WWE pipe dreams (but without the opium)

I have this great plan about when I become a professional wrestler. Right before they announce me in the arena, they will turn all the lights down. Then from behind a white curtain you will kind of see my silhouette as the announcer says, “Tonight, the forecast calls for partly cloudy with 100% chance of...” [at this point he reaches a frenzied level of screaming] “...D-STORM!!!”
And then there will be the crashing sound of thunder, and while the lights flicker on and off, I can bust through the curtain. I still have to work on my outfit. Because in my mind, I am wearing a rain cloud that basically ends up looking like a tutu. But I have a golden lightning bolt across my chest. And for some reason, those shoes with wings on them like that little girl had in Adventures in Babysitting. Maybe I need to confer with a costume designer in the WWE.

The 2-door Saturn

This story is never as funny in the retelling, but when I try to talk about it, or even just think about it, I laugh so hard I cry.

My friend Do had her car for probably at least 5 years at the point in time in which this story takes place. We were hanging out one night; some of us were drinking. I am always one who is up for drinking, but on this particular night, I wasn’t that drunk. Do was driving her boyfriend and me back to his house for sleeping. He had gotten tired earlier in the night and went to her car to nap. So when Do and I got out there, he was in the driver’s seat passed out. Do went over to try and get him to wake up enough just to move to the passenger seat, and I went to the passenger side to get in. So while she is standing over him, gently going “you gotta move, ok? Hey, can you move? Psstt?” I am standing on the other side, growing confused. He decides that he can just scoot over from the driver to the passenger side without getting out of the car. He is mumbling all sorts of sleepy words, but they aren’t all that coherent. Do is standing there going, “I don’t know, I think maybe you need to just get out and walk around. Uhm, are you sure this will work? Ok, can you please just get out and not shove over?”
I, meanwhile, am standing at the passenger side and am trying desperately to shove the front seat down. For some reason, it just isn’t folding. I was really confused, and starting to get angry when Do looked up and saw me struggling with the seat. So while her boyfriend has one leg on each side and is straddling the gear shift, I am going “wait, I need to get in first! Don’t move over yet!” She finally goes “WHAT are you DOING?” and I say (like she is totally daft), “I am trying to GET IN THE BACK! The seat won’t fold!” So she stares at me for a minute and then says, “I HAVE a FOUR-DOOR CAR!”

At this point I think both of us were laughing too hard to do anything but stand there clutching our stomachs. And poor boyfriend missed it all, because he was passed out on the console.

Morocco

I was just getting coffee in the break room at work and someone in there was talking about my recent trip to Morocco. I never wrote about that here...
So a few months ago my friend agreed to go somewhere with me, and we settled on Morocco. I am not sure why I always wanted to go there, it just seemed like a cool place to visit. So we look online, find a tour, and book a trip that was to take place in about 2 months. (Neither one of us are big on the whole "plan it way in advance" thing. I think the two of us are both too antsy.)

First, we are on the flight and end up sitting next to this little girl. Her parents were placed in different places on the plane, and she didn't want to switch with someone to sit with her dad, she wanted to stay with us. So my friend (who had to sit in the middle after the heinous experience I had on the way to Paris) ended up taking care of this little girl--reading stories, helping her eat, etc. She did steal her cookies though, so I guess that was worth it. But the flight wasn't awful.

We get off the plane and meet with our tour, get to the hotel, and get ready for seeing Casablanca. Now, we were bold in Paris--we got there and walked right out of the hotel and all over the streets and took the Metro and talked to people and stayed out at night. All that. So at 1 p.m. I decide we should go for a walk around the hotel and see what is there. We get 1 block away and a man walks by making kissy sounds. I was like, "wow, I knew that would happen, but still weird!" A few seconds later, another man walks by going "bonjour girls. Hey ladies." A few more steps, and it's "Hey girls! I know where you're from! {kissy kissy} I know you!" This guy follows us for a block talking and making sounds, and now I get really uncomfortable. My friend is all "who cares?" but I can't handle it, so we go back to the hotel. And right there was when my adventurous spirit died.

We did the tour thing and it was fine. The country was amazingly beautiful, and fascinatingly different. But somehow, I am a HUGE hit in Morocco. When we were in Fez I was telling the tour guide, Hassan, about how it was when we left the hotel. He whipped around and said, "You left the hotel?! Here? AT NIGHT?!" and I felt like I did something wrong. I said 'no, not here. It was in Casablanca. In the afternoon. It was light out... I'm sorry Hassan."
And he said, "If you want to go somewhere, tell me. Call me on my cell phone if you are going out at night. You can't go out at night!"
Rather than feeling like I had a companion, I felt amazingly uncomfortable. To have a stranger (albeit a stranger who is being paid to make sure I make it out of the country alive) flip out like that made me feel much less safe.

We go to Marrakesh, the last stop on our tour, and on one of those day tours, Hassan was pointing to a wedding chair in this museum we went into. He decided then that he would come tell me that the men of Morocco really favor pale skin and child-bearing hips. Hunh. Should I be insulted? I mean, yes, in my family the babies practically just fall out. All 3 of my birthing sisters had babies when the nurse swore it couldn't be time, and ended up with the doctor not being ready. One of them even had a doctor with 1 glove on, yelling for his other glove as the baby was coming.
But perhaps having my first real boyfriend tell me a few weeks into dating him that I had child-bearing hips made me a little touchy. Why did Hassan have to go and point that out?

But I had my answer: I was such a hit in Morocco because I am the palest person around, and I look like I could bear a man many fine, strapping sons. Hunh.

In Marrakesh then we end up just going to sit at the hotel bar. I was terrified of leaving at night, as though all the men would just see me reflecting the moonlight and flock to me. We walk into the "jazz club" (in quotes because that name was a real stretch; they should have called it the "cheesy American music that even my parents find too soft" club).
We sit down and order a bottle of wine, and everything seems to be fine. But the guy playing the keyboard just keeps staring over, and smiling. Then he starts winking. Luckily, the way the place was set up had me sitting in such a way that he was straight ahead of me, and thus it was hard to NOT look at him.
On the second night, we are both walking by this place and he sees us through the window. He waves at us, and waves us in. We are greeted with a giant smile and winks as he plays through another painful rendition of a song I never really liked in the first place. We sit, my friend getting a soda and I had a campari and soda. She gets tired and heads up to bed while I finish my drink. I am sitting alone reflecting on the vacation that was going to end soon, glancing through the pictures on my camera. Just as I look up I see the piano guy staring at me, grinning, winking, all very over the top, and then he sings: "Hello? Is it me you're looking for?"
(As a side note, I had a joke with my friend in high school about this song and we always laugh about it. So to now be in this situation, by myself, hearing this guy singing it with a heavy accent and staring at me suggestively was almost too much.) I am grinning behind my hand, but know I have to get out of there.
I call over the waiter, who was never anything but cordial when I was with my friend. "Yes honey?" (What?)
me: "oh, I'd just like to have my bill"
"well, you only have to pay for 1 drink."
me: "oh yeah? Why?"
"because you are just so beautiful." {wink, grin}

I mean, I wonder if my pheramones were just like, of some type that doesn't exist in that country and I am somehow this hot commodity.

On the last night, my friend was sick and went to bed early. So I am sitting with 2 other girls from the tour and they are saying they have wine but the waiters wouldn't open it. I was like, "oh, just take it to the jazz club. That guy will do it." So we walk in and the waiter is like "Hi! What can I do for you?" to me. He opens the bottles for us and we turn to see my piano guy waving and smiling and winking again. So these 2 girls are like, "uh, do you know him?" and i just told them the story about how he likes to wave at me from afar.

We go to sit out by the pool with some wine, and in about 10 minutes the piano guy shows up. He stands right by the door about 20 feet away, just staring. One of the other girls waves back, and is like "man, that is creepy!" He did that 2 more times, and then when our group moved inside to the couch area in the lobby, he did as well. He took his break by sitting on a couch 10 feet away just staring. And if I looked over, he'd smile. But never did he try to talk to me. Just watch. From afar.

I end up heading upstairs at 1 or 1:30 and have to get up at 3 for our trip home. I was really looking forward to getting home. So at 2:45 I hear my friend in the bathroom.
She calls me. "Diane?"
"yaargg?" (I had a lot of wine, and I had no sleep, so I wasn't quick on the waking up here.)
"I keep falling over..."
Me: "maybe you are just tired and it's making you dizzy?"
"Diane? Can you help me up?"

So I go into the bathroom without my glasses and as I help my friend get up off of the floor, I see a big pool of blood from where she just was. I turn in time to see her about to collapse and grab her before she goes down. (In my defense, she didn't say, "Diane? I am lying a big pool of blood." I thought she was just dizzy!)
So as I am slowly lowering her to the floor she is staring vacantly right past me going "Diane? Diane?" in this eery, child-like voice. So now I am about to flip out. The whole back of her head is matted in bloody hair. She had been about to take a pill, and so they were all over the sink and floor area. It was like a scene from a movie; a bloody person passed out surrounded by pills, the pill container lying on it's side and the top on the floor.
We are back to standing up, and I realize that I can't lift her up. So I end up saying "is it ok if I drag you across the floor?" (Also in my defense, I didn't mean like, by the hair or feet. I was holding her up and just meant to let her feet go because every time she tried to walk, she just fell over and stumbled back into me.) SO we get to the bed and from there, I lifted her back.
"Diane? I just need my power bar. Can you get my power bar?"

Anyway, we end up calling the doctor who came and did NOTHING. He said she should get stitches but that he would drive us to the clinic. Overall, I am really glad we didn't go because he was a total scammer. He said one price and then followed us to the ATM machine (as we were leaving the next day, we both spend up our Dirhams down to just enough for airport food) and then demanded more.

So our tour ended up waiting for us, and we had about 5 minutes to get ready and pack and make it downstairs. We left the hotel room in shambles. It looked like a horrible murder had taken place in the bathroom, and another in one of the beds.

We got to the airport in Casablanca, and find a medical area. I am walking in the room yelling about how there is no doctor, and this other woman on the tour was with me. We are about to start opening up the cabinets when this man stumbles out of a tiny door in sweatpants and says, "are you looking for a doctor?" My friend is brought in and they give her stitches there. Including stitching this gauze to her head.

That was pretty much the trip. I am thinking that I will go back to my Europhile ways and just stick with going to a country where people think I am nothing special. Because that seems to work out a little bit better for me.

I will though comment on the fact that Morocco was really beautiful, and being in the medinas was an amazing experience. I wish I had gone under different circumstances, like with just 1 man or a smaller tour. But just look at how beautiful it was.

Yay!

So I have a bit of an issue with computers and I forgot how to get into my blog. But I did! I had to email and ask and the nice person told me. Slash, they had a mix up with something and now I have 20 thousand gmail accounts and passwords. So now I can blog away. A lot.

I guess my life is dull and i haven't been up to much. I went out to Montauk this past weekend with a friend of a friend. It was a nice place, I think. I didn't see much of it during the day. It seems like a lot of kind of creepy older guys. For instance, the first night 4 of us were at the bar and the 2 other girls went to sit in a booth. (Apparently the smart move, because they were more "inaccessable.")
So I am talking to my "friend" who was with me, and this older man--I may say about 50--come and sits a seat away from him. I forgot the man's name, so let's call him David. That sounds like it could be right. So David sits down and offers us some pieces of a kit kat. He starts talking to the person I am with, and is spewing chocolate out as he talks. So my friend decides this is the optimal time for a cigarette. I say, "You know, i really don't think that this is a good time for you to smoke."
"Nah, don't worry. You'll be fine."
He gets up and leaves and I am left there with this man. This David. He moves down 3 stools so he is sitting almost on top of me.
He starts talking, and is so drunk I can barely make out what he is saying.
"Where you from?"
Me: "The Bronx."
"The Bronx?? I HATE the Yankees!"
Me: "Oh, well... I'm not actually ON the Yankees."
"Screw the Yankees..."
Me: "right."
"So if you are all the way out here, do you have a place to stay?"
Me: "yup, staying with my friend."
I point meaningfully at the door and stare longingly at it, willing my friend to walk back through the door.
"Oh, because you know what? Those girls next to you? They're BITCHES."
I turn to my left and see 3 young, pretty nice looking ladies.
Me: "Really? They look pretty nice to me."
"No, they're bitches. HEY BITCHES!"
They all ignore him and keep chatting and drinking their light beers.
"I know, because they are my cousins. BITCHES."
The entire time, the crackery chocolate is breaking free, flying from his lips. I shrink away.
"So you have a place to stay?"
Me: "uh, yes. As I said, I'm staying with my friend."
"Oh. Because if you need a place, you can stay with me. I'm a good guy."
Me: "yes, I bet."
"I mean, I tell you. You may wake up on a cold bathroom floor and have no idea where you are or how you got there..."
Me: "??????"
"...But your pants will BE ON. Your pants will STILL BE ON."
At this point I just stare.
Then he says something else and grabs onto my arm, so I shove him with my hands away from me and say, "yeah, no. No. Ok, stop."
Then my friend walks back in (for a fast smoker this seemed like a real eternity to have to wait for him) and this guy sees him coming in, gets up, and just leaves the bar.

The moral of this story is that smoking doesn't only hurt you, but it also really hurts your friends.

Oooh, they make me so mad!

So I know I skipped for awhile. Things slowed down a bit, dog-wise. But then today, I am having a bit of a crummy day anyway. And all these FREAK dog people are getting receipts about their emails, so they know that I am deleting them. And they are getting SO MAD about it.

So this person says:

"I would really appreciate a response to my email. I have sent the need to 50 people and they wondering if this is a true case or note."

The dog bitch came out full force.

"I don’t know how I got listed as the main contact on this. I was only CC’d on one of these emails and now have gotten thousands of emails about it. I really have no information. I am trying to get back to as many people as possible, but it isn’t working.
Please spread the word, if you can, that I am not the contact. I truly wish people would look online before sending such things to 50 people.
Please don’t respond, as I am quite tired of getting these dog emails to my work address."

Can this lady understand anything? Apparently not. So I get an answer.

"I am sorry.
I did look on line and nothing came up that is why I sent it out.
Perhaps if you were CC’d on one of these emails you should have responded to that person as to remove your name off the email.
And responding to people who are really concerned that the email is not true would have stopped the process a while back if you would have responded so we wouldn’t send it out further.
This website http://www.snopes.com/cgi-bin/comments/webmail.asp
Will post that your message association to 2 labs needing a home will stop you from receiving so many emails."

So what do we learn from this:

People in the midwest act like they are all cheese and sunshine. But no. There are seriously screwed up attitudes lurking in there, just waiting to leap out should you ever cross them and there is a dog involved. Make it 2 dogs, and you just better put that address straight in your "always Spam that bitch " folder.

I mean, seriously? She thought that MY name showed up on the original email I was CC'd on and I sat there going "hunh, that's weird. Wonder why I just got an email saying to contact me at work. Funny coincidence." I know she doesn't know me, but I am really not that inept. Frankly, I think that I should just start making flyers and putting HER name and email address on it. Because petty though it is, it would really make me happy to think of her having this problem and having to deal with OTHER bitchy people, like herself. Ha ha. Just thinking of it makes me smile.

We also know me well enough to know that this stubborn attitude can't let something like that go. Someone needs to have the last word all the time.

"I have responded to over 2000 people.
I did report it to snopes.
Obviously, when I was CC’d on it MY OWN NAME wasn’t listed as the contact, there was nobody shown. It was days later, long after it had spread. Someone ELSE when forwarding it saw it truncated and put me down instead."

Then I immediately put her address as spam so I wouldn't have to see anymore of it. I just really don't like people.

It's getting old.

So my new tactic seems to be working pretty well. I answer as many as I can throughout the day, and most people are nice. I should really be the optimistic person here going, "wow, what an outpouring of support. How nice."
But I'm really not there yet. First off, I think that most of these people wouldn't do shit to help a person. I think that animal people love animals so much because they have issues with people. And I get that. People suck. I have a lot of issues with most of the ones I meet, too. It's a lot easier to love the dog you can kick around and scream at that still stares at you with admiration and respect than the person who ditches you after a few screaming matches, or even leaves after nothing but is just tired of you. But still. I can't really respect that "I help animals all the time and do nothing for people." It's just me. I can't.

So anyway, I started answering all emails with this:

I'm sorry, I don't know how I got listed as the main contact on this. I was only CC'd on one of these emails and now have gotten thousands of emails about it. I really have no information. I am trying to get back to as many people as possible, but it isn't working! Please spread the word, if you can, that I am not the contact. I don't even know if this is real or not.
Thanks!

I thought it was nice. Not that I am bragging, but I find it clear, informative, brief and yet decisive. As in "please stop emailing, I know nothing." I still get a lot of, "Wow! Sorry!" replies. But fine. A lot of people have even said, "I will let everyone I know know that." One woman told me she took down the flyer about me. (Which I STILL don't get.)

But today I get the response:

This is a real inquiry about the dogs. I am sorry if my email was a problem. [Someone] listed you as the contact. Should I contact [her] instead?
Thanks,

Seriously? Am I wrong in feeling like, "are you kidding?" I mean, was I not clear enough? Do I need to revise my copy-and-past email to take some of these people into consideration? Am I being too judgmental? Whatever.

My new tactic

I decided to try a new tactic for awhile. I have been pasting in to all the emails I get the same message, basically saying, "I don't know how I got listed as the contact but please spread the word that it isn't me! I have gotten thousands of emails!" I am getting a lot of nice responses, but it's one of those things where I don't really want an answer. I already am getting a ton of messages. Don't answer to say sorry. But still, it's nice of people. I thought maybe it would dwindle down, but today there doesn't seem to be any lesser number of messages. Maybe even more.
This whole thing is so strange.