Vomit Comet

One stellar evening in college, I became one. Sitting in Human Sexuality, I became aware my stomach was just rolling. I had already guzzled a Gatorade because of a headache and general malaise, sure my uckiness was due to some electrolyte balance.

Human Sexuality lasted three hours Monday evenings. I was taking it with my roommate, Shelley, for fun. (Pretty weird idea of fun… our textbook had instructions on how to masturbate. My eyes just about fell out of my head when I found that chapter. However, I attended a Christian college, and our instructor didn’t have us crack the book once. And, no, you pervs, I didn’t do any extracurricular explorations. Anyway, I digress.) I had no idea how I would last the whole class as waves of nausea continued to course through my body, those waves increasing steadily in frequency and amplitude (physics shoutout!).

Luckily, or unluckily, my instructor seemed to be suffering from the same complaint that I was, so after twenty minutes of class, she apologized, saying she hadn’t felt this nauseated since pregnancy and that she’d catch us next week. I breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t going to have to fight my professor for the trash can and began power-walking back to the girls’ dorm on the far side of campus, Shelley right beside me, encouraging me every step of the way. “You can make it!”

And I was so close…so so close…we could even see the dorm. But my stomach had other ideas. And right in front of the boys dorm, right in front of the main doors propped open to the foyer and a herd of guys hanging out on the balcony, I erupted. Mt. Virginia. Everywhere. All over the sidewalk. Boys scrambled for cover as they tried to avoid vomit ricocheting off the concrete.

And Shelley offered the one of the wisest pieces of advice anyone has ever offered me.

“Don’t stop! Just keep walking. Just. . . keep. . .walking.”

Walk and spew. Walk and spew. It was like some sick version of Hansel and Gretel—anyone could have followed my trail. Even a blind person. They could have smelled their way.

I survived the night and dragged myself to class the next morning, dreading the ribbing I knew I was sure to get. As I settled into my desk in my first class, I did have the joy of overhearing a plethora of conversations about my performance…

“I stepped in it…”

“And she just kept spewing everywhere!”

“It was soo gross. It was blue and. . .”

(remember, Gatorade)

After listening to the retelling over and over again, I realized something… they had no idea who it was…they had no idea I was responsible.

I have no idea why. I knew most of the boys who I had seen hanging out in the front before I started my show. Maybe my blond hair had been hanging down in front of my face. It was rather long. Maybe my face was so distorted by my “I’m vomiting” expression, I was unrecognizable. Maybe the Holy Spirit obstructed me in some mystical fashion.

Who knows? Who cares? The important thing was they didn’t know it was me. And I wasn’t going to have to transfer schools.

Sisters… I have the best

No, really, I do.

We may look retarded but we ain’t.

Who else would humor me by posing by a vintage truck? Spur-of-the-moment. In the middle of busy downtown. With no dragging her feet. And minimal primping, confident in herself.

Who else would help me fulfill a lifelong dream of dressing in scrubs and observing a surgery? I think I was more excited about the scrubs. “Oh, don’t I look official? Like I really belong? Do you think anyone might think I’m the nurse? Or maybe even the surgeon?”

Who else would give me the world’s best niece? And then be all cool and dye said-niece’s hair blue. And buy her rock-and-roll clothes?

What other sister’s actually kiss like we do? People in high school thought Nell and I were a lesbian couple because sometimes we’d kiss each other goodbye on the cheek after chatting at our lockers between classes. And, what other sisters sought each other out to talk between their classes?

Who else will still play dress up with me and take me to pink-trash balls?

Charlotte Bronte had it right: “The value of a sister’s affection: there’s nothing like it in this world.”

Amen, sister.

Heritage, according to a 9 year old

While Chloe was chatting with me in the car this evening, she informed me that one of her friends is “part Cherokee casino.”  When I responded, “Neat.  Your friend is part Cherokee,” she embellished, “Yeah, her dad is Cherokee and he helped build the casino, so she’s part Cherokee casin0.”

So would I be part English muffin top?

Cooking—I am so good at it!

I was in a mood for pasta. Last night, after finishing some homework (okay, who I am kidding, I was reading trashy novels/watching TV/reading the Pioneer Woman blog/walking my dog), I realized I must be deficient in some vitamin found only in flour. Yeah, vitamin F. As in fat, flabby, f_____ (some other “f” word that brings to mind jiggly tummy and thighs that applaud when you walk—you pick). Good ol’ vitamin F. My body is an episode of Sesame Street brought to you by vitamin F.

Like any normal person, I hopped in my car for a late-night run to Wal-Mart. On the drive, I happened to notice the time and figured by the time I actually got home and cooked everything, it would be late Late LATE, like midnight-ish. So, I practiced some unusual self-restraint and promised myself I would cook it the next night (which happened to be today after work). (Okay, self-restraint may be stretching it… I promised myself some loaded-baked-potato bites on the way home for having to forgo my pasta. And I got the large. And a roast beef sandwhich.)

I decided to try some recipes from the Pioneer Woman. I combined two recipes into one—I wound up with Blue Cheese Tomato Pasta alla Vodka. (She has one recipe for tomato and blue cheese sauce, another sauce alla vodka.)

In the end, I realized I made pasta covered vomit. Really. See evidence below.

However, never one to be put off my food by appearance, I ate a bowl. It tastes okay. Tastes better with salt.

Tastes even better with vitamin W.

(or is that vitamin A? I can never keep them straight.)

I thought about adding in some vitamin V. However, I had left V in the Wal-Mart bag yesterday, and found ooey gooey nastiness this evening.

From the top it looks okay. Flip it over-- welcome to brown slimyville.

I can’t wait to have everyone over for supper one evening!

School and Summer

I have been taking classes this year at the local community college to prepare for returning to school FOR REAL. Like, all the time, actually move away to go to school 24/7, just like I did the first time around. But, this next time around at school, I'll hopefully be walking away with my masters. And, they don't have any programs around here in what I want, so I'll have to move away from home.

Goodbye sweet little house with cows in the pasture behind my backyard fence.

Goodbye kids playing soccer in the empty lot two streets over.

Goodbye all my neighbors that just had new babies. (The stork bombed my street this spring.)

Goodbye sidewalks that are so nice to walk on in the evenings with my dog.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I'll be moving into my mom's and dad's house in just a few short weeks.

And, as soon as classes are over and I've moved, I'll go back to working full time.

I like work. I like working. I like ending my day knowing that I've done something productive (I'm one of those people that gets much more done in a day if I have something scheduled than if my whole day is wide open. I just end up wasting THE WHOLE DAY.)

However, I took a lot of tough classes this year. Yes, some of them were classes I've taken before (for the programs I want to get into, pre-reqs have to be within the last five years). But, it was a lot of hard work. And somehow, I'm not able to get excited about finishing school just to return to work full time.

I want a vacation to get excited about. I used to teach, so I toally got spoiled abandoning my homestead during the summer and traveling the world. And, last year, even when I was no longer teaching, I had balls enough to ask for a whole month off to go on vacation. (It helped that my boss is a good friend and we were actually going on vacation together.)

I want something to look forward to. (And don't tell me that my birthday's coming up...I'm well past the age I get excited about those anymore.)

Maybe something like this—Rome!

Or this. . .

Venice!

Or someplace that looks like this. . .

and this. . .

that has signs that say this. . .

Whatever…

I’m not picky…

just spoiled…

PTL for cousins with internet on their phones

While perusing Facebook today, I clicked through some pics that had just been added of my younger sister, Meg. The pics were of a bachelorette party she'd attended the night before. Now, Meg is a good girl. No really, she's a really, really good girl. Super sweet to the point your teeth hurt from her sugary goodness, she truly cares about living her life in a way to wholly please her Savior.

At some point they during the bachelorette party, there were some pink plastic penises attached to some kind of feathery head gear passed around. And, someone snapped a picture with Meg holding said head gear. And that someone posted it onto Facebook this morning. And tagged it with Meg's name. Surprise!

Now, Meg is not wearing the head gear. Nope, Meg has each hand wrapped around a pink plastic penis, like some kind of weird, fetish-y video game device. The expression on Meg's face states clearly, "What am I doing with this? Why did you hand this to me? Let me make some weird cute face so that people don't know how uncomfortable I really am." (Being Meg's sis, I am well versed in reading her expressions.)

So, while Meg is in church, and I am catching up on facebook while skipping church because of getting in late the night before (I do go), I find this photo. I quickly text Meg as well as sending her a facebook message, not judging her (hey, it was a party, she's an adult), but knowing she would DIE if anyone were to see that picture and get the wrong idea.

A couple hours later, I get a FRANTIC phone call from Meg. "I just got out of church and I have to go to a baptism and I just got your message and I had NO IDEA someone took a picture of me holding that thing and would you PLEASE logon for me and remove the tag! Please!"

I assured Meg I would take care of it ASAP. However, I was out grocery shopping with my older sister, Nell, and after looking at her list, it seemed she still had quite a bit of shopping to do.

Now comes the cousin to the rescue.

I immediately called my cousin, Susan, who just happens to be one of the coolest people in the world, explained the situation, and asked if she was closer to the internet than I was. "No problem. I have internet on my phone. I'll call you back when I've untagged everything. I've had to do this for Christi (her sister) before."

Five minutes later, the job was done, hopefully before any damage was done.

I think she'll think twice before grabbing any naughty bits (even if they are fake made of pink plastic) when there are cameras around.

Cowboy Josh and my stalkerish tendencies

Hmmm... I could be a stalker. I think that I have what it takes to really disturb the pants off someone by finding out everything about him before I've even met him.

I'd try to play it cool our first meeting, cautioning myself, "Okay, Virginia, don't let on that you know where he lives, what he majored at in college, what his food allergies are, and what he wears to bed."

But, then I'd eventually slip up, saying something like, "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that you hate M&Ms in your popcorn."

And, then he'd get a funny look on his face and I'd be able to see his thoughts as clearly as if they were scrolling across his forhead, "How does she know that?"

"I think you told me that earlier," I'd giggle nervously.

Yeah, right, I followed you to the movies the day before, sitting two rows behind you, following you every move. Like a grown up Harriet the Spy focused solely on you.

I say this because I've recently become addicted to The Pioneer Woman's blog. I've consumed the archives over the last few weeks, forsaking all other activities.

Homework. . . blecch, I was getting tired of doing it anyway.

Housework. . . who cares, I live alone.

Laundry. . .insideout underwear works just fine. And it's not like anyone will be getting his nose too close to my crotch. except for dogs. and they nose everyone's crotches, no matter what a person's laundry habits are. and if a dog does nose my crotch excessively, I can always make up some story about owning a cat.

Also, because of the long hours in front of the computer inhaling her blog, I think my LASIK has been totally reversed.

It's all been worth it.

Her blog is that good.

Anywho, the Pioneer Woman writes all about her life on the ranch in Oklahoma. Her husband, Marlboro Man, her four kids, her pesky bro-in-law, her retarded (her words, not mine) brother Mike (literally retarded), and the ranch cowboys are all included in her vignettes of country life.

Sigh. The cowboys. Cowboy Josh, in particular. Double sigh.

Single Cowboy Josh. . . hardworking Cowboy Josh. . . helpful Cowboy Josh. . . kind Cowboy Josh... playful Cowboy Josh. . . horse ridin' Cowboy Josh. . . chaps wearin' Cowboy Josh. . . cutie pie Cowboy Josh. . . Did I mention SINGLE Cowboy Josh?

And, it seems like a billiondy other people read that blog and half of them also just luv Cowboy Josh, too. and, of the half that just luv Cowboy Josh, at least half of those are single. and, of those half that are single, probably all of them are prettier, skinnier, go-gettin'er than I am.* they would never dream of not doing laundry. they are probably passionate about something other than reading (sometimes trashy) romance novels. they probably know what they want to do with their life. they probably have actually dated before. they probably roll out of bed earlier than I do and actually do devotions every day and actually work up a sweat when they exercise.

*statistics based on mood/pity party rather than actual research.

Cowboy Josh, I could stalk you. I could.

But I won't.

Because when we do meet and you are surrounded by your bevy of admirers, at least I'll be able to say I never stalked you-- I'll have one thing going for me in the bid for your heart.

does googling his name count as stalking?

aw, shucks.