a fav

setting my alarm for 6am and hitting snooze till 7:45am. so yummy. it is predictable and yet not. as i like it. i am off to nyc today kiddos! wish me luck. [PAUSE] ah thanks that is a very nice send off! have a day. and if not then recover it in the night.

off to NYC babies...expenses paid dolls!

so she says to me, "ah yeah we are doing this international food show this weekend in NYC and I need someone to work the show with me, can you do it?"

I think for A second...let's see...so I says back to her, "so what you are saying is that we are staying in a beautiful hotel across from Madison Square Garden, I have a per diem, all expenses paid and you will then pay me to work the show?" To which she replies back with no hesitation, "yep, that is what I am saying"

Like ah no brainer! I get to go to NYC see my friends, do some open mics, eat, drink, and not clean up after myself and someone is going to pay me? I am there, Claire!

I fly up tomorrow and come back next Tuesday. Sweet. I then am on the shore for about 48 hours and then I head the other direction down south to North Cakalaky (as us natives know to say it...we also know it is a state not a town!) for job interviews, smooch on an old BF (nah, no smooching just drinking!), see my cute funny Bro and then jet on back up early Saturday. Whew! And yet it does not end there! I swing into my sabbatical town of Belle Haven and set up for Amy Ingram's fantastic "not for kids" show that Saturday eve...then I think I can breathe for a wee bit...chill in Cape Charles at Kelly's Gingernut Pub, play some darts, chit chat with friends. Then my roomies, the Lovely older couple AKA moi rents of par are off down way south to the land of tortillas and tequilla (they are taking a tequilla tour that sounds simply brilliant... or is it intoxicating? wahoo!) and I have a friend a visiting me while they are gone...me, him, the dog and the house! And then we are almost done with Feb (of all the months I so glad that the month gods choose Feb to be the shortest - very nice very nice work!) - Wait we are then almost in March, spring is round the corner - wha? what had a happened Maury? Time is a wild animal my friends - it just goes and goes and then its gone. Anywho...here's to getting through January and to all that is good and wonderful to take place in February (someone once told me "attitude is everything" I am pretty sure that someone coined that phrase while spending time in the month of February!). So to all a good month and may many treasures and wealth come your way.

BRING ON THE SPRING!!

PS...why Him up there? He is one of the many reasons NYC works darlings!

ah - ha!

in my job search i came across this site...http://www.sugardaddyforme.com/?mode=reg&x_source=A2_443734:daddy
well to be honest i was not so much job searching when i found it as i was house/dog/pigeon/chicken/goat/kitty sitting and i came across an article about it in a Mother Jones magazine - it is never too late to get smart.
so there i was; a fresh glass of red wine poured, all animals fed and tucked in for the night, law and order on the set - when i house sit i tend to watch a crap load of television. mostly because at "my home" i only have 5 channels. The lovely folks i have house sat for tend to have cable and so i allow myself to get totally soaked into the television. amazing though i have to say that even with over 500 channels it is still mostly all crap! outside of monk, law and order and sex and the city it is mostly all infomercials, alas i still love it!
anyway, there i am and i come across this article about this site. wild. and yet i guess not. i've always suspected that such a biz, a line of work existed but did not know where to look. it has now come to mainstream. i checked oout (i realize that i have two Os in this word and after reading the entry i went back to change it but then decided to keep it in - as i was writing this entry i was watching my favorite show, CBS Sunday Morning show, and they were doing a segment on accents. this OOUt sounds like to me the Fargo accent they were discussing at the time) the site, really, truly (ahem) just out of curiousity and for material potential. that and for something the article said, told me that got my attention. it seems that i am "overripe" for the position or so the article tells me. 27 is overripe. ack! Now calm down! I am in no way claiming I am 27...just a few years past that, hee. but certianly not overripe. Anyway, so i came way too late to this party. at first i was offended by the term "overripe" but then i got over it, ha, over it, past it so to speak!
i did not sign up, but it was tempting. yet do i really need another line of rejection tossed at me, right now? nah, not now. but i did want to pass it onto to you my faithful audience. take it as you feel best or of course don't take it all. but i am guessing that most of you will click on the link. i mean why not? all in fun on this warming overcast sunday.

i dunno...just something thinkin on as the rain falls down on my head today

In 1890, an unknown St. Louis physician supposedly encouraged the owner of a food products company, George A. Bayle Jr., to process and package ground peanut paste as a nutritious protein substitute for people with poor teeth who couldn't chew meat. The physician apparently had experimented by grinding peanuts in his hand-cranked meat grinder. Bayle mechanized the process and began selling peanut butter out of barrels for about 6¢ per pound.

if you want to know more go to - http://www.peanutbutterlovers.com/history/index.html

I am sure I am one of a kabillion!

that will discuss, write this "news" on a blog, website, newspaper, paper napkin today and for many to come...therefore, not gonna write on it persay, simply going to mention it and direct your attention to this entry that i like the best...so far.
and i only mention it really cause i thought he was an outstanding actor and appeared to be a good, decent person. i loved him in A Knights Tale and most all of his films to boot, I've walked by the Candy movie a dozen times in the last few months yet have not picked it up. not sure if i will now or not - we shall see. it is sad when anyone dies, and quite a few die each day i am sure - so this death is not anymore sad than any other known or unknown..it is just that, sad. and to me? i think it makes one truly recognize that not even fame, money, super talent, and dashing looks can save ya from the demons. I know the jury is still out on what actually took place in that manhatten apartment and i am sure we will never really know but till then or we get more information, only peace. Mums the word! i just tossed the key out on this one.

http://inhome.rediff.com/movies/2008/jan/23rs.htm

BIG, HUGE decision i just made

smooches! that is the word...smooches. i love it. use it, adore it, hug it, embrace, hell even make love to it...it is IT! SMOOCH it babies if you know what is good for you. And if you don't? If you think this is stupid, ah hello up there in ah long of isle new york, who cares? You shouldn't. Just be, have fun, afterall it just be a word and yet so, even such much more. Come on....ain't it just life afterall? Peace.

my dream? my goal?

To be Mrs. Frost!
No not to be married to a dead guy but to be as good a poet as this dead man. thought i would share one of my more favs of his...happy melting snow people! And go swing on some brances today if you get the chance. dont pass it up EVER!

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stayAs ice storms do. Often you must have seen themLoaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselvesAs the breeze rises,
and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter of fact about the ice storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows
Some boy too far from the town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

what i've learned from L&O

1. When the cops are interviewing you (at the top of an hour) always give them eye contact. Anyone that gives them eye contact is always innocent.
2. If the cops ask you to come "down to the station house", go but call your lawyer on the way, before you get to the precinct. Once inside that interrogation room you are on your own. There is no phone in there people.
3. Continue to do whatever you were doing when the cops come up to you. That way there is a good chance that one of them will grab you, get close, and you will get a better close up on camera.
4. Offer Jack a shot of whiskey right off when meeting with him for the first meetin about your plea...he is a drunk but has not figured out, yet, how to smuggle the juice onto the set.
5. Always cry, especially if you are a woman, when questioned on the stand...the jurors are so nervous that this is their first onscreen performance that they are not really listening and all they will see is your tears and assume you are innocent.

there is more, but my favorite L&O CI episode is on and i am going for a record here people!

like JJ once said,

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."

cycle

i am being tested. i am in an envelope being pushed to the top and someone is attempting to lick the seal and send it off. elements are conspiring, filtering all around me to see what i will do. this is hard. they say...and yet still have no idea who this "they" is...they do say that one will be sent only what one can handle...so i have faith that all of this being shoved to me, onto me is good and that i will pass the test with flying colors. It is hard though i have to say. Yet I look at my predessers and they got through the test. i made a decision a few days ago to actually leave where i am now. it feels right. and then something happened this week that for me stands in that decision's corner. i am out and a new one is in it seems. the natural order of things i suppose. someone dies, someone is born. so it continues; the cycle of life. I saw a billboard the other day at a local biz that said, (I love this time of year because this place posts the best sayings and i look forward to them!) "It is easy to be brave from a distance" Interesting, yes? At first I thought well ok maybe i should stay, tuff it out, be brave...then i realized but wait i don't want to be brave, not now not about this, i just want to get over this one. distance then makes sense. i can be brave later and i promise i shall be.

i got to tell ya!

sitting in the coffee shop, sipping a laddy i mean a latte (hee), listening to gavin degraw, blogging, developing my comedy class, searching for jobs, filing my weekly unemployment claim, chatting with people coming in for afternoon coffee, looking up every once in a while to check out the light rain piercing the subtle sunshine of this monday....i gots to tell ya i am happy. i have such a feeling of possibility encasing my heart it is palitable! i can touch it. but i wont cause there are other diners here today...i hope, wish upon all of you the feeling i have right now on this monday on the eastern shore of virginia. if you arent feelin it, go get it, find it, wrestle it down and sit on it till it takes you over! I'm just saying...

am i strange or not?

initially i know the answer to this but wait! i had a flash on the brain this morning that HERE are some reasons as to why i am odd, or that a splattering of people (some who do know me and some who do not but claim to) in my past have identified me as odd...or said to me, "ah that is weird" Now you be the judge...

1. I don't like cheeseburgers, I like burgers, love them actually. Yet I love all cheese; in and on other food items. Everytime I order a HAMBURGER (and it is usually if not always on the menu right above CHEESEBURGER) the waiter/ess will then inquire, "and what kind of cheese on that?" either they are in shock that an American would order only a hamburger and not a cheeseburger or they just are not listening...anyone? out there are you? come back!

2. I only like drinking coffee in a to-go cup EVEN if I am not taking it to go. I know environmentalist get angry at me for this but I cannot and will not stop it. And really, are you not just a little too late in the process if you tell me as I am ordering the coffee I should care about the environment? The cup has been made. What can i do about it? And as some of you know, I live with my parents. How more environmentally conscious can one be? I don't use extra gas to buy groceries (my dad buys them), I don't use extra water to wash clothes (my mom is already washing clothes when I throw mine in), and they are already using and paying for the electricity so really it would be a crime to the environment if I lived on my own!

3. I like pickles - not love but like a lot - yet I don't like pickles that come with sandwiches.

4. I more often than not cry at movies WHEN I come into them in the middle, the last moment of the movie even...in otherwords I don't need to know the plot, be attached to the characters and I can cry if something happens in those last minutes that moves me...

5. And actually I don't call them movies even I call them FILMS - that is how much I love FILMS, I can call them that, comfortably!

6. I am afraid of commitment yet I am not afraid of soft shell crab sandwiches.

and the jury is now leaving the courtroom!

January is wha?!?!?!?!

It is true...January is National Cell phone awareness month! Here goes...are you AWARE that you have a cell phone? Ok good. Is the month over yet?

Surprisingly enough there is not a lot out there on this "important" month long celebration of cell phones. When I type in "national cell phone awareness month" the following is what pops up...the top selections:

Welcome to the National Aphasia Association

Hepatitis Foundation International - Hepatitis Living and Learning ...

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

President Bush Proclaims October Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Nothing on cell phones let alone being aware of them.

What is Aphasia?

Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder that impairs a person's ability to process language, but does not affect intelligence. Aphasia impairs the ability to speak and understand others, and most people with aphasia experience difficulty reading and writing.

Sort of fits actually once you think on it for a few seconds. Maybe the connection is that by using your cell phone too much you will develop Aphasia? Or maybe (cause i have a slight idea of how Google works...and i do mean A slight as in tiny, small) there are commonalities with Aphasia, cell phones, Bush and Domestic Violence? no proclamation here just putting it out there.

Have a good January with your cell phone and getting to know it, to be aware of it and all it has to offer. Oh and next time you are on any form of public transportation say a bus, a train, a little red wagon, be sure to give me a call and tell me so. I just love that! "Oh hey Michelle, yeah I am on the bus. Oh I have to go now and call 20 more people and tell them I am on the bus."

Happy dialing to all.

Words Of Wisdom...

or daily tidbits of advice...have not decided on the title of this entry series yet...but i shall share, impart, release, provide pearls aka words of wisdom to help in rich your lives each day - or at least make you laugh, giggle, spit up milk, choke on breakfast, release a tear drop, expel a tad of snot...you get the jist....

W.O.W. (get it? is that brilliant? indeed) #1

trust me buying razors at the Dollar Store or Dollar Tree, aka any store with the title "dollar" in the title and seriously even the "99 cent" (can you frickin - hey kids can read too - believe there is no cent sign on my laptop keyboard oh you can? thanks for the support) store applies!

anyway....buying diposal razors at any of the fine dollar store establishments may seem or appear to be a brilliant idea in the moment, as it is happening...i mean really there is nothing better than being able to buy both razors and fried pork skins at the same store and each costing only a dollar but trust me don't do it!!! It only takes one shower, one deep cut of the cheap razor blade ( i mean think on it for even just a split sec...if it only cost a dollar for 6 in a bag how much can it even really physically, logically, chemically, realisically cost to make and where would that cheap razor even come from, exist? - ok no more thinking for you!), one long thick river of deep red blood running down the back of your calf to then know NOT A GOOD IDEA. So please take this W.O.W. to heart. Back away from the Dollar pack of razors! Save the dollar store for candle holders, single serve chicken salad and 6 cracker packs, bibles and paper towels. In the end you will trust me. Good night and good shaving.

survey says...and my friend Jamie

drink more coffee and eat peanuts! go to http://stores.coastalroast.com/StoreFront.bok for some good stuff! i said do it...please!?!

resolve to resolute!

my 2007, crap i mean 2008 resolutions...OR are they?

1. no more television

2. drive less

3. come out of my shell...i'm shy...deep down

4. give less information - just answer the question!

5. get a new cell phone battery

6. write each day

7. drink less...milk

8. make better choices

9. get a job

10. stop assuming...nothing is ever what it seems!

11. stop over punctuating!@*^$%#, ... !! ( )

happy new year!

Here's to a new and good year to come in '08! New beginnings, a clean slate, new relationships and endless possibilities! In search of solutions with always a touch of fun layerd on top.
"all beginnings come from some other beginnings ending" - goodbye '07 and look out Mr. '08. Goodbye relationships that could not endure and so long to holding onto things that were not meant to be. closing the door, cleaning up shop, putting on my shades and heading on down the road. Afterall, when you are cool kids the sun is always shining. Peace.