's my best male friend, Geoffrey (Jeffrey Wayne, if you will). We get in fights frequently. He's told me to go fuck myself more times than I can count, I've punched him in the kidneys so hard he's fallen to the ground, he's made me cry, I've called him at 4 a.m. when I thought I was going to die if I fell asleep... you get the idea. Anyways, I was thinking about our friendship and I wonder if that's how all guys are. Like they are total assholes to each other and then the next day it's all over with. I think if I talked to my girlfriends like I talk to him, they'd never speak to me again. With Jeff I can be like, "I hate those jeans. They look like they're from 1993. Why don't you just go ahead and tight roll them?" and instead of crying and being mad, he'd say something like, "As if you look any better. Did you even take a shower today? You stink like yesterday's trash. Let's go get me some new jeans."

So why can't all girls be the same way? Quit focusing on the stupid, petty things and get over it. Stop holding a grudge just to prove whatever your stupid point is. Have you ever thought YOU'RE not that easy to get along with, either? Maybe to someone you are the center of the universe, and chances are you think you're the center of the universe. But when you get fifteen chicks together who are all thinking the same thing, shit's bound to hit the proverbial fan.

I know I can never have the kind of relationship with my girlfriends that I do with Geoffrey. They don't want me telling them their jeans look stupid, and I don't want to hear that from them, either (I don't think). But I guess that's ok. Sometimes I like everything to be sugar-coated. BTW, those jeans at left are my favorite jeans. You really can't make fun of them because they're so f*cking cool.

THAT'S JUST STOOPID!

2006-05-29T21:16:00.000-07:00

So continuing from the ROARANGE salsa... what I remember most distinctly was the unstoppable, unmatched heckling of how Jeff talks. For some reason either Phil or Ratheen brought up the fact that the colonel says "baby" kinda weird, especially when intoxicated. I suppose it becomes some sort of a growl that sounds a bit like "bey-be". This snowballed into Jeff's Greatest Hits such as "That's just STOOPID," and "We're at Logan's DRinking BIG, STOOPID beers." Here's Ratheen posing with one of said big, stoopid beers:

This may or may not have been around the time Ratheen talked to Evelyn while pretending to be Jeff. Evelyn had no clue that the person on the other end of the phone wasn't Sack saying, "THAT'S JUST STOOPID!!" Really we were all laughing so hard, tears were shed. I think maybe Jeff was crying for real, though. In my opinion, he wanted to turn the attention elsewhere, so he started making fun of Phil's "blouse", which was some sort of a pinkish hue. Here's a pic of Phil, his shirt, Liana, and Ratheen's hand in an obscene gesture:

Apparently is takes a real man to wear mauve... or so I'm told. I had to make fun of Phil for being a Comm Studies major at Texas Tech. We Mass Comm-ers constantly put down Comm Studies kids as "Mass Comm dropouts" because people who can't pass the Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation exam go into Comm Studies... home of many an ignoranus, Olaniran, and Gay Josh Ray and his ill-fitting clothing. Phil, you should probably start lying about your schooling.

More heckling transpired when Phil tried to convince Ratheen that the two of them should double date with Liana and her cousin from Friday night. Where the dinner and dancing suggestion came from, I'm not sure, but making fun of Phil for wanting to double date turned into making fun of Jeff for how he said. "DINner and DANcing!" Oh, the things we find amusing never cease to amaze me.

Let's see... who else was made fun of? Oh yeah! The boys' friend, Greg! He has this hilarious laugh that is as indescribable as the bacon at The Original Pancake House. You have to hear it to believe it. BUT, I had enough impersonations from the guys that when Greg actually did start into hysterics, I almost peed because I was cracking up so bad. Here's Greg at Logan's with a big, stoopid Corona...

From Logan's we went to a house party somewhere. It was some dude's birthday party with an Asian theme, but really, I didn't see the theme besides a Chinese latern in the dining room that matched Phil's shirt. What really matters about this party is that we were pretty much asked to leave because Phil was impersonating Jeff and I guess some people found this "annoying" and "offensive". Namely the "roo toe" girl. I really don't want to explain the roo toe, but it has to do with camel toe so obnoxious that it looked like she had "a joey in there".

So from the party we arrived at a bar called The Londoner, I believe. I was totally pumped to have two shots bought for me by Jeff's friend Dana, whose boobs I felt Friday night for my breast augmentation research (it's serious stuff, y'all!).

Good times in the Big D! I'm going back soon! Warn the big, STOOPID Miller Lites...

This is incomplete because the Internet hates me.

2006-05-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I woke up with a mild hangover which was shortly remedied with a fantastic breakfast at The Original Pancake House. Thank God I ordered the eggs and bacon. I'll leave the description of said bacon up to Jeff in the comments section. I don't think I could do it justice. Now if we were talking about shoes or makeup... Anyways, the green chile and salsa there was probably the last thing I would ever eat besides lima beans and bugs, but whatever. The "Appetizing Meats" on the menu made up for their shortcomings where spicy condiments are concerned.

It was apparent early on in the day that we were not going to meet our 2 p.m. deadline to begin drinking at an inappropriate location (which was decided to be Olive Garden on Friday night), so we aimed for about 6-ish at Logan's (East). After breakfast I enjoyed some quality television at Jeff's, which included Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. And warriers they were. I actually enjoyed the horror-turned-slapstick basis of the film. Probably the best part was the main character's hair (which I want mine to look like someday), and the fact that one of the female characters who burned herself
with cigarettes looked like the older brother from the Wonder Years:

Pretty crazy, huh? I think they are twins seperated at birth, but that would require an IMDB search I am not willing to do right now...

Well, we made it to Logan's sometime in the early evening and proceeded to drink big, stupid Miller Lites with Ratheen and Phil, got some sammiches, and stared with disgust at their excuse for salsa. It was a color I believe described by Jeff as "Rorange" (maybe there should be an apostrophe after the first "r"?).

I'll write more about Saturday later. Last night I pretty much had it finished and the Internet crapped out on me, so I'm a little frustrated...

Big Red, Baby Corn, and BOOYAKASHA: Friday in Dallas

2006-05-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

So since Jaime cannot live without my blogs about my voyage to Dallas, here is Friday:

-Sleeping while Col. McAdoo went to a job interview... yesssss. I was still on a night schedule, but thank goodness I quit that job... read more on my MySpace blog!
-Lunch at Bennigans, which included a discussion about the different "positions" for The Game in Waiting... The Goat, The Batwing... we couldn't remember any others. Our waitress also had amnesia apparently (and kick ass cornrows).
-A trip to the Galleria and failure to find a proper outfit for the Colonial, and for some reason Jeff thought there might be a J. Crew at the ghetto mall (like the ones in TAFKAS) where a hip hop radio station's headquarters are.
-Continual quotes from Ali G... "WHY HE BE WEARIN' THA?"

-Taking a cab to Happy Hour. Jeff was planning ahead.
-Happy Hour and binge drinking at Chaucers, which included saki bombs and more Miller Lite. I also got to meet a bunch of the Colonel's friends, who were all fantastic individuals in my opinion. I really enjoyed everyone making fun of Ratheen for ordering chicken fried rice while drinking... and somehow there were raisins on the plate, which subsequently ended up on the sofa Jeff and I were seated at. I forgot my camera that night, but here's a pic of some shrimp and bacon fried rice for your viewing pleasure (don't worry, we'll chat more about bacon later)... -There was also Liana's cousin who has some crazy boyfriend who called her like 14 times in about three minutes. He was threatening to get his "black friends" to kick people's asses (I guess if they tried to hit on his shorty, which Phil proceeded to accomplish quite well). We'll discuss their impending double date of dinner and dancing with Ratheen and Liana in the next installment.

-I was continually heckled for not drinking enough, but I think I was just trying to hold back some of my surliness so as not to embarrass Jeff too much... hahaha, like that's even possible! I chugged more Miller Lite than any person should unless they want to end up with an impending case of psoriasis of the liver. I'm on my way...
-I'm about 47% certain that after the Mavericks' game Friday night we went to a bar called Duke's, which apparently Ratheen pronounces as "Deeyukes". So we're at Dukes, getting more shitty, which is always a good idea. I talked to Liana for a while, talked to Ratheen for a while, and met some guy named "Bear" who I was not supposed to make eye contact with because he is allegedly crazy. He seemed ok to me until he started trying to recruit me into his gang of biker ninjas who have spider monkey companions. That's not true... or is it? I wouldn't look directly into this monkey's eyes, either...

-There was some guy in a tux who was telling chicks he had been left at the alter so he could have a better chance at the punanny...

Anyways, I think that just about covers Friday night. It was just as fun as watching Ali G at the Colonel's Thursday night. I totally dig hanging out with that kid in Dallas, even though he doesn't want me to. :o)

Big Red, Baby Corn, and BOOYAKASHA: Thursday in Dallas

2006-05-22T10:13:00.000-07:00

So if you didn't get the memo, I traveled to the great city of Dallas this last weekend to visit Colonel Jeff McAdoo. I think the best way to tell you about it is just in some sort of chronological order, so here goes...

Actually, I think I should start with Thursday morning when I had to appear in court to bear witness to my Jeep being broken into. It was really scary for some reason. Probably because the dudes who did it were "dogging" me and my entourage. However, the highlight of being at court for three hours in the morning after being at work until almost 3 a.m. was being questioned by the (in)famous Gary Mitchell. If you don't know who Gary Mitchell is, you obviously don't watch enough CourtTV, or you don't live anywhere near the Hondo Valley, OR you don't belong to the Sam Donaldson fan club. Here's a pic of Gary with that crazy hippie lady who maybe killed some guy's wife in TAFKAS in the 90s:

Anyways, I was pretty scared that Gary et al. were going to keep me too long in court and I wasn't going to make it to El Paso in time to catch my flight. BUT, I found out of you drive about 80-90 mph from Ruidoso to El Paso, you can make it in like two hours. Thinking about all of the interesting names towns in New Mexico made the trip go by faster... High Rolls, Truth or Consequences, Alamorosa... I could go on all day. I also was reminded what a crap hole Orogrande is. They have mine tours.

So, here are the highlights of Thursday evening:

-Being picked up at the airport in the Turbo Suede, which somehow earned Jeff secret agent parking... crazy.
-Dinner at BJ's which included being the only people seated in an enclosed section with a group of about 25 women apparently there for a bachelorette party. The giant inflatable penis and the condoms on the bride-to-be's veil gave them away.
-Guessing the origin of the guy at the beer store (I say he's Armenian, I don't think Jeff really knows).
-Watching the entire second season of Da Ali G Show while drinking Miller Lite and becoming the new #1 fan.

RESPEK!

For some reason there was like a discount condom store in the same shopping center as the beer store. I wish I could remember what it was called, but it was pretty inappropriate... "Connies for less, mate?"

Anyways, that was Thursday and it was outstandsing! I could have forgotten something, though...

Magister Artium!

2006-05-13T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Magister Artium, Magister in Artibus or Master of Arts degree is an academic degree of medieval origin, which has later acquired different characteristics in different educational systems. -Wikipedia

Not quite sure where the whole "medievel origin" thing came from, but now I have joined the ranks of those with a Master of Arts degree. Mine just happens to be from the wonderful world known as Texas Tech University, and more specifically, the College of Mass Communications.

I seriously got that Double T logo from a Web site called meatscience.org. Not kidding.

Grad school was quite the experience, I suppose. I think mostly I will remember how you can get away with turning in basically the same paper in every class if you play your cards right. Mostly. Then there was the "College Debauchery" Part Two. I didn't party like I did in undergrad, but Amanda and I had our share of drunken shenanigans (several at school-sponsored functions with free alcohol). We also had our share of sober ones... but I don't remember them. ;o)

I have to say that I'm glad to be finished. Now I just need a job in TAFKAS... and I don't want another job as a basement troll, either.

This kinda made me laugh...

2006-05-08T02:10:00.000-07:00

So Amanda's quiz obsession that I apparently sparked made me take this one I saw on Alli's MySpace...

Sarah --
[noun]:

A steamy, steamy shower.

'How will you be defined in the sexual dictionary?' at QuizUniverse.com

Neeeiiiillll! NOOOOO!!

2006-05-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

The discovery of Reason 261 to Get the Eff Out of Ruidoso ASAP occured tonight.

It was a fairly normal night. My mom hung out for a little while and ate some chips and salsa with me, I served a ton o' beer and gin and tonics (and Guinness to Jeffrey). I didn't get too pissed off at anyone, although I was slightly irritated at this Native dude who tried to give me this homemade-looking Oklahoma Tribal identification card in exchange for pool balls. I said, "Um, do you have like a driver's license?" As if I hadn't already asked for it... Anyways, he hands me this identification card that has "NOT A DRIVER'S LICENSE" printed all over it. I inquired to Jeffrey what this may be about and he explained that the dude had probably gotten a DUI.

So it was around the time that the Native was returning the pool balls (like 1:45 a.m.) that Wes the Bouncer (or "cooler" as they call them at Coyote) comes downstairs and asks if anyone in my bar owns a black Jeep. Now when I think of Jeep, I'm thinking Wrangler. My Jeep is a Grand Cherokee... Laredo. Don't ask me what the Laredo means because I have no clue.

I spoke up and said I have a black Jeep, which was parked across the street from the bar's main entrance. Keep in mind I started parking there instead of the lower parking lot because my mom and brother were afraid my brother's ex-girlfriend would try and eff it up because she's crazy. This parking lot is in plain view from the top floor of the bar, so we thought it would be safer. Um, how 'bout NO.

Wes informed me that the Jeep had been broken into and they had the guys who did it in custody. I kinda laughed because I had the U-joints replaced like last week and had taken everything out of there, not to mention I have spent the last two days vacuuming and Armorall-ing the interior. My guess is these guys saw how amazingly shiny and clean the inside of the Jeep was and wanted a closer look, because there was NOTHING to steal. Or so I thought.

I checked out my stereo and the "frame" thing that was around the faceplate was g-o-n-e. That's all I noticed was missing. They didn't even take the dollar I had in the console, or the change I had in a little thing by the gear shift. I talked to the cops, blah, blah, blah, and went back to work so I could close up and finish this larseny deal. So as I'm cleaning, I realize that my sweet CD holder (which Amanda gave to me after a gentleman caller left it at her place) was missing, along with two of my three Neil Diamond "box set" CDs, and more importantly, CDs burned for me by my brother. Picture this, though, every single one of those CDs was burned. Why would they even want them??

So I'm telling the cops about this and the dudes who did it are still in the backs of the cop Jeeps. Well, one of them starts messing with me, making faces and talking to me, even though I couldn't hear him. I tried to ignore it from the corner of my eye, but I looked over and he was pointing from his eye to me and back again. I haven't been scared for a long time, but I think I am now. These dudes are going to get some effing gangbangers to come mess with me.

I have to wonder why they even wanted my stereo. It's a Pioneer from like three years ago... not so cool. And seriously, who steals car radios anymore? Not to mention like ten burned CDs, including one titled "Skinny White Boys Sing to You" and Neil Diamond? I didn't think Mexican gangsters liked Neil, but what do I know? They might do drive-bys to "Love on the Rocks", "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show", or maybe even "Crunchy Granola Suite". I know Neil inspires me to do things. But it's more like sing along and be happy... if anyone wants to buy me this CD because they feel pity for the fool who is going to be chased down by *thug life* and whatnot, I won't mind.

I tell you what, though, I do not think Neil would be very happy if he heard about this. I might have to message him on MySpace (heck yes, he's my friend) and tell him what happened.

And there's more. Not only were these guys thugs, they were apparently driving a mini van. Woulda been more thuggish if it was a contravan, but hey, this is The Dizz, not TAFKAS. I looked at my CDs in the van and what else did I see in it? A baby seat and baby wipes. This breaks my heart a little bit. Poor kid is probably doomed to live the gansta life.

Oh, and I also don't know where the CD case is. I don't know if the cops have it or if they just didn't take it out of said mini van. If I don't get it back, I'm gonna be PISSED.

So Reason 261 is: Gangsters want to kill you and you should probably leave.

Sorry if this rant is confusing and lacking in GSP skills. It's nearly 5 a.m. and I'm a little stressed out. :o(

P.S. - Thanks to Dustin and Wes who are not only highly protective of me, but ready to kick these guys' asses if they ever come near me or the Cantina ever again. I guess I need to put both of them on speed dial...

COYNOVA

2006-05-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

I don't even know what to say about this picture. COYNOVA. Bad Attitude. This was the night of Ashley's "Martini Madness 2005". And the night Bad Attitude said to me, "Do you think your friends would get pissed if we were to go somewhere alone later?" ...or something very similar (gag).

This was a night when the guests at our table changed like three times, but we remained intact (and by "we" I mean me, Amanda, and Ashley). I recall hanging out with professors, fellow students, spouses of professors, local television personalities... I'll refer to them as "The FC" and "Steve" (or Brick and Champ). Also "Face for Radio" and his undying love for Ash...

You should read my blog because I am... a genius.

2006-05-02T03:23:00.000-07:00

Your IQ Is 115

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average
Your Verbal Intelligence is Exceptional
Your Mathematical Intelligence is Exceptional
Your General Knowledge is Genius

Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Ok, so apparently I have no logical skillz, but whatev. I gets by. Somebody who is logical should probably take this quiz and tell me which questions are the logic ones... because they all seemed math-, language-, or history-related.

Musical Commentary of Sorts

2006-04-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

Something has really been bothering me lately as I do my Internet surfing with the TV on in the background. I really don't watch it, but my mom usually has it on Fuse, a competitor of MTV that I think started in Canada. This initially made me hate Fuse (the Canadian factor), but my hate for MTV is far more serious than my feelings towards canucks.

Anyways, what has been bothering me is this band who unwisely chose to call themselves Death Cab for Cutie. Every time I see this video, I want to hurl. It's pretty much a Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" meets Smashing Pumpkin's "Tonight, Tonight" video (although the song isn't as good as either of those) with a lead singer showcasing his made-for-radio mug in every frame. Besides the fact that the video makes me feel like I might seize, I am angry that this guy thinks he's cool and good-looking enough to brand the video with his stupid face...

I feel like he's advertising his fugliness and this offends me. Don't get me wrong, there are so many fugly rocks stars who aren't douche bags and are actually effing awesome... Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Kid Rock (fugly, not awesome), Joey Ramone, The Strokes (sans Fabrizio Moretti), KISS... you get the idea. These guys are fugly, but they have that rock star appeal that makes them "attractive" and cool. Joey Ramone didn't force his face on you; he grew his hair long in a timeless rockin' mess of locks that pretty much always covered his face.

But this guy from DCFC just kills me. He needs to take a hint from Jack White of the famed White Stripes and The Raconteurs and get some greasy hair in his face, opt for the wide shot, and stand in the shadows of the background of band stills. How 'bout Serj Tankian of System of a Down? He plays on his fugliness like a Frank Zappa clone on acid... scare the kids! Do something, just don't pretend that you're pretty when you're not.

My next comment has to do with a hip-hop "band" called Dem Franchize Boyz. The first thing that upsets me is the ebonically-inspired name of the so-called band. All I can say is, "Why?" and "Did you ever learn to read?" I don't need to discuss rap stars' fugliness, because it is a non-issue. I mean 50 Cent can't close his mouth, The Game needs a new eye, and Jermaine Dupri might as well be Gary Coleman's twin. It doesn't matter. There are three good looking rap stars: LL Cool J, Tupac, and Pharrell. One of them is allegedly deceased and the other two are not nearly as popular as Notorious B.I.G. and his lazy eye were.

So "Dem" "Franchize" "Boyz" have a hit song titled "Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It". I saw the video for the first time today and was surprised to see "Dem Boyz" promoting a new "dance" that is strikingly similar to Elaine's dance on Seinfeld. So next time you're "up in da club" you can thrust your body from one side to another without fear of rejection or ridicule from your peers; Dem Franchize Boyz said it's ok.

So here are the lessons I want you to take away from this blog:

Death Cab for Cutie sucks, it's ok to be fugly (but not if you're going to get all fugly in my face), and it is always acceptable and appropriate to dance like a fool to rap music. Did I forget anything?

Check it out.

2006-04-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

A Weekend in TAFKAS...

Text messaging is the DEVIL.

2006-04-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

So I wanted to see how much my next Sprint bill was going to be now that I am gay for text messaging like I was a little over a year ago. I never used to go over 50 messages, including the ones sent to me, so it was never worth me spending the $5 or whatever it is for unlimited text messaging. Well, now it is.

My next Sprint bill is going to be almost twice as much as it usually is. *sigh* Text messaging, why do I love thee so? I'll tell you why: Text messaging is far less intrusive than a phone call and you never have awkward silences, or a feeling that you have to "catch up" with someone when you just wanted to ask a simple question. If you don't have something to say, you have that option. If you're not quite sure what you want to say, you have time to conger up a proper reply.

On my phone, the text message alert is far less obnoxious than the ringer for the phone, which is a great feature when you have friends in other time zones who like to text you at 5 a.m. MST.

Anyways, I refuse to stop texting. I think when I'm in TAFKAS on Friday I'm going to drop in a Sprint store so I can get treated like shit and have unlimited texting added to my plan. All I need now is one of those sweet phones with a keyboard...

Disturbing comments, Easter eggs

2006-04-15T02:08:00.000-07:00

So as usual, I can't sleep and had been thinking yesterday about blogging about some weird things that have been said to me.

This past week, I had a middle-aged couple (like my parent's age) come into Coyote Cantina, order two Stoli martinis, up, with a twist (douches). The the woman says, "Do you know my son, Corey?" I said no, I didn't think so, and she says, "Well, he talks about you all the time. But mostly in his sleep."

Como what? Did I miss a joke somewhere in there? And further, what mother listens to what her son is saying in his sleep? I shook it off, but then while analyzing her comments later, I realized how completely bizarre they were. Then I started thinking, "Who the eff is named Corey besides Haim and Feldman of the famed 80s?" So I have to deduce that either Corey Haim or Corey Feldman are dreaming about me.

A while back, I was asked by the local waitress/bartender stalker, who's name starts with an "N", but I can't remember it for the life of me... Anyways, asked me to bear his children. He also asked me to go "hiking" with him, and by "hiking", I assumed he really meant take me into the forest and dismember me. He also asked another bartender if she would dress up in a cop outfit for him...

Tonight I was told that I should get an agent in Albuquerque and enter into the world of motion pictures. Apparently Albuquerque (a.k.a. The Artist Formerly Known As Steve) is the movie star mecca of the world. So if you're interested in anything to do with the entertainment industry, you need to pack your bags immediately (if not sooner) and move to TAFKAS.

I also have to say I had a BLAST decorating Easter eggs for Sunday with Jeffrey and Donica tonight... How would you like to find an egg with a "sketch" of Judas on it that says, "What would Judas do?" on it, or one with a clever face resembling Mr. Macky from South Park with the phrase, "Drugs are bad, m-kay?" on the reverse side. I don't know which one was my favorite: "Jesus got crunk at Le Bistro," or Donica's gem with a depiction of Jesus on one side that said "Before" and a picture of a ghost on the other side that said "After". The Resurrection rules. Seriously.

It's 3 a.m. Do you know where your bartender is?

2006-04-12T01:58:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a Budweiser-soaked Indian lunge at you, slurring some sort of angry, unintelligible language? If not, you have never liv- I mean bartended in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Tonight was my night to experince this phenomenon.

Tonight was also the night for my boss to be my bouncer, since my normal bouncer was at his wedding reception... on a Tuesday. Fast forward seven hours into the night, I'm out of Sapphire gin, ice, a plethora of other crap, and the bossman is nowhere to be found. "Why," you may ask, "was he not downstairs making sure all was well in the drunken idiot world?" I'll tell you why... he was drunk. I love this bar. It was SO much fun to be on the drunken side of the bar, and even though it's not always fun to be on the bartending side, it almost always gets interesting.

Anyways, I won't bad-mouth the bossman because he really didn't do anything wrong (besides leave me downstairs with a bunch of douchebags*). He also encouraged ME to drink on the job... SUCH a good idea when you tend bar. It really helps with the whole dealing-with-drunk-assholes-who-you-would-never-talk-to-otherwise aspect of the job. So I had a little bit of a dirty martini I made (and made very well, thank you) and was good to go until the drunk Mescalero lunged at me and his 5'4'', 250-pound ladyfriend (and that's a kind physical estimation) had to stop him from assaulting me. Good times.

*I partially blame myself for people thinking I can handle myself against armies of drunk (and often coked-up) patrons... I am sort of a B.

Which one is evil?

2006-04-06T23:40:00.000-07:00

So you all know my Help Mate, Jeffrey Wayne Curtis. He's pictured here in a classic Buddy Jesus pose...

We've been buddies/co-workers for some time now and when I left the Dizzle for the LBC back in 2004, Amanda introduced me to a little bar called the Pourhouse right by my old apartment complex and the TTU campus. They have the coldest Miller Lite I think I have ever had the pleasure of drinking and the bitchinest chips and queso of all time. They also have a Jeffrey Wayne Curtis lookalike, pictured below with me (drunk), in a mock Buddy Jesus pose...

This is obviously Jeff's twin, seperated at birth. What I need to know is who's the evil twin? Both have the glasses, which can throw off your evil meter, and both seem to have the ability to grow aggressive facial hair. I don't know the Pourhouse twin's name, but Jeff has three first names, AND his middle name is Wayne, which means he can choose a career as an assassin or serial killer. Hey, at least he's got a choice.

And so do you. Which twin is evil? Let me know on the comments.

For the readers...

2006-03-31T12:51:00.000-07:00

For Amanda because she loves ninjas...

For Jeffrey, because he changed his MySpace pic to this one...

For Sack because hopefully he'll get it...

AND Saturday night's Bar Winner: Guy standing at Kevin's bar at Coyote, wearing a leather Members Only jacket, and one of those silver chains with the NY part of the Yankee's logo as the blingin' charm... You know, the kind you can buy from the Indian guy at a stand in the South Plains Mall? So hot right now.

Tap vs. Flick

2006-03-31T11:54:00.000-07:00

Last night as I was cleaning up at work, I noticed a strange phenomenon: Despite the non-lack of ashtrays in the bar, there are ashes everywhere. Smokers, how does this happen? My only guess is that you flick the end of your cigarette into the ashtray instead of tapping the ashes off the end. Maybe you all can enlighten me.

So I think from now on I am going to have the "Bar Winner." This will be the most memorable person from a night I work at the bar. I might have a couple because there are so many drunken idiots in this town. So now for our first Bar Winner...

Bar Winner: If you ever encounter a guy who is concerned about how many calories he's consumed and talks freely about scheduling an appointment to get Botox, he is gay. I don't care how much he talks about his "girlfriend." He is gay.

My first night.

2006-03-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight was my first night bartending at the Coyote Cantina and I have alreday seen too much. I was only there for about six hours, made decent tips, and was sent home early since it was so slow. Yesssss.

Let's start with my first customers... two guys, one my age and the other a couple years younger. I find out through casual conversation that the younger works at a golf course here in Ruidoso, and the other one is from Hobbs. They have a couple of shots, a couple of beers, and are convinced I am going to go out with them on a Monday night. The older one called his own dad and had me talk to "Pops", told me he was in love with me, and decided it would be a good idea for me to help him market XXXL Speedos in Greece.

Well, after they pay their tab, the younger one is talking to my manager about something. I'm thinking they're going to mess with me some more, since they'd been giving me a hard time, anyways. But they leave without another ornery word. Afterwards, I find out that the younger one is the grandson of a very, very, very wealthy and well-known New Mexico businessman. He also offered my manager $40 to let me off of work early... so now I'm being pimped.

The other interesting customers were a woman (about 55-ish, a little cracked-out looking), her manfriend (about 40-ish with a quasi-mullet), and a chick I assume was the woman's daughter because they kinda looked alike (*shudder*). The older woman is WASTED and pretty much dancing in her barstool to Shakira and singing along with some Gwen Stefani song I'd never heard before. I served them a beer and then walked away because I knew I wouldn't serve them again. I busied myself cleaning, etc. and looked over at them later, only to see the woman making licky tonguey motions at the manfriend... I am forever scarred for life. I also heard the older woman saying something about going home and turning on the "black lights."

Thankfully I did not have to wear the Chippenhell's uniform, but rather my own uniform: jeans and a black top (Amanda knows about the uniform). The black top being a Coyote Cantina tank. This whole deal could prove extrememly entertaining (for me, anyways). I wonder what will happen tomorrow...

Chippenhell's

2006-03-25T00:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so you might think I'm joking, but the lady at left is wearing the "uniform" I will be wearing when I work at Coyote Cantina in the martini bar. I'm probably going to fashion my hair into some sort of a white girl afro, too, to complete the ensemble.

I wish I had Photoshop so I could paste a pic of my head on this picture to see what I'd look like if I was wearing the uniform. And if I had a bitchin' tan...

I can't wait to blog about all the crazy things I'll encounter working at a "real" bar...

Alpha Male

2006-03-23T11:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took my three-month-old, black toy poodle to the vet for his second set of shots and a routine examination here in Ruidoso. Well, throughout the appointment he was quite squirrley, trying to escape the thermometer in his rear end, the examination of his testicles (both of which dropped, whatever that means), and exploratory video of the inside of his ears, which was displayed on a television screen for my veiwing pleasure/disgust.

The doctor asked questions about where I got him, how many puppies were in the litter, etc. I explained he was one of three male puppies, and from what the lady at the pet shop told me, he was the biggest. I guess for the three or so days between when I first saw him and when I bought him, two chihuahua puppies crawled all over him while he just chilled and was like, "Whatever, it's the 90s."

The diagnosis is this: I have a perfectly healthy, papered, alpha male toy poodle. Yes, kids, my almost-four-pound, five-to-six-inch tall puppy is an alpha male. The vet said his behavior (the squirminess, the lack of eye contact, and general "I'm the shizz" disposition) is because he was the ruler of the litter, and probably those two little bastard chihuahuas.

So listen to Sarah, the dog whisperer, because soon I will have my own syndicated column about dogs (not really)... If your doggy is an alpha, you can do three things to help establish dominance without violence:

1. Hold your puppy in your hands so its head is at eye-level with you. Make him look you in the eye. If he's an alpha, you'll have to practice for about 30 seconds three or four times a day until he'll look you in the eye.

2. Hold the puppy like a baby you're rocking in your arms, loosely grasping his two front legs, until he'll lay still.

3. Grab the puppy by the scruff on his neck (this doesn't hurt them, this is the way their mothers would carry and punish them) and gently lay him on his side, again loosely grasping the two front legs. Make him lay still for about 30 seconds.

So now I must establish my dominance with my baby dog, who is such a drama queen... he howled like he was going to die yesterday when he got his shots, but was trying to eat the treats the vet gave him at the same time. It was hilarious.

*The picture is a product of a Google image search for "alpha male." I think it's an album cover...

The Maiden Bloggage.

2006-03-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

I always feel guilty when I blog on Eve and Wheels about things in my own life - things non-related to college and binge drinking, and things that make sense to only a few people who may be reading Eve and Wheels waiting for something to relate to... anything.

The Sarah Show will combat the pertinent, serious questions we are confronted with on a daily basis, like are Andy Dick and Kathy Griffin really the same person? Is Al Roker a product of claymation? Why are assassins and serial killers always refered to by all three of their names? How do people who don't know the difference between "you're" and "your" get into college? What are McDonald's chicken nuggets really made of? How are we going to put a stop to Soylent Asshole? Will the NMSU Aggies ever be good at a sport... even like horseshoes or something? You get the idea.

So welcome to The Sarah Show. I'm bored half the time, I love to write, and sometimes I have a precious nugget of opinion that you will soon learn you absolutely CANNOT live without.