Question of the week

So ladies, honestly now, how much say does your significant other have in the, uh, style of your pubic hair? Do you go strictly by what you like or what your partner likes? Or is it a compromise?

And,would you honor a request to do the opposite of what is your norm?
Say, would you go long if you were shaved, or shave if you were hairy, if that were the request of your partner?

Surprising

Another meme from Used*To*Be*Me (you're going to keep giving me stuff to blog, right?)
Not where I want to be but way better than I thought I was....

Greed:	Low
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	Medium
Pride:	Medium

Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz

Perfection

So I'm a little late posting today, but it's still daylight somewhere in the country, so I'm okay.
Thank you for the birthday wishes and yes, I did get a little drunk. I have to say, I had the absolutely perfect birthday weekend. It was a good combination of productive, relaxing and fun.
Between the two of us, The Thing and I, this weekend, fixed a leaky sink, repaired the toilet that wouldn't stop running, replaced the ceiling fan and exhaust fan cover in the family room, did 6 loads of laundry, washed more dishes than you can shake a stick at (ha!) and rebuilt The Girl's swingset/gym that's been sitting in the garage since the move last Spring.
We also spent 24 hours with Girlfriend and T in which we drank two bottles of wine, a case of beer, ate 3 large pizzas, 2 containers of strawberries, 18 cookies, half a birthday cake and enough cheese to constipate a cow.
It fucking rocked!

Then they went home and I had to work this morning. That sucked.
But in 93 hours we'll be in Pennsylvania for another weekend with Girlfriend and T, this time at their place.

I need to buy bigger pants.
And some more Advil.

Buon Compleanno

So I'm turning 29 again tomorrow. Since last year, I moved to another state, started working from home, have been to more shows that you could shake a stick at (and I'll give a dollar to anyone who can tell me where that saying comes from because, seriously, how weird is that?), I've discovered a lot more about myself than I probably really wanted to find out in a year and I've up-ed my hair expenses to $115 a month. I think it's become my new addiction since I quit smoking.
But I look hott, so it's totally worth it.

And I'm getting the best present ever tomorrow. Girlfriend and her hubby T are coming to visit for the weekend. I've planned a little get-together for while they are here. I want to introduce my BFF to my new Maryland friends. There will be pizza and beer and there is a rumor of margaritas and Smiley Cookies.
So have a good weekend everyone. I plan to.
And I promise to post pictures next week if Girlfriend gets drunk.

A new meme

From the lovely Used*To*Be*Me

Bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Hmmm. I've been to more than I realized. I'll be adding Texas this summer, for sure, and hopefully New York too.

Anyone can do the meme (I'm not tagging anyone specifically) but leave me a link if you play along. If you don't have a blog, feel free to play along in the comments.

And you thought I was weird

If you've been reading for any length of time, you know I have this whole weird foot phobia thing. I hate feet. My feet, your feet, his feet, her feet, fuzzy fur feet. They're disgusting. I'd just as soon kiss a toilet seat as someone's feet.

But, as is sometimes the case, opposites attract. The Thing has a total foot fetish. Though, he swears, not all feet. Just my feet; 'because they're so pretty'.

Fucking whack-job.
But it does make for interesting events in my household. Like this recent one; I found after he left for work and I went downstairs to make the bed:

She aint messin wit no broke niggaz‏ Part 2

First off, since no one commented on it, I'll bring it up myself - What do you think of my updated header? I finally figured out how to include the fork, via Photoshop. I love me some Photoshop.

And The Love Boat theme song finally left, in case you're interested. It was replaced by this song, which is infinitely better by comparison.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled post:

Oh hell yes, YRLFSATP called The Thing. She went there.
And if any of you are thinking that YRLFSATP is now or has ever slept on my couch, you must cease reading this blog now, leave and never return because you are obviously a stupid douchebag who doesn't know me at all. However, The Thing, being the sensitive and overly kind man that he is, came to me asking if there was anything we would be willing to do to help her.

This is where I got torn. Because, seriously, what do you do?

On one hand, every good, moral fiber of my being is screaming 'there is a woman and toddler who are probably going to sleep in their car tonight when it's 30 degrees outside and you have a large house and an air mattress.'
The other hand then smacked me across the face and said 'if you enable that selfish gold-digger by again coming to her rescue and not making her be responsible and dealing with the consequences of her own actions, I will never let you masturbate with me again.'

The other hand won by a landslide.
However, being the good sweet people we (okay, I totally couldn't keep a straight face on that), The Thing is, we came to a compromise.
YRLFSATP has to find a job and a place to live on her own. She cannot, under any circumstance, stay here. But we did agree to help in two other ways. First, we became her storage unit. Any of her personal belongings that won't fit in the car with her now reside in our garage. And second, we took in her two cats temporarily until she finds new housing.

Last I heard, she was sleeping on Baby's Daddy's parents' couch, and quite miserable doing it. I know this because a week after all this went down, she stopped by our house again to see about money and/or a place to stay. Unfortunetly for YRLFSATP, The Thing wasn't home and she had to deal with me. I only help those who help themselves. I figure, if that's a good enough rule for God to follow, it's good enough for me.

Now I aint sayin she a gold digger but she aint messin wit no broke niggaz‏

Just FYI, I've had the theme song to The Love Boat stuck in my head for almost two days now. If you read in the newspaper about a crazy middle-aged woman stabbing herself in the head with a fork, that would be me. Of course, I'll probably have Kanye West stuck in there now, but whatever.

So YRLFSATP and her companion broke up. I can't even call him her boyfriend because everyone knows they had broken up and only got back together when she found out she was pregnant. 'Baby's Daddy' is really the most apt description, which is a shame because I thought he was a really nice guy. Young and naive (10 years younger than YRLFSATP) but a really nice guy. The kind of guy who quits college and gets a job when YRLFSATP came back and said she was pregnant and keeping the baby. The kind who tried to work things out for the baby's sake even though YRLFSATP made it obvious to him and every one around them that she was only there because they had a child together. Frankly, the relationship lasted a lot longer than I thought it would; their child was almost a year old.
It would pain me a little to actually call YRLFSATP 'gold digger' because I know that Thing was in love with her, once upon a time, but I know more about her then he does - in various ways from various sources. Things that I won't even state here for fear that someday Thing will decide he wants to read my blog. It would kill him to find out and I love him too much to even risk it. But suffice it to say, yea, that really is what she is. And to the point that she knows how to do absolutely nothing herself, not even to take care of herself, because she's never had to before. She's gone from one guy to the next, whomever will take care of her and give her whatever she thinks she deserves.
But now Baby's Daddy doesn't want YRLFSATP anymore and is on to her game, thus making her actually do things for herself, like find a job and an apartment. YRLFSATP, on the otherhand, thinks he should cater to her every need, want and whim since 1) everyone always has before and 2) she had his kid. Things like, when they broke up 6 months ago and he told her he wasn't renewing the apartment lease and to find another apartment, she didn't and can't now understand why she is homeless and he won't give her money to go to a hotel nor find her a place to live. Granted, Baby's Daddy let her continue to live in his apartment for those 6 months and pay the rent and bills while she continued to not work, but that's beside the point.

That obvious that I'm annoyed, eh?
I am, it's true. I have never been anything but independent and self-sufficent. I got my first job (other than babysitting) at the age of 14 and I signed my first apartment lease at the age of 17. I paid for college myself by cleaning houses while raising a son and raised two kids while working full-time and living with the laziest man on the planet. I change my own flat tires, pay my own bills and prepare my own taxes. And you can sure as shit bet that if I had a toddler and I knew my lease was up in 6 months, I'd find a job and an apartment. And even with the benefit of the doubt due to the suck-ass economy, I would know enough to contact the proper authorities to file for child support, find emergency housing or even a homeless shelter.
I would not wait until 12 hours before I had to be out of my apartment and call my ex-boyfriend to tell him all of my belongings were in garbage bags in the aparment lobby and ask if he had any money or a couch I could sleep on.

Unless, of course, I was YRLFSATP.

I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored.

I have YRLFSATP shit galore to tell but that's going to take a while. I talk too much though and the stories are long enough on their own so it's looking like at least a two part series now. But whatever.

And I had the best intentions on working, once again, on my blog header; trying to incorporate my profile picture into the logo this weekend but that just didn't happen. I woke up at about 3am Saturday morning with the worst 'cold' I've had in a while. It took up residence in my throat and I lost my voice completely for most of Saturday. And while it came back Sunday, I still didn't talk for most of the day just because it felt like my throat had been set afire after a good long rubbing with a piece of sandpaper.
Poor me, I know.
But I'm mostly upright today and can talk and stuff. I've gone through 8 tissues just to get this far but otherwise I'm okay.

::insert applause here::

So I had to make the long-ass drive to Pittsburgh on Friday for my monthly visit for meetings and to put in face time. 95% of the time these visits are uber productive but I was dreading the drive. My car only moves about once a week now so I've gotten spoiled. Plus, I could tell I was getting sick and it was going to be a really long day because I was doing it round-trip, instead of spending the night like I usually do. Sure it's only a three hour drive, but make that drive, then spend 7 or 8 hours working and then try to make the 3 hour drive home. It's a bitch.
Now Pittsburgh drivers are as bad as Maryland drivers, just in a different way (I've done a comparative study but that's a blog for another day). So I'm a half hour away from the city and I'm already cussing. And if you can actually make it in to the city through the 1.2 billion areas of construction, you find that you have to go past 2 more constructions sites within spitting distance of my office. Frustrating yes, but at least PennDOT has 3 or 4 guys standing around doing nothing to give you something to watch while you are waiting in traffic.
Arrive at office, conversation with Parking Attendant, set-up laptop and equipment in cubicle, deal with a personality conflict, lunch with my immediate supervisor, hug & bullshit session with Girlfriend, long-ass meeting with one of the most annoyingly whiny people on the planet, work work work, more chitchat with Girlfriend, update and/or install new & various software on my laptop, realize it's dark outside and start packing up my shit to go home.
I haven't blogged much in the last year but when I have half the time it's to vent about difficulties regarding the move and now living with this strange new wonderful difficult man I love. There were ups but mostly downs and I, tired of crying and hating everything, started taking Prozac again after being off the stuff for several years.
So here I am, Friday, with everything chaotic under the sun going on, sick and tired, busy and productive, construction, meetings and long drives.
And I realized, on the drive home, that I was happy. I had, in fact, smiled and been happy all day. As I realized that, another thing occurred to me. Dawned on me like a rising sun and I wondered how I could have missed it.

I'm not depressed. I'm bored.

In case you haven't figured this out on your own, I am a Type A personality. And yet I've put myself in a position where I spend 80% of my day alone, I have no chance for promotion, and the only direct interaction with another living thing is if Bottlecap decides to wander into my office for a nap.
You may think that you are stuck in a rut going to work, working, and coming home, but think about it. You know that douchebag who cut you off in traffic this morning? That coworker with the stories about the neurotic girl/boyfriend? How you laughed at lunch and snorted tea up your nose? How you can't believe that blond chick is still getting away with making so much money when she's so incompetent?
Even if you are a stay-at-home mom or dad, you know you've got 8 billion things going on every day and an equal number of stories to tell.

I don't have that. None of it.

When I answer the question 'what did you do today sweetie?' with 'I worked', that's literally all I did. No one stopped by my desk with a funny story and I didn't see that bitch roll her eyes at me in the lunch room and I don't have little kids here saying cute things nor sticking shit up there noses and if any attractive consultants attended the meeting, I sure didn't see them.

So I didn't take my Prozac this morning. Instead, I'm compiling a list of places around town with free internet access and I'm going to start making rounds. Shortly, I'll be heading to Starbucks.
And I'm kind of hoping there is a douchebag at the next table.

...so I changed the way it looked. *Updated*

I've been looking at those same damn dots for more than three years now and they were starting to get to me. So what do you think?

**Update:
If you view my profile, I updated my picture. I was originally going to use that (IMO) perfect pic in the blog layout but couldn't figure out how to do it without blowing out all of my margins.
However, if one of you can figure out how to do it (and suggest where, exactly, to use it) I'd be eternally grateful. And I'd probably send you a cookie too.

Parts of Fauve

Most women, especially in this day and age, wear many different hats. I discovered, completely by accident, that shoes would be a much more appropriate analogy.

A vocabulary lesson that will probably offend at least half the people who read it

The last week or so has afforded me many opportunities to be around large quantities of children in a few different situations. The Girl has joined the Girl scouts, her school held a fundraiser, and we attended a housewarming party, in which there were approximately 1.5 million kids under the age of 4; not to mention just your everyday exposure to little ones, like say, at the liquor store (yea, seriously). Anyone who knows me in real life, knows that I don't like kids. Yeah, shocker, I know. I get that a lot. But just because I'm a mom, doesn't mean I like kids. In fact, there are only 4 kids in this world who I honestly like being around; my two children, one of my nieces, and the daughter of an old neighbor of mine. That's it. End of story. I'll be polite, look at photos, ooo & ahh, and pretend I think your child is precious, but seriously? I'm totally making it all up.

Anyway, I bring this up because I made a very important discovery amongst all these kids recently. It's not kids I don't like; It's their parents.

There, I said it. Hi, my name is Fauve and I totally just judged you. But it's my blog and I can do that.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I didn't judge you. Unless you're one of those parents. Then I totally did. I'll own that. Though I do feel a little Jeff Foxworthy-ish....

If you have more kids than you can handle even in the safety and comfort of your own home yet you insist on bringing every single one of them with you every where you go, you're one of those parents.

If you know your toddler aged child has food allergies and you attend a party in which you don't tell anyone of said allergy and give your child free reign to feed herself from the appetizer tray (which is on my list in and of itself, btw) and then let above child have her reaction which involves projectile vomiting at the dinner table without removing her, you're one of those parents.

If your child(ren) run and scream indoors and pound various toys on various surfaces that belong to someone else and you do nothing to stop or prevent it, you are one of those parents.

If your child yells mom/dad enough times to set a world record before you acknowledge their existence, you're one of those parents.

If you have a reoccurring problem with your child that has lasted for more than a year and you've used the phrase(s) that "this is normal behavior for this age" or that "every child is different", then you are one of those parents.

This is a true story. At the Girl scout meetings, there are two different troops that meet in the same large room - one older troop on one side, The Girl's younger troop on the other. At one point during the first meeting, the older girls got noisy & wild playing a game on their side and the younger girls got sucked into the chaos. All of the younger girls, except two, got up from their snack table and ran over to the other side of the room. The Girl was one of the two who stayed put. The mom next to me, who's daughter was a 'runner', informed me that The Girl was weird. "Normal kids" run like hers did.

Normal = commonplace

Commonplace ≠ acceptable

Hence, normal behavior ≠ acceptable behavior

And, for the record, her daughter had a big ole temper tantrum when it was time to leave too, something The Girl hasn't done for more than three years. I hope my kids turn out to be the biggest weirdos in the world.