PS--thoughts and prayers to Eduardo
In doing some catch-up and visiting to other blogs, I was saddened to read that Eduardo's mom recently passed away. Eduardo wandered over here through Fred's blog (I believe) and still comments every now and then (unlike some of YOU bitches). ;) As many of you will recall, he won our hearts with his post about being banned from the treadmills at his gym after falling off of them--repeatedly.
A link to his blog is on the right if any of you wish to post a condolence or message of support.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Doing much better
Well, I'm over the worst of my heartbreak blues. Many conversations with those wiser than me have helped me to see that I'm truly better off. I may not be easy to be with sometimes (and the award for Understatement of the Year goes to...ME!!!), but there IS someone out there who will stand by me and who will love me BECAUSE of my flaws, not in spite of them. As much as I loved Dave, he was never really great or even dependable during the hard times (although the good times were REALLY good), and I'm looking for someone that I can lean on during all of it, good AND bad.
On an unrelated note: Star Jones is now admitting that she had gastric bypass. First of all--no SHIT. How else is someone going to lose like 300 lbs in a week? Secondly--does anyone really care? Seriously? Seems like *someone* can't handle being out of the spotlight for too long.
Well, I'm over the worst of my heartbreak blues. Many conversations with those wiser than me have helped me to see that I'm truly better off. I may not be easy to be with sometimes (and the award for Understatement of the Year goes to...ME!!!), but there IS someone out there who will stand by me and who will love me BECAUSE of my flaws, not in spite of them. As much as I loved Dave, he was never really great or even dependable during the hard times (although the good times were REALLY good), and I'm looking for someone that I can lean on during all of it, good AND bad.
On an unrelated note: Star Jones is now admitting that she had gastric bypass. First of all--no SHIT. How else is someone going to lose like 300 lbs in a week? Secondly--does anyone really care? Seriously? Seems like *someone* can't handle being out of the spotlight for too long.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Still here...barely
You know that stupid poster of the kitten hanging on to the piece of rope and the caption is something like "Hang in there, baby!" I hate that poster but that's how I feel right now....I'm basically just hanging on by a thread.
I'm entering the dating world again so THAT should be tons o' fun.
My only real good news is that my pole is now up, I managed to get in an hour or two of practice before coming home to Michigan for two weeks--and the good news is that I CAN actually pole dance (or I'll definitely be able to within the next month, which the ladies who have already booked pole-dancing parties with me will be glad to hear).
It's nice to see family and friends again; I'm actually dreading going back to my "real" life.
Oh, well. Just another one of those trials-by-fire that makes you stronger...sure seems like I've had enough of those in my life but I guess I still have lessons to learn and growing to do.
You know that stupid poster of the kitten hanging on to the piece of rope and the caption is something like "Hang in there, baby!" I hate that poster but that's how I feel right now....I'm basically just hanging on by a thread.
I'm entering the dating world again so THAT should be tons o' fun.
My only real good news is that my pole is now up, I managed to get in an hour or two of practice before coming home to Michigan for two weeks--and the good news is that I CAN actually pole dance (or I'll definitely be able to within the next month, which the ladies who have already booked pole-dancing parties with me will be glad to hear).
It's nice to see family and friends again; I'm actually dreading going back to my "real" life.
Oh, well. Just another one of those trials-by-fire that makes you stronger...sure seems like I've had enough of those in my life but I guess I still have lessons to learn and growing to do.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Street legal
As I approach my one-year anniversary of living in Florida, I went down to the DMV today to obtain my Florida driver's license. (You're supposed to do it within 10 days of moving, so I just missed the deadline.) ;)
And how's THIS for irony: I got hit by a teenage kid today (who, by the way, looked about TWELVE)....in the parking lot of the DMV. We were both at a stoplight to leave the parking lot and enter the main road; for some reason, he decided to back up. (Needless to say, I was behind him.) When I realized he wasn't planning to stop, I started hitting the horn (but not soon enough, apparently. Either that or his reflexes sucked).
"I'm so sorry, ma'am * ," he said as he got out of the car. "I just got my license."
"When?" I asked. "Like 2 seconds ago?"
"No," he answered. "Like a week ago."
"Nice start," I replied.
Since he had just kissed my bumper, I let him off the hook. You could tell he was all shaken up and that this was his first "incident" so I couldn't even get that mad at him. I'm almost proud to be his "first," actually.
*Bastard.
As I approach my one-year anniversary of living in Florida, I went down to the DMV today to obtain my Florida driver's license. (You're supposed to do it within 10 days of moving, so I just missed the deadline.) ;)
And how's THIS for irony: I got hit by a teenage kid today (who, by the way, looked about TWELVE)....in the parking lot of the DMV. We were both at a stoplight to leave the parking lot and enter the main road; for some reason, he decided to back up. (Needless to say, I was behind him.) When I realized he wasn't planning to stop, I started hitting the horn (but not soon enough, apparently. Either that or his reflexes sucked).
"I'm so sorry, ma'am * ," he said as he got out of the car. "I just got my license."
"When?" I asked. "Like 2 seconds ago?"
"No," he answered. "Like a week ago."
"Nice start," I replied.
Since he had just kissed my bumper, I let him off the hook. You could tell he was all shaken up and that this was his first "incident" so I couldn't even get that mad at him. I'm almost proud to be his "first," actually.
*Bastard.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Carolicious
One of the blogs I've linked to is Naturally Carolicious. I know some of you periodically wander over there, but if you haven't visited recently, go. Go NOW. Carole now has an adorable son, Michael (and I mean TRULY adorable, not "that's a funny-looking baby but we'll lie and give the expected 'Oh, how cute!' response). She writes him monthly "Dear Michael" letters, and the one she just wrote for his fifth month was, so far, my personal favorite. I laughed AND cried--and, more than once, I experienced both in the course of a single sentence.
To give you even MORE motivation to your asses over there (not that my personal say-so shouldn't be enough for you, byaatches), here's a short post that had me in hysterics.
"Overheard while [her husband] reads Michael a book showing baby animals:
That's a panda! P-A-N-D-A.
And that is a zebra! Z-E-B-R-A.
Here is a macaw! M-A... wait a minute? Macaw? What the hell is a macaw? Okay Michael, if you ever see an animal with bright feathers and a beak, you call it a parrot. PARROT. P-A-R-R-O-T.
Let's see what's next. Chimp! Okay, see there again, this is pretty much just a monkey. M-O-N-K-E-Y.
I see a bright future in zoology ahead, don't you?"
Seriously, if I wasn't straight and she wasn't straight and obviously very happily married, I would TOTALLY be in love with her.
Now go, but remember: if she becomes gay and I become gay, I get dibs on her first.
One of the blogs I've linked to is Naturally Carolicious. I know some of you periodically wander over there, but if you haven't visited recently, go. Go NOW. Carole now has an adorable son, Michael (and I mean TRULY adorable, not "that's a funny-looking baby but we'll lie and give the expected 'Oh, how cute!' response). She writes him monthly "Dear Michael" letters, and the one she just wrote for his fifth month was, so far, my personal favorite. I laughed AND cried--and, more than once, I experienced both in the course of a single sentence.
To give you even MORE motivation to your asses over there (not that my personal say-so shouldn't be enough for you, byaatches), here's a short post that had me in hysterics.
"Overheard while [her husband] reads Michael a book showing baby animals:
That's a panda! P-A-N-D-A.
And that is a zebra! Z-E-B-R-A.
Here is a macaw! M-A... wait a minute? Macaw? What the hell is a macaw? Okay Michael, if you ever see an animal with bright feathers and a beak, you call it a parrot. PARROT. P-A-R-R-O-T.
Let's see what's next. Chimp! Okay, see there again, this is pretty much just a monkey. M-O-N-K-E-Y.
I see a bright future in zoology ahead, don't you?"
Seriously, if I wasn't straight and she wasn't straight and obviously very happily married, I would TOTALLY be in love with her.
Now go, but remember: if she becomes gay and I become gay, I get dibs on her first.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Got pole?
Alternate title: Grab life by the pole
I'm going to start doing in-home pole dancing parties.
Now, as Dave pointed out, this will be made significantly more difficult by the fact that I, myself, don't technically know HOW to pole dance. Plus, I don't have a pole.
But I will soon (on both points).
It all started last week when I saw a news broadcast about in-home "sex industry" parties. One of my fellow Pure Romance sisters was featured and the link was posted on our message boards. The other girl featured in the story was with a company called Pole Lot of Fun and--you guessed it--she did in-home pole dancing parties. She brings the pole, the music, the feather boas, everything.
I, of course, thought the idea was FANTASTIC so I immediately sent a request to the company asking for a local instructor to contact me. I received an email back saying that unfortunately, they had NO ONE in this part of the state and in fact, they only had one in the entire state of Florida. "However," the woman continued, "this could be an AMAZING business opporunity for you, if you're interested."
Hmm. Teach women to pole dance? "Yeah, um, I've never pole danced," I logically wrote back. "Plus I could stand to lose 10 pounds. AND, I'm a TEACHER," I also threw in for good measure. Teachers don't pole dance, for Pete's sake!
Well, they do now. That email kicked off a flurry of emails. After talking to her extensively and doing a lot of research (about the company, how it works, etc), I started to realize that this could potentially become HUGE. An informal "market survey" sent out to the 300+ Myspace ladies linked to my Pure Romance page confirmed it--the demand for this is off the charts. Seriously. I couldn't BELIEVE how many women were interested in this--and the fact that I COULD stand to lose 10 lbs, am a teacher and have never pole danced made me all that more appealing to them. "We'd much rather learn from you," wrote one woman, "than take lessons from some young, hot, incredibly fit chick."
Um....thanks?
But she's right. Seeing an "average" woman up there will show the other ladies that, yes, EVERYONE really can do this. After all, would you rather open a fashion magazine and see all these super-thin waifs or see a "real woman" (with actual curves and everything?). It's that same principle.
So I started to seriously figure out how I could make this work. The company has an instructional DVD that teaches the various moves (or, as we in the biz say, "tricks" and "poses") to the would-be instructors. The woman I've been dealing with--a mid-30s stay-at-home mom, FYI), swears UP AND DOWN that the DVD is easy to follow, the moves are pretty easy to master and that yes, it IS possible to learn to pole dance from a DVD.
(Yeah, okay.)
Then, I go out and the women at my parties those same moves. At the end of the night, for the grand finale, each woman puts on her own show.
As far as in-home parties go, this one is even BETTER than, say, Pure Romance. You get paid based on how many people are THERE, not how many decide to buy something. There are two ways to charge: you can either charge per party (usually $200-400 , depending on market demand and saturation), and then girls divide that out among themselves for a per-person rate--or you can just charge per participant ($25-45--again, depending on the market).
I already have 4 parties scheduled for my coming-out month of September. I offered a discounted rate for my first 3 parties--$25 per person with the hostess being free. (I figured they should get a discount for being my "test parties," allowing me to work out the kinks, smooth out my presentation, etc.). Normally, I'm going to charge $35 a person (unless I decide to go with the per-party rate; I haven't decided yet). I figured I can get away with $35 because the demand IS so high and I'm the only person in the area, but maybe I'll go down a bit. But I'm going to run an incentive stating that if the hostess has at least 10 girls there (not counting herself) I'll drop it to $30 per person and she can dance for free--that way I'm guaranteed at least $300 per party and she'll work that much harder to get people there.
This is even better money than with Pure Romance--plus, there's no orders to fill, stock to carry around, etc.
So...I did a LOT of research on poles (if you want advice, let me know--I'm quite knowledgable now); I found a great one on eBay for a decent rate (they're expensive but I enrolled in this program that will allow me to make payments--although I can make back the money for the pole in the first party), I ordered the DVD and I figure I'll begin "training" here in the next 7-10 days. That gives me a month to get pole-ready by my first party scheduled for Sept 7.
Lord help us all, LOL.
http://www.myspace.com/polepartiesbyjen ---> check it out!
Alternate title: Grab life by the pole
I'm going to start doing in-home pole dancing parties.
Now, as Dave pointed out, this will be made significantly more difficult by the fact that I, myself, don't technically know HOW to pole dance. Plus, I don't have a pole.
But I will soon (on both points).
It all started last week when I saw a news broadcast about in-home "sex industry" parties. One of my fellow Pure Romance sisters was featured and the link was posted on our message boards. The other girl featured in the story was with a company called Pole Lot of Fun and--you guessed it--she did in-home pole dancing parties. She brings the pole, the music, the feather boas, everything.
I, of course, thought the idea was FANTASTIC so I immediately sent a request to the company asking for a local instructor to contact me. I received an email back saying that unfortunately, they had NO ONE in this part of the state and in fact, they only had one in the entire state of Florida. "However," the woman continued, "this could be an AMAZING business opporunity for you, if you're interested."
Hmm. Teach women to pole dance? "Yeah, um, I've never pole danced," I logically wrote back. "Plus I could stand to lose 10 pounds. AND, I'm a TEACHER," I also threw in for good measure. Teachers don't pole dance, for Pete's sake!
Well, they do now. That email kicked off a flurry of emails. After talking to her extensively and doing a lot of research (about the company, how it works, etc), I started to realize that this could potentially become HUGE. An informal "market survey" sent out to the 300+ Myspace ladies linked to my Pure Romance page confirmed it--the demand for this is off the charts. Seriously. I couldn't BELIEVE how many women were interested in this--and the fact that I COULD stand to lose 10 lbs, am a teacher and have never pole danced made me all that more appealing to them. "We'd much rather learn from you," wrote one woman, "than take lessons from some young, hot, incredibly fit chick."
Um....thanks?
But she's right. Seeing an "average" woman up there will show the other ladies that, yes, EVERYONE really can do this. After all, would you rather open a fashion magazine and see all these super-thin waifs or see a "real woman" (with actual curves and everything?). It's that same principle.
So I started to seriously figure out how I could make this work. The company has an instructional DVD that teaches the various moves (or, as we in the biz say, "tricks" and "poses") to the would-be instructors. The woman I've been dealing with--a mid-30s stay-at-home mom, FYI), swears UP AND DOWN that the DVD is easy to follow, the moves are pretty easy to master and that yes, it IS possible to learn to pole dance from a DVD.
(Yeah, okay.)
Then, I go out and the women at my parties those same moves. At the end of the night, for the grand finale, each woman puts on her own show.
As far as in-home parties go, this one is even BETTER than, say, Pure Romance. You get paid based on how many people are THERE, not how many decide to buy something. There are two ways to charge: you can either charge per party (usually $200-400 , depending on market demand and saturation), and then girls divide that out among themselves for a per-person rate--or you can just charge per participant ($25-45--again, depending on the market).
I already have 4 parties scheduled for my coming-out month of September. I offered a discounted rate for my first 3 parties--$25 per person with the hostess being free. (I figured they should get a discount for being my "test parties," allowing me to work out the kinks, smooth out my presentation, etc.). Normally, I'm going to charge $35 a person (unless I decide to go with the per-party rate; I haven't decided yet). I figured I can get away with $35 because the demand IS so high and I'm the only person in the area, but maybe I'll go down a bit. But I'm going to run an incentive stating that if the hostess has at least 10 girls there (not counting herself) I'll drop it to $30 per person and she can dance for free--that way I'm guaranteed at least $300 per party and she'll work that much harder to get people there.
This is even better money than with Pure Romance--plus, there's no orders to fill, stock to carry around, etc.
So...I did a LOT of research on poles (if you want advice, let me know--I'm quite knowledgable now); I found a great one on eBay for a decent rate (they're expensive but I enrolled in this program that will allow me to make payments--although I can make back the money for the pole in the first party), I ordered the DVD and I figure I'll begin "training" here in the next 7-10 days. That gives me a month to get pole-ready by my first party scheduled for Sept 7.
Lord help us all, LOL.
http://www.myspace.com/polepartiesbyjen ---> check it out!
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
All jacked up
I have another injury story for y'all.
On Saturday, Dave and I went to his friends' bi-monthly poker party (the guys get together roughly once a month, but every other month or so, when it's at Jay's house, girlfriends and wives also go and, well, everyone gets pretty damn drunk and jumps in the pool). I, of course, felt it would be rude NOT to partake in the social activities of the day and, being a good guest, politely took every Jello shot the hostess offered me.
Yes, my mama raised me right, she sho' did.
Anyway, the drinking started at 11 am (don't worry, Mom, no one was driving anywhere any time soon). By, oh, noon, I was feeling pretty damn good. By 2 pm, I was attempting to change into some bathing suit bottoms. (Not mine, even. The hostess, Mel's, who is quite tiny and fit. Luckily, I am also quite little on the bottom, so I could fit into them. However, Mel is much smaller on the top, in every possible way, so I was keeping my tshirt on.)
Well, I'm not the most graceful of individuals in the BEST of circumstances, let alone when I have many hours of drinking under my belt. So, somewhere along the line, as I was changing into these bikini bottoms, my feet got all tangled up and I fell on my ass.
And I'm talking cartoon-style, like I had slipped on a banana peel or something. My feet shot straight out from under me, I was airborne for a while and I came straight down on my tailbone.
"That's sure gonna hurt," one of the girls in the bedroom with me said matter-of-factly, "once you're not drunk and stuff."
And hurt it did, starting on Sunday morning. And it STILL hurts now, on Wednesday night. It hurts to walk. To sit down. To stand up. I've been hobbling around like a little old lady. It hurts even MORE, four days later, than it did when it first happened (mostly because I'm not, you know, "drunk and stuff").
Seriously, I do believe I broke my ass.
Ow.
I have another injury story for y'all.
On Saturday, Dave and I went to his friends' bi-monthly poker party (the guys get together roughly once a month, but every other month or so, when it's at Jay's house, girlfriends and wives also go and, well, everyone gets pretty damn drunk and jumps in the pool). I, of course, felt it would be rude NOT to partake in the social activities of the day and, being a good guest, politely took every Jello shot the hostess offered me.
Yes, my mama raised me right, she sho' did.
Anyway, the drinking started at 11 am (don't worry, Mom, no one was driving anywhere any time soon). By, oh, noon, I was feeling pretty damn good. By 2 pm, I was attempting to change into some bathing suit bottoms. (Not mine, even. The hostess, Mel's, who is quite tiny and fit. Luckily, I am also quite little on the bottom, so I could fit into them. However, Mel is much smaller on the top, in every possible way, so I was keeping my tshirt on.)
Well, I'm not the most graceful of individuals in the BEST of circumstances, let alone when I have many hours of drinking under my belt. So, somewhere along the line, as I was changing into these bikini bottoms, my feet got all tangled up and I fell on my ass.
And I'm talking cartoon-style, like I had slipped on a banana peel or something. My feet shot straight out from under me, I was airborne for a while and I came straight down on my tailbone.
"That's sure gonna hurt," one of the girls in the bedroom with me said matter-of-factly, "once you're not drunk and stuff."
And hurt it did, starting on Sunday morning. And it STILL hurts now, on Wednesday night. It hurts to walk. To sit down. To stand up. I've been hobbling around like a little old lady. It hurts even MORE, four days later, than it did when it first happened (mostly because I'm not, you know, "drunk and stuff").
Seriously, I do believe I broke my ass.
Ow.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Is anyone REALLY surprised?
A few months ago, Dave bought me a wine foil-cutter after I sliced my finger opening a bottle of wine. Tonight, I finally remembered I had it and used it for the first time. And it worked! This time, I did NOT cut my finger on the foil on the wine bottle.
I sliced my finger on the blade of the foil cutter instead.
A few months ago, Dave bought me a wine foil-cutter after I sliced my finger opening a bottle of wine. Tonight, I finally remembered I had it and used it for the first time. And it worked! This time, I did NOT cut my finger on the foil on the wine bottle.
I sliced my finger on the blade of the foil cutter instead.
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