Good times...
Just got home from Michael's b-day party (33rd, in case all of those people who asked couldn't remember later) at local hot spot Vickery's. Despite its casual ambiance, they do have the best food in town. I ate tomato soup for lunch in order to save all of my points for the cashew encrusted tuna steak salad (yum) and two vodka drinks. We celebrated with Meg and Amy and Derek, the lovely Michelle, Erin & Grant, Rosita, MarkAnello (you have to say his name as one word), Alice, Pradnya, Kathleen, Aspen, Kirstin, Margaret and her b-friend Eric, and several waiters. I gave Michael the boxed set of Ab Fab, he also got a Fcuk (Fcukeroo) t-shirt from Meg, a bottle of wine from Aspen, Miso Pretty soap from Michelle and another awesome t-shirt of her own design, to be revealed at a later date, the first season of Popular on DVD from MarkAnello, and the Best of ABBA boxed set from Derek.

We laughed a lot and talked about the time Michelle had a birthday party and her "friends" stuck her with the check, Alice's first bikini wax (3 hours before the party), how I would react during a camping trip to a Madagascar hissing cockroach snuggling up to my sleeping bag, how some hairdressers like to pop neck zits on men, and the feng shui of office cubicles. It was a good night.

Hold me...
It's been about 9 months since my last massage and I'm dying to get one, but I always have to get past my fear that I will do something weird during the massage, like fart or cry.

My last massage was here, and the one before that was here. And I never really have anything bad to say about a massage. Except for the time I got a "deep tissue" sports massage and cursed the assclown who bruised me head to toe for almost a week. And the time I said yes to a "vichi shower" massage and had to wear a disposable thong (don't even go there).

What I really fear is that the masseuse will be massaging a pressure point on my breastbone or something and I'll start having repressed childhood memories and end up sobbing in the corner in a fetal position. He'll be all like, "it's normal to cry during a massage" and I'll be all like, "hold me."

Search me!
One of my favorite pastimes is Googling—my own name, the names of people I know, names of other writers, names of B list celebrities. The number of hits on Google for my name can boost or break my mood for an entire day. Sometimes I compare my number of Google hits to the number of hits for someone I don’t like. If I have more hits, I win because it means I am more popular.

What really amuses me is when I run across sites that reference my name but have absolutely nothing to do with me:

Me, if I suddenly started writing fantasy novels and had about a dozen more cats.

Me, if I really, really cared enough about cow farts to make a project out of them.

Me, if I woke up one morning a gay, black man who likes to sing and dance.

Me, if I had a ponytail and a German accent. And a penis.

Me, plus math skills. And a “mom” haircut.

There’s also a Kelly “Love Doll” but it kind of gave me the creeps. Plus, her expertise is “oral” and we all know that’s definitely not me. If you want to see it for yourself, you’ll have to do your own Googling.

I am so weak.
I finally gave in after two whole years...I betrayed my PDA and bought a paper agenda planner.

I do feel guilty.

I was so disciplined in the beginning, but the signs have always been there: the post-it notes stuck to my handheld screen, hot syncs getting fewer and farther between, writing appointments on a legal pad. It was inevitable, really.

What a thrifty girl...
I am. I spent the day on Saturday shopping the thrift stores and, while I can't report a big "score" (which is defined by finding something really great, like a 1950s formica table or vintage train cases), I did find a few things while junkin'. Mostly books: A hardly worn copy of William Burroughs' Junky, Milan Kundera's Immortality, which I picked up because I loved The Unbearable Lightness of Being so much, Impossible Vacation by Spalding Gray (r.i.p.), the only one of his books/plays I didn't have yet, and about 20 more. So my reading table is stocked for a while.

Why secondhand shopping rules.

Three day weekend...
I was all ready to flee from a hurricane, but since it probably won't hit Charleston, what will I do with myself for three whole days?

Ass, meet couch. In my mailbox from Netflix: Chelsea Walls, The Triplets of Belleville, and The Doom Generation (which is supposed to be a piece of crap, but I'm going to watch it anyway).

Bargain shopping. It might be a good weekend for a thrift score. I can spend hours at the Goodwill, wishing that Charleston had some for-real thrift stores. Like Portland does. Or I could browse the Farmer's Market . They have good cheese.

Readin' & writin'. Besides the stack of magazines next to my bed, I could read the advance copy of Sabrina Ward Harrison's Messy Thrilling Life that I've been toting around for a month. Or I could write my column for the October issue. Of course, that's work.

If these are the hardest decisions I have to make, life is pretty sweet. Of course, I have three whole days, so I might just do it ALL. Woo hoo!