Where I Ask You To Dress Me While Suggesting With The First Part Of This Title That I’m Naked Until You Do June 4, 2008

Multiple webpages displaying various party frocks decorate my computer monitor right now.
 
Hectic office setting? Sorry, you can be damned.
 
In two days, it will be my birthday. And while some people may take this time to reflect on What It Means To Be A Quarter Century Old And Still Not One Step Closer To Owning Their Own Personal Island Or At The Very Least Not Living From One Paycheck To The Next, I am quite adamant about Not Going There right now. Because I’m at work. And the janitor who can comfort my sobs with his broken English chants of No tears, Missus doesn’t get here until later this evening.
 
So instead, I distract myself with a search for the perfect atrocity that will cover my natural birthday suit this Saturday night. Because, well, I survive by living in denial.
 
Which is where you come in.
 
I tend to happily align my taste with the borderline ugly. Two weekends ago, while trying on a pair of heels at Nordstrom’s, I gleefully squealed to my boyfriend, “Aren’t these the most ridiculous things ever?” He agreed that they were. I promptly purchased said shoes.
 
I crave the absurd. Wearing loose v-neck tees and ripped up jeans to the oh-so-hot clubs where all the other chicks are decked in their “Here’s my boobs and - oh! - my crotch” monotony is fine with me and choosing to don my Alexander McQueen fuck me boots to the scummy dive bar that lets its patrons play beer pong until 4 in the morning is instinctive. Because fashion, to me, is a whim. It’s an opportunity to not take yourself too seriously and be silly. Like those shoes up there that I would have bought solely because they’re named EVIL.
 
But knowing all this about myself, a second opinion never hurts. Especially when I have my gay best friend Teddy encouraging me that Yes, the dress that’s electric aqua blue and shaped like an upside down tulip is the BEST IDEA EVER AND OH IT WOULD LOOK SO GOOD WITH A TIARA BECAUSE IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY, PRINCESS, AND YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT while a little voice somewhere in my head peeps: Prom Queen On Acid. Move along.
 
So, help. Please.
 
Dress #1:
 

 
Nope. Not joking about the electric-blue thing and the shaped-like-an-upside-down-tulip thing. But! It’s my party. And I’ll dress like a high school prom queen on acid if I want to?
 
Dress #2:

  
So this is when you learn that I have a love for all things preppy. And pleated. And white. Because white against my olive toned skin? Helps me convince myself that I’m much tanner than the cloudy gray weather that is Chicago this spring has allowed. Plus. I think I remember how to make faux-carnations out of tissue paper from my first grade art class that would go perfectly with this dress.
 
Dress #3:
 

 
Yes. It’s black gingham. Gingham. Maybe only second to seersucker (or wait, no, MADRAS) when it comes to fabrics I’m ashamed to admit I’m deathly obsessed with. Don’t put it past me to braid my hair in pigtails should I wear this dress. That, or some ridiculously voluminous high ponytail tied with a shiny fat ribbon.
 
Dress #4:
 

 
I can pair this with the afro wig I bought for our 70’s theme party last year.
 
Dress #5:
 

 
So that once my quarter-life-crisis catches up with me, I can take this dress and go try out to be a Deal or No Deal briefcase-carrying girl.
 
Dress #6:
 

 
This dress must be too normal. I don’t have a single thing to say about it.
 
Dress #7:
 

 
Because I was born in the 80s. And proud of it. (Ed. note: HOLLER NEON.)
 
Celebrations are set to begin with a booze trolley - a surprise planned by my boyfriend because yes, he’s that awesome - decked to the mess with streamers, balloons, and - if I get my way - Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Because trying to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey on a moving vehicle with open windows while completely sloshed demands that hilarity will ensue. Or broken limbs.
 
More likely than not, I’ll demand drinking games with rules centered around taking shots every time a car is seen. Shouting at hoards of people is a given. And all while capturing everything on the disposable cameras I plan to provide by the handfuls because fuck digital cameras and getting that oh so perfect picture on the third try. Not on this night.
 
So. Right. I guess I’m asking for your help in choosing a dress that will help me stand out even more on an evening that will surely help me acquire 3 million Chicagoans - plus or minus a few - as my new enemies. 

 

“Why Has The Damsel Not Been Posting?” February 28, 2008

Is the text message I just received from my boyfriend.
 
My first reaction was to laugh. I always forget that he – well, that he reads this thing. Even if I did tell him about it. Conversation between the two of us regarding this blog remains slim. Or in jest. Comments like “The damsel should post about this, no?” when we involve ourselves in something nutty. Like a weekend earlier this month when we embarked on a spontaneous calamity that included: 1 free shuttle from Chinatown to the Majestic casino in East Chicago, Indiana; 1 leaky plastic bag of Chinese leftovers from the lunch that had brought us to Chinatown in the first place; 1 combustion of a rooted bus chair; and 1 busload of questionable characters. 
 
So it needs to be said that every time - every single time - I’m reminded that he follows this thing, I laugh. And I squirm a bit, too. You should know why if you’re a regular reader of this blog. I don’t often present the prettiest, sparkliest little picture of myself, yes?
 
But it’s a good question. Because if my own boyfriend who I see almost every living minute that I’m not at this office (Ed. note: Or rather every sleeping second these days) is wondering why this blog has not been seeing many updates, then maybe some of you are wondering the same. 
 
And the short answer is that I am still feeling very sick and that the office is still one big shitstorm of Insane Deadlines and Pressure Cooker Projects and Not A Single Fucking Second To Blog At Work. Believe me. I’ve tried. And when I get home, my sick body is too drained to do anything more than turn on TNT to catch another late night rerun of Law and Order: SVU before I fall into Status, Comatose.
 
But, again, if you’re a regular reader, you will also know that I don’t give quick answers. I’m long-winded and wordy. And you’re probably getting very tired of these surface-level ”I’m too sick and so busy” whines anyway.
 
So honestly? I’m having a hard time believing it’s already the end of February. The thought, in fact, makes me ill. Maybe this is actually why I am sick right now. Let that be a lesson to all other Hyperbolizing Dramatics out there.
 
I can’t begin to tell you where the last two months have gone. I guess when your life accidentally falls into a harrying routine of Sleep, Wake Up, Office, Sleep, Wake Up, Office, your life can also accidentally get away from you. And when you add Prolonged Illness to the mix, you find yourself almost in a haze as life speeds by. You’re stuck in a crowd moving along with the pace of it all when all you want to do is peep out and stand on the sidelines for a bit.
 
But that takes energy. The peeping out. And energy is something I don’t have much of these days. Because I’m sick. And I’m tired. I want to get better. But all that Office and Waking Up is proving thorny to my plans.
 
Today I got out of bed and turned on the TV as I brushed my teeth. I almost never do this anymore after a day last year that saw me call in sick to work because I just had to see who would win the Malibu Sands Beach Club July 4th pageant to its end. Even though I’ve seen every episode of Saved By The Bell. A lot. Even though I own the package series DVD set. Yes I do.  (And it’s Kelly Kapowski, by the way, which then leads Stacy Carosi, Runner Up, to turn to Scientology for comfort and answers.) 
 
So what was on this morning? But a Top Chef Season 1 marathon. Holy hell was it difficult to continue getting ready for work and leave my apartment. Yes it was.
 
And holy hell. This is all sounding very depressing and gray and S.A.D. and pathetic, isn’t it?
 
The truth is that I’m not feeling very depressed or gray or pathetic. And S.A.D.? Well, yes, maybe, but that’s because I am addicted to sun and there hasn’t been much of that around these parts. It’s a science thing - something or another about solar power and what not. But otherwise, life is okay. It’s trucking along. Albeit in a sick haze, but trucking. Yes it is.
 
But I’m left with little time for — Well, life. Like playing. And fooding. And writing. Things have been so busy and I have been so sick that I haven’t had much time to sit in front of the computer. And just write. I never really plan ahead what I write. Instead? I just sit down and let whatever wants to spew out of me, spew out of me (Ed. note: Figuratively speaking, of course). Then I feel wonderful and light and go back to avoiding phone calls at work or watching that Law & Order: SVU repeat starring that guy from Disney’s Brink.
 
So when I feel as though I’ve written something rushed or pushed that Publish button in some hurry, a post results that I can’t leave alone. It may be a fine post, but I’ll feel uncomfortable. I’ll keep editing it. And a friend will tell me to “just stop fucking around with it, won’t you?” and I’ll tell that friend to just shut up, please.
 
Like my last post. You know, for example.
 
I wanted to write something about being sick and down for the count. And while I wrote, I remembered the story about my friend Lexi and her one woman show as The Rainbow Coalition that night many nights ago. But the post was pushed - I tried to force it admist twenty “Ready To Implode If Not Dealt With Immediately” projects at work. I missed you guys and I missed blogging. But the post only annoyed me after I wrote it. Similar to how I feel annoyed if I’m rushed through dinner or rushed getting ready to go out or rushed for anything that I’d normally like to take my time to enjoy.
 
I like to like what I post. Even if no one gets it but me. Even if no one finds it funny but me. Even if I think it’s extreme or messy or ugly. Or boring. Shit that makes some people want to rip their eyeballs out. Whatever. Because I never intend my writing to be those things. It’s an intangible switch inside of me that knows whether I feel comfortable about something I’ve put out there. Whether, you know, it feels representative of what I wanted to convey.
 
And plus. I like you guys. A lot. I don’t want to post rushed crap. Because when I read blogs where I can tell the blogger has posted rushed crap? I feel — Well, I feel a little let down. Such an entitled attitude for a reader, right? And maybe that’s just me. But for whatever reasons people blog - whether they write for themselves or their readers or a combination of the two or for something completely separate - I respect a piece of writing that feels honest. Something not contrived. Even if I don’t agree with its particular content or message. I’m going to admire someone who wrote something they wanted to write.
 
I miss being able to sit in front of my laptop and write with my mind solely on whatever it is that wants to spew out of me that moment (Ed. note: Figuratively speaking, of course). When my mind isn’t partioned with Work Thoughts and OUCH MY THROAT HURTS Thoughts and GAH! THE PHONE WON’T STOP RINGING Thoughts.
 
Color me addicted, but I’m pretty disappointed that I haven’t been able to post regularly for what seems like a couple months now. Maybe it’s time for me to go knock knock knocking on Blogoholics Anonymous’ door, but I enjoy writing daily. I like arriving at the office and opening up my WordPress right after Gmail and wwtdd(dot)com. I even almost like the insomniac nights where the glowing laptop screen plays companion.
  
And now that my bosses think I should be paid to accomplish what they actually hired me to do and I’m sick? Going to work means going to work and going home means going to bed.
 
Has Steve Jobs invented telepathic typing yet? Because I’m tired of this blog falling victim to sporadic posting. But maybe the gods will finally take sympathy on Over-Tired, Over-Worked, Over-Plagued Me and regular posting can finally resume once more. Today is relatively quiet around these parts. Could this be a blessing of things to come?
 
Tomorrow (What Da! Posting! Two days in a row?) there will be a surprise post by a friend. Tune in. With the expectation that you will like her better than me.
  
And me? Well, it’s time for me to stop posting these “I’m too sick and so busy” whines. For real.
 
Oh. And to respond to my boyfriend’s text with the good news about a whole new post inspired entirely by him.

Knock, Knock January 9, 2008

Who’s there, you ask. Begrudgingly.

You threaten in advance that no, you orange going to be fucking glad I said bananas. Should that be where I’m headed.

It’s me! Damsel! Remember me?, I say.

Hm. Damsel? Damsel who?, you respond.

Damsel (Ed. note: I really can’t call myself this with a straight face). The blogette that pens (keyboards?) as Damsel in Digress. The idiot who wrote that she blogs at work but that it’s been slow around her office so you needn’t judge. Who wrote this so she could then write that by saying it’s slow around the office, she really meant to say that it’s not slow at all but that she also doesn’t give a shit. Because she’s a bit of a wiseass.

The idiot who dared to throw that out into the universe. Who momentarily forgot that it’s a cardinal rule of the gods to damn idiots who think they are too high and too mighty to pay attention to By 1/4/08!! or ASAP! or See me immediately! (Ed. note: How does one underline things on a blog to show not one but four lines?) because they’d rather play with their blog and their blog friends.

Especially when that idiot is me. A familiar plaything in the hands of the gods.

The last few days at work have been horrifying. Of chaos and pandemonium and threats of malpractice from disgruntled clients, oh fucking my.

(Jay slash kay about the threats of malpractice.)

(For now.)

It’s been the kind of hectic and nuts that absolutely cannot be sideswept into a pile of Things To Do Later. The kind that drives one to drink a bottle of wine the moment one arrives at their apartment and pass out with a Wii controller in one hand and a bag of Cape Cod Jalapeno & Aged Cheddar potato chips (the best potato chips that exist in this world - this is actually not up for argument) in the other. The kind that leaves one’s brain and one’s fingers only able to type ASLKDFJKdkjfASD!!11!!!oneone!!! as a blog post. And really bad Knock Knock jokes, apparently.

And shower? What’s that?

I try to not blog about my job. Though I certainly have ample material. My office is the type of place that would be most bloggers’ wet dream. There’s the 55 year old attorney, Jewish and male, who has a personal manicurist stop by the office once a week. The interoffice memo circulated last week offering $50 to the employee who would clean the year’s worth of stuff! that clogs the office kitchen’s refrigerator. Or the IT guy who kisses your hand every time - every single time - he sees you. The same IT guy who pulled you aside to tell you that while he was updating your computer, he noticed that you had saved some iTunes onto the main company server and that the main company server should be used to save company work only. So now, you are afraid that if you tell HR that the IT guy sexually harrasses your hand every time he sees you, he’ll tell them that he found You’se a Ho! and Africa (Ed. note: Yes, by Toto) saved in your folder on the main company server because you like to listen to songs at the office that hold potential for unintentional comedy. Songs that you had meant to save in your Local Computer Folder but it’s you. So of course you couldn’t just fulfill your work inappropriateness quota by downloading music at work. You had to publicly display it.

But I refrain. (Clearly.) For fear.

I guess there’s no point in this post except to say that I miss you all. And that I know to claim that I will write whatever is on my mind in my last post, then to not post for a series of days is not the way one does this type of thing.

The madness, I think, is subsiding a bit. Mainly because a very kickass girl in HR wrote a very scathing email to one of my bosses to stop being a crazy bitch who hands me assignments at 5:00 p.m. while telling me that she knows it’s a week’s worth of work but that she needs it to be done by 8:00 p.m. for the Fed Ex pickup. And bcc’d me on it. And I choose to see that as a green flag to play.

Although I wish I knew how to decrease this font. Decrease it enough so that the gods don’t notice what I wrote in that last paragraph and create a whole new flurry of work, work and more work for me.

They need to know that the Knock Knock ‘Hi It’s Me Damsel Please Don’t Forget About Me’ plea is not intended for them.

A Quick Digression About Indie Bloggers December 18, 2007

It’s Toy Story, yes, that showed little green aliens chant in uniform mantric monotone that we are not worthy?
 
I am one of those little green aliens today.
 
The extremely talented distracted spunk has drawn my attention to IndieBloggers.org’s most recent post (Ed. note: Is it still considered a shameless plug if I take care to not mention that it’s mine? Wait, oops-) and the excitement and flatter I feel after reading her email is competing with the circus of being posted on IB.
 
Thank you to Stacy at IB for the publication. My tendencies to self-depricate are bursing in my fingertips over their keyboard, but I will humbly just type: Thank you.
 
Time to go tell my boyfriend all about it, yes? (Ha!)

A Digression About The Current State Of The World December 6, 2007

I cried when I heard another shitfucked person went apeshit with a gun in a public place and took the lives of too many people and shattered the lives of too many families. I think about how it’s all fine and great that we want to uphold the Constitution and give every American his rights to guns - a right that was established when our founding fathers was afraid of colonized opression - but wonder when people will stop fighting a fight for the sake of fighting and start getting their fucking priorities straight.
   
I rode the L the other night and saw a homeless man asleep on the chairs and my heart hurt. Yes, I smell them too, and yes, I can feel harassed and annoyed when it seems like the pestering for extra change doesn’t end. But my heart still hurt when I saw him asleep on the train. And when I see some asleep on the sidewalks during my way to work. Chicago has some damn cold winters. And thanks to the fucking incompetence of our fair governor and legislators in Springfield combined with the idiocy that runs the Chicago Transit Authority, the trains aren’t all that much better. I give change. Sometimes I buy them food. But, a lot of the time, it all seems terribly unfair and overwhelming. 
     
I saw a kid being picked on and yelled at last night, and I wanted to swoop in and save. I know that all kids have to go through some of that and it’s supposed to make us all better, stronger people eventually. But it still doesn’t stop me from wanting to save a kid who’s getting picked on by other kids because I’ve seen the 20/20 specials with the undercover cameras at the elementary schools. Kids can be cruel. And parents who pick? Yeah, I think I know something about that too.
 
I received an email yesterday that asked me to sign a petition to stop an effort by a group of (heinously rich and heinously callous) people trying to ban a heliport from being built at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial, and I became angry. And really fucking sad. It’s sickening to learn of people who have lost such touch with the world that exists outside of their comfort bubble that they find the precarious levels of noise in their neighborhood more of a concern than benefiting the lives of sick children. A person has to be pretty fucked in the head to not want to do anything they can to help kids who are sick. Kids are meant to be a lot of things, but suffering from deadly or painful illnesses just isn’t it. And if a child somehow had the short straw drawn for him when it came to his health, then that kid deserves all the help he can get. Online petitions to save one thing or another can be a bit thick sometimes, but this one has its heart in the right place. I’m not so presumptuous to think I should ever tell anyone what to do when it comes to what you want to fight and what you want to believe, but if you’re interested: http://www.childrensmemorial.org/newsroom/alert.aspx
 
I signed the petition, and I felt a bit better. Not about myself because this isn’t about me. I know there’s a hell of a lot more I could do, should do. But I felt a bit more hopeful about the state of things. I know what I did is not much. And signing this petition doesn’t do anything about all of the other problems that plague the current state of the world.
 
But it’s something. A start. A break from the state of passivity we can sometimes freeze ourselves into. A beginning to remembering that the little things can help and hopefully pave the way to bigger things. That there are other people that want to help too.
 
And that a lot of people doing a lot of little things together may become something very powerful, noticeable, perhaps even significant.  

   

Give The Model Some Porridge November 29, 2007

Humor me, please. Because reality TV is my brain’s yoga. It helps it breathe, relax, be one.
                
[Spoiler Alert: If you have not seen last night's episode of Project Runway yet, please stay far, far away from this post until you do. Then, once you have, please come back. Immediately. Please?]
 
Did Eliza “I want to imbue the fabric with natural elements” warm your heart a little last night? With the being shy and the covering the eyes and the I have only intimately dressed my boyfriend talk? Did anyone else think that her outfit - while ignored for commentary on last night’s episode - looked more appropriate for a fairy or elf that scurries around a moonlit forest than former NY Giants running back and current Today Show commentator Tiki Barber?
                                
Did anyone else find Carmen’s outfit from last night’s episode of Project Runway to be oddly reminiscent?:
   

The model actually wears less clothing than poor Oliver Twist and tis more ill-fitting.

(Photo of model courtesy of newsday.com and the powers of Save Picture As and Upload.)

                               
Hm?
 

The woman wrapped a blue piece of fabric around the model’s neck in lieu of a shirt and, Carmen, aren’t you scared of Nina Garcia Fashion Director of ELLE Magazine? Sending that down the runway to be seen by Nina Garcia Fashion Director of ELLE Magazine (Ed. note: That’s her full name, right?) is akin to looking directly into the eyes of a gorilla. Or something. It’s just unnecessary provocation.
                                    
I really wanted the model to strike a pose at the end of the runway, whip out a wooden bowl, look to the camera, and ask, “May I have some more, Sir?” before turning around and sayshaying away. (Ed. note: How awesome would that have been? Poor Michael Kors would have had a heart-attack right there on the spot.) Because at least then, I’d understand that Carmen the Former Model - while not a great designer - at least had a sense of humor. Or the initiative to abuse her spot on a reality television show to get herself talked about on all the celebrity tabloids or blogs the day after the episode aired.  
                  

Which would have been a hell of a lot easier to stomach (and so much more fierce) than her sniffles that the world, the whole wide world, never got to truly see her amazing designs.

    

        

A Digression About Good Intentions But Less Than Satisfactory Results November 26, 2007

Once upon a time nine days ago, I wrote that my blog would endure no lack of posting while I holidayed in Vegas (Viva Las!) and Utah (Mormon filled!) and sent that message out for all the internets to see.
 
Even when I knew that I’d be in Vegas - sinning: the seven deadlies - and Utah - playing: the golf, the thanksgiving, the role of angelic girlfriend. 
 
When I knew that unreliable internet connections and uncooperative laptops trail me as closely as the pavarotti do Britney’s britney (Ed. note: Celebrity Tabloids, it’s her vagina, we get it. Moving on, shall we, pretty please?). 
 
And even when I knew I’d be with my boyfriend who does not yet know about this blog and of course I should have known that insisting on sitting at my laptop (and lowering the screen anytime he came nearby) for at least 30 minutes everyday while on vacation would begin to look suspicious and odd.
   
One aborted post on Thanksgiving (Ed. note: I continue to have trouble distinguishing between the “Publish” and the ”Save and continue editing” buttons) and not another word from me again till today later, I stand (Ed. note: Sit) before you a humbled person because once upon a time some nine days ago, I made a bold claim that I emphatically failed to fulfill. And while this helps a little part of me now understand how Bill Clinton must have felt when he faced the world and admitted that he had lied when he had said he did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky, I led you on and then I didn’t deliver and, let’s be frank, no one likes a goddamn tease.
 
So I feel bad. Because guilt and I, we’re quite familiar, what with me being a pair of immigrant parents’ first born, who: 1. Failed to apply to Harvard University as a senior in high school (on purpose); 2. Failed to follow through on any of her acceptances into several law schools two years ago (on purpose); and 3. Failed to mention Madeleine Albright as one of her heroes when interviewed by a local news station a few years ago for some feature on 20-something females and had to hear from her father for days after, But I give you her book! What if she watch? You miss chance to tell world you follow Madeleine Albright! (by accident because who in their right mind has Madeleine Albright on the forefront of their mind?).
   
But while I was unable to blog while in Vegas (Viva Las!), I now sit upon a small mountain of potential reading material for you. And while I was raised with too much of a good Midwestern upbringing to stay behind a laptop while my boyfriend’s parents - who are of the very nice, very sweet, very mannered variety - mingled around me in Utah (Mormon filled!), I am now back at my office desk where I have no moral issues with posting on my blog all day.
   
So enough with the excuses and on to some posting, yes?
   
   
[In all and complete seriousness, I hope everyone had a very happy thanksgiving. And remembered to say a little prayer for the Indians.]

A Digression About Blog Search Terms November 15, 2007

For $1200: Damsel Girl Fucked.
  
Answer: What is a LARPer typing into his preferred internet search engine to land upon this blog? 
 
With no Alex Trebeck employed by this blog to read from a cue card the correct reason for how or why or who used those three words to find me, I suppose we’ll never know.
 
Learning the search terms people have used to accidentally find your blog and feeling a range of emotions from Amused Interest to Quizzical Horror is most likely not a new concept to experienced bloggers. So my current animated enthusiasm about the search terms that have been used to stumble upon my site is probably similar to when my father finally discovered text messaging and sent me a message that read, “CELL PHONE MAIL HARD TO TYPE”, only to be never heard from (via text message) again.
     
WordPress is a whore though. She makes it so easy. Too easy to see that someone found my blog after typing in the above (which, incidentally, is not entirely inaccurate about me the figurative content of this site) or “her first pack of cigarettes” into Google or Yahoo or MSN or Ask. I find this shit fucking hilarious. I want to hypothesize and wax on and on about this all day. That someone, somewhere in this world, sat down and typed her first pack of cigarettes into a search engine fascinates me. I ask with complete seriousness: What was this person hoping to find?
     
Blaming my endless curiosity for odd, useless information, I had no other choice than to go to Google and enter “her first pack of cigarettes” myself. To answer this question. To understand this person clothed in mystery and anonymity.
    
My blog didn’t appear on the first page of results. And after reviewing the next six pages, seeing everything from Wikipedia entries about Pall Malls to something about undercover black men, I still had not found it and began to lose interest. So I stopped. I am far too lazy to have continued looking for my blog, but another piece of the puzzle was established: Our friend, the enigma, who must have scoured pages and pages of results to land at my blog, is diligent. WHO ARE YOU, YOU PATIENT SPHINX, INTERESTED IN VIRGIN PACKS OF CIGARETTES BELONGING TO FEMALES ONLY? *Looks at cosmos and shakes fist.*
     
In my complete bewilderment, I’m reduced to all-capped declarations and *actions*. Search terms used to find my blog have become to me what crack cocaine is was to former D.C. Mayor Marrion Barry. Colorful word imagery escapes me. The shame. *Lowers head and sighs.*
     
It’s best to just end this self-indulgent post now. But before I do:

• Sorry, you, who found this blog looking for “oliver martinez” - I had nothing more to add to your knowledge of him than that some girl, somewhere, thinks he’s crushworthy, which is most likely as alarmingly new to learn as it is to hear that Britney Spears was seen drunk or that Paris Hilton is a whore. (These bitches even make CNN breaking news now. Oh, America).
• To you, who found my blog searching “macy’s return policy” - I pray you learned from my own misfortunes to remember to attach the tags (the tags! the tags!) back on to whatever item you hoped to return before arriving at Macy’s lest you be called unsanitary and a liar.
• And to you, “apron+aprons” - Why not just apron? Or aprons? Why both?

And in conclusion: Sprouts, Betty Boop, Harry Potter, Sexy Cinderella, Hummer Limos, Cups, Albino Elephant, Angelina Jolie, Asian Snow Man. 
 
I wait in slightly nervous (and damn eager) anticipation to see what search terms I lure over to my little niche of the internets now.
 
    
[Ed. note: This is the promised Extra Post #2 (finally). All's square; regular NaBloPoMo-ing action resumes this evening (assuming the cooperation of laptop + internet connection).]
 
[UPDATE: Lame-ass laptop and incompetent internet connection won last night. Hence, I aim for 2 posts today.]