I realize that the sushi package I picked up said “Brown Rice Spicy Tuna.” Normally, I assume this means that the tuna is, well, spicy.  Not a bizarre assumption, I believe.  But this was not the case.  Wrapping normal tuna in brown rice and then coating the top of the roll with cayenne pepper is not fucking cool, yo.

Last night, a hoooooot pockeeeet burned the skin off of my lips, and now your stupid sushi has burned off my taste buds. 

Thanks for ensuring I won’t be able to taste anything tomorrow.

You can move your head as much as you want,

MissDirected

Five years ago, my life was very different.  I was struggling to find my place in the world after college.  I was coping with a boyfriend who was gone for long periods of time.  I had just gotten a new dog.  I had just lost my first job and was free falling into debt just to pay my bills.  My best friend had just moved to Baltimore, and I was feeling a bit lost.  I wasn’t sure who I was, or who I wanted to be. 

And then one day, things started to change.

Not so much with the debt or the job, but with all the rest of my problems.  I began seeing a bit of who I wanted to be shine through.  I gained confidence.  I broadened my horizons, sometimes willingly, sometimes as more of a bystander.  I started to become who I am today.  Not many people can pinpoint an exact moment when their lives began to change, but I can.  I think of it often, and am thankful for it every day.

It was the day I met you. 

In the (nearly) five years I’ve known you, you have helped me in more ways than you will probably ever know.  You’ve made me a stronger person, and you’ve shown me what friendship really is.  I don’t know where I’d be without you.

I’ve never been so happy someone was kissing my boyfriend, or that someone was too drunk to give me directions to their house.  I’m glad both happened that night, or I doubt we’d be where we are.

Happy birthday, babe.  I hope 32 is so great that it kicks the shit out of the best year you’ve ever had.

x,
a.

Now that I have admitted my secret, shameful love of your new song, I feel I should also express I have a beef with it.  Specifically a beef with the lyrics.

Like the little school mate in the school yard
We’ll play jacks and uno cards
I’ll be your best friend and you’ll be my Valentine
Yes you can hold my hand if you want to
‘Cause I want to hold yours too
We’ll be playmates and lovers and share our secret worlds

Lovers?  LOVERS?  You went from jacks and Valentines and hand holding to school yard shagging?  REALLY?  I gotta tell you, I think that’s pretty fucked up.  Especially in a time when kids can get suspended from school practically for just THINKING about the opposite sex.  Forget playing doctor, you’ve got them as LOVERS.  What? Are they fucking under the slide at recess?

Oh, and by the way…

I was talking to Debbie Gibson last night (only in my dreams, don’t worry), and we were talking about her bad stint in the fragrance business, and totally out of the blue she started screaming about you!  Turns out she’s seen your Candie’s ad, and she’s a bit pissed you stole the hat she wore in “Electric Youth” and are trying to pass that look as your own.  She’d like to shake something, and it ain’t your love.  I’m pretty sure it’s the shit out of you.

Fair warning,

MissDirected

I am writing to say that I am officially over you.  That’s right.  I. Am over.  YOU.  I haven’t had a decent night of sleep in three weeks.  Just last night I fell asleep around 11:30, woke up at 2, coughed and cried and coughed until 3:30, and then finally relented and got out of bed.  I turned the air down, got some water, took some pirin tablets, and climbed back in bed.  Only after all that moving around, I was awake.  And so it was that I watched the minutes slowly tick down until it was time for me to get up.  The last time I saw the clock before falling into fitful sleep, it was 5:37. 

I am a zombie at work these days.  I really feel like the walking dead.  I’m pretty sure I only have one lung left in my chest, as surely the other one has disintegrated and slowly been being expelled during these coughing fits.  I know I have at least one lung left because, well, a) I’m still half alive and breathing, and b) I can feel that annoying tickle itch thing right at the top of my right lung. 

I fear I must learn to coexist with you, Cough.  If that is the case, I have but one request.  If you could just let me have at least one full night of sleep a week, I will stop complaining.  Just give me one.  That’s all I ask.  I think the terms I’m setting forth are reasonable, so leave me the fuck alone tonight, would ya?

Hoping that this, my friend, is what they call closure,

MissDirected

Listen.  I like you both.  Really, I do.  I have an especially big love of you, Foos, but I’m ready to kill both of your groups in very painful ways.  Finger Eleven, I would love to be your “Paralyzer.” Seriously.  My mind wants to break you in half and make you stop singing, so you better hope my body doesn’t match what my eyes can do, because my eyes are sending death rays at you through my radio speakers.  Release a new single already.

And that goes double for you, Foo Fighters.  I get it.  One of these things is not like the other.  Can you show me some of those others so I can make the distinction for myself?  Never has a song from you driven me so crazy. 

I just wanted to let you know I’m ready to throw my radio at someone thanks you y’all.

Over you both right now,

MissDirected

If you wanted to put these under the tree this year, I can’t say I’d be opposed.  Really.  I mean, they’re cute, and shiny, and I really, really like them. 

Of course, the tree in my apartment is only about a foot tall, so perhaps quite literally you could put them under the tree.  In fact, just so we’re clear, the teeny tree (note: if this letter was to Ms. Pants I would now refer to the tree as a treeny) is on my bar.  I wouldn’t want you to miss it.

Ok, ok, so I know there was that one time that I laughed when that woman tripped this year.  Okay, FINE! It was probably closer to 100 times that I laughed when people tripped, fell down, spilled stuff, you get the picture.  So maybe I wasn’t as good as I should have been.  You can still give me pretty new shoes instead of a lump of coal, right?

HaHA!  Joke’s on you, fatman!  I don’t have a stocking for you to put coal in!  Oh goodness.  So sorry.  My evil twin just knocked me over and took control of the keyboard for a minute.  Before she tries that move again, I guess I better end this letter. 

So.  In conclusion.  Me? Not as good as I should have been, but maybe we can consider the shoes a bribe to do better next year.  Right?  Shoes?  Pretty.  Shiny.  Good-inducing.  Evil twin?  Evil.

Enjoy an extra cookie on me, big boy,

MissDirected

If you would speed through these last 15 minutes, I’d really appreciate it.  After spending most of my afternoon in the midst of monumental fuckups and panic attacks, time seems to have stopped.  The morning last 1,000 years, so I don’t find it fair that you are ending the day the way you began it.  After all that time in turmoil, it was decided that my fuckup had really found a bigger problem with one of our systems, and now the wheels are in motion to change things.  I think I deserve a job well done, really, despite all the trouble I caused. 

Therefore, I’d like you to reward me by speeding up so I can get out of here.  You know I’d just leave, but my VP is here working late on some equipment, and he keeps flitting past my desk.  Okay, “flitting” isn’t the right word.  He keeps coming by and waiting for me to talk to him, which means he stops and stares at me for at least a minute and then he turns into my dad and starts digging through all my stuff trying to elicit a response from me.  I just pretend I don’t notice (though inside I’m FUMING at that digging) and he eventually wanders away.  But anyway, he’s here.  And he knows I’m supposed to be here until six.

So help a girl out, would ya? 

Aaaaaaaaaaand GO!,

MissDirected

Ha, I say.  HA!  I have once again managed to pay off my entire balance with you.  It took me about four months, but I did it.  Granted, a lot of that came from a large tax refund, but still.  Money is money, as you know, and I have sent you plenty of it lately.  And so, it is with great joy that I sent you my last payment. 

Of course, that joy will be short lived, as I need work done on my car and my Target Visa is my only option for payment.  But today? Today I will rejoice.

I am also rejoicing at the two cute swimsuit tops I found in your depths yesterday, and lamenting the adorable cover-up that I couldn’t really afford but that I could have also have worn as a cute dress with flip flops.  But the tops?  REJOICE! 

So thanks for hooking me up yesterday and please, for the love of God, do NOT raise my balance as a result of me paying everything off!  I HATE when you do that!  It’s just greater temptation to spend!

Keep it on the down low,

MissDirected

PS: Sorry for the choppy flow of this letter.  I’m on the phone with Comcast as I write, and typing and listening to an automated menu make for a choppy post.

So yay! Straps! 

Of course, my face is at the molting off stage of the sunburn, but I’ll gladly take looking like a flaky mess if it means getting out of that strapless.

Now granted, Taylor increased my calorie intake by quite a bit when I started at the gym. I had some initial weight gain but had started to lose, so I discounted that.  I thought and thought and thought.  And then it hit me.  I was down those three pounds on May 11.  I started my new birth control May 14.  Between May 11 and June 16, I gained 14 pounds.  I think the logical conclusion is that these pills have something to do with it, especially since every woman knows that some pills make you gain weight and some don’t, and every woman has different pills that trigger weight gain.  I want off these pills.

I bring all this up at my doctor’s appointment today.  And do you know what he had the balls to do?  He pulls my sock down and pokes my ankle.  “Well, you’re not swollen, which would happen if the pills are causing weight gain.  In fact, we’ve never had anyone complain about weight gain on Loestrin.  It must be something else.  Does your trainer have you eating a lot of fruit?” Now, let me back track and mention that my doctor lost 25 pounds by cutting down on carbs and sugars.  First of all, he’s a man, and men tend to drop weight faster as a result of eliminating those things.  Second, he does not have the horrible genes passed down to me by my family.  “He has me eating one small piece of fruit a day.” “What about carbs?” he asked.  “Well, I have half of a mini bagel for breakfast and two slices of whole wheat bread for my sandwich at lunch.  I rarely eat carbs at dinner.” “IT’S OBVIOUSLY THE FRUIT,” he claimed.  Okay people.  Does this guy really expect me to believe that a plum with 36 calories has so much sugar that I’m gaining half a pound a day?  We discussed a few other pills.  Alesse, my first ever pill, shot my libido through the floor.  Even kissing was icky to me on that shit.  Orthotricyclen gave me wicked side effects.  The generic I was last on was so low dose (which I have to have now due to my bp) that I was having TWO periods a month.  And now wicked weight gain.  I get dressed in the morning and am so miserable I want to off myself, and this guy thinks fruit is my problem.  The only pill that’s worked great for me lately is $45 a month on my insurance, and I just can’t afford that.  So rather than put me on another generic, he decided I should stay with Loestrin for another couple of months.  Even putting aside the fact that I HATE THESE MOTHERFUCKING PILLS, there’s the fact that the office has been giving me sample packs, because, just like Yasmin, Loestrin is $45 a month on my insurance.  So even if these work great in the end, when the samples dry up I’ll be asking for something else.

I was so stunned at this turn of events I didn’t even say anything.  By the time I was done paying for my appointment, I was barely holding back the tears.  I sobbed to my mother the entire time it took me to get back to work.  I will be hearing from them by Monday to discuss my pap results, and I am going to demand to be taken off these pills.  If they won’t take me off of them, I’ll quit taking the pill and find a doctor who will listen to my wants and needs.  Medicine is a service industry.  When did doctors stop listening to the patient?  Like this man who sticks his hand up me twice a year for 2 minutes knows my body better than I do? 

Oh, and another joyful bonus from my visit today?  My last pap showed abnormal cells, but no dysplasia or HPV.  If there are any abnormal cells at all in this one, I’ve got another painful, expensive cervical biopsy to look forward to!  I just paid the last one off, and I need another one. 

I wonder how much a hysterectomy would cost me…