Cancel TV to Pay Pee-Wee

I just bought 4 tickets to see Pee-Wee Herman LIVE on Broadway. The cheap seats totaled $300, but (so what!) who cares, it's PEE-WEE. Harnessing the powers of The Secret, I switched my desktop picture to this yesterday afternoon: Spooky, right? The coincidence, not the photo - the photo's awesome.

Related: I canceled cable today so I could "save money".

Cuspid Cupid

Instead of telling you another boring story about me, I've decided to tell you a story about someone else. This is a story a friend I've known for 27 years told me awhile ago, and I just remembered it on the way to work today. Let's call my friend "Mom", you know, just for the sake of identification.
"Mom" comes from and has raised a family that rarely (unless drunk) talks about bedroom activity in public, so this was a particularly shocking story to hear. She has always maintained that she'd only been with the man she married, let's call him "Dad". Well, it turns out that while that was true, it wasn't for lack of trying with someone else.
Her friends and her all grew up in a small town in Connecticut, with a very limited dating pool. Her husband is actually her brother's old best friend. "Mom" and her friends were all out at the local bar, and a man starting hitting on her. She was at the point where she thought she should just do "it" and get it over with.
Her friends were encouraging her to go for it, too. Not because they thought it was time, but because both of them had already slept with him and "he was the best [they'd] ever had." So, it was set. If you're going to go through with it, it may as well be with the best her small town had to offer. "Mom" and "The Best" went back to his apartment to do the deed.
Now, in the time in between Mom's foray and her friends' experience, "The Best" had been in a bad car accident, but luckily wasn't too injured. The only casualty was his teeth; he'd slammed into the steering wheel and all the ones in the front were knocked out. But, he had dentures, so you couldn't even tell.
Things were heating up, and "The Best" says, "I'll be right back" and goes to the bathroom. He returns, but without his teeth in, ready to go. Poor "Mom" is so horrified that she makes up some lame excuse, and runs out of the apartment. I'm sure it was really alarming to see a toothless man coming to deflower you, but would you forgo "The Best" if he had no teeth?

How To Get Dumped BEFORE a First Date

A few weeks ago, I went to a happy hour with a friend from work. Because this place offered insane deals (mussels for $3, anyone?), it was really packed and we had to mill around the periphery of tables and stalk anyone who was leaving. While standing around, half listening to each other while we eyed tables, a good looking guy came over and started talking to us. He seemed really nice (a kindergarten teacher and basketball coach) and eventually he leaned over to me and said, "You have an incredible smile." Aw, yeah. It's "on", as they say.
He was there with his aunt and mother; we exchanged numbers on the sly so he wouldn't get grief from his mom. Plus, he was already getting enough grief from me because he was drinking a watermelon martini.
The next morning, I woke up to a text from him. "Someone is thinking about you." Depending on how deep you make your voice when you read that aloud, it's either really sweet or the most frightening thing ever. I chose the former, and felt crushy.
Now, being Type A and having (mostly) all Type A friends, I make plans way in advance. For example, I have plans through November 2010 already. So, in texting, he wanted to get together as soon as possible, but I wasn't available until yesterday. We met April 15th.
In between then and now, he'd send text messages that'd say, "Think about me on your trip to Costa Rica" or "I will wait for you because I think you're worth it". With each additional text, the voice in my head would read them with a deeper and deeper voice, making them scarier. I'm really not used to that sort of attention. I used to have to beg my most recent ex-boyfriend to tell me I'm pretty or funny (editor's note: feel sorry for me!!). But, with my friends' encouragement and insistence, I decided that I'd just have fun and go out with him.
We texted again last Wednesday to set yesterday up - all over text. Sunday passes, no location is set up, no time. Monday morning, into afternoon, into evening: nothing. Then, late last night I get a text from him that says, "This is my second text. I thought we had similar feelings for each other. I guess not?" I NEVER got the first text, and not in the "Oops! I didn't see that" lying kind of way, like, legitimately didn't. Also, "similar feelings"? We have never even gone out!
I figured I'd text him today, tell him I didn't get the first text, but before I could do that I got this final text this morning, "Wow. Nothing? Nice. Well, take care!"
I think it's safe to say I dodged a crazy bullet, and will try my best to find a guy who CALLS to set up plans, and doesn't rely on text. Oh, and doesn't drink watermelon martinis.

Isla Nublar

Look at that baby hand! Have you ever seen something so disturbing? I look like that creepy sister from the Lawrence Welk show parody on SNL.

That picture is from my recent trip to Costa Rica, and had it been time-stamped, you would know that I was drinking a beer at 11 am. During the trip, that would be considered a "late start" for boozing. Our first day there, we were drunk by 10 am, and swimming up to a bar by 11 am for more tropical drinks. The trip was amazing and exactly what I needed.

I've never considered myself the beach vacation type, but this trip has changed my mind. The people there was incredibly friendly, the beer was delicious (and cheap!), I had SO many opportunities to talk about Jurassic Park and we saw a ton of wildlife. This little guy was eating a lizard up in the trees, and decided to throw the intestines of said lizard down at the tourists below. Cheeky!These guys were running all over our resort. They were running even faster when one of my friends decided to start chasing them.
There was some surprising wildlife there, too, like the deer we saw, or these rabid, daytime raccoons above. I stupidly thought animals like deer or raccoon are exclusive to North America, or a similar climate. We also saw a raccoon at our resort, too - through the peephole in our hotel room's door. We heard a loud crash outside our door, and one these menacing-looking bandits was going through someone's room service tray across the hall from us. We called the front desk to alert them of the creature, and no one came up to investigate for HOURS. While we were being held captive, we just decided to play "Colones" - a came of quarters using the local currency.

I definitely have a travel bug now, and can't wait to play games called "Euros", "Pounds" and "Yen" hopefully in the near future.