"HOW SOON IS NOW?"

"Amy Guth, you are so fucking hard-headed." -Ma Guth

I went running. At the one mile mark, having already long since hit the point where I generally start to find my groove, I was struggling and thinking why am I running so slow? why do I have a stitch in my side? why am I huffing and puffing and-- oh right, dumbshit. The other day's unforch lung biopsy. Doy. Fair enough. Maybe running days after Needle-in-Chest is a fucking stupid idea.

Speaking of wtf, there was just a guy in a sedan sitting in front of my building blaring (and clapping along to) gospel music with his windows down. I'm all for people getting down with what moves them, but dudeitwassoloud! My poor kitty was at the window yeowling like dudewhatthefuck? Weird.

I got another piece of glass in my foot from my kitchen floor. I thought I got all of the glass up from when I was last playing OOPAH-Ouzo-drunken-glass-smash, but apparently not. And by "playing OOPAH-Ouzo-drunken-glass-smash", I, of course, mean hand-washing my stemware. I do enjoy a nice Ouzo, though.

On Monday, my darlings, I am going to be doing a very exciting week of guest blogging (But you're going to have to wait a few more days until I tell you where) and I'll shortly start doing a regular correspondent blog posting on another site. Lots of fun things in the works, eh? More on that later. I've got to buckle down and get some serious work finished tonight.

"OF A SHYNESS THAT IS CRIMINALLY VULGAR"

You guys are going to love this one. (Why am I blogging every few minutes?)

I have all sorts of haircolor crap on my head and I just went to turn on my shower to rinse it all out and guess what? MY WATER IS OUT AGAIN.

I picked up one of the three haircolor bottles to see if I could fit my head under my sink and the slippery little shit opped out of my hand and shot a magenta arch of color across my bathroom, landing on the wall, the tile, ceiling, the window and the mirror.

Am I going to have to drive someplace to rinse my head? Or worse, take the train? Haha, this is so funny. Oh my g-d, this is going to be a weird day, I can just tell.

"OPENED MY EYES"

There is this great thing that a lot of bloggers I adore do. They look at the keywords people are searching that land them on their blogs and, sometimes, post exactly that. See, Johnny Yen's Ode to Iggy Pop and Sprawling Ramshckle Compound's musings on Sybil Danning par example.

Anyway, I thought to do the same, but realized that would likely not be terribly entertaining to most of you if I elaborated too much on any of them. My recent blog keyord searches include: "different ways to fuck", "frozen shower drain" (okay, that one I can really understand-- see last week), "so run down to the safety of the town" (lyrics-- fair enough), "small town witch sneaker pimps" (uh, no idea), "girl poop in my mouth" (yeah, no idea), "amy bender doing it porn" (wtf?), "sleeping with blonde girl fucked up" (who are you people?), "beautiful girl you fucker" (does that me a beautiful girl you have realtions with or is it more like "Hey, you fucker she's a beautiful girl"...?)

My website is far less useful for elaboative fodder, with the only Google hits arriving there are searches for "Amy Guth" (duh), "Three Fallen Women" (duh), "Dextek pens (big duh), and the slightly mysterious "Amy Guth three fallen award winner"... Eh well, as soon as I get a hit worth elaborating upon, rest assured that I will gladly deliver to the searcher exactly what they are looking for.

"DISPLAYING YOUR NAME"

I have to tell you folks something. DNA testing will shortly confirm that I'm the father of Anna Nicole's baby.

"GIRL AFRAID"

Indulge me for a minute. While I might snark here and there, I rarely just dump my junk out into cyberspace, bitching into a void. I'm usually far more inclined to just take care of things as they come up and be proactive, but sometimes, you just have to let off some steam. Leah assures me that "Mercury is totally in retrograde until March 17th", so...

I got really overwhelmed today. A lot hit at once near the start of the year and, though I am so glad to have projects coming in, I really was insanely busy. It's all fine now and I'm ready for new projects, but things were just a little busy. It happens. I'd even suggest that I excel when things are humming right along productively-- I feel good, so I work smarter and better. That's not what I want to complain about. I want to complain about how frustrating my pride is sometimes. I do yoga, for crying out loud, and I am always preching the merits of just being present in your own yoga practice and not being competitive with it and while I do a good job of letting myself ebb and flow with my yoga practice, I am so hard on myself in other areas. Like asking for help when I need it. Seriously, I feel terrible when I "have" to ask for even the tiniest bit of help. I'm sort of okay about asking friends to help me brainstorm, but nine times out of ten, asking for help makes me feel like a grade-a screw up, like I've admitted defeat or a shortcoming. And, I have to tell you, that is fucking crazy. Seriously, how lame is that? Why am I so hard on myself?

This all started because I was frustrated about a brainstorm that wasn't resulting in any real ka-blammo ideas. And, instead of thinking, well, shit, I need to approach this from another direction, I felt like I had already looked at it from every direction possible and just got frustrated with myself. So, I turned to another project and hit the same wall. What gives? One of said brainstorms is deadline-specific, so that's an understandable stress, I suppose, and with so many projects weighing on me up until a week or so ago, I guess my patience is just still a little thin at the moment.

And, a project I'm really trying to pull together is just sitting and flopping around and not doing what I want it to do.

So, I was wicked pissed and felt like I was just spinning my wheels. Into a void. And getting absolutely nowhere. Maybe I need to get my paws on a totally new article or something. Somewhere new. Maybe someplace totally random. Maybe about something I've never written about, even. Who knows?

But there is good all around me. The Graduate parody Simpsons episode was just on, The "Choo-Choo-Choose You" episode is on now, I cooked myself the black bean and corn cakes dish that I love when the weather is chilly, I drank ten glasses of water today, I took a long hot shower today and was glad my shower was working again, I read some great blog posts today, I emailed with friends, I'm on my way out to go plan a wonderful party for a friend because I'm good at that sort of thing. I got two paychecks yesterday. My cat is snuggly today. I like that Wendy's is using Violent Femmes in their commercials. I got a open-invitation to visit my good friend in Denmark. I'll be near a beach in a few days. Things are okay. I'm just frustrated today. Just today.

"DIAL-A-CLICHE"

I took a shower this morning and tonight. And, I am happy to report that I did not take either shower for granted. A good amoount of snow is expected tonight and tomorrow, so I am anxiously flipping on the hot water every few hours to prevent it from freezing again.

Free yoga week started tonight in Chicago, which I'm excited about. I'm going to do it anyway, but sometimes group yoga is a nice change of pace, and I fel like I learn new things from different instructors. Especially cool because I just happen to be reading (in all my abundance of free time) a cool book about yoga.

In other news, I sat near a young man "educating" his girlfriend in a diner today all about how the Jews control the media and that's how we fabricated the holocaust and then claimed that "the French State Department helps them (Jews) out so that's why we got to boycott French stuff"... pointing to her order of French toast and smiling, adding "Freedom toast, see?" (So, it isn't a boycott as much as a gneral sweeping renaming, eh?)

She nodded, smiling, then added that she'd never met a Jew before then they went on to discussing his (only his, she said little, only nodded) plans for them to be missionaries after his military deployment in the Middle East. Naturally, he responded by telling her all about the "Jews and A-rabs with turban and stuff" in his travels. WTF? What planet did I eat lunch on? Am I in Chicago? Why were they in rodeo attire? WTF? Since when do my people wear turbans?

Hello? Thought I could have pulled out a verbal smack-down like Accidentally Jewish, I knew it would fall on deaf ears and shot him a dirty look instead. Totally bullshit wimpy reaction, but after the week of shower nonsense, and just getting out from under a stack of work, I don't think I had the mojo workin' well enough that I would have done much to help matters ayway. Eh well.

Besides, "Freedom Toast" can only fly if you're willing to give "Liberty Cabbage" another shake, too.

"SWEET AND TENDER HOOLIGAN & MIXED UP 18"

Oh, you saw this one coming. This week's "If It Could Only Still Be Socially Acceptable To Make A Mix Tape, This Is What I Would Put On One This Week" Saturday is, quite predictably, in honor of my shower challenges this week.

1. Shower The People/James Taylor
2. Digital Bath/Deftones
3. Shower Your Love/Kula Shaker
4. Bath/Bjork
5. Water/P.J. Harvey
6. Public Bath/Shonen Knife
7. Shower Me With Your Love/Foxy Brown
8. Bath Music/Greyboy
9. Standing In The Shower... Thinking/Electro Addiction
10. Buddha Bath/Bhangralution
11. Shine, Shave, Shower (It's Saturday)/Lefty Frizzell
12. Strange Bath/Jon Brion
13. Shower Scene/Saint Etienne
14. Rain Shower/Sizzla
15. Blood Bath/Cocteau Twins

Now, everyone get a cup of coffee and settle in because I have to recount my adventures of yesterday to you and bring you up on some adventures today. Okay.

Sometimes things pop up on Shabbes that I do decide to attend. I don't really go out on Shabbes, other than to go to synagogue and such, but once in a while, if something comes up, I will. Last night, I went to a wonderful little gathering thrown by the very lovely and fun Bookslut. I brought dear Accidentally Jewish along because (a) most importantly, she is my friend and I enjoy her company and (b) she help keeps me gregarious when I sometimes feel inclinded to clam up at occasions such as cocktail parties.

As I have blogged many times, I am working hard to overcome a fear of cocktail/schmoozey settings because I often clam up and say too little or I feel like I just ramble on about nonsense, boring everyone to tears. I am happy to report that after the art opening I attended a few weeks ago that went so swimmingly I did just fine last night, even forgetting that cocktail settings make me nervous and managing to have some fun and meet a few new people. Could it be that I am making leaps and bounds in the fear-of-schmooze arena?

Anyway, I'm getting off topic here. Accidentally Jewish and I had a wonderful time and after we bid our hostess goodnight, we realized it had been hours and hours since dinner and a little late-night breakfast was in order. So, we plopped down in the booth of a nearby diner and became engrossed in a serious conversation about how the lack of running water this week really made me feel behind in my work at an already terribly busy time. She was just generously offering to lend a hand if there was anyway she could when suddenly a very loud and very drunk broham fratboy came in and was seated a few booths away. Then another came in. Then another with a date. Then another couple. And another. Suddenly, Accidentally Jewish and I were confronted with the realization that we were going to have to eat our breakfast with a lot of shouting nearby.

(As another aside here, once, maybe a summer ago, Accidentally Jewish and I were dragged into a fratty bar by two friends who were in stitches to see us (me and AJ) immediately lock arms and whimper, victimized by one too many traumatic teasings years and years ago by the jocks in Jr. High and High school, for as I am sure you know, and although it only built our character in the end, nerdy girls get picked on as kids.)

Anyway, there we were with the popular kids, and they were wasted and noisy. Suddenly, the perhaps drunkest/dumbest of the crew, was heard saying to the waitress, "Can I have some gizz? Like a side of gizz? You know what I mean? Gizzum?" Can I will pay any of the cooks in the back to gizz on this guy's (points) food."

But, he was jus getting started! He then shouted for a few minuts about seeing a hair enclosed in his menu and assured the entire restaurant that he had stumbled upon a "long fuckin' pube" and asked us all to join him in imagining said incorrectly-labeled hair "wrapped around and all fucked up around some guy's junk and stuff".... did I mention AJ and I were trying to eat breakfast? I did. Right.

But then, another liquored-up broham aproached our table, squatted as if to slide into the booth next to me but proceeded to pantomime taking a shit ont he floor next to me. "What are you doing?" I shot at him. He waved my protests aside and continued his improv quest, adding the prop of a paper napkin to show us how he wipes his ass. Our shocked protests continued until he turned to rejoin his little club.

Delightful.

We sat, shocked, a nearby table of faux-hawked women taking a moment to make eye contact with me to express their contempt. The manager read the look on my face and came over to assure us he'd keep a close eye on the large group and that throwing them out would probably make this worse, but that he was indeed on top of things. Okay. So, we sat and finished eating and talked a bit more about this and that between shouts of, "I honestly believe a midget will come out of nowhere, and kill you" and, "Fuck that midget, dude, that was a bunch of bullshit" and, "Miss? Excuse me? I would like to poop on that guy's face" and, "Ask me how many girls I've hooked up this month and then ask the person to your right how many girls he's hooked up with this month and just see who the fuckin' man is" and, "Like 800 chicks, dude" and, "Dude. Yo, fuckhead, were we in San Diego this month or last month"...

Just drivel. Just nonsense. But wait! Fratboy broham was coming back! And he seemed surlier than before, and since the our shock had by then worn off from the improvised toilet ritual, we were far more prepared this time. He approached and said, "Listen ladies.." and before he could say another word, I wiggled my neck with a stern pointer finger and prepared to launch into my customary, "Okay, first of all..." Bronx-style monologue when Accidentally Jewish, no-nonsense badass that she is, fired off with, "Get the fuck away from this table. Seriously. Just get the fuck away from us." When he began to protest, she continued, "No, just get. The FUCK. Away." louder and louder until he put up his paws in defense and backed away, mumbling something about a lack of charm school.

A small group of endearingly nerdy couples came in and sat nearby, regarding the fraternity meeting-in-progress with the same sort of contempt.

We sat silently, nibbling on our breakfasts, and I tried not to smirk as I basked in the light of her badassitude. Finally, I whispered, "That was badass." She said something back about adrenaline waking her up more than coffee at that hour, not that I heard her over the din of chatter about midgets, claims of great sexual prowess and shouted orders to the poor waitress and the group's unnervingly quiet dates. Oh, and the faux-hawked women's shouted rendition of Sweet Caroline before being hushed by the manager. We sat in the tension for a few minutes, waiting to have insults hurled at us before I giggled and whispered, "Okay, if anything happens, you go get the table of nerds, I'll get the singing lesbians."

Avoiding any further nonsense, we left, and left the poor waitress a good tip, hoping it would make up for the bad tip she would probably get from the fratboys.

I woke up this morning and my shower would not work. So it goes. So it goes.

"YOU MUST PLEASE REMEMBER"

I know what all of you were thinking. Oh, now that Ms. Fancy Yogapants has her fancy new faucets and pipes and drains, she's going to be sooooo spoiled with her fancy showers. Well, for those of you who were worried that maybe I'd start the take my shower for granted again, fear not. Though my shower has been running for the past two hours, I have yet to see a drop of hot water. Just FYI.

Sigh... I clearly was a colossal asshole in my past life to water, probably going around peeing in every body of water I saw. Damnit

In other news, listen to this funny line:

"Hey baby, what are you doing for lunch today? And by the way, when you're having a heart attack, is the numbness in your right arm or left?"

Don't worry if you can't pinoint it. It's out of a book I am reading in all my adundant (ha!) free time. But, you have to stay tuned because I'm not going to tell you just yet. Let me finish it first. You know, in all my abundant free time.

"PAINT A VULGAR PICTURE"

It was twelve degrees last night. That is bitch-ass cold. I was standing on a el platform waiting forever for a brown line train huddled into one of those heat stands with a ton of people. My Chicago and Chicago-expat readers know, but for those of you who do not, you go into one of the stands and press a button and overheat heating elements kick on for a few minutes, then they automatically switch off. So, last night, I found myself the closest to the button to restart the heat when it switched off. So, I pressed. Nothing happened. Everyone turned around and looked. Press the button, okay? one man said. JUST PRESS IT a woman said loudly and slowly, as if I don't speak English. I pressed again. Nothing. A woman pushes in front of me, knocks the shit out of the button, causing the heat to resume and says, You can't even press it with your weak little fingers! I laugh and said loudly that my fingers must be frozen, standing out here for so long, but nobody finds this terribly funny. Screw it, the heat was back on. When the train came, I moved back a car to not look at anyone from the heat hub. Eh.

Today, more working. I am so close to being Caught Up. I don't know if I have ever been this behind in my entire life. Like I always say, though, I'd much rather be overwhelmed than bored. Especially in my line of work. But a return to my moderate work schedule would be nice, I have to admit.

Going to go to the store in a bit and pick up stuff for Shabbes dinner. It might be a busy weekend, but tonight I'm going to relax, damnit!

"SOME GIRLS ARE BIGGER THAN OTHERS"

This morning, I popped into a corner market for a cup of coffee. I go to this place all the time and the old man behind the counter and I chat about the surfacey things in our lives. He told me that when he was collecting change in a small jar on the counter to help victims of the earthquake in Pakistan, I was the only one who gave without lecturing him about Hurricane Katrina. Back in Pakistan, he was a research scientist. Now, he is old and runs a bodega. I'm not saying there is anything less than noble about bodega work, I just see a funny glimmer of sadness in his eyes when he talks about his life back in Pakistan.

So, he and I were chatting this morning when the doors flung open and in walked a couple. The man was in a velour track suit and the woman was in tight capri pants, clompy heels, a bare-midriff top with fabric-y sleeves, wore a terrible-looking hair weave and long, curved nails. They walked in with great commotion as she immediately began clomping up and down every aisle of the store, occasionally adjusting her camel-toe (blech) and handing her companion items to buy with, "Oh, buy me this" attached to every find. I was frozen, unable to leave or take my eyes from them, even though I felt terribly rude as I was doing it. When I finally did manage to wish my friend a nice day and head out down the block to my apartment, the duo had amassed a pile at the counter which included: a Massengil douchebag (I love saying douchebag), a box of tampons, Vicks Vaporub, a frozen pizza, several packaged pens and pencils, a box of Pop-Tarts ("Ooooohhhhh, SHIT, I love me some Pop-Tarts. Buy me these!"), a bottle of Windex, a jar of Vaseline, eight packages of string cheese and box of pantyliners. Call me crazy, but if I went on some golddigging bender, I don't think a corner market would be on my itinerary. I'm just thinking out loud, though. What the hell do I know?

Then, as I walked back to my apartment, I saw an old lady in a Cadillac covered (the car, not the old lady) in pink jack-o-lanterns. Some had sharp, pointy teeth, some were smiley, some were made of plastic, some were plush. Huh. So, I cocked my head to the side like I often do and walked away thinking about what a terrible gold-digger I'd be.

Later, just a bit, I ran a car-requiring errand. A jackass cut me off and slammed on his brakes, which pisses me off unendingly. I honked and flipped, my usual response, and, must like a similar experience a few weeks ago, the dude jumps out of his car and puffs his arms and elbows at me (you know that thing that Brohams do). Like I always say, the best remedy for testosterone poisoning is emasculation therapy. With my sunroof open so everyone could hear me, I pointed at the crotch of the jackass and howled with laughter. He looked left, then right, then down at his crotch before flipping me off, shouting, "Shut the fuck up! Stop it! C'mon!" and driving away.

I think it's a safe bet to assume he'll be fucking his girlfriend tonight, she won't cum for the bazillionth time and when she goes to the bathroom to finish herself off, he'll lie there and wonder if maybe, just maybe, there IS something ineffective about his weenis.

Either that or he'll flip on Sportscenter, let a stinky fart and go make himself a bowl of Coco Puffs. Blech.

"WHY DO I GIVE VALUABLE TIME TO PEOPLE WHO DON'T CARE IF I LIVE OR I DIE?"

It's nothing short of heartbreaking to think of the number of us, especially freelancers like me, who do not have health insurance and/or pay out the nose to self-insure. A friend of mine broke her wrist, demanded to be taken to the shit-ass county hospital and still nearly had to file bankruptcy. Bah! Further, I have been dealing with many different health insurance companies lately, as I'm shopping around, as I often do, to make sure I'm getting an okay deal, and blongity-bloong it's fucking confusing. I really appreciate when someone in a particular industry uses coded jargon only other industry insiders know. Sure, it pisses me off when people condescend one another, too, but, c'mon, there is a middle ground. I asked a customer service representative what a string of initials stood for and he scoffed. Audibly. It turned out to be something specific to pediatric emergencies. I don't have kids! So, how the hell would I know what it stood for then? Jeebus. Then, when I attempted to end the call by thanking the representative and insisting I needed a day or two to think over my options, the dude exploded. He said, "Sweetheart, you don't want to make a decision today? After all I've done for you?" Bling! Blam! Bloom! Did you hear that? Sweetheart? And, wait-- was that an attempt at making me not feel like a pleasing and nice girl for troubling you to do your fucking job? Get real. So, when it was over, I called the supervisor and let him know that I wouldn't be pursuing health insurance with any company that would allow their employees to speak to a customer or potential customer like that. Boo!