World Blog Domination (or something like that)

Ohmygoodness the blogging world has been too nice to me.

First, I won the Word Up, Yo! contest for my post Plethora of Periods (and I actually share this win with A Day in the Life of a Surfer Wife for her vlog). This is what Taming Insanity said:

"Her post was laugh out loud funny, used the word a plethora of times dealt with a monster of a problem."

And I guess that makes me a Made Man!

Thank you, Word Mafia. How can I ever thank you enough? Perhaps with a bouquet of punctuation marks? Or maybe a box of assorted dictionaries and thesauruses? 

This just goes to show how insanely competitive I am. The first time I decided to participate in Word Up, Yo! and I had to pursue it with total and complete world domination in mind. 

I'm a total freak. 

But a lovable freak, right? 

AND THEN! And then, the loverly Kristin over at Taming Insanity, who is just too damn nice and sweet and is rocking my bloggerverse, gave me the Sugar Doll Award.

"I'd like to pass this lovely award onto Crazy with a Side of Awesome Sauce. Her recent post on her plethora of issues had me holding my sides with laughter. Then I put my cranky pants back on and cinched them up tight."

Isn't that just the nicest thing you've ever heard? Maybe I'm just too new to the blogging world and haven't had praise heaped on me, but hot damn if that doesn't make me all blushy and gooey. I'm like a little cartoon character, red from head to toe, batting my eyes and crossing my feet over each other, squeaking out a thanks. 

So, rules: I guess I'm supposed to share 10 things about myself and pass this award onto 10 other bloggers. Instead (subversive rule-breaker that I am), I'm going to share an as yet undecided amount of things about myself and pass this award onto 5 bloggers: 

Sarah P at Naked Cupcakes: because she's funny as hell and is one of my first tweeps and blogging buddies. She wrapped her sweet cupcakey comments around me and welcomed me into the fold. 

Becky at i'll go eat worms: because she's the sweetest thing on the Internet, so sweet it gives me a toothache. Her blog is total awesome sauce and she rocks my world. She'll rock yours too. 

Lizzy at A Series of Thoughts: because this little lady is the poet laureate of the Internet. She's totally brilliant and her unfailing kindness always boosts my days. 

Krissy at Diary of an Angry Fat Chick: because she's not just my real life friend (not that I'm playing favorites), but she's a highlarious and talented writer which totally took me by surprise. Everyone needs to go check out her blog. 

Morgan at Watering the Elephants: because, okay, she's another real life friend, but she's also an amazing writer and I know she doesn't toot her own horn so to speak, so I'll just flog her blog for her (hehe flog her blog hehe). 

10 crazy things that happened to me in Europe:

1. My first week living in Paris was my 26th birthday. Long story short: we went out for the night and found ourselves past the time when the metro closed and struggling to find a cab. A group of guys were hassling us (oh French guys) and were walking alongside us when cop cars zoomed up from every direction. We were lined up against the wall, frisked, IDs examined, and I was convinced we were headed to the Bastille where I'd get my head chopped off (note: the Bastille was torn down in 1790something). Finally, they let us go when the guys stood up for us and said we weren't with them. Turns out the guys had been tagging and someone tipped off the La Police. Also, my friend Alice had taken off running and we didn't know what happened to her, but that's a story for another time. 
2. On Bastille Day in Paris, I was meeting friends and amidst the mayhem that is Bastille Day (trust me, it's INSANE), I was frantically texting my friends, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? when some guy grabbed my phone right out of my hands and took off running. I did what my professors said to do and just started cussing in English as loud as possible. Luckily, some British guys took pity on me , chased the guy down (who turned out to just be a drunk A-hole, not a savvy thief), and got my phone back. I rewarded them with thanks even though they really wanted my phone number as compensation. 
3. That same evening, as we stood on the steps of L'Opera, waiting for the last of our friends to arrive, some Frenchie was hitting on my friend and while doing so, let his cigarette burn right through my tights and into my leg! In my limited French, I tried to tell him what he did: J'ai mal a la jambe! J'ai mal a la jambe! But he didn't give a flying fuck. He just wanted to fuck my friend. Assmunch.
4. Then there was that time we tried to teach our French language instructor about s'mores. I think one of the American students in the class used s'mores for her presentation of something from her culture. And Bernadette, the French teacher (and quintessential French woman) just could not grasp the concept. Pretty soon all the Americans in the class were jumping in to explain. But she just couldn't get it. We eat a sandwich? Of graham crackers (never mind how long it took to explain those) and chocolate (no explanation needed) and marshmallows (she just dismissed those as food of any kind) and we light it on fire? And eat it? Impossible. And we wonder why the French and Americans can't get along: it's all differences of food. 
5. In Paris, my cousin, my best friend, and I explored the infamous catacombs below the city. We were walking and it was creepy and dark and we were all by ourselves. There was only one way you could go because sections were locked off because the catacombs are humongous (supposedly they change the route occasionally) and somebody before us at some point had closed a gate (prob fucking teenagers) and we thought that gate was locked. So we turned around, but the all the other gates were locked. We were getting pretty freaked out (maybe they needed more bones!) when my brave cousin sacked up and pushed on the original closed gate. It opened and we found the way out. We felt dumb, but it *was* pretty damn funny.
6. When I was in Amsterdam, my friends and I accidentally picked up this stoner puppy outside our hostel. Not an actual puppy, a fuzzy faced stoner who decided he liked us and followed us around all weekend. We couldn't shake him. Not the craziest thing, but certainly the weirdest. Oh Amsterdam.
7. My cousin, my best friend, and I backpacked the UK over Christmastime. In that time, we made it up to the gorgeous Isle of Skye in Scotland. It was cold and beautiful and stark and despite that nothing was open, we had a good time. But for whatever crazy reasons, we just couldn't get off the island. It was winds and then the wrong bus and then the train schedule, etc etc. Someone joked that we were trapped like in Wicker Man and we kept yelling that they were wasting their time with us! We're not virgins! I don't even remember how we finally figured it out and made it to Glasgow. But we did, exhausted but laughing.  
8. I dated this Italian descendant of Roman gods named Giampaolo and when I was in Rome, he kindly volunteered to drive me around the city. In his Smart Car. It was the closest I've ever been to death. Not only do the Italians drive like complete maniacs, stopping inches from the bumper or curb or pole in front of them, but there is NO cushion in a Smart Car. None. I was convinced I would die that die and no Roman gods could save me. I lived. 
9. One of the first places I traveled was Tours in the Loire Valley in France. My friend Alice said she took care of finding a hostel and off we went. We arrived in Tours and tromped around the city and totes enjoyed ourselves and then went to crash at our hostel. Which was full. And didn't have any record of us because Alice hadn't called them. So we frantically searched Tours for other hostels, all booked. Wandering the city at night with out guidebooks, half convinced we might have to sleep on the street, we finally found a hotel that would give us a halfway decent rate. It was way more than we could afford, but it was shit yeah better than the street. 
10. Taking the train from Liverpool to London was quite the experience. There was a huge soccer match that night AND one of the scheduled trains was out of service, so they packed all these soccer fans onto our train. It was packed. People were standing in every inch of space and sitting on the floor. So to make the trip bearable, I began entertaining my two lovely friends with bits from Eddie Izzard and Mitch Hedberg. Next thing I knew, the people around us and then the whole car was listening and laughing. Who knew I could entertain a whole train car of British soccer fans with plagiarized comedy bits? 

unless you got buns, hon

Took my pretty Lola (oh, Lola is my car) into the shop today to get her poor little hangnail fixed. Shouldn't take more than a week, they said, but the hardest part will be matching the paint. Damn me and my fancy paint! Now, it's not like I ordered a fancy custom paint job when I bought this car last year. But when I was shopping, I fell in love with this purply (BTW, do we love that purply was a real word according to spell check? um, yes!) metallic blue. It's a kicky blue that looks purple in the sun and just so totally suits me.

Here is a picture of me avec my new baby Lolo last year when I picked her up at the baby store:

God, I can't believe how big my butt had gotten! I should explain. I've always been fairly thin and I've always been fairly active. About 5 years ago, when I was working in fashion (more on that another time), I gained a little weight due to stress and living on Red Bulls (evil, evil little Red Bulls. fuckers.), but it wasn't much and I dropped it quickly after I quit. But almost 2 years ago, when I started my first ever desk job (and a job with lots of gourmet, free food), I packed it on a bit. Now don't scoff. I realize that in that picture, I am by no means obese, but I was certainly bigger than I'd ever been and I just didn't feel healthy. I didn't feel like me. Plus, dudes, there was a reason I was wearing such a blousy shirt. I was puffy, not blind.

But besides being an active-type gal with my dancing and swimming and general love of the outside, I had never sat at a desk. My first job was in retail and for 7 or so years, I spent my days running around the floor of whatever store I was running. And it got worse the more responsibility I got. But my butt always stayed fairly small. Even when I worked in a TV production company office, the desk work was balanced with running errands, delivery tapes, and fetching a million things during a shoot. Small butt again.

The smallest my butt has been since I was dancing almost full time was when I lived in Europe. My little ass couldn't help it (get it? heh). I was walking everywhere, climbing 6 or 7 flights (don't really remember) up l'escalier du mort (the death stairs) up to my apartment in a 2oo year old building. Seriously, these stairs were like the stairs in Cinderella that the mice have to carry that huge key up. Only this wasn't a cartoon and that huge key was me. AND I still had dance class too. I got tiny. My poor cousin, god love her, thought I was starving myself when she came to visit. But, dude, I couldn't help it. I was eating all right. Pasta. Pastries. Bread. Custard. Gelato. Wine. Cheese. I was in food heaven in Paris. Seriously.

Before you all start stoning me for complaining about thinness. Give me a sec. We are all different and I think that when you're that active and walking everywhere, despite your body type, you're bound to tone up. I just happen to have a thinner type, so I got really thin. I like a little booty though, so when I got home, I didn't worry that I plumped a bit. It was nice. And for almost a year after I got home, I worked in retail again, at night. And I worked as a substitute teacher in the day. Talk about on your feet. In fact, my feet literally fell off. I had to get them sown back on. They just haven't been the same since.

But that damn desk. Now, don't get me wrong, I was (and still am) overjoyed to trade in my nurse shoes (ew) to sit at a desk and make enough money to pay my rent with one job, a job I actually like and am pretty damn good at. More than happy. But my butt just didn't know what to do. It was like a child that had never watched cartoons being introduced to the Cartoon Network. I became totally sedentary. Maybe not totally, but close to. And all that good food at events and meetings just contributed. My butt had gone to the dark side.

Well, that was over a year ago and I have since claimed my ass back for all that is good and holy (BAHAHAHA! like, I know what holy means. HAH!). I still enjoy the free food, just in moderation, and I've found a work-exercise balance. As I've said on here before, I've bounced around dance classes and I also like to jog and do pilates and sometimes yoga. It's a good balanced life and my butt is smaller on some days and bigger on others. Like normal people.

Next Saturday though, Internet, is Halloween, and I am wearing...wait for it....a tube top! I don't want to reveal my costume yet, but here's a hint: I am going as a real live person. A person in 1999. And I am going for authenticity here and that means I have to pull off a tube top. And that means my ass is working out every day this week. Every day. Every. Damn. Day. I am going for cute over frightening so this is crucial. I think it'll be okay. I just need to maintain the healthy eating and keep on exercising. I'll be hot stuff, just you wait and see.

So I realize that I started this post about my car and then drove way off in another direction. Oh well. Too bad. You didn't really want to read a whole post about my car, right? You'd rather read about my ass. See, this is how close we are getting, Internet. I just know how to anticipate your needs. Soon we'll be finishing each other's sentences. And that won't be creepy or pathetic at all.

Oh, also, Internet, I'll be changing the mastheads almost monthly now. But if you want to see the old ones, I'll upload them to my flickr feed which you can always find below.