CNN: Always good for a laugh

I know it's not surprising he'd be driven to drink by all that's going on, but it's nice to see it confirmed by a major news outlet.

Well

Apparently, I need to stop blaming my problems on drinking, and start blaming them on what's really wrong with me, which is that I am an idiot.

What I'm really trying to say is that I didn't lose my cell phone after all.

See, I had my phone and my keys in my purse, and I was holding the purse backwards, and it's really hard to describe in words, but just trust me that at some point during the night, I came very close to dumping its contents out because I tried to open it from the wrong direction. I remember this very distinctly, because I remember worrying that I had almost dropped my keys out. What I couldn't remember was when or where exactly it happened. But I assumed that that must have been when the phone fell out.

So anyway, I have a file cabinet next to the front door of my apartment (I'm all about the fancy, high-class furnishings), and that's where I throw my keys and shit whenever I walk in the door. And my purse and my keys and my scarf and my gloves were all there, but the phone was nowhere to be found when I checked Saturday morning.

Except it actually was there. Want to know where? Well, the top drawer of the file cabinet was open (because I am terrible and lazy and never bother to shut drawers when I open them*), and last night, I happened to look down into it, and HEY, THERE'S MY FUCKING CELL PHONE nestled in among the electric bills and last year's tax returns. GOD.

And here's an instance where being a slacker actually benefitted me - I still hadn't gotten around to calling the cell phone company to disconnect the phone, so it still works! Of course I am keeping it, what with it being charmingly old-school and all.

*When I was in high school, I took a drama class, and we had to do some sort of exercise that involved miming the opening of cabinets. I got yelled at by the teacher because I opened them but didn't close them. "Do you do that in real life??? No, of course not! You would close them!" "Well, no, actually, I don't close them, because I'm LAZY. BITCH."

Reason No. 1 why I will never get rid of my land line

Because I'd be screwed if I ever lost my cell phone.

Like I did Friday night.

FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK!!!!!

Let this be a cautionary tale to all of you out there who, like me, have little in the way of alcohol tolerance. When you start drinking, PAY CLOSE ATTENTION to your possessions so you don't lose them. This especially applies if you happen to be talking to a distractingly cute boy at the same time you are drinking.

I guess it's not all bad, though. I probably needed a new phone anyway. I always liked to claim that I had an ancient, featureless phone because it was charmingly old-school, but really, the reason was that I was just cheap.

Did you miss me?

Hey there. I am back. It was too short, but it is an immutable law of nature that all vacations are too short, so what are you gonna do?

Anyway, I had fun. I learned that martinis are not the ideal drink to consume when one is in a large crowd and moving around quickly. I also learned that when you have no alcohol tolerance, chugging a martini just to keep it from spilling all over you may not be the best idea. I chose Mitt Romney over Ted Kennedy in an extremely uncomfortable game of political Death Is Not An Option, but only if he kept his mouth shut, and I was allowed to punch him in the face afterwards. In an attempt to become more girly, I bought a super-fantastic $400 Coach bag for the low, low price of $160 at the Coach outlet. In less-girly action, I saw a pretty good game between the Seahawks and Falcons. Happily, I was not blown out of the upper deck. Interestingly, I learned sitting up in the nosebleeds, but on the side of the field, you still have a better view than when sitting close to the field, but in the end zone. I'm sure anyone who's ever been to more than two football games could have told you that, but whatever.

Finally, I visited the fine land of Canada and narrowly avoided causing an international incident when we lied to the border patrol agents about not having "groceries" in our car (just a couple of apples, but still, not technically "nothing"). My friend, who is generally a smart person, said we had to eat the apples before we got to the border, which is all well and good, except she never bothered to say we should throw out the apple cores. If they have rules about bringing produce across the border, I sort of think they would apply to the cores, even if, for all practical purposes, the apples had been "eaten."

The weather sucked, but since it was a visting-friends kind of vacation and not a lounge-around-on-the-beach kind of vacation, I can't really complain too much about that.

I miraculously suffered no major travel-related inconveniences, which was a new experience. I even had the good fortune to not only have a moderately cute guy sitting next to me on the plane over, but to also have him start talking to me. That NEVER happens. Unfortunately, he turned out to be kind of dull, and I am not the kind of person who can carry a conversation on my own, especially not for five hours, so, you know, awkward. Sigh.

I sort of feel like I have an obligation to be serious and talk about the tsunami disaster in something more than the flippant tone of the previous post. I kind of feel like a shallow asshole for going on about martinis and football and spending $160 on a fucking purse, and while I may actually be a shallow asshole, it doesn't mean I want you to know that. On the other hand, I often get accused in real life of being too serious about everything, so I don't know.

What can you really say? I mean, yeah, it's sad. Really sad. But can you do much else besides give money and/or talk about how sad it is? One thing I'm glad about is that by being on vacation for most of the last week, I've been able to avoid most of what I'm sure was the all-tsunami, all-the-time news coverage. I was watching the Today Show yesterday morning while getting ready for work, and the bumpers to commercial were home-video footage, with no voiceover for context, of the water crashing in over everything. This all occurred right after some unrelated segment, often something stupid and fluffy like some actor promoting his latest movie. I think there's certainly a place for showing such disaster footage from a news and/or history standpoint, but they way they did it in this instance seemed really sensationalistic and crass. I can't even imagine what the coverage must have been like on the cable news stations. It probably would have driven me nuts very quickly.

Anyway. Nice way to end this post on a depressing note, but oh well. I hope you all had nice holidays.

This settles it

I'm moving to Brazil.

In other news, there has been a bottle of champagne sitting on my desk since this morning, and as the hours go by, it's getting easier and easier to rationalize drinking it while still at work. It is Friday, after all, and it's not like I have to drive home or anything.