Happy Halloween 2007!!

Halloween is my ALL TIME favorite holiday. Seriously. I’m usually planning my costume for next Halloween on Halloween, and perfecting my plan months before October 31st actually rolls around. But, it’s not just dressing in costume that I love. It’s the scary movies, the decorations, the candy (damn fun-sized candy bars!), all the events and especially the Halloween spirit. I really brought my Halloween obsession to new levels this year.

Sarah and I decorated our apartment to be SUPER SPOOKY. I’m somewhat regretting having to now take down all the SUPER SPOOKY spiderwebs that are on every surface of our house, but whatever. We threw a really fun girly pumpkin carving party with a champagne Witch’s Brew, treats for our guests and lots of laughs with some of my closest girlfriends. Sarah and I carved PARTY CREEPY pumpkins, basically because we like to party creepy. Totally classic. Thanks for all who came:

In the meantime, I’ve been working hard on my Jem costume. The Dolphin Sisters and I decided that I’d be Jem and they’d be The Misfits—Jem’s rival rock band from the 80s cartoon. My mom and I printed out pictures of Jem’s original costume, and then we spent hours at the fabric store, picking out the fabric and patterns to make it exact. My mom couldn’t have done a better job. While she sewed it, I looked at approximately 50 different Web sites, trying to find the perfect wig. I finally found one in white, then had to look-up directions to dye it the perfect light pink. This, of course, ended up in a huge mess and pink spots all over me and Sarah’s white bathroom rug and accessories. Sorry roomie! It’s a tough price to pay to be the perfect Jem for Halloween:

Jem and The Misfits—Pizazz and Stormer—at Damon’s 30th Surprise Party

Jem and her Pirate Wench at Kelly’s Oktoberfest/Halloween party

Pirate Wench stole my microphone—that bitch! She is not truly outrageous!

Jem and Eve and Eve’s Halloween party

Glamour and glitter and fashion and fame…Jem, Jem is my name!

So, friends, it’s been a TRULY OUTRAGEOUS Halloween. I’ve got one more stop tonight at the Underdog Seattle Halloween party, where I’ll try to hide my sniffles and illness in an attempt for one last night in my best costume to date. The only thing that worries me is how I’m ever going to top it next year…

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Currently Feeling: Sick and icky. Blech.
Currently Anticipating: Possibly seeing the Incredibly Sexy Man in Great Jeans during my one last hurrah as Jem.
Currently Hating: Paper and boxes.

Why Men Shouldn’t Take Notes

Ha HA HAHHahhahaha HA!

P.S. I will have my Halloween pics up shortly. Patience… I’ve been sick.

P.P.S. I love Butterfingers.

Please don’t fall off this pedestal

Now that Dubliner Man Crush has called, and our conversations will hopefully and eventually cumulate into a date with the sexiest man alive [well, besides, that one from a couple weeks ago, natch], I’m aware that there’s a slight little problem:

I’ve put him up on a pedestal.

A far-reaching, tottering, teetering little pedestal.

What are the imminent dangers of this? Well, that the chase won’t lead up to the catch. That he won’t be able to carry a conversation, or will be totally boring and we’ll have nothing in common. Or worse, he won’t have a sense of humor, and I’ll have to explain all my jokes or finish my sarcasm off with, “I’m just joking.”

A good friend of mine recently said, “I hope he’s romantic, courteous, holds intelligent conversations, sticks to his views and is really good at making out! That’s what I hope for you!”

Me too, friend, me too…

Currently Feeling: The quintessential fall cold coming on.
Currently Anticipating: Halloween weekend! I can’t freakin wait to wear my costume!
Currently Wondering: When I’ll have the time during all this blogging business to update my resume and cover letter.

He’s BAAACK!

UPDATE: Remember that random Dubliner Man Crush story?!

Well, I got my haircut again on Friday. Who should happen to be sitting in the chair when I walk in—DUBLINER MAN CRUSH. Again. Unplanned. We just happened to make an appointment on the same day, at the same time, three months later. This is just getting weird.

Turns out that witty and clever text message I sent him that went something along the lines of, “I guess they give out more than just good haircuts there, eh?” was never received, and he’s been disappointed ever since and asks about me every time he goes in.

After he left, they sent him my number via text. So, the fate of this hair-salon flirting is now in his hands.

He didn’t actually blow me off as previously thought. All hope is not lost.

Dubliner Man Crush is back.

And this is how I feel about that:

*For those of you who read both blogs, I did post the full story today on the other. I normally will not be cross-posting, but will occasionally have to back-fill stories for the new readers who don’t know me. Besides, I thought this one was too good to leave off the dating blog. Please forgive.

Currently Feeling: The rush to get all the last-minute costume things completed this week.
Currently Anticipating: Going back to bed. So. Tired.
Currently Loving: All the special ladies who attended the pumpkin carving party last night. Pictures soon.

Jem is Truly Outrageous!

I just received the wig for my Halloween costume in the mail today at work. I wondered briefly if the mail room guy was wondering why I ordered something from My Wig Store, since obviously my hair is ridiculously, ridiculously full and luscious. (Oh, if only Larisa read my blog. She’d understand the ridiculously joke. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure you all think I’m totally conceited.) Anyhoo. The wig is my final touch on my most creative and possibly most fanfuckingtastic Halloween costume to date…

I’m going to be Jem from Jem and the Holograms. Larisa and Vanessa are going to be two of The Misfits, Jem’s archrival rock band. The three of us are designing our costumes ourselves, which are hopefully going to look as close to the real deal as possible since we’ve taken photos of the cartoon characters from the Internet. My mom—sewing genius that she is—is sewing me a crazy sparkly 80s dress just like the one Jem wears, with a matching belt, etc. I’ve purchased a sparkly microphone, and my wig just needs to be dyed pink, ratted and hairsprayed, and then I’m set.

Be prepared for some pretty funny photos of the three of us singing the Jem theme song:

Glamour and glitter; Fashion and fame…that’s totally me, eh?

“We are The Misfits. Our songs are better…”

Truly Outrageous!

Currently Feeling: Slightly nervous that the power will go out at work because of Weatherpocalypse 2007, and I’ll lose all my work.
Currently Anticipating: Completing the final touches on my costume this weekend.
Currently Excited For: An evening out with Nate and his friends tomorrow.

A Conversation at My Local Bar

“You look like a heartbreaker. I can tell. You’ve broken a lot of hearts, haven’t you?” said a man to me in the bar last night with a hazy smile and creepy lilt in his voice.

“Um, no. Not really,” I responded, completely and utterly uninterested. I turned back around in my seat and took another sip of my wine.

“Oh yes you have. Don’t by shy to admit it. You’re a total heartbreaker,” he continued, despite my obvious attempts to blow him off.

“Uh. NO. Actually. I’m. NOT. I’ve had my heart broken more than I’ve broken hearts. Come to think about it, I don’t think I’ve broken anybody’s heart.”

“You fall in love with everyone you meet!” chimed in my male friend, sitting next to me at the bar. “You jump in way too fast and always get hurt!”

“Um. Okay. Maybe…what can I say? I’m a one-man kind of woman. I like ‘em, and I fall hard,” I responded. Somewhat a little taken back that I’m categorized and obviously a girl that “jumps in too fast” when I SO thought that wasn’t me. Gee thanks. Nothing like reading me like an open book.

“I don’t care what you say; I still think you’re a total heartbreaker,” says the bar patron again.

Some guys will never get me…

Currently Feeling: Like I’m a writing machine!
Currently Anticipating: Our pumpkin carving party this weekend.
Currently Hating: Hurting someone’s feelings.

I’M DYING!

I think I have fibromyalgiadispepticnosis.

Just joking. But really, the fibromyalgia is correct. I have had crazy muscle pains lately…I first started complaining about my knees. If I sit down for a long period of time—like at my desk or in the car—they’re completely stiff when I stand up, which makes me feel like an 80-year-old man. Then I had a stiff neck, which normally goes away after a couple days. Nope, apparently I’ve been sleeping on my neck wrong for an entire week cause it still hurts. To top it off, I’ve had crazy pain in my shoulder, so bad that it hurts to lift my arms to take my shirt off, and I can’t lie in bed on the side the sore shoulder is on. (I’m pretty sure this is because the Incredibly Attractive Man in Great Jeans picked me up while drunk, and then proceeded to drop me sideways into a parked car, but that’s beside the point.) All this muscle aching is wearing me out!

I’ve also felt uncharacteristically tired lately. I get eight or more hours of sleep, but I yawn all day, and can’t wait to crawl back in bed at night. This has really put a damper on my party attitude, dammit.

Of course when you have abnormal symptoms and general distaste toward spending a couple hundred on an inconclusive trip to the doctor, you turn to diagnosing yourself on the Internet…

Big Mistake. Huge. All of a sudden every symptom listed starts to sound like something you’ve suffered from in the last month or so. And, inevitably, everything leads to a major chronic disease or

Cancer.

Or

AIDS.

So yeah, I might have fibromyalgia, or cancer, or AIDS. So, you better all love me while you can.

Currently Feeling: Accomplished and talented. Not modest at all.
Currently Anticipating: My. God. The. Weekend. Of. Course.
Currently Wishing: A new job would land in my lap.

From Leavenworth to an Impromptu Date

As most of you know, I spent last weekend in Leavenworth for Oktoberfest. Six of us—Bri, Kevin, Kristen, Adam, Larisa and myself—rented a condo within walking distance of downtown and brought plenty of food and booze, a couple of sexy costumes and good tunes—the perfect recipe for a party weekend away from home. Being the wild and crazy group of friends that we are, I knew the weekend wasn’t going to disappoint. After too much vodka, a trip to the local bar and a mishap with some harvest vegetables on Friday night, we woke up with killer hangovers on Saturday morning, but refused to let them drag us down! We ate breakfast with a side of jello shots and Bloody Mary’s, changed into our sexy German gear and headed to town.

It’s always baffling to me after days like this, where the day went and what the hec I did the whole time. I know it was a mish-mash of drinking authentic German beers, eating pretzels, dancing the chicken dance in attempts to swing arms with the sexiest man at the festival, taking trips to the Porta Potties, schmoozing with sexy men and getting our photos taken with random, drunken people. (I’m worried about how many different people’s camera I’m really on). We must have taken at least 30 photos with the Leavenworth background cutout, and finished off our night with Mexican food and more drinks at a couple local haunts. The weekend was most fantastic. Oktoberfest in Leavenworth is something that should not be missed. I’ve been to the celebration in Fremont for the years past, but this by far took the cake. Read why I think the Leavenworth Oktoberfest was so much better than the one in Fremont here.

As most of you have read in the previous post, a gay friend of mine sent a photo of me in my German Oktoberfest wear to his friend in an attempt to set us up. (Unbeknownst to me). The straight guy sent a photo of himself in lederhosen at Oktoberfest back to me, and we ended up chatting a bit over email yesterday. In one of the emails, Lederhosen Nate talked about how he and his friend got a lot of attention for their outfits, then sent this photo to me:

I looked closely at the photo and laughed out loud—his friend in the photo was the Little German Elf that Kristen, Larisa and I took at least six photos with! We ran into him in a beer tent and LOVED his outfit, which immediately caused us to molest him and take tons of photos with him. I sent the photos of us with the Little German elf to Lederhosen Nate, who thought it was equally as funny. Apparently, we had just missed each other and spent all day in different beer tents. To think about how one moment changes life…

As yesterday wore on, I received another email in my inbox—This Friend wanted me and Lederhosen Nate to meet, and I was to join them for dinner at Elemental at Gasworks around 8pm. Nothing like an impromptu date. How random and weird is my life sometimes? So, I skipped the gym, skipped the soccer game I was supposed to go to Sarah with and ran home to change into my best “non-German girl” outfit. I’d previously heard of Elemental from a friend. It’s a super exclusive, expensive and swanky restaurant with only 20 seats. This Friend is acquaintances with the owner and chef, so we had a special little table reserved for five, apparently quite a rare occasion. How lucky—a random date night at a classy little restaurant—and free, for that matter.

My first impression of Lederhosen Nate without his lederhosen was: Cute! Nice! Well Dressed! As shallow as it is, Sarah and I both expressed our worry about the possibility that he could be wearing tapered jeans. I mean really, every photo sent to me was of lederhosen or shirtless, so it’s hard to tell if he’s going to have his style guide together or not. (I hate to admit it, but it’s a huge deal breaker for me. So lame; I know.) FYI: He totally passed. He was wearing nice jeans with great leather dress shoes, a cute faded grey T-shirt and a nice brown blazer over it. (A girl’s favorite combo.)

The chef started bringing out small plates, one by one, each accompanied by a new glass of wine that matched the culinary treat. I couldn’t drink my wine fast enough before it was being replaced with another glass of red or white! We had shrimps with a creamy dill sauce on top a small little puff pastry, amazing pork in a nutty green sauce and pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top, braised beef with soy-flavored noodles and bok choy, garlic flan with roasted artichoke, spicy gnocchi with pine nuts, three different desserts, etc., and countless glasses of wine.

By the time the night was over, we’d lost two of the five of us to extreme cases of wine drunk, and This Friend was talking grandiose wine-induced schemes and demanding that Nate and I go to a bar to continue our impromptu date. As fate would have it, the date wouldn’t continue with just the two of us, but we talked about getting together again—in costume—at a German bar to play The Boot Game with friends. Whether this chance happening that all started with costumes in Leavenworth results in little Gretchen and Greminwald babies or not, I couldn’t have asked for a better impromptu date.

Currently Feeling: Like I need to seriously buckle down before Halloween.
Currently Anticipating: My little sister coming home next weekend so we can got to Canada and go to a bar together! Yikes! (She’s 19 today)
Currently Loving: The randomness that life is sometimes.

Hi, Welcome to Fat Fitness. This is Fat Speaking

It took me approximately six or so gym-attending years, but I finally figured it out.

If you want the ultimate motivation, you don’t need a trainer, you don’t need your iPod, you don’t need a magazine to read or a friend to run with.

All you need is to watch The Biggest Loser while doing cardio, and you’re set.

Let me tell you, there’s nothing like watching 15, 200- to 400-pound humans struggle to walk up a slight incline that makes you turn up the speed on your treadmill. Or watching them drool and whine about not being able to eat 12 double chocolate, butter cream cupcakes that makes you rethink skipping that salmon and veggie dinner that wasn’t really sounding appealing.

Feel like turning down your speed?

Feeling out of breath?

Thinking about all the things you’d much rather be doing besides running on a treadmill in the gym?

Well, just wait to go to the gym till around 8:30 at night and take a look at the extremely out-of-shape person on the television screen who can barely run a light jog without tripping over their feet and wheezing like an 80-year-old man. Watch how years of overeating and not exercising has affected them, and suddenly you’ll be adding more time, running an extra mile and sweating till you feel those candy bars ooze out of your skin. Disgust is motivation like I’ve never experienced before.

Perhaps I should market this as a new exercise fad, write a book and make tons of money? I could open a gym that only has Big, Beautiful Women or Big is Beautiful magazines. The posters on the wall won’t be of fit, skinny people who’ve been successful. They’re going to be of all the people who haven’t been successful. John Candy and Chris Farley and Kirstie Alley during her fat days! I’ll only hire fat front desk people and play fat pornos and The Biggest Loser on the television screens!

Wow. I’m totally a genius. I think I’m on to something.

Currently Feeling: Proud of the re-design I did at work.
Currently Anticipating: Getting over it.
Currently Loathing: My stiff neck. I can’t turn my head!

Because We All Need a Little Bit of Faith…

Last night, one of my all-time-favorite, proof-there-really-is-true-love, totally amazing and crazy cool couples got engaged.

Every girl—whether coupled or singled—wants to know how he did it. And maybe even some of you guys are looking for ideas…

Brett orchestrated an entire photo album of pictures with each of Angie’s best friends and family members, holding signs in the following pics:

• The girls she nannies for, holding a sign that says “Mango,” their nickname for her
• A few random signs from their friends
• Two of her best girl friends from college, holding a sign that says “Angie,” in the town she grew up in
• Her best friend (who also lives in her hometown), her husband and their baby-all holding a sign that says “Will”
• Two of their good friends and neighbors, holding a sign that said “You”
• Angie’s parent’s, holding a sign that said “Marry”
• Brett, holding the sign that said “Me?”
• Then Brett’s family, holding “Say Yes!”
• Her friends from Dental school
• And even her good friend from from New York city

Then he gave her the ring, and a few of her friends were at the neighbors’ with champagne to celebrate after she said yes.

As an endlessly hopeless romantic, it’s moments and relationships like these that make me hold out that much longer for true love. If Brett and Angie can find their best friend to spend the rest of their lives with, then there’s hope for all of us searching too. You just gotta have a little faith.

Well, and cross your fingers that you don’t end up a GGG wife.

Currently Feeling: Queasy.
Currently Anticipating: OKTOBERFEST IN LEAVENWORTH. Counting down the seconds.
Currently Hating: Confusion, complication and stickiness.