Resolutions

So the house still hasn’t sold, even after what seemed to be a promising showing.  After an expletive-filled e-mail to the husband, several expletive-laced rants in my office, and a LOT of assessing what kind of damage various objects on my desk could do to the wall…you know, just in case I felt like throwing something (don’t judge.  The last time I threw a bottle across the kitchen, I got a husband.  You never know what irrational anger will bring.  Sometimes it’s a broken produce drawer in your fridge.  Sometimes it’s a spoon-shaped dent in your  wall.  And sometimes it’s a diamond ring.  Win some, lose most.)  Anyway, once I’d fought off the feelings of arson and staging a house burglary (can someone steal your house?  If so, I’d like their number.  We can leave it under a bridge or something, right?  Again, blanket apology, dear insurance agent.  BLANKET.) I decided to change my frown upside down (and not by falling off a bar stool) and think of things with a positive spin.  So, in the spirit of American bootstraps, I’ve decided to let go of the things out of my control and focus on the things that I CAN change.  And so, I present to you:  The Angry Curl’s New Year’s Resolutions. 

1.  Expand my vocabulary.  I am a lover of all things word and so I plan to take my every day vernacular up a notch.  I’m also a lover of all things cursing, so I’ve decided just to make up my very own, very new curse words.  I’m thinking the world needs more ways to express frustration inappropriately and I think that I’m just the perfect flitch to do it!  After all, I’ll be schnucked if I can’t exercise my American right to free speech and everyone enjoys a good threeping now and again.  Chank yeah! 

I don't know what this means.  I just enjoy the phrase "unique profanity."  

2.  Continue my campaign of “50 Shades of Grey is Complete Horse Chank.”  I know I’ve written about the horrible, horrible things contained between the covers of “50 Shades of Grey” but I feel my voice isn’t being heard over the sound of numerous cracking whips across America.  You see, I could care less that some dude wants to get his S&M on with some chick…getcha some, you helicopter-flying stud, you.  If you want to go to your weird,  actually sounds kinda awesome, totally-legal-in-most-states room and have your way with some girl’s inner goddess, then by all means, get after it.  But I must ask the author of this “story” to stop writing like a girl who has just discovered the many meanings of our friend, the f-bomb, and realize that “50 Shades” is like attending a Carrothead show – there may be a lot of fun, shiny toys in the beginning but you’ve definitely lost some brain cells by the time it’s over.   

The Internet meme needs to know! 

3.  I will finally find Jack White in our great city and do questionable things to him until the police arrive. 

Let the inappropriate behavior begin...now.

4.  I will discontinue the use of the word “bestie.”  I’m not sure where this got started (I blame…actually…I have no idea.  But it’s someone’s fault.  And if I knew that someone, I would blame him.) but I feel that this trend’s course has been run and it’s time for the phrase to go the ways of “Eat my shorts” and “Totes.”  The aggravation of this really stems from a previously-discussed hatred of abbreviations.  “Best Friend” and “bestie” both contain 2 syllables.  One is no more difficult to say than the other, so why not go with the option that encompasses two actual words in the English language instead of the one that inspires a red, squiggly line underneath it in Microsoft Word? 

Not if you keep talking like that.

5.  I will sell my house!  I hear the real estate market is really on the upswing!

My version of porn at this point.  

6.  I will also stop being so optimistic about the housing market.  Because it’s shit. 

My reaction to what is now very, very bad porn.  

7.  I will implement my “Throwback Curse Words Preservation Tour” to make sure that “threeping” doesn’t replace its counterpart for future generations.  Because ALL people deserve to know the origins of threep and its proper use in modern day English. 

I don't know these people, but it looks like they've already gone through the work of planning out a world tour.  Thanks, coat tails of Colleen and Michael.  

8.    I will put the finishing touches on my one-woman show, “Road House: Pain DOES Hurt.  Just Not Patrick Swayze.” 

The best damn cooler in the business.  

9.   I will complete construction of my life-sized Candyland board in my backyard (once I get a backyard.)  If anyone knows of a bulldozer I can rent for the molasses swamp, please let me know. 

Just wait until you see my plans for the Candy Cane Forest! 

10.  Finally, I’m going to talk less.  It dawned on me recently that everyone is talking.  Always.  Is anyone actually listening or, to steal a quote from Pulp Fiction, are they waiting to talk?  Why do we feel the need to be heard so much?  Interrupters, loud talkers, pretentious flitches – verbal communication is exhausting.  I’m tired of fighting to have my thoughts heard.  The ones who actually care about it will shut the F up and listen.  And then they will hear filthy rants about the fake Becky years on “Roseanne” and vanilla-scented candles. 

Say "what" again! 

11.  I also resolve not to leave a blog with a serious ending such as #10, so here’s a joke:
Two muffins are sitting in an oven.  First muffin says to the second muffin, “It’s getting hot in here.”  Second muffin replies, “Holy chank, a talking muffin!” 

It's hard not to laugh when you say muffin.  

Happy 2013, y’all.  May it be filled with the glorious silence one only receives when she’s alienated everyone around her by screaming fabricated obscenities while chasing Jack White down Broadway.  

Thanksgiving with an Angry Curl Twist

So Thanksgiving is tomorrow and we all know what that means…it means my sister and I will be tossing shredded cheese and diced garlic into anything that will stand still (my dad, Sam, sleeping on the couch is no exception.)  I have, I feel, slacked a bit in my Thanksgiving duties this year as I haven’t put together a menu, opting instead for the oh-so-easy, “Let’s just do what we did last year.”  (Turns out that ain’t so bad, over-achieving self.  Remember this in 2013?)  Anyway, I would like to stop for a minute and point out the things in my life for which I’m thankful, since I’m fairly well-versed in pointing out the things for which I’m not grateful the other 364 days of the year.  So, here it is…stuff I like.  Turkey Day edition.

1.  My mother’s dressing.  Yes, it IS called dressing because we don’t shove it up a bird’s butt.  It is made in the proper Southern tradition of slapping it in a casserole dish and cooked until I am slobbering at the oven door with a pot of gravy laying in wait.  It is moist, it is flavorful, and more importantly?  It reheats to make the best damn turkey sandwiches this side of whatever part of the country calls it stuffing.  Everyone has that ONE Thanksgiving dish that has to make an appearance, and this is mine.  And I truly believe that even though I have the recipe, I will never be able to make it as well as Sharon Justice. 

This is my mother, Sharon.  She's pictured here holding a stalk of edamame and not a dish of dressing, but the imagination can work wonders.  

2.  Prepared pineapple.  Here’s the thing.  I f’ing love pineapple.  Here’s another thing.  I will gladly pay someone a bit more to shave that thing down into an edible form of fruit.  This is pretty hard-core for me, because I’m of the “I’m not paying someone for his elbow grease, of which I have quite the bountiful supply” train of thought.  But I’m totally willing to pay someone that extra 50 cents to do that deed for me.  Why?  Because it sucks.  I usually wind up a cursing, sticky mess with way less pineapple than I think I’m deserved and nowhere closer to my pineapple mango salsa that I’ve been craving all day.  So there it is.  One of the few things I’ll pay for in exchange for having it done for me.  The only other items in this category are my hair stylist, my mechanic, and my spice rack alphabetizer. 

This guy obviously hates peeling pineapple, as he's apparently given up mid-task and taken the high (cocktail-ridden) road to escape.  Actually, that looks kind of tasty...

3.  Speaking of my hair, let’s talk Natalie Bryant.  Natalie was a best friend WAY before she picked up the scissors, but now I’m lucky to count her as the best in both the friend and magic coif worker category.  I make no bones about the fact that I’m fairly clueless when it comes to beauty.  Makeup confounds me and my hair’s been of the “wash it and let it dry with the window down on the way to work” persuasion for quite some time now.  But Natalie, that sneaky vixen, has convinced me that hair can be much more, and I’m now the girl who packs her blow-dryer and straightening iron so I can properly style my newly-minted, bright red bangs on vacation.  Best friend Natalie is also not afraid to tell me when my outfit makes me look like an extra from Revenge of the Nerds, which is a great quality for at least one person in your life to possess.  Included in the best friend category, I must mention one Kirku King, as she’s done my makeup on MORE than one occasion and will also unabashedly tell me my fashion choices are becoming alarmingly reminiscent of an episode of Dawson’s Creek.  Plus, Kirku’s always good for a game of cards, a pitcher of sleuth juice, and a great exchange of Pretty Woman quotes. 

The fashion-watchers in question.  Note I look semi-put together.

4.  My cat, Mooney.  We actually have three cats (borderline crazy cat people, but we’re not quite there yet according to the Nataional Crazy Cat Folks of North America guidelines) but Mooney is the only one who decides that, “Hey, it’s 4am.  I’m going to go suffocate my owner!”  Most people would find this to be intrusive and rather irritating.  I also find this action intrusive and irritating, but it’s also led to many an early-morning revelation that only comes to those half-asleep and wearing a large cat on her head.  I’ve written songs, I’ve planned my to-do list, plus I’ve invented the anti-cat pillow while in the state of sort-of slumber, and I owe it to my sleep-interrupting feline Mooney.  I’ve solved the world’s problems, balanced our budget, and written sonnets that would make Shakespeare vomit in his mouth a little bit.  Funny thing is, Mooney might be #1 on this list if I could remember ANY of the “revelations” I just mentioned.  But once he finally gets pushed off the pillow, I just hit the snooze button for as long as possible before I have to get up early to straighten my bangs.    

Mooney.  The Feline Mosquito.

5.  Finally, I do have to give a shout-out to the hubs, Travis, for constantly putting up with my failed (and sometimes non-failed) creations in the kitchen.  He accepts the fact that I curse like a sailor, drink like a drunk sailor, and dance like an even drunker sailor.  He knows the way to my heart is a dust pan full of glass,  a quilt by the lake, and a hammock in the woods.  He also has hot tattoos and a sweet ass.  Hehe.  

The husband...and a couple of the referenced tattoos.

So there ya have it.  I would write more, but I now have to force my way down the baking aisle of Kroger on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and curse at myself for not doing it on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, as I opted to get a free lunch at Taco Mamacita instead.  Muy stupido, senorita.  

More Annoying Things about the Angry Curl

More things that I do that probably annoy others...

1.  I kiss my car’s ceiling when I go through a yellow light.  This stems from an incident in high school when I flew through a “yellow” light (it was red.  Like, bright red.  And I totally ran it.  Again, sorry insurance agent!)  I didn’t kiss the ceiling that night because I pre-occupied with the thought of the Oreo Blizzard I was about to snag from the DQ.  Cue another color of lights in my rear view, and I was pulled over by the 5-0 for the first time in my short driving career.  I didn’t get a ticket (so many tears.  Real ones.  I thought my life was over at one point.   I wasn’t a very rational child.)  I contemplated not telling my parents but decided to anyway.  After the obligatory, “Drive better or else” speech, we all went on our merry ways (mine was a bit merrier due to the fact that I wasn’t in jail, a valid fear after getting pulled over for a traffic violation.)  Turns out a couple of days later some nosy whore of a person called our house to casually mention to my mother that she noticed I got pulled over the other night.  My mother smugly replied that she knew already and wished the whore a good day.  I wished several other things upon her, but one thing is for certain – I now kiss the ceiling.  That’s just good advice for life. 

2.  I have voices and characters for all of our cats.  Yes, we have 3 cats, which is apparently shocking to some, especially our prostitute of a neighbor (she really looked at me and said, “WHOA!” with a look of shock on her face when I told her.  I wanted to yell “Hooker!” and run away, but refrained.)  Mooney, named for Keith Moon because he looks kinda dopey, has an appropriately dopey voice.  Gibson, the fattest cat I’ve ever seen, also has an appropriately fat voice.  Kibby is just a little snobby and I’m fond of making her say, “Screw you guys!  UGH!!!” when she runs off after shoving her butt in your face.  All this is to say that “talking” for my animals should probably be kept to myself, but I don’t and it’s probably a habit that makes someone cringe. 

3.  I’m still not entirely sure what “dubstep” means.  I could Google it, I’m sure, but I just don’t care that much. 

4.  I once ate potpourri.  And it wasn’t on a dare.  I was curious. 

5.  I f'ing love puns.  I especially like mangling people’s names – for example, our friend Brock has been my phone as Brocktopus, Brock Star and Brock Pot while my co-worker Dan has become Danakin Skywalker or Peter Dan Peanut Butter.  I have a problem and I’m not willing to fix it anytime soon.  Now, please welcome to the stage, Farty Robbins! 

6.  I like to eat with my hands.  It began early, with me shoveling peas in my mouth by the handful.  It’s now progressed to me picking up clumps of mac-n-cheese and all other manner of foods that should probably be eaten with a fork and not really caring about the stranger casting dirty looks at me (I pretend that it’s a look of disdain for eating with my hands, not the fact that I stole their food while they were in the bathroom.) 

7.  Favorite phrases of mine include: 
                -  ‘Almost’ only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades.
                -  She went through that like Sherman through Georgia.
                -  Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.
                -  (Just insert a string of various curse words here.  I have a mouth that would make a sailor         blush.)  

Alex Trabek is the Perfect Pronunciation Devil

While driving to work and cursing my fellow commuters this morning, I came to the (not at all) shocking conclusion that humanity sucks.  I feel the world is slowly degenerating into a heaping, flaming pile of poo and when the earth finally says, “Enough” and caves in on itself, it will probably be a blessing in disguise.  And it’s with these happy sentiments that I present another blog on all that’s wrong with this world.

1.  Keurig coffee makers.  Are people aware that you don’t HAVE to make an entire pot of coffee?  Do folks realize that all you need to do to make a cup of coffee is to add less water and less coffee to your coffee pot?  Why do we need individually-sized pieces of plastic to aid us with simple math in the morning?  Answer:  we $#&%ing don’t. 

2.  Alex Trabek pronouncing fancy words all…fancy-like.  I know you’ve hosted Jeopardy for going on 84 some odd years, and I’m sure you’ve gained multitudes of completely useless knowledge in your tenure, but do you have to say those words like you’re the greatest thing since pre-sliced cheese?  Answer:  you *#^%ing don’t.  And Giada De Laurentiis?  Don’t think you’re exempt from this rant, either.  You don’t think we notice that your Italian accent suddenly appears with that ball of mozzarella cheese?  Answer:  we *#&%ing do. 

3.  The fact that the steam cleaner I picked up off the side of the road doesn’t work.  Granted, I had a feeling that the reason my beloved steam cleaner appeared on the curb wasn’t that it worked perfectly, but a cash-strapped gal can hope, can’t she?  I had high hopes when I actually turned on, but after filling the water reservoir and adding (extremely freakin’ expensive) steam cleaner solution, I decided to try my hand at clean carpets.  The problem?  The water doesn’t come out, so you just wind up with soap-soaked carpets and no steam.  I’m now faced with the dilemma of putting the stupid thing BACK into my car and finding someone who will repair it, and I’m fairly certain those people are few and far between, thanks to the popular “it’s cheaper to just get a new one” mentality.  Sadness and dirty carpets:  I have them. 

4.  Looking at rich peoples’ houses.  People magazine has a penchant for running a “Houses of the Stars!” feature that makes me want to punch a baby.  Life sucks as it is and the last thing I need to see after attempting to steam-clean my carpets with a roadside steam cleaner is some rich assclown’s personal bowling alley/wine closet.  It’s like this:  wake up in a house you hate.  Go to a job that you may or may not hate.  Get paid.  Spend your entire paycheck on bills you hate.  And then sit down at the end of a hard week to get slapped in the face with, “We know the country’s in a recession and that you hate your life – but look at the awesome stuff these people have!”  I don’t give a flying rat’s dirty parts about a Kardashian’s custom-designed wading lake.  I just want my property taxes to stop increasing. 

5.  Increased property taxes.  Why my property taxes weren’t rolled into my mortgage payments from the get-go is a complete mystery to me, so imagine my surprise when I got a hefty bill the first year in my house labeled, “Property taxes!” (I may have added the exclamation point for effect.)  After that first slap in the face, I wisely thought, “I know.  I’ll put money away all year so when the property tax bill comes, I’ll actually have the money with which to pay said bill.”  Foresight – it’s a hell of a drug, I tell ya.  So imagine my surprise when I got this year’s property tax bill – and it was MUCH higher than its predecessors.  Deciding to exercise my right to call and bitch about things, I called our lovely tax folks and explained the fact that, if anything, our property values have hit the proverbial bottom and that I’m well-versed in this soul-crushing fact due to the whole “can’t sell my house for what I owe on it” situation we’re in currently.  I mentioned the foreclosures, the bank seizures, and the asinine prices of the abodes surrounding me and was told, “Those aren’t valid sales” when assessing property values.  OH REALLY?  Because they sure as hell matter when it comes to selling the house.  Interesting, Charlie Cardwell, metropolitan trustee.  Very, very interesting.  Assclown.  

Happiness with a Side of Everything Sucks

So the house hasn’t sold yet, but I have had a chance to glare at truck driver neighbor and the neighbor who we’ve decided is selling her body on the street hasn’t been home in a few weeks – in other words, things could be worse.  Since my last “crap that doesn’t annoy me” post garnered us a showing, albeit a totally useless one, I’m trying this optimism thing on for size again just to see what the hell I have to do to unload this heap of wood.  Note:  while reading this, you very well may think to yourself, “These aren’t positive thoughts at all – this is just pessimism shrouded in a cloak of false happiness.”  And you’d be right.  People who are happy all the time should be handled with extreme care, as there is most definitely something wrong with them.  I’ve got things wrong with me, but at least I’m realistic enough to admit it. 

1.  Boxed wine.  A co-worker of mine turned me on to this wondrous delight and I’ve yet to look back since.  Using a shopping cart in a liquor store makes one look like an alcoholic, but when you have the ability to shove 4 bottles of wine into one box, the judgmental looks decrease exponentially.  I’ve found that hanging the spigot into the kitchen sink reduces the amount of drippage you get down the front of your white cabinets.  I’ve also found that sipping this beverage out of a jelly jar will yield several comments about your level of classiness.  (Not to worry, these comments will roll off your back much easier after a couple more jars of wine.)  Finally, there’s nothing like an entire box of wine to make you forget about the fact that your house has been on the market for 2 ½ achingly miserable years.  So go ahead – have another box. It's not like you're going anywhere.  Cheers! (Note:  I don't know who this guy in the picture is, but doesn't he too look excited about the prospect of a BOX OF WINE?)  

2.   The show “Nashville.”  This over-acted soap opera of a show may be a bit cheesy and I don’t care one bit.  The sweeping shots of the skyline are only affirmations of the tattoo I have of our lovely city, plus it’s great fun to say, “I’ve totally been there!” and “Music Row isn’t really walking distance to the pedestrian bridge” or “That’s totally not the actual WSM studio.”  I think the real reason I love the show is that it gives me an excuse to watch totally trashy television under the guise that I’m “doing it for the city.”  I AM doing it for Nashville, but the show’s also filling a guilty-pleasure-shaped void in my rhinestone lovin’ heart, so croon on Rayna Jaymes.*  Croon on.
*I do have to point out that the only other people with that many “y’s” in their name are porn stars.  Possibly a back-up plan once the country music gig dries up?    

3.  Peanut butter.  Another co-worker once said, “I’m only using this apple as a vehicle to get peanut butter in my mouth.”  I realized that I eat a lot of things just for the excuse of shoveling peanut butter down my gullet – rice cakes?  Blah.  Rice cakes with crunchy peanut butter?  BREAKFAST!  And sure, apples are great this time of year, but why not kick that Granny Smith up a notch and slather it in peanut butter?  The one downfall of peanut butter is actually buying it.  I don’t know if you’ve taken a gander at the PB aisle lately, but the possibilities are mind-boggling.  Crunchy and smooth used to be the only options, but now there’s reduced fat!  There’s peanut butter with chocolate swirls (note:  ugh.) and then there’s the peanut butter with the jelly already mixed in (another note:  really?  How lazy can we get?)  However, once you figure out that the jar you’re holding is your sought-after plain ole, run of the mill crunchy, you can escape the peanut butter black hole on aisle 5 and get down to the business of slathering everything you can think of in a glorious paste of peanut mash. 

4.  Dumpster diving.  I will say that the one “perk” of living in the equivalent of a bathtub filled with Krytonite is being close enough to the dumpster to scavenge what our neighbors have deemed unfit for their own bathtubs of superhero downfalls.  I’ve gotten a set of water and food dishes for the cats, a couple of books, two picture frames, and my keys out of the dumpster during my tenure on Timberway Circle (of Hell) and that’s just the stuff I’m willing to admit to on the Internet.  And yes, I did throw away my keys once.  It was sometime in the month of July and it took several frantic minutes of cursing, learning WAY too much about my neighbors, and searching through refuse with a broom handle before I liberated my keys (attached to my all-too-important Suntan City card) from the box o’ trash and returned to work with a completely different outfit and a greater appreciation for our trash guys. 

5.  The idea of losing somewhere around $10,000 (roughly.)  Why is this pleasing?  Because when we DO sell our house for an absolutely devastating loss, I will no longer actually be living in that house.  And for that, I’ll gladly give whoever will take it a large sum of my hard-earned money.  Because there are unused towels in the bathrooms, unfilled fancy soap dispensers on the sink, a permanently-set kitchen table, complete with fake fruit, and all of our cool shit is in storage.  In order to get rid of ALL of this in my life, I would probably carry out a hit on someone’s wife just to get some relief from the anxiety of living in a staged house.  At least my property taxes wouldn’t inexplicably increase on my 8x10 piece of Metro-owned penitentiary. 
(Note:  This is what I imagine I would look like as a professional assassin.  A fairly accurate depiction, I'd say, save for the egregious lack of curly hair.)  

So there you have it.  Things that kind of make me happy but probably shouldn’t.  Bring on the good karma, universe.  Because I still think everything sucks.  

Society Columns and Skinny Jeans

So dawns upon us another hump day here in Nashville, TN and while the weather may be changing, I can assure you that I’m just as angry and bitter as ever (isn’t it nice to have a constant in this world of turmoil?)  And so here’s yet another list of things that I hate, things that I sort of like, and at least one subject on which I’m just completely icked out. 

1.  Let’s talk about society columns for a minute.  I realize in an age of dwindling newspaper numbers, these aren’t quite as prevalent, but really.  Who gets a copy of their local paper to go to page 4 of the Living section, only to be met with a grainy photo of some half-drunk socialite at a random ball that’s thrown to raise money for some charity, some politician, or some politician’s charity?  The half-drunk socialite and her other semi-sober friends, that’s who.  You know the philosophy that people only like pictures of themselves, celebrities, or cute animals?  (If not, it’s because I just fabricated that little bit of knowledge.  But come on – you nodded your head.)  It’s true.  And you, Mrs. Annabelle Snubface, are none of those and therefore the only time I will get enjoyment about of the society pages is when a picture is featured showcasing the attendees’ lack of proper undergarments or making out with the kitchen staff. 
An addendum to this:  overly-detailed wedding announcements.  When we got married, we got the flyer from the paper telling us all the different avenues one may take to shout to the greater Metro area, “WE GOT F’ING MARRIED, Y’ALL!”  Announcing you got married?  Totally fine.  Taking out an full-page, color ad in the Sunday paper to detail the crappy bridesmaid dresses you forced your friends into and the “sweetheart neckline on the bride’s custom-made dress” is stupid.  No one cares that you gave your guests purple bells as a wedding favor (Note:  this is NOT fabricated.  This came from a real wedding announcement I read years ago…and have made fun of ever since.)  If you’re gonna go into details, let’s talk about the half-drunk socialite making out with the bartender and the fact that one of the groomsmen lost his shoe in the Cheekwood koi pond.  That I would read.

2.  Now, let’s examine skinny jeans.  For the majority of my life, I’ve always thought skinny jeans referred to that one pair of jeans you could only wear after two weeks of eating nothing but broccoli and vodka sodas.  But now that trend has expanded so to include jeggings, and the very worst?  Skinny jeans for dudes.  I can handle a girl rocking the SJ’s, especially with the advent of boot season upon us, but dudes in skinny jeans look like a set of uncomfortably bundled genitalia balanced precariously upon the legs of an anemic chicken.  And you know what’s sexy about that last sentence?  Absolutely nothing.   

3.  Speaking of hipsters, can y’all just let off the Mason jar craze?  I know they’re awesome – I’ve been using them for the past 30 years because that’s what you do when your kitchen is full of tomatoes and has been set up as a home canning station for the entire summer.  I’m also aware they’re great drink receptacles due to the lovely ribbing along with rim (helps you not drop your beverage when you’re a bit tipsy…or making out with that bartender.)   However, pretty soon everyone’s going to figure out just how freakin’ awesome these things are and this craze, as they tend to do, will inflate the price of the craze’s object du jour and make them scarce in the marketplace.  Now, my Mason jars come from my family’s home canning station and when I receive them they’re filled with a variety of relish, sauerkraut, or pickles that are so good they will make you want to bitch slap the Queen of England.  If the Mason jar supplies dry up, I’m afraid my home-canned food supply will be cut off, and I, for one, would really like to give Queen Elizabeth the what’s up every once in a while. 

So I lied and I’m not writing about anything that makes me happy in this edition of “Stuff You’re Probably Not Reading” because I’ve rambled on long enough and I really want to get to the part of the prose where I talk about something that just gives me the icks:  hugging.
Here’s the deal – I don’t mind hugging people that are supposed to be hugged.  This group includes family members and close friends you haven’t seen in ages.  And that’s about it.  It’s not that I’m anti-social, I just don’t like touching people.  I’ve never been a touchy person and when Patrick Swayze announced in Dirty Dancing, “This is my dance space.  This is your dance space.  I don’t go into yours, you don’t go into mine” I thought I was in love.  Finally, someone with the same personal space issues!!  Now, I’m not saying that people who are “huggers” annoy me.  They only annoy me if they know I’m not a hugger and still persist with trying to get that elusive hug.  That’s just an idiotic mistake, and one that very well may end with you stapled to the Community Events bulletin board at the local Mapco.

Stay tuned for the next edition of rage and hatred to build on the hugging portion of this one – people who stand too close to me in stores.  Casual acquaintances attempting to touch me?  I can handle that.  Total strangers trying to grope their way over me to get to the cereal aisle?  Absolutely not gonna happen, my friend.  Get your Honey Nuts off my Cheerios, eh?  

So You're Selling Your House? A Guide to Not Actually Living in It

Congratulations on making the first step down a long road of insanity.  After all, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a “for sale” sign in your front yard.  If you’re reading this, then you have obviously made the absolutely crazy decision to sell your house.  Yay!  Allow me to let you in on a few secrets that will ease this transition from a fairly sane, functional human being into a screaming, crazy shell of humanity.

1. Firstly, you’ll want to stage your house.  Staging is a Latin term that means “your taste sucks.”  A good stager will begin by telling you that all of your stuff is ugly.  You will then be encouraged to relocate said stuff into a facility where no one, ever, will be exposed to it (storage facility or large dumpster.  Take your pick.)  After this step is complete, you will be forced to hang art from Ikea over your fireplace and have a fake bowl of fruit on your kitchen table at all times.  Apparently fake pears are a necessary evil in the quest to sell your house. 
2. You will also be forced to make your bed.  Every. Single. Morning.  And not only will you need to make your bed, but you’ll need to hide the pillows that are actually used for sleeping and replace them with large, uncomfortable “pretty” pillows.  Random props will also be placed on your bed that will give your bedroom the feeling of living in a Pottery Barn showroom.  These, of course, need to be taken off at night and replaced in the morning because normal people don’t live like this.  But normal people don’t sell houses.
3. You’re going to want to utilize the idea of a “morning checklist” when your house is on the market.  This will help you to know that your house will look perfect in the off chance that you will get an impromptu showing during the day.  An example of mine:
1. Throw any dirty towels, socks, or ascots into the washing machine before walking out the door.  You wouldn’t want people to be grossed out by your ascot.  And heaven forbid they think you wear socks.
2. I also throw in any dirty dishes that I haven’t washed yet.  I do this because my dishwasher is still full of clean clothes that I haven’t had time to unload due to the fact that I recently ran my nonstick sauté pan through the delicate cycle and broke my washing machine. 
3. Take a look around.  If anything is out that would look out of place at a Williams & Sonoma photo shoot, hide it.  I’ve utilized my refrigerator as a place to hide tennis shoes, remote controls, and the occasional feather boa.  I try to keep electronics in the low humidity crisper and I’ve found I’ve actually gotten better reception to the TV because of it. 
4. A fun game to play to take your mind off of the fact that you’re living in a catalog is the “Where Did I Hurriedly Stuff (Whatever Item You’re Searching For) This Morning?”  Get the kids involved as you scramble to figure out where you threw your sunglasses, cell phone charger, or yard rake before a showing.  Popular hiding places in our house include the fireplace, under the couch, and the trunk of my car.  You would be surprised how many yard implements can be stuffed in the trunk of a Honda Civic.