Big Girl Underoos

I hate when the universe conspires to teach me a lesson. If you've been paying any attention to my last few posts, I've been all grumpy and pissed off about life in general despite the fact that my life isn't bad. In fact, it's quite good and I have lots of things to be thankful for - including that I have the means to be able to take a vacation to get out of my snit if I choose to. Because I was putting a lot of negative energy into the universe, the universe felt the need to put me in my place and give me a little perspective. It did that through an old professor of mine who sent me an email informing me that my good friend E, the best "man" at my wedding (even though she is female), has had a relapse of the cancer that she had treated in 1998 when she was just 21. News like that'll take the wind out of your own personal pity party pretty darn fast, I'll tell you what. This is not a normal cancer either. It's a bone growth that is on her skull by...

Can anyone out there recommend a good, yet economical, all inclusive resort? I need to get back to:

Still here. Still feeling like I don't want to do anything. I'm not quite sure what happened. For weeks and weeks and weeks I was feeling quite happy and content. Then something snapped in my brain and now I just want to scream. I have absolutely no urge to do anything (besides bitch here) so instead of doing work, I'm complaining to you. I figure that perhaps a little venting may be helpful. At least I'm warming up my fingers for a day of typing. Maybe it's the weather. Negative 2 degrees is not conducive to getting out of bed. I did end up sending my thesis advisor my table of contents, prologue, chapter 1 AND chapter 2 of my thesis last night. Here's hoping she likes them. If she doesn't, I don't know how much I can handle the criticism right now. I got instructions to do something this morning from my boss via email and if she'd been here I would have used my retinas to burn a hole through her skull*. It wasn't an unusual, or even demanding, ...

I need a vacation. I'm still feeling off. It doesn't help that I got an email from my thesis advisor this morning stating "You should have been at this stage months ago. How committed are you to graduating this spring?" Fuck. Pardon my french but that wasn't exactly the best way to start my day. This from the woman who has been in Argentina without easy access to email for the last month or so. At least I know that I have made significant progress since I sent her the pieces that she is questioning. I've been working on this stupid thesis every day. While working full time, trying to go to the gym, trying to see Friendster Guy, and trying not to let all my friends and relations wonder why I'm ignoring them. "I used to have a friend named Sassy. Then her thesis took over her life. I'm forgetting what she looks like." In the long run, this thing is so not worth it. It's not like this particular degree is getting me anywhere. I'm doing i...

I was falling asleep last night when suddenly I couldn't remember what day it was. All I could think was, did I already have Saturday? Then I realized I had and Sunday was all I had left of the weekend. Sigh...

Unsettled. That was the word I was looking for yesterday during my moments of anxiety. Unsettled. Like I was a little askew and, in all honesty, ready to smack someone if they annoyed me too much. Which wasn't going to be hard for someone to do. Looking at my calendar today, I think maybe PMS crept up on me. I was all set to dive head first into a Friday night funk when I smacked my internal self around a little and said, "Get thee to the gym and suck it up. Even if you don't feel like a nicer human at least you will have burned some of the funk calories you are bound to eat later." So I did a little cardio at the gym and I actually did feel better. Before that, as I was leaving work (an hour later than usual because I felt the need to get something, anything done) I was all about the internal complaint dialogue* but the exercise cleared my head and I got my inner voice back onto an even keel and all those worries didn't seem so big anymore. Plus, some snuggly ti...

I've got the anxiety. You know the kind when you don't know exactly why you might be anxious but you feel sort of nervous/twitchy/overly caffeinated? Yeah, like that. Did I forget to do something? Turn off the iron? ( I'd actually have to iron for that to happen so it's most likely not that.) Did I forget about a project I'm now going to have to run around like a chicken with it's head cut off to finish? Or do I still have to do something that the idea of is making me anxious? Make a phone call? Tell someone bad news? Am I annoyed with something? Someone? I don't know what it is. Maybe it's punishment for actually finishing something this morning. Maybe I'm still in "git'er done" mode and there isn't anything I'm git'in done now so the energy is building up and making me all ...whatever. I'm sending this nervous energy out into the universe via this post. Not to make all y'all nervous too but to dissipate it enough t...

It's a good thing that I am also cheap and such a thing as libraries exist or I'd have a serious problem. I currently have 3 books on my nightstand and I just went to the library to return a few and ended up with 4 more to read by the 15th. I can't help it. I like options and I like books. I'm so slutty about my books that I am pretending to still be married to someone who I am claiming is still a student so I can go to the library I can walk to from work for free. (This particular library charges people who don't live in town or who are not students/spouses of students at the local college. I don't know why but they do. And as I mentioned before, I'm cheap.) I'm a lying greedy book whore and I like it. So there.

I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out. I mean, I live in a college town. People are constantly working on projects and papers and such. Why did I not realize sooner that I can leave my humble abode and work on my thesis at coffee shops and restaurants and bookstore cafes? I mean, everything is better with food, right? Yesterday, I brought my thesis in to work so that I could attempt to work on it at lunch. (It's recently been made portable. I can't seem to see the big picture when it's on my computer so I printed it out.) I had brought a salad to eat. When lunchtime rolled around the salad held absolutely no appeal. Remembering that I had $3 in my wallet I had what Oprah calls an "Aha! Moment" - I could go down to the pizzeria, get their lunch special ($2.99 for 2 cheese slices and a soda!), and sit in a booth working on my thesis! So I did. And it worked beautifully. I kept looking at my watch to see if I needed to leave to get back to the of...

My boobs got oogled yesterday. In a work meeting. By a woman I'd just met. So much so that my co-worker AND my boss noticed. I must say, I was having a good boob day but still, show some restraint. I wasn't even sharing cleavage or wearing eye catching jewelry or anything. Hell, I'll take it where I can get it.

If you catch your child playing with matches is it more helpful in the long run to say "No!" and hide them, or is it more helpful to explain to your child the pros and cons of matches, the appropriate use, and the dangers and consequences? I'm pretty sure that any child psychologist worth a damn would say that educating that child is the right way to go. Not only will they be armed with the knowledge to make the right decisions about match use, but if they see one of their peers acting stupid with the matches they may have the confidence to stop that action. Why is it so hard for some people to make the leap from that type of education to sex education? Human nature makes those matches much more appealing when they are hidden and forbidden. Education helps the matches lose their allure, or at least makes the child think twice before, literally, playing with fire. I am pro-choice. I am pro-education. I am pro-providing information so that a person can make an educated ch...

You know what I like about being a grown up? I can have popcorn and ice cream for dinner and nobody can stop me. : )

I've been mulling a phenomenon around in my head the last few days and I need to share it with you. This phenomenon is the sheer and utter lack of entertainment role models who are both white and curvy. And by curvy I do not mean boob jobbed out to Pamela Anderson proportions. And TrimSpa nutcase Anna Nicole Smith doesn't count either even if she is on-again/off-again both curvy and white (or oompaloompa orange) because she's by no means a role model. Perish the thought. Shudder. It took a long time for anyone non-white to get their own role models on TV or in the movies and I applaud the fact that they are there. Keep 'em coming. I'd like to think role models transcend color and gender lines, but sometimes I would like to look at a person on screen, on my TV, or even in a cheesy tabloid, who actually looks like me, i.e. a normal, maybe even slightly overweight, white woman, instead of unnaturally thin, often preteen, lollipop stick figures. Why is it so easy for so...

Funky Cold Medina - Tone Loc In an effort to bring a smile to everyone's face (at least everyone within a certain age range) I wanted to share the first song I heard this morning. Yup, I turned on my car and was greeted with this little blast from the past. Apparently this week is all about the 80s junior high flashbacks for me. Enjoy.

I coined a new word yesterday: Womt. It rhymes with "swamped" and means just about the same thing only the literal translation is "Working On My Thesis." I took the day off today to help fend off a nervous breakdown and potentially any sort of illness that might creep in while I'm stressed. I needed to make some headway on my thesis and I think I did. I also allowed myself to sleep late because I am just feeling dog tired. I needed a break and I needed to move forward. Working full time as essentially a writer of reports and then trying to crank out a thesis (aka a report) which is exactly what you've been doing all day already is not easy. Add wanting to go to the gym, spend time with friends and family, eating, and getting things like your laundry done and you're heading for a bad place. Hence my mental health day. I'm getting the heck off the computer now. I accomplished most of what I wanted to today and will start fresh tomorrow. Sigh...

We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off - Jermaine Stewart I was at Mohegan Sun casino this weekend and this song came on while I was in the bathroom. Besides having amusing flashbacks of perms, shoulderpads and hammerpanted tuxedos, a whole bunch of people (including my sister and me) spontaneously burst into song. It was instantaneous bonding with strangers and it was fabulous. Note: Is that the world's biggest beret or is it just me? Note #2: I love the background singers' moves. I took dance lessons from about 4th grade to 12th and I've totally done some of those.

Good: Soldiers retiring and being allowed to go home. Bad: The government sending 5,100 recently retired soldiers recruitment letters. Worse: The government sending 275 of those letters to families of soldiers killed in action.* I'll admit, I have sent letters to dead people. But I work for a college and family members don't always think to call their loved one's alma mater to update their records so it's an honest mistake. In this case, however, whoever sent that mailing is working for the institution that actually caused the people to be dead in the first place and should therefore have a pretty good idea of their status, or at least access to that information. I do feel bad for the poor shmoe who gets the blame for this though. I know first hand that your intentions are only as good as the information you are given. Still though, good grief. * Source = Time magazine.

Today could have been really shitty. I mean $500 less in my bank account shitty. Instead, I'm basking in the glow of good customer service and a $25 new windshield. When I got in to work this morning I called Geico to make sure I was doing everything right when it came to getting my windshield fixed. I spoke with a great woman whose first words after I explained that my window had cracked were, "I'm so sorry to hear that!" She's in the Glass Claims department so she probably hears my story 300 times per day and says that to everyone but it definitely started the conversation off on the right foot. That was good because her next sentence was, "You have a $500 deductible so to get the windshield fixed it is generally $500." Before I could go into heart palpatations she continued, "However, you have [something that sounded like mechanical failure coverage] and so the deductible is only $50 and that's all you'll be responsible for. She laughed w...

This morning, during a snowstorm, I drive to work. I'm being really careful in order not to kill myself or my fellow commuters when all of a sudden this silvery thing crosses my windshield. I think, hmm, that's a weird way for a water droplet to be going . And, hey, it's not going away . Then Holy shit! That's not a trail of water, that's a crack in the windshield! I turn off the windshield wipers, turn down the defrost, and will the window not to break completely. Then there's a tiny 'rrreeeaakkk" and another crack spreads amazingly fast in the other direction. I have a mini-heart attack. I debate the merits of stopping at the autorepair place on my way to work and decide 1 more mile to get to my parking lot isn't going to kill me. Or will it? I make it safely to my office and am now awaiting a call from "Windshield World" who I hope will fix it. I'll tell you what, that got my adrenaline pumping. There's nothing like the potentia...

I have been tagged by various bloggers tagging their readers to tell you at least five things you don't know about me. Since there are several readers out there who have known me for a very, very long time, some of these may not be news to you. I tried though. 1) I've been bitten by a cougar.* 2) I consider consonants male and vowels female (It's how they were depicted when I was learning them.) The numbers are also gendered but it depends on the number (instead of all odds being female and all evens being male). 4, 7 and 9 are definitely female and 2, 3, 5, and 8 are male. The others are somewhat transgendered (6) or gender neutral (1). Don't ask me to explain why. It's just a feeling. A totally bizarre feeling. And, um, some of them also have personalities. 9 is a real bitch but 3 is a sweetheart. Yeah, I know. Totally bizarre. 3) I used to, and maybe still do, have a thing for Jeff Goldblum, as well as David Copperfield - despite the gay pirate regalia (although ...

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, my goal for the week was to use some of the random food I've had hanging around my pantry and freezer for the last few months. So far, I've had two surprisingly good meals doing just that. Meal # 1: Orphaned Ingredients 1 teriyaki marinated chicken breast 1 package Ramen noodles End results? A fabulous stirfry/lomein with onions, peapods and kikomans. It was just enough chicken and just enough noodles. Any more and it would have been too much. I kept wondering to myself, why do I not do stirfry more often? Meal # 2: Orphaned Ingredients 6 frozen meatballs a package of "tortelloni" slated for expiration in a couple days leftover fresh mozarella (from sandwiches I made this week) jar of pesto End result: Tortelloni a la Sassy Pants Special thanks to Friendster Guy for the lomein picture and for being a guinea pig. Please note his plug for Long Trail beer in the above picture. Coming this evening - Vegetable couscous and roast chicken...

...but if I were still single and looking, this would not get me to go sign up for True. I give them some credit for not putting someone with washboard abs in their advertisements, because really, how many people actually have washboard abs? But why couldn't he just have his shirt buttoned? Why can't this be some decent, friendly looking, guy in full dress? More, "Hi, what's your name," less "Hi, what's your sign?" And is it just me or is he wearing acid washed jeans with pleats? P.S. The more I stare at his stomach the more it looks like Lord Voldemort. I'm just saying.

I went to the library yesterday and ended up with two cookbooks (Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals 2 , and Better Homes and Gardens Cooking for 2 ) and 4 memoirs that have something to do with food ( Eat, Pray, Love ; Garlic and Sapphires (about being a food critic); Stuffed (about a restaurant family); and Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses by Isabel Allende that has food on the cover. In addition, this week I have a mini-goal that also revolves around food. I am bound and determined to finish eating some of the stuff that has been in my cabinets and freezer for months. You know the stuff. That stuff you buy for one specific recipe or meal and then it sits there until some kid comes by collecting cans for a food drive. Like the homeless need fajita seasoning mix and cans of oriental mixed vegetables. Or maybe they do. I don't know. Anyway, armed with a grocery list to help round out the meals I will be cooking stuff and getting those 1/4 full bags of frozen veggies, leftovers, and...

Read my last post first before you read this. Ok, welcome back. Since I was informed that my acceptance to be a bridesmaid for a fairly non-friend indicates that I may have lost the sass in Sassy Pants, I feel the need to clarify. At least a little. I didn't really have a lot of time before I said yes, but now that I have thought about it, I'm glad I did. Although I do not think I'm really that close to this woman, her family has been a large part of youth. It's all very complicated and intertwined. Ergo, pretty much status quo when it comes to my life. For starters, I interviewed her and her entire family (mother, father, sister, 3 grandparents, AND fiance's parents) for my thesis. That means 8 out of the 19 interviews I did were her relatives. Second, her mother and my mother are best friends, except for the fact that they live 4 hours apart and never see each other. Third, her parents are my sister's god parents. Their other daughter is my sister's age an...

Phone rings. Sassy Pants: Hello? Female Voice: Hey, it's Amy! Sassy Pants: (Amy who?) Amy...? Female voice: Amy So-And-So! Sassy Pants: Ohmygoshhi! (What the heck is she calling me for? She's never called me before. Oh yeah, she just got engaged.) Amy So-And-So: What going on?! Sassy Pants: (I hate that question. I mean, I could tell her that before she called I was heading into the bathroom to treat a yeast infection but that might be too much information. Or, I could fill her in on the last year of my life since that's at least how long it's been since we've spoken.) Not much. You? Amy So-And-So: Have you heard the news? I'm engaged! Sassy Pants: My sister told me just today! Congratulations! (Sort of. When I met your boyfriend he was an overbearing jerk and I was hoping you'd dump his ass. Sigh.) So when's the wedding? Amy So-And -So: Not until Fall of 2008. Sassy Pants: (Oh good, she'll have plenty of time to back out.) Great! Are you going to...

Joy! Rapture! I have finished step # 6 of my thesis which was to take all the paper files I had created for each of the topics within my thesis and make them into electronic, i.e. Word, files. Whoo hoo!!! Now that I've figured out how the individual voices come together to talk about a topic I have to figure out how the topics (family, entertainment, school etc...) go together to form a story. I may have an honest to goodness first draft of this sucker by the end of this week. Holy crap. You're all probably having a difficult time figuring out what exactly I'm talking about when I talk about my thesis. So I'll give you a preview. This particular topic is "Rink Collapse." In 1969 the arena in my home town collapsed killing one person. Instead of me writing about it in the third person, I'm using other people's voices to tell the story (FYI: Denis and Susan are my parents. And yes, it is spelled "Denis", not "Dennis."). Here you are...

So I saw this celebrity look-alike thingy on Queen Geeks page. I blog anonymously so I don't want to show my real face but since I look a lot like my grandmother (at least from the nose up) I figured I'd see what would come up for her. The Judy Garland is a definite - although that particular Judy Garland pic is atrocious. Ooh! I figured out how to do it without showing my picture in the middle. Here's one. Pretty good for the ego. Here's another using a different picture. This one's even more ego stroking. Who doesn't want to be 96% Angelina Jolie? (At least during her good, non-blood toting days) Of course, it's total bullshit and I look more like Rosie O'Donnell but whatever. This is a dangerous, time-wasting website. I love it!

Friend/Co-worker: Yeah, my friend managed to Jew-down the tire guy and I got them for 70 bucks a piece including labor. Me: Oh! That's good. *Smile, smile, smile.* Commence internal dialogue: Did she just say "Jew-down"? That's really not appropriate. I should say something. Should I say something? What do I say? How do I say it? What if someone besides me had heard her? What if I was standing next to a Jewish person? What if I was Jewish? That person shouldn't have to be the one to defend themselves. I should make sure she knows that that's probably not the best way to say what she was trying to say. It just came out of her mouth like any old phrase. I don't think she even really gets why that might be offensive. I'm sure if I pointed it out she'd get it. She's not dumb. Conditioned perhaps, but not dumb. Meanwhile, Sassy visits the ladies room and continues internal dialogue. I'm just going to have to say something. But now time has elaps...

This is an interesting activity. This Guy decided to do the following: I turned 40 on January 12th, 2006, and I wanted to mark the occasion in some positive fashion. So I got this crazy idea: I know! I'll write 40 words (no more, no less) every day for a year, and each day I'll write about a different person (in no particular order--in fact, in a shuffled order) who touched my life in some way. But not just anyone, it's got to be someone I've actually met in person, someone whose name I still remember, and someone who was interesting. Try this: make a list of 365 people whose names you remember and who were interesting to you. Even if you don't want to write 40 about each, at least try making the list. And then, if you can, write down a few words about each of them before they're gone from your memory. If you can't do this, it might be wise to spend the next 365 days meeting more people in person who are interesting to you. Learn their names. If you decide ...

I had lunch with my friend J the other day. J and I have known each other since junior high and although we "went steady" two separate times in high school, niether times worked out so well (what does in high school?) and we are much better as friends. Anyway, he's been in Japan for half a year so we got together to catch up. After the lunch I received an email from J as a follow up: J - It was good to chat and see you! You look awesome. I literally sat there looking at the words "You look awesome" going, Huh? What crack is he on? Awesome? Then I proceeded to stand up, look in the mirror near my desk and examine myself. Hmmm...I'm not so bad I guess. Better than some people from high school. Probably better than when I was in high school. Still... I couldn't quite accept the compliment. So I wrote: Sassy - Thanks for the compliment. I get so few I'm not even sure what to do with it. I'll file it away for a rainy day. And I really didn't know...

I don't think I mentioned it before but I got a new office for Christmas. Well, I got a new office and it happened to come just in time for the holidays. See, since my position was brand spankin' new and they filled it before they could get a new space up and running, for the last 6 months I have been in a temporary space. A closet really. A closet with all my office's filing cabinets in it. Not an ideal space by any stretch of the imagination. In order to even close the door I would have had to remove my desk chair, which kind of defeats the purpose of closing the door. Also, my back was to everyone and therefore my screen was visible to everyone. (This may have been a good thing productivity-wise.) Anyway, I am now in my new corner office. I only got the corner because it's the smaller of the two offices in our new suite, not because I'm all that special or anything. So now I'm sitting here post-holiday break not wanting to dig into my To Do list. Instead I wa...

So I'm a day late. Whatever. I was busy. Sort of. I was alternately working on my thesis and sitting on my duff. Despite the many hours of doing very little I had a breakthrough and finished one of the steps of my thesis. Here's a breakdown of the steps I've completed and still have to do. (Reminder - my thesis is an oral history of the town I grew up in.) 1) Perform interviews (about 19)- DONE 2) Transcribe interviews - DONE 3) Edit interviews so that when someone speaks about school (or some other subject), all the times they speak about that subject are together. Also edit to make it sound good. - DONE 4) Print out all interviews, literally cut them apart, sort the pieces by topic, and put them in folders - DONE 5)Go through each folder and determine how the pieces fit together to tell a story on that subject - DONE 6) Take the now sorted pieces and make them into a Word document by cutting and pasting those pieces from the various interviews - STARTED YESTERDAY 7) Once ...