In which I drive on the wrong side of the road and have trouble making friends

I can't drive.

Well, I guess I technically CAN, but I hate to and it usually makes anyone else in the car with me terribly uncomfortable.

This might have something to do with how I grip the wheel until my knuckles turn white, sweat a lot, and shriek when cars pass me too fast ... or maybe not.

I feel bad about admitting this and reinforcing to anyone the Women Are Bad Drivers stereotype. I'm just one woman, yo. But, I confess, I'm one of THOSE women.

I was going to say how I don't understand why people are fearful of being in a car with me because I'm a careful driver who hasn't had an accident since she was a rookie, yada yada.

But the other day I took my first adventure out on my own in my new sparkly city of Minneapolis to meet a friend for lunch. Said lunch was in St. Paul, which is very close but where I have never driven to before.

So, like anyone would, I mapquested the shiz out of it.

Now confident in where I was going, I set out. However, there was no road labeled CR-20, my first step. So, I went where I thought I was supposed to go. Which, as it turns out, took me on a long one-way street into downtown Mpls. From there I proceeded to:

* Drive on the wrong side of the road down a major thoroughfare
* Be lost for 15 minutes
* Be beeped at for driving too slow on the freeway
* Be beeped at for not knowing how to properly parallel park
* Run a red light
* Get lost for another 10 minutes
* Have to make no less than four u-turns because I was going the wrong way
* Park two blocks from my apartment so as to not have to attempt parallel parking again.

So, yeah ...

Phoenix is one big parking lot with six lanes in each direction. I'm adjusting to life in this big old city. But I'm loving that it's a very walkable city with better public transit than PHX. I will be hoping to keep the car parked as much as possible.

In all of that, you may have missed the point that I MADE A FRIEND and had a lovely lunch in the middle of all of this.

Being here has been a big adjustment for me. Moving from what was, essentially an adult dorm full of dozens of friends who would have dinner, play video games, drink beers any night of the week, I guess I forgot what it was like to be alone a lot.

So I was super excited when a friend of a friend suggested we get together.

Until the part of the conversation where she asked me what my hobbies are.

Dead Silence. Blank stare. More silence.

See, the thing is, like anyone, I like to look good, interesting, smart even, to new people. And the things is, I think I am smart and interesting.

But I don't really have a lot of things that would qualify as "hobbies." I don't run (again, why do people run? Where are they going? They don't look cute doing it. I don't get it.) or cycle (although I enjoy me a Sunday cruise if it ends in Bloody Mary, but alas, I am, at the moment, bike-less.) I don't take any classes or do things like make jewelry or knit sweaters.

So, when people ask me about hobbies, I always draw this dumb blank. But I do have hobbies. I write this blog. I love me some Twatter. I drink a lot. Which takes careful practice.

I mean, I drink a lot. I've realized that eating and drinking had become my primary hobbies in PHX. Every night was a HH, or a dinner with a friend, or having a friend over for dinner and wine.

So, now that I don't have that kind of gig going, I'm going to need some new hobbies. I mean, I used to have hobbies -- like painting and playing music and stuff. I can get that back, right? Or is it like once the girls go south, cuz, I'm not down for surgery.

This is where you come in. WHAT THE EFF SHOULD I DO WITH MY LIFE?

What's been fun for you all? I'll admit now, I'm not the most "active" person. And when I've tried to be, I get injured. So, rock climbing is probably out. Also, I'm temporarily terribly poor. So, like, diamond collecting is out. Dammit.

Help me. I'm bored.

Michael Jackson: Hangover Helper

So a friend reminded me this morning that yesterday was supposed to be Limerick Wednesday, not Wine Wednesday. Tell that to the three empty bottles still sitting on my coffee table. Spanks.

Note to self: Learn moderation.

I blame fracking hot Phoenix for the headache, nausea and general malaise I am now experiencing. If it wasn’t so hot I wouldn’t be so thirsty. See? (On a side note, I’m trying to work the words “Good day” and “see” into my vocabulary more. As in “I said good day, sir. Good day.” and “That’s the problem, see?”)

If it helps I think I composed a limerick or two in between rounds of Rock Band with Martini and Favorite Poet and freaking myself out watching season two of Ghost Hunters and insisting to everyone that the ghosts were saying exactly what Grant and Jason said they were saying.

On another side note, we played Rock Band in our swimsuits (because we had been swimming, not just for the heck of it. Although … more bands should play in their swimsuits. Would be entertaining. And sometimes rather frightening. Metallica in swimsuits. Wrap your head around it.) and Martini somehow took a picture of my ass at some point. Receiving said picture in my inbox this morning has produced a renewed interest in The Shred, so brace yourself for the Jillian Michaels hate talk that will be coming soon.

I saw a hilarious video over at rs27’s blog this morning (which should be renamed
YouTube’s greatest hits. Just sayin …) and I thought if you all haven’t seen MJ’s appearance in one of my favorite games, Space Channel 5, you really should.

Enjoy while I nurse my hangover and master the art of sleeping with my eyes open at my desk. Sorry this post makes no sense. At all. Not the first, won’t be the last. Good day.

Lessons Learned by SG at strip clubs

I was telling some friends recently about my last trip to Minneapolis and how I visited not one, but two, strip clubs in four days.

“Our little SG in strip clubs! I thought you hated strip clubs!!”

Not true.

Indeed, I have been hot and cold on The Club over the past years, but I actually have no problem with them. I find them to be funny and fascinating.

And seriously, if you could look me in the eye and tell me you don’t like boobs I would answer only “lying liar who lies!”

“Well, why the hell are you blogging about limerick’s when you should be writing about strippers then?!”

Touché.

I used to go to strip clubs from time to time when I was in college, because people would give me fistfuls of money if I took my shirt off, which I thought was a pretty sweet deal.

Kidding. Or am I …

I had a friend who was a stripper (she was also from Scranton, PA, of The Office fame, which I think is a much more interesting detail) so sometimes we’d stop by once we were good and drunk. It reminded me of the Soprano’s in that the girls were kind of like pretty background for your conversation. And because the place was always full of overweight Mafiosos. Holla for Youngstown! Wesssside. Home of Jim Traficant.

It’s true I went through a serious anti-stripper phase, but this was completely justified. I had a BF who would actually go there BY HIMSELF on a very regular basis and lie to me and say he was working. Why lie? I didn’t have a problem with it until he started lying. Maybe he lied because before he dated me he dated a stripper and he went to the club where she worked while I was at home cooking dinner and watching Deadliest Catch.

Creep. Yes.

I digress. The point is I had a very specific problem with strip clubs that disappeared when that hot mess was disposed of.

So, when VC mentioned there was a particularly gross strip club in Mpls where it would just happen to be amateur night when I was there, I was excited. This says something about me. I'm not sure what.

Whenever he would text in the weeks leading up to it I would tell him I was at the gym and he would say “WHY?!?” -- because we’re both sort of opposed to being sweaty -- and I would say “Got to get this bod in shape for Am Night.” Wherein he would inform me that I needed to develop a pretty serious crack habit to blend in to that scene.

I had no intention of being a participant.

Little did I know …

Let me say first, that SG started drinking – straight bourbon – at 4 p.m. that day. She had at least four, maybe five, shots with her friend Jim Beam as well as quite a few beers so that, by the time she arrived at this lovely lounge she was quite intoxicated.

At one point I got up to use the restroom meaning that I had to walk directly passed the stage – twice!

Now let me interject that this story is being relayed to you mostly through reconstruction by VC. I don’t particularly recall the details.

I do recall being absolutely transfixed by the ass of a stripper on my way back from the restroom. I felt like a lit little firefly and that girl’s backside was a bug light.

I’m kind of clumsy (if you read this blog, you know this) and I don’t really dance so much as jerk my body from side to side Elaine-style. But, that night I really wanted to learn how she made that booty bounce, and she was happy to show me.

I can only imagine what the sight was like. SG imploring the stripper to “Show me how you do that with your butt!” and her obliging. VC watching, I’m sure dismayed, at the spectacle I was making of myself.

After my lesson in the Tootsie Roll, I somehow made it back to my stool at the bar. Or kind of.

Why do they make chairs that drunk people sit in without backs? This makes no sense. Luckily, I had my new stripper friends who helped me by pushing me back onto my stool until, inevitably, I took my nightly spill.

“You’re ass touched the floor of the strip club!” VC said, with disgust, the next day.

He was equally horrified when I pull a pen that smelled like cherry-scented perfume and bubble gum emblazoned with the club’s name out of my purse. Ah … the smell of topless dancers.

There’s no lesson to be learned from this story. No life-changing insights. Except maybe that SG can make friends with anyone – be they the nun at my office or the stripper at Am Night – that I might consider drinking less in front of my new BF, and that Jim Beam makes me a hot emotional mess, but a much better dancer.

P.S. Tomorrow’s Wednesday. Just sayin’. We could take another stab at Limerick Wednesday. I feel it could go viral any day now …

This is why I'm always drunk. And a call for advice.

I know I haven’t written in awhile. I guess I had/have writer’s block. Or an extreme case of the lazys. Or a sense that I’d rather not have certain people who I now know are reading this know certain things I want to write about.

Also, like it always manages to do, work has sucked some of my will to live. I’ve been put in charge of all of the “emerging media” at my office – Twitter accounts, web content management, Facebook, blog. Sounds fun, but it just means that when it comes time to post something on a personal account I’m all crabby and tired of it. It’s like I always say, they don’t call it funning. It’s work.

I actually have a file on my desktop labeled “More notes for a blog post you are obviously never going to write.” That’s because I’ve started to write at least a half a dozen times and then completely nixed the idea.

Anyhow, two things inspired me to write today – one super fun and one super sad. I need your help with both.

Let’s start with the fun.

I am hosting a spectacular 4th of July extravaganza this weekend. There will be pools and food. I will show off my Rock Band skills by playing Lazy Eye on “hard” over and over again until people really hate me. And of course, there will be copious amounts of booze.

I’m making something called tequila-soaked watermelon, which is like a classed-up version of when you used to take the absolute cheapest vodka you could get someone to buy for you when you were a teenager and then cut a hole in the watermelon and pour it all in there white trash style and eat it until you were all drunk and kind of sick.

With this recipe you actually soak wedges of watermelon in tequila and triple sec, squeeze lime over it, sprinkle it with salt and enjoy. And people hate Martha Stewart … you should be thanking her.

I told my friends about this plan and they were, of course, overcome with excitement. But they also kind of laughed and said something to the effect of “Ideas like this are why you’re always drunk, SG!” And then Martini had the stroke of genius:

“We should start a blog that’s like This is Why You’re Fat only it’s This is Why You’re Always Drunk!” (BT dubs, if you haven’t read TIWYF, you are in for a disgusting treat.)

So we need ideas. Send them along. What are the things you put alcohol in? Like how I put Bailey’s (or straight whisky, whatever) in my morning coffee for a year in order to deal with the world’s craziest boss. Or how Martini makes dinner better by making “Bloody Mary Salad.” Get creative people. I think we are really on to something here.

And now, my rant. Have you all seen the commercials for the Fox show “More to Love”???

From the first moment I saw this, I was irritated. It seemed very exploitative. But then I thought, maybe I shouldn’t be so steamed. Maybe I can’t understand the dating issues of overweight people and should shut up about it.

Then I got a very upsetting e-mail from my bestie last night. She and I have been friends since we met in the summer between fifth and sixth grade when we were in Summer Stock together (I played Rapunzel and I brought down the house. Holla!) She’s the most beautiful person I know. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body and has always gone out of her way to be generous and loving to everyone she meets.

She’s also always been overweight. In her e-mail she explained to me how lonely she is feeling and how sad she is that all of her friends are embarking on new and exciting relationships.

“I just don't feel like watching people be couples while feeling like I'm never going to be,” she wrote.

This is what she had to say about the new show: It's the bachelor but for "real women". What they mean is overweight. And the bachelor isn't some hot rich guy like he is on the regular bachelor. Because fat women can only get fat men. That's the way the world works.

It made me think a lot about dating and how do we couple. How we find someone that has all those qualities that are important to us and that is also attractive to us (and we attractive to them.) It’s a miracle, really, when you think about it.

She’s thinking about trying Match or something like that and I think she could really use some words of advice. But ya’ll know how annoying advice like this is coming from a person who is happily in a new relationship. You just really want to smack them around a little. I’ve been there. So, to all my single ladies, what do you think? Any words to live by?

Please and thank you.

And please drink responsibly this weekend! And if you don’t, please send pictures of your debauchery.

I’m off to soak my melons. Missed you all! I promise not to go away for so long again.