"Up yours." There, I said it.

Hair: Straight
Grey hair: One strand that I refuse to pull out -- natural highlights, you know
On my face: Glasses, lipstick, grey eye shadow and black mascara
Blemishes: Two...(fuckers...)
Jacket: Still on
Things I've put in my mouth and ingested: Two cups of that Kenyan-Arabic-South American coffee that's turned out to be quite disappointing, two beef fajita tacos, half a bottle of pineapple-flavored Topo Chico and a glass of water.
Perkiness level at noon: High
Perkiness level now: Moderate and falling
Times I've uttered the words "up yours": zero, but the night's young...

I'm gonna go play Playstation now. Thus my campaign to not grow up continues.

Thinking ahead

I fucking love that song from the 80's from the Damn Yankees, "Can you take me hiiiiiiggggh enough..." but I can't seem to remember all of it. I can't believe I have to go to work tomorrow after such a gorgeous weekend. I'm tired of work -- I don't think I'll go anymore. I'm seriously thinking about grad school right now. This is more my schedule anyway -- watching movies until 1:30 am and playing guitar. What's so bad about prolonged youth? Eh? Just another two years? Eh???? C'mon...I'm not ready for this waking up early slash rat race shit! The stress is giving me white hairs! My next project is to come up with $70,000 a year for tuition at SMU. Fiddle sticks.

Anyway, I just made my new Kenyan-Arabic-South American coffee that's really tasty for tomorrow so I can shave a few seconds off my morning and just flip the switch and it's the only thing I'm really looking forward to in the morning, next to waking up next to my smelly man and washing my underarms with this green tea-scented liquid soap I got for X-mas from my boss.

Think positively, Ms. D. If you think the week will be good, it will be good. Pah, who am I kidding?

Cunt. Tee-hee.

Addiction is...

When you can't sleep because of a progressively worsening sinus infection so you get up to have some water and a cigarette.

Bring me a party, bitte

This is rare – a Sunday morning when the sky is dismal gray and the water falling from it sounds like crackling papers and for once it’s not depressing or unwelcome. The sunny not-cold weather was starting to bore me kind of like if I had cheesecake for dinner every night.

But fear not! I’m cranky as usual. I spent an almost infuriating minute looking for the Coffeemate because the milk in my refrigerator is so old I’m afraid to see the chunkies when I throw it out. I started to become very annoyed at Big C for moving it – I was sure HE was the one who moved it! – until I found it in the pantry and realized I might have been the one who moved it. To that I offer a sheepish “my bad.”

This weekend has been blah, but in a good way. When Matt picked me up from work on Friday, we drove around for about an hour and a half looking for something to do. There are so many ways one can spend a Friday post-work happy hour in Dallas, but we always end up doing the same thing when the choice is up to us: Buffalo Wild Wings, where the drinks are cheap and the NTN is available.

It was the perfect date. We sat close to each other and played NTN, winning most of the games and taking it way too seriously. It’s the typical Matt and Tanya date, going all the way back to our college days in San Marcos when no one was around, we’d sneak off to the Applebee’s down the road from our apartment and play NTN with the other regulars like Dane, Murphy and this one crazy bitch named Norma who we’d avoid like an STD.

Moving along.

Saturday was spent mostly in bed watching TV. We also recorded our answering machine greeting. It goes like this: Big C speaking: “Please leave a message after the tone.” Me: “Por favor deja un mensaje despues del tono.” Matt: “Bitte verlassen Sie eine Nachricht nach dem Ton.”

In other news, my mom called and said she’s coming to spend my 25th birthday with me. Every year on my birthday she tells me the same thing: “at this time X years ago, I was in the throws of pain waiting for you to be born.” And then she hugs me and I pretend to be sorry for causing her so much pain.

To celebrate the fact that I’ve lived so bloody long, this year I want to do something big. I’m too lazy and proud to plan anything on a large scale for myself, but if no one else will plan anything this year, I’ll take it into my own hands. I’ll use my mom’s visit as the excuse. I’m thinking lots of food, drinks and music. And pressies are mandatory.

Past birthdays in review
I remember my 22nd birthday in San Marcos Matt was busy doing a very important school project and Mando came over telling me he had our whole day planned. He gave me a few choices, too: we could either go see “Bringing Down the House” and spend the day in Austin or go to Halcyon for a quickie beer and afterward see where the day takes us. We opted for the latter choice and I had two Rolling Rocks at two in the afternoon. Then we walked around downtown Austin looking like two deranged goth kids and ended up back at my place on the couch. Later that night I popped open a bottle of champagne, Jenny and my gorgeous friend Crystal came over and we went to eat dinner at the River Pub and Grill, where Matt made a surprise appearance and my birthday was complete.

And the next year I remember Mando coming over and we drank bellinis god knows where and it took three trips to the DMV to get my license renewed. And we sat on the couch and giggled with unabated glee watching the little alien on my new cell phone do different things every time we flipped it open. Then we went to have dinner and drinks at the ever-so-not-fancy-but-totally-awesome Tap Room, where the idiot cunt waitress spilled an entire pint of Shiner on my pretty dress before I took my first sip.

I had to go home and change and when I came back, she said, “oh THAT dress is sooooo much cuter” to which I responded, “yeah, the other one was my FIRST choice.” Then I made her lift the back of my dress and kiss my ass and wish me a happy birthday. Okay, I didn’t make her do that, but I gave her the stink eye all night and had a good time anyway.

And last year I was on an airplane on my way to Rome and had two glasses of red wine and watched Napoleon Dynamite on the tiny screen in front of my seat.
I know I can’t recreate or top any of these birthdays because my dear Mando is not here with me and he hates Dallas, but OMG it would be so fucking awesome if he made a surprise visit (hint, hint, wink, wink). Maybe I can lure him with the alien on my cell phone and beer. We may not be able to have it all, but I assure you, dear readers, that there will be beer and food and a good time will be had. That’s for sure. And if the moons are aligned right, there just may be some drunk dancing with my mom standing in the background making faces as if she was going through the labor pains all over again.

The three-chord segue

I have been a music fiend lately. It’s the perfect place to hide, get lost, visit other places. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I day dream – correction: I day dream ALL the time – that I am living out my dream as a member of a silly girl group (think Tenacious D meets The Donnas – and not that I necessarily like The Donnas…they’re just the first girl group that comes to mind that’s not all estrogened out like the Bangles or Go-gos). In this day dream, I am about 30, which is the age that in my mind, I will finally have the discipline to be an above-average musician and will be wise enough about the world to bring a certain charm to the stage – not the charm that comes from a 22 or 25-year-old youth who is more likely to display a bouncy-tittied, wide-eyed optimistic kind of charm, but a seasoned, mad-at-the-world, I-had-the-chance-to-grow-up-but-didn’t-wanna-dammit attitude with toned arms and slightly smaller titties. Only when I’m 30 will I be able to bring that. I’m not sure what I’ll play or do – I know I’ll never be the guitarist my wee brother is (he’s seriously the most talented musician I’ve ever known and I will never tell him), but I can play your basic three-chord song. And I can sing. Maybe my voice isn’t fantastic, but I’ve got passion. It comes from my crotch.

And in these day dreams, my silly girl group only plays small venues with no expectations or hopes of being “discovered” or famous. We’ll only play the venues that match our soggy, mal-adjusted (but still fantastically charismatic!) insides. They will be small dives, but not too dank, with smoke dancing slowly under the too-bright sky lights that the owner of the establishment once thought were classy. The clientele will be there not to see us. No, they came to enjoy the $2 Coors and just happened to be there when we were there. And at the end of the night, they will like us. They won’t love us, mostly because they won’t know us, but they will go away thinking, “man, I should catch their next show.” It’s next Tuesday, that’s when it is, motherfucker. Be there or be drunk at home listening to your crappy Dave Matthews CD.

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My moment of me-lodrama (emphasis on ME)

I have these moments throughout the day – you just happened to catch one. Here goes.

I think I have the predisposition to lead a very lonely life. Those of you who know say, “wha? But she’s bubbly for a nearly 25-year-old and plus, she’s got perky tits!” Yeah, I know. But despite my silly, perky disposition, I don’t answer my cell phone, much like my darling Mando, and I don’t call people. Ever. I don’t even call my parents. I don’t even want to answer the door when my gorgeous friend Crystal comes over. But that’s because my house is crowded these days. Maybe that’s why I’m in love with my man M’s headphones.

Let’s talk about him for a second.

I love that man more than I love life. He’s the constant, driving force in my life. I wake up for him. I work for him. I live to love him and make him happy. I will always answer his call and he mine. Every song I hear I’m either singing it to him or he’s singing it to me. He is with me even when he isn’t. He’s no longer known as my man M. He is Matt. He needs no alias. I feel it in my crotch.

But seriously, I’m just waiting for my people to say “fuck this bitch. She never answers the phone!” when all I really want to tell them is that I’m depressed/spoiled/stupid and am waiting until later. Later, when I have better things to say. Later when I’m not so negative. Not so into music or something.

End melodrama (or so you think).

Someone else answered the door and now we have company. My gorgeous friend Crystal’s here and now everybody’s watching Scrubs. I guess I should stop being depressed/spoiled/stupid and join the living. The bunch of nice people in my living room. But the music from the ear phones is so good. I may just stay a little while longer…

I am cooler than my roomates

I swear, I am getting so spoiled by this damn gorgeous weather. If I see a hint of a cloud formation and have to put on a jacket, I go into a rage so scary my friends threaten to call A&E's Intervention on me. I could do without the cold weather altogether, really -- just counting the days until I can throw on my yellow polka dotted bikini and lounge by the pool.

On a totally unrelated note (but seriously, when are my notes actually related?), I am completely distracted by "Sir Psycho Sexy" in my ears. I never wear ear phones, but the boys (those evil, evil boys who live in my house) who are watching "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" kindly reminded me that there are headphones by the computer. I get the hint, jerks -- you want me to listen to my music quietly while you watch your dorky Saturday afternoon movie. Now you get to listen to me sing along sounding like a deaf-mute, humming the parts I don't know, while bobbing my head. I am so much cooler than them.

I am ready for another vacation. Work is so crazy right now -- my days are plagued by fantasies of being one of those smug-faced, backpack-wearing SMU students whose biggest concern is managing their time between watching "Famiy Guy" and writing a mediocre 10-page paper on Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" and figure out a subtle way to convince the reader that he on drugs when he wrote that without seeming an expert on drugs. When I graduated, I knew I wanted to go back and get my master's, but I'd have to work first. Only this time I don't think I'd go to Brownsville if I had six or seven days to go wherever I want, although I admit I'd be tempted. It's the Catholic guilt that calls me back every time -- the little voice tells me, "you MUST see your family! It's your fault you moved far away from them...you need to go back every chance you get." I write this as I look up "Te Deum" on Limewire. Oy.

These are the places I'd go:

- London. I've been thinking about it a lot. I'd have to control my weather-related tantrums by the time I get there because I heard there's hardly any sun and there's not much chance I'd get to wear my yellow polka dotted bikini, but I'll make a compromise for the chance to have some real tea and experience the "mind the gap" phenomenon in person.

- Las Vegas. I've never been. I heard it's fun.

- New York. Shows, shopping, the all-around fabulousness of it. I'm afraid that if I go, I'd never want to leave.

- Paris. I've actually been there, but it doesn't count because I was changing planes en route to Rome. I saw the Eiffel Tower from the plane and watched beautiful French teenagers talking to each other on the shuttle bus. The thing is that if I go to one great European city, I'd want to go to them all since I'm already over there. And I'd want to know French like a native, so either I pretend to be a deaf-mute or study and practice really hard for three or four years before I even think about going to Paris. Or maybe just wait until America has a president who's not hated worldwide.

On that note, I'm going to Dave and Buster's to play Dance Dance Revolution. Ciao!

My version of Doogie Howser blogging

Yesterday a dog growled at me and I decided that my favorite swear word right now is "cunt."

Today I learned

...that you can cure hiccups by eating a big slab of peanut butter. This discovery trumps the random assumption that people get bad breath when they're constipated.

I never believed the latter. Nor will it ever be proven.

[A bit of advice: don't think about the random assumption when you're trying to cure your hiccups using the new discovery. It may lead to a messy carpet.]

Spam a lot

Why is it that every time I eat something at work, someone has to stop by and comment on it?

"What are you eating? 'Spam'????!?!?!! Grooooooooss!"

It's sad because they don't know that they're the gross ones.

2006, interrupted

Seeing how it's New Years and it's a little past 12 and I'm at home with my only company being a glass of wine and my man M who's sleeping upstairs like a party POOPER, I'm inclined to look back on 2005.

I'll remember 2005 as the year I:

- Quit my shitty job in San Antonio
- Went to Italy a week later
- Started my life over in Dallas
- Danced on a bar
- Became the queen of bullshit by adopting what they call "good work ethic" (meaning not being negative about the menial shit I have to do at work, gossip or being all around pissed off).

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Update: Two friends just came over and we had a little party complete with champagne and flash photography. I'm not telling you about the pictures we took, but I will tell you that boys would have paid to be in the room. Happy New Year, my sexy dahlings.