Boo!

OK, so AMC is running horror flicks until Halloween, which is awesome. However, after watching the first few installments of the Friday the 13th franchise, I still can't get over how stupid sexually promiscuous teenagers are. Moreover, I can't understand why the powers that be insist on reopening Camp Crystal Lake every 5 years. Like, the parents won't remember? Is overnight camp for slutty teens really that much of a cash-grab?


I mean, can you imagine the letter the admin staff have to send home to the parents of those slaughtered teens?


"Hi there. Sorry to have to tell you this, but your teenager, actually, all of the camp staff, were murdered by a machete-wielding maniac. You might ask yourself "Why did I send my kid to a camp known for housing a machete-wielding maniac?" but I think the real question here is: "why was my teen having unprotected sex in the middle of the woods?" Anyhoo, don't beat yourself up about it.  I'm sure Jason's bloodlust has been satiated for at least one more summer. Who knows, maybe this is the year Jason puts himself out there and gets an account on match.com. As my mother used to say "There's a lid for every pot." Sincerely, your idiot Camp Director. PS, No, we still haven't taken down his shack/shrine in the woods. The guy lost his mother, for chrissakes."


And yes, I do yell at the screen.

To top it off, I was wearing flats.

So, I'm on the bus, on my way home. As I'm climbing on, I drop my bus pass on the floor of the bus. Here's where the magic happens. As I'm squatting to retrieve it (my new bulging stomach prohibits anything so graceful as bending over), the bus lurches forward (I know the goddamn bus driver was watching me) and I fall ass over tea kettle. In front of everyone.

Now, I could have recovered from that, except that I had my iPod on full blast. As I am particularly fond of (loud) music, I can never quite gauge how loud I am talking. So I let out an "Oh no" or something, but with the music blasting, I'm pretty sure I was yelling and I'm pretty sure it sounded like someone sucker-punched Marlee Matlin in the throat. I'm pretty sure it was "Ohhhh waaaah."

The bright side? They were giving out free ice cream bars at the corner of my street. FREE ICE CREAM!!  Go f**k yourself, Gym.

Just So I'm Clear...

So let me get this straight: Lady Gaga wears a meat dress to send the message that she's NOT a piece of meat?? Maybe I'll shove a tire up my a** and NOT be a unicycle. What a fartweasel (Thank you S.B. for my new catchphrase.)

I'm pretty sure God doesn't have a sales team

After a long and laboured panel discussion weighing the pros vs. cons of keeping my car, I made the very dubious decision to sell it to a friend. The truth is, it costs too much to keep a car in the city and I'll save mucho buckos taking the transit. An additional pro is that I'll get some much (MUCH) needed exercise.

The obvious con is that I love (LOVE) my car and a 15 minute commute to work has now become an hour-long ride. I'm not lying when I say that I got a bit sniffly dropping it off at its new owner's house. I sat in the car for a bit, said my good-byes, and thanked it for being a great ride.

Fast forward to this morning.

I tried to make this morning's commute as cheerful as possible. I packed a lunch, bought a new backpack, wore comfy shoes and even made myself a "Going to Work" mix on my iPod. On my way to the subway, an older man passed me on the street. He said something (at least, his lips were moving.) I pulled out my earphone and he said "Do you accept Christ as your Savior?"

"Not lately," I replied. "Ever since he went and played for the other team, we've been more or less mutual acquaintances."

"Bless you," he said.

"I'm Jewish, but thanks," I replied, and promptly left a vapor trail.

On the one hand, it was nice to be blessed, I suppose. However, like pyramid schemes, outsourced telemarketers and Amway, I always have to ask myself who's doing the blessing. I mean, do you get a membership card form God allowing you to randomly bless people on his behalf? If someone was throwing my name all around town a-la "Do you know who I am?" I'd get pretty pissed. These guys are like the Fredo's of organized religion: the pesky younger brother screwing things up, and you know that ultimately you have to kill him, but you put it off as long as possible and give him a casino or a church to run in the interim.

Or, for a refreshing change of pace, perhaps I'm over-thinking this and he was just trying to be nice. You know what, old man? Bless you too.

www.mycatsaretryingtokillme.com

A few weeks ago, while packing to move to the new condo, I wrote an open letter to my kittehs:

Dear kittehs: your efforts to thwart the move are valiant but futile. Please stop clawing the boxes and eating the tape.

Apparently, said minions of the damned took this as a challenge. The move went smoothly as far as boxes and furniture go. The cats were another issue. Joe, my dark grey barn cat, did not go gently into that good travel box. Ever try to wrestle a 20-pound cat? Think of a good old fashioned bitch fight in an Arkansas women's prison. Just replace shivs with claws and you'll get why I'm still wearing long sleeves. At one point, I managed to get them sequestered in the bathroom and Joe actually pounded on the door, all human and Rambo-like. That's some serious psych-ops training. Dude, you didn't have to pack, move or schedule anything. You don't pay rent, you're fed and clean and no one has ever laid so much as a finger on you in anger. Suck it up!

So move we did, and the cats have (grudgingly) gotten used to their new digs. Skip to Sunday morning. As I turned to dole out the treats (the only reason, I'm sure, as to why I am still alive), my little, innocent, female cat tripped me. Yes, that's right. She hunkered down by my feet and tripped me.

In an attempt not to crush her, I swiveled around, knocking into the table, and landing in what can only be described as a James Brown-worthy split. I landed hard. Had I nuts, they would have popped like fresh lingonberries. Then the hell cat reached into my palm and ate her treats. I guess that's what I get for moving them to a better address.

Well played, kittehs. Well played. Cats:1; Stupid Human:0.

If A Bitter Person Swallows A Bitter Pill, Do They Cancel Each Other Out?

#1: I hate the gym.

OK, here's the thing: I hate the gym. Honestly guys, I've given it a fighting chance. I've attended (mostly) religiously for almost 3 months. In March I lost 8 pounds (yay me!)

Then...nothing. Not a pound, not an ounce, not a goddamn milligram.

I thought it was hormonal (that theory was dismissed. Certainly there is one size 2 woman out there with a raging case of PMS.)

I thought it was my diet (dismissed. I've been eating freaking salads every day. Short of a steady diet of cardboard and air pie, I don't know what else I can cut out.)

I thought that maybe it had something to do with the "plumbing" issues I'd been experiencing. I met with the endocrinologist to discuss my test results. After some hard news and a few tears, I asked him if my situation was related to my inability to lose any weight.

He said "No, you're just getting older and this seems to be where your body wants to stay."

I said: "I do not accept that."

#2: I'm a fat sack of shit.

So I've been keeping at it. Me and gym, gym and I. And still, not a blip on the scale. The only time that needle dipped was after I got sick for a week (I briefly considered flying to Mexico and drinking river water to keep the momentum going.)

And there's the wedding to consider. I remember my first wedding. I was 100lbs. One hundred pounds! A relative said I looked like a Holocaust survivor. And I was flattered. I used to refer to Karen Carpenter as "that skinny bitch."

So last week, I went with my mother to Want boutique, a veritable Zion for girls who...um...want beautiful things. They have a gorgeous selection of beautiful dresses - a great place to start. Apparently, it was also a great place for prom dress shopping. Had I given it a modicum of thought, I would have realized that this is prom season, and I had inadvertently stepped into prom dress HELL. There was a waiting list for dressing rooms. There were moms shelling out thousands of dollars for strips of fabric. There were nubile young things weighing less than I eat, turning this way and that, in danger of being blown away by a small breeze.

More importantly, nothing fit me. I don't mean they didn't have my size, but nothing...fit. Here I was, surrounded by skinny little teens and tweens, and realized that I didn't have my old body anymore. I couldn't just starve myself down to a size 2, or do the bare minimum that passes for exercise. I couldn't use any of my old tricks. Want was dead. Long live Fairweather. That was a hard lesson to learn. So where's the incentive? I mean, if my weight isn't going to budge, why bother trying to beat it into submission?

They won't harpoon me at my own wedding, will they?

Dear Rogers Media:

Thank you so much for taking the time to call me (at work and on my cell phone) to ask if I would like to renew my one-year subscription to my magazine. I was especially pleased to learn that you had already tried to auto-renew the subscription on my credit card, and were only courtesy-calling to get my new credit card information (because the old one had been declined.)

I mean, why bother calling me at all? Obviously, when I checked off "one year" I meant "...or so." Clearly, indicating a finite subscription time really means "please feel free to run amok with my line of credit. Hell, while you're at it, throw your kids' braces and a new pair of shoes on the bill too!"

So thank you, Rogers, for calling me to gauge my interest in my magazine after trying to use my card to renew it. I'm sure those lofty phrases such as "identity theft" and "credit card fraud" don't apply to YOU!

By the way, you know who also loves those phrases? My lawyer.