I prefer to have someone home to get me what I need when I need it but I don't take kindly to doting or hovering. I'm sick dammit. Let me sleep and be grouchy and shout orders for Popsicles at you! I generally try to work through most light sicknesses like head colds and bad allergy days, but sometimes, the best thing you can do is not get your coworkers sick, so I am a big fan of staying him anytime I'm contagious or otherwise a danger to myself or others.

So, the honest answer is no. I eat like calories don't count all the time.

I tried the whole counting thing but all it did was break my relationship with Dr Pepper.

seriously? I was moving more, eating more sensibly, and not drinking soda at all for 2 months... I even cut my butter consumption from a box a week to a stick a week... and I dropped 0 lbs and 0 inches.

Caffiene now makes my heart race, Dr Pepper (the true love of my life) tastes too sickly sweet but diet still tastes like nasty chemicals so I can't drink soda EVER... I can't eat as much at a sitting as I used to and I end up with leftovers which I forget about and end up wasting... and I drink SO much water and iced tea now that I pee every hour on the hour....and I'm exactly the same size and shape I was before I started.

so, I quit.

had I made ANY difference, I would've kept at it... but NOTHING.

SO, I've gone back to eating what I want, when I want, as much as I want.

I'm happy, I feel great, I picked up the good habit of drinking more water and tea, My pizza lasts through 4 meals instead of 2 so it's more economical, and I am busting so much ass at work that I feel like I've been to the gym at the end of every shift (yay for diaper changes!!!)

Now... who wants some pizza and Ice cream?

I love my hair. it's SO easy to manage!

I love my pumpkin pie colored eyes. No one else has them!

I love that I have awesome, big, natural breasts. Not even Xander has breasts like mine!

I love that I can move large heavy furniture all by myself simply because I understand leverage and brute force.

what an odd question.

So, I know I've written before about how it baffles my mind that by simply saying "please" and "thank you" at DLR, the cast members treat you like goddamn royalty.

Today I would like to address "what it means to be a friend."

recently, icyred got the friends not Sig-O's equivalent of broken up with. you know, when friends actively call it quits with one another rather than quietly letting go of the friendship in the natural course of their growth as people?

When this happened, without a second thought, I was there for him. listening to his thoughts, reminding him of his value, telling him that  it really is the other person's loss.

He didn't sound very convinced and since I was talking with him online, i reflexively picked up my cell phone and called his roommate and dear friend, Devon. I told Dev the short version of what had happened and said that we should get together and surround Aaron with the kinds of friends he deserves: real friends who wont dump him for who he chooses to be. Dev loved the idea and told me to head over. I called Harv and we rendezvous-ed at Casa Cooper.

Since Aaron (and virtually everyone else I know) is editing his food choices using point counting, I knew that my gut reaction of baked goods and ice cream or his suggestion of paying for coffee out on the town would only undo his day. Especially since we had both been out to drinks with Gloria the night before.

So, while Aaron was telling me (and Gloria via his cell phone) about what had happened and how he felt, I wrangled his roommates into DIY sushi night. Vegan Sushi is only 5 points for a full log and since we did half rolls twice over, everyone got 12 pieces of sushi for 5 points!

we then sat around their living room telling our favorite Aaron stories and having a great time just laughing and talking and feeling good.

Again, this was all gut reactions and relflexive decision making.

When I woke up this morning, there was a post from Aaron which literally brought me to tears.

Apparently, what I thought was "the basics of friendship" was enough to deeply touch him and cause him to tout my awesomeness in print.

When did doing right by the people you call friends become an outstanding gesture? When did being supportive and caring become such a life changing maneuver?

Seriously? when did I miss the memo folks?

This is not the first time where my bare minimum efforts have resulted in what I felt to be unjustified gratitude.

I've given pep talks to Lisa and taken her out for drinks or laughs when she was down and had her think it was a herculean effort on my part.

When I helped Jenni and John move (seperate instances), both expressed surprise at how willing I was to help and just how much heavy stuff I was willing to man up and carry to expedite their moving.

When I went to lunch with Jenni to say bon chance before she moved home to phoenix, the whole table ended up on the verge of tears at just how much the little, thoughtless, nothings I had done for her out of a sense of "this is what friends are for" had meant to her and her family.

apparently driving people two hours on the freeway to get them to their very very close knit family when their aunt has been taken to the hospital is not something "normal" friends do.

Harv STILL talks about how much effort I must've put in to throwing him his surprise party.

God forbid we even begin to touch on the number of times I've "rescued" one of the Felton boys.

but I can honestly say that none of what I've done has ever felt like I was doing anything at all.

this is what friends are supposed to do, right?

I mean, I guess since I am over-adamant in my refusal to accept help from anyone with anything except moving, I'm kinda spoiled. I mean, I've never had a surprise party and I've always driven myself to family emergencies. Breaking off my friendship with Alison was so surprising and so ill timed that I just used Ben and my co-workers at my then job to get me through it by making plans to do all manner of awesome things to distract myself... none of them offered so much as I employed them for my needs.

But seriously: wouldn't each of you do these things I do for me?

Xander meets me at IHOP for emergency pancakes when I need them, just like I take him for emergency cake.
Aaron took me to the scary oriental market when Harv needed new sushi rolling mats
Jenni took me to the ER when I fell, just like I took her when she fell.
Lisa made sure I got to see RENT and she and John made sure Harv & I got to go to the Ren Faire

so what is it? what is it about what I do that would make someone write such kind words as to bring me to tears over something I did without a second thought in the name of friendship?

Is it really so unusual to rush to someone's side when they have a bad day?

Has it really become so uncommon to say "please" and "thank you" to the staff of places we go that it's a big deal when I do so?

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Aaron is grateful and I'm glad that he would call me such a good friend. I'm thrilled that I love him and he loves me in return (since it is the greatest thing you'll ever learn) but I'm also a little sad that such a simple gesture meant so much.

I didn't expect to be thanked so lavishly or to be praised so highly.

I just did what I thought was right.

and now, it just seems so wrong that something so small meant so much when there was so much more I would've done if i had more resources.

So, I know I've been conspicuously absent from the LJ lately, but that's what bar study does to you. I haven't read up on any of you nor have I said anything. if you missed me, I'm sorry... if you were glad I was silent: I'm BAAAAAAAAACK.

Also, there's been very little to say that was worth the time it would take to say. I've been very very busy rearranging the house and we've both been busy adjusting to Drew's schedule.

but today, I have something to say.


tonight, on Next Food Network Star, the love of my culinary television watching life was cut.

why? because he said aloud that he was better in front of crowds than cameras.

he was honest, straightforward, and truthful.

the woman who got to stay instead of him? lied to the judges, ignored her team-mates, abandoned her duties, and played the least convincing martyr since my friend Adam played Joan of Arc in Jr High for a class project. (he was REALLY bad, for the record).

Now mind you I have LOVED Michael (the amazing Global -A-Go-Go Chef of my DREAMS) since I saw the first preview for this season of Next Food Network Star. He was the food fairy-gay-mother I had always dreamed of learning from and I was desperate to be the hag to his fag at the first "Haaaaay Grrrrrl!" of the season.

my gay-boyfriend loyalty aside, he was a talented chef whose dishes were generally pleasing and he had a full on win under his go-go belt.

the *insert string of intense, spite filled, dirty, nasty, vile, heinous, bitter, vicious, sexist, inappropriate epithets here* woman who stayed has grated my nerves since the minute I first laid eyes on her. She is an unoriginal, plastic, fat, barbie doll wanna be.

There is only one chef on food network who I TRULY despise. Ina Garten the Barefoot Contessa, self proclaimed "back to basics" chef who lives in a palatial estate in the Hamptons and cooks things like:

Grilled Lemon Chicken Skewers with Satay Dip

cause that's BASIC.

anyway, I have ALWAYS hated her pompous, talk-down to the viewer, I'm so fabulous, look at my high life in the Hamptons with my oh so glam-fab uber important chi-chi friends and my wealthy, older husband, CRAP that she presents.

Debbie Lee is the mini-me of Ina Garten. she is the barefoot counterfit-essa.

add to this already unfavorable opinion the fact that Debbie has consistently done the culinary equivilent of kneecapping her competitors during team challenges EVERY WEEK, she has the integrity of Foulfellow and Giddeon (the con artists who scam Pinnocchio into going to pleasure island and being turned into a donkey in the Disney version of Pinnocchio...) and isless trustworthy than that apple-hocking serpent in the garden of Eden.

I am so tired of her catty sorostitute game playing tactics and lack of professionalism. I am sick to death of "I'm Korean but I was raised southern so this dish is Soul to Seoul, a combo of southern classics and Asian spice" and frankly, I see her begining to grate on the selection committee just as much as she grates on me.

however, her behavior on tonight's episode was unforgiveable. Her shameful display of self-serving, backstabbing, disrespectful, uncooperative, faux-martyrdom was absolutely appalling.

to see a shining star like MIchael, who positively ROCKED the bar PRECISELY AS HE WAS INSTRUCTED TO DO BY THE TEAM LEADER, lose to a cheap stunt, no count, she-devil was devistating.

I admit it, he would not have gone far beyond this week with his clear fear of the camera, but there is no reason a phobia should lose out to a scheming, classless, snipe in chef's whites. Her behavior was far more unaceptable than when JAG was dishonest about his military service on season 3. The only person JAG hurt was himself. Debbie has hurt the entire season lineup with her games and catty bullshit.

I hope that her indiscretions will come back to her in a violent incarnation because frankly, I have never been so appauled at the behavior of anyone appearing on an instuctional network as I am with hers.

send the dirty lying cheat home this week and send Michael home next. That would've been fine with me. but she did NOT deserve to go on another week. her faux-dramatic gratitude at having been spared was cornier than Carrot Top and Pauly Shore renacting Romeo and Juliet... well, Romeo and Julio as it would no doubt be called in their rendition...

much more to say, foolish to try, it's time for saying goodnight.

sorry, the title sounds really awesome in my head cause I have "glow little glow worm, glow and glimmer..." stuck in my head.

anyway, a day late and a dolla short, here is my epic Monday:

Harv  and I are supposed to see Wolverine with John and Lisa in the afternoon.

since I don't work at all, I take my car in, assuming we'll take Harv's or carpool with John.

Since we dropped the car off at like, 8am, we had HOURS to kill before the movie. Lisa had said 2:10. it was, 8:30.

so, since the fish tank needed cleaning, we set about tag team tackling the icky fish water and putting clean new water in their tanks.

Kronk, sweet little lover cat that he is, wants to help.

so, when I take the bucket of filth to the bathtub to drain it, and Harv takes the clean bucket to our bathroom to fill it, Kronk decides that if Mommy wants the water OUT of the tank, then he will see to it that it is done!

and he jumped up and pulled the siphon out of the tank.

why did I leave the siphon, sipohoning, in the tank alone with Kronk? because my fish tank is tall and narrow and gets too low for the siphon after like, one bucket even though I've only pulled 4 gallons from a 40 gallon tank, so I hav to have it keep siphoning into itself between buckets or it wont siphon past the first bucket.

so, I return from dumping my icky bucket and let out what I assume is a blood-curdling scream since Harv appears in the living room before i've stopped screaming.

there is icky fish water an inch deep all over my living room.

being of not very sound mind at this point, I stick the siphon BACK IN THE TANK and rush off for some towels. Harv says that at least we have the wet vac from cleaning his brothers' filth out of his car and begins to suck up water with the handy dandy Bissell Little Green (made from 100% post consumer plastics in a closed loop factory) only the puddle is so big and so deep that sucking part of the carpet dry causes the deeper parts to seep wider out into the room. so we trade off and it take about 6 hours to get a passably moist carpet (it's now wednesday and it STILL ain't quite dry.)

yeah. it was special.

LMAO. this is clearly a question meant for someone who is not as.. *ahem* VOCAL... about their tastes as I am.

My friends all know EXACTLY how I feel about popular EVERYTHING.

and frankly, there's a LOT of stuff I dislike. frankly, i can't imagine a conversation with me that doesn't touch on at least something I hate.

Admiral's Arch, Austrailia.

it was a spectacular rock archway over some tide pools where waves were breaking and white foam was covering the sides of the arch and a HUGE pod of Sea Lions were reclining among the rocks beneath the Arch.

I have a picture, but I'm posting from my laptop and the image is on my desktop which I can't access from work. If I remember, I'll add it later.

so, I know that there will be inevitable backlash, but I just have to say, I FREAKING LOVE Miley Cyrus.

more later, late to my own party.

Today, I did something nice for someone.

They asked a question in their blog and for once, I had an answer.

so I wrote them a like, full page comment that delved into my personal life, answered their incredibly personal, sensitive issue question, and then offered to answer any further questions for them.

One of the other comments on their blog mentioned that they had only responded because of the anonymity of the internet and it made me think.

Would I give this lengthy essay style response to someone I knew, face to face, without the protective shield of the internet (and several states between us IRL)?

and I realized that yes, yes I would. Not only would I, I had. and then I swung around the stripper pole and farted. but I still had the conversation live and in person, so I feel even better about being open and honest with this pseudo-stranger.

sure, we don't get together for coffee (that whole, across the country, internet only friend thing...) but sometimes, it's not an anonymous conversation that you need, it's an honest one.

many of the other comments just sort of said yes or no or not yet, but I really feel like my essay answer was more useful and I really hope that it will be met with a good response because frankly it was the first time in a while now that I've really felt like I expressed myself well and really said what I meant and meant what I said and it doesn't suck that it was a potentially useful moment of self-expression.

I'm so proud of myself. Now I feel so good about this good thing I've done that I want to do more good things.

I am SO having an Alicia Silverstone as Cher in Clueless moment.

so bring it on world.

what's your question? How can I help YOU?

PS: this offer not valid if you have recently made me want to slit my wrists, leap from a bridge, or do you bodily harm. offer void in all states beginning with consonants unless you are originally from a state beginning with a vowel prior to R.