Ooh La La

I.
Am.
Melting.

Ugh, it is so hot. Like ridiculously muggy and sticky and the kind of hot where sweat pools in the crevices of your skin and you can just feel the sweat dripping down the small of your back kind of hot. July and August are two of my least favorite months of the year. I'm not exactly a fan of the heat, especially with the added delight that my dad won't get AC because "he grew up before they had invented it and he was fine". Well...that was 1940s-50s Tennessee. This is 2011. Blah.

I am actually looking forward to December and January when it is cold and snowy and I can walk around without feeling like I am gonna pass out from the heat. It'd also be pretty wonderful to wear my hair down without it being a soggy, frizzy 'fro. I'd also like to wear makeup without it melting or have my skin break out from the heat. I'm not big on summer. I never have. Give me the other seasons, preferably spring and fall, and I'll be content.

We are supposed to have four more 90+ degree days this week (we got to 90 today and set a new record high temperature), and then it's supposed to be in the low 80s until it inevitably gets disgustingly hot again.

Come on, late September...

Do-Wah-Doo

Ahh…Summer is on its way. Hallelujah.



The air smells like flowers and stuffs up my nose. Pollen is every-freaking-where, but that doesn’t pale the beauty of the bright greens and the vivid colors of the flowers. Spring in Cleveland could be compared to a blind man seeing for the first time in his life--after a world of gray and drab from November to mid-March, the city looks as though it was run through the washer with Tide. Colors are brighter, the sun is warmer, the air feels amazing, pollen aside. You wake up feeling amazing. The world is anew, and you feel as though you can do anything. Mother Nature decided to wash away the bad and present us all with a clean slate.


May has been a great month, seriously. I finished school two weeks ago, and I got As in both my classes (I dropped Sociology and Ethics due to conflicts between balancing mommydom and work and school and Lashawn). I also decided to change my major from Pre-Law to Anthropology. I love history and studying different cultures, and I am researching Socio Cultural Anthroplogy--for the first time in a while, I am excited about my career choice. I suppose that says a lot about how I really felt about Law--I love it in conceptual theory, but I think I would be miserable if I actually practiced it. I am more happy moving around instead of being in an office all day long. I also don’t think I could handle the cases I would handle--I wanted to go into Child Advocacy, and I think all the different stories would kill me, in the most metaphorical sense. I want to be able to watch my son grow up and not always be away from him, and I would love to be able to do something I love as a career.


Nicky started tee ball, and he is the Tee Ball King. I am so proud! They had their first practice scrimmage game yesterday, and his team won. I missed it, but my brother said that Nicky hit the ball on the first try the two times he was up at bat, and he hits the ball deep into outer field. He really enjoys the game, and I am hoping a few of his tee ball friends will be in his class in Kindergarten in the fall.


Speaking of Kindergarten, he had his screening last Friday, and he is all set for the fall. I already got his school supply list and his uniform order form. He is psyched to be starting Kindergarten and going to “big boy school”.


I am also starting a diet. School and the stress of the past semester sort of derailed my exercise routine, and I gained like 6 pounds over the past four months. I am tired of feeling sluggish and worn down, and I have noticed that I went up a dress size, and those pants are starting to get tight. I will, however, miss the little oomph the weight added to my cleavage! I aiming to lose some of the extra weight I hadn’t lost from last year, so about ten to fifteen pounds. I figure that I should be able to do it over the summer. I am also trying to put some WD-40 in my old creative part of my noggin, and am toying with the idea of attempting a novel this summer. I have a few ideas running around in my head, and if I get anything going, I will share it with you guys via blog.


That is the run down for now. I promise another awesome post soon. XO

Summer Breezes

I'm melting. No, not really. I'm in a nice, air-conditioned office at the moment, but I will most certainly be melting later this evening. My dad, crazy old man that he is, doesn't believe in AC. He thinks it saps electricity. That may be true enough, but it's our first 90 degree day ALL summer, and the humidity and heat index and whatever is making it feel as if it were 99 outside.

Supercalifragilistic. My hair is preparing the rebellion now. Vive la revolution.

I can't stand it when the mercury climbs above 85 degrees. I get all sluggish and throw myself all dramatic across our couch, complaining that it is way too hot and I can't wait until winter. I think most Clevelanders do this, although the average Clevelander loathes our winters. A Cleveland winter is chock full of snow, wind, subzero-ish temperatures, snow, puffy coats that don't exactly cover your ass (I, however, own a L.L. Bean parka that covers my ass quite adequately--being warm doesn't mean being all cutesy and shit...you have to get a bit shapeless amd frumpy in order to stay nice and toasty), and snow. Talk to me from mid-November to late March, and I'm either threatening anarchy or moving to Hawaii, or both.

This type of weather calls for sand, surf, flip-flops, and a nice, big strawberry banana margarita. No salt, extra liquor. Yum.

But the beaches in Cleveland are questionable, I can't swim, and I'm broke til payday. So...I guess I can just put some flip-flops on and call it a day. Good enough.

So here's our muggy, 90 degree Sunday playlist. Enjoy.

"Summerboy", Lady Gaga, (The Fame)

"Call n' Return", Hellogoodbye, (Hellogoodbye--EP)

"I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked", Ida Maria, (Fortress 'round My Heart)

"I'm Ready", Jack's Mannequin, (Everything In Transit)

"Blame It (Feat. T-Pain)", Jamie Foxx, (Intuition)

"Gasolina", Daddy Yankee, (Barrio Fino)

"Sunday Best", Augustana, (All The Stars And Boulevards)

"Good Girls Go Bad (Feat. Leighton Meester)", Cobra Starship, (Hot Mess)

"It's Amazing", Jem, (Down to Earth)

"My Love (Feat. T.I.)", Justin Timberlake, (FutureSex/LoveSounds)

"What You Know", T.I., (King)

"I'm In Miami Bitch", LMAFO, (Party Rock)

"Make Her Say (Feat. Kanye West, Common, and Lady Gaga)", Kid Cudi, (Make Her Say--Single)

And, as a shoutout to my girl Tricia, "Whoomp! (There It Is)", Tag Team, (Whoomp! There It Is--Single)

It Don't Matter to the Sun

Point me to the closest meteorologist so I can smack him/her. And ask for my money back.

This summer sucks. I know I've said it before, and I'll say it again. It sucks. This morning I awoke to dark clouds, rain, and 59 degrees. 59 degrees. On July 18. What exactly is wrong with this picture?

I know I said I'm not big on sub-Saharan temperatures, and I'm not. I'd just like plenty of sunshine and temperatures in the low 80's. Is that too much to ask???

But I digress. On a lighter (but still cold) note, the yum-fest at Melt (paramount mecca of grilled cheese) did not go down as planned. My pal Tricia and myself arrived at Melt, eagerly awaiting a huge sandwich full of cheesy goodness and potential nirvana, when we saw the line. I'd been warned by a co-worker ahead of time (Thursday) that there would be a wait. So we waited for like fifteen minutes, and no one came to seat us. We see this "oh I'm a starving artist but since I'm starving I decided to get a slightly more sub par job just so I could eat" kind of guy standing at the front counter, and we just assumed that you just paid your bill there.

Oh, no. We amble on over to the counter, curious as to why we hadn't been escorted to a table yet. Tricia asks him if we're supposed to give our names. Starving Artist Guy says yes, you do. Tricia asks him if he was going to tell us that since we'd been standing by the "Please Wait To Be Served" sign for like fifteen minutes, and she said you had to have seen us. SAG gets slightly miffed and a bit defensive and says that he just got there, he didn't see us. SAG is a liar, he'd been at the counter when we'd gotten in line, but I sense a potential fight about to go down, so I tell him that it's okay and ask how long the wait is. He says an hour to about an hour and a half. No one waits that long for cheesy bliss, no matter how much you love grilled cheese.

(In case you're slightly curious, here is a link to Melt's homepage. Look at the menu. You know you want to. Kind of. Maybe. A little. http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com)

So we hustle out of there, trying to decide where we're gonna eat, since we are both starving. We decide Harry Buffalo, because the last time we went there we had this totally kickass pizza. Tricia calls up her husband Josh, and we have a grand old time at Harry Buffalo over pizza and beer (I hate beer, so I had a Sprite) and a vast assortment of appetizers. I think I gained five pounds last night.

We went back to Tricia's mom's house, Nicky in tow, to make some crazy "pimp cups" that we're going to try to sneak in to the Indians game tomorrow. Nicky and Taylor (Tricia's 2 year old daughter) made some crazy-looking cups--glitter glue, pom-poms, stickers, and random colored feathers. I'll have to post some pictures in my next post so you can see their amazing artwork.

Ughhh. I am freezing. Someone turned the air on--dude, you can crank the AC all you want, but it isn't going to make it any hotter outside. Why be in denial? Throw on a sweatshirt, turn off the air conditioner, and call it a day.

This Is Somewhere

I'm starting to think that this may quite possibly be the worst summer ever.

Well, maybe not EVER, but definitely for this year. Let me illustrate to you via word-agry (You like that? It's like imagery, only instead of pictures, you use words. I know, I know--I'm a F-ing genius...watch out Webster, you're not the only one with an endless supply of seemingly made up words.)...Okay, it's July 11, and it has reached 80 degrees like only six or seven times. That I'm not complaining about. I don't particularly enjoy sub-Saharan temperatures, thank you. No, my problem is the rain. I feel like freaking Noah, except without the ark (and don't get any ideas up there, Big Guy. I'm not handy, I'm not D.I.Y., and I prefer my wild animals to be behind safety enclosures...)...it's ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous.

I barely have the slightest hint of a golden glow--for me, that isn't too unusual. I'm pretty much pasty pale year-round, which is another post altogether, but by July I have a bit of a tan going on. This year? Nothing.

But I digress. It's stopped raining for now, and the sun is attempting to make a fashionably late appearance.

* * *

It's 1:39 pm and I have a double cheeseburger from McDonald's, which can only mean two things: 1.)I'm hungry, and 2.)It's bitchin' time. I'd like to call this Mid-Day Musings Over A Double Cheeseburger. Come, sit.

Okay. I don't like pickles and onions and mustard on my double cheeseburgers. I think those things are pretty gross as individuals (think Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh), but put them together and they are disgusting as a whole (the entire GOP). I just get ketchup (or catsup, if you're one of those weird people who spells ketchup as catsup), and if I'm in the mood or not on a diet (which I currently am, which I am sort of breaking at the moment), mayonnaise. Pretty uncomplicated. I'd like to think I'm an uncomplicated person.

Pretty easy, right? How hard could that be to screw up? Ketchup, and quite possibly mayo. It isn't rocket science. You don't need to go to MIT or write a treatise on the toppings of a burger. No. It's simplicity at its best, right? Wrong. Wrongwrongwrongwrong. Those idiots put everything on my double cheeseburger. I didn't buy it; I'm at work and one of my car salesman amigos purchased it for me because I'm just so damn awesome. Perhaps he forgot to mention the only ketchup, perhaps they just screwed up. Anything is possible. However, instead of letting it ruin my already exhausting, waterlogged trainwreck of a day, I just took the top (in the burger business they call that the crown) off my dysfunctional cheeseburger and scraped it (including most of the cheese) all off. I ate it sans crown, because I'm pretty adaptable and mostly hungry and desperate.

I'm partially sated for now, which brings me to my next musing. I have to make a grand entrance at my best friend's son's 4th birthday party tonight. I'm pretty tired, and I'd love to take a nap, but alas, I am a good friend and am attending, albeit reluctantly, with my son Nicky in tow. It'll be a zoo, but I get off at 6, and the party starts at 3, which means by the time I get ready it'll be close to 7. Most of the toddling offenders should be gone by then. Let's all cross our fingers for Lashawn, okay?

I'd really appreciate it.

Another Day

It's Friday, and I am sooo tired.

I work from 8 am to 6 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and you'd think I'd be used to getting up at the asscrack of dawn, seeing as how I've been doing this for about a year and a half...But then again, I never got used to getting up at 6:30 am when I was in school, and that was 12 years worth of 6:30 ams. Oh well. I guess some people are crazy morning people who frolick about in the morning sunshine, singing Disney-esque songs as they skip all la-la-la like down the sidewalk with the sparrows, and then there are people like me, who pretty much live their lives like rock stars, staying up all night and then sleeping away a good chunk of daytime. I used to spend a huge amount of my summer vacations past passed out until 2 pm.

Those were the good days, my friend. I never realized how good I had it until I had to get a job my junior year of high school!


But back to now (as Garth Algar from the cinematic classic Wayne's World would say, "Live in the now!"), and the having to wake up at a very unreasonable hour. It is a very sunny and warm, dare I say hot, day in the city of Cleveland. It's supposed to reach a pleasant (note the sarcasm) and balmy 88 degrees...When I roll out of here later today, the air will be rife with mugginess, and I will be a walking pillar of sweat and frizz when I arrive at my equally sticky, un-air conditioned house.

Yesssssss.

And yuck. There's another fly in the office, flying around being all flyish and gross. I wish I could be gangsta like President Obama and just be like bam and kill it...but not with my hand, 'cause that would be gross, and I would most likely puke.

Puking is not a choice option, especially when it's hotter than hell outside. I opted instead for opening the office door, which will undoubtably bring hot air into the office, but hopefully will inspire the aforementioned fly to go out and enjoy the glorious day.