Professa

I have completely lamed out on my blogging lately. I know, I'm terrible. I have broken every blogging rule- don't have days and days with no new material less you lose all your faithful readers, don't post lame blogs in an attempt to avoid the empty days... I could go on... just whip me or flog me or whatever it is you do to bloggers who have committed the ultimate sin. Just please, whatever you do, don't stop reading me! I live for site-hits! Pathetic I know! I will just shrivel up and die if I fall back below 10/day.

It's just that I have honestly been so busy. Travelling a ton for work. Gearing up for the class I am going to be teaching. Oh yea, I think I forgot to notify the blogopshere that yours truly is going to be teaching a real live college class. That's right, they will call me Professa and bow at my feet. That's PROFESSA, like how a gangsta is way WAY more wicked cool than a gangster- PROFESSA's like myself are way WAY cooler than professors. We're like the ghetto cool version of our pencil protector wearing cohorts. I'll be showing episodes of The Office, making my class play board games and giving extra points if they can make me laugh on their final presentation. If my students are lucky, I'll even wear my wicked gangsta grill, a la Flava Flav, as I fill their brains with great info on TQM's and change theories. Oh yea. Professa.

I'm still here!

Never fear, I am alive- I've been traveling a lot for work, living off of potato chips and free chocolate chip cookies ala my hotel lobby. I have a crook in my neck from this freaky soft pillow. It's time for me to watch Oprah since I never get to watch it at home, so I'll sign off now with some new pictures of my sweatpea.

They're the crazy ones, right?

I consider myself a pretty sane person. So, I'll hope you'll agree that a very good question is, "just how poignant can a movie about street thugs turned hip hop dancers competing against each other be?" Apparently the answer is VERY! Because this year, there is not ONE..... not TWO... but THREE major motion pictures on the subject. What the hell? I'm not even a good movie critic because I'm not usually at all critical and even I know that this is seriously messed up! I mean, I actually sat through Gigli and wasn't all that appalled if I'm being honest so you know this is really nuts!

Exactly what kind of acid were these movie execs smoking... or shooting... or doing whatever it is you do to acid... to think this was a good idea??? It had to go something like this:

Movie exec: I have a great idea! Let's make a movie about some street punks that "fight" with backflips and ridiculous gyrations instead of guns and gang signs.

Intern: Uhhh. it's been done.

Movie exec: No it hasn't! When?

Intern: Well.. Westside Story... Grease... but most recently it was Step Up.

Movie Exec: That was like 3 years ago!

Intern: And Step Up 2: The Streets, came out earlier this year...

Movie Exec: Welllllll... that's just one franchise. This is a whole break out genre. We can be ahead of the curve!

Intern: We're actually behind the curve, Feel the Noise just came out also.

Movie Exec: You are insignificant. Go get me my Soy Milk fat free half caf latte Fartface.

Intern: Umm... Ok.

Movie Exec: Wait! I've got it! Let's focus on a street wise gang banger chic trying to work her way out of the projects right into medical school. That's completely reasonable! It's sheer genius actually. We'll call it How She Move... very gangsta, don't you think, the whole poor grammar thing. That's in right?

Intern: I quit.

Allow me to paint the picture

I'm sorry I've been absent. This is the time of year that I spend a lot of time wondering if I am at least a little insane for having the job I have.... I mean, errrr... spending lots of time traveling the ever-so-scenic byways of rural Iowa. This very morning in fact, I had to leave home TWO HOURS earlier than normal to drive to Po-Dunks-Ville. (that's a real town BTW, look it up). When everyone else was home safe in their warm beds, I was out in the predawn hours reserved for the wackos, crackos and vampires. Two hours later I caught the sun coming up... so at least the vampires went back into their caves, or lares or coffins... whatever, you get it. Please soak in this intoxicating beauty of flatness and vastness. Breathtaking for sure...
It was a hectic day, I'll just tell you that right now. I had to lay the smack down with the D.Q. lady is some small town because the Mint Oreo Blizzard I ordered (with 39 cents worth of "extra Oreo" I might add) was terrible and I stormed in and threw it away- only after the melty bastard dripped on my white shirt. It wasn't minty, it wasn't green, it didn't have extra Oreo and did I mention it was a drippy-ass mess when she handed it to me? Cuz it was... And now I am a pissed off Blizzard-less Beee-och with a stain on my shirt.

Then, the CD player in my Venture wasn't working. It's guts were all fried up or something. Well, that is unacceptable. I mean, if you think I am driving my tired, Oreo-craving butt all over this state in the pre-dawn hours with no audio books to pass the mind numbing hours--- HELLS NO I'M NOT! So, insert exhibit B- the ghetto blaster (That's right... I can kick it old school). That's right, my ghetto blaster along with like 8 packs of C batteries made the trip with me. What's a road trip with out some creepy-voice narrator reading books about death and blood and guts and murders and suspense? I mean sure, I'm a completely paranoid freak when the sun goes down and I am plagued by recurring nightmares of madmen that want to eat my face off... but at least I am entertained. Lastly- I navigated myself onto a GRAVEL ROAD today. And by navigated I mean I got lost on it and pulled some amazing four-letter words out of the arsenal for 30 solid minutes trying to find a real, bonafide, asphalt highway again. Don't get me wrong, off roading in a deeply rutted muddy, gravely backroad in a 4 by 4 with a cute cowboy=fun. Offroading in a Chevy Venture with a ghetto blaster that is skipping every other word because the driver is not driving a Landrover but an actual minivan=not fun. Part of the issue was that the snow was SO high on the sides of the roads they literally went over all road signs. Exhibit C naysayers:
What the H? Please refer back to Exhibit A- you will notice there are no freaky mountains of snow surrounding the road. Yet- a mere 30 miles away it's like Mother Mature repeatedly threw up and spewed her hatred for me into icy white clumps.

I feel like this whole day was in the Twilight Zone...

The whoring of our handymen

Honestly. If I google "plumber" or "carpenter" or "handyman" in my region...who do you think I'm gonna get? A man so hot that I actually, in a moment of weakness, think his stench of sewage or sawdust or manly sweaty stank is desirable?? If you answered yes, if you indeed think man-helpers for hire are sexy--- you're disconnected from reality and I suggest you lay off the Sharpees. The hottest plumber I've seen this side of the Mississippi was missing 3 teeth and smelled like that time I forgot my Chinese take-home in my backseat for 2 weeks. But, he had a slightly crooked... if not a little distracting... nose that reminded me of Owen Wilson so he got points for that.

YET, as I snuggled in last Saturday night (don't judge me- I had lots of offers for crazy off-the-hook parties....) with my latest copy of People, my tube of frozen cookie dough and my remote, all I could find was home fix-it-up-shows. Which at first was really fun, because it makes me think that I also can improve my home with nothing more than a wad of feathers and a glue gun...but then I got annoyed. Who are these hot "carpenters" always helping out? Really? It's like there's an endless supply of blue-collar workers that just happened to fall of the super-model train on the way to the wood shop. It kind of makes me mad. Either hot carpenters are whoring themselves out just to be on TV (because let's face it no self respecting carpenter actually likes to use a glue gun), or TV is taking super model guys, shoving a hammer in their hand between commercial breaks, and lying to us all. Either way, it makes me ticked.

Dead in a ditch

What it is about being dead in a ditch? If I so much as leave home without my cellphone by husband is likely to exclaim "Why didn't you call!! You could have been dead in a ditch for all I knew!" Well Dear, I didn't call because I was just running to the JohnnyMart that is 1.3 miles away, where the absolute worst thing that could have happened is that a teenager driving a pimped out Escort (cuz we all know how Pimp those are) could have cut me off causing me to flip him off and chip a nail in the process. There is no way I could find myself dead from that scenario. There are in fact no ditches. So, that is why.

But I am sure dear blogosphere, having not heard from me for days, you might have been worried that I was dead in a ditch somewhere. I assure you I am not. I mean, I was close let me tell you. I won't go in to all of the harrowing details but just trust me when I say I have new respect for my trusty minivan for getting me safely to some dive hotel in the middle of a white-out snowstorm. I'm actually not joking when I say I almost died. But perhaps the WORST part of it all.... beyond the white-knuckle driving, beyond the prospect of dying in a frozen snowy tundra, was the flip flop fiasco. When the day is sunny and 60 degrees and you've been living in a climate colder than Siberia for the past 3 months, you jump at the chance to wear your new flip flops, right? When however, that same weather turns treacherous just 8 hours later and you are 150 miles from home stuck in a blizzard, said flip flops will cause your bare feet SEARING pain as you trump through the snow. F. Y. I.....