Wieners everywhere...

Sorry, that's not that funny... but I have an immature sense of humor i think. :)

I am in Vienna, Austria, in german this is Wien, and the people who live here are Wieners... hahahaha.... ok sorry, enough of that!

So I have been a combination of busy, lazy, drunk, lost, tired etc... for some time now and didnt get a chance to write. No, I am not dead. I am pleased to say that I managed to not get swallowed by a glacier!

I should back up I think...

My first stop on my trip was lovely Massachusetts where I visited home and went to cape cod. That was nice because I got to see family I haven't seen in years.

Then I went to Iceland. Iceland was AMAZING. Beautiful in the summer. And it's just a crazy wacky place. I absolutely love it there. If I had unlimited money, I would go all the time. I went on an all day journey all over to see the bizarre landscape of that country. I saw volcanoes, lava fields, hot springs, lakes, glaciers... it was great. And I went snowmobiling on a glacier, which was why I thought I was going to end up dead in a glacier. But no fatalities! One minor crash, but it was more funny than serious. I will write more about all of this when I am home and there isn't a bunch of angry people staring at me wanting me to get off the computer...

I went from Iceland to Prague, which I at first did not like. But it really grew on me and I loved it there. I really fail miserably as a tourist, so I missed a lot of those really "important" touristy sites, I am afraid. I had an amazing time though, didn't want to leave, and will happily return some day. Very charming and lovely place.

Now in the land of Wieners, resurrecting my rusty German skills, drinking beer. Looking at palaces, deciding I would rather not go to another palace ever again in my life if possible, getting lost in a hedgemaze! Meeting cool people, having fun.

Today, however, was cold and raining, and I was TIIIIIIIIRED. I was out drinking till 5am last night, I am catching a cold, and my feet... My feet are in a terrible condition. My normally comfy shoes were defeated by use and abuse and they began to destroy my feet a couple of days ago. I have blisters and cuts. I also have an ingrown toenail that is totally out of control. I am pretty distressed by the size and color of my toe. I just try to ignore it and I keep on going. So...

Liz did nearly nothing today. My day consisted of only this: I walk in the rain, some yummy Falafel which had all kinds of strange things in the wrap (never had cabbage and saurkraut with my falafel before, and there was some stuff that I was unable to identify buried in there too). I then had great deal of coffee to try to get some energy to be productive. When the coffee failed, I resumed my mission to find bandages for my bleeding feet. Which i finally found. YAY! Then I returned to the hostel, (again, long walk in the rain) read my book, took a nap. The end. What a waste. But I am great at wasting time. It's probably the thing I do best!

Now my time is up and those people are still staring at me, waiting, looking like they are slowly losing their will to live. So I am going to try to get to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight!

Good Bye

No no, I am not going anywhere. And No, I didn't forget I had a blog.

I had finally gotten over my SARS that had me in such bad shape for several weeks, and just when I was feeling good, a few days later I caught some horrible tonsillitis. Technically, it was pharyngitis, because not only were my tonsils totally fucked, but so was my whole throat. I have never seen such a disgusting scene inside my throat.

I am better now.

I have had other work related things occupying my attention since then, and I have just not had time/energy to write.

I try not to write about my work on here, because... well... I just don't think it's good form to write about my employers, since if I offend them they can fire me.

But this was just such a huge deal I can't not mention it. My company just closed down most of it's branch offices, all at once, without warning. Nearly 200 people lost their jobs. My job just got turned upside down, because my function is to provide assistance to all of these 200 people who aren't there anymore. I am not entirely clear about what will happen to my job. That hasn't been figured out. Most things haven't been figured out. I will withhold my comments about that.

Mainly I just want to say this to those who we just lost:

I know most of you. I have been talking to you all on a near daily basis for years now, and I feel like many of my friends just got taken away. It's very sad for me. There is now a creepy void where your phone calls used to be. Most of you were really good to me, and I will miss your kindness and humor.

In my opinion, when people have given years of their time and hard work, they deserve some respect and compassion if circumstances force them to be let go. Most of you know exactly what I am referring to, so rather than going on a detailed rant and getting fired, I will simply add this:

You all worked really hard at a difficult job, and you gave a lot of your time. A lot of you were still at work today, unpaid, because you CARE. I see this, and I know you deserve way more than you got, and I thank you for your years of dedication and hard work. What makes me really sad is that I have a feeling no one else has said these things to any of you...

So. Hopefully I don't get fired. Then again, if today is any indication of what work will be like from now on... well, it might not matter that much.

What may or may not make many of you laugh: I have not had to deal with our customers directly in over 2 1/2 years now. I spent a lot of my day talking to them today. I hate it so much I can't describe it. You guys deserve some kind of reward for dealing with them all the time and not committing any violent crimes.

An hour to kill...

The Thai place isn't open till 5pm. Which seems strange. But I'm pretty sure they were open earlier today and are closed now, and then will open later. After calling and being confused, I looked on their website and they have the most complicated hours of operations I've ever seen. I still don't understand when they are open after looking it up. It's more complicated than a bank's hours in Europe. So now I'm sitting here trying to decide if I should clean my kitchen and then cook something? Or just wait till 5?

I am just gonna wait. I'm lazy.

I don't really watch ESPN much, so little did I know they air the National Spelling Bee on there. I'm confused about how this is a sport, but then again neither is poker. I also never realized the National Spelling Bee would even be worth watching. I've never watched it in my life. I think I am going to start watching it now though. Please anyone who reads this, click HERE and read this and watch the video. It is soooooooooo funny. Thank you Murderface, for making me laugh my ass off as always.

I was in a spelling bee once when I was in middle school. It was humiliating. They arranged us alphabetically. This made me happy cause I could just relax in the back row for a while and I wouldn't have to go for a while (I was usually last in anything alphabetical). You know, ease myself into the situation. But then they threw a wrench into my whole game plan by going in reverse order. I had to go first! This totally ruined my Zen. So feeling very un-Zen, I walked up to the microphone in front of a whole lecture hall filled with people who were staring at me. And I had to spell Apprentice. I had absolutely no idea how to spell that word for some reason. I guessed poorly, thinking it had an "IS" at the end (I know... I don't really know what I was thinking... I think I just choked under pressure). So I was eliminated about 30 seconds into the spelling bee.

SHAME.

As I sat in the failure section and watched the rest of my class spell words, I was horrified by the fact that I knew how to spell every single other word that they were given in the rest of the bee. I'm not even trying to make myself seem cooler than I am right now (I'm talking about a spelling bee from 7th grade here, so clearly I've come to terms with how lame I am). It is the honest truth that I knew every word. This is very typical of things that I do. I make a jackass out of myself, and everyone thinks I'm a retarded moron, but in truth I'm really pretty smart. No, really! I know you'd never ever guess it in a million years, but I'm actually not retarded! And I still feel humiliated by this miserable spelling failure, because I hate losing. And I really hate looking stupid. So losing at a mental challenge, in front of the whole rest of the 7th grade, was very traumatic for me. Obviously. I'm still upset, and I've had nearly 20 years to get over it. Some scars never heal.

On a positive note, I will never misspell the word apprentice again in my life, even though I truly truly hate that word.

And while I'm on this subject: Fuck you Donald Trump! Forcing me to have flashbacks of my humiliation over and over again... Has your show been canceled yet? Probably not. Next season, I think you should do "The Apprentice: Rock of Love Edition." This would be like the normal apprentice, but the applicants would all be previous losing cast members of the Bret Michaels VH1 show. Think about what this would do for ratings. Pitting 16 slutty girls (most of whom are indescribably stupid) against each other, competing for a high paying executive job. Imagine the hilarity! The hair pulling, and the cat fights, the back stabbing betrayals, the crying, the drama. And you know at least one of them would offer to screw the Don in the board room in exchange for not getting fired... I wonder what Donald would do in that situation? Fire her? Promote her? Hmmm. Either way, I think this would be great entertainment. Afterwards, if the winner runs one of the divisions of Trump Enterprises into the ground, we can all have a laugh over it.

OK I can finally go get my food now. :)

Inconvenience Store (PART 1)

Where I live, there are Circle Ks EVERYWHERE. There used to actually be a corner in tempe where you could stand and be able to see three Circle Ks at the same time (although I don't think they are all there anymore). The thing with Circle K, is they are everywhere, and they are open 24 hours a day (in theory) and if you need something, they probably have it. Or something else that's close enough...

"This isn't exactly right, but it will do for now. Whatever. It's 4am. I'm not going to drive to a real store"

It seems like almost everywhere I've moved in this town, there has been a Circle K right there. I used to live directly across the street from one. So in my years living in Arizona, I've probably been to Circle K about 30,000,000 times.

and I HATE them!

In a way, I kind of have a weird affection for that store. I mean, when you are drunk in the middle of the night, they are probably the only thing within walking distance that's open, and they have all kinds of junk food and beverages. And they have these mediocre nachos. I have never wanted these nachos when I was sober. But when I've been drinking, they really hit the spot. And if you eat them, you PROBABLY won't get sick.

I should work with their advertising team. "Eat here and you probably won't vomit!"

Another thing that makes Circle K fun, is that there is often something weird going on there. I think the store attracts weird people, and they come in there and do weird things. It makes for an interesting trip to the store. Examples of weird things that I've witnessed:

1. drug deals taking place outside
2. various shoplifting incidents
3. one store had a guy who seemed to always be in the parking lot (EVERY DAY. ALL THE TIME) walking up to everyone who went in asking for change and cigarettes. Also he would ask you again on the way out.
4. the clerk getting so upset because some customer was being a bitch, that after she walked outside he told me that his dream was to go out there and spray all the customers with gasoline from the pump (this Circle K was also a gas station).
5. many many instances of customers/loiterers shouting at the staff/throwing things at the staff/destroying merchandise:

• because they don't have something the person wants
• because there is a pricing dispute
• because they won't give them free cigarettes (dude, I come here all the time! Why can't you just help me out? Aw then FUCK YOU!)
• losing scratch tickets
• getting carded buying beer
• what do you mean you don't take food stamps?
  
• etc.

and the weirdest Circle K incident was probably when a drunk belligerent man was in the store SCREAMING at the two guys behind the counter. He was irate because they would not let him buy anything. They were insisting that he leave the store immediately. The drunk man was shouting about how he was going to call the president of Circle K and get these guys fired. I was waiting to pay for something (at a safe distance of several feet behind this guy). Not only was he wasted, but he was also really dirty and smelled bad.

At some point, the crazy guy turned around and I saw that he was bleeding. He had blood on his face and hands (not so much that it was like he just murdered anyone, this was his own blood). and his arm or hand was dripping blood on the floor. So I backed further away. After about 5 minutes of screaming and the cashier telling the drunk man that the police were on their way and he better "GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS STORE RIGHT FUCKING NOW!" the drunk dude staggered to the door.

Then the cashier shouted "GET YOUR CDC VIOLATION FUCKING BIO-HAZARDOUS DISEASE SPREADING BLEEDING AIDS FUCKING BLOODY ASS OUT THAT DOOR NOW!"

Then the guy was gone. The cashiers turned to me and smiled calmly and apologized for using vulgar language in front of a lady. I was still a little stunned, and was carefully approaching the counter trying to make sure not to come near any of that guy's blood. And I told them, "Don't apologize. I think that was a very reasonable thing to say to him."

Classic. Never a dull moment there.

So you might be thinking, "Liz, why do you still go to this place?!" Oh trust me I wouldn't, except that it's RIGHT THERE! Everywhere I go, there is Circle K. And my apartment is only 1/4 mile away from work. And the ONLY store between here and there is Circle K. So sadly, I go there pretty often. And this Circle K sucks for it's own very special reasons. I will tell you about it soon. But right now I think I am going to go get me some Thai food for lunch. Mmmmm. Drunken Noodles. So I will have to continue this rant some other time.

Ciao!

I'm a degenerate gambler now

First off, I am so much less sick than before. It was a rough ten days or so, but I am happy to say that although I am still coughing in a way that makes the people around me feel uncomfortable, I am feeling WAY better than before. I spent most of this past weekend laying in my bed in a codeine induced stupor. It was lovely. And it really helped.

So now I am feeling able to do things like leave the house again. It's exciting. Because a week and a half is a long time for even me to spend hiding in my cave. Yesterday, a couple friends from work invited me to go with them to the dog track.

My first reaction was, "Nah, that's ridiculous!" I had this picture in my head of what this would be like. Old men sitting around betting on the races. Picture an overweight man in his 60s, wearing a hat and smoking a cigar. His name is Stu, and something he is wearing is plaid. It might be his pants, his jacket, or his hat. I'm not sure. He might have a cane too. And he's real serious about his smoking and gambling. This is who I picture hanging out at the track. Except that there are lots and lots of him, and their names aren't all Stu. There are probably some Als, Stans, Bobs, and Charlies, and maybe even a guy named Merv. I envisioned these men in a run down and somewhat ghetto venue too.

So, you know, not really my scene.

Then someone else at work who had been there before told me that I was right, and he added "nothing but a bunch of degenerates gambling." He was pretty adamant about the degenerate part. He made a math equation for me:



Well after thinking about it, I decided it might be fun, and it would definitely be a new experience. So why not? I was feeling pretty cooped up and stir crazy by then, and I was assured there would be beer there. So off I went to the track for some nice wholesome drinking and gambling.

It was everything I imagined it would be! Those men I had pictured in my head were there. Many of them. They weren't all dressed in plaid, and smoking is banned in Arizona, so there were no cigars. However, my general idea of who I would see came true completely. There were a lot of different people there too, not just the old men though. But many men wearing hats bettin' on the dogs. Also there were some other generally sad looking world-weary folks, sitting there gambling (many of them with their kids... nice family night out...), and also a few regular looking people.

Oh yeah, and the place was similar to what I imagined. As we walked in the door, it struck me immediately how old everything was in there. And it smelled musty like a thrift store. It was a fairly drab looking place, with very bright lights and old linoleum. Someone commented that it looked like an old abandoned airport. So my run down ghetto idea was pretty much right on too.

But it was fun! My friend won $201.00 right when we arrived. He had bet on 2 dogs named "Party Starter" and "Late Night Lover" just because he liked their names. They were both total long shots. They came in 1st and 2nd. So that started things out on a high note! I didn't win as much. But I went there, spent $21 on betting and beers, and I won about $33. So the way I see it, I was paid $12 to sit outside and drink beer, and watch some dogs run by every now and then.

Usually it costs me money to go out and drink beer, so this worked out better than normal. So I will probably go back again. Some day. Not all the time though. I don't want to get hooked and lose my life savings at the track...

Also, I'm pretty sure there is some cruelty involved in the way these dogs live. I don't know the details, but I know they are never allowed to just run around and play like normal dogs, so I do feel sad about that. If the reality is more horrible than that, I don't want to know about it. That would ruin my fun.

I remember breathing. It was nice.

Hello everyone. Sorry for not writing. I'm not trying to be lazy. But sadly, Lizzle is sick. Fo' rizzle.

Oh my head. It might blow up. And my throat. And my lungs. My poor nose. And my plugged up ears. I'm coming undone here. It's hard to write a blog with a throbbing headache, watering eyes, and faucet-nose. The only time I don't cough is when I hold my breath. Then there are occasional episodes of the room spinning, usually accompanied by the urge to throw up.

This has been going on since Saturday. I'm a big baby so I'm not coping well. Trying to keep some perspective, I will refrain from using the word tragic... But melancholy seems appropriate. I am feeling melancholy. Or I am suffering from melancholy... maybe... ??? I feel melancholic? I don't know. It's a weird word, ok? What do you want from me?! I'm sick. Stop being so judgmental. Geez.

My point is this sucks so feel extra bad for me.

Oh yeah, and another thing. As if I weren't already upset enough, I got very sad news yesterday. ThinkGeek.com did not select my Haiku. Those bastards. The one they picked was at least as lame as mine, so there's clearly some kind of conspiracy at play. I'm through with them.......... OK, that's a lie. I can't resist the nerd toys. I guess I'll have to write a better haiku.

If you need to express your deepest sympathies for my sad condition, feel free to send Halls cough drops, Kleenex (with lotion so my face doesn't start bleeding please), or any of your leftover prescription pain killers for this awful headache. A $50 gift certificate to thinkgeek.com would ease my suffering too, a little bit.

OK, my computer screen is starting to look trippy and one of those spinny-room moments is coming, so I gotta go. If you need me, i'll be in my bed for the next 12 hours, wallowing in my melancholiness.

I Win!

I just want to take a moment to gloat. Not only are scientologists more disapproved of than me, but so is George W. Bush.

Seems Bushy has a record breaking 71% disapproval rating.

I, on the other hand, only have a 45% disapproval rating. So I'm pretty sure that means I should be in charge. Of everything. This is a completely valid conclusion, based on a lot of very meticulous and indisputable research. Trust me.

When I am queen of the earth, the first things I will do is ban traffic jams, mosquitoes, and bank fees. I will also mandate vending machines in all public places that will dispense beer. The beer will cost $.05 a bottle. And gasoline will also be only $.05. Per TANK.

Oh then I will take care of all the poverty and disease and global warming. But beer comes first. I mean, what kind of leader would I be if I didn't know how to prioritize?