Douchebags, Aisle Two

I'm not one to not snicker at a particularly absurd douche commercial.

In fact, I'm not even one to not snicker at the product itself. How is this stuff even still around? All they ever taught us in 7th grade health class was how use of this crap was a one way ticket to Yeastville, Population: You.

But still, isn't some propriety in order?

A few days ago at the grocery store, I was walking past the pharmacy section, where all your various lotions, potions, elixirs and douche-oriented items can be found. And I see two popped collary jackass types snickering to eachother and pointing to various items on the shelves in one aisle.

Oh god, seriously?

I mean, who laughs at douche in the middle of a supermarket?

And I'm not talking about 14-year old morons either, these morons had to be at least drinking age. At least. In fact, I can't even believe I didn't just walk right up to them, calmly take a big old box of Summer's Eve off the shelf and put it in my basket. Just to see what they would've said. Heheh.

(On another note, I'm up to "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" in my Sick Day Movie Marathon; and how can anyone be on Jennifer Aniston's side after watching this? I mean, I like Jen and all, and her and Brad sure were a cutesy couple. But weren't you always, in the meeeean parts of your mind, wondering what the heck he was doing with her for so long? I mean, he always could've done better. She was practially his age for crying out loud. Actually, now that Angelina's taken her Save the World crusade to annoyingly anorexic heights, he can probably do better than her now too. Maybe see a little Scarlett action. Just sayin'...But dang, Angie is hot in this movie. The dominatrix scene? Come on!!!)

Sick Day TV

I hate staying home from work sick. No, really! Hate it.

Which is why I hauled my ass to work on Tuesday and Wednesday, attempting to ignore the fact that my glands were swelled up like cantaloupes and I spent most of the day alternating between "moaning" and "snapping back awake after nodding off despite having slept 14 hours the previous night."

I finally realized I needed a doctor when I checked out my throat in the bathroom mirror at work yesterday and it looked vaguely like the strawberries that've been in my fridge way too long: bright red, and covered in fuzzy white patches.

So it turns out I've got the strep, and was forced to stay home today. I'm working, but I'm doing so on the couch, basking in the glow of daytime television.

So far today I've done mostly movies, although I did start out with a couple episodes of "Spin City," including one shocking pre-9/11 one in which the guy who was Cameron in "Ferris Bueller" takes a meeting with the firefighter's union and makes fun of them, including the line, "I always wanted to be a fireman too...when I was nine."

Can you imagine that shit flying in post-9/11 days? Holy moly.

I also caught the 1998 remake of the "The Parent Trap," which never fails to amuse. I can't figure out if it's the eternal hotness of Dennis Quaid or the eternal craptasticness of Lindsay Lohan's "British" accent. Or maybe it's the plot, in which we're asked to believe that divorcees would be so utterly self-absorbed that they'd figure the best solution to their hatred of one another is to each take one of their twin daughters and then pretend as if the other didn't exist.

I mean, if this shit happened in real life, don't you think the twins in question, once they figured things out, might need a little therapy to deal with their abandonment issues? Instead all we get is Lindsay Lohan playing two separate versions of nose-wrinkling, "yeah you really shouldn't have done that, but it's all good, hee hee!"

It could be my antibiotics talking, but it's really pissing me off.

Actually, this whole post is making me sleepy, but it actually doesn't really take much these days. I haven't slept this much since I had mono. Man, I wish this was mono. I lost 20 pounds in three weeks with that one. I'd totally do that again, even with the whole "wishing I were dead" thing.

The Weekly Numbers, Hawkeye Style

I was doing really well there for a while. But since I once read research indicating that something like 148% of all blog posts begin with the words "sorry I haven't posted in a while," I'm going to avoid that particular bit of dreck and just get right into the What Fu Has Been Up To in the Last 20 Days.

Semi-Weekly Numbahs Style:

Dates with potential new (old) FuMan, who I don't even really like all that much but who was cute and hey, a sister is hard-up: 7 (I know! We should practically be picking out china patterns.)

Except...

Number of Sexual Encounters with Potential New (Old) FuMan): Unless you count kissing, zero. ZERO. So the first three times we went out, fireworks, then the next few...nothing?

The FuManchCrew (see how I am coming up with the clever nicknames? If by "clever" you mean "absurd and contrived.") has come up with several definitive theories as to why there has been no below the belt action since date number three:

1) He is not attracted anymore, but enjoys my company well enough and knows that I am usually willing to swill beers with his alcoholic ass on a school night when no one else will.
2) Dick Fungus

Honestly? I'm not sure which would be worse. But either way, he's out. Maybe we'll still be friends. He wants to catch "Pirates of the Carribean" this weekend (do you say CARRI-bean or cah-RIB-bean?).

Speaking of Pirates...

Number of Fu-gasms during last night's Daughtry performance on "Idol": 349. Holy crap, I am still such a sucker for that ungrateful bald bastard. HOTT!!!! Although really, he was wearing enough eyeliner to give even Jack Sparrow conjunctivitis. If the show were on Disney-owned ABC I would have thought it was cross-promotion.

Moving right along..

Number of trips to Iowa (or, as we drunkenly called it while sitting in the Cedar Rapids Chili's: I! O! Waaaaaah!!!): One. And oh yes, that's the great, flat, Hawkeye State pictured, as photographed by me out my airplane window with my camera phone--and before I had flight attendant permission to turn it on! Que scandlo!

On a scale of 1-10, how out of place Fu felt traipsing through the small Iowa airport among the cornfed, freshly scrubbed locals and other visitors, while wearing the magenta sundress I'd picked out for the rehearsal dinner, a hot-pink head scarf thing, giant dangly turquoise earrings, giant white sunglasses and a massive hangover from the previous night's festivities with FuMan: 1,486

I mean for god's sake, between my ensemble, my hangover, my bright blonde hair and my fake-n-bake tan I must've looked like a Fat Paris Hilton. Truly embarassing.

Number of feet away from my bag I walked while waiting for the hotel shuttle, and number of minutes I waited to be accosted by security: 50 (approx) and 15.

Iowa must have a threat level of like...whatever's lowest. There was also a woman who parked her car (!!!!) in the loading area to walk in and help her visitor with bags. She'd be booted and then anally probed in a back room at Reagan if she tried that shit in DC. You can't even pull that off in Manch. I tried it once, and was greeted with a barking mad po-po and a 100 dollar ticket (that I am not sure I ever paid, to be honest with you), and informed that the only reason he wasn't "taking me in" and having my car towed was that it was Christmas. No lie! So Iowa, I salute you and your lax airport security regulations.

Of our group of four attending the wedding, Number who vomited: Three. Quite a showing!

Might have had something to do with the fact that we went to the Chili's next door to our hotel at noon, drank until it was time to leave for the wedding at 530, then drank from the time the ceremony ended (6 or so) until passing out (two-thirty or so) after the obligatory after-party. That's 13 and a half hours of booze, folks. Everything from margaritas to Irish coffees to Jack&Cokes to the Dreaded Red Bull and Vodka. If we managed to sneak some shots in there as well, I think I may have returned to Manch Vegas an actual corpose, instead of merely corpsesque.

Speaking of which, our airport shuttle left at 830 a.m. Good times. I seriously contemplated asking the gate agent whether the severity of my hangover qualified me for pre-boarding.

Number of gas station purchased, ridiculously AWESOME cowboy hats I picked up while stopping for more beer (they also, along with the low threat-level airport, sell beer in Iowa gas stations after midnight, who knew!? I'm moving there next week) on the way back to the hotel post-reception: One.

Number of gas-station purchased, ridiculously AWESOME cowboy hats I forgot in my hotel room in my vomitous hungover fog the next morning: one.

Number of times I've bitched mightily about this to the point where my friends are ready to actually fly to Iowa and take a cab to the same gas station to buy me another one and then fly back just to shut me the hell up since I returned: 3,872

So there you have it. I will make an honest effort to blog more, but don't you know how busy I am? What with all the social commitments and boyfriends and non-cat-related activities?

Oh, wait.

Okay, so I'll probably post again tomorrow.

Non-Smoking Kitty

I admit it freely, after my initial excellent start to 2007, I've fallen gloriously off the wagon and been smoking waaay too much lately.

It sucks, but honestly? I really do, what with bathing suit season rapidly approaching, need to do something about that *cough*40*cough* pounds that mentioned in the entry I wrote five minutes ago.

And smoking helps.

I know it's not gooood that it helps. I mean shit, freaking meth or cocaine would help even better, but you don't see me becoming DruggieManchShoes, do you?

But smoking is a lovely, legal way to cut back on the snackage.

Only problem is that if I break my steadfast "no smoking in the apartment" rule, my kitty Butters? Freaks out.

This is a shelter kitty, so I think maybe she had a bad bad owner in a previous live. She's got no tail, and the shelter couldn't tell me how that happened. So now that she's hauling ass out of the room like she's on fire (pun intended) every time I light up? I've developed some theories.

Theory Numero Uno: Bad Bad Previous Owner Burned her tail with cigarettes. It went up in flames. (Okay, sorry, but that sounds kind of funny.) She was so badly damaged they had to hack the thing off.

Well okay, so that's my only theory. Her fully tailed sister, my other (significantly less busted-looking) kitty Chloe, doesn't have any problems with my light-ups.

So it's making me feel a bit guilty.

~puff puff puff~

Just not that guilty...

What?

Fu Attempts Chicanery; Fails

So...apparently I do not make a very good cad.

I've been pseudo-dating an ex of mine.

I ran into him at a bar a few weeks ago.

First, the background.

I dated this guy for a while waaaay back in 2003. He was okay, a very nice guy but....was odd. He was neighbors with my favorite couple at the time, my dear friend and her then-boyfriend (now hubby). He was WAY into me, and since my self esteem at the time (at the time? Okay always) landed somehwere in the "eh" range, I was receptive to him and all his advances. Plus, he was six-foot-five with a rocking body, and great in bed.

What? I'm only human, after all.

Now, 2003 was a "bad" year for me. Bad is in quotes because socially? It was freaking GREAT year for me. I was the thinnest I've ever been, ridiculously cute, single, young (23), living in a super-fun house with my buddy Mikey and a couple others, partying non-stop, hooking up, having fun, etc. etc. etc.

But technically, in the grand scheme of things, it was pretty bad becuase I did not have a steady job the whole year. I filled out, seriously, five (FIVE!) W-2 forms for the year 2003. I was adrift.

So, I was seeing this guy on and off all that summer. Late that September, I got fired from my silly job as a receptionist at a dentist's office (I know!), and didn't have the first clue what to do (I was apparently "not friendly enough" to all the surly customers who didn't understand why their three root canals were not fully covered by insurance. Not friendly enough? Moi? Look people, fact of life: dental insurance SUCKS. The usual yearly max is $1000, which if you get two cleanings and maybe a filling or two is fine. But if you need even one root canal? Caps cost $900. That's your whole benefit. Any more than that and you're stuck thinking the nice dentist that gave you the balloon is going to send some balloon-yeilding thugs to your door who will start breaking thumbs. That's just the way it is. But apparently, it's not very "friendly.") I decided to move.

My friend had recently moved to my college home, Washington DC. And she said, "Damnit Fu, why are you wasting your political science degree as a dental receptionist in freaking New Hampshire? Move to Washington!!!"

She was insanely right, so I packed up and moved, severance check in hand, less than a week later.

Without telling the guy.

Look, I know it makes me an asshole...But he was just way more into me than I was to him, and he was so sweet, and I didn't want to deal with the conversation.

And so it went that on my third night in Washington, he called.

"Fu! It's So-and-so."
"Oh...hi."
"I was about to get something to eat, should I come by and pick you up??"
"Well...I can't."
"Oh, okay."
"I'm in DC."
"Oh! How long are you there for?"
"Well...forever."
"Oh. You mean like, you moved?"
"Um...yes."
"Oh. Okay. Well maybe I can come visit you sometime?"
"Suuuuuure...um...I'll call you!"

Never talked to the guy again. Saw him briefly when I was forced to fly home a couple weeks later to spend a few days at my parents' house--I had run out of friends' couches to crash on and my parents figured that spending 100 dollars to fly me home for a few days while I waited to hear back from job interviews was cheaper than floating me the several-million dollars a hotel would have required. It was, well, awkward.

Then I really never talked to him again, fell in love with a great guy in the DC-area, had visions of marriage and babies, got a great job and was basically a happy dappy little DC-chickie for the following three years.

Last year, I had suffered a painful breakup with the guy, seen my job go in a direction I was unsatisfied with, and was experiencing a "general malaise" that alcohol didn't seem to make better, no matter how much of it I drank (or how many ensuing pounds I gained...*cough*40*cough).

So I fled back to NH for a great job opportunity.

And her I am in Fabulous Manch Vegas, and who do I run into?

2003 Love Puppy.

He is deliiiighted to see Fu, and is oblivious to not only the fact that I dumped him in a pretty brutal way, but also to the *cough*40*cough pounds. It's the mother-lode!

Only problem?

I'm still insanely not that into him. I don't know what it is! He's still tall and fit, and funny and friendly...there's just no *there* there.

But I date him anyway (read: He honestly is some of the best I've ever had in, um, that department).

This goes on for a couple weeks.

We had plans this past Sunday, which I cancelled.

I call him Tuesday to make it up, feeling guilty that he sounded so sad that I had bailed. We chat for a while.

"So, maybe we should get together again and do something."
"Ummmm..."
"So..."
"Well........."
"Well, we don't have to..."
"No no..um, maybe next week?"

It was TUESDAY.

"Um..okay!"
"Okay. So, I'll call you?"
"Okay..."

I did not get to Manch Vegas by way of the turnip truck people.

I have no doubt in my mind that I will not be hearing from Love Puppy 2003 again, ever. My guess is that he picked up on the fact that I was just using him as a Love Toy/Self Esteem Booster, and decided that my big ole ass just wasn't worth the hassle.

Plus, some teensy-tiny chickie was all over his shit at the bar the other night, and while he totally blew her off I saw her ENTER HER NUMBER IN HIS PHONE before he blew her off. So I'm betting he's discovered thinner pastures.

I've been dumped by someone I wasn't even all that interested in.

THIS, my friends, is a new level of pathetic.

Rock bottom....a hundred feet of crap...then Fu. Oy.

(The worst part is that the fucker was starting to grow on me. I mean, so tall!!! Shoulders like concrete! Who cares that he doesn't have furniture!)

Move It or Lose It

This evening, after hitting the gym and stopping in on the grocery store, I was rushing home to catch me some "Top Model" (shut up!), and got stuck in traffic.

Behind an approximately 3-year old little girl, complete with blonde pigtails.

In a pink Barbie Power Wheels.

Seriously.

She was tooling along on the STREET while her presumed mom (nanny?) calmly walked a few feet away (on the goddamned sidewalk where they all belong), pushing a big-assed 18-wheeler of a stroller with two more little tykes (beasts?).

I am temporarily good humored.

We get to a stop sign, and Little Miss Slowshine comes to an obligatory halt. I, feeling my annoyance building and fearing a lawsuit, stop about 20 feet behind her.

She turns around and waves at me all cutely while her mom (nanny?) smiled approvingly.

You may be thinking this is a case of Fu's lil old Grinch heart growing again and breaking the heart size-o-meter thing again. I may be thinking, "Aw, how cute!"

No.

"Move it bitch! Get your pink-assed minature Jeep the hell off the road before I take my blue-assed big-girl Jeep right OVER your shit!"

I say this all while waving back and laughing and with all the windows up, of course. Becuase, again, lawsuit.

So Little Miss Slowshine finally gets the rock out the way and I get my fricking Lean Cuisines into the freezer before they melt. But seriously, seirously, this is why I think it was the nanny. Becuase WHAT mom, even a Manch-Mom, would let their little blonde sweetie-pie drive their 2 mpg Power Wheels in the fucking street????

WTF!!!???

Speaking of Lean Cuisines, you ever notice how men don't eat them?

Now, I get them for two reasons:

1) Low cal lunch. Women can't be the only ones interested in cutting calories. I myself have been at it for the last five years or so, around the time I figured out how much it sucks to be a fattie (with varying, yo-yoing, ridiculously back-and-forth levels of success; but hey that's the way it shakes for those of us of a certain carriage).

2) Um, for a lady of a certain carriage? Fu, she cannot cook. Noooo no no. Cannot cook. Tonight, I got some pre-prepared (and actually pretty low fat!) veggie egg rolls from the supermarket. I burned them. In the microwave. Yes.

Now, in my experience, most men I know aren't really masters in the kitchen either. They also can be far lazier than chicks when it comes to things like slaving over a hot stove.

So why no men in the Lean Cuisine aisle? Do you just get the fattening stuff for your convenience food, like the Hungry Man meals and the Mama Celeste pizzas? I'd respect you if that's the case, but what about the fat guys?

(Oh wait, I forgot. Guys lose weight in their f'n sleep without even trying. Fuckers.)

Oh, and again on the Power Wheels chickie-poo. I think half my bitterness was ALWAYS wanting a Power Wheels Barbie Jeep growing up.

Yes. I am 27, and was jealous of a 3-year old. Shut up.