I don’t know about you, but if I was in the market for a vibrator to use in anal play, (I’m NOT) I don’t think I’d want something called The Anal Predator
That just sounds mean.
Carry on with your weekend.
I Feel Bad For Baseball Michael Jordan January 30, 2009
Today in accounting class I spent two hours looking at my reflection in a computer screen. I picked myself apart. The nose that’s too wide, the shoulders that are too broad, the upper arms that are twice the size they should be. I spent time calculating the difference between my thighs and those of the pretty, petite blonde sitting next to me.
And then I went home and had some gourmet ice cream, because I’m a glutton for punishment.
Like anyone, I can feel inadequate at times. In everything and anything. Hell, sometimes I feel like I’m not being “me” enough. As if by doing something out of my realm of normal my molecular structure will change. I’m smart enough to realize that this is crazy talk and, Hello, Shaba, pity party much? I get it.
Sometimes though, that little voice is pretty damn loud.
Lately, in addition to the stress of The Most Important Week For Spring Graduating MBA’s, Accounting Homework of Death, and the regular “Blah Blah I Feel Like A Blob Blah Blah” I’ve been insecure about this blog. Hi, my name is Crazypants, nice to meet you.
This fear stems from a comment I read on a blog somewhere that stated that a lot of bloggers try to hard. That they’re not authentic. And of course, because I’m Ridiculous, I immediately think “Oh NOES! What if I’m unauthentic?! What if I change my writing style one day and everyone thinks I’m a poser? What if I become Baseball Michael Jordan?!”
Hence, the recent addition of prose. I vas testing you my pretties. And, I guess you passed.
The truth is, I AM authentic on the blog. In real life I have spouts of goofiness, and weeks of blah. Sometimes I can create a few piece of prose or poetry that make me proud enough to want to share. Sometimes I’m ridiculously smitten with The Boy and sometimes I just want to hear someone say, “You Go Girl,” or “Amen, Sista.”
And sometimes I write really long posts even though I know it’s a blog no-no.
What you read is what you get.
Fin.
A Little Less Broken, A Little Less Scared January 29, 2009
Opening the car door into the crisp April air she breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time in four months she did not have to share the quiet calm with strangers. The cemetery is deserted on the first Saturday of soccer season. The holidays have passed and the memorial wreaths have since withered and been taken away. The winter frost has broken and the living want to get outside and live. She clutched her rosary and sent up a silent prayer for the solace of solitary. She was so tired of the widows with creaking bones and plastic shopping bags full of pain and coupons. Their eyes followed her with a pity she had grown to despise.
It’s hard enough to lose a child. She didn’t need the pity of widows to drag her down any further.
It was odd for her to feel this way, to feel like she needed to be alone to grieve. She was lighthearted and outgoing woman by nature and an Italian Catholic by birth; a combination of such that kept her enveloped in sympathy and casseroles since that dismal December morning. She felt eternally grateful for the support of so many friends and family, but she still didn’t feel like herself. Her weekly treks to the cemetery seemed to help; even though it made her husband give her that now familiar “I don’t know why you do this to yourself” look. Sometimes she didn’t know either, she felt like she was healing, but it was a slow and painful process.
She sighed as she sat down on the bench by her son’s grave. Fingering the smooth beads of her rosary she found herself lost in thoughts of months previous.
It was cold that morning, and only six days from Christmas. When she got to the hospital the first thought she had was what she was going to do with the gifts tucked under the Christmas tree in his name. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she cried. What kind of person thinks about the logistics of packages after identifying their nineteen-year-old son as the victim of Motor Vehicle accident at 4th and Pine?
Caught up in her thoughts she didn’t notice when a little boy sat down next to her. She immediately recognized him as Noah, a student from her Sunday school class. He lived across the street from the cemetery, and sometimes she saw him standing at from the living room window when she made her weekly visitation. She said hello and he returned her greeting, but sat up straight and stared forward, his hands clasped together in front of him. She was secretly happy for this response, she certainly didn’t feel like chatting.
As she worked her way around the rosary beads, occasionally she looked over to her pint size companion. He was small and sandy haired. He was the token quiet and polite child in her otherwise rambunctious and loud 2nd grade Sunday school class.
As she completed another decade she glanced at him again, this time more intently. His eyes never met hers. She followed his gaze to a gravestone close by. A wave of sadness flooded over her. How could she have not realized? She remembered when it happened, about two years ago around this time. His mother, unable to fight the illness anymore, gave up her battle and left behind this sweet little boy just as he finished kindergarten. Suddenly she no longer wanted to grieve alone.
Pushing back tears and steadying her breath she spoke, “Noah, it’s so nice of you to sit with me. I’m sure your miss your mommy as much as I miss my little boy. Do you think, that since I don’t have my little boy to hold, and you don’t have a mommy to hold you, we could hold each other a little bit?”
Noah looked at her for the first time since he sat down and nodded. Slowly he climbed into her arms and she felt a sense of calm she hadn’t felt since before the accident.
The two of them sat there that day, and for every Saturday for the next few weeks, each of them feeling a little less broken and a little less scared.
Make Me Laugh, Win a Prize! January 28, 2009
There is a mouse under my bed. AlexMac has named him Sneaky Little Bastard. The Boy has told me that if he wanted to, SLB could indeed join me in bed. Up until that point I was convinced he was floor bound. Sometimes The Boy is not so nice.
I fell on the ice today. I wiped out completely and was granted a nice black and blue ouchy that will make any pretty footwear choices a Very Bad Idea.
I spent hours today working on an outline for my MBA thesis. Hours, people. On an outline. My thesis topic is rather interesting and may involve actual primary research, unfortunately my professor thinks that some other dude’s paper on Comparing and Contrasting different theories is a top rate piece of graduate level writing. Comparing and contrasting. My English professors would have laughed me out of the room. Can you tell I’m so over this semester? I’m also over 40 page single-spaced papers.
And today started off so well. I was on time (my normal 20 minutes late, but whatev,) I ate semi-healthily. I did work instead of reading blogs. Then the Universe decides that WHAM, 40 page paper outline of death, icey incident, and Sneaky Little Bastard. At least I have new glasses.
Glass half-full.
Our heroine rocks out the new specs.
Oh, right, then there’s that little contest I promised you.
People, this is the last time I announce a contest before I actually have an idea of what I’m going to do. Not such a good idea. It took me for-frickin-ever to decide that I’m gonna have you attempt to caption a picture that I snapped this weekend.
Here are the rules:
1) Caption the following picture. The one that makes me laugh the hardest wins. No pressure.
2) The winner, (and there will be a winner and a reason for that winner and feelings will be hurt and some of you might cry, but you’re all big boys and girls and, well, better luck next time, what do you think this is, soccer?) will get a prize from Etsy. Yup. A prize. A prize I will pick especially for the winner. Fancy!
Alrighty, everyone clear?
Here’s your picture…get a’captioning!
Insert Your Witty Caption Here
Brown shirt is The Boy, Blue Shirt Man is his roommate, Chase. We were all a little tipsy.
And Then He Held Her January 27, 2009
Bathing in the afterglow of love and wine, she laid her head on his chest. Intertwined and adrift on the gentle waves of a bed filled with water they spoke of love, lost and found. Tipsy and emotional she found herself in tears. She tried to explain, scared he’d think she missed an old flame, or was in the least bit unhappy. With words hazy from merlot she told him she cried because she hurt for them, those people she once loved. She hurt for them because they didn’t know what they were looking for. She hurt because they didn’t have what she found with him. She hurt because they don’t know what they’re looking for, or that it even exists. She hurt that she couldn’t show it to them, to point it out to them, to make it easier. She hurt because it just didn’t seem fair.
Trembling with unvoiced sobs, she studied his face for the confusion she expected. What she found was surprising. His face showed something else entirely; not confusion, or hurt, or even a tinge of discomfort at the names of past lovers. Instead, she found understanding. She needn’t say another word. She wrapped herself around him and he stroked her hair and told her she should cry if she needed to. And when she broke down in his arms he whispered “it’s ok,” and held her until she caught her breath.
And then he held her.
And held her.
Until the morning light demanded they let go.
Contest info to be posted tomorrow. And I promise I’ve hit my sappy quota for the week.
Just A Quickie January 26, 2009
So while moderating comments in between the Awesome of The Boy Weekend, I ran across this gem, just now added to a post I wrote last February….
hey… whassup!!!. iiiiiii…. was watching you on the movie here in Argentina. This is the first time i saw you on screen. Liked the movie. Even if I know you might not answer to this… I am really interested in knowing what is in your head, I mean, call me crazy if y ou want, but i have a fixation on your eyes, and all I see is a girl who will never get dragged by the bussines she got involved in. I apologize if the commet incomodates you. I will try to see the movie “Charlie Barttlet” to keep on watching your progress. By the way my name is Marcelo, and it is my pleasure to have seen you.
Contrary to popular belief, or at least contrary to Marcelo’s belief, I am not Kat Dennings. I would love to look like Kat Dennings, but alas, I am just Shaba.
Also, I reached my 1,000th comment this weekend. Lookout for a celebratory contest soon!
Words I Wish I’d Written January 23, 2009
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
The Answer to “What The Hell Do You Coach?” January 22, 2009
Lately I’ve received a few questions about my little coaching hobby.
Well, really, I’ve just received one question, “What the hell are you coaching?”
Well, internets, twitter-ers and lurkers, today is your day. Welcome to High School Rifle 101.
You see, I am the assistant coach of a high school rifle team. No, not the twirly-in-the-air-with-the-color-guard rifles. I’m talking about rifles that shoot bullets. Real ones. At targets. We’re the schools newest sport (and only truly co-ed sport), at my high school alma mater and through the last 8 years we’ve been competing, we’re hands down the most successful. The jist of the sport is thus:
Ten kids compete in a varsity match. They don a whole bunch of weird looking equipment and end up looking like this….
Except we do this laying down. We're not that hard core.
Then they lie down on a mat, and they have fifteen minutes to shoot 10 record shots (one’s that count for score) and unlimited sighters (ones they use to make sure they’re hitting the center before they start going for score). The targets look like this.
Isn't it pretty? Maybe I'm biased.
The bigger circle in the middle is the sighter bullseye, the smaller ones around the outside are the “record” bulls.
Now, all that crazy equipment? That’s used to prohibit you from moving. To be accurate you want to be a steady as possible. However, it’s hard to actually use your arms to muscle the gun over to the right bull’s-eye when you’ve got it stuck in a sling.
Thus, the kids have to make a series of small body adjustments to make sure that they’re lined up correctly to hit the ten ring on every bull’s-eyes. It takes discipline and body control, and is much more difficult than it sounds.See that middle ring? That’s the ten ring. It’s about the size of a pencil eraser. Now imagine trying to hit that little circle from fifty feet away.
“Ha!” You might be saying, “That’d be so easy, I mean you use a scope like a hunting rifle right?” Wrong-o. No scopes. The guns we use for competition are equipped with iron sights. So what you’d see when you look down the sights would be this.
Not really exactly what it looks like, but close enough.
Circle, (rear sight), circle (front sight), dot (bull’s-eye). Coming with me on this? Ok, so not only are the guns equipped with iron sights, but the kids don’t even get to see where they’re shooting.
In high school rifle one of the rules is that athletes are not allowed to use scopes while they’re shooting. They need to rely on their coach to tell them what they’re doing and give them the appropriate corrections. We’re the only ones who really see what’s happening on the target, so trust is a big component of our sport. If I, as your coach tell you that your sights need adjusted, you have to be willing to follow my instruction, without seeing the evidence for yourself. It also requires the athlete to be good at communicating their problems and actions to the coach.
Ok, so you may still be thinking, “Pshaw! How hard could this be?” Don’t worry, I’ll inform you.
When we shoot in a match against another team two kids from each team shoot on a relay, for a total of 5 relays of 20 kids. After every varsity team member has fired their 10 shots for record (in the appropriate time limit, because if you don’t finish you’re SOL…just like in school if you fail to answer one question on a ten question test the best possible score you could get is a 90) we take the targets and score them. The best possible score a shooter could get is a 100-10x. An “x” is basically a perfect shot. It’s a shot that hits the ten ring but does not break the nine ring. After the targets have been scored we take the top five scores from each team and add them up. Therefore, the best score a team could have is a 500. So, if you’re familiar with bowling, a 500 team score is like bowling a 300.
It’s like pitching a perfect game.
To be competitive though, perfection is required. Basically, if you shoot anything less than a 498, you’ll probably lose.
Last night my team lost, with a 498. We’ve lost before with a 500, but the tie breaker rules are a little too involved for this quick and dirty explanation.
I shot on the team all through high school, and it’s interesting now to be on the other side. As I watch kids slowly make their way around the target, recording one perfect shot after another, I get SO nervous. I want them to get that 10-x more than they do. I can’t imagine how stressful it must have been for my mother my senior season. She coached me through a perfect season; I didn’t drop a single point.* I’m surprised she didn’t have an aneurysm by the last match.
I’ll definitely be sad when this season’s over; it’s my last year to function as assistant coach. The kids on the team are all great kids. I can’t imagine a better group. I’ll truly miss them. I’ll miss seeing a kid finally get it and start shooting good scores and making varsity. I’ll miss getting to know the freshmen and trying to figure out who will be the stand out. I’ll miss riding the bus and playing The Line game. I’ll miss handing out lollipops to the kids who shoot hundreds, and gold stars to the ones who shoot perfect 10-x’s. I’ll miss being there.
Even though our range is always freezing. And has a lack of indoor plumbing. That I won’t miss. At all.
*Bragging because it’s my blog. I hold a record, people!
On The Verge January 21, 2009
Those three words sum up the theme of my life right now. With the spring semester underway there are a bunch of finish lines coming into view. The winter is flying by. I can’t fathom that my rifle team is more than halfway through their season. My graduate thesis is due in eight weeks. I will cease to be a student, cease to be a NEPA resident, and cease to be within any close proximity to the only life I’ve known in a mere 16 weeks.
It’s quite a lot to think about.
Of course, there’s a myriad of things I’ve got to do before then. I have to suffer through my accounting class. I have to actually get my thesis topic approved (which is harder than it should be, because my professor doesn’t understand my preferred topic,) then research, write and defend said thesis. There are presentations to be given, grades to achieve, and let’s not forget the bills to pay.
Coming up in February there’s the spring break trip to Europe, an event that I strangely keep forgetting about even though it should be wildly exciting. Post Europe, as I wait for the mail carriers to deliver my rejection letters from Ph.D. programs, I intend to start the job search process. This is definitely a scary, intimidating undertaking for a newly minted MBA whose resume includes a single line under the “Job Experience” section. I’ve come to the decision that regardless of my Ph.D. acceptance, I want to take this next year to lengthen that section. I’m burnt out, guys, I don’t want to look at another syllabus for at least a few months.
I’ve decided that come May, I’m moving to Virginia. To be with The Boy. There, I’ve said it, officially. I’m not sure what I want to do in my career, but I know what makes me happy. As long as I can be with him, and type to you all, I truly feel I’d be content. It’s a big deal for me to admit all this. I never thought I’d be That Girl. And I never truly thought I’d get there so soon. But, right now it’s the only thing I’m sure of. I want to be with him.
So I’m on the verge of diving in. Into a new chapter, a new state, a new way of living.
But don’t worry, I plan to bring you all along for the ride.
You’d Better Love Me For This One January 20, 2009
The Boy and Shaba have Fun with Photo Booth! Ready? Go! 
Pee Wee Shaba
Seriously, I look like a demented Pee Wee Herman. Note The Boy’s man chest and the distinct difference between our skin tones. I look like death. I’ve accepted it.
Shaba HUNGRY! Nom nom nom.
Very attractive. You’re welcome. Seriously, you have no idea how much it pains me to post this. Hence normal pictures of me now exist on twitter and 20sb. I need to combat the ugly.
Sometimes I moonlight as a Bratz doll.
The Boy looks less than pleased. I kinda like myself as a Disney character/Bratz doll. It’s all about the Doe-eyed look.
I’d like to note that while this fun photobooth session was going on, The Boy managed to shirk out of ANY AND ALL WEIRDNESS! Not fair. It looks like he’s the normal one. Untrue, internets, untrue.
He’s full of cyborg, remember. Full of cyborg.
