Friday, February 24, 2006

Women's Lib

My girlfriend and I are taking "stripper" classes for fun. A little lapdance, a little crawling on the floor and few spins on the pole. Once again I find I am a natural at the ultra difficult moves on the pole. I can swing and hook and swivel in 6 inch heels with the best of them...yet still can't put a car into shift fast enough to go up a hill (rather than down and backwards).

Sitting with my hunny and eating chicken I'm thinking about how much fun it was to swing around that golden pole and snake all over the place.

"What would you think if I stripped for awhile after I lose my job?"

"Huh?"

Clearly my husband hasn't been sharing in my pole day-dream. Pity.

"Just for a little while. My friend in San Diego did it after she bought her boobs, to pay them off, and she said is was the most fun she's ever had." (Well it was a friend of a friend, but she did buy boobs, and she did strip to pay for them.)

"Have I ever told you no?" My husband says a tad more seriously than fits a conversation like this.

"You've never said no, you've just likened what I wanted to do to the act of someone really stupid."

"No I haven't." sigh Sometimes I wish I had tape recordings of all the conversations we've had so I could point out what he thought of my University of Phoenix idea, I believe the word asinine and incompetent were applied. Not to me, but to those who had the same idea as me. That is till he decided he wanted to try it too...then it was a good idea.

Men.

"Don't strip, bad stuff happens and I don't want you with that crowd."

"But the girls I know are pretty down to earth."

"I've never said no to anything, but this is as close as I'll get to saying no."

And he says I'm passive-aggressive.

"You don't really want to strip anyway right? You're just trolling."

I think about this. I really do like dancing and I loved performing, but then it lacks a certain something that real dance and drama had. It lacks a certain type of theatrics.

"Well I'd like burlesque."

"Yeah that was cool, you could do that. But not a strip club...besides the ones here are sleazy."

That's true, strip clubs on the east coast have a kind of boys in the back room/these are my cousins' panties kind of a vibe.

"So not stripping, but burlesque, if someone started a burlesque."

"Yeah, you could do that. You'd be good at it."

Later, after chicken, he's getting ready for a haircut or something as I play with the kitty. He looks at me worriedly.

"You're not really gonna strip are you?"

"No," I say while I rub the kitty's tummy, "I'm not going to strip."

However, I think, I do reserve the right to remove my clothes in public!

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Delusions of Grandeur

"We are setting it all to you!" ,two of my co-workers cry gaily as they barge into my hallway of a cubicle.

"What do you need?" I ask, my standard response to everything including "Good Morning" and "How ya doing?" I just know they want something.

"We found a room at the conference!" My third tier boss almost crows at how adept he is in procuring rooms in hotels. I bite my tongue before I mention that one, hotels are made for renting rooms and two, we already had a room booked.

"It's free!" He crows again. I smile and look over at his accomplice. He's smirking - there's a catch.

"Well the room is free. But we have to pay for the furniture." Ah, that's why he's smirking.

"And how big is it? How many people?" My head is already calculating the price of chairs, tables, dry erase boards. I have a brief fantasy of giving my bosses a few deer skins and some poles and letting them set up tee-pees but it's rudely crushed with a different fantasy.

"It's ***** sq. ft. My idea," my boss says, "is that all we really need is a really tall chair at the back of the room. Then I could just sit on it and when our vendors came in they could kneel in a long line."

"You want to hold court? In a convention center?"

"Exactly. All we need is a chair, and a red carpet."

I'm going to Burger King later, I think, I'll be sure to get you a crown too.

Honestly...now he's a King? Give them a window office and they'll take a whole country.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Bad Calls

No one could call me a football fan. Last year was the first time I ever actually watched the Super Bowl with any interest. I lived in San Diego when the show blew through there...and I had no idea what was going on.

However, this year I watched. This year I paid quite a bit of attention.

I never knew the referees were supposed to be playing for a team.

Next year I don't think I'll watch. Baseball has drugs, Football has politics. The new American Past Time? Yugiyo Tournaments.

Don't pitch the...psycho

For a trailer it's very nice. Bouncy sales people with spiked hair run around offering people water and coffee. The couch is leather and the t.v. is currently projecting a picture of Nemo large enough to give me nightmares about guppies for the rest of my life.

C. is filling out the requisite form. As is the case with most of these business things my name has gone from Katy So-and-So to Mrs. So-and-So and we are collectively (though not inclusively) 30 yrs. old and male. That's the way I like it.

The forms are filled out. What level of fitness are you? Where do you live? What are you looking for? Apparently we're looking for a salesman because the bubbly little girl with our clipboard lost the first one. Finally we sit down with someone I think is named Robin. I cross my legs demurely, fold my coat over my lap and get comfy for the pitch.

"So, what are you here for C. and Kathy?" asks the questionably named Robin. We're both stumped.

Uh...aren't you supposed to tell us? I think. I ignore the fact that he got my name wrong...for now.

"We're looking for a gym." C. says. Maybe it's a guy thing. Maybe Robin is playing the snake in the grass, pretending to be guided before easily pushing us towards the plan that'll get him the best commission.

"So, have you been to our website?" Robin asks cheerfully.

"Yes." Mr. So-and-So answers for both of us.

"Okay, so what do you want to sign up for?"

Uh, I think again aren't you supposed to tell us that part too?

"Well, we had some confusion about the different plans." C. says - clearly cueing Robin in to give us the schpeel.

"Do either of you do yoga?" Apparently it's not a guy thing. Robin is thick as a post.

"I do." I pipe up.

"Do you have a 'I love yoga' bumper sticker?"

"No."

"Get the sports plan." Robin says.

That was it? That's your pitch?

"Let's sign you up then!" Robin says cheerfully, beginning to type in the name Kathy...whoever the hell she is.

"Well I'd like to know what we're getting." I say, I think rather diplomatically.

"If you saw the website you saw it all. Basically if you don't want one on one yoga then you don't need the Premium package. So, sign you guys up?"

"Okay." my husband says.

My head snaps around and I think Robin can hear my hair whizzing past him dismissively. I know why C. said yes, and I agree with it and am ready to sign up, but I am not ready to just hand this spiky-haired-name-messing-up bozo my credit card with a smile.

"Should I leave you two alone?" Robin says, giving my husband a smile that says 'Dude, tough wife you have there'. I'm pissed off. I'm not mad at my husband, I'm mad at Robin. You must be single I think to myself.

"No. This is fine. What do we get with this membership?" I say, folding my hands on the table and leaning forward.

"Uh, if you read the website...."

"What machines do you have? What classes can I take? Do I have to pay extra? How many machines do you have? What are the peak hours? When do you open? When do you close? How many teachers are there? How many bikes do you have? How big is the pool?" I look at him and he smirks. We back and forth, he answers derisively. It's ironic because I can tell he doesn't know the answers to any of it, but he's acting as if he's in with a big joke with my husband. Isn't it cute how she's pretending to play hardball. The way she pretends she can mix with the men. Isn't the little Kathy silly?

My name is Katy - Jackass!

Finally he calls in reinforcements. A lady comes over and gives me the entire class schedule, rattled off by heart.

"I should be careful what I ask her," Robin oozes "she gives too much information." He's laughing as she walks away.

"It was just what I wanted. I was asking for information." I say smoothly. If my pen was sharper I'd tear out his eye.

We sign up, we fill out the forms and take our receipt. It takes three more tries but Robin finally types in the name Katy for Kathy.

Before I walk out the door I ask the girls at the receptionist desk for a copy of their rules and regulations. Dress code, behavior, etc. Just so I know what to do when I come in for my first workout. No surprises. She rushes back to a manager to get it for me. As they walk up the paper, with all the information I asked for laid out in pretty, well worded efficiency I hear Robin's voice waft over to me.

"Who wants what? Oh I remember her...the psycho one."

Psycho indeed...wait till I see your sorry butt in kickboxing class "Robin".

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Go somewhere else

Believe it or not I am actually a published author. So, no, I don't have a book out there or anything, but I do have a few stories that wound up here and there.

When I was sixteen I won a trip to the Maui Writers Conference. Which is - huge. Big. Really big. The conference at least. The trip was thirty minutes.

Anyway, I heard a lot of crap when I was there, a lot of people who were trying to be self-important. But there were a few people who really said something amazing. Something that smacked sense into even the stupidest wannabe writers. It was a rare thing at a conference filled with thousands of writers.

It's been non-existant in a world filled with people who think books are a low-tech version of blogs.

Except today one of those trendy ones came out with something profound. Maybe it's because it has hints of the things I heard at the Writer's Retreat. Maybe it's because it has more hints of that passion that drives the really good writers. But I really like this guys post. He nailed it.

More Book Thoughts

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Doldrums

This Saturday I went from being a dark, sallow, tired looking brunette to a bright, glowing, still tired looking red head. With highlights...like blonde highlights.

It looks good.

However, it didn't exactly perk me up as much as I thought. I grew up hearing those little gems like "blondes have more fun" and "redheads have spark" not to mention "change your hair, change your life" (variations include "change your dress, change your life" "change your shoes, change your life" and more recently "change your lipstick, change your life"). But even though I was now a sparky-redhead with a change life, I felt depressed.

School is back on the back burner. Though it's beginning to simmer at least. Work is still drudgery, made more druge-like by the fact that friends are getting let go left and right and everyone is either scared or sad. And my house, has white walls. Lots and lots of white walls.

It's been a long winter.

I'm now longing to take my peppy, springtime hair-do into the sunshine. I wanna go jogging. Jogging in the warm sunlight, not the cold and scary darkness along a road where you know you're gonna get run over by the moron going 55mph in a residential area. (By the way, what is it with joggers who have to jog on the side of the road even though there is a wide and smooth sidewalk not two feet to the right of them? Unless you can run faster than my turbo charged silver audi...MOVE OVER!) I wanna go play! I wanna go do something fun. I want to go out and dance, or listen to music. Or go skating! Or biking! I want to do something. I'm tired of talking to my mother on the phone and saying "Well I go to work, then I come home, I read."

I want to have some purpose, some direction. I want, in short, something to completely concentrate on obsessively until people start thinking I'm a little scary for being so into it.

And beer just isn't going to cut it.

I got the hair thing down, now I just need to work on the life thing.