Hard Day’s Night

Thursday in Seattle was a hard day. I hadn’t had a blog in 24 hours. I didn’t know just how addicted I was to the Internet – you never do – until I was alone in a foreign land, with no access to blogger. I shouldn’t be surprised, though, because I have a highly addictive personality. It’s not my fault; it’s my mother’s. She gave birth to me in March, which made me a Pisces, which made me devoid of any willpower.
Elizabeth Taylor and I almost share the same birthday, and my life mirrors hers in a way that makes me fear for my future. She fell off a horse as a teen while filming National Velvet, sparking a destructive addiction to painkillers. I fell onto the couch as a teen while watching the film Blue Velvet, sparking a destructive addiction to David Lynch movies.
She has a desperate need for love and acceptance, which she unsuccessfully tries to fulfill by bouncing from one unhealthy marriage to the next. I have a desperate need for love and acceptance, which I unsuccessfully try to fulfill by bouncing from one unhealthy imaginary marriage to the next.
She played Maggie “The Cat” in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I sometimes play with my cats on a hot tin roof. You should see them jump!
She has Michael Jackson, I have Seamus. It’s eerie.
Crippled by my Piscean weakness, I spent much of Thursday with the shakes, nervously drumming my fingers on the dashboard, and scanning the streets for signs of an Internet café. Fortunately in Seattle, local law mandates one Internet café per six Starbucks, so that meant that there was an Internet café on every block.
My co-worker, however, was not in favor of bailing on our client meetings so that I could read the latest hijinks of my favorite bloggers. I tried to explain that it wouldn’t take me long, that I just needed a few hours to make sure I hadn’t missed anything important, but the rental car was in her name, so I had to sit back and take it. She doesn’t get you. She doesn’t get you at all. I hate her.
While we were meeting with the client, I could feel beads of sweat collecting on my upper lip, and started to feel queasy. I excused myself to use the restroom, and immediately splashed some cold water on my face. I looked up from the sink and saw myself in the mirror – the pale and clammy skin, my dry tongue, the dark circles under my eyes – and thought, “My god, what have I become?”
Just then, some women came in to fix their hair. I saw my opportunity and grabbed it. As they walked out of the bathroom, I followed them past the front desk and into the office area. No one gave me a second glance as I snuck in behind them. I knew I probably only had ten minutes at best before my absence would become concerning, so I walked with purpose around the maze of cubes until I found an empty desk. The name plate said: Susan O’Connor.
After checking to make sure no one saw me, I sat down and started to log onto her Internet.
“Well, Susan, whoever you are. I hope you don’t mind me borrowing your pc for a few minutes.”
Come on. Come on. Doesn’t this company have DSL?
Damn! Password protected.
I rifled around Susan’s desk to see if I could figure out her password:
Soccermom04? Denied.
Irisheyes? Denied.
Puglover? Denied.
Please Contact System Administrator To Unlock Password.

Oops.
Just as I got up from Susan’s desk, she arrived with coffee in hand.
“Uhh… can I help you with something?”
I had to think quickly.
“Yeah, hi. I’m looking for accounting, can you tell me if I’m on the right floor?”
“This is accounting. Who are you looking for?”
Crap. What are the odds?
“Uhh, actually it’s finance that I’m looking for. I need to talk to Dave in finance, but I’m running late for a meeting, so you know what? I’ll just leave him a quick voice mail instead. Thanks!”
I quickly made my exit and slipped back into the client meeting. My co-worker shot me a dirty look, but I don’t think the client paid much attention. Thanks to a series of deep breathing exercises and the remainder of my venti skim latté, I miraculously made it through the meeting. When I got back to the hotel, I realized that I really should have paid better attention to the inordinately chipper woman at the front desk when I first checked in, because I looked at the information sheet she handed me with my key on Wednesday, and saw the sweetest four words I had ever read: Free High Speed Internet.

So why? Why hadn’t I read this earlier? I think that maybe the gods were trying to teach me something. It’s really true – you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. I think that perhaps 2005 will be focused on appreciating what I have, so I’ll start here and now: I love you, Internet. And I’ll never take you for granted again.

Give Peace a Chance

Looks like Seamus is at it again. If he’s not getting Natasha and me arrested at 2:00am, or trashing a Starbucks, he’s fueling the East Coast/West Coast blogger rivalry. I learned through the grapevine that Seamus has been trying to instigate some war between my old friend, TuBlog Shakur, and me.
This all goes back to my youth – when I was a young gangblogger, I was known on the streets as the Notorious B.L.O.G., or Bloggy Smalls to my crew. TuBlog Shakur and I met when he was just coming onto the blog scene. I showed him the ropes – I linked to him, he linked back. We’d leave funny comments on each other’s blogs. It was cool.
But then TuBlog moved to a western suburb of Chicago, and things started to change. There’s just a different attitude toward blogging on the West side. It’s a more in-your-face, hard-edged style that I’m just not down with.
TuBlog and I would run into each other at a few of the big blogging galas, where he’d roll up in his tricked out Ford Windstar with some young hoochie on his arm – I think her name was J-Chlo. He got sucked into the glitz and the glamour of the business, and lost touch with what blogging is really about.
So last week, I caught wind of an email Seamus sent to TuBlog:
“Bloggy Smalls does a much better job updating her blog than you do. She has new stuff several times a week. Sometimes you go for weeks without posting a new entry. I may stop reading your blog altogether and just stick with her. Plus, I heard she called you a punk.
If you want to keep any sort of blog cred at all, you’d better do something about Bloggy. Unless you really are as much of a punk as she said you were…”

Personally, I’ve never bought into this whole East Coast/West Coast blogger crap. Maybe when I was younger I did, but now that I’m older, life is just too precious to waste on pointless rivalries. This fighting has got to stop, so I’m here today to offer an olive branch to my friend and fellow blogger.
TuBlog, if you’re reading this, what do you say we put aside our petty differences once and for all? Does it really matter who blogs more, or who knows how to post photos on his blog, or who has a Sean John designer case for his iPod? We’re all working toward the same goal, so I say we throw down our mouses, toss aside this silly East Coast/West Coast thing, and just blog like we’ve never blogged before.
Blog on blog violence stops right here, right now.
Peace.

Separation Anxiety

Hey mom, it’s me. So – have you recuperated from the Christmas madness yet? God, I can’t believe how fast the holidays flew by! The lasagna was great the next day, by the way.
Yeah, you and me both! At least five pounds. Hey – do you have a minute? I kind of need to talk.
No, no. Nothing bad. Well, I don’t know – it’s not good, I guess. Mom… Orangehat and I… we’re going through a trial separation.
No! We’re not getting divorced. It’s a separation – that’s all. We’ll still see each other, but we’re going to be taking different trains for a while, just until we can figure some things out.
Mom – he’s not cheating on me. It’s not that sim-
Yeah, they were going great, but things change. People change. I really did a lot of soul searching during my week with Seattle. Maybe it sounds cliché, but I felt more alive in those few days than I have in years. I’m just not sure that Orangehat and I are meant to be together. I just… did you always know dad was the one for you?
I mean, I thought I felt that way about him, but then when I met Seattle, one thing led to anoth-


I wasn’t going to. Mom – I’m just trying to explain what’s going on. I wasn’t going to give you the intimate details – geez!
You’ve never even been to Seattle. How can you say it’s a mistake?!
You’re not going to tell her anything, that’s what! Why would you tell Grandma? Mom – I said it’s just a trial separation. What’s the point of getting the whole family riled up when we’re trying to work things out?!
I don’t know why you’re getting so upset – it’s not like you ever made any effort to get to know Orangehat. You always treated him like a total stranger anyway.
Name one time!
Whatever.
We haven’t. I’ve thought about it, but I don’t know if Orangehat would go. He’s not really into all that touchy feely share your emotions in front of a stranger kind of thing. It’s not exactly my idea of fun either, but I’m willing to try.
Believe me, you don’t need to remind me. Don’t you think I had dreams of a house full of little Orangecaps running around, too? But that’s not going to save our marriage. We have to figure out whether or not our relationship can last before we can even consider bringing a child into the mix.
Well, things are different than when you and dad were young-
Yes, I do take marriage seriously, but I’m not going to stay in a relationship that makes me unhappy, when there might be someone else out there who’s perfect for me.
Mom, I can’t do this right now. I gotta go. Just tell dad, will you?
Okay, yeah.
I will.
Love you, too.
Bye.