2007 September « Sizzle Says

1-800-WTF-OOPS

September 28, 2007 at 7:07 am | In funny bone, spazzing, wtf friday | 33 Comments

The other night I was calling Netflix because they had charged me my monthly fee even though I had canceled service.

I was supposed to dial 1-877-638-3549 but instead I dialed 1-800-638-3549.

If anyone is interested, that 800 number has “live, sexy girls from all over the world just waiting to talk to you!”

My bad.

“Woman you got too many brambles/Hiding under these bushes/Woman you got too many brambles/But I always liked a good storm/I’m always good for a storm/So then love walked up to like/And said I know that you don’t like me much/Let’s go for a ride/This ocean is wrapped around that pineapple tree/And is your place in heaven/Worth giving up these kisses/These, these kisses…” -Cooling, Tori Amos

Put Down the Cookie

September 27, 2007 at 8:17 am | In everyday frustrations, mountain out of a molehill, my neurosis, spazzing | 24 Comments
Tags: auto parts stores are for suckers, bed rest, sugar bitch

I’m crabby.

I feel like I am coming down with a cold. On top of that, I have PMS. My neck and shoulders are in knots. My back aches. My skin is breaking out and yesterday I ate a cookie. It was not a good scene. Sugar + PMS + Sizzle = Bitchy. I would like to not be me for the next few days. Any way we can arrange that?

Sigh.

I didn’t think so.

I stopped off at the auto parts store yesterday and was assaulted by idiocy. The layout of the store made no sense- merchandise was piled in “displays” all the way up near the counters making it impossible to form any semblance of a line. The most random of people were milling about with confused or harried looks on their faces. The clerks didn’t look like they had a clue and then proved that they didn’t when they attempted to ring a person up. I had a very, very bad feeling about my visit.

Once I got someone to assist me, we had to go through a litany of questions to find what exact part I should by. What kind of car? What model? What year? Am I single? Did the car make a hissing/wooshing noise when the gas cap was unscrewed? Do I like beer? Did I want a locking gas cap? (Ok, the single and the beer question were merely implied with a look not an actual question. And yes, I am totally making that up.)

Once we figured out what I needed and he retrieved it for me, I realized that was just the beginning of my troubles. There was, near the check out counter, an unruly mob of people standing about in no particular order. Where was the line!? How was anyone to get helped in such chaos? As I stood there I observed the clerks with their dazed faces, one trying to help a middle aged woman who was aggressively trying to get him to tell her if her items were in fact the very items in the sale advertisement. She kept shoving the sale paper in his face. “These?! Are THESE the ones for $4.99?!”

Good Lord rescue me.

We stood there and stood there and as the minutes ticked by I grew more agitated. The disorganization! The incompetent help! The annoying people surrounding me, trying to cut in “line”! So I put my item down on the nearest counter and walked out.

Sometimes I just have to leave lest I blow up. Like I said: Sugar + PMS + Sizzle = Bitchy. The bad news is, I still have to get that part today. The new equation could work out like: Head Cold + PMS + Sizzle = Cranky Bitch. Uh, oh. This could get ugly, people.

“Came down on a bottle rocket/Found my heart right where I locked it/Last night like rain on chalk/It’s gone like money in my pocket./All my troubles in the rear view mirror, I know I know/All my troubles in the rear view mirror, I know I know/I got, I got, I got to keep them there…” -Keep It There, The Weepies

Delayed Reactions

September 26, 2007 at 8:38 am | In drivel, hip to be square | 38 Comments
Tags: bed head hair, not too quick to the uptake

…On Monday….

Co-worker: Did you get your hair cut?

Me: Yeah, last Thursday.

Co-worker: Oh! Well it looks great.

*********

Later that same day. . .

Co-worker 2: Did you do something different with your hair?

Me: Yeah, I cut it last week.

Co-worker 2: Huh, last week? Well I like it!

*********

Then Tuesday. . . .

Co-worker 3: I like your hair today.

Me: Thanks! It’s called “bed head.”

Co-worker 3: I use that stuff too! Mine comes in a jar. . .

Me: No, I mean, I woke up with this hair.

Co-worker 3: Lucky!

(For the record, it doesn’t look that different except I am wearing it messier than usual.)

“The rain is fallin’ on my window pane/but we are hidin’ in a safer place/under the covers stayin safe and warm/you give me feelin’s that I adore/It starts in my toes/makes me crinkle my nose/wherever it goes I always know/that you make me smile/please stay for a while now/just take your time/wherever you go/What am I gonna say/when you make me feel this way/I just……..mmmmm…” -Bubbly, Colbie Caillat

I Shoulda Been a Suit

September 25, 2007 at 6:57 am | In everyday frustrations, mountain out of a molehill | 38 Comments
Tags: don't make enough dough, non-profits, pocketbook frustration, suckitude

I often say, working for a non-profit is good for the heart and bad for the pocketbook. No, really, I’ve said this many times even though I never actually refer to my wallet as my pocketbook. Go figure.

It’s true though. . .we bleeding hearts get paid in warm fuzzies not dollars. Sigh. Why couldn’t I have had the vision to pursue a corporate career? One where I am surrounded by men in suits (Bonus! Men in suits are hawt.) and my paycheck allows me to take weekend getaways without planning for months in advance. One where getting my hair colored is not a luxury and going out for an after-work cocktail is the norm, not something I have to check my bank balance before agreeing to.

My agency informed us last week that we are going to a “every other Friday” pay scale instead of keeping our 1st and the 15th pay days. The reasons this sucks are:

1) I have very little spending cash from the 1st paycheck of the month. I pay my rent and I pay my car insurance and then I buy some groceries. Sometimes one of my pals might take pity on me and buy me some tacos or a beer. I take advantage of Doke & Double B’s free laundry facilities to save my quarters. I find free stuff to do.

2) The paycheck that arrives on the 15th pays all my other bills and allows me some spending money. This is where I go hog wild and buy stuff like a new t-shirt or pair of jeans (on sale!) or maybe, if I am feeling particularly saucy, a book at full price or a new lipstick. Never all those things at once. Oh no. That wouldn’t be prudent.

3) I now have to move around all my automatic withdrawals to ensure I will have enough money to cover them and still buy groceries.

Now, with the advent of this newly instituted pay schedule, we all bring home LESS money per paycheck because we get two extra pay checks a year (though those bonus checks don’t hit until February and August). I’m losing almost $100 less per paycheck. Do you know what I could do with $200 a month? Do you know what I do DO with $200 a month? Pay bills.

Needless to say, I’m a bit in panic mode. I have even started looking for new apartments. As much as I love where I live, I can’t afford it. I even went to check out a place this weekend. It was cute enough and I could have lived there…if I had never gone down the back porch stairs. Good Lord I could have lost my life on those rickety old stairs. But laundry was free and the kitchen was huge. I gave up vying for it though when she told me the move in fees: First months rent ($685), last months rent ($685), security deposit ($300), pet deposit ($300) and a non-refundable credit check fee ($40). If my math is correct that’s $2010 to move in. Ouch! No can do.

I have a history of freaking out when I hit a financial snag. I try so hard to scrimp and save and know I am not living some lush, extravagant life so what’s a girl to do? It’s either move or get a new job. This sucks.

“Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven/Don’t you know each cloud contains pennies from heaven?/You’ll find your fortune’s fallin’ all over the town/Be sure that your umbrella is upside down. . .” -Pennies From Heaven, sang by Louis Armstrong

What I Learned on the 221

September 24, 2007 at 7:41 am | In fun & frolicking, life lessons, spazzing | 19 Comments

I spent 20 minutes standing on this number yesterday.

Why? Good question.

You see, Hunter and I had just arrived at the parking lot, psyched for the football game and decked out in blue and green. (Goooo Seahawks!) We’d paid the $10 for the space and were 2 blocks away when he realized that (d’oh!) he’d left the tickets on the fridge back at his apartment. Hunter is really good at beating himself up. I mean like he can put my self-flagellation to shame. (We all know I’m a master.) We decided that he’d rush back to get the tickets while I stayed in the parking space, holding it for the car. We’d already paid. It was rightfully ours.

As he carefully yet speedily made his way back toward Capital Hill, I stood. Our space was located right when cars turn into the lot. People would slow down as they passed, looking at me with quizzical expressions. I would smile. (Kill them with kindness technique!) When the stares got to be too much, I would just look down at the ground. (Avoidance technique!) A couple of times people rolled their windows down and inquired about the space. Apologetically, I responded that we had already paid for the space but had mistakenly left our tickets back home. One guy had the nerve to say, “So the car is NOT here, right?” Like I was some asshole. Duh the car is not here. Do you see the car, you dicktard? No. Why you gotta try and shame me? F off!

My overwhelming desire to explain myself completely irritated me. It’s none of their business! Why don’t they bugger off!? If I was in their shoes I would have kept looking for a space. There were plenty in the lot. Ugh! Nice girl persona you really irk me. Go away!

I thought I might be nearing a mini-panic attack if he didn’t hurry up. I was not, in any way, upset with Hunter. I could stand there, on that number, and know that this was good practice for me. To not care what people think. To not overthink what people think. To not spaz out when trying to practice my new way of being. And yet I wanted it to be over. It felt excruciating being stuck inside my internal battle.

And then he drove up and relief washed over me. I took a deep breath and we made our way to the stadium.

For the record? I had a fantastic time at the game. Me! A football naysayer. But it was so much different being in the stands with the die hard fans, their energy is SO infectious that I couldn’t help but cheer along. Luckily for me, Hunter is good at explaining things (“You see, football is like a violent chess match. . .”) AND the Seahawks beat the Bengals 24-21. Take that! Woo!

I might even by a Seahawks t-shirt. Now that’s commitment.

“This is my skeleton/this is the skin it’s in/that is, according to light and gravity/I’ll take off my disguise/the mask you met me in/’cuz I got something/for you to see/just gimme your skeleton/give me the skin it’s in/yeah baby, this is you/according to me/I never avert my eyes/I never compromise/so nevermind the poetry…” -Shameless, Ani DiFranco

Hand Me The Gavel

September 21, 2007 at 7:57 am | In conversations | 12 Comments

Him: “That’s one of the things I love about you. You’re so fair. You should be a judge.”

Me: “Supreme Court Justice Sizzle.”

Him: “Like Judge Judy.”

Me: “Oh.”

“I felt you in my life before I even thought to/Felt the need to lay down beside you/And tell you/I feel you in my heart, and I don’t even know you/And now we’re saying/Bye, bye, bye/Now we’re saying/Bye, bye, bye. . .” – Nineteen, Tegan and Sara

Try That On For Size

September 20, 2007 at 7:22 am | In everyday frustrations, soapbox | 43 Comments

This whole business of size has been on my mind.

The other day while hanging out with a friend, it came up in conversation what size clothing I wear. I don’t recall the context but when I told him that I wear a 16/18 he was a bit taken aback. He was under the delusion that I was a size 12.

Bless his heart.

I haven’t been a size 12 for going on 10 years and even then I think I was only that size for about 5 minutes. Ok, maybe for a month. I once managed to be a size 10 for almost 2 years though I was miserable in my fear that I would gain the weight back. (Self-fulfilling prophecy!) The best part about being a “normal” size was the clothes. I could shop just about anywhere. I felt like I fit in, finally, after years of not being able to wear the cool Esprit and Guess clothes of my youth. Plus, I wanted to be naked all the time which was a total bonus for my then-boyfriend.

I am considered a plus size woman by the fashion industry’s standards. Who came up with this term “plus size” anyhow? Why do we differentiate different from “normal” like “petite” or “junior” or “plus”? Does that somehow reinforce what is “normal” then? Why do we have to have special, mediocre stores just for larger sizes? How come certain brands will carry sizes 16+ on line but they won’t carry them in their stores?

That fucking pisses me off!

By the very fact that they MAKE clothes in a size 16 and up they are admitting there is a market for such styles. Why not put them in the store? Do the larger sizes take up too much room on the rack? Do they worry that chubbettes shopping in their stores will make skinnier people fret? What kind of bullshit thinking is it to relegate larger sizes solely to on line? What? We don’t need to try those jeans on to see if they fit properly before we purchase them?

What the fuck, man?

Any time this topic comes up I flare up in a fit of indignant rage. My panties get all in a twist. Bear with me. I am nothing if not a loyal defender of the underdog. And I’ve been struggling against this size-ist bullshit for most of my life.

I read yesterday that America’s Next Top Model has a contestant that is a size 8 and they are referring to her as “plus size.” WHAT? Knock that shit off! 14 is about the lowest I’ll go when considering someone a plus. And even then, who gives a rat’s ass? Chubbettes need more people of their size looking hot and in the pages of magazines. We need to have clothing that isn’t made out of grandma polyester. And don’t even get me started about the plus size stores who use thin women to model their line of clothing. I swear if I start talking about that my head will explode.

Bottom line: We need some fucking respect, man.

“Squint your eyes and look closer/I’m not between you and your ambition/I am a poster girl with no poster/I am thirty-two flavors and then some/and I’m beyond your peripheral vision/so you might want to turn your head/cause someday you’re going to get hungry/and eat most of the words you just said…” -32 Flavors, Ani DiFranco

Why am I such a spaz?*

September 19, 2007 at 7:47 am | In everyday frustrations, mountain out of a molehill, processing | 21 Comments

I don’t know what has gotten into me but lately my confidence has been waning.

It’s not just at work but that is where I feel it most acutely. It’s crunch time in my department. Every facet of the agency is crying out for volunteer help and we’re in this limbo time where schools are just starting and our volunteer recruitment is still stretching at the starting line. This happens every year. The agency is in desperate need for volunteer power, launching some of our key programs, while many of the soon-to-be volunteers are still sorting out their Fall schedules. They WILL come in time but it’s hard to not feel like I am letting everyone down when I can’t pull volunteers out of some magic place. Some jobs are easier to recruit for and place volunteers in- like being a tutor or a mentor. But an office lackey to do filing and make copies of training manuals? Sure, there are just hundreds of people lining up to help with that project. Right, cough.

I’ve been rather hard on myself in response to this stress. I’ve noticed myself being short with people and generally not feeling inspired to be at work. Three cheers for avoidance! (Not.) There’s also an office politic-y situation that I was reined into that’s been really messing with my psyche. My nice person bullshit has been challenging me over and over in regards to how I am handling it. People pleasing is a real b-i-t-c-h. Sigh. I am better than the drama of this situation and capable enough to handle it and yet… I have been doubting myself. When the self-doubt starts, I spiral. I start to think I am not good at any aspects of my job.

Then I begin to panic when I am asked to do things I know I excel at. Like today, I am giving a tour to an executive from a radio station we are partnering with and my supervisor is coming along. Why she isn’t giving the tour I do not know but when she asked me to do it, I felt pressure. Immediate freaking out pressure! Which is so stupid since I give tours a couple times a week AND have been known to make people cry on them. Not because I am mean but because I have a way in which I deliver the message about what we do at our agency that touches people. A new employee attended one of my orientations/tours and went back to work the next day, telling my bosses how she went home and cried she was so moved by the tour.

Yeah, no pressure there. Aack!

I really wish I would stop being such a spaz. Why is it so hard to believe I am good at something and embrace that? Have I used my self-doubt to manipulate and undermine my self-confidence for so long I don’t know how to actually BE confident? Why am I letting stress color how I see myself? I have the power to change this but I feel stuck.

*semi-rhetorical question

“Smiling as the shit comes down/You can tell a man from what he has to say/Everything gets turned around/And I will risk my neck again, again/You can take me where you will/Up the creek and through the mill/All the things you can’t explain/Four seasons in one day/Blood dries up/Like rain, like rain/Fills my cup/Like four seasons in one day/It doesn’t pay to make predictions/Sleeping on an unmade bed/Finding out wherever there is comfort there is pain/Only one step away/Like four seasons in one day. . .” -Four Seasons in One Day, Crowded House

Chamber of the Heart

September 18, 2007 at 7:21 am | In love, my neurosis, processing | 11 Comments

I have been born again and again and each time, I have found something to love.
- Gordon Parks

Our ability to find something to love, and to love again for the first time, depends greatly on how we resolve and integrate where we’ve been before. A great model for us exists in the chambered nautilus, an exquisite shell creature that lives along the ocean floor. The nautilus is a deep-sea form of life that inches like a soft man in a hard shell finding his prayers along the bottom. Over time it builds a spiral shell, but always lives in the newest chamber.

The other chambers, they say, contain a gas or liquid that helps the nautilus control its buoyancy. Even here, a mute lesson in how to use the past: live in the most recent chamber and use the others to stay afloat.

Can we, in this way, build strong chambers for our traumas: not living there, but breaking our past down till it is fluid enough to lose most of its weight? Can we internalize where we’ve been enough to know that we are no longer living there? When we can, life will seem lighter.

It’s not by accident that the nautilus turns its slow digestion of the bottom into a body that can float. It tells us that only time can put the past in perspective, and only when the past is behind us, and not before us, can we be open enough and empty enough to truly feel what is about to happen. Only by living in the freshest chamber of the heart can we love again and again for the first time.

-Mark Nepo, “The Book of Awakening”

What chamber of the heart do you live in?

“As I walk away/I look over my shoulder/To see what I’m leaving behind/Pieces of puzzles and wishes on eyelashes fail/Ooooh how do I show all the love/Inside my heart/Well this is all new/And I’m feeling my way through the dark/And I used to talk with honest conviction/Of how I predicted my world/I’m gonna leave it to star gazers/Tell me what your telescope says/Oh what is in store for me now?/It’s coming apart. . “ – Through the Dark, KT Tunstall

Scrabble Babble

September 15, 2007 at 11:33 pm | In conversations, fun & frolicking, funny bone | 19 Comments

Sizz: “What does queeve mean?”

Jersey: “It’s a vaginal fart.”

Hunter: “No, that’s queef.”

Dumpling: “Queeve is the plural form.”

Jersey: “I’m going to pee myself.” (from laughing, not a bladder control problem)

Jersey: “My friend Rudy calls it a vart.”

For the record, neither queeve, queef, nor vart were used on the Scrabble board during the game. I was trailing closely behind Dumpling for the greater part of the game when Hunter had to slap down “s-e-x” landing the “x” on a triple score. Damn it! There goes second place.

“And when I asked for a separate room/It was late at night, and we’d been driving since noon/But if I’d known how that would sound to you/I would have stayed in your bed for the rest of my life/Just to prove I was right/That it’s harder to be friends than lovers/And you shouldn’t try to mix the two/’Cause if you do it and you’re still unhappy/ Then you know that the problem is you. . .” -Divorce Song, Liz Phair