Practicing being homeless

So I visited walmart today, like I do most days and as I was leaving I saw the same homeless man that is there every time I go to walmart at his usual spot under a palm tree at the light to pull out of the parking lot.

Let me take a step back...I give homeless people money. Yes I know they usually use it to buy booze but I'm ok with that. My BMF calls camping 'practicing being homeless', and every time I go camping I drink, because its hard to sleep outside without a buzz. So I feel for the homeless, and feel like if they want to catch a buzz so the pavement or that park bench is a little more comfortable to rest their head on I'm all for it.

Back to today. As I was pulling out I looked for some spare change or dollar bills to give to the Walmart Homeless Guy (please note his cardboard sign says "living on a prayer", which is fantastically clever), much to his dismay I had about 46 cents. So I gave him a little whistle and said "Hey, I don't have any cash but do you want a beer". I had just purchased gum, flipz, and a six pack of blue moon. He replied with a "Sure". So I reached over and pulled a beer out of the six pack and proceeded to hand it to him. At this point he looked at the beer and said "Oh, I don't really like Blue Moon". I said with what I'm sure was a shocked look, "Well, do you want a pack of gum?". He did take that. Nothing like fresh breath to beg for money at the next car.

Since I'm not independently wealthy...

I’ve always said that I will know I’ve found the right job, or more so the right career, if I wake up most days and say “I get to go to work today”, and only on occasion would I roll over and with a pathetic moan say “I can’t believe I have to go to work today”. Today happened to be the latter of the two, but I’ll blame that on the ick that I have going on right now. Nonetheless, I thought it would make a good topic to approach.

I come from a family of teachers, my gmom on my dad’s side taught elementary, my momma of course just retired after 30 some odd years of teaching pre-school and elementary school and I believe four of my aunts are teachers, toss a cousin who is a pre-school teacher in the mix and we are certainly a teaching family.

I can say with confidence however, that I never wanted to be a teacher growing up. I actually had every intent of playing professional basketball up until at least the 6th grade, then I moved on to marrying money and being a housewife, and finally settled on a career in sports medicine. It wasn’t until the end of my 2nd year in college that I found out that teaching may be something that is ingrained in a person. I still wonder why something more lucrative like medicine or law wasn’t ingrained in me, as those professions were also speckled in my family tree. Nay, I was meant to mold the minds of America’s youth. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my career. It certainly has its perks. I mean, what other profession can you fart whenever you want and just blame it on one of the 30 tiny versions of people who surround you. That in itself almost makes the job. I also have been told that I’m pretty damn good at it and if you’d like a lesson courtesy of A, I’d be happy to teach you how to live on a shitty salary.

Joking aside, somehow I feel as at home in front of a classroom as I do in a living room with my friends. It’s been an odd path to get me where I am, somewhere between the teaching world that for some reason suited me, and the intrigue I felt during physiology class that sent me in the direction of health/medicine in the first place. Wholly, it was a broken road that led the girl pictured below into the career that most days starts by saying “I get to go to work today”, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

An artistic interpretation of 'A'

Casting a movie is hard work

Being as this blog is eventually going to turn into a book and subsequently a major motion picture I thought it might be a good idea to start pondering who would play me, and those who play essential roles in my ramblings and tall tales.

Let’s start with the star of this flick, Me. According to The Gray Lining the ideal person to play me in a movie about my life is Wanda Sykes.

In a strange way I was flattered because Wanda Sykes is hilarious, I mean this woman has been ranked one of the 25 funniest people in America. However, I wonder if a 46 year old black woman would be best suited to play a 26 year old white country girl. I also received a suggestion of Natalie Portman, but was told by My BFF that she was too boring to play me. Honestly, I’m fairly confident that this particular suggestion came due to Portman’s willingness to shave her head for a role, and that she would probably rock a faux hawk pretty well. For the time being I’ll keep the casting call open.

To play My BFF was an easy choice…Joan Cusack.

Namely because My BFF said “just not Joan Cusack” and also because she is the ultimate best friend in any movie. When you read this Joan, holler at me and we’ll talk logistics.

The Gray Lining also has very particular ideas about who should play her in my movie. While she has selected a person almost twice my age to play me, she has deamed Evangeline Lilly to be the ideal person to play her.

Nice try The Gray Lining, but nay. You are a Zooey Deschanel whether you like it or not.

Evangeline Lilly is entirely too much of a bad ass to play you, but she may be the ideal actress to play The Future Mrs. My BFF/Rogue Hand. Congrats My BFF, on having a hot movie wife.

Sunshine despite the rain

Ahhhh, back to within 153 miles of the southernmost point in the continental US, and it is glorious.

The weekend in Cold-lanta was in a word, full. However, when recanting my activities to those who have inquired about my weekend I stumbled a bit explaining why it was so full. I don’t know if my weekends are just normally so overcome by sitting on the couch that this weekend felt abnormally busy or if I am just forgetting things. There was definitely a trip to a microbrewery where we tasted some delicious beers and observed the mass number of white people in one of their natural environments (quite a bit of north face, and new balance up in that place!), ate some fantastic food, went bowling, did some shopping, picked out wedding invites for the My BFF & The Future Mrs. My BFF/Rogue Hand nuptials, and definitely sat in at least 3 Starbucks for upwards of one hour each time.

All in all it was a completely relaxing hectic weekend---oxymoron, yes. Truth be told I haven’t been that ‘busy’ on a weekend in what seems like a while but as my little body moved my mind actually got to slow down a bit, as it tends to do when I’m with those I hold close to my heart. It’s amazing the peace being around your bests can bring, and how easy it is to lose yourself, worries, and headaches in laughter. So, thanks to My BFF, The Gray Lining, and The Future Mrs. My BFF/Rogue Hand for a wonderful weekend.

And a very special thank you to The Gray Lining for waiting in line for three hours to get an autographed copy of Kathy Griffin’s book for me for Christmas. I don’t know what makes my heart happier, having it in my possession or knowing that you waited there bored out of your mind just to make me happy. I’ll count both as this year’s Christmas present.

The Gray Lining and Kathy Griffin. Hilarious!

A's Yearbook

I'm off to cold-lanta tomorrow to visit with My BFF, The Future Mrs. My BFF/Rogue-Hand, and The Gray Lining so I thought I would leave you with a post that is sure to provide days of entertainment until I return from the long MLK holiday weekend. Until Tuesday, happy MLK day and enjoy this post about one of my most favorite people in the world. P.S. My Momma is cooler than your Momma %-)


In an effort to help you get to know the wonderful individuals that are daily players in my life and in this blog, I thought I would introduce you to them ‘yearbook’ style.

Most Hours Slept in Class:
Momma

After retiring from life as an elementary school teacher she contemplated firefighting but decided that would interrupt her intense napping and cocktail schedule.

Momma, as her name suggests, is my mom. I am what I am, good and bad, largely thanks to her (complaints can be sent directly to Momma). She is a regular visitor to FMB and has recently informed me that she will be staying an additional 2 weeks each time she visits. Her last visit lasted one and a half months, so this trip will be two months. By my calculations (you may want to check with Ten Key Ninja or Patty-Cakes for accuracy on this) she will be living here full time in about 4 and half years. Hopefully full incontinence or insanity won’t be an issue for about 15 years.

Momma and The Kissy Faced Booty Shaker....Momma might actually be asleep here...its hard to tell.

You’ve already had a small intro to momma so I’ll keep this brief. This woman is sassy, classy, and still kickin' assy after 61 years. Momma is known not only for her wildly outrageous clothing and foul mouth but also for the ability to sleep walk, talk, drink and smoke. That’s correct, I said sleep smoke. For that, Momma I award you “Most Hours Slept in Class”. Congrats!

Lookin all business in my suit...

The Snuggle Suit...sold at J.C. Penney's. For some reason I feel like if you were the female version of Barney Stinson you would own this.

AWE....Wait for it....SOME!

Shout out to the Ten-Key-Ninja for turning me on to this little gem and hopefully it will reside in my closet one day very soon. :)

Momma is taking the interweb by storm...

I believe we can all thank Patty Cakes for this after his suggestion to Momma that she join facebook. She has already been seen facebook chatting the Kissy Faced Booty Shaker, No-Longer-Easy-E and the Ten Key Ninja. Moreover, Momma has 140 friends, most of which she "did not friend request" because "I guess I'm just popular and people want to be friends with me". (these are direct quotes)

Honestly, I only have 98 friends on facebook. I don't know how many you have but if you happen to interact via the interweb with Momma you can bet she will rub it in that she has more friends than you do. Maybe she has more friends because she keeps updating her status to tell the world what her bra color is that day.

Anyway, watch out world for you may get a friend request from this woman to your inbox....or maybe you might want to friend request her.

I need a good book

I have this issue wherein my brain moves very quickly from subject to subject (or worry to worry usually) causing stress. I call this “Busy Brain”. The stress caused by busy brain leads to adult onset acne and insomnia. The aforementioned items contribute to the annoyance of co-workers (because I am bitchy from lack of sleep), unhealthy eating habits (due to lunch time naps) and lack of ass-getting (acne). Those aforementioned items lead to more stress and the circle continues.

I have found two cures for busy brain. One is television, but for some reason there seems to be nothing on that I actually like. I am already up with the Kardashians, I have no more interest in what the girls are doing next door and there won’t be another House or SVU marathon on until Sunday. The other cure is reading. Usually I stick to memoirs (I know that makes me sound pretentious, so I will follow with the fact that my favorite all time book is Jimmy Buffetts autobiography), as novels usually don’t keep my interest long enough to actually finish them.

Last time I got the busy brain and lacked recommendations for a good read the skys opened up and God said “Let there be Twilight”, and it was so. I embarrassingly enough buried my nose in that young adult fiction and didn’t return to the world for an entire day. It was amazing and honestly why I depend on books to aid my escape from busy brain.

So, being that I have in fact read the entire Twilight series, that right I said it. I’m looking for anything as intriguing in the fiction realm or if you have a good memoir you might recommend let me know. Lots of thoughts bouncing around currently and busy brain is at a very active state, and quite frankly the money maker does not look too good with the adult onset acne.

If my life had a theme it would be…

You already know of my love for a finely crafted party invitation but that invitation only leads up to one of my other passions…themed parties. I would say that if you were to label my life with a theme it would be probably be “Themed”. I adore a good theme party and will take any excuse to have one, but I’ve also lived my life in a series of themes. Much like the “Summer of George”, there have definitely been seasons or years in my life that carry a certain theme about them. My current theme is TBA but I’m leaning towards ‘drama’ or maybe ‘change’. I’ll get back to you on that one.

This past weekend we had not one, but two theme parties. In my book that sounds like a pretty nice little weekend, granted we didn’t have enough time to stop by bed bath and beyond but it was still pretty damn sweet.

New Years Eve brought out everyone from flappers to hippies, to disco goers. The theme was a Throwback New Year and called for everyone to dress from a decade different from this one. No-Longer-Easy-E and I even did a costume change prior to midnight which sent me from being a 1960’s hippie/pimp?? to the little heard of white member of kris kross. No-Longer-Easy-E went from being a designing woman to a disco diva in the blink of an eye. I have never been prouder of my friends’ dedication to finding great themed outfits, or more shocked that the goodwill still had some of these things in them.

Saturday night was a belated celebration of Katrainwreck/The-Future-Mrs.-My-BMF’s birthday. She was kind enough to delay her b-day by a few days in order to allot people the necessary time to recover from New Years Eve (thanks for that by the way). The theme was CEO’s and Corporate Hoes. This usually would have been a phenomenal idea and pretty easy to accomplish but being that the sunshine state had more freezing temps than sunshine that particular weekend it made the task of dressing like a ‘hoe’ much more difficult. My planned tiny skirt got traded in for my pin striped pants and I paired it with my power suit jacket. I know, you’re thinking how could that be slutty, you probably looked like you were all business in your suit, but I quite literally paired my pants with my power suit jacket and that was it, I forewent the shirt that normally resides underneath the jacket to accomplish the ‘hoe’ look the theme called for. The faces of those involved in this party have been removed to protect the innocent but please enjoy the mass amount of cleavage displayed for your viewing pleasure (granted a lot of it was painted on thanks to some bronzer).

To wrap it up I’ll leave you with a tip….if you are talking and potentially getting hit on my a hot Canadian hockey player do not say “Oh, you’re from Canada, what’s that aboot?”, the Canadians do not like this and you will go home alone. That makes me sad and want some butterscotch.

New Year’s Resolution Progress

Days into 2010: 4
Naps taken in 2010: 3


I reek of success.