Day Thirty Two: Tennis Ball Vaginas are not Pink

It's been a while....I hate when life gets in the way of my negativity!!

DAY THIRTY TWO:  I’ve been doing good at eating healthy, which at work usually consists of a frozen, tasteless Lean Cuisine. It was pretty easy for me to get bored with “chicken” and “sauce” with some variety of “vegetable” every day (getting bored with things is something I do fairly quickly) so I opted to try for something new. Soup! Why not, it’s like 2 degrees in Chicago. So I get those little microwaveable Healthy Choice soup things, awesome 100 -120 calories…can’t beat it. Then I eat one, and read the label (closer this time) – oh I’m sorry, didn’t realize this small container was 2 servings! I’m such a cow for eating it all….are you f’ing kidding me? 2 servings for whom? A midget with a stomach the size of a pea? I mean, I could fit the amount of noodles/vegetables in one hand. Now, I know 200 – 240 calories is still good, but it’s just such bullshit 2 servings! Who are they fooling, just put 1 serving and say 200 calories...does this technique really trick anyone into buying it thinking it's heathier than it is...oh wait, I did.  I never did understand how they determine what a serving is….have you ever looked at a box of Mac and Cheese? I’m sorry, but I can eat that by myself! That is not enough to feed 2.5 grown people…and why the .5, if you are truly supposed to eat one serving, what are you to do with the .5 left over, make two boxes and combine the .5? Optimistic spin: I ran for 10 minutes and burned off that other serving size of soup. Anyway, I’ll get off my serving size soapbox because I have to discuss one of the most ridiculous things I have EVER heard. EVER…I was listening to the radio the other day and this woman was talking about dying her hair….her pubic hair. Okay, benefit of the doubt, she wants the curtains to match the drapes….um, not so much. She had tried to dye her hair like a neon yellow/green tennis ball color – she admitted to wanting her pubic region to look like a tennis ball….wtf? Why? A TENNIS BALL??? Was she dating Andy Roddick? Isn’t the point to get balls to come near your area not your area to resemble a ball??? I couldn’t take it, so I turned it off, but not before hearing mention of something called Pink Button….if you haven’t heard about it, hear about it. Very disturbing…I see the ads in the future. Are you tired of your vagina color? Do you want your lips to look pinker? Have men complained that they just aren’t attracted to you because your womanhood just doesn’t look fresh enough? Then use Pink Button….dye your button pink! Sick, I see two possible customer markets….one, porn stars (easy) and two, older women who think that making their sagging vagina pink will fool a man into forgetting that she’s slept with over 50 men because it “looks” young down there….men, would you be fooled? If I were a man, I’d be disturbed if I pulled down her underwear and saw bright pink lips staring back at me. Okay, I’m supposed to go to dinner now….kind of lost my appetite. Optimistic spin: They also serve margaritas at this restaurant!!  Maybe it'll help me forget about the 30 women that bought Pink Button and are currently dying their vaginas pinker.  God I hope so. 

Note:  JD Salinger passed away today.  Yes, I know he was a 91 year old recluse that died of natural causes, but it just made me really sad.  I think part of me always wished he would write one last masterpiece that I could read 50 times before I die, give me another character to love, more sarcasm to revel in....he will be missed.  "What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.  That doesn't happen much, though" ~ JD Salinger

Day Seventeen: I Am Not Frugal

DAY SEVENTEEN: I’m just now realizing the damage Christmas has done….I thought I shopped well, frugally even….my checkbook is telling me something different. As I look I wonder, well, I gave gifts and got gifts in return, right, so it’s worth it (I know I know, giving the gift alone is worth it, sure I love to give, I love to make people smile, but wtf…not sure if it’s worth what my checkbook is telling me I’ve spent…yeah yeah, bah humbug!) and then I realize, well what exactly DID I get in return??? Some clothes, a book, a few DVDs, some concert tickets (that I can’t wait to enjoy)….and I come to the realization that I could’ve bought myself all of this shit and had enough left over (from what I spent) to go on a pretty nice vacation! And let me tell you, I spend probably ¼ of what I normally spend this year…which makes the years past quite disgusting. No wonder American Express wants my first born child. Optimistic spin: American Express will be waiting for quite some time so maybe I’ll win the lottery in that time and be able to keep said first born child. Wait, you have to play to win, don’t you? Better start. 

And who knows if I get lucky there, maybe I'll try to bring USC a little luck now that Pete Carroll has decided to bail on a program he's built up for the past decade after one semi-bad season at a time when all hell is going down...and we've replaced him with Lane Kiffin (who was there for a lot of Carroll's tenure) who after he had one barely winning 7-6 season at Tennessee comes back to USC and promises a "squeaky clean" program....what's fun about squeaky clean?!  I have a sinking feeling this decade will not be fun for USC fans.  For better or for worse though, right?  I vaguely remember some kind of oath you have to take when you join the Trojan family...or was that something from one of my many trips to Vegas??  Hmmmm......Optimistic spin:  I highly doubt it will ever again be as bad as it was when I was at USC and we made signs begging the visiting team to take our coach (Paul Hackett) with them when they left town!  I mean, we lost to Notre Dame...it was bad :)

(To all of those I bought presents for....I don't regret it, I'm happy I bought them, I live to make you happy...don't forget that when my birthday rolls around)

Day Eleven: The Day the Music Survived

Who would have believed that today would be such a good day? We get a snow storm here and I’m in a great mood. Odd. So this might not be my typical entry…it’s sort of positive and happy. Odd. I owe it all to music. Honestly, my day probably could have gone either way. Music, as many times before in my life, set the tone for the day.

DAY ELEVEN: Train crowded. With loud teenagers. Bonus: I have my iPod. So I pop it in and look out the window at tons and tons of snow coming down. Come to the realization I’m probably not going out to dinner tonight and will not have fun walking around the city, start to get annoyed, but then, what do my listening ears start to hear? Bob Marley and his Three Little Birds. As soon as I hear “Don't worry about a thing, cuz every little thing gonna be alright” I can’t help but smile. Instantly made me think...today's gonna be a good day. Granted, its past 10 and I'm not at work yet, which always makes me happier (more sleep and all, not rushing to get ready, you know). Plus...I'm determined to go do some snow activity today...make a snow family, give them a story, pretend they come to life and walk down the street with me. To top it off, Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry Be Happy comes on just as I walk out into the cold after the train. I think the universe is trying to tell me something today. Maybe? Day flies by and later in the day I am again forced to smile (by songs). If you’ve never seen Grease 2, check is out…I wouldn’t call it the best movie, but it’s the best worst movie ever. These songs, Let's Do It For Our Country and Reproduction, are ridiculous and fabulous (click the link to see the video). Anyway, the only thing today (so far) that has annoyed me – the bucket drummer on the bridge – who deserves kudos for being out in this weather – is drumming away and then yells “Go Texas Longhorns!” WTF?! We’re in Chicago, right? Maybe he’s from Texas or maybe he just hates Alabama. Either way, isn't there a Bulls game or Blackhawks game or some midwest team we can cheer for?  Optimistic spin: I am NOT from Texas OR Alabama. I’m just going to close this short, positive entry with a few things I am thankful for today: People who watch Sing with me, Grease 2, Baby Bear, music, long non-work emails, snow fun, and Honesty. I’m off to go sledding!!! (Maybe) Oh and don’t get used to this positivity.

Day Ten: Ben Affleck is HOT!

I was going to write an entry last night. It was 11 pm. I was all curled up warm in my bed, laptop on my lap ready to go. First, of course I had to check an email and well, facebook. I get caught up in a facebook chat with a friend about relationships and before I know it an hour passes and my laptop is furiously flashing at me that it has 3% battery remaining. !!! It was fully charged an hour ago. My newish laptop really has a battery life of 1 hour? What’s one hour? I can’t even decently stalk on facebook in one hour ;-) So apparently I must spend my laptop life tied to a cord…kind of puts a damper on the portability idea behind a laptop and leads me posting today rather than yesterday. It’ll be a bit long because I haven’t written in a while…

DAY TEN: So there is this woman that is on the same train as mine on the way home from work and for some reason, I just cannot stand her. I’ve never met her, I’ve never even spoken to her, but I’ve heard her talk more in the last year than I have my own father. Over the past 5 years I’ve learned to tune her out, but there are days when I have to put in my iPod to stop me from screaming “SHUT UP!” at her face. Everything about her bothers me from her hair to the way she walks to the fact that she feels the need to get her cigarette out the moment she steps off the train so she can light up the minute she crosses the tracks on her way home…which I realized today has turned into the same way I take. And I don’t take the normal/“popular” way…I avoid crowds, so I swear she’s following me to annoy me (I know she’s not, I’m not paranoid, but it really feels that way). Today on the walk we got caught up at the same place, waiting for a break in the cars to jaywalk across the street (which I might add, when it’s below freezing I fully support the idea that pedestrians have the right of way, even when jaywalking...jk) and I was reminded of why I started to dislike her as she frantically puffed on her cig. This isn’t some irrational dislike, no, it stems from one incident, one conversation overheard. It was the summer and there were pro-life supporters holding signs on the corner by the train station, these signs depicted aborted babies…not a pretty sight, but hey, freedom of speech, right? After all…what country do you think this is?

Well this woman would not SHUT UP on the train about it and about how she feels offended and that they shouldn’t make her look at pictures like that...literally talked about it for the full 29 minute train ride. Um, so DON’T LOOK….last I checked your head can turn at least 90 degrees to the left and 90 degrees to the right, so turn it and shut up already (yes I realize I’ve said shut up at least 3 times, I would truly love to say it to her at least once.) Optimistic spin: She’s not on my morning train…I wouldn’t be able to take her before my morning cup of coffee. Oh and Ben Affleck is HOT!

Speaking of morning coffee…this morning I go to the CVS to purchase some creamer for my morning coffee hoping they have restocked the French Vanilla, nope. This is literally the 4th time I’ve been to this CVS and only had the choice of Original Coffeemate…not even Half and Half…no thanks. However, this time they had 2 (yes only 2) Hazelnut flavored Coffeemates. What the hell…it’s better than plain. As I’m walking out I glimpse two things that make me smile….1) a bottle of Coca Cola Classic in with the frozen pizzas….hold on, Coke + Freezer = not good. Yeah, the thing was fully frozen. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought of it possibly exploding and the idea of who in the world put it in there in the first place. And 2) Totes Geometric Loafers…on sale no less…but what per se ARE geometric loafers? What makes them geometric and special? Free DVD of Friends and Lovers to the first person that can answer that. If you haven’t seen this movie, see it, it is possibly the WORST movie ever (and I’m embarrassed for RDJ that he is in it, let’s just blame that choice on the drugs).

Out into the bitter cold I walk and see a girl with a small brown claw clip holding the top portion of her hair up…note to self, claw clips are not cute. For use at home, sure, for use on a business day, in business attire, holding just the hair on the top of your head up…gag. Optimistic spin: I actually like Hazelnut creamer. The rest of my day was typical work, which I will not resort to complaining about until I am fully out of outside world situations that rub me the wrong way….not likely to happen. So, on this glorious Wednesday evening I leave you with something I realized…the nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised. I’ve been disappointed a little lately…I blame it on this journey to optimism. Maybe for a little while I’ll go back to being right or being pleasantly surprised.

Day Five: I Hate Ohio State

Spoiler Alert...not doing well on this optimistic thing yet in 2010, but let me just first say Happy New Year!

DAY FIVE:  I sit here on my couch on New Year’s Day already feeling a little let down by the great 2010. I don’t know what exactly I was expecting 2010 to be, but it feels a lot like 2009. 2009 had a lot of disappointment, a lot of change, a lot of emotional ups and downs and while it also brought me some people I couldn’t imagine not having in my life or some things I couldn’t imagine not experiencing, I wouldn’t necessarily want to relive 2009 (well, maybe there are a few days in there that I wouldn’t mind doing again because just thinking about them brings a smile to my face which immediately goes away after I realize I will never again be able to experience what I was experiencing at that moment.) And that’s just it, because of the things that happened last year, I was expecting the passing over into 2010 to be more monumental (I mean I'm hoping some major things will happen in this decade...you know adult things, starting the grown up portion of my life things) and 2010 simply just snuck up on me and doesn’t feel like it changes a thing. Last night, before I knew it we were counting down 5-4-3-2-1 and boom, HAPPY NEW YEAR! Then done - no big deal, no feeling that "times they are a-changing." Maybe it had to do with the excessive consumption of alcohol and the several people around also excessively consuming alcohol that caused me to almost miss the changing over to a new decade. I also blame said consumption for the worst headache I’ve had this year ;) Optimistic spin: No one threw up on me last night, Excedrin works wonders and I got to kiss someone at the end of that sneaky countdown. Could be worse. But then I come home today, take a great shower and my cat proceeds to take a large dump in his litter box (which is in my bathroom) right as I get out of the shower (looking at me as he does). Note of warning for all of those people with litter boxes in their bathrooms….steam, heat and cat tirds do not make for a pleasant smell especially when hung over and trying to brush your teeth. Optimistic spin: At least he defecated in the litter box and not on the floor or my bed or the couch. I’m sure we’ll discuss this issue at a later date. So at this point I was hoping the rest of my day would consist of some coudling (couch cuddling) and some football where Ohio State loses…nope, neither. Like I said, 2010 is a bit of a letdown so far. The Rose Bowl just isn’t the same without the USC Trojans, Oregon failed to beat the Ohio State Suckeyes (not a typo), and my cuddle partner came over late and is now sleeping, heavily (it was a long night and sleeping on a deflated air mattress on a hardwood floor is not very conducive to sleep). And even though I’m not mad at today’s turn of events, I can’t help but be let down. I think I have to learn to not have expectations of what I want my day to be and just let it unfold before me. This way, things that happen will be surprises. I like surprises. Optimistic spin: At least it wasn’t USC that got beat by Ohio State and I fully plan to coudle once Rip van Winkle wakes up. Plus, it’s only day one of 2010….day two has potential to be better (especially since I signed up for Netflix today and can stream movies and tv shows straight to my Playstation 3.) I’m going to watch some Office Space for now though (on cable). I would love to be Peter. Best line – Consultant (Bob): Seems you’ve been missing a lot of work. Peter: Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it Bob. I mean he isn’t lazy, he just doesn’t care. Optimistic spin: I am not Milton, so bring on 2010.