Priorities

I haven't missed watching a single Miami Dolphins game in 10 years.

At least 10 years, actually.

I never really kept track.  It started in high school, when I would drive 30 minutes to a sports bar because my little farm town doesn't have sports bars with satellite dishes and 20 beers on tap.  The only choice you make in my town is Skynyrd or AC/DC.

So it started in high school.  I would drive to that sports bar every weekend, by myself, to watch the game.  Sitting in a sports bar as a 16 yr old drinking cokes for four hours gets lonely, so I would make friends with the groups of people there watching the Steelers or the Bengals.  Sometimes I would make enemies with the people there to watch the Bills or the Patriots. 

But I was always there.

This extended into college, when I would bribe my friends with chicken wings and free beer to come sit at the bar with me every week. 

And when I moved to Cleveland and knew only one person in the entire city?  I was going to the seediest, scariest sports bars in town trying to find one that would give me some black and white TV in the back during the Browns game.

Even after my wedding day, I made my wife promise we would be back at our house in time to watch the game (I splurged for satellite at the house).  We opened our wedding gifts with both of our parents there - and me watching the game.

Over the years, I've met some characters.  One guy told me about how he played against NBA star Charles Oakley in high school, and that his high school GPA was a 3.1.  Then he told me how much coke he did that morning.

Another time I ate one of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten.  I looked up to see the cook come out of the kitchen, his mouth covered in ranch.  He sneezed into his hand, used it to wipe his mouth, and then wiped the whole mess onto his pants.  I never went back to that place.  

I've been through hell and back to watch that team.  And watching that team is hell on earf to begin with.

But I've never missed a game.

Until this Sunday.

This Sunday is the one year anniversary of my wedding.  And if marriage has taught me anything, it is how to value my true priorities in life.

And my true priorities are not having to sleep on the couch Sunday night.

Cat's Meow

I have the Twitter account.  The Facebook account. A Google+ account I ignore.

Obviously, I have a blog.

I'm on Foursquare.  I use Instagram and Pinterest and I'm dipping my toes in StumbleUpon.

I had a Myspace account; a Xanga.  Hell, I was on Geocities back in the day.

I'm so connected to the internet, my body practically needs Wifi to take a piss.

But there is one last hurdle I need to cross before I can truly say I am internet savvy.

I need a cat.

The internet is actually 46% cat.  Every major development with the internet can be tied back to cats or porn or cat porn.  'Early Adopters'?  More like 'Furly Adopters' - amiright?

I mean, what is my social media presence if I don't even upload pictures of cats to my Facebook page.  Hell, REAL social media nerds' cats have their OWN Facebook page.

So I think it is time to add a furry friend to my life.

Plus, I would finally have someone to blame when my browser history shows all that cat porn.

The Heart of it All

My wedding was the most exciting day of my life.

(Did my wife stop reading, yet?  Yes?  Ok, let's do this.)

Yesterday was the most exciting day of my entire life.

There was a MONKEY with HERPES loose IN OHIO.

If you were to make a Venn diagram of how the zombie apocalypse was going to start, a herpe'd up monkey on the loose in rural Ohio would have been where all the awesome intersected. 

I mean, Swine Flu was nothing but a tease and the nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan was more likely to make a race of Japanese Superheroes than zombies.

This was our big chance.  All we needed was some stupid civilian to try to give that thing a banana and suddenly I'd be bashing in zombie skulls with a cricket bat.

But then news broke that the monkey was eaten by a Bengal tiger.  At first I was disappointed until I realized...

...ZOMBIE BENGAL TIGERS!!!

Holy hell!  What on earf could stop a ZOMBIE BENGAL TIGER!!!?  It is the perfect killing machine.  ZOMBIE BENGAL TIGERS!!! are like the physical incarnation of a Slash guitar solo.  But with stripes.

But, then the ZOMBIE BENGAL TIGER!!! was killed and I was forced to face reality - the zombie apocalypse is dead - and not the kind of dead where it reanimates and tries to eat my brain.

Nope.  It was shovel-to-the-head-dead.

And all we're left with are Mutant Japanese Super Heroes.

Flavor of the Month

I can't think of anything I hate more than running into people I haven't seen in awhile. 

There is no way to avoid them asking, "What have you been up to?" and then having to make the hard choice between lying through my teeth or telling them my life is made up of a continuous string of monotonous events that, strung together, make it appear I'm a living, breathing Ken Burns movie.

And if I do chose to lie, there is that fine line between, "interesting adventures!" and "that is just you recapping an episode of Highlander but replacing the Highlander with yourself."

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.

Which is why I'm instituting a 30 day rule. 

If I haven't spoken to you in 30 days, you are out of my life forever. Don't think I am serious?  Just ask that guy behind the counter at Chipotle who forgot to put double meat on my burrito.  Now I won't even look him in the eye.  Mostly because of shame, but, also because of anger.

So if I don't speak to you for 30 days your number will be deleted, your pictures taken off of my Facebook and if I see you in the street, I'm going to just look the other way.

Besides, Old Lady, I don't think I ever knew anyone named, "Grandma."

Pumpkin Patch

I'll admit it.  I'm a sucker for the American Dream.

I've been in my house for over two years now, and I still get excited when I have "Homeowner Moments".  When a girl scout tries to sell me some cookies.  When I shovel my neighbors' sidewalks.  When the faucet breaks and I have to go all Manly Man trying to fix it.  And then I have to go all Unmanly Man trying to re-fix it after I screwed it up the first time.

I soak that shit up.  I'm addicted to it.  I need little American Dreams Patches that help ease my cravings to edge my lawn and blow leaves into the neighbors' yard.

So when I carved a pumpkin and put it on my doorstep, I was having a little Amerigasm.

But not just at the idea of carving a pumpkin and putting it on my front step for all the little trick'or'treaters to see.

No, I thought it would be my initiation into the neighborhood.

I placed it right out on my doorstep, where anyone between the ages of 13-17 couldn't help but pick it up and smash it.  They probably wouldn't even realize it happened.  They'd just be walking by, black out for a few seconds, and wake up covered in pumpkin organs and Fourloko.

Every morning I ran outside, like it was Christmas or Easter, hoping that the Pumpkin Fairy had barfed up pumpkin guts all over my very manicured sidewalk.

So this morning I walked out my front door, saw the pumpkin perched up like some sort of vegetable royalty and walked to my truck to leave for work.

And that's when I noticed someone had egged my truck.

Finally, my Dreams had come true.

Growths

A theme of this blog over the years has been 'growing up'.

From buying a house, to getting married, to no longer drinking until I strip down to my boxers and sing Eddie Money songs.

But I'm starting to think I haven't actually 'grown up'...

...I've just turned into an asshole.

I bought a house - was it because I wanted a sound financial investment and a place to start a family?

No, it was because I hate people and living in a large box stacked on top of them is about as much fun as watching Whitney.  Not that I don't miss "Creepy Drug Dealer Guy" and "Awkwardly Loud Sex Girl" as my neighbors, but I don't miss them as my neighbors.

Then I got married.

Was it because I found my soul-mate?  Someone I couldn't live without?  Yeah.  But also because dating is the single worst thing in the world. Dating is a mix of acting and negotiating - how much of yourself can you reveal and in what ways can you steer the relationship in your favor.  Marriage is awesome - it's like - hey, I'm home and I'm going to leave my shoes right there in that spot you hate even though you complain about it everyday.  Have fun leaving toothpaste all over the sink later, because you know that shit drives me nuts.

And once you are married, the bars are useless.

Sure, I used to enjoy going out and spending $75 on liquor and being butts to nuts with 200 other sweaty people I don't like for 6 hours, but you know what?  Fuck those people.  Bars are all about team work - it is only fun if everyone pitches in to make it fun.  But $75 will buy me a damn nice dinner and I'm selfish as hell. 

Besides - I can't find a bar with Eddie Money on the jukebox.

Fighting Chance

I never got much into the whole 'bar fight' scene.

Perhaps that is because I'm a ninny little girl.

But, also, it is because of my low regard for about 78% of earf's population.

Bar fights always start out with one guy making some wise-ass remark to another guy.  It might be a crack about the other guy's haircut, or his girlfriend, or because he is a ninny little girl.

I don't really understand being offended by people you don't respect.  If a guy in an Affliction shirt calls me a 'pansy', it is hard for me care enough about his opinion to get riled up.  I wouldn't ask for that guy's opinion on anything else in the world, so why would I care about his opinion of me?

Besides, I just planted a bunch of pansies in my cutting garden and they look FAAABULOUS!

If people are going to insult me, I at least want it to be an educated opinion.  Don't just call me an asshole as you walk by to get a reaction - that is too easy.

Take me out to dinner, get to know me - ask me about my favorite color and what celebrity I would like to be stuck with on a deserted island (hint: Christina Hendricks).

That way, you can form a great insult that really cuts deep and hurts.

Just don't mention my pansies.