:: Thursday, October 30, 2003 ::
Oh. MY God.
Thanks to Kirstie for this gem: Download your desktop Simon Cowell here.
Fun activity: right click on Simon, disable the sound and click on "Hit Me Baby Dance." Play Donna Summer's Bad Girls behind it.
Jesus God.
J
:: happy hour begins at 8:55 PM [+] ::
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Up to Suck
Before, there was no adequate way to describe the shitass day that robbed you of any idealism still lingering back there in your psyche.
Before, I could only hope to convey my pissoffedness at the general crapness of life through eye contact ("Kill zem all!") and gestures (just one finger will do).
Before Pete, that is.
Several years ago I met a man named Pete through coaching. On his very first day, after the very first run-through, he said the words that changed my life:
"That was so bad it didn't even suck yet. When you suck, it'll be an improvement. Dude, that wasn't even up to 'suck'!"
And there it was: the notion that at some points in life, "this sucks" would be better than wherever you are now.
And let me just tell you, this day was in no way up to suck.
Remember my going-on about the hard way, the medium-hard way and the easy-but-for-that-really-hard-thing-in-the-middle way? Let's just say one of my clients decided to take the bypass into WhoknowswhatthefuckhesthinkingLand, and drag me behind him like a rusted tomato can scattering its pulpy, high-sodium contents across the rutted highway. There wasn't so much as a seed left by the time I finally bailed.
But you know, there are Chinese take-out boxes on their way and brownies in the freezer, so my outlook is improving. This day might just suck after all.
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 6:12 PM [+] ::
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Here's something to cheer us up!:: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 ::
Thanks to Sugarbaby for finding us another excellent chance to hide the children and their innocent ears, here.
J
:: happy hour begins at 12:42 AM [+] ::
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I'm Sorry to Say...:: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 ::
...my internet is total crap tonight, so I'll be back tomorrow.
Incidentally, The West Wing was so angst-ridden tonight my fingers hurt from digging into edge of the sofa cushions. Usually there is some light with the dark, which actually adds to the foreboding feeling because you know those light moments are about to get shattered, but not this time.
I miss Aaron.
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 11:07 PM [+] ::
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Deciphering the Universe:: Monday, October 27, 2003 ::
Tonight on NOVA: The Elegant Universe, in which string theory emerges as a solution to the nasty general relativity/quantum mechanics incompatibility problem. Brian Greene is a GOD and I get to look at him! Oh, he's a physicist, too, but you already knew that, right?
Right.
Well, while he's trying to unravel the universe and looking all pretty, I'm here to offer a Universal Absolute:
All persons, when asked to enter an auditorium alone for a presentation, will feel like the new kid standing on the threshold of the middle school cafeteria.
Thanks to S and N for validating my fears and agreeing to meet me in the lobby tomorrow morning so we can all sit together. I may know those other two hundred people, but chances are I would have turned back around and gone to Roy Roger's for breakfast rather than try to find a seat with one of them.
On second thought, why don't we just do that anyway?
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 7:56 PM [+] ::
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And this saves me what, exactly?:: Sunday, October 26, 2003 ::
Me: Can you please explain to me why we do Daylight Savings Time?
Speaksy: Yeah. Daylight savings...saves...daylight.
*blink*
*giggle*
And then he went on about farmers and Quakers and something else I didn't get, then wrapped it up with, "And I may be completely full of shit."
I caught that part.
I grew up in one of two parts of the country that do not observe Daylight Savings Time, and I look back on those carefree days with abject longing. We laughed mightily at all you idiots who thought, "spring forward, fall back," was the key to enlightenment (or so you told us when you laughed at us "hicks" for not changing our clocks). Now that I'm on the east coast I'm starting to understand.
No, not the saving crap thing, but your haughty attitude about our unwillingness to comply: you didn't know why either and your bodies were chronologically confused, but instead of admit it you just made fun of us.
I guess that's fair.
All DST meant to me growing up was Little House on the Prairie came on at a different time because TBS observed this antiquated custom. We went to school in the dark, we came home in the dark, and no amount of clock-finagling was going to change that.
And in a few weeks, it'll be the same here as it was there.
So, can anyone please explain this to me? More importantly, can someone please explain this to my beagles, who followed my naked self around all morning wondering why their breakfast was a whole hour late?
Awfully disconcerting that was. I didn't even feel like I got to sleep in an hour because that was yesterday and I always sleep in on Sundays so it wasn't much of a treat.
But you bet your sweet ass I'll be bitching when they take that hour back from me...
Juliet
Speaksy: Consistent television programming.
Me: Oh, like that's a reason.
Speaksy: Mandatory jet lag? Um, voluntary jet la-- Jet lag but you don't have to go anywhere!
Me: This isn't a game show, honey.
Speaksy: IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN!
Me: No more sugar for you.
:: happy hour begins at 8:28 PM [+] ::
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Famished to Sick: Ten Minutes:: Friday, October 24, 2003 ::
Oh God. Unh.
We do this; Speaksy and I chronically forget to eat on the weekends. We’ll have coffee and maybe some cookies or something in the morning (shut up – it’s morning somewhere in the country)(usually)(*cough*). Then sometime during the four o’clock football games we decide the tremors are caffeine-on-an-empty-stomach-related more than some previously latent illness rarely seen outside of Tanzania. FOOD!
Food. Unfortunately by this point our bodies treat the finest silver settings like the grimy pump at Exxon, so anything not convenience-wrapped is a tragic waste of money.
Then it’s:
Owwwwwwwwwww…
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
Oh God help me…
Why did we do this? Why do we ALWAYS do this? Why why whyyyyyyy??? How can anyone be this stupid? Unnhhhhh –
Wait. There's a brownie left?
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 7:13 PM [+] ::
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Mean Man
Speaksy took my headphones away.
All right, so I was listening to Be Still My Soul and literally SOBBING until I got the hiccups, but still.
Mean.
J
:: happy hour begins at 10:01 PM [+] ::
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Just when you thought it was safe to come back to the blog...:: Thursday, October 23, 2003 ::
...our Simon Cowell University website got picked up by the US media.
Witness In Touch Weekly magazine (Volume 2, Issue 44, Nov. 3), page 73.
My goal in taking today off work was to rest and recharge after a long, eventful week. The agenda did not include dancing and screaming my way through the house.
Yet here I am.
I'll bet my 6th grade English teacher, for whom I wrote a fairy tale about why some trees lose their leaves in the winter and others don't, didn't see this coming, either.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 5:20 PM [+] ::
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Girl:: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 ::
So after my lunch disaster yesterday you'll be happy to hear I'm having a wonderful time with my pan of Uncle Ralph's chocolate chip brownies tonight. Cheers!
I want to talk about girlness. I was reading an old article about my dear Bradley and his wife, Jane. It seems Jane wears a lot of flowers on her dresses, is handy with a glue gun and thinks "darn" and "heck" are some gol ding crazy cuss words.
I didn't latch onto the Pollyannitudeness of the situation until a few hours later when I seared a line into my abdomen while ironing (which, by the way, one should not do naked).
The wave of inadequacy that followed could have drowned Gloria Steinem.
What makes a woman feminine, anyway? As I rummaged under the bathroom sink for a bottle of aloe I knew had to be in there from my sunburn a few years ago, I mused muttering, "ow ow fuck fuck fuck ow!" probably didn't bode well for me. Also not good that I can't press a straight pleat, or, indeed, keep the skirt on the ironing board. Other bad signs include the mess I left under that sink, the mess of mascara-streaked tears down my forlorn face and the NC-17 Josh/Donna fanfic I'd left up on my monitor.
At that moment I felt like a pathetic excuse for a lady.
But then Speaksy swept into the bathroom, pulled me into his arms and kissed me well and truly, and my insecurity went down the drain (along with the contents of the aloe bottle, to which the years had not been kind).
What was I thinking, comparing myself unfavorably to the woman chosen by a man I'd rejected?
Fuck that.
Long live the tiara.
And Uncle Ralph's chocolate chip brownies.
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 10:14 PM [+] ::
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One Day. One Damn Day.:: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 ::
It's how the National Enquirer gets pictures of Katie Couric picking her nose and Alec Baldwin with plumber butt. It's why celebrities don't go out without baseball caps.
It's called Vanishing Grace Syndrome, and it happens the moment your name appears in lights.
I should know.
If my first clue was the roasted red pepper sliding off my grilled skirt steak sandwich, sliming down my chin and bouncing off my boob back into the baby greens, the clincher would be the almond creme squeezing out of the puff and acquainting itself with my cheek and hair.
It's a good thing I write websites under a pen name and not, say, act or the entire assembly might have landed in my lap and followed me to the car.
And there might have been a camera.
*shudder*
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 8:40 PM [+] ::
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Our 15 Minutes of Fame Start...NOW:: Monday, October 20, 2003 ::
I'd never been anyone's fan before. In the space of one year I went from a girl who didn't know her AOL email address, to a chick who co-authored a web page profiled by Heat magazine.
Damn.
Yes, the UK mag has published a write-up of the Simon Cowell University website in their October 24th issue (#242, p. 47, not that I'm obsessing or anything), and I am... I don't even know what I am.
Just, damn.
Of course there isn't a bookstore within thirty miles of my lil Maryland ville that carries it, so if you are my friend you might consider sending me a copy (oh for God's sake, you know?).
HFS, you are a goddess. Without your graphics and webmastering expertise I'd still be stuck in the drunken chat zone. You rock!
And thanks to all of you for keeping me motivated and well-stocked with Simon lurve! Without you I wouldn't be published today. I probably wouldn't have carpal tunnel either, but that's neither here nor there.
Not today.
Happiness!
Juliet
PS - Hey Bradley, need a site? I happen to know people.
PPS - You know, maybe I should try writing for money sometime...
:: happy hour begins at 9:12 PM [+] ::
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And Roscoe goes in for the score!:: Friday, October 17, 2003 ::
I woke up to my alarm, fresh from a dream in which I was seriously making out with my boss, except I had a mouthful of cookie so I couldn't kiss him back properly. Think the day couldn't get any worse than that?
Then you're an idiot.
Or maybe I'm the idiot because day after day, year after year, I keep going into my office, dropping my keys on the desk and firing up the old Dell for another round of "Let's Make Juliet Hateful!" As soon as Outlook opens my clients start lobbing darts, and I do pretty well dodging them until Monty Hall shows up with his red and yellow plaid jacket. Then it's, "I can make it worse than that!" "Oh yeah? Well, I have THIS!" "Oh no, nothing beats MY bazooka! POW!" YOU WIN A TRIP TO HELL!
And so it goes.
When I saw Roscoe sashay by after lunch today I really thought about jumping him to get the magic haze of that dream back, but alas, I was cookie-free. It just wouldn't have been the same.
Dedicated to HFS, who had an even worse dream than mine. I hope your day was better!
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 5:48 PM [+] ::
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Hands Off:: Thursday, October 16, 2003 ::
It's genetic. I do it. Lola does it. Dad Speaks does it. Even Aunt J does it. It's as natural as breathing for us; it is the swing we take every time a curve ball comes whizzing toward the plate:
When confronted with a problem, buy a book.
Don't buy the Cliffs Notes version - get the $55 one. It should have more than 400 pages or else you won't get everything you need. Make sure you spend at least an hour picking out just the right $55, 400-page manual because you don't want to make a mistake with something like this. It's just too important.
Now, take the book home. Get a cup of coffee. Don your sassy reading glasses and curl up in the end of the couch with the tome in your lap.
Fall asleep.
Wake up with the book shoved between the cushions with pages 42 through 193 crushed into each other. Curse. Smooth the pages and place the book on the end table while you reheat your coffee.
Forget about the book.
Also forget about whatever activity made you buy the book in the first place.
I think it's nature's way of making sure we Speakses don't get too deep into things we can't handle.
Like fencing.
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 10:30 PM [+] ::
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Well damn.:: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 ::
I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with blog topics these days. Pitifully, my life is just not exciting enough for a daily update. I suppose I could tell you about the new button I found in my car today, except that when I pushed it nothing seemed to happen so I can't tell you what it does. (I do know that anything I touch in the heating/cooling area turns off the automatic temperature thingy, so I just don't mess with that part of the dashboard.) (However, once I turn on the heated seats I don't know how to turn them back off again, so if anyone out there has a Chrysler 300M and can help me out, you know how to reach me.)
So anyway, over lunch today I'm telling my friend about my lack of blog fodder and say I need a hobby, something fun to occupy my off-hours.
"You already have a hobby," she says. "You write."
Fencing, maybe.
But definitely not auto repair.
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 10:23 PM [+] ::
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I cannot express how ridiculous this day was...:: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 ::
...but Foamy the Squirrel can.
Hide your children, and for God's sake don't listen to this at work unless you have an actual door.
Thanks for the link, HFS!
J
:: happy hour begins at 10:39 PM [+] ::
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You're supposed to be blogging.:: Monday, October 13, 2003 ::
I know, but I can't think of anything I want to talk about.
You're supposed to be blogging.
Well, yeah, but these chocolate covered peanuts are just sooo goood.
You're supposed to be blogging.
I just had a fight with a homophobe on a message board. Does that count?
You're supposed to be blogging.
But there's so much wonderful fanfic out there for me to read!
You're supposed to be blogging.
I'm sorry, but I just don't feel like blogging today.
You're supposed to be blogging.
I sense you are not hearing me.
You're supposed to be blogging.
Now wait a minute! It's my damned blog and if I don't want to blog I DON'T HAVE TO!
You're supposed to be blogging.
YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!
You're supposed to be blogging.
I'm seriously thinking about deleting this thing so you'll SHUT THE HELL UP!
You're supposed to be blogging.
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!
You're supposed to be blogging.
OH FOR THE LOVE OF - You know what? Fine. FINE!
You're supposed to be blogging.
I just did.
(Pinko.)
I heard that.
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 9:35 PM [+] ::
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Dude, I So Cooked!:: Friday, October 10, 2003 ::
With my poor Speaksy totally knocked down with a middle ear infection I was faced with a dilemma tonight: go to McDonald's or starve?
Juliet's Cardinal Rule: All bras already off, remain off for the duration of the night.
Kink in Plan: La bra, she was off.
Starvation obviously being no option and since the consumption of chocolate (Hostess)(cupcakes) on an empty stomach is something I gave away on my 30th birthday, I was left with - dum dum DUM! - COOKING!
Except I am really not much for the cooking. Speakses far and wide are falling off their chairs right now - when did Juliet stop cooking?
Answer: 1999.
Reaching back into the 80s we find a pre-Speaks household in which Lola took on cooking if Mom was out, and Juliet...did something else in trade. I've blocked it out.
Skip to the 90s and Juliet is married! Married AND...unemployed! Well, Juliet took this domesticity thing quite seriously (remember the bazillion-page housekeeping book with all the ironing crap in it? Yep.) and decided she'd learn to cook! Not only cook, but create amazing dishes with 459 ingredients, handrolling and words only a culinary student truly understands! She made her own pasta, spent entire days on intricate confections and learned to bake breads with every flour available! Everybody got fatter and Juliet felt like a homemaking goddess! She even had a glue gun!
And then she went to work.
And then the Speakses moved.
Not that there weren't signs before the apocalypse; there were a few failed sauces, a dead jar of sourdough starter and one particular night that will forever be known as the Hoboken Chicken Emergency. Being a perfectionist I took these losses hard.
But nothing can take the joy of cooking out of a woman faster than a move to a house without central air. Even the window unit blasting cold air like an Eskimo out of a cannon couldn't cool me off, and a hot Juliet is a pissed Juliet. (Note to reader: red sauce stains ceilings instantly and the bazillion-page book doesn't cover that.)
The last straw? Christmas, 1999, food poisoning from someone else's homemade wheat bread.
So now you will understand when I boast to you that I, all by myself, made a box of macaroni and cheese and dumped a can of corn and a can of tuna into it. It's my second-favorite meal, after Thanksgiving (which is the only complicated meal I will still make, if Speaksy and I don't revert to our new tradition of picking up Wendy's on a Sundayesque drive through town while we listen to the radio for Adam Sandler's turkey song and make up alternate lyrics for everything else we hear).
Long live all of you who still cook and use your glue-guns for more than tacking up stray pleats on $300 window dressings that infect your soul with malice.
You have my respect.
And my plea for a dinner invitation tomorrow night. Don't make me go through this again.
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 7:24 PM [+] ::
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Happy Birthday, Boys!:: Thursday, October 09, 2003 ::
Today it's Bradley, Tuesday was Simon and they're the same age! I'm not going to think about that for too long because it's kinda freaky, but what the hell else is new in my life.
So I've been working on a blog overhaul for about a week here and things are not going well. The first rendition looked totally faboo at 2am, but by dawn's first light it had magically transformed itself into a color best described as "shitbrindle".
Round two, and my graphics look like somebody's second-grader did them in magic marker, taped the paper to her bathing suit and ran through the sprinklers until her toes got pruny.
So I am back with my classic Junior Mints and a Diet Coke, floating away with some Frank Sinatra. Poor Speaksy is down with The Plague so I'm being realistic about my chances of finding my happy; instead I'm shooting for non-violent and headache-free. Reasonable, yes?
Well, my optical mouse (which has all these wiggly pieces that would make a fine clatter when swung into my monitor) thinks so, anyway.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone, and Happy Birthday, Boys!
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 9:43 PM [+] ::
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Optophobia:: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 ::
I am all about this trivia book I bought at Border's last weekend! It's called Schott's Original Miscellany, and there are all sorts of fascinating items in here.
Did you know that soldiers in WW II sometimes wrote I.T.A.L.Y. on the backs of the envelopes they sent home? It's the acronym for, "I'm Thinking About Loving You." Swoon!
Or, that the Burmese King Minrekyawswa was crushed to death by his own elephant in 1417?
How about that 70% of all Miss America winners were brunette?
The book includes the Order of Service for Princess Diana's funeral , including all the music, Isaac Asimov's famous Laws of Robotics AND a recipe for a Bloody Mary. How can I resist?
Alas, I fear this trip into trivia wonderland is merely my feeble attempt at escaping the nightmare that is John Wells' The West Wing. He's writing sock puppet theatre for an unbelievably talented group of actors and I find myself sincerely hoping this is a page out of the Dallas playbook: make it so far-fetched it just HAS to be a dream sequence.
Oh please oh please oh please.
Optophobia: the fear of opening one's eyes
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 9:52 PM [+] ::
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If they tell you they have to kill you.:: Monday, October 06, 2003 ::
I'm sorry I missed you guys yesterday, but I have an excuse: I was immersed in the ritual of The Secret Way.
There is a rich tradition behind The Secret Way, and legions of followers pledge fealty at the point of a bodkin bathed in the sweat of sacrificed men and women. Their oath:
I shall, at a time and place appointed by the configuration of the stars, make a decision that shall reverse all previous agreements and common understandings. I shall keep this decision as a secret known only to myself for fourteen moons. I shall then reveal this decision in a manner that bespeaks my greatness and, in it, my belief that all should have known the moment the decision was first made and adjusted the world accordingly without a word from me.
And if someone from Candid Camera should be in the vicinity when the poor bloke finds out, I shall receive ten extra points toward The Annual Secret Way Camp in Schenectady.
When I'm done making this voodoo doll of my client they're going to need powdered sweet calamus and honest-to-God frankincense to find her.
Oh yes, my pretties...
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 8:28 PM [+] ::
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Lessons Learned on a Weekend in October:: Friday, October 03, 2003 ::
Don’t buy motherhood if the seller smells like kid poop.
If you are at an outdoor event at a high school after the weather turns, your bare ass is going to freeze in the bathroom. It’s a lot like camping; all you can do is hover and hope the door stays shut on its own because your hands are busy holding the hem of your pants above the wet concrete floor.
Apologize to everyone near you before you open your umbrella. This gives them time to move before you impale them.
If you wait long enough, your team will eventually win.
If you are a Cubs fan, don’t marry a White Sox fan. It’s worse than a Catholic marrying a Baptist (which I also did).
Beware the ice cream truck barreling down your street playing “Turkey in the Straw” when it’s 40 degrees outside. There’s probably more in there than Sno Cones.
When the server sits down at your table to take your order, you’ve passed some sort of line. Pick the first steak, the baked potato and have ranch dressing on your salad.
An 18-ounce steak is fucking big.
Sunspots make you lose satellite reception but apparently don’t warrant a health warning.
A nice merlot will make you forget all of this and might make you jack up your neck again.
Notes to self.
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 6:18 PM [+] ::
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What Do I Know:: Thursday, October 02, 2003 ::
Happy Friday, everyone! Cool thing about this week: it was Thursday before I realized what the hell day it was. Bad thing about this week: oh, I really didn't accomplish as much as I thought I would. Oh, well. Better luck next week.
So last night I made my weekly pilgrimage to Border's for a Patricia Cornwell book on Jack the Ripper, and I took an unfortunate side trip into the computer aisle. I was looking for a book on web design for a friend, but what did I find instead? A $35 book on how to blog. What? Um, I thought you just kind of...you know...logged on and hoped for the best.
Seriously, what?
Apparently I'm doing it wrong. This here blog is probably about the $4 version - no wonder you feel cheated!
Sadly my attention span isn't long enough for me to have found out about those extra dollars you're missing; I put down the book and wandered over to literature, where I found a compilation of Chaucer's works with a copy "365 Ways to Show Her You Love Her" stashed behind it. (I guarantee you she didn't hide it there.)
$105 later we exited the store with Cornwell in hand and fancy blogging book happily forgotten, until I sat down at the computer tonight and had nothing to write about. Maybe I should have invested in more than a book of trivia and a map of the Southern Hemisphere (which looked all cool in the store but now looks like a long white tube I'll forget about by Monday).
Meh.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 9:05 PM [+] ::
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In Times Like These
I apologize for not blogging last night. Anyone who watches The West Wing already understands what caused my husband to shush me and say, "Honey, if you don't calm down the neighbors are going to call the police." It took HFS almost two hours on the phone to keep me off the ledge.
For those who don't watch, let's just say my beloved Josh Lyman has his own version of Terri Seymour, and after being ousted a couple of seasons ago she is, apparently, back.
We Josh/Donna shippers call her Lockjaw.
Ever a woman of action I immediately plunged myself into plotting ways to get rid of her, and since many of you have that same wish for another couple we know I thought I would post my plan here for all to use. (I'm giving like that.)
Spell to Lose Your Daughter's Evil Boyfriend
(Yeah, okay, but stay with me here.)
1. Obtain an egg laid by a black hen.
2. Hard-boil it in urine, either his, hers or yours.
3. Peel the egg and feed half to a cat and the other half to a dog, saying, "Just the way you two are natural enemies, so shall (his name) and (her name) feel about each other."
Well, all right, I'll admit the plan has a flaw...some flaws. But really, what choice to we have here? Let Lockjaw (and Terri) have our men without a fight? Uh, hello?
And don't think I'm going to let you ruin my plan, Speaksy. It doesn't matter that Josh and Lockjaw are fictional characters. This is URINE!
Godspeed,
Juliet
:: happy hour begins at 8:17 PM [+] ::
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