Superfluous Baloney

All I have to say about this movie is thank God they're all dead so they can't do a sequel. I love mobster movies, but this shit is not my kind of mobster movie. Don't get me wrong Jack Nicholson, was awesome in it. As usually his ability to portray a character that tiptoes along the outer edges of sanity always amazes me...mostly because it's so real to life for him on a day to day basis. So perhaps I shouldn't be so amazed since it's not much of a stretch.

Give me a Good Fellas or Casino, but this?? Fuck no. First off it was waaaaaay too long. It wouldn't have been nearly as painful had they added a few additional suspense scenes, but it just went on and on and on. The building climax took way too freakin long to reach it's peak. I would have more impressed had Mark Wahlberg's character been more involved, although I was slightly appeased when his character that finally bumped off Sullivan.

Where were the low rent greasy Guidos with the polyester suits and the bosses with their tailored Italian numbers? Where was the talk about the old days in Sicily and honoring the code of the family? There was no class and manners veiling the violent Neanderthal tendencies, no vendettas, no family fueds (Montagues vs. Capulets anyone?).

And the constant Boston accents...Oi Vay. Could they have at least played up Alec Baldwin's nutty side part a little more? Something to freakin entertain me? I'm know I am no movie connoisseur and have no business spouting off regarding movies made by such greats as Scorsese, but nonetheless I was left completely empty inside by the time it reached it's finale 150 minutes after it began. I wish I had those 150 minutes of my life back quite frankly.

Overall score?: Equally as disappointing as my first trip to a strip club where I discovered that strippers don't all look like Playboy Bunnies with moves like the Pussycat dolls as I was used to seeing is classy flicks such as Strip Tease and Showgirls.

Lately I have been feeling a bit out of sorts. Insanely self conscious about my looks (which honestly is not much like me), lacking self confidence in day to day activities, and just feeling a bit (or a lot) off. So in staying with this theme of discomfort I have decided to go out on a limb and do something I have really, really wanted to do for a very long time but just, frankly, have not had enough balls to do. I'm going to sign myself up for ballroom dancing lessons.

Long before Dancing With the Stars made it cool, I have wanted to learn to ballroom dance. (That kind of sounds horribly cliche doesn't it? Kind of like, "Hey. I was country when country wasn't cool dammit.") Most of my life I have danced...everything from ballet to tap to jazz and of course, more recently just general club booty shaking. So why not add something new to the repertoire? I figure since I am already feeling so self conscious, why not give myself a real reason for it? Push the envelope a bit. I am sure I will feel insanely awkward and silly for the first few lessons but eventually I am hoping it will help me to regain some of general day to day comfort I am used to feeling within the realm of my own skin.

You ever take a leap of faith that ended with you being smacked down in mid flight? I'm sure you have. We all have. Each time we do it though, it never gets any easier, never hurts any less. I had stopped myself awhile back (about 5 years) from taking one particular kind of leap. Today I remember why I made that decision. A few months ago I thought maybe I wanted to change. I wanted to learn to leap again. So I began some steps toward regaining the faith I had lost in myself and others so I could start possibly with at least some baby hops and eventually work my way up to the full on leap. About only 10% into this process of evaluation and attempts to seriously change my entire being, someone came into the picture. At first I was leery. A large part of me knew it was way to early to be introducing someone into this process and that I still had a lot of work to do. But this person was different, I assured myself regularly. This person said he wanted to do the work with me and that he had some of his own work to do and maybe we could help each other through it. So I leapt a little...as much as I was able at that time. And with each "growth experience/opportunity" I felt like my leap was growing larger and larger and maybe, just maybe this person would be the one I would finally learn to have enough faith in to leap for completely. Long story short...I am not special. I am not the one who will prove everyone wrong. I am not the one who will surmount the odds and be successful. I am exactly how I thought I was before I believed for a small tear in time that I could be something different. I am difficult. I am independent. I am selfish. I am a burden. I am too much work, take too much time to get to know. And mostly I am just not worth someone else's effort. It just goes to show it doesn't matter how pretty you are, how thin, how smart, how deep your character, how much you care, how much you try, how badly you want something...none of it matters. We are forever at the mercy of others. We will always be asked to take leaps of faith and I will always be torn down in mid-flight. So much so that it is no longer worth the effort of even attempting so much as small hop any longer. Maybe it is a coward's approach...this acceptance of shortcomings and the realization that you will never quite be good enough to be completely worth the effort you take. Maybe it speaks more of someone that repeatedly gets up and attempts the jump over and over again. But I have no interest in being brave. If remaining a coward means surviving a dull colorless life void of any kind of emotion, good or bad, then I choose to be a coward. I choose to live safely in dull black and white with various shades of gray. Fuck a world full of color if it means you have to learn to live with the rain to get to the rainbow.

This is the super adorable Sophia Isabelle, Sophie for short. I adopted her from a local rescue called Furry Friends. She is a five year old Chihuahua/Jack Russel mix and the cutest stinkin' thing (next to Rosalee of course) ever! She already sits, walks on a leash, is potty trained and sleeps under the covers in the bed. She also rides in the car like a little champ too. She is a bit of an attention whore, but what little dog isn't?

If you haven't already, check out the new Post Secret Mini-Movie Frank posted this week. Simple put: It Rocks.
Post Secret

*Please note: for some strange reason I can access blogger from work today. You have no idea how ecstatic this makes me...

Shea has taken my tag virginity. That's right. You heard me correctly...I have never been tagged before. I'll say it loud and proud. I'm not ashamed!

You BLOG 10 things about you that are seldom known, strange, etc... -You then note in the blog 10 people that you will "tag" to play the next round. -DON'T FORGET to go to those 10 folks profiles and let them know they've been tagged!
1. I used to have my eyebrow and tongue pierced.
2. I squeeze my toothpaste from the middle.
3. I don't like it when people send me flowers. Although I appreciate the gesture, I find it insanely embarrassing and somewhat a waste of their cizzash.
4. I believe my deceased grandfather has been my guardian angel since he passed when I was 7.
5. I rarely go a day without eating peanut butter.
Create free ringtones at Phonezoo
6. I witnessed a car accident on my way to take my drivers test. It was a pretty serioius accident involving three little kids who were unseatbelted in the back seat. They went flying through to the front seat when their father had to slam on his brakes as another car ran a red light. I had to stay and give a statement to the police as a witness. I made sure to tell the test giver dude all that when I got in the car for the driving test in hopes he would go easy on me. (Seriously I was pretty shaken up from it. Watching those poor little kids crying their little eyes out was heart wrenching and their poor dad was almost in tears too.) It worked too because I scored a 98. :)
7. I love, love, LOVE to sleep in the car. I used to get dragged on road trips with my parents regularly and my brother and I quickly learned from a young age they went by much faster if you slept through them.
8. When I was around 11 my mom and I were driving down the freeway one evening after one of my ballet classes and two men starting shooting at us with a shit gun from out the back of a truck with a camper on it. Good times...
9. It literally almost makes me have a panic attack to discuss my feelings. (I actually have had a few just thinking about it on occasion...) I know woman are supposed to be known for being touchy feely but it makes me insanely uncomfortable. It drives my therapist nuts.
10. I think Martha might know this one because I believe it came up in conversation when we met up...but I HATE HATE HATE other people's feet. Particularly men's feet. I find them deplorably icky. Typically their toes are all crooked and mangly (I think I just made that word up...) looking and their toenails are all jacked and too long and multicolored (and not from polish)...I think I'm going to be sick just thinking about it. Anyway, I can't stand them near me, even when covered in socks. I will flinch and squirm if they even get near me. I think the issue stems from my insanely adorable feet. Everyone else's just can't compare...it's my one vanity. :) (Please see picture for documented proof of aforementioned vanity.)

And because Shea and I have a lot of the same blogging buddies I'm afraid I don't have ten people to tag. But should anyone stumble along this and get the hankering for a little game of tag please let me know and I shall ceremoniously tag you properly.

Pre-season football madness is currently blaring in the background. Typically the shrill cheers from the crowd, the tight shiny pants, pig skin soaring through the air...all would, on any other night, have me glued to my TV. Not tonight however. Tonight my brain is sluggishly rehashing prophetic cliches such as, "Sometimes love just ain't enough" or maybe its more like old school sappy love songs from the 90s instead of cliches...but really, what's the difference?

I'm tired. Emotionally exhausted from too many deep, dark thoughts about destiny and my inability to change my animalistic need for fight or flight, most often a little of each infuses itself into any run in that begins and ends heated. Mentally exhausted from too many peppy orientation sessions over the course of three very long days in which every ounce of mental prowess went into convincing a bunch of skittish associates they had in fact made the right decision in joining our company despite our doting, suffocating 75 page associate handbook laden with rules, policies, procedures and legally binding acknowledgment forms. Physically exhausted from packing an inhumane amount of travel into the last four weeks...all self-inflicted torture to which my body is now loudly protesting.

All the introspection, self evaluating, life altering progress I have attempted to make over the last five months has left me feeling beat up, confused, lost, empty. I've turned things over so many times in my head they've turned to mush. Like tilling a garden for 45 weeks in a row...pretty soon all you have is really stirred up soil. It's not like all the good shit from deep down in the earth just miraculously floats up to the surface when you've only continued to till the top soil over and over again. It's time to get out a big ass shovel....fuck it, get a damn backhoe out because I'm afraid we are going to have to a dig a whole lot fucking deeper in order to get down to the good shit. Too bad I don't own a shovel and can't even begin to fathom how to operate a backhoe.

I received an email through Myspace today from my boyrfriend's ex-girlfriend. Hi, Drama Party of One please? Bitch is crazy...this is the third female on his page she has done this too. Something about her still having feelings for him and being a jealous, crazy cracker...(this all stemmed from a comment I left under a picture of him and me on his page.),/p>

Below is her original email she sent to me and my response. She is in purple I am in turquoise.

I hope you were not talking about me when you say jealousy..? I could care less what you and do together. He said ya'll were just friends anyways! It is just the fact that he put a pic of you guys up together. Because he.. who said he loved and wanted to marry me.. never put a pic of us up. kinda hurts my feelings. That's all. And I still have feelings for him.. because I thought he was a great guy .. just couldn't handle the serious relationship that he began. He just broke some promises to me. But really this is all more information than I want to give you. Just know I am not jealous.. tired of playing those highschool games. I am just hurt by the way he has been acting.

It shows your level of maturity, or lack there of, that you even felt the need to send me your lovely little note. He wasn't ready for a serious relationship? No, he wasn't ready for a serious relationship with you. We are talking marriage. I'm sorry things didn't work out for the two of you, but your lack of maturity played a large role in that and your contiued lack of maturity only proves his reasons for breaking up with you were quite accurate and solidifies his reasons for being with a grown up, mature woman that knows how to handle herself and has no interest in playing these pathetic high school games. He told you we were friends because he knew your lovely track record of emailing anyone you thought he was interested in even though you have no claim in him any longer and wanted to spare me the drama as he knows I have no tolerance for it. I hope you realize how pathetic and desperate you appear to him and everyone else when you send random woman these emails full of jealousy professing how you are not jealous. And then all the calls to his work claiming you still love him? Have some self-respect and stop pining after a man who has no interest in you.Grow up and move on...this ship has sailed and has no interest in returning to your harbor.

Maybe it was stooping to her level to respond at all, but frankly I don't care. I always look for a good candidate to take the brunt of my pent up hositilities and ex-girlfriends fall into this target practice category perfectly. I think I managed to maintain a certain level of sophistication in my response...maybe. :) Below is what I would have loved to say instead of what I actually wrote. Now this is seriously beyond stooping to her level. It's more like laying down flat and rolling around in the shit:)

Bitch, listen up and listen good. You are a mother fucking patethetic excuse for a woman. What kind of woman grovels at the feet of a man she only dated for four months, who broke up with you, professing her undying love and devotion for him four fucking months after the fact? And then after he very directly tells you NEVER to contact him again you start desperately continuously calling his work until he has to threaten calling the police and filing a harassment complaint to get you to stop? That is some sad, sad shit sweetheart. You need to take your rather large, Mary Poppins ass on over to the gym, lose a couple 10 to 50lbs and try to get you someone who is actually interested in everything you are not. You keep acting like you are acting and no man is going to touch you with a ten foot pole. Desperation wreeks off you like stink permiates off a damn skunk. You better try to locate some real woman and hope some of their self-respect and confidence rubs off on your immature, pathetic self. If that doesn't work you could always start stalking him fulltime and maybe land a gig on Jerry Springer as one of those chunky chicks in short skirts and bad weaves that tries to scrap with the current girlfriend over some pathetic, skinny white trash dude. Everyone has to have aspirations, right?

Ms. Martha has asked the following questions in response to my request to be interviewed:)

1. if you could star in a movie or theatrical adaptation of any book you've ever read, what book would it be and what character would you play? Hmmmmm, this is going to sound so damn cheesy...but I would choose to play Rizzo in Grease or Lily in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Both were two of my favorite movies when I was younger and many, MANY nights were spent dreaming I was in those roles. Oh my Lord, I'm such a total dork.

2. if you could go back in time and redo (or undo) one moment... what moment would that be and what would you do differently? Oh wow. How many people haven't tinkered with this idea a hundred thousand times within the confines and safety of their own head? I've pictured redoing SO many instances in my life, but then I think to myself But if I hadn't done that or I'd done this instead this wouldn't have happened... Probably two that I have thought about on more than one occasion are the following: 1) The day I sat there and begged my ex-husband to give us one last shot right after catching him cheating yet again. But if I hadn't of hit rock bottom like that I may never have walked away for good. 2) Not walking away when my boyfriend in KC broke up with me. We were engaged and had been together for three years. He later told me he broke up with me because he thought it was what I wanted and that I would come back. I didn't. But that was a good thing because if I had turned around and looked back I wouldn't have met the guy I'm dating now. :)

3. what is one crazy thing you've always wished you had the guts to do but have yet to do? Live in another country, go on a hunting trip for Elk, African Safari, adopt a child from overseas, become a mentor for a child transitioning out of foster care at 18...I could go on and on. Hopefully, some day I will have the guts/ability to do them all.

4. if you had to choose one meal that you had to eat for the rest of your life... what would that meal consist of? My mom's ham roll-ups. It's biscuits rolled out with square pieces of ham and broccoli on it, another rolled out biscuit over the top, bake for a bit. Take them out and then pour homemade cheese sauce over the top.

5. if you could travel anywhere in the world with anyone in the world... where would you go, and who would you go with? I would go to Africa with Oprah...seriously, I would. I wouldn't mind heading to Kuwait with Bush. I would love for us to walk amongst the devastation together, maybe with a few troops that lost appendages in bombings and have him explain to me what the fuck it is we are doing over there exactly.