Nobody is really dead...

I watch too much TV. A good chunk of that time is taken up by soap operas. When I first started watching soaps with my mom- I mean really watching, not just mocking her show in the background during school days off, or pretending not to listen back in my preschool days- she taught me "nobody is really dead on soap operas." I remember General Hospital was the first soap we started watching together- it began shortly after I got home from middle school. One of the first "soapy" deaths I recall was a character named Cesar Faison. He blew up in some sort of boat explosion, but my mom said, "he's not dead." I couldn't understand, the boat very clearly exploded while he was STANDING RIGHT ON IT! I argued this with her, but she maintained her stance that he would be alive. She was right. A few weeks later his character reappeared. Ten people can see the person's dead body, attend the funeral, and bury the person, but he'll be back. One Life to Live, I'm looking at you with Victor's "death" here, since we all know he'll be back. In the ten plus years I've been watching soap operas I have seen more "deaths" and reappearances (sometimes with new faces as well) than I can count. That is why sometimes the thought crosses my mind, what if real life worked like this? I think occasionally that my mom will walk back into my life, "oops, I've actually been alive the last four years. Those ashes you spread in California? Those were from the vacuum." I've had vivid dreams where this has happened. Sometimes they feel so real I wake up looking for my mom and calling her name. Maybe I'll hear a noise in my bathroom, pull open the shower curtain, and there she'll be using up my expensive cleanser (that's really hers). What is it Mark Twain said, "the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated"? I never saw her pass, and how does somebody go from being completely coherent to gone in just a matter of two or three weeks? Days really. What exactly does cancer do to just shut off a person's body? I'm calling bullshit. She's been hiding out in France all this time, studying how to become a Limoges box maker. Okay, maybe not, but one can dream, right? I blame my soaps, and my mom for getting me hooked on said soaps. But if you are out there somewhere... please come back in time for the new Dallas reboot to start next summer. I miss you.

The Dating Game

After college it gets harder and harder to meet people (esp guys) your own age. Sports leagues can be fun, but after your sport is over people sometimes wander off and become busy again. Working in a pediatric office, the only guys I come across are teenage patients and people's fathers. Neither of those are viable options. Ick. There was a really cute drug rep once, but he was redistricted before I got a chance to really get to know him. I keep telling them to hire a cute, single, male doc, but apparently it's illegal to hire people specifically with those requirements. HMPH, LAWS. I always hear about people going to singles events in Hoboken and NYC, so when I saw a sign for one in Tart and Tufo I decided to sign right up!

Tonight's event was supposed to be "The Dating Game". When I called to RSVP they asked for my age, and then asked if I would like to be a contestant. Ready for an adventure, I said sure! Super excited, I rushed home, blew out my hair (which takes forever and a ton of patience), and did some really killer makeup. I was looking pretty nice after all that effort!

I got to Pazzo Pazzo and was greeted by the event coordinators, two women in their late fifties (at least). One of them looked just like Patricia Clarkson, which I found interesting. That was probably the only interesting part of the night... I arrived right on time, and thought maybe the rest of the young people were running late. There were two other men there, both in their late fifties to early sixties and another woman, also older. Another guy walked in, closer to my age at maybe late thirties, early forties. Still, no young people. I talked to one of the older guys, still looking around for the other young'ns to walk in. They set up the "stage" for the gameshow. There weren't even enough people there to play the game show. As I snacked on some appetizers, Patricia Clarkson asked if we minded waiting another twenty minutes for more people to arrive. I really hoped she meant the whole crowd of twenty-somethings.

I was talking to the "younger" guy, who was majorly into the fact that he's a landlord, desperately waiting for the real party to get started. Since I despise landlords right now, it wasn't really the most exciting topic for me. We spoke about a few of the restaurants in Morristown, but somehow it went back to real estate, and the latest place he bought. I couldn't figure out his age, until he told me a story about a bartender he was friendly with, who figured out he had been serving this guy for nearly thirty years. Even if this guy started getting into bars and drinking at FIFTEEN he was still way too old for me. To me, dating an older guy means dating somebody in their early thirties. HELLO I'M NOT THAT OLD! Even worse, people tell me I look like I'm a teenager, so weren't these coordinators a little confused when I showed up? Meanwhile, two women walked in who were most likely in their sixties.

"Question one: what do you do in your spare time?"
Bachelor #1- "I keep up my properties around the area. Did I mention I'm a landlord for several properties?"

The event started, and a guy dressed in seventies garb did "The Dating Game" trivia, which I had no idea of, since I wasn't alive in the seventies. The kind of trivia that you had to be there to know, rather than see a few clips here and there, and maybe an episode once or twice on GSN during a sick day before onDemand was created. I was starting to panic, since I didn't want to be courted by guys older than my dad and the landlord. As it is, the host tried to get me to give my number out. He chatted up the ladies who arrived late. What are they doing this weekend? Visiting their grandchildren.

"Question two: where do you like to go on vacation?"
Bachelor #2- "I spend my winters in Boca."

Was I going to have to go out on a date with one of these guys? I texted Kathy "Everybody is old. Get me out of here." Kathy texted me and told me to get out of there ASAP, feel no guilt. I couldn't figure out a polite way to do so. At my request, she called me up on the phone. "Are you okay?! OMG, calm down, calm down, I'm coming now!" I said into the phone. I said to the coordinator "I HAVE TO pick up my friend, she's having an emergency, she needs me." "Will you be coming back?" she asked. "I'll try my best! I don't know..." and I ran out. RAN. I felt guilty leaving the landlord in the dust, and the game without a bachelorette, but I didn't owe anybody there anything. I think Patricia Clarkson and partner owe ME $15. So here goes- NEVER EVER USE MORRIS COUNTY SINGLES.

"Question three- do you like to ski?"
Bachelor #3- "I used to go with my grandkids, but since my hip replacement I haven't been able to."

I was there for about an hour and a half, but it was so awful I'd swear it was at least three hours. I was just so disappointed. I had high hopes for the night, and so did every single person I mentioned the event to. Not one person said, hey do you think it'll only be a bunch of old people? I don't think I was jumping to a crazy conclusion, was I? If you were the coordinator, would you warn a 26 year old girl that not a single person her age had RSVP'd? Where does that fall on the business ethics scale?

Luckily, dodgeball starts up again in October. I'll be exposed to more people my own age again, and maybe even some eligible bachelors. I won't get to be a contestant on the dating show, but at least I'll be mingling with people who may be in the same peer circles as my grandmothers.

*the questions may have been exaggerated ideas in my head, since I ran away before they started the game

The world is mine today!!

As regular blog readers may recall, I lost my mom to ovarian cancer, and it was later found that my grandmother and both her sisters have the cancer gene. Having this gene means you will most likely get cancer. For a long time I was being pressured into having genetic testing done. I was terrified to do the testing, and put it off as long as possible. My doctor recommended getting the testing done at 25, so when my birthday rolled around this April I was full of dread.

About two weeks ago, my Aunt Ricki forced me to make the appointment. It began poorly. I had little to eat and a lot of caffeine, my veins were small and hiding. The doctor was forced to take the blood from my hand- OUCH! My delicate little hand was completely bruised for several days. I didn't put together my lack of sleep and uneasy feeling until today.

At 4:45, only fifteen minutes before I got out of work, an unknown number popped up on my phone. I almost didn't answer in case it was a solicitor, but my gut told me to pick up the phone. It was Dr. Hirsch, telling me he only calls on Fridays with good news. I do not have the gene. I will not have to go every six months for intense check ups. I am not nearly guaranteed to have cancer. I had no idea how worried I was about the call until the relief flooded over me. I can't recall ever crying from happiness and relief once in my life, but today I couldn't stop the tears from flooding.

Tonight I am celebrating my life and health with a bottle of champagne, and good times out on the town. I only wish it wasn't so last minute so I could invite anybody and everybody! I raise my glass (glad i finally went out and bought some this week!) to my mother and grandfather, who are without a doubt watching over me.

Life is good, friends, life is good.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Attached to a glass of champagne

Doppelgangers (thanks a lot facebook)

A few celebrities myheritage thinks I look like. I think this is completely inaccurate, but it's kind of interesting that Kristin Kreuk came up most of the times I ran this (note: I did this a few more times than shown, which is why she's not appearing on 2/3 charts pictured). My guess is that they go by the shape of your smile or the squint of your eyes via some Photoshop like program, which is why these matches don't quite work most of the time. I get Sofia Coppola from a lot of people, and my Uncle Barry is convince I look like Claire Danes (which I don't see, but a few people have agreed with). Interestingly enough, Sofia Coppola did appear on ONE of the charts that popped up. I'm still going to judge this a big fat INACCURATE.

It's a brief one

I need to head to sleep, I totally forgot that I have an 8am work meeting tomorrow. Meaning I have to be awake in five hours! Oy, and oops! I need to grab my phone from downstairs, brush my teeth, and get the sleeping kitty cat out of the spot I sleep in. Gracie's favorite places always tend to be exactly where I need to sit, sleep, etc.

At least after my work meeting (which I get paid for and don't have to wear a uniform!) I have a facial. That will be nice. I was really feeling a lack of self-expression after painting my nails a kind of blah light pink for work so yesterday I added a dash of pink. Then today I did every other nail purple. It's not quite as fun as Mary's rainbow nails she's got going on right now, but it did make me feel a little more myself.

I passed by Ryne's room. This seems to happen once a week, I find his lights and tv on and he is passed out in his clothes from the day on top of his covers. I got tired of him ignoring my telling him to get up and left him, so we'll see how he wakes up tomorrow. He's flying to Miami (by himself!) tomorrow to meet up with my dad and take at tour of U.Miami. He then has a few days (this is an extension, he was supposed to send his answer within two or three days of his acceptance last week!) to decide if he wants to go. Big life stuff. Weird. I still think of him as a little kid, I can't imagine him going off to college.

I've gotten into watching Frasier in re-runs lately, and something came up tonight that's made me curious for years. Every now and then at the end credits of an episode there will be a sequence of head shots of various actors with the heading "thanks for calling". There were too many of them to be guest stars (esp. the really high profile actors), could they be people who visited the set? Who did something nice for the producers? Since there seems to be an answer for (just about) everything on google, it took me about ten seconds to figure out a years long question. From wiki:

The radio station callers' lines were spoken by anonymous voice-over actors while filming the show in front of a live audience. This gave the cast something to which they could react. During post-production, the lines were replaced by celebrities, who literally phoned in their parts without having to come into the studio. The end credits of season finales would show headshots of all the celebrities who had "called in" that season.

I thought that was pretty cool. Now, every time I watch Frasier I'm going to wonder whose voice I'm hearing on the phone. Alright, what to do tomorrow...

• bring gym clothes to spa so I can get in a workout after meeting and before facial- can you get a facial after working out? Can you work out after a facial? I should find this out in the AM
• take some Special K breakfast bars with me because it'll be too early to eat when I leave, and I'll start to get hungry around 8:30ish
• pick up past two weeks worth of paychecks (we get paid weekly now) and try to remember my checkbook so I can once again attempt to sign up for direct deposit (I guess the first try didn't take)
• eat remaining California rolls in fridge for lunch
• babysit- try not to fall asleep on couch during kids "relax time"
• come home to a most likely empty home (with Ryne and my dad gone, Patti will probably go out) and enjoy the quiet
  

Frak My Life

It seems everybody is all about FML. I think saying Frak takes it one step further. Also, I like saying the word frak. Frak frak frak. I even sold some zazzle tee-shirts with frak. It's made me money. Another reason to like the word. So why is my life frakked? Well if you've been a regular follower of this blog you'd know that it's been like this since the start.

What in ML is F'd? Well for starters I'm writing this from work. On a Saturday. That's right, I'm back to working weekends. Dammit. To make matters worse, as I finish this paragraph it's Sunday. That's right, I didn't even manage to complete my thought bubble I was so busy. It's not as bad as it could be. I worked morning to afternoon shifts today and yesterday, so it's still light out when I'm done with work. I don't lose the ENTIRE weekend. Unfortunately I no longer have an entire DAY off to myself. The people I babysit now want me working Thursdays for them, so that means I'm working a grand total of seven days a week. I'm extremely desperate to save up enough money to move out, but the idea of not having a day off for another month or two is extremely daunting to me. I hope I don't go crazy. I hope I'm not mean to the kids. I hope I don't go off on a nasty customer at the spa... on second thought, I'm not too worried about that last one.

WORD OF THE DAY - SPRAMA - spa drama
(from the bubble above my head to your eyes and ears)

I have this incredible urge to shop, but I'm holding myself back for two reasons. The first one, I already mentioned, I want to move out! This takes soooo much money and isn't conducive to spending oodles of dollars on fun clothes. The second is that I've been losing weight, and I really won't want to spend any of my hard earned money on clothes that may not even fit me correctly a month or two from now. I may buy myself some new makeup after work though. I work RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE MALL, c'mon, I can't help it! And makeup is a fairly inexpensive way to perk myself up! At least I'm not working IN the mall anymore, that was just dangerous. One bad day and Neiman's was calling my paycheck and I like a siren's song.

One way I've been saving money is reallocating my internet time. I'm no longer online shopping nearly as much as I used to (via LJ and ebay) because I'm addicted to a facebook game. It's called Sorority Life, and it's actually pretty lame, but the people I talk to on it are fun. Unfortunately, the game tends to freeze my computer, so I can't really access the social function of the game. Basically, you make money, buy lots of clothes and accessories, earn social points, and attack people. It's not as good for my brain as sudoku and all the word games I used to be addicted to, but at least it takes up enough time that I'm not bidding on endless Marc Jacobs items on ebay.

My mind has turned into a lovely pile of goo, and I can't any wonderful thoughts out at the moment. I'll leave with one thought that's been troubling me...
I see commercials for movies months in advance and get excited to see them. They finally come out and just a few weeks later when I finally have the time to see them they are already out of the theaters. Can we just have a giant, GOB sized COME ON!

My 25 Things (from facebook)

Rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people [in the right hand corner of the app] then click publish.)


1. One of the things I'm proudest about myself is that I can hop in the car and drive anywhere without fear or hesitation if there's a person I desperately want to see (or an outlet needing to be shopped).

2. Growing up and until about high school I used to sleep walk. At about 10 I was found wearing nothing but my underwear and an undershirt coming inside the house at about 1:30am. I told my dad I had gone to feed the neighbor's rabbit, Bun Bun. To this day I still don't know if I actually walked all the way down the street and into their sun room (while they were HOME) to feed Bun Bun...

3. ... when I was in high school I would wake up in the middle of the night and get in the shower. My mom always thought there was a robber at first. Nope, just me. When I realized what I was doing and what time it was I would cry because I knew I only had so many hours left to get in quality sleep before school.

4. Amanda would call me before school every morning to make sure I was awake because she was coming to pick me up in twenty minutes.

5. When I was younger I could recite every NHL team and where they were from. It was a car game we played.

6. When I'm with my Alpha Chi friends I sometimes wish cameras would follow us around. We're way more fun and interesting than anything on MTV or other reality shows.

7. The thing that sets me apart from most of my friends/people my age is that I cannot watch MTV. I stopped watching around college, and I honestly don't miss it. I cannot get into the Hills or Laguna. Don't think I'm totally crazy- I am in love with Gossip Girl and still enjoy a good OC repeat on SoapNet.

8. I have a habit of naming stuffed animals, dolls, and keepsakes their most basic names. Baby. Doggy. Mooskie. Heart Covers.

9. I've had my Heart Covers since the day I was born and I still sleep with them. I'm hoping by the time I'm married I'll have found a way to separate myself.

10. When I was in fifth grade my friends and I did the school talent show, lip syncing to "Respect". We were wearing vintage-y clothes probably from somebody's attic and I was put in a pink satiny slip dress with bust seams. My friends all made fun of me because I couldn't fill it out. How ironic.

11. I used to HATE going shopping. My mom would drag me to the mall with her and I would get a new Babysitter's Club book (I had over 100 by the time I stopped reading that series) and read while we walked from store to store, I was very adept at walking and reading. I would always be done with the book by the time we got home.

12. I can get ridiculously fixated on some of the randomest things and lose HOURS. Let's say I'm driving down the Pulaski Skyway and wonder who this is named after. I will then look up General Pulaski (a WWII Polish/American General) and then start looking up other famous WWII Generals, and then random WWII facts, including how women couldn't buy stockings, then I will start looking up stockings, and eventually end up shopping Spanx's newest styles. I cannot explain this. It could be why I know so much random shit about a lot of things.

13. I have a weird thing against odd numbers. If they're multiples of five I don't care as much. Overall, though, I just prefer even numbers.

14. I've watched "Dirty Dancing" over 100 times. Sometimes I'll find it on TV and watch just the final five minutes, because the ending always captivated me. One day I will learn that dance. My first crush (at the age of 1) was on Patrick Swayze's stunt double. He was dating my aunt and my mom said I'd follow him around with my eyes glazed over and just stare up at him. My mom told me that was the first time she knew I'd be boy crazy.

15. I always sleep on the side of the bed that's closest to the door. I think it started as a fear of somebody coming into my room (maybe a monster?) and me being able to get out quickly and easily, then it just became second nature. I used to think when the lights went out if my feet touched the ground a monster under my bed would reach out and grab me. Did I mention I had a VERY strong imagination?

16. I've been incredibly blessed to travel as much and as far as I have. I've been to London twice, France once, a little village in Italy (Ventimiglia) for lunch, Monte Carlo, Canada, Mexico, more than half of the US (including Hawaii), and a bit of the Caribbean. Only a small handful of these trips were actually with my family.

17. ALL MY LIFE I've seen my clothing on TV. This has led me to believe that my dream job would probably be as a television or movie stylist and I'd be damn good at it.

18.18 and 6 are my favorite numbers.

19. Sometimes I just don't understand why Gracie can't speak English, I get frustrated. Although she has mastered "NO" and a few other words, and of course that tone that says "YOU IDIOT!" when I just cannot figure out what she wants. Maybe it's better that she can't speak...

20. When I was a toddler we left my cabbage patch doll Baby at my grandmother's out on Long Island. We were already about 45 min away when I realized this and my mom made my dad turn the car around to get Baby.

21. When I was staying in La Napoule I lived in a chateau right on the beach. Every night I would fall asleep with the window open to the sound of the waves. It was the most calming sleep I've ever had. Sometimes when I'm stressed and can't sleep I try to imagine I'm back there and it helps me fall asleep.

22. As mentioned above, I slept with the window open while in La Napoule. One night I woke up with a moth sitting on my nose. That same moth seemed to stalk me around the room on a regular basis. My family thinks it was my Pop Pop trying to enjoy the trip with me. I think they were right.

23. My mom wanted to name me Fiona, but all my extended family hated that name and pressured her to pick something else. When Jordana and I were picking out our bar aliases I decided on Fiona, who works at Credit Dauphine (10 points for anybody who finds the reference).

24. If I was given money just to start my own business I would create MAG Magazine. It would feature everything I love and be a huge hit.

25. I still reach for the phone almost every day to call my mom and tell her about whatever random thought has crossed my mind.