The Inmates Run the Asylum

So Sunday I found a dead body.

Last night, I found out I won two tickets to The Dempster Family Foundation Casino Night. Come May 9th, I am going to be gussied up in my good clothes (hello, little black dress!) and hobnobbing with Cubs players and other Chicago celebrities. I was in such denial that it was real that Carrie pinched me to prove I wasn't dreaming. It took me a good half-hour or so to realize that it wasn't a joke and it was really happening.

Talk about a serious swing in the luck.

This week has been a bizarre one, to be sure.

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Questionable: Tastes, Talents, and Times

Speaking of questionable, Carrie gave me an iTunes giftcard for my birthday. And since I still had 12 bucks in my iTunes account, I went on a music shopping spree. Here's what I got:

"She's Always a Woman"-Billy Joel
"Angie Baby"-Helen Reddy
"Close to You"-The Carpenters
"Band of Gold"-Freda Payne
"Knock Three Times"-Tony Orlando and Dawn
"Magic Man"-Heart
"Crazy On You"-Heart
"Want Ads"-Honey Cone
"Magic Carpet Ride"-Steppenwolf
"Wild Horses"-The Rolling Stones
"19th Nervous Breakdown"-The Rolling Stones
"She's So Cold"-The Rolling Stones
"You Can Leave Your Hat On"-Joe Cocker
"Here Comes the Hotstepper"-Ini Karmoze
"Why Don't You Get a Job?"-Offspring
"Aeroplane"-The Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Scream"-Michael and Janet Jackson
"Blood on the Dance Floor"-Michael Jackson
"Swingin'"-John Anderson
"Consider Me Gone"-Reba McEntire
"Strange"-Reba McEntire
"Turn on the Radio"-Reba McEntire
"Fire Burning"-Sean Kingston
"Ain't NoRest for the Wicked"-Cage the Elephant
"If It's Love"-Train

It was a conscious effort on my part to get a few songs that were actually recorded in the last ten years. Not as much of a struggle as I thought it'd be.

Last February I developed a new fitness routine based on the Body Block shown on Fit TV. I'd do the Monday dances, the Tuesday kickboxing/sculpt/pilates, and the Thursday Bollywood dance. On Wednesdays I'd do my own belly dancing routine and on Fridays, I'd do my own yoga routine. Despite the fact that my pants are still too tight, I liked the routine and felt like it worked for me.

I should have known that my nice routine would be short lived.

Because Oprah took over Discovery Health to form her own network, a bunch of Discovery Health programming got shifted to Fit TV and my Body Block is no more. Now they show it at 5 in the morning and that's it. Apparently, Oprah was misinformed and in fact, not everyone in the US owns one of them there fancy DVRs.

So now I'm doing my best to keep my routine by doing a lot of the routines from memory and upping the intensity when I can.

What makes this sting worse is that this problem was caused by a woman that is all about weight-loss and fitness.

In lucky news, I won another free ticket on my scratch offs. This brings my winning ticket total to six. I'm a little worried, though, because up until now I've been getting two tickets. I hope getting just one won't mess up the lucky winning mojo.

Of course, if I win the Mega Millions tonight, I won't worry about it.

My Aunt Jo got me two scratch off tickets for Christmas.

I ended up winning two free tickets.

I got the freebies today and ended up winning two bucks off of one of them.

I've decided that I'm going to use the two bucks to get two more tickets. I figure I'll keep playing until I either win something bigger than 2 bucks/free tickets or I lose, which is probably more likely.

This is the closest thing I got to a toy this Christmas. I might as well play with it as long as I can.

Plus, I think my aunt would be amuse to see how far I could get with it.

The snow has been coming down since eleven this morning and while it makes things very pretty, the streets better be cleared by tomorrow. I'm just saying.

Thanks to katia_247 for the absolutely adorable card and to one_more_cherry for the fantastic gifts. You two are the best and you totally made my Christmas Eve. <3

All of my gifts have been made and wrapped. I am ready for my Christmases to begin tomorrow.

I received a package in the mail from one_more_cherry. I'm going to be good again this year and not open anything until Christmas Eve.

In preparation for the coming Christmas Gauntlet that always kicks my ass and puts me down for the count, I've been bracing myself by wallowing in my own version of warm-fuzzy happy place stuff, mostly baseball related. The plan is to get so high on feel good stuff that I won't be affected by any travel-related or holiday-induced stressed. Since they're forecasting three to six inches of snow on Christmas Eve starting tomorrow night, the odds are upped on travel troubles.

Speaking of baseball, this matters to no one, but me, but I follow a Marlins player named Logan Morrison (I know I'm a Cubs fan, but LoMo is too funny to resist). So far, he's responded to me good naturedly giving him shit twice. I feel so popular.

Now if only my Cubs would get their butts on Twitter.

This entry was barely coherent.

I did my patriotic duty and voted today.

I voted a lot of Green Party again this year because I like any party that sounds like DRUNKHULK over on Twitter would be a member.

Hey, if the campaigns are going to boil down to nothing more than juvenile name calling, then I'm going to vote along that same eight year old mentality.

As it is, I just vote for the sticker anyway. I think next election they should hand out suckers, though. I want a better return for casting my vote. The candidates aren't doing much for me.

Let's face it. Voting for Governor in IL is just trying to pick the person who can go the longest without getting indicted.

Whoohoo! Corruption knows no political party! Fun for the whole state!

I come to you, dear flist, on bended knee asking for help and advice.

My mom was nice enough to let me use her computers and internet while I was without and as such, had to endure my blathering on about the Cubs. Honestly, it was only fair since she was the one who made me a Cubs fan in the first place and I grew up listening to her rant about Paul Assenmacher (you'd think the guy tripped her Grandma or something; even today, if you mention his name, it sets her off).

So, Mom decided to give me an early Christmas present in the form of Cubs tickets, only she couldn't decide what game I wanted to go to, so she's just giving me the money. My excitement lasted until I told my dad, who grunted with disapproval and did not make any comment. This told me two things: 1)my parents will always act like they just got divorced yesterday and 2)Dad doesn't think I deserve to go.

This year has been rough and he's had to help me pay my bills a few times. I don't like asking him for money, but life is full of things I don't like doing and I plan to pay him back at some point (I owe him a lot of money from him helping me out over the years). He doesn't like asking me for money either and even though he didn't say so, I know he thinks that because I asked for money I don't need to be going to Wrigley, even if someone else is paying for it. I know he wants me to use the money to pay my bills (I imagine he wants me to get a "real" job, too, but that's beside this particular point).

Mom gave me money last Christmas to buy clothes. I spent it on bills. In fact, I spent all of my Christmas and birthday money on bills. I haven't been able to afford to do anything big since DragonCon '08. I really want to go to Wrigley. I need to go to Wrigley. I need to get out of my house, get out of my town, and get some happy juices flowing. But, if I go and then have to ask Dad for money again next month (any amount of money, even five bucks), the shit is going to hit the fan.

So I reason the only way I'll be able to go is if I make sure I've got money to pay my bills next month, which means I've got a little less than 3 weeks to come up with about $250. If I can't come up with the cash, then the money Mom is giving me to spend on tickets is going to have to be spent on bills. Again.

This is where you come in, dear flist. No, I'm not asking you for money. I know I'm a rotten and terrible friend, but even I have my limits.

But, I do need help getting the money. I'm already selling stuff on ebay. I'll be putting more action figures up in the next few days (wrestling, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings) as well as some magazines (Wrestlemania collector's issues), if you know anyone who might be interested.

However, that stuff hasn't been selling well lately and I can't guarantee that eBay alone will get me the money that I need.

I've thought about putting up some short stories up for cheap downloads, but honestly, I don't think I've got the promotional skills and popularity to make much money off of it (I'm still willing to give it a try, though; every bit of pocket change helps).

Aside from that, I'm not sure what else I can do. Does anyone have any ideas that don't include prostitution? I say that not because I look down on streetwalking as a distasteful profession, but because, let's face it, hookers work on commission and I've never been good at sales. To be honest, right now I probably couldn't give it away.

So, anybody got any money making ideas or can help me sell my stuff? I'd really appreciate the help. I know everyone else is going through stuff right now and this is really kind of a frivolous thing to ask for, particularly since the mess I'm in is truly a mess of my own making, but it would mean everything if I could go. I swear, I'll be a grown-up responsible adult and get a real job and trudge off into that zombie wasteland of maturity just as soon as I get back from the game.

Please, help this depressed fat girl get to Wrigley Field.

Happy Humbug!

Dad, Carrie, and I took Hobbit and Smurf (Hammie didn't want to go) down to Aunt Jo's house to have Christmas with her, Papa, Nancy, and Jake. Aunt Jo's friend CJ and her son Frank were there, too.

It rained all day yesterday and with a frost line of 3 to 5 inches, there was a lot of standing water on the way down. We took the back roads and had to drive through it because the road had flooded in a couple of places. I've never seen that before. Of course, the temperature dropped and it snowed all day, so I can only imagine what that turned into. We took the freeway back, so it'll always remain a mystery.

Dinner was good. Aunt Jo forgot to get the sweet potatoes and stuffing out of the oven until after we'd all eaten. The sweet potatoes were fine, but the stuffing didn't survive. The bottom was all burnt.

We opened presents. The girls made out like bandits, as they always do. Barbies and art supplies and gift cards, oh my! Papa got Carrie more Twilight stuff and I got two new books and season six of NCIS. Ah, the gift of Gibbs.

Dad wrapped Jake's present in camo duct tape over packing tape. It was great. It took him about fifteen minutes to get it open. What did Dad get him? A knife. Did Jake cut himself on it? Of course. That's how you properly break it in.

We managed to play a couple of hands of Spit before it was time to pack up and take the girls home. It was a long day, at least for Hobbit. She fell asleep on the way home. She told me earlier than Santa came to her house too early this morning, that's why she was tired.

I'm tired because Christmas never fails to wear me out. But it was a good one.

I hope yours was good, too.

Went to Mom's house for my first Christmas. Carrie got to meet my grandparents (Mom's dad and stepmom) for the first time. We ate homemade pizza and chatted.

We opened presents. The girls scored big time, as they always do. Carrie got them a box of ten games and I'm pretty sure we played them all at least once before we left.

My grandparents always give my sister and I an assortment of little things that leave us wondering. It always ranges from pretty cool to...something religious. This year we both got a book (my sister called to ask if I got one, too...they mailed her presents before they left to come down for Christmas). Dying the Jesus way. That's not what it's called, but it is about the afterlife. I think. That's what I'm getting from the summary on the back.

The cool thing I got this year (aside from the Kohl's gift card that I get every year) are these little Hawaiian shirt post-it notes. They make me think of Sam from Burn Notice. They're awesome.

Mom, Mark, and the nieces got me a shirt that says "Careful! Or you'll end up in my novel". I love shirts that are both threatening AND apply to my line of work. It's a perfect combo. It multitasks in a way that I only wish I could.

All in all, we had a good time. One Christmas down and one to go and it's not until Christmas Day.

I'm planning on making Christmas Eve my day of rest. I rarely get a moment to breathe when the Christmases start. I'm making the most of having a whole day.

I may not even put on real pants. We'll see.