It was a pimp grabbing, tank top wearing, rip roaring good time. Lets see if I can do it again this year...

WARNING! This is long. I ramble on for a while so perhaps you would like to take this time to grab a snack or use the bathroom before you begin. I'll wait.

And now, on with the show (blog? story?).

I am generally a non confrontational person. I try my hardest to avoid conflict. I have never been in a physical fight. But apparently the mixture of a biker rally, booze, and one camera toting pimp brings out my hostile side. Thank God that combination rarely occurs in nature.

Last year I went to Street Vibrations in Reno, Nevada. Once a year for a week or so every single biker in North America makes a stop in Reno for a little bit of partying. Naturally I was itching to throw myself directly in the middle of that. I went with a group of girlfriends, Shellee, Rose, and Alicia.

We made matching tank tops for the occasion (Yes, you read that correctly. Matching. Tank. Tops.). It was an inside joke amongst the group of us. They were teal with silver glitter letters directly across our boobs that read "Grand Gals" with rhinestone martini glasses on the lower left side and a rhinestone high heel on the back directly between our shoulder blades.

We're Grand and we're Gals, don't hate.

Basically the meaning of the shirts was a combination of slang we all use. Allow me to clarify......

"Gal" because:
We do not refer to each other by name, girl, friend, lady, or hey you, we call each other Gal. Like "Hey Gal, check this out:... or "Gal, I'm serious, you need to open the bottle of wine.".

"Grand" because:

Nothing is simply great, wonderful, fantastic, awesome, tubular...you get the point. It is "Grand". If used correctly a phrase using "grand" would look like this...."Gal, look at the guy over there, he is grand." (notice the use of "grand" and "gal" in the same breath) or " This wine is grand. Pour another glass."

We wore the shirts all day and night. The first half of the day several people stopped us asking what "Grand Gals" were. At first we told the truth. We explained that it was an inside joke. But as the day progressed and our alcohol intake increased we started making up stories. Eventually the standard story we gave people was that we are all patients of a plastic surgeon by the name of Doctor Grand. We all met in the waiting room of his office. We had the act down. People either belived us completely or they were too polite to point out that none of us looked like plastic surgery after photos. It was a lot of fun and it was a great conversation starter. Again I feel the need to clarify: Normally I would not wear a shirt that matched my group of friends however given the event, it was appropriate. Venders come from all over and set up shop promoting whatever it is they are selling. All the while wearing identical tops advertising their product, or bike shop, or tattoo parlor, yada yada. Essentially we looked like a group of girls promoting one of those things or our boobs as the shirts would suggest.

Look Ma! No hands!

For the most part the evening went really well. Drinking, laughing, talking. Just generally having a good time. Alicia pushed her limits on alcohol consumption and it was starting to affect her so we stepped out of the bar that we were currently gracing with out presence. Rose and Shellee decided to stay inside. While Alicia and I were taking a breather her stomach decided to protest and she ran to a neighboring doorway and proceeded to get sick. I was holding her hair back when I see a guy with a video camera cross the street and walk directly up to Alicia and begins to roll tape. Alicia is otherwise engaged at the moment and unable to express her distaste at being captured on video at this exact moment, so I step up. This is when "the guy" who is wearing a faux fur jacket in the middle of the summer, opens his mouth to narrate what he is filming.

::caution, explicit language.::

Me: Hey asshole. Turn the mother fucking camera off. (as I grab his arm and turn him the other direction)
Guy: Fuck you, keep your hands off me
Me: Well turn the camera off and I would not have to touch you.
Guy: Don't ever put your hands on me.
Me: Move it along fuck face. And turn the mother fucking camera off.
Guy: Bitch, don't touch me.

There are a few more rounds of conversation that sounds a lot like that...but then he busts out with this gem:

Guy: Do you like dick?

I pause not sure what to say. As I do not have any objection to the part of the male anatomy he is refering to, but somehow I didn't think it would work in my favor to express that.

Guy: There is a bowl of dick right there bitch, eat it.

I'm silent because at that point I honestly have nothing to say to that. Words have escaped me. Insult me, curse at me, shove me a little. But A. Bowl. Of. Dicks. How the hell do you follow that? At this point is when some haggard looking girl walks up and starts also yelling about a bowl of dicks. She even goes so far as to point to the ground where I guess she believes there to be a "blow of dicks". Still I am quiet and turn back to Alicia to make sure she is still okay.

He turns and walks the other way. Girl follows in tow. It was then that the group of scary looking biker guys walk up (mucho thanks for standing there watching this sweet looking "Grand Gal" confront the scary looking Reno local) and say that the guy was a pimp and that was one of his "hoes". To which I respond "Whatever, but why fake fur. If you own women you should own real fur."

The rest of the night was met with more fun, a KISS cover band and an obvious lack of faux fur wearing pimps. Good times.

My jugular is dangerously close to being ripped out by this guy, but notice that my drink is well out of harms way. Eminent death is no excuse for spillage.

I would like to say that I'm sorry for the profuse cursing in this entry but really I am not sure I could have made my point using a bunch of "screw yous" and "butt heads".

Was I that annoying?

Yesterday I was very good. I jumped on the tread mil after work and increased my speed from 3.0 to 3.1. That sounded like a small increase however at an incline of 6 I could really feel the burn.

To burn a few more calories I went to Alicia's to swim. We walk down to her pool and there were already people in it. We were more then slightly perturbed. But seeing as it is a community pool people from the community are technically allowed to be there. It does not matter how many times we call dibs.

Normally I would turn right around and wait until the occupants leave. But it was already after 9pm and I wanted to get to bed at a decent hour. So in we walk. The people in the pool consisted of a group of kids. But not kids like in the 6 to 10 year range. They were probably about 14. It was three girls and two boys. It took about two seconds of marinating in the hot tub to know that swimming was going to be an exercise in futility.

Tell me if this is a phenomenon that that you experienced as an adolescent girl, before you mastered the art of flirting? 80 percent of the time you were a normal human being scouring the latest issue of Big Bopper for pictures of your most recent heart throb and subsequently erecting a shrine to him in your bedroom. But as soon as you were faced with an actual real boy, a boy that you were to have social interaction with you lost your damn mind. All of a sudden you felt the urge to prance around, be as loud as you possibly could, and laugh at EVERYTHING. But I digress....

Well the three girls that were swimming last night were exactly like that only they cursed a lot more. And by "a lot" I literally mean every other word was the F bomb peppered with the N word every few seconds. I guess the saying is true you do in fact "learn something new everyday". I learned last night that you can have an entire conversation using only racial epithets.

Alicia and I did try to swim a few laps however that lasted all of about 5 minutes. Alicia was almost landed on when a cannon ball went a little hay-wire and I am fairly positive I was called "white bitch". Yes, I could have taken offense to that however the girl who said it was also white (not that it should make a difference, but I honestly did not know how to respond). I chose to take my "white bitch" ass out of the pool area before I was forced to drown a 6th grader.

I have plans to swim tonight and I am not afraid to pull the "I will tell your mother" card.

Monday again?

I was sick this weekend. I hate it when that happens. I am fairly certain that I had a summer cold. I am feeling better today, just in time for Monday, whatever stupid cold.

Recap for the weekend:

Friday night I went swimming with Alicia an Rose. Was drained of all energy by 9pm.

Saturday my parents brought me the entertainment center that had been sitting in their garage for two weeks. I was exhausted by the time they left and had to take a two hour nap. Rose woke me up and invited me to diner and a movie with a group of her friends. We saw 1408. It was a good movie, at least the little bit I actually saw. I'm not good with scary movies and spent the majority of the time with my fingers jammed in my ears and my eyes closed. So yes I paid $10 to sit in a theatre with a bunch of strangers to not watch a movie. But hey this accomplished two things 1) I got out of the house on a Saturday night and 2) I tried the TGIFridays Mint Mojito. It was hard to resist having more than one. But my sense of responsibility got the better of me.::sigh:: After the movie I was drained and went home to bed and slept until almost noon on Sunday.

That never happens. I feel like I've wasted half the day if I wake up at 9. I made it through most of the day but had to take a two hour nap at 4. I forced myself out of bed into the living room where I watched John Tucker Must Die and then went back to bed after taking two shots of Nyquil.

Goals for the week:

Work and swim all 5 days.

and

Not to watch The Simple Life Goes to Camp. I cannot help myself. I have watched every single episode this season. All it does is serve to piss me the hell off. Nicole is the only mildly entertaining thing on the show. And that is only because she taught 6 year old girls to throw up the middle finger.

Graduation

Awww look at the happy graduate posing with the Mayor of San Ramon (town her high school is located). And yes I do wish she would have trimmed her bangs a little, or removed her lip piercing or not stretched her ear lobes, BUT at least she has a high school diploma and no visible tattoos

I made it back folks....but I guess more importantly I made it out of the office on Wednesday without hurling a paperweight or a stapler. I did not even pelt anyone with paperclips as I bobbed and weaved towards the front door. (anticlimactic...I know)

My sister's graduation went off without a hitch. The drive down to my parents was a little perilous as I was petrified that one of my tires would blow out. However that did not keep me from doing 80 the whole way. I lost the battle with fast food and stopped for crispy chicken something or other that I ate while driving way too fast on very nearly bald tires.

Yesterday my father woke me up asking where my car keys were. This is not abnormal as my dad usually checks my oil and tops off my gas tank when I visit. My dad so rocks! But when he came home there was a brand new set of shiny black tires on my car! They are so pretty and will go with absolutely everything. Apparently my father and mother do not think that its acceptable to drive on tires without tread. They do not know the thrill a girl gets from the not knowing if one or all of her tires will blow out in the fast lane on I-5. My parents bought me the tires as an early birthday gift. I can honestly say that they could not have picked out a more perfect present.

After the unveiling of my tires my mother and I decided to take a little jog on the trail that is behind their house. My mother apparently has been training for some marathon and not told me about it. Because seriously she kicked my ass. My mother ran for miles and had to circle back around to make sure that her out of shape daughter had not collapsed. Realizing that my mother was in better shape than me brought up some mixed emotions. I was happy for my mother who, in her..um..er...well I won't reveal her age, has the endurance to run like that. I was sad for myself that I could not keep up. I just had to remind myself that I am working on it and getting in better shape. The tread mill and the swimming is paying off. I am losing weight and toning up. So eventually I'll be able to hold my own.

Peace out, yo!

I have a short day at work today. I get to leave at noon. My youngest sister is graduating from high school this evening. I'll be making the two hour journey to the San Francisco Bay area to watch her walk across the stage and get her diploma. I have to say that I am more that a little relieved. For a while it had looked like a high school diploma was not in her future. But she somehow got her act together and did it. Thank sweet baby Jesus! (I'm generally not religious but I am not afraid to give credit where credit is due)

I also took Thursday off so that I could start work on refurbishing an old entertainment center. It was given to me by one of my sister's boyfriend's parents (whose cousin is twice removed from....blah, blah, blah more complicated six degrees of Kevin Bacon crap). Its totally not my style but with a little sanding, spackle, and paint I think it will look like something I would actually consider purchasing if I had not already gotten it for free.

Well I had better get started on actual work as I some how have to cram 8 hours of paperwork into 4. I have no doubt that I will heave a paperweight at an attorney by 10.

I can't think of a title.

Last night I had the pleasure of reading Stephen King's newest short story, "Gingerbread Girl". If you are at all a fan of King then I suggest picking up the July issue of Esquire. I guess Esquire is trying something new or whatever. I don't know, I can't say that I have ever purchased an Esquire before. At first glance its a lot like Cosmo for men....only less dumbed down (I think Cosmo is a waste of money, I mean honestly how many times can you publish the Karma Sutra? Get new material for crying out loud.).

Prior to reading "Gingerbread Girl" last night I had to make the long drive home from work (its two stop lights, so don't pity me too much) and its a funny thing that all of the bitching and moaning I do about my car makes me forget the stuff I like about it. (I drive a 2003 VW Beetle) The perfect example occurred when I pulled into my complex and there was a group of about 6 children returning from the pool. When one of the kids saw my car turned to one of the others in the group and punched him square in the arm. Then it was a free for all, they all started hitting each other over and over again. All the while screaming "slug bug" at the top of their lungs. Watching children beat the crap out of each other has renewed the love I have for my car. Thank you children.

Monday again.....damnit.

This weekend was boring. Not even worth a recap. However I do need to get this out of my system::::: STUPID STUPID FUCKING CAR!! IT SUCKED $400 OUT OF MY MOST RECENT PAYCHECK KEEPING ME FROM PARTYING WITH JOHNNY KNOXVILLE!!!! SON OF A BITCH! I DON'T EVEN LIKE JOHNNY KNOXVILLE, BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT!!! STUPID STUPID FUCKING CAR!:::::

Whew, I feel a little better. I am done with the bitterness at my car. I promise I will suffer the burden in silence from this point on.

I was supposed to go to Reno this weekend but couldn't for reasons that I promised not to mention and of course my friend who was able to go got to party with Johnny Knoxville. Noting cool ever happens when I go to Reno the only accomplishment is that my tolerance level for White Trash is raised (lowered?). Or I almost come to blows with a pimp wearing faux fur in the middle of the summer. (That is a story for another day.) The one time I don't go, there are B list celebrities ready to drink and whoop it up. Oh well, again I will swallow my jealousy and move along.

In other news (good I swear) I have lost 9 pounds! I have been dieting and exercising (read: swimming) for three weeks. I turn 27 at the end of August. I would like to be 39 pounds lighter by then. That leaves me 10 weeks to lose the remaining 30 pounds. Everyone cross your fingers for me and send me happy weight loss thoughts.

I did have one mishap over the weekend. I have been so good about kicking the junk food habit and eating healthy organic foods that it did not dawn on me until it was too late that croutons taste better than potato chips.

List of things no longer allowed in my house:

1. Cheese Puffs
2. Ice Cream
3. Delia's catalogs (not for dieting reasons, but I am powerless against things like this. And no one over the age of 16 needs that or should wear that)
4. Frosting

and now

5. Croutons (did you know that an entire bag of croutons (consumed in one sitting, PMS anyone) has 700 calories and 30 grams of fat?