Just Imagine Everyone is Naked

Is it something special about blogger? Is it something terrible about spaces? You know what - don't answer that, because whatever you say will offend either Susannah or I, and chances are, you know both of us and don't want to do that. The point is, I HAVE moved to spaces. I'm not coming back - so any of you that are holding on to that fantasy (and i know there are several of you because my Spaces Stats page tells me that about half my hits come from people getting here first and then clicking the link) you NEED to let it go.

So take a minute now to update your RSS feed, or change the link in favorites, or cross out and rewrite the link you have on the little yellow sticky. Because i'm going - no, i'm gone - i've already left. So what are you still doing here, all alone, like the one guy alone in the stands at a sports event hours and hours after the team and everyone else have moved on to greener fields?

BIG NEWS!

I'm moving. Goodbye blogger - you've been good to me. I hope you all follow me to:

http://spaces.msn.com/members/Icarriedawatermelon

Disclaimer: If you think this post might apply to you, you're probably right. With the exception of Ginger, my Parents, and my nephew, Correy "I want to be 5 now, i'm tired of being 4 and 5/12s" pearlman, this post applies to everyone i know. So please don't take it personally.

IF ONE MORE PERSON ASKS ME HOW I LIKE "WORKING FOR THE EVIL EMPIRE", I will take up golf just so i can have a nine-iron with which to hit the offender in the head. And s/he won't get a useful warning, like "FOUR". No, you'll just get smacked upside the head and left sitting in a gutter looking at all the pretty stars - if I didn't hit you hard enough you might have the reasoning capacity left to wonder why there are stars in the middle of the day and how you got so close to them and ow, why does my head hurt.

Ok, let's talk about this people. Do you go up to someone "Hey! How's your evil mother?" Now, i'm not trying to compare my company to my mother (especially since MY mother and computers don't belong in the same dictionary let alone sentence), so perhaps it's more like "you go to what college? Oh my god, that school F*cking sucks. Did you not get in anywhere else? Does a parent work there?" We're talking about a personal part of my life, a decision i've made for various reasons for the time being and applying words like "evil" to something i dedicate 50 hours a week to cold-hearted. Which reminds me of a little diddy from the break away blockbuster, bring it on:

"brrr, it's getting cold in here
there must be some mac-users in the atmosphere"

Maybe those weren't the exact words - but come one, i saw it a couple years ago.

Beyond generally rules of social interaction, why "evil"? That word leaves absolutly NO room for negotiation. Are you THAT hooked on alliteration, people? If so, i have a number of tongue twisters about woodchucks i can refer you to in order to satisfy your fix. Believe it or not, Microsoft actually does a number of very handy little things. I KNOW you all love powerpoint, because what is there not to love? You love using it, you love teachers who use it, you love the big font the animation and the pretty pictures and there's no denying it. Outlook is freakin awesome. I can send out an email with cute little voting buttons and get responses about who is "totally coming" to my Buffy Watching Parties, and who is a "big loser" - and just like that too because i can make the voting buttons say anything i want. And Messenger - i don't want to even get in to how much better it is than AIM - but for starters, you can make your own emoticons. Everytime i type "buffy" in a conversation window the word turns into a picture of buffy.

The reason a lot of people have trouble with Microsoft, is that you spend either too much time with it - so problems are bound to arise - like too much time trapped in a car with your family driving across the country to see even more family and the knowledge that you're actually going to have to drive BACK with these people - it doesn't mean you should stop loving them. OR, you don't spend enough, so all the things you "wish it could do for me" it actually does. You're just not taking the time to learn it. Like ctrl + Z - my dad didn't know about that. How he lives? I don't know.

Ok. I think that's the end of my rant. I suppose i'll have more to say about it after someone thinks it's funny to test me and my trusty 9-iron.

With so much Love - Leah :-)

Oh! Unfortunate Situational Conflict!


Here i came, www.blogger.com, with keyboard in hand prepared to continue my top ten list of reasons why i haven't been blogging much lately, when i realized what a lie i'd be living if i moved on to number 3. This morning, i sat at home in my pjs - all snuggled up in bed (the new arrangement of my bedroom means the furnace is directly below my head - considered a blessing by the cold-blooded* among us, a fire hazard by others) with my laptop, a Tully's cup of coffee and a blueberry scone doing what so many people enjoy about working at a lax company "working from home."
The reason was not, as it is for many, because i needed the quiet privacy that one cannot find in a crowded office building. I was waiting for the cable guy ("CABLE GUY") to come and fix my internet. Which he did. So i'm now online at home now which invalidates about three of my top ten excuses. Ok, so it doesn't invalidate them, because it's still true that those were reasons i wasn't writing before - but they won't hold up any longer. And what if another week just happens to pass with my blogg left untouched, then what? A whole new list of excuses? I don't think so, this list is stressing me out enough as it is.

How about we do this - if it ever takes me a while to blog again - just assume that my internet may have gone out, and those excuses which involve internet still apply.

Reason i haven't been blogging lately #3. George Bush and his recent election (see justification #6 for why this belongs on this list)

#2. because women really ARE better than men. hahahaha (see justication for #3 for why this belongs on this list)

and the #1 reason i have not been blogging much lately...well - better save that for next time, folks. Not that i want to drag this whole thing out any more than you do, but as you can tell by 3 and 2 my motivatoin for creativity is lacking at present.

So what else is news? Oh, here's a thing. I'm becoming accustomed to the well-paid lifestyle. It happened so fast! it makes me skeptical that I've always been meant to have a lot of money laying around - maybe i was a pimp in a previous lifetime? Doubt it - "Pimp L" doesn't quite have a ring to it (well, it has a ring - just not the kind that anyone would answer) I know a lot of you aren't bringing home the kind of bacon that i am (jewish or not) so i don't mean in anyway to rub this in your face. It's just, I have such big plans of saving up all kinds of cash so when i'm ready to hide out in a cabin eating carrot sticks (we're not talking baby carrots, folks) and putting the finishing touches on my "'hilarious yet provocotive' Says the New York Times" novel, i can actually afford to rent said cabin and purchase said carrot sticks, or at least the wild animal who will hunt and dig them. But lately i've been, you know, buying hats, and ordering appetizers, and art supplies, and the expensive canned soups instead of the discount ones. It's adding up, people, and it worries me that this is something i could get used to. Those of you who are currently nibbling on the table scraps your parents left behind while you read this - and perhaps when the table scraps are gone you keep nibbling your own flesh, half out of hunger and half out of outrage that someone could complain about having too much money - i seriously appologize. Your existance makes me realize this is not a problem worth complaining about, it's a a problem worth fixing quietly by myself with no outside involvement. I just thought you should know, it's easy to say "down with the rich and corporate america! until they fund exciting egg nog lattes where bitter homemade coffee used to be. you know what i'm saying? I'm not complaining - i'm just, evaluating. I'm trying to keep the innerLeah the same as she's always been - it seems just the decorative edges are changing - however, if you notice anything more serious changing in my charachter - PLEASE let me know. I might bite your head off and spit it out in a landfill - but i will consider your advice seriously, so even though your head will be smushed under a thousand tons of trash, it won't be a waste of time.

If i didn't already think this post was too long - i might tell you about the dueling piano bar that i went too on saturday night. They played the hoekey pokey and greece and marguerittaville - i thought of Dave binder. I had a good time inspite of my sobriety which just goes with my theory, German's love david hasslehoff.

Home to D-town tomorrow for thanksgiving - there's no place where i can give thanks and mean it like i can in Colorado.

I spent the last week on the east coast and here are some of the things i learned:

1) Spending an evening eating food from the meeting street cafe (TWO chocolate cookies included) with Willa Annika and Laura, and then drinking champagne and eating scones and talking about life, love and everything, is like chicken soup for the soul. (there was a time in my life when i was so sick of cliched similies that I was always just going to say "moose." For example, "he was as quiet as a moose"; "trying to talk about love is like dancing about moose"; and "his kisses made me melt like a moose on the fourth of july". But the evening i had in Providence was way too soulful to apply the moose rule. What i'm trying to say is, i'm sorry for the cliche.

2) Meeting street cookies are the best cookies in the world. When i'm rich i'm gonna by the cafe, train my face to stay consistantly surly, and ship cookies all around the world making myself rich and my fellow man fat. Speaking of rich, last night i heard some pop song that had a line that said something about "Would Bill Gates be as rich if he had got laid in high school?" the singer went on to answer his own question: "No, of course not." First of all, it was werid to here my bosses name on the radio. I mean - yeah i've never met the guy, but i have seen an email from time to time, and we talk about him enough around here. I can't explain it but i had in instinctual "you talkin about my mama?" moment. Second, i realized a corollary of the singer's question was "would i be in seattle right now if bill gates had gotten laid in high school?" And it seems weird that my current location in life is dependent on the 1980s sex-life of a middle-adged man that's not my father. And finally, it made me wonder, "would i be rich and successful if i hadn't gotten laid in high school?" They tell you in sex-ed there are a lot of the things you need to take into consideration before taking the plunge - but i don't remember "forfeiting forture and fame" making that list. They bog down the curriculum with STDs and Pregnancy instead of focusing on the important stuff. Where might i be now? Probably distributing Meeting Street cookies worldwide, that's where.

3) Shopping in New York City is just as fun as it sounds. (note: this will mean very different things to different people)

4) There are no lockers in New York City since 9/11. Most people i've mentioned this too have said "duh." but how am i supposed to know? All this talk about "security security security" i just kinda of assumed they would be adding more locks around the city, not removing them. When i was standing in the middle of prot authority looking for the lockers that i would never find, a staff guy came up to me and said "hey darlin, where are you trying to get, new jersey?" what i said was "No. Thanks though." What i thought was "What the hell about me makes you think jersey!?!"

5) Lance and Greg have a cute new apartment with cowboy curtains. Lance has a computer, Greg likes to find things in the gutter and bring them into the apartment. So far it seems he has about a 50/50 success rate for bringing in things worth keeping and things that probably carry a variety of communicable diseases. Lance is doing a little play in New York which is pretty cool and he's going to do this interesting gig that combines many of the things he loves: friends, an audience, a bar, improv, and teen drama. (he loves meeting street cookies too, and i'm sure if they had a franchise in NYC he'd find a way to incorporate them) Greg is using Brown carreer services to get a job. I think he's the only one in the world - so we can all use him as a guinnea pig to find out how it goes. Todd is in a band that is trying to find their "sound" much like a moose! (if anyone has any idea what sound a moose makes, let me know so i can retract this statement)

6) Getting around on the subway is just as hard as it seems (note: this will mean very different things to different people)

7) Twelve year olds know what condoms are and can tell dirty jokes involving them. Of course this isnt' something i thought i had to learn - but once we're talking about my own nephew it became shocking. Also, twelve year olds play a game in gym called Speed ball that does not involve drugs.

8) Four year olds who probably couldn't define "ctrl" "alt" or "del", knows what they mean in combination and when to combine them. The kid can't even read "(not responding)" yet, but a bunch of grayed out windows and a nonresponsive mouse are totally obvious to him. Smart cookie - that one; and creepy industry.

9) My brother is getting a pool built for his kids. I never had a pool. DJ, can i have a pool?

10) Chris Byrnes is working on an "i can tell you what i do but i'd have to kill you" account, but he doesn't carry a breif case. How much sense does that make? Together he and i watched the final two episodes of West Wing season two. That show is really pretty amazing. Shameless plug - both for the show and for myself. i do watch things that aren't buffy people.

11) 1984 is a fan-fucking-tastic book, and everyone should read it for that reason, and not because it's a classic (that generally finds its way to the top of a alphabetical classics list)

12) My knees shake when i speak in public. Even when im talking to a bunch of Brown kids that i know about a job that i understand, my knees go du-du-du-du up and down with this violent vibration i could't imitate if i tried. Next time i keep a presentation i'll were a skirt so you can see what i'm talking about. It's like i'm about to get my first kiss - by EVERYONE in the audience.

13) Brown kids don't know how to spend money even when they're trying. I tried to encourage tim and eric to buy fancy beer and alcohol, and what do they get? "smoked beer" that tasted like it was wrung from the dregs of a burnt bag of popcorn, barely-alcoholic raspberry beer, and malibu coconut flavored rum. it was pretty cute watching them try to play "rich" and failing miserably.

14) Chrisina Agulara's music video "dirty" is really not that dirty considering her dancing is no different than most of the backup dancers for any male-centered music video. Why do we give female artists (janet included) such a hard time and pretend like backup dancers don't exist. It's kinda like how naked people are allowed on the history channel as long as their not white and have some abnormal piercing, but we don't allow them on any other networks.

15) i must be finally making friends, real friends, because not going to work every day made me actually miss a few people. Awww.

Continuation of previous post - but it was getting heavy. - like giving birth to Dectuplets heavy.

Interesting comments i received on the last post - specifically the RSS thing. I've heard that accronym being thrown around a bit lately - but i feel like i'm in a big game of keep away - RSS keeps whizzing over my head but i can't seem to get ahold of it. Susannah says she's going to check it out and let me know how it works, in which case i can start using it to read blogs, and help you all to check mine out. Of course, if we dont' want to wait for sue to do it, then maybe Mr. Anonymous can post again about how it all works. What do you think Mr. Anonymous? (For the record, Mr. Anonymous is not related to Mr. Incredible. Which is a good thing - if he were he'd have to wear a big red "A" on his costume and we all know how well that has worked out for characters of the past - not to mention that someone who was born anonymous and has super anonymous powers might have a hard time getting a drivers liscence or boarding an airplane for a vacation in rome (or venice!) or voting for our next democratic presidential candidate)

Oh! I almost forgot! so remember how two days ago i was talking about the fire in the kitchen and stuff? GUESS WHAT I DID?!? Like right on command - i make one cheeky comment about not having set anything on fire yet - and suddenly, post omlette but pre-turning-off-stove, my Blockbuster online envelope (which i need in order to return my rental) is in total flames. I wonder if this means i have to keep Sex And the City Season 1 disc two for ever? Anyway...


#4 I've resumed, VERY sparsley, working on my own writing. Like the shit i dream of seeing in print. Not that i can't do both, but there just isn't that much time, and honestly, my inspiration has it's limits. I wake up every day with a very specific alotment and if i use it all up in one blog post, or one REALLY good joke, i'm kind of en empty shell the rest of the day. While this is an excuse for why i haven't been blogging enough, you can also apply it to the fact that i make some really terrible jokes a lot of the time. Next time you hear one - just assume that means that i said something absolutly brilliant earlier that day? (Yes! i've been looking for an excuse for that one for years)

#3....yeah, next time.

Though in answer to Mr. Anonymous' question - i am not going to never get to 1 in order to be clever and "meta" only because you had the idea first and thus sucked all the originality of it - but look for "meta" in the near future - it's generally my specialty, and now that i know there's demand, i'll make it a priority.

So i think it's become pretty clear that I'm not very good at this blogging thing. Rather than Appologizing a lot, tell you all how much i appreciate you all who take the time to drag the mouse ALL the way up to your "Favorites" folder*, highlight "Leah's Blog", click, wait for the page to load, only to face the bitter disappointment that you've seen all this before, maybe even three times before or ten times before if you check often (if this is the case, please talk to your boss about picking up some extra assignments, or your friends about picking up your social life, or your psychiatrist about your unhealthy obsession with me. Or with Blogs. Or with Any web page that says "Naked" on top) - yes, rather than apologizing for that, i'm going to make up a whole list of excuses. It only takes you believing one for me to be able whistle a sigh of relief, mop my forehead dramatically with the back of my hand, and pat myself on the back for duping another sucker.

Leah's Top Ten Reasons for not blogging Lately.

1o) To avoid talking about the scary event that took place last week. And i'm not talking Holloween people. But now that i'm here, i should commend our dear president on his convincing Texasshole costume. It was so believable! I almost thought for a second there that we asked a slow stubby man with the IQ and general physical makeup of a teddy bear to represent us as the most powerful person in the world.

9) I still don't have internet in my apartment there's something about the blank office walls and the incessent buzz from my officemate's earphones that doesn't induce creativity. Don't tell my manager that - i'm supposed to be innovating ground breaking features. I wonder if ground breaking features are officemate-headphone breaking too. (that is nothing personal toward her - i need to get my own headphones - i broke mine last week and i'm bitter)

8) This excuse is similar to 9 in that it is only a problem because i still don't have internet at home. We hate google here, i'm told, and since blogger is google, it's not safe to have their logo sitting up on my work machine for too long. I had no idea when i got here that this job came built-in enemies. I must have missed the part on the contract that said

"Sign here to get a cushy salary, benefits so big their practically benetantrums, and your very own set of microsoft sponsered corporate enemies! Now you can shop at Walmart and Nike guilt-free!...So what if they won't promote women and like to make small children work for stale jelly beans (jelly raisins?), as long as those entry-level women and starving children don't start producing competative software, you needn't bat an eye!"

(Note: The enemy here is google, not specifically anyone who works for google. In fact, i'm quite certain that if i knew anyone who worked for google, anyone at all, we might hit it off quite well and spend 4 years of college fratranizing and a couple summers living and working together and keeping in touch just often enough to send "Happy Binary Day!" messages to one another.)

7) You'll have to check back. I'm going to Van Couver! Hey! that can be excuse number 7.

6) PMS**

5) I don't have fingers anymore and that makes it very difficult to type. Of course that's not true, i have fingers 10 of them - but by my calculations, i'm really tempting fate on this one. I should have lost three trying to tear the insides out of the giant 50's TV i bought for $5 at a garage sale. I've had it for years and years and it's never served me in any positive except driving my mother crazy as a very heavy and immovable eyesore in her stylish home. [My mom and i used to have this routine where i would put my laundry in the laundry room, and she would sneak in there and take out my favorite pair of pants-which she argued had lived well beyond their years-and throw them away. Afterward, i would go in and get my laundry and pluck the pants out of the trash can on the way. It was a ritual between us. Once i forgot and out they went - and my heart with them (just kidding, i don't keep my heart in my pants - i think that storage technique is reserved for Ron Jeremey). Anyway - knowing that the TV was too heavy for her to lift, and too big to fit in the trashcan gave me a secret sense of satisfaction.] But i had this vision to hollow it out and put a smaller working TV instide. The whole process has been grueling and dangerous, wires and scissors and glass oh my!

Another two of my fingers should've been lost in miscelanious kitchen activity. We all know i'm good at throwing knives around and setting things on fire that aren't meant to be set on fire.

One of my fingers belongs in a lockbox at my fancyshmancy health club. Thanks to Microsoft's benefits package, i'm not paying an arm and a leg for the membership - but the subsidization only cover's most of the yearly fee. The rest is my responsibility. (It's really fancy shmancy - i probably owe them more than just a finger - maybe one with a classy ring on it and an elegant finger nail)

That leaves me with four fingers. All of which i should have eliminated if i wanted to be a truly convincing pumpkin for Holloween. That's right, i was a pumpkin***. And how many pumpkins do you know with fingers? I know, gross, right?

So there we go - i should be down to 0 fingers at this point, and using them when they shouldn't even exists is really toying with the powers that be...Stay tuned for excuses 4-1.


*It can hardly be considered presumptusous to think that my blog link might have made it's way into your favorites folder. It seems highly more presumptutuous to assume that you actually memorized the URL (which people around here pronounce "earl"s which annoys me to no end - each time it happens i spend a day trying to rid my head of the dixie twang that says goodbye to earl over and over in my head. If that doesn't make sense to you, you either have narrow musical taste or you're not spending enough time in good ole texas these days.)

**Required element on any list of excuses

***For the visual - i was a cute stripper pumpkin - only stripper in that if you unzipped my orange vest you'd see the construction paper candel taped to my black tank top. Next year I plan to upgrade to a "PIMPkin" but first i gotta find me some bling bling and some "sweet potatHOs".)