Friday, August 31, 2007

If I Were a Superhero…

I would be Captain Waits-til-the-Last-Second. My secret power would be…waiting so long to do stuff that when I actually get it done on time it literally blows people’s minds. A messy power, but effective none-the-less. Only problem is…I am still young and have not fully harnessed my superpower yet. So, sometimes, instead of impressing the pants off of people, I merely miss the deadline all together…not so super or powerful…just a little disappointing.

But never fear…I will come into my own one of these days. And evil doers look out…cause I will blow your mind…after I take a little nap…and maybe make myself a samich.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Okay Mr. Gore…I Believe You

HOLY…HELL…IT’S HOT.

Menopausal women have nothing on me. I might die from hotness. Not the good kind of hotness either…the kind of hotness where you are so sticky with fiery ovenlike heat that you want to take off you clothes and sit in a giant ice bath. Today is supposed to be equally roasty and I am not looking forward to it.

I also find myself conflicted in that while it was still 114 out this morning (I don’t have a thermometer, but I swear I don’t exaggerate) I know that it will be a breezy 60 at my desk all day. So I will shiver in my short sleeves inside or fry in my sweater outside. So I guess I have to dress in layers. But even if I came to work naked…I think I would still die from the rush of flaming heat that would hit my lungs when I leave work this evening. I hope to see you all tomorrow. If I don’t you, know what happened…

Here Lies Ashley
She Was Burned Alive
The End

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

All Dried Up

I have nothing to blog about!!! AHHH! My first day of absolute zero inspiration. Actually, I found several sources of inspiration, but I decided that having friends continue to speak to me was more important than some potentially hilarious posts. But let me tell you…they would have been funny. You would have peed a little when you read it. But I saved you from changing your pants.

Haha! I managed to squeeze one more day out…maybe something amazing will happen tomorrow with unicorns or squirrels that will inspire a fit of words to be remembered forever…or maybe not…and maybe tomorrow’s blog will be blank.

Wait and see...wait...and...see...

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Comin’ at cha from the Doctor’s Office

I have some time to kill as I sit here at the doctor’s office…actually more than some time. I have a lot of time, because an 11:40 doctor’s appointment means that you get to sit amongst the other waiters in the waiting room looking at stale crispy copies of Field and Stream, Family Circle and Highlights for at least a half hour. Then the clock continues to tick as nobody is called in and the smell of spaghetti being heated up in the lunchroom reaches your nose. At which point the army of pharmaceutical reps march in with their PDAs and rollie suitcases and somehow all get to see the doctor before you. And you know what will happen next:

They will call you in and you will utter “finally” under your breath as you go in and sit on the crunchy paper. And then…you wait some more, but you are never sure how long because, like the casinos, there are no clocks in the exam room and you politely turned off your cell phone.

So until they call my name…oh they just did…too bad in the past fifteen years every parent of a blond child has decided to name it Ashley. Because I am not the Ashley they were calling, and I just had a fairly awkward moment staring down 12 year old Ashley.

Ooo…Us Magazine from November 04…I wonder if Brad is cheating on Jen…

P.S. It went pretty much like I thought…but when the man-nurse took me to get weighed…he first tried me in the 100-149 lbs. range before moving the scale to the 150 group. Silly man-nurse…you flatter me so. Anyway the scale was at least 10…closer to 20 lbs. off so my doctor thinks I weigh almost what it says on my driver’s license now and that makes the whole visit worth while.

Monday, August 27, 2007

The Itchy and Scratchy Sho-o-ow

I am tired and grouchy and itchy. So don’t mess with me.

I had possibly the worst night sleep last night due to a random and inexplicable allergic reaction. I have been researching possible causes for all over itchiness without any sort of gross rash and so far either I am in end-stage liver failure or I have unknowingly started taking the meth.

Either way I have problems.

Satan is a Tree

Those of you how know me well, and even those who don’t know me as a bit of a hippie—a tree hugger if you will. I try to steer clear of hurting living things…animals, plants, people. But here is the one time in my life that I truly wish death upon a living thing.*

I WANT MY TREE DEAD!

Awhile back my neighbor approached me with a proposition. My yucky thorny tree was dropping leaves in his pool, so he wanted permission to cut it down and replace it with two new non-devilish trees. Hey why not? He was paying for it and I was pretty sick of sweeping up the leaves on my side of the fence.

His team of tree experts came out and took care of Lucifer and “ground out the stump and removed the roots,” and planted two lovely ornamental pear trees.

So apparently this tree was the devil invegeate because its little shreds of roots went all terminator style on my yard and are coming up everywhere. I have sprouts of this hellish plant 20 feet from the old stump. AHHHHH! I pull and pull and spray and spray but it won’t DIE!

Anyone out there wanna make my little problem go away all quiet like? You know what I mean…whack, hit, burn, clip, ice, pop…make that tree sleep with the fishies…oooo…once you read the asterisk you will realize that was bad choice of words.

R.I.P. Morty.

*alright…there was one other time…high school…a bad fish named Mortimer…but I didn’t kill him…I got someone else to do it…Thanks Bev…you’ve always got my back.

On Procrastination

I have been a procrastinator since I was a wee one. I distinctly remember having a bumper sticker on my desk that said “procrastinate later,” when I was younger. Actually, I don’t think I had it because I was actually a big procrastinator…it was more just because I was proud of myself for knowing a big word like “procrastinate.” But regardless…at my current age…I have definitely adopted the “last responsible moment” approach or even the moment just after that.

I don’t really understand why I feel the need to wait to do stuff. Time after time I get burned. Case in point:

I have known for nearly a year of a friend’s wedding. Trying to be a thoughtful friend, I thought of a really nice hand-made gift and got started on it super early. Feeling pretty happy with my progress I put that project away. Fast forward eight months…the wedding is a week from today…and I am not done. Oops. No biggie…I’ll just work my ass off this weekend. Oh wait…there are no stores open this weekend in the bay area to buy the supplies I need? Oops. I guess I’ll just buy them something from their registry. Oh…there is nothing left on the registry? I suck.

I should stop procrastinating.

Emoticons Are Lacking

Feisty Friday is a tradition that I began with my little coworker corner and it has served us well. Friday comes around and we are a force to be reckoned with. We even snipe at each other and throw around some feisty name calling (“judgy,” “bitch” and the ever popular and mature “lameoface” are some of my favorites). I’m telling you…it can get ugly.

Feisty Friday came early this week…actually I’m not entirely sure that it ever left last week…and as a result I have found myself annoyed…A LOT!

Maybe it is just me and I am a raging bitch…but this happens to me fairly often. (And no boys…it isn’t because I am PMSing! Roar!) I need to work better at not letting things make me so mad. Like the word “color.” I spell it “color” because I was born and raised in the U.S. Had I been born to a nice British family in Northamptonshire I would spell it “colour,” but since I wasn’t--I don’t. I find it so incredibly irritating when American-born people decide that they need to add extra letters into their words to sound fancy.

This is what I have to say to these people:

Why don’t you go home to your mum and practise looking at your reflexion in the mirror and programme your brain to recognise that you are, in fact, an American and stop spelling cheque, trye and pyjamas wrong!

Arsehole!

Athletic Ashley

-Excerpts from myspace-

For those of you who have witnessed my athletic prowess over the course of my incredibly physically active life, (insert chortle here) you will be surprised to hear that I have become quite the sport-o over the past few months. Ok…fine…my 84-year-old grammy could probably kick my ass at bowling. And I think I was up at bat at softball for a good 10 minutes yesterday while I swung at pitch after pitch after pitch while the creepy catcher whispered sweet nothings in my ear like “choke up on it,” “wait for it to come more inside your body” and “spread your legs a little more.” (heeby-jeeby) But I have to tell you…once I came to terms with the fact that I am possibly the most uncoordinated person in the world, it was a lot more fun. Less trying more laughing…that is my game plan.

But sports isn’t really the topic of this blog…it is more about perception. When I was at the tender, freakishly-tall age of nine, I got the basketball question. Like height automatically means I can jump high and toss a ball into a basket? I think not. It was annoying then…but as of late I have found perceptions to be more perplexing.

I was at a party on Saturday night and I mentioned that I played softball on Thursdays. My conversation partner looked me up and down, sizing me up, and said, “Oh, you look like a softball girl, did you play in college?”

Um…I don’t know about you, but when I think of girls college softball I envision large-calved tom boys with anger issues and nasty bruises. Is that what I look like to people? Maybe I should start wearing dresses…Thoughts?

Coming Out of the Bloggin’ Closet

-Excerpts from myspace-

So, as some of you may or may not know, I have had a work blog for several weeks now. It is on our company's Microsoft portal (which oddly has a blogspot but the spell check doesn't recognize the word "blog") and is about as fun as a company-wide work blog can be. So after typing and promptly deleting expletives and non work-appropriate content, I have decided to branch out and start a blog here, without fear of the prying eyes of "the man"…because really…"the man" does not have a myspace.

The only problem with starting a casual blog after weeks of writing a professional blog is thinking of things to blog about. I am sure you don't want to hear about my status reports or projects that are behind schedule or my plans for newsletter stories.

I will start simple.

This is me. This is how I write. This is how I talk. I think that is the key to a good blog…writing like you talk. Nobody wants to read a well thought-out and constructed rambling on the ultimate meaning of my day. You want to hear the nitty gritty. You want to hear that I have had four diet cokes today and I am jonesing for another. Oh…you didn't want to hear that?

Um…I bowled an 83 last night!

First person to post the number of times I said the word "blog" in this blog gets 100 points!

Aaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnd GO!