So I could say: I’ve been sick, I had a massive site rebuild to do that they wanted immediately and I was down in NYC for a weekend, hence the almost three weeks of silence.

But the truth is I’ve just had nothing to blog about. Well, I do, but none of it is all that interesting. Do you care that I have a soap opera star for a client and her fans are freaking rabid? They love her. They visit her site with such devotion and love her “just an update” emails so much that I’ve never seen site numbers like this in my life? That because of her, my design site is getting crazy traffic? Granted I doubt I’ll get any jobs out of her fans, but hot damn.

You might care that my mom and I got into an argument when I was in NYC with her. About my engagement and how they expected to know first. Or that everyone wants to know when and where I’m getting married and I just want to elope. Apparently I’ll crush my mother if I do that, but frankly, hi, it’s MY wedding! I thought it was supposed to be about me?! I want to fly to Europe, get married and lounge in some villa for a week. I don’t want to have to pick a date or location or dress or decide who’s standing beside me at the altar or register for gifts.

I really don’t want to register for gifts. I can’t tell you how daunting the thought of presents I don’t need is… or the inevitable writing of thank you cards. I plan to encourage people to donate money to a cause, but according to past brides, even if I do that, I’ll still get stuff.

I DON’T WANT STUFF!

A good friend of ours just got married in September and although they registered, they still got some pretty random gifts. Bowls, apparently, are the go-to gifts if someone doesn’t want to buy off the list. Etched glass bowls with horses. WTF, no thank you.

I think if I didn’t have parents with such high moral standards (we aren’t allowed to share a room, or even the same floor when we visit, so nice), I’d never get married. We’d be together, have kids, move along with life, no need to make it “official.” And yes, I know all the arguments for marriage and yeah, fine, but still, COME ON. Who needs the stress?

My cousin likes to harass me to blog, so there, that’s what you get AW. 😛

Ooh, also, we went and saw the Avett Brothers in VT last weekend and holy shit, you MUST see them live. They are phenomenal. Their fans are also rabid. Maybe it’s a southern thing?

My Facebook status, as the night progressed…

Me: is so totally enjoying the VP “debate”… vodka helps. 9:54pm

Me: is wondering, how many times was Palin supposed to say “Maverick” tonight? Going on 10, by my count… 9:59pm

Friend comment: at 10:10pm October 2
How many times has she refused to answer a question by talking about her energy policies instead? I’ve counted four…

Me comment: at 10:12pm October 2
At least. If we were voting on the ability to never answer the actual question, she’d win by a landslide.

Friend comment: at 10:46pm October 2
How can you not see how intertwined the banruptcy reform act and energy policy are? Please read sarcasm into my words.

Friend comment: at 10:52pm October 2
I’m a real maverick at reading sarcasm. 😛

Me comment: at 10:59pm October 2
Annnnd the number of people who are getting a thesaurus in the mail climbs…. :p

Friend comment: at 11:10pm October 2
Thesauri are for elitists!

Friend comment: at 11:43pm October 2
The great maverick, reformer, Stander-upper-to-Washington-insider-politics that is McCain would call a thesaurus a dictionary because that’s how little he cares about winning a miss congeniality contest on the hill. Sorry I should have said he doesn’t care about “winnin” that extra g just takes away from the folksy tone I was trying to convey.

Me: a team of mavericks now! Isn’t that a conflicting statement? 10:13pm

Friend comment: at 2:16pm October 3
good point! if everyone conformed to maverick status, technically the concept of maverick would cease to exist.

Me: omg—she did a shout out. Also, defective yeti is doing a live blog. Hilarious: http://www.defectiveyeti.com/. 10:16pm

Me: .. shit maverick twice in what, three sentences? 10:25pm

Me: aww Biden, maverick EIGHT times in under a minute? Sigh. Everybody get a thesaurus. 10:27pm

Me: no matter where she is in regards to a microphone, I can hear her voice. It pains me. 10:37pm

I love Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel… and by love, I mean adore. They are freaking hilarious. And this only makes me love the entire cast of How I Met Your Mother more…

I’ve decided… once the Chop and I get engaged, we’re eloping. Weddings are way too much work!

A good friend of his got married today in VT, and while the wedding was beautiful and it was lots of fun, we were so glad to get back to the hotel and shower. It was incredibly warm and muggy, with a lovely rain—and the ceremony was outside. Fortunately we were under a tent, but it wasn’t the rain that was the problem, it was the humidity. By the end of the evening, the dance hall was quite ripe.

I have never been so happy to be clean, lol.

Alright, so Microsoft isn’t growing at the rate they’d prefer (get rid of IE, there’s an idea), so they have new ads now.. with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld.

This is the first one, and it’s kinda hilarious. I’m still not going to by a PC from Microsoft, but at least they’re trying.

I called my mom today (I called her yesterday, too, but she didn’t answer) and after finally reaching her at work, I said, “are you avoiding me?” in a joking way.

Her response? Yes. Yes, she is avoiding me.

WTF?

She apparently doesn’t like it when I blog about her.

There is not enough alcohol in the world to deal with my family sometimes, seriously.

Alright, I found this via the Very Good Taste blog and it’s really entertaining. He put together a list of 100 food items every omnivore should try, and it’s a little scary how many creepy things I’ve tried—61/100 on this list.

Instructions
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare — no way in hell
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses — extremely stinky cheese, gag
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper — i’d like to keep my mouth not on fire
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi — bleh
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects — only if I was stranded on a desert island.
43. Phaal — see #26
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini — gag
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads — so many no ways, no hows, nu uhs
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian — cannot get past the smell
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis — double gag
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill — so disgusting
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish — dirty water fish, bleh
95. Mole poblano — amazingly, you can do something bad with chocolate
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

When blogging about your parents, be sure to add a note in there telling your sister (if a sibling reads your blog) to NOT CALL YOUR MOTHER LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY.

And in particular, to not tell said mother—when she asks where you heard about it—that you READ IT.

Seriously, my mother is so never talking to me again, lol.

Tropic Thunder: So patently offensive, it’ll make you laugh out loud and choke on your Icee.

Seriously, so bad, yet so good.

Update: And now she’s hung up on me. She called to see how I was doing, I said better, blah blah, and then I said, see, I told you I didn’t have an STD. Yeah, it went downhill from there, with her saying she didn’t imply anything about either of us cheating (uh hi, yeah you did) and me saying, yes you did and her eventually hanging up on me. Fun. Freaking. Times.

Alright, so this might be TMI, but whatever, there’s a point.

So I’ve been feeling kinda crappy for the past few days, but then last night I was in agony. I figured out what it was (UTI), so I called my dad to have him call me in a couple of prescriptions. If you’ve ever had one, you know they suck hugely and meds are immediately required.

Alright, so my dad was actually going in to see a patient, so I ended up talking to my mom. She said she’s definitely have him call it in, blah blah, but THEN (and here is where it gets to the point) she said, “do you know how you got this?”

Now I’ve only gotten one before this, and that was last summer, but I did talk to my OBGYN about it a few months ago. She indicated it might be the constant condom use (the pain of not being able to take birth control), but unless the Chop wants a vasectomy right now, we’ll just have to deal and hopefully I won’t get too many.

Alright, so I said that to my mom and also that I’ve been really stressed (and therefor drinking a bit more) trying to launch this massive website (which, btw, I was doing the final push last night.. lovely time to want to die) and so that can also throw off your pH balance.

My mom, out of the blue, was all, are you sure it’s a UTI? Because it could be an STD.

WTF?

I say, no, I’m sure it’s a UTI. Where would I get an STD? (mind you, I’m chuckling at this) It’s not like Chop or I have any time to have any other relationship, we’re way too damn busy.

Well, she says, it’s the people who you don’t think have the time to have affairs that do it.

Again, WTF?

So I say, ah, yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s not cheating on me (nor I on him). And seriously Mom, you went from me saying I have a UTI to thinking I might have an STD that he caught from another woman?

Her response was something like, you never know and blah blah blah.

Yeah, I’ve now decided that my Mom, whom I adore, is either a) a little insane, b) thinks the worst of guys in general or c) thinks the worst of me and Chop. I know some of her issues have to do with affairs that have occurred in the family, but come on, it’s not like every man/woman is going to cheat on his/her spouse/partner.

I mean really, would your Mom make that leap?