Category: Melissa’s life (Page 9 of 20)

I haven’t said much lately. It’s not that I haven’t had much to say, it’s more that what I have had to say lately isn’t pleasant. It’s sad and self-loathing. I have a tendency to lean towards being a perfectionist and in certain times of my life, it can really bite me in the ass..

In fact, for every situation that is a setback, I will ruminate and wonder “if I was only smarter, pretty, more fit, more savvy, more more more something, then this wouldn’t have happened to me.” It’s always somehow my fault and due to some lack that I possess. What could I have done differently? Why did I see this coming? I’m an idiot. I’m going to continue to be an idiot for the end of time. Why would anybody want to hang out with an idiot? damn I’m an idiot and a loser. oh lord. Lather, rinse, repeat.

As you can plainly see, this is a crazy making mantra and without someone to slap back into reality and to remind me that I am fairly smart and that everybody makes mistakes and in the grand scheme of things, most of my mistakes aren’t that bad, (no prison, no bad marriages, nobody is trying to kill me, no rehab) I can go to sad sack of shit land pretty fast. I do believe the above is a run on sentence but I am keeping it. Take that perfectionism. Eh that’s more like lazy ass grammar in the wee hours of the morning.

And yet, I spent more time than I would like being unhappy and discontent. It’s never good enough in Melissa land or more specifically, I am never good enough.

Sometimes this knowledge keeps me from getting out of bad situations or leaving bad people behind because I will think that if I just do something things will get better. I can make that person respect me or like me. Now Bonnie Raitt has already let everybody and their mama know, “I can’t make you love me if you don’t” So I need to get with the program and cut some fools loose.

Yeah all that self indulgent crap above means I have been doing a lot of laying around on the couch feeling like dog poop and trying to figure out how to make it better. It also means I am on the verge of changing a whole bunch of stuff about my life.

SO there you go.

I am making plans to move. This town is a bad fit for me and it’s been time for years. I have tried and tried like no other but dammit, it’s just not working.

I signed up for National Novel Writing Month

I signed up to do the Little Rock half marathon again

Someone on Twitter asked about Halloween music that was upset enough for running. I don’t remember who but I do have some songs that are creepy and have a pace worthy of a good jog. Here we go.

1. Thriller by Michael Jackson. This is a “duh” song for Halloween. It has a rap by Vincent Price. The video includes dancing zombies. What’s not Halloween about this song.
2. Zombie Jamboree by Rockapella. OKay it has many versions,including Harry Belafonte and the Kingston Trio, but I am picking this one. It’s about Zombies having a party in a cemetery.
   
3. Country Death Song by the Violent Femmes. IT’s about a father who throws his daughter down a well.
4. Ghostbusters theme by Ray Parker Jr. Yeah you know this one. I’m not including the video. I ain’t afraid of no ghost. It’s Synthesizertastic.
5. Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. It’s the theme to the Exorcist.
6. Monster by Fred Schneider. THis is Fred Schneider’s solo effort. This video is also one of the first videos to be either banned or regulated to late, late night by MTV.
7. Lotion in the Basket by Greens Keepers. This is a catchy little tuned based on Jame Gumb from Silence of the Lambs. Yes Precious, it gets the hose.
   
8. Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett and the Cryptkickers. IT’s a classic for Halloween.

I love lists. It is painfully obvious if you look around through the blog archives. I am a habitual list maker. I like the feeling of accomplishment of drawling a line through an item. Once upon a time, I wrote down a bucket list–a list of things I wanted to do before I “kicked the bucket” Now that I think of it, i don’t even remember where it is. Well Just in time, Savannah and Audreya have both put down their “life lists.” So I think I’m going to redo this bugger right here. I’m going to put down the ones I have already done and cross those out.

1. See Jerry Seinfeld in concert
2. See the pyramids in Gisa, Egypt
3. Go on an African Safari
4. Try a jury trial
5. Build a Habitat for Humanity House
6. To complete a marathon
7. To complete two half marathons
8. To complete the 100 push up challenge
9. To complete the 200 sit up challenge
10. To complete the 200 squat challenge
11. Try drinking green monsters for a week.
12. Drink 64 ounces of water a day.
13. Get back into my yoga habit. I am shooting for two times a week for a month to cross it off this list but seriously. I just want to get back to it. I need exercise in my life
14. Get a bike
15. Try a triathalon
16. Get my passport renewed
17. Go back to Africa
18. Go to Washington DC
19. Go to a Little Rock Tweet up
20. Go to the Little Rock Film Festival
21. Go to Memphis in May
22. Go to Voodoo Music festival in New Orleans
23. Build a Habitat for Humanity house
24. See the William Faulkner things in Oxford, Mississippi
25. See the Hemingway things in Piggott, Arkansas
26. Lose 100 pounds
27. Read all Faulkner novels
28. Get a Smart phone (blackberry or iphone)




29. Get Linked In profile up date
30. Grow linked in Network
31. Go to National Association for Criminal Defense lawyers annual meeting. Okay to be fair this wasn’t the annual meeting but a spring meeting but I counted it.
32. Try a jury trial
33. Win a jury trial
34. Get certified for conflicts list in Arkansas State court
35. Get certified for CJA list in federal court
36. Get practice management software/system set up
37. Get time management system set up (probably something like Randy Pausch’s system)
38. Clean office (big clean)
39. After big clean, pick once a week to clean office X/143
40. See all Harry Potter movies as they come out saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on 7/17/2009)
41. Get professional site up and running (already bought domain)
42. Blog on my legal site once a week (starting from completion of set up)
43. Move to a better living situation.
44. Get over fear of dentist and get all my dental work done
45. Get a pair of black Manolo pumps. (I never said they couldn’t be shallow things)
46. Get a Vespa.
47. get a professional massage
48. get facial
49. Try sushi (no i’ve never tried it)
50. See Nine Inch Nails or the Dandy Warhols in Concert.
51. Learn ballroom or salsa dancing.
52. Figure out the perfect margarita recipe.
53. Finish learning Hungarian Rhapsody #2. (yeah I dream big. I might be closer to this than you think)
54. Learn Un Sospiro by Liszt
55. give blood
56. Try acupuncture
57. Participate in the 365 day photo challenge
58. Identify 101 things that make me happy
59. Put my attorney profile on Law Link
60. Try the 21 day challenge
61. Clear out 101 items for yardsale, recycling, or trash. (I’m a clutter bug, this is actually a low number)
62. Get this emotional eating under control
63. walk Across the brooklyn bridge
64. See all 50 states
65. Go to PARIS! (the city in France not the heiress)
66. Advertise my business on MonticelloLive
67. mail a secret to Post Secret
68. Go to my 10 year law school reunion
69. Go to my 15 year college reunion
70. Go to my 20 year high school reunion (yes they all fall within the 1001 days)
71. To complete at least 75 percent of my 101 in 1001 with the deadline of April 11, 2012
72. See Conan O’Brien in concert
73. Try the Moon pie from Capital Bar and Grill Done. It wasn’t nearly as great as I thought it would be.
74. Go to Greece
75. Eat, gaze at art, flirt with men, and buy shoes in Italy
76. Participate in a protest
77. Write a novel
78. Have something published well I had a book review published in the Young Lawyers Section newsletter but I’m not sure I want to count that for this particular item. hrmmm)
79. Own a T-Anthony all purpose tote in black with white leather accents. Seriously I saw this bag in Vogue about 3 years ago and I am still lusting after this freaking bag. It’s classic enough I could still buy it but on some level I can’t justify buying it.
80. Read all the books on the Radcliffe list
81. read all the books on the Modern Library 100 list for fiction
82. Volunteer for a Presidential campaign
83. See Aretha Franklin sing live (she is the real deal)
84. See the 4th of July fireworks in Washington DC in person

Today is October 10, 2010– also known as binary day. It was also the day that my friend Angela had planned on getting married. She died in early May so that didn’t happen. Her death rocked my world and definitely set forth a period of extreme introspection and some existential angst. (what the hell am I doing with my life, anyway?!?!?!)

This weekend I was determined to get out of the house and out of the mire of the funk that I have managed to let sit on me like dust. Clean that crap out. It’s not productive anymore. I’m going to have some fun.

So I woke up in the wee hours of the noontime and got on the road to meet my friend Ramona for the First Annual World Cheese Dip Championship. That’s right. An entire festival devoted to cheese dip.

Apparently the first cheese dip was created in Arkansas in the 30s for a Mexican Restaurant called Mexico Chiquito. It never occurred to me that everybody at some point didn’t throw a can of Rotel (a tomato and chili blend) and some Velveeta into a pot or bowl and heat that stuff up until it is gooey enough to put on chips. it’s just that ubiquitous around here.

So away we went. The event was slated to start at noon and last until nine in the evening. We got there at two and there were already stations running out of chips.

Danger danger.

That didn’t sway us. We discovered that the two cheese dip powerhouses in Arkansas Stoby’s restaurant and Mexico Chiquito were more than prepared for chips. So we kept getting in those lines and loading up on chips to use to try the other dips.

Mexico Chiquito and Stoby’s were serving the same dips that they serve in their restaurants and they were tasty as ever. Mexico Chiquito is a cheese based dip with spices instead of chunks of tomatoes and peppers so it’s smooth as opposed to chunky. Stoby’s isn’t really spicy but is more creamy cheese goodness.

So the round up.

Ferneau made a crawfish and green chili dip that tasted amazing. It was, however, chunky enough that I wanted to eat it with warm flour tortillas and in that sense considered it some sort of rogue faux fundido (like the fajita chicken and cheese dip concoction that gets called “pollo fundido” at my local mexican place). While I loved it, I couldn’t in good conscious consider it cheese dip.

There was a Tanqueria at the end but there’s was just too runny. Sorry.

There was a local chapter of the Sweet potato queens who served this dip with meat in it that was just pretty tasty. They called themselves Hogs and … err something. I forget. I didn’t take notes.

There was a spinach based cheese dip in the amateur division that had the combination of tomatoes, chilis, cheese, and spinach that was just yummy. Oh I discovered from another blog that it was from an insurance company called Meadors/Adams. it was gosh darn tasty. (thanks Arkansas Foodies)

Dizzy’s had a cheese dip that also got you a dollop of these great salsa on top of it. It was one of my favorites. The salsa itself was so good that I almost wanted to go back and ask for a serving of that by itself.

Apparently, they ran out of cheese dip around 3:30. I got the last non alcoholic beverage at the whole event around 3 o’clock.

Somehow in my very focused quest to get the last non-alcoholic beverage (A Dr. Pepper), I missed some sort of racial smackdown or altercation or something that ended up with one woman crying. I missed crying. How did in the hell did I miss crying? The only thing I remember is hearing “it’s 2010” See guys, I was really, really thirsty.

THEN

After we were stuffed, we went to see Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. It was okay. I didn’t hate it but I was bored enough that I checked twitter halfway through the movie. This was the first time in my entire life that I have done that. It showed me the charisma of Michael Douglas. He stole the scene in every scene he was in. I was enchanted by Carey Mulligan’s pixie cut. I’m not sure if that’s a sign of the overall boringness of the movie or the stunningness of Ms. Mulligan’s hair. I’ll leave that up to you. So I give it a MEH!

Sometimes in life, you want to slap the living shit out of a person. Sometimes in life, you want to slap the living shit out of more than one person. Of course, these people aren’t worth getting assault charges and possibly losing your law license. So you hold it in.

And that makes for a killer headache. That mean nasty bitch slapping rage monster will eat through your brain and try to drill it’s way out of your head through your skull. And oh the head is HURTING. OWEWW. FUCK. KILL ME NOW… No wait.. make it stop

And then you vomit. A lot. You scare the cat. Then the cat feels all sorry for you and lays beside you by the toilet and seems to say in his little meows, “It’s okay honey, I get hair balls too.” and its’ the sweetest thing you’ll ever experience in your life.

awwwww

Then you’ll go back to sleep and sleep all day. Or a big chunk of the day. Then you’ll wake up crazy hungry.

And your cat will look for you because he knows that sleeping all day is messed up.

aawwwww