Gina Blogs All About It

Stage Direction: More Shirtlessness

2012-01-23T18:19:00.002-05:00

I saw Ides of March, the political thriller where George Clooney and Ryan Gosling attempt to out-hott one another, sometimes in Cincinnati.

It's a pretty good movie, but it could have been spectacular. My thoughts to Clooney, who wrote, directed and starred:

• Ryan Gosling did not have one shirtless scene. Not even during the love scene. Seriously? Bullshit, Clooney. You did that so he wouldn't out-shine you.

• You also didn't have a shirtless scene. Clooney! What the hell is your problem?! This could have easily been added in. Picture it: Gov Mike Morris (that'd be you, George) as presidential hopeful relieves stress by running through Sawyer Park, shirtless. See, easy.

• Cincinnati looked great on the big screen, but I'd have preferred more. "The Oakley Women's Center" got the most play, and that's probably not even a real place. I don't know what I was doing exactly when you were filming, but my guess is that I was in my very cool Cincinnati apartment and was totally available for b-roll. Just sayin'.

I also saw Crazy, Stupid, Love recently, which is a funny and entertaining movie about the messiness of love, marriage, infidelity and new romance, also staring Ryan Gosling. But guess what, Goz gets shirtless in this one.

BOOM.

Rounding out my Clooney/Gosling movie watching season was The Descendents, starring George Clooney once again.

Damn this is a good movie. So nuanced, bittersweet and heartfelt that I didn't even need a gratuitous shirtless scene. I enjoyed all of the surreal, comic-tragic but ordinary moments in this movie. And there are a lot of them.

And Shailene Woodley, the girl who plays Clooney's foul-mouth, rebellious teen daughter, is phenomenal.

Bigger, Deffer... Badder

2012-01-13T15:43:00.003-05:00

Four years ago when the Patriots played the Giants in Super Bowl XLII, my dad traded-up my parents' 40 inch picture tube TV (I think it even had a dial on it) to 52 inches of pure flatscreen high-defness.

When Brady crushed the Giants, my dad was going to see every pass in all it's plasma glory.

But somehow, Eli Manning handed suave boy Brady his ass. No one could believe it, least of all my dad.

"I got a big screen TV to better see my team get whooped," my dad said.

He told me the next season that whenever he watched the Patriots play on his new big screen, they'd lose. But whenever he'd watch them on the small, crappy TV in the den, they'd win.

"It's my TV's fault whenever they lose," he said. "It's jinxed. It's not doing right by Brady."

The jinx was forcing him to choose between comfort and his team winning.

(This could also be why the Bengals, my dad's number one favorite team, lost the playoff game recently. He always watches them on the big screen.)

But last weekend my dad decided the tide has turned since that crushing Super Bowl defeat of 2008. The curse, he says, has lifted, thanks to Tim Tebow.

Sunday after the Steelers/Broncos game I called him to see if he watched that 80-yard OT touchdown run. We were both disgusted.

"I've heard all I care to hear about of ol' Tim Tebone," my dad said. "It's gonna be Tebone time on Saturday I'll tell ya, Brady's gonna show that boy how to play some ball, now. He's gonna look up and SNAP, touchdown!"

We continued to find new ways to massacre Tebow's name.

"I'm sick ol' Tim Teboner myself," I said. "It makes me want him to lose. Badly."

And no win would be sweeter, especially for my dad, than to watch Brady take the wind of out everyone's annoying Tebow sails.

But given the flatscreen's curse on Brady, I asked my dad where he will watch the game.

We have to provide the best outcome for our national nightmare of Tebow Mania to be over, I reminded him.

"On the big TV. Brady wouldn't let me down two times in a row like that," he said.

Hmmm... I'll be out ~~Tebowing~~ making snow angels just in case.

Tell Me It's Real

2012-01-10T18:35:00.001-05:00

Last night I forced Ray to listen to New Edition songs until he agreed to take me to the New Edition Valentine's Day show at US Bank (with K-Ci & JoJo and El DeBarge, BOOM.)

I sang 'If Isn't Love' like I was Ralph Tresvant (even though my voice is lower than his.) I was four seconds away from breaking it down in the kitchen when he relented.

Starry eyed, I recounted how I listened to my 45 of Mr. Telephone Man over and over when I was in the fourth grade. I would play it upstairs, so I could crank it and dance around without my uncool parents hassling me about it.

They don't GET me. I wanted to be alone with Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky and Mike.

"I was a sophomore in high school when that came out," Ray said. "I was listening to Van Halen and Ratt… and Black Flag."

But what I heard was, "I loved them just as much as you, Gina, even if I was too old to be into boy bands."

I won't go into the finer points of why Can You Stand the Rain is the best slow jam ever and how many backward slow skates at the Idyl Wyld Roller Palace I lapped to this treasure, but just know if they bust it out Valentine's Day, Ray is getting mashed on.

I might even cry and pretend to pass out and stuff.

34 days.

(Btw, have you ever heard Auto-Tune sound so smoooooooth. Hell no, you haven't.)

And Just Like That, It's A New Year!

2012-01-05T18:31:00.001-05:00

You know who had the best New Year's Eve kiss ever?

Ray, me and this guy's head.

We spent NYE recounting 2011 over hearty plates of pasta and red wine at the bar at Via Vite, a score by yours truly.

By the time I remembered to call and get reservations everything was booked. The hostesses basically laughed and hung up on me.

No matter. Necessity is the mother of invention, right?

Ray's suggestion when he saw the packed bar was, 'Let's just go to Scary Arby's.' My invention was to scowl at people until they left. Thanks to my keen eye and hovering skills we not only scored two chairs but also - drum roll! - free olives.

We are not afraid to eat olives left by previous diners. (Ok, Ray's not afraid anyway.)

Maybe I'm a jerk for saying this, but I was stunned by how many people were at Fountain Square for New Year's Eve, drinking and toasting and eating cotton candy and popcorn. It was shoulder to shoulder, our own little version of Times Square, but with a Chocolate Lady Statue instead of a ball dropping.

I tried to get crowd shots but instead the first 10 seconds of my video is of the folks warm and cozy staring out of their rooms at the Westin, watching the rest of us shiver. Twenty seconds after the stroke of 2012 you can hear Ray say, 'Come on, kiss me.' We forgot to kiss because I was filming the ~~fireworks~~ Westin. Oops.

Which brings me back to the best New Year's Eve kiss ever... It looks like I'm trying to get away from Ray but actually I was saving our lives. The guy in front of me was practically on top of me. I was afraid we'd all topple over like dominoes. The whole sea of people at Fountain Square, on their asses because I tipped over.

But I stayed steady, my friends. If that doesn't say 2012 is going to be a great year then I don't know what does.

A Very Caliente Christmas

2011-12-22T14:08:00.005-05:00

Tonight Ray and I are going to Nada to celebrate ~~a few days off~~ the Christmas spirit, because nothing says Merry Christmas like salsa and chips.

Feliz Navidad!

We also plan to look wintry but cozy, bundled up in colorful scarves and holiday sweaters while we stroll hand-in-hand and watch ice skaters and stare wishfully at the sparkling lights on the giant Macy's Christmas tree. I plan to live-tweet our adorableness.

Just kidding. I rarely tweet.

Then it's time to pounce into all that papery goodness. I'm excited to go out and buy myself whatever I didn't get, like this gorgeous necklace.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Sugar Plums, It's Almost Christmas!

2011-12-19T19:09:00.000-05:00

It's almost Christmas, you guys, which means something very exciting is coming up - an end to xmas music on the radio. Hooray! Merry Christmas, y'all!

Forced happiness. Unholy music. Inflatable lawn ornaments.* High calorie, low taste snacks. What's not to love?!

In spite of all that is reasonable and holy and sane, I am looking forward to the festivities this year. Ok, mostly I'm looking forward to the sides - stuffing, noodles, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, sugar plums, wine.

Plus, I've been really good this year, so I'm sure that Santa's plan is to bury me in awesome gifts and holiday cheer.

Six days, people!

* I DO love inflatable lawn penguins. And this snowman. Is there an app that will map all of these things or something?

Party Like A Rock Star

2011-12-12T19:09:00.000-05:00

The squared bottom red cups I brought to the lab holiday party today were a HUGE success. Everyone drank from them.

Initially I signed up to bring water from the bathroom to go along with all the snacks and treats other people were bringing, but these cups were pure holiday joy.

If you're having a party - holiday, dinner, birthday, what have you - consider inviting me. I bring my a-game.

Jack, Call Me

2011-12-08T18:16:00.000-05:00

I can't get this song out of my head. So now you all have to deal with it. And by deal with it I mean scoop up the goo of your melted off face cause it's so awesome.

I could have also posted Iesha. (On the MONKEYBAAARS!) So, yeah.

Hell Yes, Taste of Belgium

2011-11-30T18:37:00.001-05:00

Now that I've been to Brussels and am an expert on Belgian food, it's only right that I should review the new Taste of Belgium bistro in OTR.

My review: It's terrific. Go there immediately. (12th and Vine.)

The space is airy and lively, it has a bar/counter (I will eat anywhere that has a counter), as well as a bonus counter where you can watch them make pastries.

The service is great and the food is delicious. (This photo doesn't do it justice - it was busy both times we were there.)

I had the vegetarian crepe (spinach, red peppers, goat cheese, balsamic) and added some turkey for protein. Ray had The 'Nati, which was goetta and some other stuff, I can't remember exactly, but who cares because mine was better, so get what I got.

And the crepes are made with buckwheat, bonus.

But the real highlight was the frites. (I can say frites now that I'm practically Belgian.)

Yes, I ordered fries for brunch, with a crepe. Don't judge.

You can't go to a Belgian place without getting frites and since I ate my way through a cone of these babies one night after a full dinner in Brussels, I had to try the local version.

Taste of Belgium uses chipotle mayo for theirs, and to that I say, Hell yes, Taste of Belgium. *applause

But I will tell you this. Ray is a greedy mofo when it comes to the chipotle mayo. You get one container with your frites, and sure, they'd have given us another one, but that's not the point. The point is that we shouldn't eat two containers of chipotle mayo, so I was all, "Ray, easy on the mayo, we gotta make it last through this whole cone of fries."

And Ray was all, "LAY OFF ME AND THE MAYO!"

Geezus.

That's why he's smiling in this photo. Because he got the better of the chipotle mayo.

We love it so much we went back the next weekend (and because it's practically in Ray's backyard) and this time we both had the turkey and cranberry waffle sandwich, which was the weekend special. I was cagey at first about a waffle sandwich. I was wrong to be cagey. Fear not, my friends. You'll dig it.

On your way out, or if you're just dropping in for coffee (from Coffee Emporium), there is a case of pastries, cookies and waffles at the front you will absolutely swoon over.

The place is just about perfect.

I saw Wine Me, Dine Me there snapping photos, so look for her review if you actually want to read an articulate review by someone who knows about food.

Or you can just trust me, being that I'm an expert in Belgian food and beer because I ate and drank there. (Totally qualified.)

Santa Prep

2011-11-27T21:05:00.002-05:00

Ray and I got the apartment ready for Santa's arrival, where he is certain to bring us everything on our list:

• Pretzel M&Ms
• Snow on Christmas Day
• (new) Used records

Tall orders, we know, but we made this video for him... and Ray does the robot!

We're gonna be buried in M&Ms and snow. *yes!

xxox
Gina and Ray

Gobble, Gobble

2011-11-23T16:29:00.001-05:00

I hardly slept a wink last night.

My mom kept me up late watching the finalé of Dancing With The Stars.

Except she calls it, 'Dances With Stars.' Kind of like, 'Dances With Wolves.' It's a Native American dancing show now.

Ray and Susie were on their way to Natural Bridge for Thanksgiving and stayed over last night. Which meant yours truly got to slept on the couch after 'Dances With Stars' was over.

My mom was torn between JR and Rob winning.

'Rob is so sweet... even if he does have a big butt,' she said. 'But JR is really good. He's a natural. Rob had to improve a lot... because he kept sticking his big butt out.'

I'll not spoil the ending for anyone.

It was good to have them 'home,' even if they did insult my tv - 'It's so tiny! Does that thing have a tube in it?!'

Tomorrow Ray (my boyfriend, not my dad) and I will be heading to Kentucky to join them for turkey and stuffing. *and visions of pumpkin pie danced in my head

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Imma Be A Reverend!

2011-11-15T17:01:00.002-05:00

From Halloween, 2008. This was a really, really good look for us. She should wear my 'wedding dress.'

No one sane lets me do anything at their wedding but eat, drink and sometimes break it down to Rob Bass' It Takes Two.

So a few weeks ago when my best pal Missy asked me to officiate her wedding, well… I just stared at her.

I was waiting for her say, "Just kidding! Hahaha! I'm having someone uncrazy do it! Woo - you should have seen the look on your face!"

But she didn't say that. So finally I said, "Really?" very hopefully, like, 'Really? Truly? Me?! YES!"

And then immediately the Princess Bride wedding scene entered my head - MAHWIDGE. Mahwidge is what bwings us, togever, tooday. And I envisioned cracking up everyone with my super spot-on impression.

This is why people don't ask me to do things at their weddings.

But instead the themes I'm going for in my first role as officiant are: Sweet, fun, romantic and light-hearted.

Tan, gleaming blonde hair and kick-ass dress will just be unexpected freebies for the guests.

I feel like I also need to be in shape, have super white teeth and basically just allow my inner glow to radiate.

Wait, who's wedding is this? I'm Reverend-Zilla.

Jk.

I've already started outlining what I will say, how I will welcome the guests, how I will introduce Missy and Josh, and what best captures the love and romance and hope that weddings are all about.

Geezus, I hope I don't cry.

Missy will most certainly slap me if I do, which could mess up her hair, and I don't want to get slapped again just because she didn't use enough spray.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I have only 10 months to plan for this and already I am panicking. For the love God send me your ideas a-sap! And make it funny and sweet and lovely and light-hearted and romantic, will ya.

Thanks!

Score One For The Minions

2011-11-09T19:17:00.001-05:00

Oh, this smug look?

Because it was pouring down rain when my package arrived at another building. But you know who was in that other building for a meeting? The Boss Man. So rather than walk outside to get it, I enlisted the help of an admin.

"Can you have Dr. Boss Man bring my Amazon package over when he leaves. It's very important."

"Hahahaha! Ummm... Ok, I'll tell him!"

The package contained my new origami iPad case and two instructional ballet DVDs.

He came back wet and kinda pissed.

Totally worth it.

How To Occupy Those Cold Winter Months (Mostly)

2011-11-07T18:11:00.006-05:00

"In my early twenties, that’s when I really began to write. Before that, I was too busy working, keeping myself going. I often thought of killing myself but then I wanted lunch. So I had to make a buck. And all my stories were rejected. I sent them out to various editors and they returned them. In fact, I had to wait until I was in my late twenties before I sold a couple of stories to what was then called the Negro Digest. I still have them."

From the Paris Review's Q&A with author Paula Fox, who I had never heard of until I read this interview. Great stuff.

And I hope you're not busy for like, the next three months because look - The Paris Review's legendary series Writer's At Work, where authors discuss their lives and craft, are right here.

Each decade's greats - Hemingway, Capote, Ellison, Didion, Faulkner, Nabokov. A staggering list.

According to Wikipedia Nabokov's interview was cut short when Jeopardy came on. I don't know if this is true, but God I hope it is. I totally get it, Nab. Jeopardy is awesome.

I'll be busy the entire winter reading all of these. Thank God for the iPad, and I never thought I'd say this, but for cold weather.

A Science-y Post For My Third Favorite Scientist

2011-10-30T18:12:00.000-04:00

Look everyone, I'm a scientist. Conducting research.

Aren't I a natural, leaning into the microscope so quizically. Hmm, interesting. Interesting indeed... I shall write this into my lab notebook.

Thanks to my scientist colleague Patrick, I am looking at HeLa cells, the most famous cells ever.

Patrick knew I was on a mission to see these little babies in person after The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks came out, so he was all, "Hey babe, I got those cells you wanted to see." And I was all, "Meet you in the lab, babe."

(Because Patrick and I are friends in a sweetly condescending way.)

Then he told me why he needed the HeLa cells:

"We're looking for mutant protein something-something, so we can transfect the cells to see something-something; and then if we can get the aggregate to something-something, then we'll understand how it impacts the genome, gene by gene, something-something."

Which sounded very interesting but mostly what I heard was "blah-blah-blah" because, "Ooh, neato! Cells! And they move if you stare at them long enough!"

Then I think Patrick mentioned replacing the cell's catalytic converter and fixing the Johnson rod, but who knows... I was busy considering the medical impact of these microscopic blobs, which have provided the building blocks for countless breakthroughs, including the cure for polio, AIDS treatments, gene mapping, fertility and our understanding of viruses.

My desk is only about 20 feet away from this spot, so basically if Patrick discovers any breakthroughs, I will be right there.

God I love science.

This is Patrick looking at the same cells. He doesn't look nearly as science-y as I do.

Home Again, Home Again

2011-10-29T16:22:00.003-04:00

A month ago I was traipsing around Europe all wide-eyed and impressed by every single little thing in life - Look, Euro girls where panty hose under their shorts!; Parisians sit on the Seine River bank and get crunk!; the fries in Brussels are slathered in mayo, amazing!

And a week ago I was in Boston sipping salted caramel mochas, eating Italian food, dancing in bars and watching strapping, sporty hotties oar down the Charles River with my besties.

And what am I doing this weekend? Well, look out for this crazy train, y'all. I caught a cold on the plane (aka, those petri dishes of infection known as the contagious skies) so my weekend will involve soup, reading and having way less fun.

Talk about your all time slaps in the face.

Traveling, good food, new cities, exploring, great friends. It's all over too soon. The world opens, then it closes again.

Being home is great because you can get all the gas-free tap water you want, but everything else is... grim.

The only thing traveling does is make me realize all the amazing things I am missing elsewhere, like Brits with good teeth and the mushroom ravioli at Trattoria di Monica.

I can't even bear to set out my souvenir coasters of the Eiffel Tower because I'm so damn sad I'm not in Paris anymore. (But I know what you're thinking, 'Damn girl, those coasters are terrific. I can't wait to sit a glass of iced-tea on one.')

And I've already wore the new boots I bought in Boston, twice. (Sadly, clicking the heels of them didn't transport me back to boot shopping on Newberry Street with Julie and Kari.)

Maybe this cold is a good thing. Force myself to finally, officially unpack my suitcases, unwrap my souvenirs, do some laundry.

Just kidding. All that sounds horrible. Denial ain't so bad. At least it comes with all the tap water I can drink.

Cassady Wants His Latte Like, Now

2011-10-25T18:46:00.003-04:00

Ray. Ray! Are you awake?

Hand me my pumpkin spiced latte, will ya? I'm so exhausted from trekking around Ikea and DSW I literally cannot take another step. Haha, don't you hate it when people say 'literally.' But seriously, I literally cannot take another step.

Ray? RAY?

Ok well, I asked you nicely. It's your funeral now, mister.

I ♥ Boston

2011-10-24T18:03:00.000-04:00

And these lovely ladies.

Happy Birthday To Me

2011-10-17T18:26:00.004-04:00

Ray (inspecting my head, eyes widening): Wow.

Me: What?! It's lice, isn't it. I knew I had lice!

Ray: What? No, you don't have lice. (pause) It's worse. You have tons of gray hair.

Me: Oh. You think that's bad, look at this. *points to gray streak in the front, like that chick from What Not to Wear

Ray (*eyes bigger): WHOA.

Me: It's not me, it's my genetics.

Ray: Your genetics says you're old, and you need a dye job.

Me: Pshht. And a new boyfriend.

But I forgave him. What Ray misses in tact he makes up for in little blue boxes and fancy birthday dinners. With ~~age~~ red wine comes ~~indifference~~ wisdom.

Besides, what I lack in hair pigment I make up for in high heels, boxed brownies and laughing until I cry. Plus, I almost never turn my laundry pink anymore.

Youngins', you can't hold a candle to that.

Doing It For My Country

2011-10-14T17:29:00.000-04:00

Everybody, quick! Get out your credit cards - let's share a cold one with Uncle Joe.

USA! USA!

Vigorous Biking Ahead

2011-10-11T19:03:00.002-04:00

About 100 million years ago I got this bike rack at Meijer for $40. Because when it comes to securing a bike (or two) on the back of my car, I want quality.

In spite of my fears, not once has a bike bounced off into the street and caused a horrific accident. Until then, we roll.

This weekend we rolled around Lunken. Twice. We had to eat bananas and protein bars in between loops.

Just a couple of athletes doing the athletic thing, you know.

Afterwards we ate Graeter's in the park because we were still feeling 'outdoorsy.'

Cause Baby It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

2011-10-10T19:41:00.003-04:00

Tomatoes are still ripening on the vine.

Saturday we rode bikes.

Sunday I scootered.

And I'm sitting on the balcony in shorts and t-shirt.

Suck it, fall.

'Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish'

2011-10-05T20:33:00.003-04:00

It's impossible to state the impact Steve Jobs has had on my life.

I've been using Apple computers almost exclusively since middle school. I learned to type, design newspaper pages, edit photos, appreciate typography, create movies and blog all on Apples.

My first byline was written on an Apple computer in 1991.

Tonight I learned via a text message on my iPhone that Steve Jobs died.

He is the only CEO I can imagine shedding a tear for, and I feel sorry that we've lost a true innovator.

*hat tip

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Steve Jobs, 2005

Do yourself a favor and watch this video, or read the transcript.

C'est Magnifique

2011-10-04T22:05:00.003-04:00

Or I should say, it was magnificent. I am home now and NOT happy about it.

The trip was absolutely magical and I enjoyed every single moment of sightseeing, wine, cheese, chocolate, beer and complete exhaustion.

Another blister from walking all over Europe, well then, YES please!

The Paris subway door nearly ripped off my arm, oh, that's ok!

I'm an idiot American who speaks only one language while everyone else speaks at least three, insult me, I deserve it!

Since I landed in the good ol' US-of-A I have done nothing but plot my return, mostly to Paris. London and Brussels were wonderful stops, but it was Paris that stole my heart.

It's impossible to not gush whenever I tell anyone about the trip, but especially Paris. The narrow cobblestone roads, the Parisian booksellers lining the streets of the Latin Quarter, the sun shining on the French architecture and the gorgeous bridges spanning the Seine.

Paris feels magical because it looks magical.

It seems impossible to miss a place where you spent only three days, but already I feel nostalgic. I was explaining to my mom why I loved Paris so much and I felt almost melancholy thinking how beautiful it all was and how I might not ever see those things again.

I want more blisters! I want another bruise from the subway! I want more crappy French service! (Though to be honest, the service wasn't bad at all and no one insulted me not even once. Disappointing.)

I took 540 photos of the trip, 354 of them of Paris, many of them idle street and café shots in the hopes of burning them into my memory.

Isn't it gorgeous?

The last few days I've started and stopped a dozen blog posts about the trip - the majesty of the Arc de Triomphe and the kinda awful but mostly hilarious story of me peeing my pants there (oh yes, it's true); how being in London was like one big BBC comedy to me; my new friend Nibila who graciously showed me all around Brussels on her day off. So much to remember.

There are so many stories that my mind hasn't filtered through them all yet. So look forward to European travelogues for the next year or so. Hooray! (Drinking French wine, Belgian beer and eating chips is strongly encouraged during such travel reading. It's only fitting and totally not your fault if you get hammered.)

What's Up, Ding Dongs

2011-09-20T20:39:00.003-04:00

Hey ummm, does anybody know where I can get a snack-cake?

Oh wait, what's this here, at my desk?!

How about 168 Ding Dongs covering my cubicle, phone and computer?! How about 30,240 calories worth of Ding Dongs?! How about 1,512 grams of Ding Dong fat, hmm?!

Wow, but you know what would make this better? If they all had some kind of message on them, like, I dunno... a greeting or an action verb of some type.

My God! By all the twinkling stars of bountiful heaven, look! They all say, "Eat Me!" on them. They're commanding me to love them even more!

I am beside myself in cream filling over this. This is revenge, people. Sweet, sweet revenge.

See, a few weeks ago I accused the Boss Man of throwing a Ding Dong at me. At first I thought it was manna from Heaven because it came hurtling down at me from the floor above, and besides that, no one in their right mind would launch a perfectly good snack-cake at someone.

It had to be sorcery... The kind of sorcery the Boss Man practices, that is.

So I sent him an email that basically said, "I know you threw that Ding-Dong! Don't deny it because whoever threw it had a bad aim and I know your arm is all jacked up, in addition to being pale and hairless! Confess, cupcake abuser!"

Officemate Carolyn tried to intercede: "Boss Man prefers a marshmallow gun as his weapon of choice," she said, which was a really good point because it's totally true. "Unless he really did throw a snack cake, then that is indefensible and wrong." Also totally true.

The Boss Man responded hours later with something watery like, "How DARE you! You want Ding-Dongs?! I'll show you Ding-Dongs!!!"

That was three weeks ago.

Monday morning I saw my cube and at first I was like, "Ack! I've been Ding Dong'd!" But then quickly realized, "Awesome!"

If this is revenge then I am all for it, and so is Hostess. (But Little Debbie, oooh is she pissed.) Ha, jokes on him, I love Ding-Dongs. Everyone loves Ding Dongs.

Who's you're best friend now, hmm? It's me, isn't it?! ME!

Today I turned them into one of the wonders of the world, pyramids. Tomorrow I will try for Stonehenge.

Party in my cube, y'all!

Bombs Away

2011-09-18T22:08:00.009-04:00

You wouldn't know it from reading this blog but I have a stack of books on my nightstand that I swear I'm going to write reviews of one of these days.

I know you all are riveted.

My God, Gina, how DARE you make us wait for your opinion on Mishna Wolff's, 'I'm Down.'

(My opinion is it's funny and moving and wonderfully-written and basically I hated it because I didn't write it; but you should read it and we'll go out for drinks and chat about it because it's not often in book discussions you get talk about race relations and socioeconomic status as well as Kangols and Doug E. Fresh.)

But to hold you over, I stumbled upon this spectacular list of Author-on-Author insults at Flavorwire, including this Mark Twain take-down of Jane Austen (1898):

"I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice,' I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

I laughed out loud.

I've never read any Jane Austen, but I understand the sentiment. (I happen to feel the same way about Elizabeth Gilbert for Eat, Pray, Love, which should have been titled, Eat, Pray, Hit Elizabeth Gilbert With Her Own Shin-Bone.)

I'm just jealous no one paid me gobs of money to type a bunch of babbling crap and bind it.

The comments to the Author-on-Author insults are tremendous too. And while you're there, don't miss the Musician-on-Musician take-downs.

Expatriés, Paris

2011-09-10T18:41:00.005-04:00

"Please god, let me go to Paris someday and let me go to the wrong restaurant and let me be treated rudely by Parisians and let me wander randomly, not knowing where I am going, confused, and find myself in some less than wonderful café, eating less than the best food and having a glass of not particularly good red wine. What better thing could you hope for - my god, it's Paris!" - Anthony Bourdain, in this hilarious travel video

In 14 days I will be in Paris.

If it's sounds like I'm bragging, I am.

I've never even been to Canada ok, people. Don't take this away from me.

I've been practicing on my iPad how to have conversational French with crappy waiters, pouring over maps, breaking in shoes and already I've packed my bag, unpacked it and packed it again only with more protein bars and Pepto tablets.

Every since I read this staggering Jacques Prévert poem I've been dying to go. (A 43-word poem that captures better what a million words could never.) And now I am so excited I can't believe I ever thought of anything else.

The beauty of it is other than seeing Parc Montsouris (that's French, y'all) from the poem, I have no agenda per se, other than to walk around and see the city and the sights, eat bread, drink wine and sit in cafés. And I can't think of anything more delightful than getting lost in Paris, hopefully in the Latin Quarter where all the bookstores are.

Though truthfully, I probably won't get lost. Ray (my boyfriend not my dad) went last year (I'm basically his hayseed girlfriend) and we are traveling with two friends, one of whom speaks French and doesn't consider it a good year unless he's gone to Paris.

So basically my job is to sit back and be awed. That, I am good at.

My biggest concern is how I'm going to get Anna Karenina to Europe. Because why wouldn't I be reading a 950 page tome instead of a reasonably sized, easier to travel with book. Usually I don't even read books this long because it's not my fault the writer needed a better editor and I don't have that kinda time, but at 150 pages in, I gotta see how this unfolds.

Anna is heavy and bulky and I don't really want to carry a big book around, but I can't commit to reading on the iPad quite yet. It feels like... cheating. And is there a better time to read Tolstoy than being trapped with it on a plane for 16 hours round trip? Hell no.

So Anna is coming with me, I'm just undecided in what form.

Anyway, I should go... I'm heading to Target to buy one of those posters of the Eiffel Tower so I can hang it in my dining room so when people come over I can be all, "Oh, I've always loved Paris... and I totally got that at a street fair on the Champs-whatever-it's-called.'

Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Irene

2011-08-29T20:00:00.002-04:00

This is a crappy photo but you can feel Pat's rockin'ness if you look close enough.

My weekend was supposed to be wine and friend-filled in Boston. It was to be glorious.

Instead I was stuck in Cincinnati thanks to that bitch-troll Irene.

But when life gives you hurricanes, you just add rum, right? Or in this case, Pat Benatar!

I remembered at exactly 7:49 p.m. that one of my '80s idols was hitting the Taste of Blue Ash stage at 9 p.m., and I quickly texted everyone I know, "OMG Pat Benatar at Taste of Blue Ash, We Belong!"

I stared at my phone anticipating the vibrating explosion of excited texts from everyone canceling plans to roll with me and see this amazing female rocker.

Instead, crickets.

My friends are losers. (You all know who you are.)

So I went to see Pat, alone... because that's what Her Bad-Assery would have wanted.

I raced to Blue Ash praying, "Look, Jesus... please let Hurricane Irene skip the coasts, cause no deaths, inflict minimal property damage, and ummm, oh, by the way, for the love of God, don't let me miss a minute of Ms. Benatar!"

Ask and you shall receive, people.

All Fired Up was playing when I rolled in. Though not a mega-hit like her others, it's one of my personal favorites and if you don't have it on your iTunes then I feel sorry for you because it is a hard-rocking stadium smoker sang by one of rock's most iconic singers and it totally will rock your Arcade-Fire-listening ass off. (So here it is; right click and you too shall receive.)

I squeezed past the throngs of people who had been staking their claim for hours swilling Miller Lites, saw a narrow little opening atop a retaining wall and slid in with the help of some dude who helped pull me up the step.

And Pat. Well, damn. She lit-it-up.

Her voice, still fierce. Moves, she's got 'em. Her hits, she sang them all.

She was way bigger a force than Irene.

We will be invincible!

Sunday's Forecast: Sunny With Lots of Snark

2011-08-18T17:45:00.001-04:00

The Boss Man is having a pool party for the lab, and since I sit near the lab and sneak slices of their pizza before lab meeting, I was ~~reluctantly~~ enthusiastically invited. (Carolyn said she had to force the Boss Man's hand into typing my name on the invite, and he winced while doing so.)

I graciously accepted because I know it's not a pool party unless I'm there to retell my near-drowning story. (Get excited everyone!)

So, what is the protocol on wearing my barely-acceptable-as-dental-floss string bikini to this thing? (Ok, I don't really own a bikini like that.) I mean, I have huge assets I like to show off. You know what I'm sayin' - huge ASSeTs. (Actually, I'm built like a tween girl.) And I don't know if the people who sit near me are prepared to see me coming up outta the water all voluptuous and mermaid-y with water streaming down me. (I will look like a wet rat.) They're just gonna feel bad about their bodies after seeing how tan and fit I am. (I don't need the criticism of how pale and outta shape I look nearly naked.)

And wait 'til they see my swimming and cannonball prowess. (I'm only good at swimming underwater and in pools, clearly I'm no good in the ocean. Plus I'm afraid of smacking my legs, so I won't do cannonballs.) You should see the incredible splashes I can make! (Cause I'm actually kinda drowning... again.)

I'll probably hang out in the pool the entire time and teach other people's kids how to swim. (If I hang out in the pool very long I will certainly end up with a uti, which will force me to call in late the next day while I go pee in a cup at my doctor's office. What is the proper way to communicate to your Boss Man that his pool party gave you an infection and now it burns when you pee? Is "hoo-ha" an appropriate term you can use in this instance? That's scientific, right?)

Mna, I love swimming! (Which is to say, I like sitting by pools reading magazines.) So I am pretty excited about this par-tay! (I hope I don't fall down and break anything. But if I do, it won't be the Boss Man's record collection because I already swiped all the good vinyl from his house.)

And speaking of the Boss Man and my near drowning (hey, did you guys hear the story about how I nearly drowned in a ripcurrent?), the Boss Man was in China when it happened was only able to just this week insult me about it. Talk about waiting with bated breath!

It went down like this (and I'm not making up one single word of this, I swear to God he actually said this to me):

Boss Man: I would think someone like you, who's had true life changing experiences - death of a sibling, cancer - would be aware of their mortality, and not get into the ocean when the sign says DANGER Ripcurrents, No Swimming.

ME: The sign posted at the beach didn't say that. The sign at the beach basically said, 'Welcome to Rehoboth Beach, there might be ripcurrents.' The sign you saw me jokingly posed by was at the lifeguard house in case of severe danger; it was not posted that day at the beach. There were hundreds of people in the water. And I am fully aware of my mortality, thank you very much.

Boss Man: Oh, I thought the sign was posted right at the entrance, 'don't swim here,' and you just walked past and laughed and hopped in the ocean anyway.

ME: What kind of an idiot do you take me for? You think if it really said 'Don't Swim Here, Ripcurrents,' I'd have Baywatched my lily white ass out there anyway?

Boss Man: Actually, yes! I thought that's what you did!

ME: This conversation is over. *turns to walk away

Boss Man: Sit down right there, missy, this is your fault. Your writing lacks clarity. This is a learning experience for you, and I am your mentor. Let's talk about how we can make your writing more clear.

ME: I wish I had drowned, then I wouldn't have to have this conversation.

Boss Man: Well, I am really glad you didn't. Life would have been far less entertaining... and I wouldn't have anyone to steal lunch from.

Then he left me standing in the lab while he waltzed off to probably go steal half-eaten food from my trash can.

Thanks A Lot, Jerks

2011-08-14T21:36:00.005-04:00

Turns out, everyone has nearly drowned in a rip current.

Ok, not really. But I've heard several similar stories from friends and colleagues, but none them were saved by super buff lifeguards like I was. So theirs doesn't count.

As I was writing my mostly serious but sometimes joking blogpost about all this last week, Ray was writing a thank you email to the Rehoboth Beach Patrol.

Which is surprising really because all he talks about now is how much he hates lifeguards, and I'm like, 'But wait, they totally saved me, and you by extension since your ass was probably gonna drown too trying to pull me in.' And he's like, 'Yeah, but why did it have to be super-buff lifeguards who my girl wants mouth-to-mouth from, why did it have to be ol' buff blue eyes who came for you... Why not a lifeguard with a cleft lip, or one of those hot buff chick lifeguards?!'

Ray is really selfish.

Except he really isn't. He's been a firefighter/EMT for like, 20 years, so he takes rescuing people kinda seriously, and therefore, not surprisingly, he spent a good deal of time beating himself up for us needing a lifeguard.

And to that I was all, "Ray, you're a firefighter, not a flotation device. Had I been ON FIRE you'd have been really handy, but I wasn't. ...And you don't float well, by the way."

And speaking of helpful things to say, here are a few gems people have said to me when hearing about my adventures at sea.

• Those are rough waters there! Why can't you vacation at the Gulf?! Or the Caribbean where the water is smooth as glass, hmmm?!

• If you vomit up sea water I'm gonna freak out.

• Not sure whether you owe Ray for risking his life for you or if he owes you for the entertainment. Probably a push.

• Gina, were you drinking?
(the answer is no, not a drop.)

• Why would Ray feel responsible, it's not like he's a Navy Seal.

• Ooh, beach wedding! You can get married in the surf. But I'll stand on the shore and watch because I don't get in past my ankles. The ocean is scary; and I don't like strange things brushing up against my legs.

• Jared makes fun of me for not getting in the ocean past my waist. I'm gonna tell him to suck it, I have good reason for this now. Plus, I like to be able to see my lower half.

And the best quote of all - Why didn't she just swim parallel to the shore?

Thanks a lot, Poseidon.

The Midwestern Girl and The Sea

2011-08-10T21:23:00.002-04:00

This was supposed to be a post about blinding the beach-goers of Delaware with my lily white ass because the waves of the Atlantic pulled my bikini bottoms off a half dozen times.

But as we know, life changes quickly, and instead it's a post about how my lily white ass, and the rest of me, had to be dragged to shore by a lifeguard after I liked to drown this weekend.

My love of hyperbole is well documented. It was the best/craziest/weirdest thing that happened to me EVER, and I'll be talking about extra fruit at Yagoot. But believe me when I say this is one of the best/scariest stories ever, and I have a few.

Friday afternoon Ray and I were splashing around in the surf at Reboboth Beach. Everything seemed cool, but before I knew it I couldn't touch anymore. One minute I'm bobbing up and down, splashing in the waves, the next minute I can't touch and I'm treading water.

And treading, and treading, and treading... and starting to get tired.

I attempted to work my way back to the shore. Kick, kick, kick. Swim, swim, swim. Nothing. Push, push, push. Kick, kick, kick. Swim some more. Hmm...

I've been out much farther in the ocean before with no problem, but suddenly I was out there and for all my I kicking, swimming and struggling, I wasn't going anywhere. In fact, I seemed to be getting only further away, and I couldn't stand up to rest and catch my breath. By then I was already extremely fatigued from fighting.

I didn't know then I was in a rip current.

I thought if I could get back to Ray and he could stand then I could rest for a little while. But when he told me he couldn't stand either, I knew I was in trouble. My distress and fatigue at that point was obvious though I was trying to mask it, and Ray came over to me. When he did I grabbed onto him in the hopes that I could lean on him and rest, but he couldn't stand either, and we both went under.

I had the distinct feeling when we came up that if grabbed onto him again we'd both drown. I remember that from swim lessons as a kid - a drowning person will drown you with them.

Ray wasn't panicking but he was fearful. What he didn't know was that I had been struggling to get myself back closer to the shore for some time, and was already exhausted. I was getting exponentially more fatigued by the second, staying afloat was work, and every time I went under it was a little harder to push myself back up.

At that point I knew I was too tired to last much longer. I knew I had to get to shore quickly and I didn't have the strength to do it on my own. I knew I was going to drown unless someone came for me.

I looked Ray in the eye and said, "I'm not going to make it."

His face went slack with distress and he grabbed my arm to try and pull me, but when he did I went under again. I could barely keep my head above water on my own, and it was impossible to keep my head above water while struggling with him. I actually thought we were both going to drown by him trying to save me.

So I told him to get away from me. I had enough energy left to tread water for a little while if nothing was impeding me, and I figured if I went under again I at least had enough energy left to push myself back up to the surface a few more times.

And then, without saying a word to Ray, and it must have been somewhat startling, I yelled to the shore for help. Screaming, as loud as I could, HELP. Even though I fleetingly thought 'This is going to make quite a scene at this very crowded beach,' I was acutely aware my time and energy was quickly fading.

When I started yelling for help, so did Ray. I could see the lifeguard stand but I wasn't sure if they could hear us. But I thought someone on the shore might and pass it along to the lifeguards.

Within seconds I saw the fuzzy outline of a lifeguard leave the stand, and told myself I could tread water at least until he got there. I don't know what happened in the interim, it seemed like mere seconds passed, but suddenly the lifeguard was there, like he just appeared out of the ocean.

He pushed his orange flotation thing to me and grabbed me from behind, and told Ray to grab on too. We were both exhausted and scared. Then another lifeguard appeared and gave Ray his own floaty, and Ray told him that he was sorry, that he just couldn't figure out a way to get me to shore and he said, "I thought, 'I'm going to watch my girlfriend drown, or drown myself trying to help her.'" I felt secure at that point, like everything was scary but ok, and scoffed and told Ray, 'This is their job. They are probably having fun right now.' Behind me I heard my lifeguard say, 'Beats sitting in a chair.'

While I was more secure and somewhat joking, I also think I was trying to pretend this was no big deal - 'this is their job' - because that is my MO. Meanwhile, Ray was well-aware this was a big freakin' deal, and was sorry we were all in this situation.

When we got closer to the shore the lifeguards told us a big wave was coming and then suddenly, I felt the concussion of my lifeguard's forehead against the back of my head, and it knocked me face first into the water, and the wave overtook me. The blow to my head hurt so badly I wondered briefly if I would come back up or if I had a concussion and would drown that way.

About then the guard pulled me up out of the water and basically dragged my ass the rest of the way to shore, standing behind me. When we got there he asked if I could stand and walk, and I did, but my legs were like jello and I was super unstable. What I wanted to do was fall into the sand. But the beach was shoulder to shoulder when we got there, and now everyone was shoulder to shoulder on the shoreline watching me be dragged in. I waved to everyone standing and staring and said something like, 'Hey everyone, very exciting, I nearly drowned.'

I was trying to make light of it but internally I was just about to freak the hell out.

A little girl who was holding her dad's hand said to me, 'The waves are really big. Was it rough? It was rough wasn't it?' She was so cute and sweet and I was afraid she'd be scared, so I told her it was really rough but that I was ok and she had to be very careful.

Suddenly Ray was there again. It was like I didn't see him for a long time, even though it was probably less than a minute. He stood there holding me up and was talking to me, but I couldn't really hear him. All I kept saying was, "I'm ok. I'm ok." I don't know if I was trying to convince him, or me.

We went back to our chairs and spent the next hour alternately feeling traumatized and making jokes.

The lifeguards at Rehoboth are not like the Midwestern, pool-grade lifeguards we see, they're super buff hotties who are trained and skilled at saving people from the ocean (check out their required skills test, and then their photos - hotties galore), so if you're going to nearly drown I'd highly recommend doing so at Rehoboth Beach.

I joked to Ray from the safety of my beach chair that, 'Hey, wait, didn't I need mouth-to-mouth from the really hot one?!' To which Ray replied, 'I'm glad you didn't, I'd have never seen you again.'

One minute I'd be demanding that the lifeguards come back so I could get their phone numbers, you know, to call ~~and make out with them~~ and thank them, the next my eyes would well with tears at how terrifying it all was. I mean, I've been through a lot, I had cancer, but never have I felt so singularly aware that my life was in immediate peril... that's because I've never felt like I was going to drown before.

I kept apologizing to Ray for how scary it was and for putting us at risk, and Ray kept saying, 'I'm just glad you're ok. Jesus, Gina. God damn it. Never a dull moment with you.' Then he'd shake his head. And then again, 'Jesus, Gina... God damn it, I'd like to marry you... before you drown.'

While I repeated over and over, 'Holy shit. I'm glad I didn't drown. But what a great effing story!'

There was a lot of swearing afterwards.

After about an hour we went to thank the lifeguards and that's when they said we got caught in a rip current, which I didn't really know what that was. But after looking it up it made me feel better. Before that I thought I'd inadvertently caused it myself by going out too far, even though I've certainly been out further in the ocean before without problems, so I couldn't understand what happened or how I'd failed so spectacularly.

The guard said they have to pull people out all the time because they fight and get exhausted and panic, adding, 'You probably won't be the last one today.'

Before Friday I thought of rip currents as being these violent washes of water that pull you out suddenly. It wasn't like that. Instead it just steadily carried me away from Ray and further from the shore without me even realizing it. By the time I needed to fight to get back, I was ill-informed to help myself.

Getting out of a rip current is counter-intuitive - you have to first go parallel to the shore before you can get back in. It doesn't matter how good of a swimmer you are if you don't know this. And in my case, even knowing this would have been unhelpful because I couldn't identify that I was even in a rip current. My Hollywood idea of them was that they are these fast moving tides of water. And by then, I was too tired to swim anywhere, let alone parallel to the shore.

Every once in a while I have that, 'Oh my god, I am so glad I didn't drown' moment, but mostly I recount the story all Baywatch-esque, with the lifeguards running through the surf all tan and buff in slow motion while Chariots of Fire plays.

And I figure I got maybe another week of ~~milking~~ parlaying this trauma into iced lattes and flowers from Ray.

'It was so scary when I nearly drowned, woooo. ...I sure could go for a little treat, like an iced-vanilla soy latte.' *blink, blink, blink

And every time Ray says anything nice I ascribe to my near-drowning, so he remembers how scary it was an is even nicer. 'Aww, I love you too, boo... I'm so glad we didn't drown. Oh, are these flowers for me, because I almost died?'

I joke, but truly, it was scary stuff. I shudder when I think about it too much.

Hours after this happened I saw the "Danger, rip currents" sign and also the "Welcome to Rehoboth Beach" sign that included another rip current warning and took some photos beside it. (Too soon?)

But because you're now better informed, you should absolutely watch this video about rip currents from the University of New South Wales in Australia. It's informative and shows several kinds of rip currents, which basically look like nothing if you don't know about them, and also looks like the safest, calmest place in the water. But as this guy says, it takes only a minute to drown, and they can come in and out quickly.

"That's a common thing about these flash rips, is that they can suddenly occur where a large number of waves are breaking, and it pushes the rip out, and then it disappears."

And also read up and see pictures from the University of Delaware Sea Grant College Program. "...The inherent variability of rip currents makes them especially dangerous to unwary or uninformed beachgoers."

That'd be me, folks, unwary and uninformed.

So anyway, you're welcome, you guys, I didn't drown. Send your checks/deep gratitude/anger to Rehoboth Beach Patrol.

Weiner of the Mid-West

2011-07-31T22:32:00.008-04:00

I went to Chicago a few weeks ago...

And my hotel was right beside Gino's Pizza, where there was always a line of tourists waiting outside in the crippling heat.

I hate crippling heat, and Chicago style pizza. If you hate Chicago style pizza too (ie, it sits in your stomach like a wet mitten and never digests), then go to Osteria Via Stato instead (which is just a few blocks away) and get the caprese salad and sausage pizza. Both are amazing.

I thought I made pretty good caprese salad. Turns out, no. My caprese salad sucks compared to the oven roasted tomato sweetness of this caprese.

While I was there I visited the ~~the Sears Tower~~ the Willis Tower, as in, 'Whatch-you talkin' 'bout, Willis.'

If you're going to rename a tower (or anything really) I'm in favor of naming it after a sitcom character. I mean, I always knew Mr. Drummond had a lot of money, but wow... a whole tower! And it sure beats calling it the Papa Johns Pizza Tower, or whatever.

I also saw ~~someone triathlon training~~ a body floating in the lake.

And a tiger.

But my favorite part of the trip was seeing my old college pal Sandy...

Who had me meet her at a biker bar...

Where she had a plate of deep fried bacon waiting for me...

This is one of the many reasons we've been friends for 15 years, she just gets me, you know.

This Is WAR

2011-07-27T22:55:00.001-04:00

Today, between 1000 and 1100 hours Eastern Time, a malicious, unprovoked attack was launched against my banana. With my own grippy pencil.*

What kind of jerkface exacts this kind of hate crime on someone's snack? Who hates healthy snacks, anyway?

A total jerkface, that's who.

Diagrams, motivation & intent flow charts, fingerprint kits, crime scene tape, little banana sized chalk outlines - no expense will be spared in my investigation.

This act of aggression will not stand, man.

*Rachel said whoever the elementary school jackass is who has the grippy pencil is the perpetrator, forcing me to reveal that I am the elementary school jackass with the grippy pencil. (what?)

The Weak Will Be Force-Fed Anti-Depressants (The Rest of You Will Be Made to Drive Yourself to the ER)

2011-07-26T18:14:00.001-04:00

Speaking of my parents not calling when they are sick or something is happening... Ray and Susie made a quick stop through the 'Nati last night and as we were dipping our saratoga chips into barbecue sauce, my mom scolded my dad for not calling her when he went to the emergency room last month.

Really, I thought. This is rich.

"Gina, he went to the doctor at 8 am, and I sat and waited all day to find out what happened," she threw him a stern glance. "By the afternoon I thought he must have gone to his sister's. I had no idea he was in the emergency room. He didn't even call to tell me. You should have called," she finished, giving my dad another disgusted look.

She finally called his doctor's office at 4, and they told her he went to the emergency room.

"I had no idea," my mom said.

Meanwhile, my dad's excuse to this was that he doesn't have a cell phone. "How was I supposed to call," he kept innocently asking, as if landlines and cell phones are rare things that no one has. Then to deflect responsibility from himself he'd add, "And I had to drive myself to the emergency room!"

I scolded my dad for not calling her when he went to the ER. Very inconsiderate, I said.

And then it was my turn... I asked my mom to please explain to me how she can be upset with him for not calling her, but how it was a-ok that she not call me for two days when he was in the hospital.

"Yeah, Susie, justify that!" my dad goaded, eager to get the heat off of him.

Sometimes I feel like the child of Lucy and Desi, with all these simple, ordinary tasks turned into situational comedy. Apparently none of us can pick up a phone. But bet your life that if Ray or Susie needed something from Amazon they'd call me 40 times to make sure I ordered it.

My mom, who is often as filterless as my dad (shockingly), also told me this hilarious little gem.

My parents' neighbor came over blinking back tears when she heard my dad had driven himself to the emergency room, and presumably because he was sick in the hospital.

So my mom told her, "Honey, I think you need some anti-depressants."

I stopped eating my sweet potato and covered my mouth with my hand. Ray (my boyfriend, not my dad) and I looked at each other. Oh my god, mom... did you really say that to that woman?!

"I did. I probably shouldn't have," she said, recounting the story while hilariously pretending to blink back tears. "But something is wrong. Normal people don't cry just because someone has to drive themselves to the emergency room."

Horribly, I laughed until tears fell out of my own eyes. My mom is actually very sweet spirited, but man she can be too honest for her own good.

Then my dad announced, for the twentieth time, "And I had to drive my own self to the emergency room! And I almost died on the way, twice!"

Pack your bags, everyone. We're going on a guilt trip with the Daugherty's.

Cupcake Wars

2011-07-21T20:33:00.004-04:00

I'm sorry about all that mean stuff I said about cupcakes being a blight on America, but come on, who hasn't wanted throw a rock through the window of a 'cupcakery' and into the frothy pink ruins of a cakestand of mini desserts.

Cupcakes, you have gone too far - tv shows! gourmet red velvet! omg-it's-so-CrAzY-cute-imma-explode-sprinkles!

Enough.

Until... I inhaled this little gem from Abby Girl Sweets Cupcakery on Fifth Street today.

It's a Lemon Drop, and it's so light and airy and summery it practically floated out of its protective cupcake housing and right into my mouth.

I guess this means my ban on cupcakes has ended... but I'd still kinda like to throw a rock through a cupcakery window. Because then I could pretend I didn't do it and be all, "Omg, what will you do with all these ruined cupcakes?! Ok well, I guess I'll help eat them."

Cause I'm a good citizen like that.

We Are Invincible

2011-07-19T19:20:00.003-04:00

We do not have health problems in my family.

We do not talk about what ails us, at least not what might be serious anyway. Peeing blood? No biggie. Cancer? A minor inconvenience. Rheumatoid arthritis? They have drugs for that, right?

Something is always nothing with my kin. Did the house burn down? No? Then everything is fine. Did anyone die? No? Then it will be fine. We are Mid-Western stock, where every crisis is weathered with stoicism, humor and good dose of burying our heads in the sand. We are super great at the latter.

When my mom was diagnosed with RA a few years ago it was month before I was told. "I didn't want to worry you," she said.

When my dad was having a stent put into his heart five years ago he was already under anesthesia before my mom decided it was important enough to tell me about it. Again, they didn't want to "worry me."

It was that one when I came unglued. I flew into a rage so swift and so immediate that my parents are still terrified of me.

"You're not going to storm through the house crying and slamming doors again, are you, Gina?" my mom asks me.

"I might. It depends on what you're hiding from me," I tell her.

So not surprisingly, it was a full 24 hours before I was told a month ago that my dad was once again under the knife.

My mom's first voicemail sounded perfectly reasonable and calm. Nothing to see here, I figured. I'll call her back later. But then she called again a few minutes later, this time, more anxious.

"Gina, you need to call me back. It's... kind of important."

Gina... She never uses my name.

'Kind of' important... Oh god, the shit must be hitting the fan.

By that time my dad had been sick for several days, had been to the doctor and subsequently sent to the ER in Marion, then ferried by ambulance to Ft. Wayne, where there is a bigger hospital with actual surgeons and machines and stuff.

When I called back she said, "Well, you're dad's out of surgery. He's in the recovery room now."

She said this as if it neatly summed up everything and next we'd be chatting about the weather.

Um, WHAT?!

"Why, for God's sake, are you just now telling me this. Recovery room? What happened? What kind of surgery?"

He was sick and throwing up, "turned orange as pumpkin," she said, something was blocking his liver but they couldn't figure out in Marion what it was. So they took him to Ft. Wayne. He'd been in the hospital in Ft. Wayne for 24 hours before she called me.

I was in public when I called her back, standing on the sidewalk outside of a restaurant. I debated to what degree I could lose my shit there. I considered walking back into the restaurant and flipping a table over.

I don't like to be too hard on my mom, and I could tell she'd had a rough few days. But in a word, I was pissed.

"My God, mom. Why didn't you tell me this sooner?"

"I didn't know anything."

"You knew he was sick."

"We didn't know what was wrong. I didn't want to worry you."

I wanted to come unhinged. I could feel my blood boiling.

The next morning I drove to Ft. Wayne to see my dad, who apparently had a necrotic gall bladder, which was reeking all kinds of havoc on his insides, in addition to turning him "orange as a pumpkin." The surgeon told him it was "the gall bladder from hell," and extracting it turned the rest of his hair white.

I sat on the edge of my dad's hospital bed as my mom told me that what was supposed to be a simple, hour long surgery turned into a several hours-long procedure as they negotiated my dad's scarred insides from previous ulcer surgeries.

Because I am mature and was raised to be a reasonable person, I squinted at my mom, lowered my voice and said slowly, "Great. Well, the next time something happens to me, like, ohhhh, cancer or peeing blood or a head wound or whatever, I'll just call you when everything's blown over. I. Don't. Want. To. Worry. You."

Then I considered pushing my dad's hospital food tray onto the floor. You know, for effect.

Except, this is exactly what I'd do. I'd tell them once everything was a-ok, because seriously, I am totally fine. And I'd probably the start the conversation with, "Haha, funny story, mom... I have a hole in my bladder."

But that's because I'm invincible. I don't know what the hell happened to them, but somewhere along the line they became mortal. And I don't like it. I don't like it one bit.

RESPECT

2011-07-14T18:54:00.000-04:00

They "let" me park on the sidewalk.

What they didn't know was that my scooter gang peeps were hidden and ready to launch ~~cupcakes~~ Chinese Stars at them if they didn't.

Because when I want a deli sandwich with Brie and sweet jalapeno jelly, I want it right then.

'S'what I thought. Bitches.

Happy Independence Day, America

2011-07-04T17:02:00.002-04:00

In which Marvin Gaye shows us how to unlock a warhorse... Never have I heard the National Anthem sound so smooooth.

USA! USA!

Barre Work

2011-06-26T23:13:00.002-04:00

My history with ballet is messy.

Basically, I hate it. And I hate it because I don't have any real training in it. I don't know the language they use, and therefore I don't know many of the steps or movements.

And yet, every few years, I end up trying it again. Because it's good for me. Because it forces my body to do things I otherwise never ask it to do, and because it improves my balance, lengthens my muscles and helps me spatially.

I leave ballet class knowing my body better, understanding its kinetics and how small adjustments make big improvements in power, strength and stability.

So ages ago I bought the Groupon for three adult ballet and/or hip hop classes at the Cincinnati Ballet.

Usually I take Rhythm and Motion at the Ballet (did anyone else see the class doing a little flash mob at the Hyde Park Blast party last night? It was phenomenal and spirited as always), and I love it there - the big studios with walls of mirrors and dancers of all types.

After months and months of sitting on the Groupon, I finally decided Saturday morning I would face the barre for my yearly ritual of reminding myself why I hate ballet. I was prepared to leave scowling and spend the rest of my Groupon on hip-hop classes, where I could break it down all America's Best Dance Crew and randomly shout "what! what!" during the class.

Saturday morning I pulled on my pale pink footless tights, black booty dance shorts, a purple tank top, and a white off-the-shoulder dance shirt.

I might nearly twist my ankle off in a pirouette and arabesque with the crepitude of a granny, but damn it, I will look the part. (I also might have looked the part of a teen girl attending a Go Go's concert circa 1982… My lips are sealed.)

The instructor was Cincinnati Ballet soloist Dawn Kelly. I would be learning from a master of the craft.

Dawn is lithe and unassuming, but do not be fooled. She commands the room, even sitting down.

Her instructions were quick and direct, teaching us the way she was surely taught - absolute and with conviction.

Understand? Questions?
No?
Music.

Though we were mostly amateurs (although some of the dancers were really very talented ballerinas who I had no business sharing a ballet barre with), she didn't indulge our inexperience. We had to rise to her level of instruction. If we failed, so what.

'I know you don't want to do this,' she said of a particular combination, 'but I cannot help you with that.'

I giggled at the Zen quality of her statement. Technique she could help us with, for desire we were on our own.

As she told us the count for the barre work, she clapped the rhythm and said, 'It's on the-one. And a-one, and a-two… and a-one, this is fun.'

Her dryness was hilarious.

When we were pirouetting at the bar (more like spinning out of control) she covered her eyes with her hands and cringed.

A roomful of wannabes was slaughtering the craft she's spent her career perfecting, probably best to not watch.

We cracked up as she hid her face.

Obviously, the class appreciated and adored her. And there were more than a few regulars. She was thoughtful and disciplined in her teaching, and I left with a little more understanding of what I find to be a lovely if strict artform.

What I appreciated most is that she didn't embarrass me. Many times when I take classes in things I am bad at - ballet, yoga, really anything that requires my nerve damaged feet to balance or hold my body weight on one side, the instructor tends to single me out for correction.

It makes sense, but it gets embarrassing after a while, and I'm not there to become a master of these things, I'm there to have fun and try it out and maybe learn something. And it's hard to explain covered in sweat and shame that, look, lady, unless you can repair the dead nerves in my legs then your correction will NEVER work.

But Dawn didn't single us out. She took our varying skill levels under consideration, corrected where she saw fit, and left us to enjoy the experience.

She was terrific. And I can't wait to go back.

I have decided to get a DVD of basic ballet so that I can practice and totally wow the class with my almost-mediocrity in the next few weeks. Dawn is going to be so proud of my progress.

Girl Walks Into A Bar

2011-06-22T22:50:00.002-04:00

Recently, I've noticed a lot fools talking about going to "pubs."

Please, for the love of God, stop it.

Sometimes they're nice, sometimes they're dumps. But regardless, they're bars.

You're allowed to call it "a pub" only if that is the proper name, such as The Pub at Rookwood or Cock & Bull English Pub.

But come on, who are they kidding. They're bars too.

If you want to argue this bar vs. pub point please meet me at my favorite dive bar, City View Tavern, where you can buy me drinks until I'm convinced otherwise.

If there is any confusion when you get back from the jukebox, the fuller beer is mine.

China Can Go To Hell

2011-06-20T17:54:00.003-04:00

*zzzzzzz
*sigh
*SIGHHHHH

Didn't you guys notice I was being miserable?!

I said *SIGHHHHHHH!!

Gina, you're so awesome… why all this discontent and drear?

Why, thank you. And thank you for asking. I appreciate that.

Blah. I'm bored.

Currently I am drowning my sorrows in a Pizza Rolls, which I will regret eating immediately after eating them, only adding to my misery.

Misery loves Pizza Rolls.

It's just me and the Roomba this week, you guys. And the cats. Ray is in China. For like, a month. A month.

Ok, it's not actually a month. It's more like a week, but still. BORING.

Anybody want to go to the pool with me this weekend? What about walk with me to Graeter's? More importantly, who wants to cook me dinner to prevent me from eating my body weight in frozen foods every night.

*anybody? anybody?
*sigh

Hopefully I will channel this energy into grocery shopping and reading. But this is highly unlikely as I'm more prone to lethargy and watching Real Housewives re-runs.

As far as I can tell right now the highlights of my week will be:

• brushing the cats (and having them shred me)
• eating free food at the Reds/Yankees game tonight (I hope there are nachos)
• watching the Roomba (ok fine, I follow it from room to room)
• drowning my boredom in cheap red wine (what else is new)

The last time Ray went on a trip for a week I bought an iPad. The time before that I bought a fancy chair. And another time I got tipsy at Wine Guy Bistro, called him on his way back from St. Louis and told him if he didn't drive directly to my house I was going to take the battery out of my smoke alarm.

Take that, I warned.

Look for me this week wandering around the aisles of Target. One minute you're buying pet clothes for your Roomba and the next you're all, "Ooh, an Easy Bake Oven!"

Ray's gonna be so stoked when he gets back and discovers I've become the Ace of Cakes, Easy Bake Oven style. Plus, I'm gonna need to make desserts for our new baby. He promised to bring me back a present... which can only mean one thing, a cute Asian baby!

And don't even tell me babies don't love baked goods because that's a lie.

I am a danger to society.

Happy 3 a.m. breast feeding, Amanda!

2011-06-08T19:21:00.002-04:00

Please enjoy this out-of-context snapshot of things people have texted/said/emailed to me recently.

• Like ALL of them. HILLBILLIES. Really, who wears those sweat pants anymore? Can you even buy them at a store anymore?

• (Redacted) and (Redacted) were always sitting around getting drunk and self-medicating, probably so they could tolerate one another. After a few drinks I tolerated them better myself too, that's for sure.

• I am dressed like Luke Skywalker today.

• Going to go take a pic of my underpants... stay tuned.
Why not? I've already seen a pic of u on the toilet. Let's go there.

• So for now that has meant making my own fun... like making my own pipe cleaner people and have them go on adventures. It's like TV, only waaaaaaayy more intense.

• It's like putting together one of those photomosaic puzzles, which is to say it's like being in hell. ...And what's wrong with Atlanta? Gladys Knight's Chicken & Waffles, bitches!

• I just found out that I might have to go to China. I'll certainly bring you something back - maybe a cute Asian baby.

• Let me get this straight, you think God is out to get you, and is just effing with you, by you losing those files?

• Just hold off disassembling your airbag 'til Sunday so we can hang out.

• Did you sign Jared up for Black Enterprise magazine?

• Oh my god, you think a dolphin would be able to push the button better than a lion? You're crazy. The maintenance involved in keeping a dolphin would be a way worse than a lion. And you're supposed to be the smart one here.

• I think we're a better couple in the warmer weather. Perhaps in November we should just hibernate until we're able to walk to Yagoot again in the spring.  

• Remind me to tell you the story of my delicate little system being wrecked. Let's just say you can't eat a half box of Raisin Bran without repercussions.

• I know you're going through a divorce and your entire personal life is in the crapper, but let's talk about your personal watercraft... can I borrow your Jet Ski?

• You don't know who Malvina is?! She's better than that Lady Goo Goo!

• There's something about you that makes me think about murder.

• Let Gina know her blog gets me through the 3 a.m. breast feeding. <-- thanks, Amanda.

Happy hump day everybody.

Let Us Commence

2011-06-07T19:01:00.001-04:00

*clears throat

To the class of 2011... Everything I would say to you has already been said better by smarter, funnier people with richer life experiences. Let me guide you.

Steve Jobs 2005 commencement address to Stanford is an incredible speech. Funny, inspiring, heartfelt, and he makes a helluva case that getting fired from his own company was actually… awesome.

Set backs. What setbacks?

You have have to trust that dots will somehow connect in your future… because believing the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path.

...

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

...

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

Do you yourself a Big Favor and watch this speech. Or read the full text.

Comedian Amy Poehler to the Harvard class of 2011.

You can't do it alone. As you navigate through the rest of your life be open to collaboration. Other people and other people's ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them and it will change your life.

God, Allah, Buddha, Gaga... whomever you pray to. They have helped you get here, and that should make you feel less alone and less scared.

The woman has swagger. And you can't teach that, my friends.

And finally, writer Annie Lamott.

Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.

Read the speech, it's spectacular.

As for me... For you students considering publishing, writing, art, performance, I would advise you to work with the human genome instead. Waaaay easier.

Just kidding. See Jobs, Lamott speeches again. Otherwise, trust in Gaga.

Who's In?!

2011-06-03T18:53:00.000-04:00

It's gonna be a WHITE HOTT Friday night, you guys.

Breakin' The Law! (And Planting Flowers)

2011-06-03T16:02:00.003-04:00

"We felt like total badasses."

It's Baaaaaack

2011-05-31T18:31:00.000-04:00

Two trips to the pool(s)
Two trips to Taste
Two grill-outs
Nada
MotR
A funnel cake
Bridesmaids (hysterical)
Girls night out
Old friends, new friends
And several date nights with this dude I've been seeing, who also happens to be my boyfriend

Hello again, Summer. It's great to have you back!

Don't Look Back

2011-05-24T20:08:00.004-04:00

To celebrate Bob's 70th birthday today I created this list of my fave Bob songs for you guys.

I tried to make it ten but couldn't so I decided to make it 15, then I couldn't do that either and since I make the rules around here it's 16+.

They're in no particular order other than the order I thought of them in, so basically that means all 16+ plus is my favorite Bob song of all time.

Right click on mp3 to download them. And you damn well should. I chose each version based on years of listening. My gift to you. Don't thank me, thank Bob.

I have to go to bed now because I have to be at work at 6:30 in the morning tomorrow... 'They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to be so good.'

1. She Belongs To Me
'She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back.'
mp3

2. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You
'If there’s a poor boy on the street, then let him have my seat, ’cause tonight I’ll be staying here with you.'
mp3

3. When The Deal Goes Down
'More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours, that keep us, so tightly… bound.'
mp3

4. Visions of Johanna
'Louise, she's all right, she's just near.'
mp3

5. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
'But there’s no way I can compare, all those scenes to this affair, you're gonna make me lonesome when you go.'
mp3

6. Standing In The Doorway
'Don’t know if I saw you, if I would kiss you or kill you/It probably wouldn’t matter to you anyhow.'
mp3

7. Abandoned Love
'I love to see you dress before the mirror, won’t you let me in your room one time ’fore I finally disappear?'
mp3

8. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
'Take what you have gathered from coincidence.'
mp3

9. Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again
'An’ she says, “Your debutante just knows what you need/But I know what you want'
mp3

10. Most of the Time
'I don’t compromise and I don’t pretend/I don’t even care if I ever see her again... Most of the time'
mp3

11. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
'I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind/You could have done better but I don’t mind/You just kinda wasted my precious time/But don’t think twice, it’s all right.'
mp3

12. Your a Big Girl Now
'I can change… I swear.'
mp3

13. Tomorrow is a Long Place (Or Time, depending on which Bob source you're referring)
'I can’t hear the echo of my footsteps/Or remember the sounds of my own name.'
mp3

14. Most Likely You'll Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine) - Dap Kings/Mark Ronson remix
'You said you told me that you want to hold me, but you know you're not that strong.'
mp3

15. Girl from North Country
'Please see for me see has a coat so warm/She once was a true love of mine.'
mp3

16. Not Dark Yet
'Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb/I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from.'
mp3

+ Bonus track - Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues (The funniest song you will hear in your ENTIRE life.)
'Maybe we just better call off the picnic.'
mp3

Happy Birthday, Bob

2011-05-24T12:40:00.002-04:00

Oh, We Fancy

2011-05-16T22:49:00.007-04:00

Excuse me people, but you can't just roll into an upscale, expensive joint like Nicola's because you feel like it. Because you feel like dropping a bunch of money on dinner.

No, no, no. You need a reason. An excuse.

Since we didn't have any excuses - it's not your birthday? what about mine, could it be my birthday? what about a fake anniversary? - we made one up: I had a fantastic new dress and boots I needed to take for a spin, and Ray (my boyfriend not my dad) wanted an excuse to see me in a fantastic new dress and boots.

Excuses, check.

Nicola's was ours for a night.

First Course - Booze

The Boss Man is a complete wine snob (snif).

"Rotgut" is what he calls the wine I call delicious. So I sent him the URL to Nicola's wine list with the demand, "something awesome and reasonable." From his office I heard, "I can't believe they're charging 80 bucks for that swill!'

Who says wine snobs aren't charming?

But within minutes he'd consulted his fancy-schmancy wine ratings nerd site and recommended the Pinot Noir, Oliver Lane, 2007 for a mere $60. SOLD.

We drank it like we knew about notes and finishes and vintages, which we don't. But in a word, it was deeee-licious. (Dear Wine Spectator, that review is copyrighted, hands off.)

Second Course - Bread

I'd heard great things about the bread basket at Nicola's but daaaamn. Did Jesus knead this stuff?

I know what you're thinking, 'It's a bread-basket, whatever.' No, dude. It's not just a bread basket. It's a work of culinary art. All kinds of delightful varieties - some buttery, others brushed with olive oil, some adorned with tomato slices and cucumber, others flat or twisted into pretzel shapes. I wanted to hold it in my lap and dare someone to take a piece from me.

We agreed we could just sit and eat bread all night, forget about dinner. But we had to soak up all that wine, so...

Third Course - Treasure salad

We both had the Boucheron goat cheese salad, which was apple-vinaigrette dressing covering mixed greens and hiding a slice of warm goat cheese. Basically it was like discovering a treasure at the bottom of your salad. A warm, flavorful little treasure.

Fourth Course - Dinner

I went with a classic, the bolognese with tagliatelle. It's been on the menu at Nicola's either as a special or a permanent fixture since the restaurant opened 13 years ago, the waiter told me.

Sure, there are all sorts of lavish dishes on the menu and far fancier pastas, but I wanted something traditionally Italian. I wanted to be impressed by something you can get almost anywhere, but the one thing you can rarely get exquisitely done.

And here it is. Creamy, hearty, thick and perfect. I'm sure the people next to us were sick of my raves but I couldn't help it. Everything was so fantastic.

Ray had the short ribs with pureed parsnips. But let's be clear, he was completely green with envy over my choice. I get this giant bowl of pasta and he gets a giant plate with some short ribs and a circle of parsnip puree in one corner. His was good, but mine was better.

The best thing about dating me - in addition to my phenomenal dance moves - is that I always leave food on my plate. So he gets to eat 1.5 meals wherever we go - his and the rest of mine. When I'd eaten all I could take I slid my plate across the tablecloth so he could finish the rest.

He is a lucky guy.

Fifth Course - More Booze

Now, this is really going to surprise you guys but we decided to have a nightcap, which is a euphemism for "this is probably a bad idea."

Embracing this, we headed to Below Zero, which has become our 'go-to' on any given night, mostly because it's practically in Ray's backyard.

It's a gay bar frequented by older, established gays. You won't find any shirtless, oily younguns looking to mash on other shirtless, oily younguns here (sad) though I do happen to love shirtless oily younguns dancing to techno.

I drank a margarita as we sat the bar and watched videos. Remember music videos? BZ plays them on a constant loop. It's spectacular, and by spectacular I mean I revel in crushing Ray at naming artists - Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Janet Jackson. Like he has a snowballs chance in hell at a gay bar in besting me in naming artists.

Please. It's not even fair really.

The problem with Below Zero is I love it too much - because I can sit and watch videos of Madonna and Lady Gaga all night, and that makes me want to live there. (Did we bring my sleeping bag? What do you mean I don't have a sleeping bag?!)

I'm always up for another drink at that joint. Sit. Your ass. Down. Madonna is on. We are NOT leaving during Like A Prayer.

The other great thing about dating me are my completely reasonable responses to Madonna videos playing on a TV at 1 a.m.

So anyway, Nicola's date night - fantastic.

I Had A Dream, I Had An Awesome Dream (That Lionel Richie Was My Boyfriend)

2011-05-05T18:34:00.000-04:00

"Can I ask you a question?"

It seemed... serious. The colleague asking is from India, and usually we talk about the differences between American and Indian culture - sports, music, marriage, etc. It's always enlightening.

"Sure," I told him.

"Who is that man in that picture?"

"That man is Lionel Richie, my friend. And he's a lyrical genius."

Then I began singing the words to Hello. And I kinda got into, and started breakin' it down in my cube.

"Oh. I thought it was your boyfriend."

"Phsssht, I wish. If only my boyfriend had a bad-ass Jehri curl like that."

He used to have a mullet though. My boyfriend, not Lionel Richie. Buuuuut... then again, Lionel is looking very business in the front party in the back here.

This poster is awesome on so many levels.

Well, It Could Have Been Worse!

2011-05-04T18:23:00.002-04:00

Julie's not in this photo because she decided to get drunk instead of eat crepes. Or something like that.

The swear words I said to the rain on Sunday morning as my pony-tail and Mizunos filled with water would have made a longshoreman blush.

And the expletives I used to get my out-of-shape ass up Gilbert Avenue and then Eden Park hill… no one should be cursed at like that, least of all by their own foul mouth.

"Damn-it, Daugherty, you SUCK. How do you live with yourself, you miserable, lazy, horribly out of shape piece of (beep)! You should be (beeping) ashamed! (BEEEEEP!!!) This! This is all you've got to show for (beeping) yourself?! You're gonna let this hill kick your ass again?! Of course you are, because you (beeping) SUCK! You don't even deserve that gummi bear you're gonna eat... oooh! Gummi bears!"

Then I felt better.

It rained on me again this Pig. And it was a same out-of-shape slog for 6.8 miles as it was last year. And I could hardly walk for two days afterward I was so sore.

And yet, I would describe it all as fun. Can't wait for next year even!

But next year, things are gonna change - Imma be in shape! Imma run the whole time! Imma be lightning fast! Imma... wait, didn't I say this all last year?

Eh, whatevs.

To 2012!

Oh Hey, Great

2011-05-02T20:09:00.002-04:00

It's Monday morning and there is a giant snake skin draped over my desk.

For the love of God it's Monday morning and there is a giant freakin' snake skin draped over my desk!

The end.

Spring And All*

2011-04-27T18:42:00.001-04:00

Ault Park daffodils on April 10, right before it started raining and never stopped.

It is hard to concentrate. It's like I've returned to high school and the shining sun and humid air has me completely restless and drunk on the smell of lilacs and the sight of daffodils. Which is then only pulled out from under me when it starts pouring rain again. And again. And Again.

April is, indeed, the cruelest month.

APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliot, 1922
The Wasteland

Consider this my spring poetry thesis (from dead white guys), because as I thought of that stanza, which I memorized a hundred years ago not because I had to, but because I couldn't not remember it, I thought of about a half-dozen more poems about spring and April that cut to the quick of this jarring season.

Leave it to poets to take the freshness of spring, when everything is supposed to be hopeful and new, to remind us of this yearly rollercoaster of longing and wishful thinking.

Eliot's "lilacs" brought my mind to Walt Whitman's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, Whitman's public mourning over the assassination over President Lincoln, and the "sprig of lilac" he intends to lay at his coffin.

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Walt Whitman, 1865

Every returning spring, Walt? Ouch.

Since studying Wordsworth in English litch-rah-cha I can't see a daffodil and not think of the lines:

I wandere'd lonely as a cloud…

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils

Wordsworth, 1804
Daffodils

But whatever joy and promise Wordsworth gave me in his Daffodils, Ted Hughes took it away when I read his Daffodils in Birthday Letters, his deathbed response to his wife, Sylvia Plath's, suicide.

Our lives were still a raid on our own good luck.
We knew we'd live forever. We had not learned
What a fleeting glance of the everlasting
Daffodils are. Never identified
The nuptial flight of the rarest epherma-
Our own days!
We thought they were a windfall.
Never guessed they were a last blessing.

Ted Hughes, 1998

Read the whole poem. Go ahead. And I challenge you to find me a more heartbreaking, nostalgic, bittersweet and remorseful poem about spring and death and relationships. Or daffodils, for that matter.

Now that we are all duly hopeful for better, sunnier days while filled with regret over gray skies and rain, who wants wine?!

Come over, we'll discuss. New topic: How to disable your car's airbag, because if we're gonna be up all night boozing over heart-wrenching spring poems we'll wanna die in the crash.

But let me end on a sunny note of spring here.

Though April remains the cruelest month, ee cummings' joyful, made-up words 'mud-luscious' and 'puddle-wonderful' from In Just make mud and rain seem fun, no? I could no more explicate this poem than I could cure heart disease (what, in the hell, are you talking about, ee?) but In Just has a vibe to it like it's a wet and wonderful spring whatever planet he's living on.

* Of course the title of this post is after a William Carlos Williams poem of the same title, with the title parenthesis, By the Road to the Contagious Hospital. So, you know, there's that ray of sunshine too.

Praise Jesus!

2011-04-21T19:28:00.003-04:00

It's Good Friday and I have the day off not because it's a holiday for me, but because I told the Boss Man I needed this important religious observance off to cleanse my soul.

I argued that if anyone needs to get closer to God it's me, so, pony-up with the approval, Boss Man.

He ripped up my request.

In fact, I have a stack of PTO requests he's ripped up. He doesn't believe in God or work-life balance, while I happen to be a firm believer in work-life balance.

I will go to the mat for PTO. I will judge anyone who isn't a zealot for time off. I observe days off with reverence, like it's my religion.

Me: Tomorrow is an important religious holiday and I'd like the day off to observe and reflect.

Boss Man: You can't even say that with a straight face!

Me: I can. Really. But... I just heard a really funny joke and umm... back to my serious convictions about wanting the day off tomorrow...

Boss Man: *rips up my PTO request

Me: What would Jesus think about your complete disregard for the environment... and my desire to get in touch with my spiritual side?

Boss Man: *beating his head against the filing cabinet

Me: I'm going to walk up all those steps at that church in Mt. Adams. You know, get ready for the Pig and repent all at once.

Tiffany (who teaches Sunday school): Do you even know what happened on Good Friday?

Me: Yes. Jesus rose from the dead, that's why it's called GOOD.

Tiffany: No. It's when he DIED.

Boss Man: Ohh, sorry we don't all have YOU as our Sunday school teacher.

Me: YEAH!

* wait, Boss Man and I can't be on the same page here... back to the fight

Me: You're not helping, Tiffany. Er... I mean, this is why I need the day off, to educate myself. I'm a sponge thirsting for divine knowledge.

* Knowing he'd rather be stabbed than touched, I resort to guerrilla tactics and touch the Boss Man's hand, forcing a pen into it; he cowers in fear and disgust

Me: Sign the PTO slip or the hand gets touched again.

Boss Man (finally signing): You are the devil.

Ok, he didn't really call me the devil, but probably only because he doesn't believe in the devil.

I'm off to ~~get this long-weekend party started~~ begin my spiritual cleanse.

My Heart Just Sank (It's Probably The Oily Pizza Slices)

2011-04-18T19:46:00.007-04:00

Sbarro is going bankrupt, you guys. A moment of silence for that little slice of mall food court heaven that hardened my arteries one slice at a time.

This is really really sad for me because when I used to work at the mall I would always eat Sbarro.

Ok, that's a lie. I never worked at the mall. But I did eat at Sbarro like clockwork, to the point where the Sbarro worker-guy who always heated up my greasy pizza slice thought I did and would give me the mall discount. For Sbarro.

Let me explain.

Travel back in time with me, will you, to the year 1998, when your intrepid hero here, (that'd be me, jackasses), moved to Ohio from Virginia.

I lived in Hamilton for my second newspaper job and minus a boyfriend I had in Cincinnati (who worked nights), I didn't know anyone. So on Saturdays, since I was bored and didn't have any friends and was like, 23 years old, I'd go to Tri-County Mall and walk around and buy crap.

This was before Tri-County mall became a ghost-mall. It was in its two-story heyday, filled with commerce, Starbucks, American Eagle and a giant food court.

So basically, it was everything my 23-year-old heart desired.

Every Saturday afternoon I'd speed through the back roads of Butler County excited for a Frappuccino, a slice of Sbarro and some more clothes from American Eagle I didn't need.

The Starbucks was on the first floor near the tobacco shop and the pet store and I'd always get the same girl taking my order, "a light, tall, coffee Frappuccino." ("Light" because I was healthy.)

One day I noticed the price was a little lower. As she rung me up she pointed and said, "You work back there, right?" Which meant she a) thought I worked at the mall I was so consistent in my visits to Starbucks and b) thought I worked at either the pet store or the tobacco shop.

"Umm, yeah," I stammered.

I lied not because I wanted the mall employee discount so much, but more because of what it meant to admit that I spent so much time at the mall that the mall workers thought I worked there too.

Sad, people. Just sad. (Ok not really, I actually like the mall, still.)

A few weeks after getting called out at Starbucks I was getting my usual slice of Sbarro to wash down with my Frappuccino when the Sbarro worker guy says to me, "I thought you'd quit. I haven't seen you in a few weeks."

I stared at him.

Quit what, I wondered. Pizza? Food courts?

Ohhhhhhhh.

Oh.

He thinks I work at the mall.

"Umm, no. I didn't quit."

I got the mall employee discount at Sbarro too.

Now that I see Sbarro is going bankrupt I can't help but feel a tinge of sadness in my hardening arteries for them. I mean, they were really, really good to me as a fake mall employee.

I'm sorry Sbarro if you're going bankrupt because I got 25 cents off my pizza order those few months in 1998. Or if because I finally made some friends and stopped eating your "Italian" food every weekend.

Oh god, this is all my fault. *sob

UNCLE

2011-04-15T17:24:00.000-04:00

Dear This Week:

We are broke-up.

It's not me, it's you. You suck and I've had enough. I don't ever want to hear from you again.

Kisses,
Gina

P.S. You're getting fat.

P.P.S. Don't let me see your fat ass at happy hour tonight.

Pap Spears at Walgreens, Y'all

2011-04-12T18:47:00.001-04:00

Skip to 1:37 - hilarity to ensue.

"Between the Swiffer refills and the cat food. Ladies, just look for the stirrups."

We Are 'Balls To the Wall'

2011-04-11T21:29:00.002-04:00

1) Because we're all ovaries and 2) We're slow as hell.

Look for us at the Pig:

• I'll be the one dying on the hill into Eden Park
• Julie will be anxious about the serious runners near her who are bouncing around and stressing at the first relay stop
• Rachel is the one mostly likely to have 'Balls' lettered on her singlet
• and Michele will be enjoying a glazed donut while she waits for us at the fourth leg.

This is serious, you guys.

Friday Night With Gina Dreamboat

2011-04-10T23:27:00.004-04:00

Some women storm out of bars on their boyfriends because he's a big jerk, or he's ogling other women, or maybe because he's dumping her.

Not this girl.

I left Ray sitting at bar this weekend because - wait for it! - he told me he didn't vote for the smoking ban.

I said, 'I can't date you anymore.' And I meant it.

For about 7 minutes.

Then about halfway home I thought, 'Uh oh, I just got all crazy pissy about a smoking ban... that passed five years ago. And I left Ray sitting at the bar. Oh. Crap. He's gonna be maaaaaad.'

Think, Daugherty, think! Tell him you're sorry. No wait, tell him you're having your period! YEAH. Oh, right. Umm... tell him it all started in the fourth grade... and you never learned to read!

Fortunately, Ray is more rational than I am when I've been, how shall I say this... overserved.

He wasn't even that mad that I dumped him, left in a fury and abandoned him at a bar by himself.

But seriously, who doesn't vote for the smoking ban?

Eh, he was young and stupid. As opposed to me, who is occasionally drunk and stupid.

Best. Girlfriend. Ever.

April Fools Day, 2011

2011-04-04T20:20:00.003-04:00

It's 5:30 on Friday. My tax return is lighting a fire in my bank account and I'm halfway to Kenwood Mall.

My phone rings; it's the Boss Man. He never calls.

Shit. He's gonna want something and I'm gonna have to drive back to work. Ugh.

I answer anyway, because I'm good a employee like that.

He says, excitedly, "Did you hear about the new restaurant on the moon?"

I respond with silence.

He continues, undeterred: "It got bad reviews; the critics said it had no atmosphere."

Oh god, I think. It's even worse than having to drive back to work... on a Friday.

"Hahaha! Good, right?! There's a little April Fool's from a scientist for ya!"

It was the longest 31 seconds of my life.

Fortunately I was able to salve my mental anguish with a soft pretzel and some new clothes.

Name Our Relay Team

2011-04-01T17:46:00.000-04:00

Training is easy.

In addition to working out like, six times already (and probably breaking my foot) I am also eating burritos, frozen pizzas and lots of Mexican food. You know, to get "in shape" for the Flying Pig Relay.

I plan to ~~suck it~~ kick-ass again this year, so look out world.

No, training is easy. The difficult part is coming up with an awesome team name, amirite?

Won't you be lambs and help Rachel, Julie, Michele and me with naming our relay team.

The suggestions so far are:

• Lady lumps
• Bad Case of the Runs
• Worst Pace Scenario
• Sole Train
• Balls to the Wall

(My personal fave is Balls To the Wall. I can't even say it without cracking up.)

We're having our first team meeting on Saturday, where we will continue our "training" over breakfast potatoes and further discuss this important race time topic.

Blue Light Specials

2011-03-30T20:45:00.004-04:00

Cincinnati Magazine came out with its best restaurants issue this month and all the food is appropriately... vertical... and... angular.

Cause it ain't fancy unless it's sharp and pointy and jutting out from the center of the plate like a weapon.

Who in the hell wants to eat a lamb chop just lying limp on the plate. Hell no. People want their lamb chops arranged artfully, protruding from the plate like a Frank Lloyd Wright angle, with a bunch of other stuff stacked on top of it. I want those lamb chop bones upward and supporting a teetering potato or something. That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Look people, I don't think I'm alone here in saying that if I'm going to eat a hotdog I want the chef to engineer a way that reaches for the sky. If it's not inverted, what's the point. I don't want my dog languishing horizontally - You can't stop this dogs shine!

Even the fries are uppity - they get their own glass so they too can be vertical. Yeah. Just like in the red McDonald's carton, until it tips over in the bag.

Oh who am I kidding, I love trying new restaurants and I love ridiculousness even more. Of the 10 best restaurants named by Cincinnati Magazine I've eaten at seven of them.

1. Orchids at Palm Court - Been only for lunch, and it was a damn fine lunch; though there was also the time the Boss Man had me go with him to check out the space for an event, but I only went 'cause he drove me in his convertible Porsche boxster, and I'm shallow like that.

2. Boca - Spent a weird, drunken night here a few years ago with some dudes I barely knew; food was awesome.

3. Nicola’s - Had dinner here for the first time a few months ago; my own personal review coming soon, please stay gripped to your computer screens for this event, people.

4. The Palace - Is this a real place?

5. Bouquet - Been here twice; Food is good but my advice is to experience it through wine and appetizers, then finish off the night with a nightcap at the bar.

6. Cumin - Never been, and it's kinda in my 'hood. Sad.

7. Via Vite - Really? Hmmm... I've eaten here quite a few times (pizzas and pastas) and while I love the terrace and the margherita pizza is divine, it's no Nada.*

8. Nectar - Brunch is tremendous; I should go back here soon.

9. Daveed’s - Never been, but I did walk past it last weekend on my way to Mt. Adams Bar and Grill for hummus and chicken buddies (totally awesome).

10. Honey - Again, brunch is my thing. And Honey's is delightful. Go there immediately.

Also listed was Jean-Robert’s Table as the best new restaurant and Senate was the runner-up.

I like Senate, and the bar is great, but for my money you can't go wrong with a regular ol' hotdog from a regular ol' concession stand. As soon as Senate figures out a way to make their hotdogs as inverted as the fries I will fall madly in love with that place!

*I can't believe Nada isn't on this list; the reviewers at Cincinnati Magazine are savages. (Savages who are well-versed in fine dining and who know lots of creative adjectives to describe food. But still, savages!)

As Luck Would Have It

2011-03-28T18:40:00.000-04:00

A year ago today I met Ray (my boyfriend, not my dad) at Coffee Emporium for our first "date." We ate waffles.

I wouldn't have guessed then that a year later we'd still be eating breakfast together, or that he'd be helping me pick out an area rug for my dining room and saying sweet things like, "I'm gonna have to carry that motherf*&^%$ up three flights of stairs, aren't I?"

Sometimes it's hard to know at first how lucky you really are.**

* I mean, look at that rug, right? Such a vibrant blue, and it was cheap. Thanks Pottery Barn Outlet!

* And the boy, well, what can I say, I got lucky. (Just keepin' it real here, folks.)

The 8 Phases of Dating

2011-03-21T18:11:00.000-04:00

'Before I met you my heart was a crap taco.'

It's so funny and sweet at first and then, oh god - save yourselves!

Paris

2011-03-18T17:43:00.001-04:00

I must go there immediately so I can can sit in Montsouris Park and think about this poem.

Thousands and thousands of years 
Would not be enough 
To tell of  
That small second of eternity
 When you held me
 When I held you
 One morning
 In winter’s light
 In Montsouris Park
 In Paris
 On earth
 This earth
 That is a star

Jacques Prévert French, 1900–1977)

What's In Your Drawers?

2011-03-16T18:10:00.000-04:00

You know that drawer in your fridge where you forget stuff, so you never put anything in there?

Apparently I put some Honey Roasted Turkey in there two years ago. I found this black, drippy lunchmeat horror scene last week. It expired in November 2009.

Lunchtime.

Sole Blues

2011-03-15T18:36:00.001-04:00

I think I broke my foot. Or at least broke a bone in it. Or maybe I just bruised it, but whatever, it hurts. I'd like to complain about it some more but everyone has stopped listening. So now you guys are going to have to deal with it.

I am creating a bruises, broken bones and sore muscles mix*... for the elliptical (of course), because I can't run on the treadmill. Because my foot hurts.

Please text song suggestions to 'Omigod Gina, Your Foot Is Totally Broken, Probably.'

*there will be no backwards skating to this jam, my friends.

What Do You Call A Dude With An Umbrella Shoved In His Pie Hole*

2011-03-09T20:48:00.003-05:00

Some dude today lobbed a blonde joke at me. For reals.

The scene: Crossing the street near work; it's misting.

Man with an umbrella: "Blondes don't need umbrellas, huh?"

Me, without an umbrella: "That's how we roll."

Man with an umbrella: "Or blondes are smart enough to carry one. Hahaha!"

Me (sarcastically): "Clever!"

Maybe his wife left him for a dude with more hair and now he's lashing out at manes everywhere. Or maybe he totally wanted me... it did seem like the playground equivalent of pulling my ponytails.

*this dude.

Study Of The Heart

2011-03-03T18:49:00.000-05:00

I've been writing a piece on an unusual case of transposition of the great arteries and I came across Dr. Richard Van Praagh and his wife, Dr. Stella Van Praagh.

Together in 1965 they created the Cardiac Registry at Children's Hospital Boston, a collection of over 3,600 specimens, some dating back as far as 1944. Pathologists, cardiologists and cardiac surgeons use the Registry to learn more about the anatomy of heart defects.

They continued to direct the Registry until 2002. A tremendous lifelong collaboration, but an even better love story it seems.

He first noticed her at a conference in 1961. She was the woman with the big brown eyes who asked smart questions. They married in 1962.

She died in 2006 and he says, "I miss Stella in so many ways, but I'm making steady progress on our life's work - a clinico-pathological study of more than 3,400 cardiac cases, some never described before... How I wish I could share them with Stella."

Aww. I wish he could share them with Stella too.

Do yourself a favor and read this short bio, in Dr. Van Praagh's own words, about his life and love.

Things Are Gonna Change Around Here

2011-03-02T18:43:00.001-05:00

A few times a year I like to come up with some half-assed resolutions I won't follow. Without further adieu:

1.) Stop saying "adieu."

2.) More cat petting and brushing. (The cat hair tumbleweeds in my apartment are kitten sized.)

3.) Finally download some new music and update my sad iPod(s). (What do you mean my new "Sexy Slow Jamz" mix featuring SWV as the backward skate highlight isn't new music?)

4.) Actually train for the Pig relay this year. (Oh god, I'm exhausted already.)

5.) Lift weights. (This will require going to the gym… which I will need a Google Map to find it's been so long.)

6.) Ensure I am still a member of my gym. (Come on guys, I really want to belong.)

7.) Start that book club I keep I talking about. (The one where I don't have to read anything I don't want to read but I still get to enjoy finger foods and drink wine.)

8.) Finish the closet/bedroom re-org of 2010. (My new shoe shelves really showcase my collection, but they deserve better than to be surrounded by medical records, pen holders and kitten sized cat hair tumbleweeds.)

9.) Try to understand why even when I am being sincere everyone thinks I am joking. (Me: "Ha, you're hilarious!" Other person: "God, you're such a sarcastic jerk, Gina." Me: "Huh?")

10.) Schedule appointments for dentist / acupuncture / podiatrist / rehab (the physical therapy kind, unless I get that wine drinking book club started, then maybe the Charlie Sheen kind.)

11.) Never surrender.

I am ON this.

The One Where I Change My Mind And Debate the Benefits of Lying

2011-02-24T22:25:00.003-05:00

When I was in kindergarten one of my brother's friends rode his ten speed bike over to our house.

It was yellow and big and exciting and the porch light lit up what looked to be millions of sparkly chrome spokes in my 6-year-old eyes.

I asked my brother's friend to take me for a ride on it.

No way, was his answer.

I asked my brother to take me.

Again, no way.

They were less afraid of me getting hurt and more afraid of what my dad would do to them if I got hurt.

But it occurred to me that if I asked my dad he would take me for a ride. There was little I asked from him that I didn't get. So I knew it was a matter of time before that 10-speed and I would be gliding down Poplar Street together.

My dad sat behind me, holding onto me with one hand and steering with the other as he pedaled. I remember feeling excited. It was nighttime in the summer, and it felt free and adventurous.

It was about that time that the light from the street lamp made those sparkly chrome spokes look irresistible, a twinkling carousel of enchantment, and I stuck my foot straight through those shiny spokes.

The bike went back over front. To prevent me from hitting the pavement my dad took the brunt of the impact to his face and head, driving asphalt and a considerable sized rock into his forehead.

Thanks to him, my only injury was a busted lip.

In the emergency room I watched them wheel my dad away on a stretcher with gauze covering his face. He had to have surgery to get the rock removed and a plastic surgeon consulted on the big scar it'd leave behind.

But mostly I remember him having to wear a gauze hairnet for several weeks while his stitches heeled and how hilarious we all thought it was. The gauze hairnet, not the injury.

It was not hilarious, however, when I returned to kindergarten with scratches on my face and a fat lip and the other kids looked at me in horror and I had to drink out of a straw for a week or so while my giant lip healed.

I feel now about him getting hurt the way he must have felt then about me getting hurt.

He and I have always had an agreement - We are a team, thicker n' thieves, and we do what we must to protect my mom from anything we do that might upset her. Which has been plenty over the years.

It's not that my mom is so easily upset. But she is a mom, and a mom's default is to worry. It's not that we want to lie to her, but moms compel you lie to them just by their very being.

We kept it to ourselves all the times he let me "drive" his old truck while I sat on his lap as a kid. And when I got caught sneaking out of the house as a teenager, my dad gave me a good talking to, but to save ourselves from endless haranguing, we kept quiet. Ditto for the myriad transgressions of high school and college. And I never ratted him out for anything either.

Better to just keep that stuff to ourselves. It's our common bond.

So I've never told my mom I have a scooter. Scooters are dangerous and she would worry to death. My mom's been through enough, why put her through that. But my dad knows. Every time we talk about he says, "Don't let your mom find out; she'll nag us both to death... and if you get caught I'm gonna lie and say I had no idea and I can't believe a grown woman as smart as you would do something so dangerous. Hee hee hee!"

He'd throw me under the bus in a heartbeat because when it comes to mom's flying off the handle, it's everybody for themselves. And besides that, he has to live with her.

When I got my new scooter this winter I excitedly told him about it. "It will go 60, as opposed to Stella, which will only go 40. Sooo slow!" I exclaimed.

Excitedly, he wanted to know if he could have my old one, and with some hesitation but still under the glow of getting a new scooter, I promised Stella to him. He enthusiastically talked about it and figured out a plan that he could bring it to Indiana without my mom knowing it was formerly mine.

As the time for him to come get it draws nearer I am more and more worried about him having it.

I mean, scooters are dangerous. I don't want my 70-year-old dad riding around on my old scooter that will go 40. Forty is fast. What if he gets hurt? What if he pulls out in front of a car? What if he breaks a hip, or worse?

For the first time ever, I tried to thwart him. I tried to get my mom on attack. I asked her what she thought of him taking this scooter. He told her it's a friend of mine's and that it won't start. Him being a mechanic, he figured he'd "tinker around with it" and maybe get it started.

"Gina, I wish you hadn't told him about it," my mom said. "Now he's all excited, and the last thing I need is him out racing around on a scooter. I hope he won't be able to get it started."

But of course It will start fine; there's nothing wrong with it. (My poor mom.)

I've been thinking about how to get out of this. If I give my dad that scooter and something happens I'll never forgive myself. Could I cut the breakline? The gasline? Could I break something on it? But he's a mechanic. He'll figure it out and fix it.

I debated telling him it got stolen. But then that totally curses my new scooter to actually get stolen.

I could tell him I sold it, and legitimately sell it. But he's very excited to have it and I don't want to go back on my word. He wants to ride it around the neighborhood... and probably speed! Without a helmet! And do wheelies!

Or something like that.

Yes, I see the irony here. But it's different for me. I mean, I'm safe. I always wear my helmet. I go slow around corners. I'm not 70 years old. And though he's promised to always wear a helmet, this has given me little solace.

I've been asking around for advice - Do I give him the scooter I promised him, or do I not in an effort to protect my sanity, my mom's sanity and his well-being?

One colleague told me to give it to him, he'll be fine. Another told me to just sell it.

I don't know... I hate after all these years to sell him out when he's always had my back, but man, I sure wish I'd have told him it was spoken for already.

I mean, if he crashes the damn thing I'm not gonna be there to help take the hit like he was for me with the 10-speed.

Anybody willing to call my dad and offer to "buy" it from him?

I will give you the money.

I'm A Model, You Know What I Mean

2011-02-17T17:43:00.000-05:00

Because the only photo that really matters in life is your driver's license picture, I got all gussied up a few months ago because the BMV wanted to give me a new license for my birthday.

Sexxxy photoshoot time, y'all.

I put on an acceptable license outfit: mascara, lip gloss, stilettos. Ok, not really with the spiked heels... buuuuut there was a chick who came in after me who was really taking her photo for the next four years seriously - silky purple camisole, make-up, hair did.

But I'm not gonna hate because seriously, when everyone is passing around their license over drinks at the bar there are only two ways to go - really awesome photo or really terrible photo.

"Omg look, you had hair four years ago!"

Or, "Holy crap, you looked like a werewolf back then!" (A friend of mine really does kinda look like a werewolf in hers.)

Six years ago I was really stoked to get my new photo. Finally I was getting rid of my mean-face photo (half-smile, half-shock, half-disgust) and I was prepared, damnit.

I knew when the surly clerk said "three" I would be smiling, I would look natural and I would mean it. I would mean it hard, I tell you!

I waited patiently for the magical Polaroid thingy to spit out my four years of fun and then... oh god. Oh god no. NOOOOO!!!!

The collar on my jacket was popped. *sob. The small, crappy photo resolution made my big smile look like I had buck teeth. *oh sweet Jesus. And hey there, nice roots. *awesome.

So this time around I vowed not to wear a jacket, smile too big and made sure my hair was dyed. I felt more prepared. Hair, combed. Gloss, applied. Smile, restrained.

And this time I look... smug and swollen.

I was too defeated to ask for a retake.

Here's to 2014.

Modern Love

2011-02-15T18:56:00.000-05:00

Technically, we celebrated on Friday with a bottle of chianti and dinner at Wine Guy Bistro, followed by heart shaped pink iced cookies from the 24-hour Busken.

And because we are drunkards, apparently, we continued to celebrate with another glass of wine at Poco A Poco and a nightcap at Arthurs.

Even though we weren't really celebrating because Valentine's Day is totally loaded and the opposite of romantic and besides anyhow, I had plans on actual Valentine's Day and he was rowing.

But then my plans ditched me at the last minute and he was hungry after working-out so, hey, let's get some Chipotle and eat the rest of those cookies.

And so Valentines Day was duly honored with chips and salsa and food wrapped in aluminum foil.

My hungover heart sang.

Hope yours was equally fantastic, celebrated or not.

"Yes, Gina, Bearcats Are Real"

2011-02-14T19:07:00.000-05:00

A rat looking thing popped up on the Jumbo Tron at the UC game yesterday and I said something like, "What, is that supposed to be a Bearcat? Ha, like bearcats are real. And if they were they'd be way cuter than that thing."

UC fans are dumb, I thought to myself. A bearcat. Phssst.

Ray (my bf not my dad) peered at me sideways. The following conversation transpired from here:

Ray: Bearcats are real.

Me: Riiiight. Of course they are, baby. (Patting his shoulder and thinking, Poor thing. Go to UC for four years and you'll believe anything, I guess.)

Ray: What do you want to bet? Anything you want.

Me: (I was already eating a soft pretzel with cheese so I was pretty much set for life already.) It's your funeral dude, whatever you want.

Ray: (smugly) I just want you to admit you're wrong.

Me: Fine with me. (Pulling out iPhone.)

Ray: So you think bearcats are like unicorns, just made up.

Me: Totally made-up.

Wikipedia: Bearcat is another name for the Binturong, a viverid mammal from Southeast Asia. Also known as the Asian Bearcat, the Palawan Bearcat, or simply the Bearcat. The binturong is not a bear, and the real meaning of the original name has been lost, as the local language that gave it that name is now extinct. It is nocturnal and sleeps on branches. It eats primarily fruit.

Me: It does exist! It looks like a rat with cute paws!

Ray: Say it.

Me: Say what?

Ray: (sideways peering again.) You know what.

Me: Ok fine, but I bet no one else knows they're real either. It's a fake mascot name.

Ray: Why would they make-up a mascot name?

Me: For affect. You know, like the Marion Giants. Giants aren't real, but that didn't stop them form naming them as their mascot. Or the Panthers. Panthers are real, yeah, but you don't see any of them running around outside gyms during sports games. It's not like there are bearcats running around the UC campus. Seriously, why wouldn't they make-up a mascot name?

Then I texted Rachel and asked her if she knew that bearcats were real. Her response was, "Dude. You went to UC."

Once again, people - I went to UC for grad school. Doesn't count.

And since when is it ok to lash out at me because they don't understand how mascots work?

We were playing St. John's yesterday, who are known as the Red Storm. Hmm, sounds made-up... unless you live on Jupiter!

But this whole ridiculous conversation was worth it. Not because I learned that bearcats are real live animals (or so says Wikipedia) but because for Valentine's Day Rachel gave me this homemade cookie that says: "I Heart Bearcats." Which you can sorta see in this photo but not really because I messed up the icing carrying it to my desk as I warded off bearcats.

And here is a photo of a "real" bearcat. High-five, bear.

Shoot The J - SHOOT IT!

2011-02-09T19:02:00.000-05:00

When all else fails, "Prince can ball!"

Thank you Charlie Murphy for getting me through this long, cold winter day.

Let's Stay Together

2011-02-02T20:20:00.003-05:00

Hotel weddings. Banquet weddings. Church weddings. Receptions that overlooked Baltimore Harbor. Ceremonies that went down in the UAW Hall.

Lovely. Elegant. Destination.

Traditional. Tearjerkers. Overwrought.

Boring. Drunken. Expensive.

Open bar. Closed bar. (Wtf?)

If there's a wedding out there, I've seen it. And I loved them all.

So I was honored Saturday to be one of only a handful of guests at a friend's quickly put together wedding. I believe she spent three weeks in the planning. I got my invite with 72 hours notice.

Seems about right to me.

They got married in a private room at a restaurant. The ceremony lasted 5 minutes, and afterwards we dug-in to a five course dinner. No DJ. No singing. No readings from the Bible.

The bride didn't even walk down the aisle. Because, well, there was no aisle. And (gasp!) she didn't wear a white dress she will never wear again.

It was one of my favorite weddings ever. Entirely singular, casual and lighthearted. At last!

God knows the myriad reasons people get married, but I am in favor of all of them. (God knows the myriad reasons people stay together too - kids? practicality?)

And God knows the myriad ways people defy and embrace something so traditional.

But I can say now that I've seen every tradition bucked, all the pomp and circumstance dismissed, and everything I've known about weddings happily chucked.

In word, it was bad-ass.

Congrats to Carolyn and Christian!

The Big Picture

2011-01-28T21:49:00.001-05:00

The Boston Globe's Big Picture is one of my favorite sites. Their photo blogs capture the best and worst of the world - wars and unrest, love and celebrations.

Usually I'm in awe of what it captures - beauty and brevity and pain and hope. At least once a week the pictures make me smile and/or tear up.

Today they made me tear up with a tribute to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

It's heartbreaking to remember how excited everyone was for Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space, and how we sat in our classroom to watch the launch. Our class didn't really know anything had gone wrong. We'd never seen a space shuttle launch before, so watching it explode and break apart in the sky didn't have the immediate impact on us that it had on our teacher.

When I lived in Northern Virginia I once spent about three hours walking all around Arlington National looking for the Challenger Memorial.

A friend of mine insisted on seeing it. Everything is BIG in Washington. So we expected to easily find and come upon this grand scale tribute. It's the opposite. The Challenger Memorial is small, just a plaque really with all of the astronauts' faces engraved into it.

But it's a cemetery, so probably a wise choice to not to erect some giant rocket memorial in the middle of all that hallowed ground.

If you're hanging out on your slick iPad right now and you want to check out some more photos from the Big Picture here are a few. Remind yourself:

How small you are

What wonder there is beyond what we can see

That nature is unforgiving

That war is brutal

That bobsleds can unite

That love is essential

30

2011-01-27T19:46:00.002-05:00

In journalism -30- signifies the end of the story. It's a copy editing symbol for, "you'll never get the last 20 minutes of your life back. Sorry for making you read this crap story! Hahahaha!"

But Friday it meant my bestie Missy is actually 30. Which means in addition to being suspicious and untrustworthy to anyone under 30, she'll now be called "ma'am" and is one early bird special away from an AARP membership and having her skin hang off the bone like a boiled chicken.

To prevent this awful fate, we celebrated calorically, at night. Wine. Crab cakes. Gossip. I wondered where in the hell I went wrong in life. I mean, why couldn't I have been born a boy, or gay, so that we could date each other? Is that too much to ask?! Well God, is it?!

Happy Birthday to one of my favorite girls on the planet.

* Pretend like this photo was taken earlier this week at a birthday dinner and not this summer at a sweltering Red's game. And pretend that I'm not biting her head but instead looking reasonably at the camera, like Missy.

Yes Please

2011-01-24T18:26:00.000-05:00

I love a good Groupon. I love restaurants with weekday vaudevillian alpacas even more.

What I Learned in Puerto Rico

2011-01-21T20:10:00.000-05:00

• Four years of college Spanish, completely worthless.

• HOLA! with conviction followed by "Madalla Light," solid.

• Translation for "oatmeal raisin cookie," pointing and smiling.

• Adding "o" to the end of every word makes it "Spanish," for example, OMG-o.

Because I Work With Emblems of Fashion, Apparently

2011-01-20T19:11:00.001-05:00

Picking out my clothes for work is one of my creative outlets. Not every day, and it might not always seem like it, but I put some thought into my clothes. I accessorize. I layer. I wonder if anyone will notice the subtle but important difference between the black shoes I wore Monday and the black shoes I wore Tuesday. (They look completely different, ok.)

Sometimes I build entire outfits around a pair of shoes, or earrings, or maybe a belt I want to wear.

Like today for instance, I wanted to wear this brown leather belt (can you ever go wrong with a brown leather belt? Hell no) because I saw a photo of Gwen Stefani in a magazine wearing a long belt twisted like this. It looked awesome.

Basically, I want to look like Gwen Stefani at all times. But since I work a normal job and am not a singer, band leader, fashion designer or married to the insanely hott Gavin Rossdale, I thought the belt was close enough.

Just when I go around thinking, "Damn, Gwen Stefani is gonna want to be my bestie today!" I have my colleagues to howl at me:

"Haha! Oh my god what are you wearing?! It's a toga! And what's up with your belt?!"

and

"OMG!!!! You look like a pirate!!! ARRRRRGH!!!!"

Really now people… The first jab from a researcher who's shirts are so tight the threads are holding on for dear life and the latter from the Boss Man who accompanied his insult with, "Permission to come aboard, Matey!"

I seriously do not know why I waste my creative sartorial choices on these fools.

So tomorrow I have decided to up the ante. Cords, a tunic and a belt are so outrageous, are they? Tomorrow I am building my whole outfit around my black and white polka-dotted knee-high Wellies.

They're gonna lose it. I can't wait!

(Side note: Ok fine, not my best effort here, but come on, I just got back from Puerto Rico, it's a blizzard outside and neither my nipples nor my belly is showing, which is more than I can say for them.)

11 Things

2010-12-23T20:28:00.001-05:00

1. I am a working on new poem. What rhymes with 'dry skin'?

2. I got only two Christmas cards this year. I guess you babies finally got sick of not getting any in return from me… well, your loss. Now I don't get to put YOUR card on my mantle. But I did post Kari's Charlie Harper bird Christmas card, which said, "Hey Girl Hey, it's Christmas!" WORD.

3. Wait, Christmas is 2 days away… Really? Really. That's great. Way to sneak up on me again, Christmas. Oh hey, guess what… I didn't any of you fools anything - again. Sorry 'bout that. But I really do think about you a lot, ok? Ok. I'm glad we're made up now. Yay!

4. I forced my boyfriend to put up my three foot Christmas tree with me, even though he kinda hates Christmas. Then I forced him to decorate ANOTHER new Christmas tree with me, this one a whopping two feet, because I thought it would look "cuter." (It was white, like it had built-in snow.) Then I decided I hated the white one and the put the original one back up. Merry Christmas!

5. My new scooter made it to its new home two weeks ago. I rode it through a parking lot then quickly handed it over to Dean for the heavy lifting of driving it downtown. Is it springtime yet?! Did anyone get me those goggles I asked for for Christmas? What about gloves, did you get me the gloves?!

6. Said to me last week: "Ummm, you just planted a big one on me, in front of everybody, at lunch rush, in Chipotle... And all your stories are about heartache and misery." Translation: Eating burritos with me is awesome.

7. We used to play this game called "stand and take it" when I worked at the Enquirer. The "game" consisted of letting your coworker kick a beachball at you and you couldn't protect your face or hoo-ha area, you just had to "stand and take it." This was a fun game. But not as fun as the new game in our office called "terrorize your staff with an icicle by shoving it down their back."

8. Speaking of, Boss Man to me: "I don't like this, but if other people in the Institute like it I'm fine with it. I'm able to compartmentalize myself. For example, I don't like you. But you do a reasonable job, so…"

9. Read this. Now let's all get drunk and discuss.

10. My friends are kick-ass and gave me really great, thoughtful gifts this year. And because Rachel loves me extra much she got me Misfortune Cookies. Because nothing says Merry Christmas like a fortune that reads, "What the fu** is wrong with you?" wrapped in a tasty cookie shell. See above.

11. I will repay her (and all my closest friends) with this bad-ass tequila gun sometime in the next five years or so.

So Help Me God He Will Pay!

2010-12-21T17:38:00.003-05:00

It's been freakin' war, people.

A few weeks ago I slid a Flintstone vitamin into the Boss Man's sandwich, because I was being NICE and because I CARE about him and was trying to make him HEALTHY.

But then he got all bent about it and threatened to kill me. (Oh, I still have the voicemail.)

Like it's my fault they taste bad. I was being HELPFUL. Doesn't anybody recognize kindness anymore. Wtf?

In retaliation he burst into my cubicle last Friday wielding a giant icicle pronouncing it the perfect murder weapon and stabbing it at me all Psycho shower scene. Perfectly calm I said, "Excuse me, sir. I am working hard here, as per usual."

And because he's like, 100 times my age and I didn't want to give the man an angina and go all Chuck Norris on his ass immediately I crouched in pretend fear - oh no! not a giant icicle, I'm sooo scared! - and hunched over my keyboard.

And do you want to know what he did? I will tell you what he did… He stuck that giant icicle down the collar of my shirt and onto my back.

On. To. My. Back. Giant icicle!

It was like an ice-cream headache for my spinal cord. I almost died. I got frost bite. I think I threw a clot, all while dutifully trying to work.

So, totally justified to whup your Boss Man's ass for this, right? Damn right, right.

Well, I don't want to start rumors or anything, but I think the old man has been taking steroids. We were scuffling over this icicle, me trying to shove it down his shirt and him trying to stop me, and he was getting the best of me.

I mean really. I am young. I am sinewy. I am a ninja!

So what if he's got 100 pounds on me, is a man and chops wood as a stress reliever. Steroids. What kind of person goes around stabbing innocent underlings with an icicle if they're not 'roid-raging. Only the kind that's 'roid-raging, I say.

Or, I might have body dysmorphic disorder y'all, because in my head I am a total badass who can pretty much beat up anyone. Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven? Yeah, I taught him that shizz. Bourne Ultimatum? I choreographed the stunts.

I was straight up about to Moonwalk across his face when... umm, sniff-sniff... the Boss Man started batting me around like a kitten with a ball of yarn, easily overpowering me as I got all red faced and sweaty and yelled things like, "You're old! How on earth are you stronger than me?! Hold still!"

In my head I exploded into a 12-foot high in-air somersault where upon I came down on him like a hurricane and gently but firmly planted that icicle onto the back of his neck, down his stupid shirt and onto his back where I welded it (with my laser beam eyes) with dry ice there forever. Bwahahahaha!

Except in reality my wrists were getting red and sore from struggling to get away from him so I could maybe possibly kinda get the icicle near his head.

Needless to say I spent the weekend licking my wounds and lamenting to anyone who would listen that my old Boss Man bested me in a physical icicle confrontation. Imma start training tomorrow for a rematch, y'all. I'm gonna go all Rocky on him.

Imma look like this, outfitted solely in gray sweats, doing things au naturale - like running stairs and tromping through chest-high snow.

He's gonna continue to roid, just like Drago.

God revenge is gonna be so sweet. Down, I say. He is going DOWN.

I need an Apollo. Sure you'll have to die but it will be worth it because I'll win. Who's with me?!

So Awesome Your Spark Plugs Will Short Out

2010-12-05T22:04:00.004-05:00

I make a lot of difficult decisions - frozen pizza or delivery, for example. But none more difficult than my decision Saturday - the blue scooter or the black scooter. Or what about the red scooter... oooh orange!

Friday before I left work the Boss Man told me the blue one matched my "icey" personality. Carolyn said anybody can drive black. But my boyfriend was in favor of the black because if he ever took it for a spin a powder blue scooter is... so badass he couldn't handle it! (Ok that's not exactly what he said.)

The red looked more retro to me. The blue one was so cute I wanted to hug it. But ooh shiny! Look at the black one!

The guys from Metro tried to help me decide. Ray (my boyfriend not my dad) tried to help too. Even a stranger weighed in. But ultimately everyone walked away because I had that "all you dudes need to drink a big cup of shut the hell up so I can think because this is serious!" look on my face.

Then, the baby blue scooter was all "Helloooo soulmate." And I was all, "You my Boo!"

So, with all due respect to my first love, Stella, I can now go 60 on my new baby blue ride. 'Cause that's exactly the kind of bad-assery I need on two wheels.

Then I celebrated at The Precinct with steak and wine and crack potatoes. So basically Saturday was the best day of my life.

Sweet Jesus, Phil. Buck Up!

2010-12-01T21:07:00.002-05:00

Damn, y'all. You know who has it bad? Phil Collins.

I just read an interview with him in Rolling Stone about how sucky his life is because everyone hates him because he was the soundtrack of the '80s and he's been divorced three times and he can't drum anymore because of nerve damage or something and he just wants to "end it all" because he hates being "Phil Collins" so he makes his new girlfriend call him Phillip. And you can tell he's kinda losing it because he thinks the dust orbs in his photos are "paranormal" energy and that he lived a past life.

Daaang, Phil.

Except all this makes me giggle because whenever I think of Phil Collins I smile because of that 30 Rock scene:

Tracy Jordan: "I'm gonna make you a mix tape. You like Phil Collins?"
Jack Donaghy: "I have two ears and a heart, don't I?"

Do not be discouraged, Phil. The drum solo to In The Air Tonight is enough to live for! Oh wait, you can't drum anymore. Shit. Phil, you're throwing it all away! Wait one more night! I bet you and your girlfriend have a groovy kind of love!

It's still gonna rain down? Well ok, but you'll always have an invisible touch-ay in my heart, Phil.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Who Needs a Xanax?!)

2010-11-29T18:36:00.000-05:00

Let's talk about how Ray (my boyfriend) met Ray (my dad) on Thanksgiving and now I'm pretty sure that Ray (my dad) is going to shoot Ray (my boyfriend).*

Really dad? Like it's not suspicious you asked him to go hunting a half-dozen times? Really?

* Yes, they have the same name. I know. I KNOW.

Talk About Your All Time Slaps in the Face With A Tutu

2010-11-27T23:59:00.001-05:00

I got up early on Saturday all excited to cash in my adult ballet Groupon and they didn't have adult ballet this weekend.

Outrage!

So I went to the grocery store in pink tights, furry boots and a bun in my hair.... Which is to say I looked like everyone else at Hyde Park Bigg's on a Saturday morning.

In A Name

2010-11-16T18:37:00.000-05:00

Had I been a boy I'd have been named Clint… as in Eastwood.

My dad talks about "Eastwood" as if he's an old family friend. "You see Eastwood on TV last night?"

He even squints and mumbles and walks around enacting justice and barking orders like he's in an endless loop of Dirty Harry.

Ray and Clint. Peas and carrots. Spaghetti and westerns.

My mom wanted to name me Wayne, except my dad hates John Wayne, so… overruled.

Because my mom had already had two boys she was certain I'd be a boy. Clint it was. But just in case they decided Gina would do for a girl.

Gina, pronounced... G-Na.

Gina shortened from Regina, meaning "queen."
Or "silvery," if you're Japanese. (Cause you know, lots of Japanese girls are named Gina.)
"Garden," in Hebrew.
The pet of the Latin Virginia, meaning "maiden" and the English pet form of Georgina, meaning "earth-worker" or the Italian Luigina, meaning "warrior."

A name meaning placard I had as a kid pronounced girls named Gina "mischievous." It's the only description I've lived up to thus far.

Gina is a family name on both sides. I have a cousin on my mom's side, Gina Michelle, and another cousin on my dad's side, Gina Lynn. They both go by their middle names and are both about 12 years my senior.

I was named after my dad's niece, who he affectionately calls "crazy Lynn" because she is vivacious and fun and prone to talking out of turn and saying hilarious things.

I had a lot to live up to.

The most famous Gina is probably Gina (Luigina) Lollobrigida, an Italian actress and dancer popular in the '50s. Or Geena Davis, but she doesn't really count with the double "e"s.

But Gina G totally counts, depending on if you remember that one hit wonder from the mid-'90s. (World's biggest tragedy is that this amazing performer stopped making music.)

At work GINA is best known as the acronym for the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

G-dawg is a common variant. But mostly people call me Gina or G, depending on when you met me and how you know me. If you met me through work you call me Gina. If you met me in college or high school you call me G.

If you know me through my kin you have completely forgotten that my first and middle names are actually separate and you call me Gina Lynn, with a southern twang, as in "Gee-na Lynn, time for supper!"

My birthday was last month and as I was chatting with my mom about the momentous occasion that was my birth we giggled at her first words to me, "A girl!! What am I going to do with a little girl?! Awww, she's beautiful." Then she passed out.

Then she said, "Your dad wanted to name you Clint. I'm glad you were a girl."

The Sun Also Rises

2010-11-14T20:45:00.001-05:00

Just home from the Florida coast where I saw the sun come up. Which got me to thinking, when was the last time I watched the sun come up? Hmm... Guess I'm more of a The Sun Mostly Sets kinda girl.

The highlight of the trip was an unplanned excursion to Key West and the Hemingway Home and Museum. To be honest, I was lured in by the ridiculous number of cats I saw through the fence. Fueled by a strawberry daiquiri and a mango margarita I was overcome with a deep desire to pet them all.

But then I was surprised at how much impact and inspiration the house had on me, less because of the books and belongings in it and more because I learned a lot about the man. Hemingway has a terrific life story, full of great and perilous adventures, famous writerly and artistic friends, multiple wives and unfortunate injuries.

The stuff great stories are made of.

Later that night on a barstool I was chatting with a fishing boat captain (seafarers love me, apparently), a couple from Rhode Island and a plastic surgeon from Boston about the novella The Old Man and the Sea. The woman from Rhode Island hated it.

It's been ten years or better since I read it, but I remember loving it and thinking in spite of everything it was more a book about triumph rather than defeat, even though the only image I could conjure from the story was that of the old man coming back with the giant marlin skeleton, evidence of his luck and subsequent misfortune at sea.

I thought about reading it again to see if I'd have the same perspective but I'm not going to. I don't want to ruin it. I was a lot smarter back then; god knows how I could screw up that novel by reading it now.

They Don't Make 'Em Like This Anymore

2010-11-07T08:53:00.003-05:00

Presents for me are always from my mom. I open them up and my dad looks over and excitedly says, "What'd I get you?!"

In his defense, he bought me a sapphire necklace about 10 years ago for Christmas, and another time when I was in the hospital I sent him to the gift shop for a toothbrush and he bought me a very small stuffed bear. But other than that, presents from my dad are A) scarce and B) random.

Umm, thanks, Dad, for the... pliers?

I'm glad you like them. I saw them at an auction and thought of you.

Awesome.

But this year he kept saying he had a birthday present for me... and that it was "starting to smell."

Usually my mom tips me off to any strange presents he might send my way so my reaction isn't one of complete bewilderment.

She was silent this year when I pressed her.

Hmm... Suspicious.

Last weekend he stood beside me as I unwrapped my birthday present. When he told me to be careful cutting the tape off the box I envisioned god knows what oozing out from the puncture wound, smelling like rotten garbage and prepping for my "ooh, what a nice surprise!" face.

Then, I was legitimately surprised.

He'd made me an afghan. I'd forgotten that during the hunting off-season last winter he'd started crocheting again after a one-off afghan he made 20 years ago.

And there it was. I was smitten. He made my porch swing, has built me bookshelves and flower boxes and countless picture frames and stands. Those things are what he does. This is different.

I don't think I've ever loved a present a more. I gushed over it sincerely and even admired his color choices, black and gray, to better hide cat hair.

Initially he had plans to make all three of his sisters one, my mom's two sisters one and me one. But that was before the afghan meltdown of 2010, where stitching turned to bitching and he had to redo all of his work - twice.

He thought he was getting faster. At first it took him 40 minutes to complete a row, then 35, then 30. Before long he was down to 20 minutes per row.

But when he was nearly finished and finally spread it all out on the living room floor my mom goes, "Why is one side shorter than the other?"

"Damn it all, Gina Lynn," he told me. "I wasn't getting faster, I was dropping stitches!"

There's a sentence I never thought I'd hear my masculine old man say.

So he pulled it out and started over.

The ladies at Jo-Anne Fabrics thought he was buying yarn for his wife and adored how sweet he was to shop for her at the craft store. When they found it was him doing the crocheting they admired his diversity and told him, "Isn't crocheting so relaxing!"

"Bullshit," he said. "I can't watch TV while I'm doing it, I got two blisters and my rows got all messed up."

Then he grabbed his bag of yarn and walked out with an, "Afternoon, ladies."

I bet they are still gossiping about him.

"I hope you like it because I'm not making anymore," he told me. "I'd die of old age as long as it took me make that one." Then he added he'll be spending this winter where he belongs, in the garage sawing wood and making knife cases and porch swings.

Hot Type

2010-11-04T18:53:00.000-04:00

Today we gave one of our cardiologists a mock-up of a newsletter with Lorem Ipsum filling in the content.

He looked quizzically at my colleague Rachel and was like, "What does this say?"

"It's filler text," she said.

"Oh! I was trying to translate it!"

We adore this doc and started cracking up... Of course he would try to translate it.

And that's why he's a doctor and we're not.

Would You Rather?

2010-10-28T18:52:00.000-04:00

There is a gun to your head, you must chose one.

Would you rather read in its entirety:

A.) "The Situations" new tome, Here's The Situation: A Guide to Creeping on Chicks, Avoiding Grenades, and Getting In Your GTL on the Jersey Shore

or

B.) George Bush's new memoir, Decision Points.

Let me help you… Here's a video of The Situation addressing those nagging herpes rumors (and his workout routine) and here is Bushy's thrilling YouTube book trailer.

C.) You could take the bullet... but with A or B you at least get a lesson in how to fail upward.

I Heart The Tots

2010-10-26T18:12:00.001-04:00

The lights in the cafeteria went out today and the first thing I thought was, "If my tater tots end up missing someone is getting hurt."

Then we all had to evacuate for a Code Gray, which means we were shoo'd out of the cafeteria and into the tunnels and basements. It was just like elementary school when we had to line up against the interior walls, get on our knees and put our hands over the back of our necks.

Except, you know, it kinda wasn't anything like that really… Aside from the fact that I'm still eating tater tots for lunch and my first concern during a tornado is, "Oh no! What about my tots!"

Ok yeah, everything is exactly the same.

Over The Tapas

2010-10-25T19:09:00.001-04:00

We're all friends here, right? We like the the same things: 30 Rock, Halloween, Jersey Shore.

Great.

Now the rest of you, for crying out loud, shut-up already about tapas. Just stop it. "Oooh, the new tapas place blah-blebity-blah!"

Guess what, it's not that great.

And you know, now that I'm at it, enough with the martini escapades too. ENOUGH. "Ooh, a mango-tini sugary explosion of diabetes, YUM!"

If you can add "bar" to the end of any word making it doubly pretentious to go there then you get punched and dragged off to Madison Bowl.

I know the rest of you got my back.

Proof It Gets Better

2010-10-20T18:11:00.003-04:00

One of my closest friends in high school school was gay.

He wasn't out back then, but we all knew Shane was gay. There was a tight crew of about 5 of us, plus many more of his close friends, and we all knew and nobody gave a crap. It elicited a big fat shrug from us. We didn't try to force him out, we played along with his girl-crushes and we not only tolerated his deep love and affection for Madonna and the endless loop of Like A Prayer and Erotica, we embraced it.

We rolled through our late high school years doing what teenagers do - not taking school very seriously but taking ourselves very seriously.

We were regulars at a diner in town called Alice's, and we spent hours upon hours there drinking coffee (black, like our deep, dark souls) and eating cheesecake (hey, even very serious teenagers have a softspot for cherry topping, ok?!) and discussing life's more significant topics, such as new music, the school's hotties and our high school's theater production of To Kill A Mockingbird, which if we all didn't get a part then life was seriously effed up!

When it got late enough we forked our friends' yards (take that, ya bastards!) and expressed ourselves by dying our hair, driving too fast down residential and country roads and participating in all manner of recreational trespassing and alcohol abuse. (And by alcohol abuse I mean I couldn't drink anything stronger than a wine cooler or 'Seriously guys, I am gonna throw up RIGHT NOW!')

But under the surface of all that teen angst was some real, well, teen angst. We all had our problems to confront. And our friend Shane had problems we hardly even considered. Because even though we didn't care he was gay, other people certainly did, and that culture made him terrified to tell us, his family, the school and... oh god, what if his dad found out.

Life certainly seemed simple. And yet, here was this 16-year-old wrestling with some real life shit.

Shane had some dark secrets and a world awareness that went through him like wrecking ball at times.

In the fall of our senior year of high school he tried to kill himself. There were lots of pills, an ambulance ride to the hospital, and an extended stay at the mental health hospital. Word spread like wildfire at a party most of us were at that night - Shane's been taken to the hospital for a suicide attempt - and that's when shit got real.

The guy who's default was to make self-deprecating jokes and provide hilarious and scathing commentary on all manner of high-school ridiculousness had tried to kill himself? What. The. Hell.

The reasons were many. He was closeted, afraid of who he really was, what it meant and the facade he'd built. Plus he was nursing a broken heart. The rest of us when we were heart broken could at least be open about it and cry on the shoulders of friends. Not him.

When I went to see him the next day in the hospital he had a temporary tattoo of a skull and crossbones stuck to his forehead.

Well, that's a good sign, I thought. And when I went to visit him in the mental health clinic a week later we plotted what we'd do when he got out. Obviously he'd get to ride shotgun in my car from now on. Obviously.

But we didn't talk about what landed him there or why he did it or even if he'd try it again. We'd had dinner together the night before the attempt at my favorite restaurant and the only thing I said at the mental health clinic in reference to what was really happening was a dry, "Was it something I said at dinner?"

To which he replied, "I shouldn't have gotten the veal."

Fortunately, he survived and pressed on and life got a little easier to deal with and our freshman year of college he came out.

We all shrugged when he told us. If anything, we under-reacted. We were trying to show him we didn't care that he was gay because, well, we didn't care that he was gay, but looking back, maybe we should have given it more weight given how difficult it was for him. But we were 18. Plus, we were really, really cool.

A few years later Shane and I were roommates my senior year of college. As in, he slept on the top bunk and I slept on the bottom bunk in an apartment above the campus laundry mat. (We went to school together Kindergarten through college... and I am proud to say I knocked him down with my swing in kindergarten for trying to kiss me, which we later decided was probably what made him gay in the first place.)

We stayed up until 3 a.m. most mornings, still drinking coffee, still dying our hair, and occasionally debating, "If you could take a pill that would make you straight, would you take it?"

The answer was no.

But I know a lot of young and closeted gay folks would say yes. Why wouldn't they want life to be that much easier.

I like to think folks have become more open-minded, more accepting, happy even that Glee is on the air, but when I think about hypocritical megachurch "converts," gay-rights legislation haters, don't ask-don't tell, the ban on gay marriage, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised about the recent spate of gay teens killing themselves.

And yet, somehow, I am. Often I forget what hate-filled, ignorant, awful little trolls people can be. And I forget what it would be like to be a vulnerable gay teenager amongst those haters and imposters.

Today Shane's Facebook status reminded everyone to wear purple. Then there was another update with a list of names, mine included, and the message that he's proof life gets better. His dark tour through the recesses of hate and suicide attempts was almost 20 years ago. I'd nearly forgotten all about it.

Then I remembered, the list of names were of those people who supported and visited him when the skull and crossbones was still stuck to his forehead and he was still afraid to be who he is today.

I am proud to be on that list. I am proud that even at a young age I knew better than a lot of the people today who sit in positions of religious and political power in this country.

And I am proud... wait a second... that rat bastard gave me second billing... Oh hell no! But look, what's this... A picture of us from prom, where I look fantastic, and he looks like a game show host!

If I lived closer I'd fork his yard.

Proof it gets better, and friends are forever.

You Gotta Know When To Fold 'Em

2010-10-19T16:58:00.003-04:00

Because of the awesomeness of my apartment building, all three dryers went out last Sunday afternoon just as I'd overloaded them with 50 pounds of my sopping wet skivvies.

The woman who's shady kids own the building suggested, "Oh hon… just hang them to dry."

Yes, finally! A use for all that clothesline I have strung-up throughout my apartment.

Bitterly I loaded my wet towels, sheets and v-neck pocket t-shirts from Target (which is pretty much all I wear) into plastic bags and headed for the laundry mat.

If I smoked I would have, because it seems like having a Marlboro Red is the only appropriate way to drive yourself to the laundry mat with bags full of wet clothes. I drove wondering where I had gone wrong in life. What were the turns that lead to me this place - the land of coin operated spinning machinery on a lovely Sunday morning. What, exactly, brought me here... other than the "power surge" to the basement dryers, of course.

Too many are the turns that landed me at Coin Laundry in Oakley, I decided.

The only reason I even knew where a laundry mat was is because it's right across from Domino's Pizza (er, the healthfood restaurant) and I remember seeing it one afternoon while picking up my to-go order of tofu/granola/flax seed stir-fry. (Read: the Pacific Vege pizza at Domino's is kick-ass, y'all.)

This joint must be new, I thought, as I walked into Coin Laundry and marveled at the rows of brushed steel front loaders shouting - EXPRESS! 50 lb capacity! 30 lb capacity! 20 lb capacity!

It was all just numbers to me, so I ignored them and started shoving quarters into the closest machine after carefully reading the directions on the front of a dryer.

Never does it occur to me that my measly bags of sheets and t-shirts probably don't belong in a 50 pound capacity express dryer for 60 minutes.

And that's how I nearly burnt the joint down.

"Those get up to 112 degrees," said the young Coin-Laundry Worker-Girl, as she wiped detergent off a washer and handed out change. "You better check on that stuff after about 12 minutes or your clothes are gonna burn-up."

She was sweet, helpful and smartly intervened again as I started shoving money into the 50 pound capacity washer that was way too big for the three rugs I was going to wash while I was there.

"You should move those to the lowest capacity we have, on the other side," she said. "It's cheaper," and she handed me back the 50 cents I already squandered.

I loved her, I decided. I imagined us being best friends and sharing the cigarette she had behind her ear.

But I wasn't the only newby at the Coin Laundry. As I shoved my rugs into the 20 pound capacity washer I commented to the woman sitting behind me that I was the dumbest person at the laundry mat.

"Girl, I had to read the directions!" she said to me.

"Me too!" I confessed.

Dirty clothes were bringing us together. She and her husband were having their basement redone and she hadn't been to a laundry mat in 20 years, she said.

It's been about 6 for me, I told her.

We agreed that it was a damn fine laundry mat. Clean, new and the staff was very helpful. We bragged about the super-duper burn your clothes up express washers and dryers like they were ours.

I commenced to folding t-shirts as she went back to her magazine and envisioning her new basement, and the Coin-Laundry Worker-Girl went outside to smoke.

I could totally work here, I thought as I folded. You know, if I had to. If the shiz, God forbid, ever went down. I mean, there are worse things than working at the laundry mat. Plus, I'm pretty much an expert on these fancy washers and dryers now, I told myself. I can dutifully wipe fabric softener off of stuff, and I'm great at making change and pushing around wheeled laundry baskets. In my daydream I was an Olympic Folder. No washrag was safe.

Four loads of fresh laundry later, I walked out and told Coin Landry Worker-Girl, who was still outside smoking, that I appreciated her help. Then I told the other woman that I hoped her basement turned out great.

We all hugged and said a teary goodbye. Ok, that part didn't happen. But still. I totally made friends at the laundry mat.

Put-In-Bay Is A Real Place

2010-10-04T21:47:00.003-04:00

Or so I'm told. I don't remember much about it, but my clothes smell like booze, bacon and campfire, so I must have had fun.

When my schmoyfriend first invited me for a weekend on the island paradise that is Put-In-Bay I envisioned walks on a rocky beach with the wind whipping my hair and a hoodie comforting me as I read fiction in a chaise lounge... by a lighthouse.

Instead I was trapped on an island that looked distressingly like Alcatraz with his booze-hound friends.

Obviously it turned out far better than I imagined. And I didn't have to read any fiction. Jackpot.

Vitamin P... For Poison

2010-09-30T18:45:00.000-04:00

I don't know how to tell you guys this so I'm just gonna come out and say it: Flintstone's changed their vitamin formula to poison!

Remember when you were a kid and Flintstone's chewables were delicious, and so taking your vitamin was exciting because they tasted like Pez and you hid under the kitchen table and gobbled down as many as you could?

Well, not anymore my friends.

Last week I excitedly bought a bottle of Flintstone's Complete ("now more complete with choline!" whatever that is) and eagerly handed them out to my coworkers in an effort to boost their immune systems and make them owe me for life. As we chomped down on the red and orange and purple Bam-Bams and Barney's we smiled at how delicious and fun it was to take our vitamins.

YUM! We. Are. So. Healthy!

But then, OMG... The horror! Our smiles quickly turned into poison yuck faces, y'all. It tasted like Fred Flintstone pooped in our mouths. Wtf?! We cursed the bottle - why has thou forsaken us, Flinstone's vitamins?! - and spent the next 20 minutes scrunching up our faces in disgust and attempting to extract the awful, iron-tasting chalky grit from our tongues. All to no avail.

Thanks for ruining our childhoods, Flintstone's. These things are little torture pills now. Give them to your kids (or coworkers) only if you want them to hate you.

UC Has... Fans? Buh-lieve It!

2010-09-26T22:47:00.002-04:00

Saturday the University of Cincinnati played Oklahoma at Paul Brown Stadium. I was pretty excited to be one of the nine people there cheering.

Short beer line. Stadium at sunset. Some dudes playing college football. What's not to appreciate.

I think I went to one game during the time I spent at UC in grad school, and I'm pretty sure I only went because several of my classmates were athletic trainers and I thought it would be cool to wave at them.

So we roll up to Paul Brown on Saturday and, What the what?! The joint is packed with people sporting black Bearcats t-shirts and doing some weird UC chant... kinda like the YMCA dance only more tribal-y sounding.

*whoooaaaaa... *whooooooaaaaa... *whooooooaaaaa.... clap-clap-clap-clap... UC!!

The whole time I am fascinated and stunned. I went to UC - hell, I even taught there - and I don't know anybody who went there who was really pumped about it or super excited they exited its dilapidated buildings with a diploma.

But what the hell do I know - nothing apparently - because Paul Brown was filled with all manner of super-fans. Kids and women with little Bearcat logos fake tattooed on their faces and dudes with C-paws on their shirts and hats.

There was even a student section, y'all. A HUGE student section. When it was time for the YMCA, er, UC dance party chant, it was freakin' ON. A whole end-zone of arms shaping the letters "U" and "C."

I was there with an alum who is also a legitimate fan. Like, went to games even when they really sucked. (I am told this was mostly to drink beer. But still.) The whole thing somehow swelled me with a surprising alumni pride.

I might even buy a Bearcats t-shirt now. Or get some C-paw temporary tattoos. 'Cause that's how we fans roll.

Anyway, UC lost by two. At least this is what I'm told... I was busy eating nachos... because that's also how we fans roll.

He Nags Because He Cares, Right?*

2010-09-23T15:50:00.002-04:00

Me: Sign my PTO slip

Boss Man: I just one signed for you!

Me: This is important.

Boss Man: Is this girl stuff?! Then I don't want to hear it.

Me: I have to have the hole in my bladder cauterized.

Boss Man: I didn't hear that.

Me: CAUTERIZED, I said. BLADDER HOLE!

Boss Man: You should be healed by now.

Me: I had radiation.

Boss Man: Stop playing the cancer card! You should be healed by now. You need Vitamins D and K. And probably some B vitamins.

Me: Why, so I can pee them out? Show me the data on vitamins having any value.

Pa-pow, NOW who's asking for the data, Mr. Scientist?!

Boss Man: Your diet sucks. All you eat is fast food and frozen meals.

Ooh... busted.

Me: And cookies! You just gave me a chocolate chip cookie!

Boss Man: Google Vitamin D, you're capable of doing that, right?!

Wow... nutrition advice coming from the man who puts fake chicken broth through his coffee maker and calls it a hot "lunch."

*No, he nags because he's emotionally exhausting.