you know you want it.

It has come to my attention via The Brad that Steak and BJ Day is coming up. Being that I was an advocate of Valentine's Day, I feel it is my sworn duty to uphold the integrity of all such holidays. Plus, how can you go wrong? Top sirloin it is on all accounts. hehe. I feel dirty.

in search of a book.

Last week there was a review on NPR of The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubinstein. This week I tried to find it. Borders didn't have it. Barnes & Noble didn't have it. Half.com doesn't have it. The library system has 5 copies -- all out or on hold. The South Tampa B&N has one (on hold for me, I might add) but I don't know if I really want to spend $24 for this book. So here's my idea: Tomorrow I'm going to all the used bookstores in Tampa -- that's about 10 (5 more if I venture into St. Pete too) to find this book. If I don't find it, I'll look into putting it on hold at the library or waiting till it comes out in trade paperback. Blah.

But since I didn't get the book I wanted, this is what I picked up:

At the library:

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil -- because I've even been to some of the places mentioned but I've never read the book (or seen the movie, for that matter) so I thought now was the time.

A Damned Serious Business by Rex Harrison -- because who doesn't like reading about misogynistic comedians?

The Wrong Man by James Neff -- about Dr. Sam Sheppard, who was accused of killing his pregnant wife but was aquitted on DNA evidence that also found the real killer.

And at Barnes & Noble:

A Rip In Heaven by Jeanine Cummins -- her cousins were assulted and killed and her brother assulted. This is their memoir.

The POET and the MURDERER by Simon Worrall -- A true story of Literary Crime and the Art of Forgery, about Emily Dickinson, Mormonism and forgery ... looks very good.

So it looks like a week of reading for me. Yay!

Ken Jennings is a spokesman for Cingular. Doesn't he have enough money?

In other news ... I stopped by the paper today to see some of the old crowd. There were few that still knew and Brad was still in class, but I was able to talk to Sebi for a few minutes before splitting. I miss the paper sometimes, but I don't really want to go back. I'd much rather go forward. Tomorrow I'm going to try picking up a few local puplications (like the Weekly Planet and The Temple Terrace News) to see if I can drop off my resume with them.

hmm...

it's been a nice relaxing day. i was able to sleep in, have lunch at the columbia in ybor and visit the don vicente inn, where christen's cousin is planning on having her wedding reception there.

i think tonight i'm going to mosy on to the bookstores for the evening being that i have nothing else to do. i'm off tomorrow too, and i have nothing but sitting around in my underwear watching bad movies to do.

i am defeated.

just so you all know, i'm horrible. when i got home monday night christen had made me dinner (chicken with sundried tomatoes and some sort of parmasian-y pasta) and this:
(photobucket is having its 5-minute emergency maintenance so i'll post in a few)

he made an adorable card with fingerpaint and posterboard. and gave me yellow roses. i'm the one on the right with the red hair. he said he couldn't make black hair with the fingerpaints.

i love this man.

let's get it together

so after the last post a few minutes ago, i thought i'd post a normal, non-complaining post too. so bowling last night? yeah, we won't talk about the scores. let's just say that i discovered pinot grigio at dinner. and shea discovered (yeah, right) bud light and she did the best of all of us. my last game i got a 143, but the other three games i was struggling to get the ball down the lane. but boy, was it fun! i wore my black patent heels

to dinner and it was lots of fun walking in them! it doesn't help that my walking is so engrained heel-toe heel-toe (because of high school marching band) that i forget how to walk in heels (clomp-clomp).

anywho, it was amusing. i'm going to go spend my valentine's morning cleaning and making brownies for christen (it's his favorite) and spend my evening working at the job that i hate more than anything. toodles!

happy valentine's day!

so it's valentine's day. here's something i don't understand. other girls have horrible boyfriends. they make the girls cry all the time, get mad and smash their cars, start fights and break up all year ... but those boyfriends are always very romantic about valentine's day. they give flowers, and jewelry, and little trinkets to remind their women that in spite of all their fuckups, they love their girls.

my boyfriend is great. he tells me he loves me all the time, he impulsively hugs me and tells me how beautiful i am, etc. but he's "no good at valentine's day." his words. i've gotten one flower from him the entire time we've been dating -- a tulip on our first valentine's day (which i have pressed and dried). i've given him jewelry for holidays and he's lost it (i got him a ring a year ago for his pinkie and it's gone), but i've never gotten any from him. in his words, "i just don't do jewelry. never have."

is it so wrong to want both? to want someone who appreciates me all year and actually goes out of his way to make valentine's special? maybe it's because he doesn't understand the significance of why v-day is so crappy to me -- my mother got remarried to the pediphile on v-day -- but i'd really like not to feel crappy today.

and it's not like he takes after his family on this. his dad gives all the females in his life cards, and always does something nice for his wife. his cousin's boyfriend suprised her at work yesterday with a necklace and earrings. i'm not looking for money spent -- i'm not. i just want something special done for me for valentine's day.

enough of my complaining. happy valentine's, y'all. hope it's nice, however you like to spend it.

Oh, to be innocent.

I think I'm strong enough to post now. I was up all night (seriously, because it's hard to fall asleep in a warm bath; you keep breathing water when you go under) with food poisoning from Denny's. So here's what happened:

As we were closing the store last night there was a guy walking around the parking lot. Ivan noticed him, as he was acting erratically, but we didn't really think there was anything too curious about it. So we closed the store and around 9:25 we walked out and he's walking away from my car. He was casual, but definitely leaving my car. In the corner of the parking lot was a white car with its lights on. As he walked by the car, it turned and followed him. It was as he was walking out of the parking lot that I got close enough to my car to realize the lock was all messed up. I start screaming "someone call 911! my phone's dead; call 911! He got into my car!" Ivan called 911 and my manager got in his car to see if he saw them but he said they disappeared. After Ivan got off the phone with the operator he jumped in his car to circle some more and see if he could find them and I called Christen to let him know what was going on. I was freaking, shaking and crying. The three cop cars showed up immediately -- that's never happened to me. While they were taking all the information down, Ivan came back to say that he had found a similar car with someone looking like our guy in the passenger seat parked but running in an apartment complex 2 blocks from the store. Two white people just sitting in a similar car in the middle of a predominately-black neighborhood -- the chances were slim that it was a different car. Two of the cops went to check it out and the third -- the main one -- kept taking the info and getting more specifics. Then Ivan and I went to ID the guy. He's who knew all the specs -- height, clothes, make and model of the car ... I couldn't even tell you what race the dude was. I could have recognised his walk, but I do that with everyone. He admitted it, and they charged him with attempted burglary of a conveyance -- but it gets better. Evidentally once they got him booked they found out that he had given a false name. He had two outstanding warrants, one for grand theft auto and the other for aggravated assault with a discharged firearm. Not only that, but instead of being 21 like he said, he's 18 with 5 or 6 counts of grand theft auto, possession of burglary tools, assault with a firearm .... hopefully no more slaps on the wrist for him. His driver was a 16-year-old girl with no priors, so they let her off on R&R but they're still charging her; she just didn't get booked.

So this was the one who didn't get away. The summer before last my car got broken into (my old car, the '94 Sentra) while I was staying in one of those college apartment complexes and there was nothing anyone could do about it. They got my crappy 10-year-old cd player and the took my ashtray, which had some change in it. Now I have an '05 Corolla with a $400 Alpine stereo. My windows are tinted dark, so you can't see the stereo, but you also can't see that little red flashing light that is supposed to pretend I have an alarm system. By next week, come hell or high water, I will have an alarm system. I would have gone to Toyota today if it weren't for being sick. This was just one more thing pushing me to find another job.

After all the hoopla Christen and I went to that crappy Denny's on Fowler to have breakfast for dinner and calm down, and I have another reason to not go there anymore. I wouldn't have bothered but Perkins was closed. I spent 2:30-10:00 in the bathroom with diarrhea so bad that there was even a lot of blood. (I know you wanted to hear about that). I thought I'd have to go to the hospital. I broke down and had Christen get me some meds because I couldn't lay down. I filled the bath with warm water to relax my muscles because my whole body was spasming, but one tend to go under when sleeping in a bathtub. I got 10 minutes here and there but not any true sleep, but I got some sleep between 10:30 and 12:30. So I'm good. I'm still having problems, but I'm hungry and that's a good sign. I'm going to try some wheat saltines and see how I do.

Anywho, so that was my night from hell. Tonight if I can stay out of the bathroom I'm going bowling with Christen and Ivan. Wish me luck!