Creepy parking garages always ruin everything. Write that down.

Last year for Christmas, I bought the Hub tickets to see his favorite comedian. I won't tell you the comedian's name, but he goes by "fluffy". The tickets were for this weekend, and the concert was held at a gorgeous old theater in the downtown area of our small city.

City may be a bit of an exaggeration, but its not a tiny town either. Our downtown area has undergone a lot of revitalization and has become neat and modern in places. However its a work in progress and there are nice areas and literally a block away are older, less nice areas. Its really rather "hit and miss".

So last night we traveled downtown. Given the rare opportunity to dress up, I wore my rarely worn, but absolutely fantastic high heels. (Go girl!) So I asked that the Hub park as close as possible to save my toes. He found a parking garage just a street over from the theater. Awesome.

Now. I hate parking garages. They are dark, creepy, and I feel like the walls and ceiling are closing in on me. Kinda like a tanning bed or as I call it.. a bright, warm, sunburn giving coffin. Anyway, this was an older parking garage, and it felt much "shorter" than normal. By the time we got to the first floor, I had inched down in my seat in order to distance myself from the impending ceiling collapse. Awesome.

The Hub parks, and we walk down to the street. As we walk down, I decide that the old, decrepit parking garage looks rather spooky. Like a zombie attack location or a future crime scene. While I didn't see body outlines there, I decided that perhaps they had been washed off. I mention this to the Hubs and inform him that if we get attacked by zombies or werewolves, I wasn't above disabling him and making a run for it. Its always good to be completely honest in a relationship. Write that down.

We get to the street and walking down the sidewalk we notice two guys. Both were dressed in normal jeans and t-shirt and one had his face painted like he was a groupie for Insane Clown Posse or wanted to be. And. He was barking. Which was odd because he was painted like a bat or a pterodactyl. I didn't stare, lest I encourage him to fly over and chew my neck off. Never stare down potential prehistoric birds. Flying mammals. Pretty much anything prehistoric. Write that down.

We head toward the theater via a disgusting alley. While in the alley we may or may not have witnessed a drug transaction. The alley was also filled with several restaurant workers sitting on milk crates. They all appeared to loathe life and were drowning their sorrows in Mountain Dew and bad tattoos. Definitely looked like a rapey kinda alley. Or at least a mugging kinda alley. I made note of at least three places where Freddy, Michael or Jason could hide. Also, I had decided that I could, if necessary use my high heels as a weapon. Though I really love those heels, so it would have to be a dire emergency. I'm like the McGyver of surviving unrealistic, impossible fantasy attacks. I restated my plan of leaving the Hub behind if necessary. See? Honesty. Awesome.

The best part of the night? Walking back thru the area at 11:30 at night. Yep. Like a boss.

This is an example of the scary parking garage at 11:30 pm.  Except there are less lights.  Broken concrete.  Cracks in the pavement.  Shattered windows.  Ok. This is nothing like the parking garage at 11:30 pm.

So. Here are the takeaways from this story.

One: The Hub really knows how to be romantic.

Two: I now know what its like to be in a b-rated horror movie.

Three: Fluffy was great despite the impending assault or zombie attack awaiting us in the parking garage.
Four: Always be honest with your relationships. Especially facing fictional, unrealistic danger.

Five: There are always weapons to be found if you are creative.

Six: I'm trying out new power words/phrases. This week phrase is "awesome" and "write that down". It's a work in progress.

Write that down.

The clever exclamation mark....

I have a confession.  I have an addiction. Yes!  It’s true.  I tried to hide it from you guys but as it turns out…. It’s rather public already.  So to defeat this obsession and to try to make a go of my life I’m going to try some self-examination and therapy (as you recall, I am ALMOST a doctor…. Just missing the 8 years of education and stuff…Lame!!!!)   Publically on my blog.  Here goes:

I am an abuser of the exclamation mark.  (see above paragraph) Yes.  I love them.  I use them in all kinds of situations.  To over stress the obvious.  To show extreme happiness.  To extreme sadness.  To display my anger at something or someone.  These are often accompanied by a smiley face or a frowny face.  Or my personal favorite… angry face:  >:O! Yes.  I also abuse emoticons.  (Man I have problems). 

I use exclamation points for emails, texts, quirky abbreviations, posts, tweets, air quotes… you name it… I use ‘em.  If we were in the dark ages when typewriters were the only available writing tool, I would have worn out that button… then the number one would be an innocent bystander to the undeserved violent end of said exclamation point.  Oh. The humanity!!!!!

And worse, most of the time, one isn’t enough.  I have to add two, three or fifty-seven.  Sometimes the poor question mark is thrown into the mix.  Yet another inadvertent victim of the abuse.  Apparently I hurt everything around me!  See?!? I just did it again.

I wonder if there is a twelve step program to help with this?  But who would I make amends to? The number 1? The question mark? And what of the ampersand?  Does it need an apology?  I mean, I rarely use it.  And sometimes I use it incorrectly.  Just like all the other punctuation marks. 

Don’t even get me started on the … .  This is used to insinuate a pause in my sentence.  For example:  Uh, Yea……. I did take upper level English in college!…..duh!?!? See? See what I did there…. Both obsessions in one.

For those keeping score:  16 exclamation points.  11 question marks. 42 mostly unnecessary periods.  One angry face. >:O  woops, make that two. 

Hello. My name is Missy, and I have punctuation problems. And sadly, I have hypocritically been guilty of lol-ing.

yea. I got nuthin'.....

It was late at night. The thunderstorm was in full swing. Lightning and thunder alternated creating a chaotic symphony of light and sound. The rain pelted the windows as the wind whipped east then west then east again. The lightning illuminated the room becoming almost blinding each time it hit.

She sat on her bed. Ipad poised. Keypad and blue tooth synchronized - blue light verified that both were working. A blank page was open and her hand hovered over the key board. Her glasses poised on her nose, diet coke beside the table.

Smartphone beside her, open to Evernotes with numerous ideas, both complete and partial listed on her "writing" notes section. Words misspelled, evidence of a hastily written thoughts; most likely quickly typed during the morning drive to work.

She was ready - in every sense to begin writing. Yet. Every idea was a dead end. Nothing seemed to work. She started several sentences only to delete them shortly thereafter. Her thoughts jumbled and oddly blank.

All she could think of was the movie Mean Girls. Why were buses running over people? Was there no speed limit? Doesn't the driver understand the school zone? And why doesn't the driver see this girl? Seriously... what is wrong with me????

Even zombie millipedes find Laurie from Walking Dead annoying!

Less than a week after the vampire spider incident, I had another near death experience at the scene of the crime.  As I was getting ready the other morning, a millipede crawled up from the drain in the Hubs sink.  The little bugger had crawled up from somewhere and it was staring at me at 6 am.  To read of my other 6 am antics, read here.

So I promptly poured a cup of water down the sink to drown him.  A few minutes later, he was watching me put on my make-up.  Not knowing how many lives these millipedes have (cats have like nine and apparently the Kardashians have an unending supply - kinda makes you wonder doesn't it?) anyway I dumped another cup of water down the sink.  He came back moments later.

About that time, the Hubs comes in and I tell him to watch out, as clearly we have a situation brewing.  He says, “yea right” and dumps a third glass of water on Theodore. Anything that comes back from the dead that many times needs a name, right? The Hubs doesn’t have much respect for undead bugs. **sigh** I'm working on it people. 

So we don’t see Theodore for a quite a while and I assume that means he was just really good at holding his breath.  We continue to get ready and a good fifteen minutes later, he reappears.  And he looks ticked.  I mean, we have tried to kill him three times that would anger anyone.  His little antenna was flicking in a very threatening manner. Also, I swore I heard him complain about Laurie from the Walking Dead being a whiner.  Which is kinda true. 

Here's my artistic rendition:  Also as a side note, finding a picture of a millipede kinda grossed me out.  Those things are freaky.  Even before being all dead and bitey!

Then it dawns on me.  Clearly he’s a zombie.  It’s so obvious. And once again, I had to save humanity and cut his head off.  I’m like the Van Helsing of modern times – with better hair. I totally should get paid for this stuff.

I also came to another conclusion. My house is some sort of vortex for undead bugs.  I suppose that means that I should sharpen the swords, polish the leather boots and make me some wooden daggers.  All I’m saying, is this better not cut into my Hunger Games reading time.  You know, those games would have been really crazy if there were some undead bug roaming around.  Just sayin’.

It started in Kindergarten!

Here’s more confirmation that my insanity started at a young age.

When I was five years old.  I wanted a new bike for my birthday.  I had it picked out.  It was a “big girl” bike complete with gears, a basket and those tassel things for the handle bars.  It may or may not have had a big flag.  I’ll never tell. It was blue and green and was completely and totally awesome.

So my mom, knowing me by that point (shut up… I was adorable), said that if I went to my first day of kindergarten without crying that she would get me THE bike.

Now what you have to understand, and I learned this over the next several years (and this does explain a lot), while I was an only child, I was… brace yourself… a summer birthday.  Yes.  It’s true.  While all the other kids got to celebrate their birthdays with cupcakes and treats in the classroom, I had to do a “group” party with all the other summer birthdays.  It totally sucked.  Totally.

So it just so happened that the first day of school was right after my birthday.  Therefore my mom… thinking it wise… used bribery to get me to behave.

For weeks heading into my first day of kindergarten, I got new school supplies, new clothes and new tennis shoes. This was gonna be great.  It’s totally all about me! My mom and grandma spent weeks building up this “kindergarten gig”.  So when the time came I was like pretty psyched. 

So dressed in my new clothes and shoes, I walked into this room with lots of other kids.  They were running amok.  I am an only child who hung out with only adults.  These other kids were loud.  And running around.  I instantly didn’t like it.

The teacher greeted me and my mom and showed me my cubby.  And where the carpeted kitchen/reading area was.  And while this was all fine and dandy.  I couldn’t imagine where my mom was planning on sitting.  I mean.  All the tables were small and there were only a few adults still in the room.

Then the realization hit me.  She was planning on leaving me with these kids.  Seriously? These kids were loud.  And rowdy.  And probably germy (yes.  that started early too... shut up!).  I already knew how to tie my shoe, my alphabet and to count to 40.  I certainly didn’t need to learn anything else. 

Then the first sniffling cry fell on the room.  A mom was sneaking out, leaving her wailing snotty kid behind.  Then another, then another. What would possess my mom to leave me here?  I couldn’t see a benefit at all.  I mean… now, I’m terrified.

Then, she looked at me and said.  Don’t forget, no crying or you won’t get your bike.  Well, if I had no other reason to cry, then that was it.  I bawled like a baby. Along with every other kid in the room.  Except that one kid that ate glue.  Anyway. Now that I have children of my own, I can feel for the teacher.  Although my kids all ran into the room and never looked back at me.  What the heck!!?

But for me at age five.  It was terrifying and horrible.  I don’t remember much else from the day.  Clearly I lived and somehow managed to make it through grade school, high school and college.  So apparently I “like” education.  Yet oddly enough... not a fan of loud kids and germs ... still. 

By the way.  I totally rocked that bike.  Which I got despite crying.  It’s no wonder I’m totally spoiled!

The post will confirm that I do indeed need a padded room!

I’ve been having a bit of trouble with motivation lately.  I’m not sure if it’s my ADD, aliens, the new series American Horror or if there’s something wrong with me (I do not need your opinions on this last one).  Normally, I have all kinds of ideas on blogging, and oftentimes can’t type quick enough for my brain to process them, however the last week or so I’ve had bits and pieces run through my head, but nothing I could expand on.  Well, nothing that you would find interesting.  Unless of course I can interest you in a post on why I wish there were ghosts that would do the laundry and clean house or how long is too long to leave your moldy, decaying Halloween pumpkins out.  Or maybe you’d like the post on how I find men who wear fedora hats creepy or how I spent an hour wondering if David Hasselhoff had plastic surgery and if so, what kind. At any rate, you can see how I’m low on motivation.  So I decided that I would make this post just about the bits and pieces that occur to me.

For some reason, the Ghostbuster theme music has been playing through my head.  I have NO idea why, but seriously it is.  Like all day today.  Yet, I have no one to call for this little emergency. Hmmmm….

I’ve been reading a book series that I CANNOT put down.  Seriously, I can’t put it down.  Message me and I’ll give you the details, but trust me it is GOOD!  So good, in fact, that I blame it for my lack of motivation.  Seriously, it’s ruining my ability to do anything.  It’s like when I went through that mild depression after reading the Twilight series.  I was actually depressed that I Bella, Edward and Jacob were going to live out their immortal lives without me!  Anyway, the new series is about vampires, werewolves and zombies.  Now I have decided I want a were-panther as a pet. 

The other day in a meeting, as I was trying to look interested, I found myself smack-dab in the middle of an Ally McBeal moment.  Not the creepy dancing baby… that was just way weird.  In this moment, I envisioned hopping up on the desk and taking out everyone else in the room.  It was a brief moment, but it helped me focus on the meeting… ok… not really, but it was kinda fun.

creepy dancing baby.... eek!

Then to top it off, yesterday the Hubs and I were attacked my mothra in our own home!  Yes.  This huge moth kept dive bombing us.  I think it was attracted to my awesomeness, but I can’t have that kinda disrespect in my own home, so mothra was destroyed.  Gotta set the tone, yo!

So I guess what I’m saying here is that if you don’t think I need my own padded room right now, should possible check yourselves.