FLORIDA, The Summary

This is my first day back from my Florida vacay, and it's a good thing no one tried to talk to me at work. I'm definitely in a post-partum (party?) mood, so I need my quiet time to reflect on the weekend (and my ever-so-lovely tan). In the meantime, here's a short rundown of the weekend:

-1630 miles
-13 CDs from my audio book
-5 days
-350 (give or take) doll hairs
-10lbs of crawfish
-3 beach excursions
-1 frightened armadillo
-2 trips to the climbing gym (sigh)
-8lbs of seashells
-5 $6-each Framboise Lambics (aka Kool-aid and crack)
-4oo other beers
-1 handle of Bacardi Limon
-1 4-ft tall tequila piñata
-20 (or so) awesome-ass sisters on any given day
-4 free pinball games (!)
-3 (at least) stolen items
-30 minutes spent cramming 4 girls into a photobooth
-10 minutes of trampoline bungee jumping
-8 gajillion pictures
-2 hours crying on the drive back
-1 painfully frustrated heart
-1 painfully determined heart (it might be the same one)
-too many goodbyes to count

Countdown sequence initiated!

I'll be trekking back to Florida in T minus 70 hours for the much anticipated Alumni Weekend! Although there was some initial disappointment (read: absolute devastation and heartbreak) when I heard the formal was canceled, I'm still looking forward to what the weekend has in store.

I'm planning to leave straight from work by 8am...I'll already have the VDub packed up with vacay essentials (flip flops, oversized hat, Eppie, etc.), so I (hopefully) won't have to go back home before setting off. The Got is flying into Orlando and insisting that The Puerto Rican drive her to town that night; we don't want to waste one minute of drinking sisterly bonding.

It may not be much...but it's ours.

I 100% guarantee that I'll catch the skin cancer from this trip. It's been so long since I've been to beach that I'm considering just camping out all weekend. As long as The Got and I have somewhere to plug in the blender and I have nearby restroom facilities (I can't bring myself to make use of the ocean), we'll be set. The grandlil' discussed a game night also, so we'll see how that goes. Usually people will only play with us if The Got and I are on separate teams -- I'm sorry, that's just not gonna happen.

Monday night will be my last. Wing Night. Ever (maybe). It's also Mike the Bike's last wing night before he moves to Nantucket, so it seems only right to go out with a bang: a couple pitchers of Hatteras Red, copious amounts of wings (teriyaki and island jerk, yum), the best freakin' onion rings ever...so, pretty much the same as every other wing night. I'll probably finally pick up a tshirt while I'm there...I'm such a sucker for souvenirs.

With such a cute logo, how could you not love it??

In addition to wing night, I also must hit up Rolli, Java Surf, Skewers, and Thai Thai...that's a lot of eatin' for such a short visit. I hope to make it over to the climbing gym, too, if I manage to break free from the inevitable food-induced coma.

Many a picture will be posted from the weekend so that the world (ha) can see The Got and me in all of our margarita-clouded, lobsterfied glory.

Mama Didn't Raise No (April) Fool

Y'all, it's April. When did this happen? I can't believe it's been over three months since I transferred my belongings from a cramped storage unit to a slightly more cramped moving truck and got the hell out of Dodge (or Florida). It seems like it was just yesterday that I was starting to hyperventilate and have chest constrictions on the I-95 entrance ramp...ah, memories.

Anyway, I was inspired the other day by NTKOG's April Fools' prank (which was subtle and hella funny) and started thinking about some of shenanigans that my friends and I have gotten away with. Most of them were harmless, and all of them were hilarious (to us). Shall we take a little stroll along Hijinks Lane?

Revenge is a Dish Best Served from an Aerosol Can: The Phis were having a pie-chucking (or something like that) money raiser on campus; my friend Asian Squawkbox* had an exam in her next class and didn't want to be covered with whip creaminess, but her request fell on deaf ears. We decided to get back at Thick-Headed Offender by tricking him into coming to our dorm to fix the roommate's printer (believable because 1. her printer NEVER worked 2. THO was totally smitten with the roomie). When he stepped into our hall, five of us ambushed him with about 15 cans of Redi-Whip. This turned into a dairy-rich slip 'n slide of awesomeness that lasted until our RA came out and threatened us with bodily harm if we didn't clean up the mess IMMEDIATELY.

Welcome Committee: I'm not proud of this one, but it wouldn't be a fair representation if I omitted it. Pathological Liar was one of our on-campus apartment neighbors, and seriously, this bish lied. about. everything (ex: When I learned that my mother had breast cancer, I made an emotional announcement during a sorority meeting. This hoface decided right at that very moment to also (tearily) inform us that her aunt and her grandmother had developed cancer. If looks could kill...). Anyway, we decided one night to properly welcome her to the dorms, so we TP'ed her bike (which was chained to the rail in front of her door) and tied a maze of yarn between the railing and her doorknob. We then filled trashcans with water, propped them against her door, knocked, and ran like hell (five feet away). Naturally, the cans fell over, but we didn't get the reaction we had hoped for...so we threw caution (and tact) to the wind. One person went over to chat up PL while another ran by and threw a bucket of water into the apartment. Like I said, not my proudest moment...but we did help clean up the water afterwards...brownie points??

Higher Education: A few of us trained monkeys graduate students worked in a general computer lab that undergrads could also use. As a rule, you never leave your computer unlocked or logged in. This, however, was a difficult rule for some unfortunate souls to absorb. The most effective way of getting the message across to them was to change the desktop background, then lock the computer so the image is highly visible and could only be changed by the delinquent owner. Some choice visuals aids included (not limited to): angry badgers, naked men (for the guys), My Little Pony, and neon all-caps hate letters.

Would this not frighten you into submission?

The Office: When not e-terrorizing fellow students with traumatizing images and threats, we settled with unplugging our fellow grad student's mouse and connecting it to the the adjacent computer; making copies of a paperclip onto blank paper and loading them back into the copier for the professors to discover on their exams (not only does this amuse the students, but also someone inevitably tries to locate the rogue paperclip in the machine); and covering a labmate's entire computer/desk with Post-It notes.

Whale Tale: For some unknown reason, The Got had an inflatable whale pool in her living room during her freshman year. Honey, you're just asking to get pranked. Some friends and I devised an elaborate (ha) plan to steal the whale, strap in to the roof of my car, hide in some remote location on campus, and leave clues for The Got and Co. to find us and our hostage. This would've gone swimmingly (HA!) had The Got not been walking back to her dorm as they were toting the whale across campus. Being the quick thinker that she is, my roommate Dhood decided the best idea was to create a diversion and pants-ed The Got in front of God and the world. They managed to get away with the pool, we got it strapped onto THE TROOPER (must be said in a booming voice), and followed through with the genius plan.

Secret Lovers: By some stroke of luck, he Got and I came into possession of a laminated poster of Justin Timberlake from his NSYNC days. We were living together at the time (the Vinings, represent!) and we got a lot of amusement out of leaving JT taped to each other's bathroom mirrors with little notes that said stuff like "I just wanna love you." Eventually JT got more risqué with his hiding spots, and we'd find him hanging up in the shower or in our beds. The last time I remember seeing JT was when Margot was packing up to head to NJ for break...I managed to sneak him into her suitcase when she wasn't looking. Margot discovered her stowaway once she got home in NJ, along with a note from TSA saying her luggage had be searched. Neither of us are sure what happened to him after that, but it's probably for the best...

You see these shackles? Baby, I'm your slave.

* Names have been changed to protect the innocent (and annoying).

I like to call it "hopeless romantic lite"

No joke, I had the most absurd, jump-aroundy dream the other night. I wish I could figure out why some of the people/events made their way into my subconscious...but if that were the case, I guess it wouldn't be my subconscious, now would it? The only thing that I could possibly relate to it is the fact that I finally checked my email from school (after about 3 weeks). Anywho, here goes:

The first part involved me skydiving with a sorority sister/friend from undergrad. I haven't had contact with said sister in at least two years, save for comments occasionally on each other's Facebook statuses (stati?). So, there we are, skydiving - she has her jumpsuit and parachute and I - I have a chair. That's right, just a chair. For the most part, I'm sitting on it upright while plummeting toward Earth. I think the idea was to grab onto her at some predetermined point, but I vividly remember getting that queasy freefall feeling when I realized that I wouldn't be able to actually reach her when it was time (due to the whole gravitational acceleration thing).

I'm not sure if there was a segue, but the next part of the dream took place in the office of my academic department at school. I was discussing with our secretaries about how to handle my tuition bill (this has been a valid concern for me since I registered for thesis credits this semester, but decided to move halfway across the country before said semester began). I don't think any real solution came of it, but I have been known to go to this secretary in times of "ohmygod, I did something too late and the school wants all my money and I'm poor and sleeping on a couch what can I do please help!", so it's understandable why she would make an appearance at this particular time.

The third (and last) part (I hate alarm clocks so much), starred my current mind-tenant*, with whom I've barely had three conversations since moving away in December, and me. Supporting roles were filled by a few of his roommates/brothers/generic space-fillers. Picture, if you will, the scene: a livingroom of mismatched couches, various 20-somethings sprawed about watching TV. I was sitting on one of the couches, and M-T was perched on the arm. He ever-so-gracefully slid down onto the cushion and just sat next to me with our heads and hands together (gay, I know). From what I can recall, he asked me why I haven't talked to him in such a long time, and I'm sure I gave some witty response. In reality, I don't talk to him much because: 1) we're not phone friends (save for a couple times from both parties...oh 5am drunk calls, how I miss thee), 2) he's not a texter (he avoids most conversations with people in general), and 3) I'm so worried now that I'm going to make an absolute fool of myself and kill any glimmer of a chance I once had. Anyway, the dream gets a bit more graphic at this point, so I'll spare any unassuming passers-by the details.

The frustrating thing about the dream is that it reignited the feelings that I had before I left. Not that they had gone away in any sense of the word (I think the M-T has an indefinite lease), but I had learned to become immune to them so that it didn't hurt so damn much. So here I am, thinking even more about what could/should/might/will never be (as one is wont to do when someone has taken up residence in her mind), and there's not a damn thing I can do about it...at this point, that is.

*You might note that I say "mind" rather than "heart"; the reason for this is (at least) two-fold. First, I'm not a gushy, emotional, girly mess who doodles initials bound by a heart on her notebook. Second, I am not even remotely close to calling this a love interest. I'm just so unusually intrigued by this person that I want to learn more. He and I are eerily similar in ways that I don't normally see in other people. I really can't describe the "feeling", so deal with it.

Nat's Big Book of Grievances

I was inspired the other day when I was watching the Friends episode "The One Where Heckles Dies" while on the gym treadmill. First and foremost, I want to declare to the world that Friends is one of the best sitcoms that will ever grace our TV screens, and I vow to always find parallels between six 20-somethings living the life in NYC and one 20-something existing with her dog in pondunk Louisiana. Anyway, Mr. Heckles' "Big Book of Grievances" reminds me of my copious beefs. To call them pet peeves seems overly kind...most of mine are things that make me want to Cut. A. Bitch. I actually acquired the friendly nickname "Grievance Girl" while at a Festivus party last year. The guy who thought of it was drunk and on crutches and royally pissing me off, so I'm pretty sure I tried to tackle him (I may have also been drunk). I should probably consider being more tolerant of others' stupidity...in the meantime, just know that every time I come across these things, I die a little.

In no particular order (because I can't say that any of these infuriate me less than others):

• Uggs
• Uggs with skirts...if you need to wear an entire sheep on your foot, you probably need to wear pants
• bad tippers (once a waitress, always a waitress)
• Nickelback
• people who think Nickelback is hard rock
• songs about how much the singer's girlfriend is a whore/freak/skank (see Nickelback)
• British people (this is slightly inconsistent, as I love Harry Potter, the Beatles, Frank Turner, etc...more appropriately, mean British people)
• monkeys/bitchy cats
• people who aggressively push their beliefs on others, be it religion, politics, vegetarianism, etc. If I want to eat cows and be pro-death and whatever, let me be! I won't tell you you're an idiot if you do the same for me.
• iPhones...get over yourself, Apple
• poor grammar, including, but not limited to:
• using apostrophes for pluralization
• inconsistent grammar...if you're going to be wrong, at least stick to your guns and don't contradict yourself
• sporadic capitalization of words...goes along with previous beef
• you're/your, it's/its...come on now, break it down and sound it out
• "ya'll"..."y'all is obviously a contraction of "you all", whether you accept is as a real word or not. So why on earth would you put an apostrophe halfway between the second word?
• "between you and I"...NO! Prepositions are NEVER followed with "I"!
• public signs with poor grammar...I can't bring myself to give patronage to a business that can't proofread
• conformity for the sake of fitting in; conversely, nonconformity for the sake of being different...just be you, whether you fit in or not
• bars with bad beer choices
• misuse of "irony"
• sports cars/Jeep Wranglers with automatic transmissions
• reality TV shows that are also competitions...I'm talking to you, American Idol

This is a pretty good beginning to my book, if I do say so myself. Hopefully I don’t come off too much as a raving lunatic. But hey, if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck…

The Village People lied...

Apparently one cannot sail the seven seas in the Navy. It seems to be damn near impossible for me to get scheduled for a trip this year, and I'm getting antsy. The whole reason I took this job was for the traveling! Luckily for me, some wonderful people are doing everything short of threatening bodily harm to ensure that I get on a trip before the end of the year.

While I'm on the subject of government work: who would've thought there'd be so much inter-office politics involved?? (insert sarcastic laugh here) Just as it was in high school, it doesn't matter what you know so much as who you know. And seeing how I've been here for a whopping 3 months, I don't know squat (people or info). I sit in my little cubicle (a.k.a. the death cage) minding my own business all day, occasionally escaping to get a doughnut. I'm sure my coworkers think I hate it here because I'm so quiet, but it's just that I'm shy at first. All it takes is someone throwing me a topic (music, beer, shopping, legalizing things are recent ones) and I'll be set for a least half an hour.

However, I've managed to move up the ladder since I've started because I finally know someone (my age!) who isn't socially inept (shoutout to Katy...what up?!), so I don't have to eat alone at my desk anymore and I'm no longer the workplace equivalent of a leper, and this sentence needs to end.

In summation:

PROS
very interesting job duties
doughnuts/cookies at least twice a week
fun workplace chitchat
federal health insurance (woot!)
no dress code
I get paid more than a grad school monkey
new friends (if I don't piss them/their significant others off)

CONS
Where's my trip?!
confined to windowless death cage (could be alleviated with a trip!)
get to work before sunrise
I have to act like an adult sometimes
far away from lunchtime restaurants, and I hate making sandwiches!
slothlikeness (it's a word) due to too many doughnuts/cookies

Overall, the pros outweigh the cons by far. But seriously, where's my trip?!

40 is the new 20

Note: I started writing this about a week ago, but I completely lost my train of thought (most likely the fault of some arbitrary shiny object).

So, I've been thinking a lot --like, 20 minutes Wednesday night and about 5 minutes today -- about how I want to be like Courtney Cox and Christa Miller on "Cougar Town" when I get old(er). I mean, they've got a pretty sweet deal going on there. Consider it:

1. They live in Florida. Not just lame, swamp-people Florida, but sunny, lovely, tropical (although fictional) town that is how I imagine Ft. Myers to be.
2. They live right next to each other! They can practically yell at each other through their kitchen windows! Living close to my best friend after we've become real adults is possibly one of my life mini-ambitions.
3. They sit around all the time and drink wine and gossip in their perfectly sunny, open-air houses, and the spouses/boyfriends/children never complain.
4. They're 40-something and they're hot...no lumpy, wrinkled, menopausal sagbutts here!

I could probably keep going, but it would center around how sunny it is in their fake town, how none of them have real jobs (real estate, bartending, sitting on a boat), etc. Color me envious...luckily, I pull off green quite well.

This post has no real point. I need to get a life. And a boat.

Getting to Know You (Edited)

Given that this is an incredibly new blog by a widely unknown person, I figured it wouldn't hurt to give a little more information about me. This is assuming, of course, that eventually someone will happen upon this who a) isn't The Got, b) isn't related to me, or c) doesn't see me on a regular basis. Anyway, this gives me an opportunity to make a list, which I quite enjoy because I'm able to focus my sugar-addled brain on the little dots. I'm gonna try to stay away from the "I was born in ____; my favorite color is ____" (SC and green, btw) and touch on much more interesting tidbits (I guess that's debatable).

So, without further ado, I give you Natalie: A Bulleted List:

• I love tacky-ass birds; parrots, flamingos, peacocks = AWESOME! How could anyone hate something that's wearing so many colors?!

Meet Hernando* the Christmas Parrot.

• I have a very irrational, yet crippling fear of things without bones or feet. This includes snails, leeches, slugs, etc. I'm working on getting over jellyfish and octopusses (octopi?) so as not to have a panic attack and drown while scuba-diving (although they still scare the bejesus out of me).

• I cannot walk out of the house without having to go back in to get something I forgot...it absolutely never fails.

• I sing along with the radio. A LOT. This is much to the dismay of at least one person (he has told me often). No one else seems to mind...or they just don't want to hurt my feelings.

• I used to have two ducks named Dr. Pepper and Bob while living on campus in undergrad. I DO NOT reccommend this! They are stinky and loud and really hard to smuggle out of the apartment without being seen.

• In kindergarten, I would lag behind after the bus dropped us off at the school and look at all the student artwork in the hallway then stroll into class 10 minutes or so later. I eventually got caught, though it perplexes me that no one came looking for a missing five-year-old sooner than they did. This is probably my first experience with fighting the establishment.

I realize that I've been sitting here for 10 minutes completely spaced out. I'm going to take that as a sign to end this thing while I'm ahead (kinda). While this may not have been the most in-depth list, I feel it gives a nice sneak peak as to what we're dealing with here. If there's something amazing that you can't believe I left out, let me know.

*I had to correct the Christmas Parrot's name...it was not actually Fernando. The "F" just seemed to flow a lot smoother, I guess. Chalk it up to old age. Regardless of his name, he has brought endless joy to the Nat/Got household in many ways, most memorably by enfuriating my boyfriend (at the time) by his sheer existence.

HTML is my bitch.

WHAT? That's right, I'm the master of all things HTML!

That may be a slight exaggeration. However, I've spent most of the evening trying to have a solid color background for the text and a picture behind it, and I must say, I'm quite proud of myself. And it only took 3 hours!

Now that my brain has officially turned to mush, it's time to relax...

Hello, America! How are ya?

I've been tossing back and forth the idea of starting a blog for the past few weeks. This all came about after spending some leisure time (read: multiple hours at work) perusing other people's blogs and thinking, "Hey, maybe I can document my musings and have internet passersby happen upon them by chance and immediately be drawn in by my sharp wit and quirkiness!" (Note: it didn't exactly sound like that in my head; I paraphrased in an "I Have a Dream" tone.) BTdubs, mad props to The Sassy Curmudgeon - this is one of the first blogs I stumbled upon, and I'm not ashamed to say I read it in its entirety in the span of three weeks. Definitely check it out...if you know what's good for you.

Anyway, since I was strongly considering sharing my life with the world via written word, I wanted to see what my dear and supportive friend The Got thought about it. Her exact words, if I understood them through the laughter, were "You're such a damn hipster." It probably didn't help my case that I was sharing this information with her while shopping for chalk pastels and a sketch pad. So, I mulled over the idea a bit longer.

Yesterday, I finally decided to bite the bullet. Fueled by unhealthy amounts of Tagalong Girl Scout cookies and Dr. Pepper, I realized that I have far too many things hurtling through my brain to not have an outlet. I lay partial blame on my coworker, although he didn't know what he was stepping into when he offered me Tagalongs. No lie, I saw him recoil ever so slightly when I realized what he held in his hands. The ravenous look on my face must have mirrored that of a rabid (yes, rabid) crack addict spotting her next fix. He told me to take as many as I wanted, but I couldn't help but notice the faint tremor in his voice. Jeez, it's not like I was going to mug him or anything...as long as the cookies keep coming.

So, here I am. I can't promise that this will be the most enlightening literary work that one will come across on the internet, but hopefully someone will find it amusing, or cheaply entertaining at the least. I'll be laughing my ass off on this side, but then again, I probably find myself to be a lot funnier than I actually am...

Tagalongs, why must your existence in my life be so fleeting?