I know, I know, I know

I owe you a Daily Show update, and a DNC update, and a Mandels Mockumentory. What can I say, I should be busy here editing and re-editing, shooting and re-shooting, and I really need to download the pictures from my camera and stealth cam but... my head's not really in the game.

But The Daily Show was amazing. We sat in the first row. I laughed so hard I nearly cried. The DNC was hilarious. There were protesters and fortesters, and there was a media frenzy and more SWOT police in one place since they filmed HEAT. I got to touch Chris Matthews, which was really creepy, and the Clown-pajama-Twister-cape-guy was a riot, as was the Porn Is Bipartisan crowd... which it is, if you really stop and think about it.

So I have 14507 pictures to show you and some of them involve mandels. Just hold on. I'll get my shit together.

The Dems are here!

It's Day 3 of the DNC here in Denver. I'm going to go downtown tonight to see for myself the spectacle of 1000s of people, protesters, riot police, Hari Chrisnas, Japanese media, the guy dressed as a Statue of Liberty, and more lesbians in one place since the last Indigo Girls concert. I'll take pictures. Hopefully I can add to my mandals mockumentary collection while I'm at it.

Friday I'm going to the taping of The Daily Show. They're filming all week in Denver for the DNC. Specifically, they're filming in the performing arts center on my campus. Every day I get to see the trailers, the groupies/stalkers, stagehands, etc. No Jon Stewart sighting as of yet. Sadly, no cameras are allowed inside the taping, so I'll have to try to covertly take some pics with my camera phone if Bruno the security guard doesn't catch me first.

In production

Last night was the big beer/art festival at J's museum. It was huge with a capital H. There were at least 1000 people and most of them were drunk by the time I showed up at 7 pm. I met up with J, her friends and parents before Bachelor #1 showed up. I tried to act like a proper hostess and keep him entertained the whole evening. So doing, I shared with him my mandals documentary that's in production. Bless his sweet snarky soul, in no time flat, he was quickly pointing out mandals for me to photograph. And boy, there was a cornucopia of mandals available last night. Mandals with jean shorts. Mandals with manpris (capri pants for men). Mandals with socks. Mandals on manly women. I couldn't take pictures fast enough. It was like shooting fish in a barrel at one point. We sat for a long time watching other people and making fun of them. As you know, this is my favorite sport. So bonus points for Bachelor #1.

So it's true, coming soon to a blog near you: a complete mandals mockumentary. I hope to have it finished by Sept 2, just in time for the summer sales at the mall. Consider it a public service.

For the gents

Because I care about my male readership, I offer up this little lady.
Don't ever say that I only focus on the girly side of the aisle.

For the ladies

©Sports Illustrated

I saw this cover as I was sitting in the waiting room at the vet's office yesterday. The electronic version doesn't do him justice. It's about time that SI had a male swimsuit edition... of male swimmers with their 0% body fat and lean muscles. I'd buy that one.

To quote the Queen: "Man, I need some sex."

Muppets Take Loch Ness

Jules and I with Muppet Nessie

First things first, we (Jules, BFF and I) went to the Rocky Mountain Scottish Highland Games with one thing on our minds: to see men in kilts. I’m not ashamed to admit it. We were well rewarded in our quest and some views were better than others. The games featured many traditional Scottishisms like swords, kilts, bagpipes, dancing, caber tossing, haggis haggling, whisky tasting and, new this year, mandals wearing. Mandals: the universal sign that a man doesn’t want to have sex. Ever.





















Exhibit A: mandals (man sandals)

Our first stop was the caber tossing competition. Did you know that there is a caber circuit? Caber tossers (which really sounds dirty if you ask me) travel the country competing in caber competitions to win..? Not sure. Maybe a year’s supply of Stick-Em? When we got tired of watching burly men toss their cabers, we wandered around the festival, taking in the sights and sounds of crass commercialism mixed with pipe bands warming up in the distance.





















BFF and Jules with yet another Nessie sighting.






















If it’s swords you want, it’s swords you’ll get. If you’re 18 years of age and can prove it. The little sign says so.





















BFFs new boyfriend. He would not. stop. talking.






















A visit to the Auld Caledonian Food Emporium brought on a few surprises. Bridies, check. Fish and chips, check. Bangers and mash, alright. Hamburger, hmm? mmmkay. But the Highlander Breakfast Burrito? It’s been a while since I stepped foot in the Highlands, but I’m fairly sure there was no mention of the breakfast burrito in Burns’ Address to a Haggis.

I went with the fish and chips, much to my disappointment. These were, by far, the worst fish and chips I’ve ever had the misfortune to put in my body. Why I was thinking they’d be good, I don’t know.

There were some bright spots to the day besides a beautiful opportunity for us to make fun of other people. If snarkiness was an Olympic sport, our team would take the bronze. My bosses daughters' both dance and they each took home ribbons for 1st place in their age group. There was some bad ass flyball action from the canine corner of the games. And the pipe offs got pretty heated. However, someone let the Irish dancers in. There was also a real Irish (as opposed to fake Irish?) comedian telling jokes. Well I think he was trying to tell jokes. Can someone tell the Irish that they have their own damn festival and to piss off?

I'll leave you with this:
















Those kids sure could play. As I have no musical talent save the Triangle, and even that gets tricky, I'm always in awe of people who can play an instrument and walk at the same time.

Great Suds!

As promised, here is my brief introduction to the best reason to live, ah scratch that, visit the Centennial State. (Tourists, especially Californians and Texans, please just leave your money by the door as you leave. It’s easier for everyone.)

Colorado, more specifically Denver, has self-appointed itself the “Napa Valley” of beer. See, it’s on the interwebs, it must be true! Presumably the state tourism board took one look at all of our micro-breweries, big label breweries, brew festivals, brewery restaurants, brew houses, et al, and thought they had a gold mine flowing from the taps. Rightly so. Denver ranks #1 in the nation in beer production, thanks to Coors, Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser. (We’re also #1 in contraceptive use and have the skinniest population. Coincidence?) Before you go gagging over the thought of drinking these fine American waters, there’s more. In addition to the Big Three, there are nearly 100 breweries statewide, most of them concentrated on the Front Range.

This weekend was festivalpolooza with Saturday being a trip to the Blues and Brews Festival on Old S. Pearl Street in Denver with my BFF. Sunday took us to the Ranch for the Scottish Highland Games (separate post on that one to be sure).

This festival was tiny compared with the Great American Brew Festival in October. I'd consider the Pearl Street event to be more of a warm up for the GABF.

Breweries on Saturday included, but were not limited to:
Breckenridge Brewery
Coors
Deschutes Brewery
Ft. Collins Brewery
Great Divide Brewing Co.
Left Hand Brewing Company
New Belgium Brewing Company
Oskar Blues Brewery

I enjoyed Left Hand’s Haystack Wheat and some other brewer’s hefeweizen before I called it quits. Drink tix were $5 each and I was saving my pennies for the next festival. (It was also a million degrees and humid as hell, which is odd for Denver. The people watching was, in a word, awwwwwwesome.)

Next Friday, I’m attending the Art & Ale fundraiser at my friend J’s work. It’s bottomless food and drink all for the low, low price of free (for me - $40 for others). I know people who know people. Alright, J’s taking me as her date. I may have to put out to pay her back. There are supposed to be 40 different breweries. I’ll report back, however, seeing as it's bottomless drink... don't hold me to it.

Girl fight

There’s this girl that I went to high school with who I didn’t like then and I’m a petty bitch so I don’t like her now. She was a friend of a friend and I couldn’t stand her because she was naturally thin, the not trying to be thin thin, but just thin, had unbelievably great fucking skin, big blue eyes and blond hair. She was funky in a “I’m clearly much cooler than you” way, which made me hate her even more. What can I say, I had lower self-esteem at the time than I was aware of. Which is weird because I thought I was doing pretty well at that time. Just shows you. I was a bit more “puffy” than I am now, and of course, didn’t have all of her “seemingly” great qualities. (I did have big boobs and she’s flat as a sheet, so ha!) I had forgotten about her until my friend became friends with her on facebook. I imagined that time had not been kind to her. Perhaps she was huge with five kids and terrible skin. Perhaps her beautifully perfect teeth fell out and she was bald. But no. The universe is not that fair to me. I saw pictures of her now and, wouldn’t you know it, she’s just fucking gorgeous. Still. Better looking even. Bitch. All I can hope for now is that she’s a lesbian. That would make things even out a little bit. Can you give me that universe? Or just have her teeth fall out. That would be OK, too.

Oh, I’m so going to hell. Come with.

Things I'd rather be doing

Hello kids! Guess what time it is? It's procrastination season! I've got one final paper to write for my crisis class and I've having a bit of my own crisis trying to write it. Not to mention my actual life crisis that is currently a-happening. There are plenty of updates on the home front, but I'm too damned tired of talking about them to write about them right now. Alas, you will have to wait until I get through my list of things I would rather be doing than writing my final paper:

1. Drinking at Jordans.
2. Drinking on my patio.
3-10. Drinking in general
11. Organizing closets (and drinking)
12. Riding my bike (sadly, no drinking involved)
13. Walking my dogs (possible drinking involved)
14. Sitting on a beach (definitely drinking involved)
15. Visiting friends in low places (absolutely drinking involved)
16. Visiting the dueling Nessie exhibits (oh, there's gunna be drinking)

Oh, you get the idea. Back to my damn paper. *whine*

10:22 pm ETA: Went to Jordans. Enjoyed a pint and some non-school conversation. Made plans to travel across the pond in <1 yr.

11:00 pm ETA: Finished paper on Reputation Management and Oligopolistic Markets. Makes me sound smart, huh? The question being why throw good money away on what the sniveling public thinks? Put it towards Phase 3: profits!

Chariots of low simmering ashes

Ever since I've added a little AC/DC to my running mix on Mrs. McGillicutty (my iPod), my runs have turned into, well, runs. For the first time in my life I've been able to run 5K without 1) wheezing, 2) walking part of it, or 3) vomiting halfway through. Coincidence? Perhaps. I'm just amazed at my new found running legs. Some days when I'm running like Forest Gump, I can almost hear the Chariots of Fire theme song in my head. Of course, the chariot's wheel has a broken spoke and the horse is lame. But it's just like Chariots of Fire. If they ran a 10 minute mile.

What do you wear to a heartbreaking?

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
Alas!

We were sitting down to dinner and I felt a strong need to make a drink. This is unusual as I've stopped drinking on school nights and, sadly, stopped drinking that much in general. I asked if he wanted a drink. I made us two wicked strong Jameson and gingers. Whiskey seemed appropriate for what I was about to do. I finished the first glass before I finished dinner and poured another. Part of me wanted to stay sober for this. I wanted to remain sharp and on guard. The rest of me wanted the warm comfort of Irish whiskey spreading through my blood, dulling the nerve endings so this wouldn't hurt as bad.

Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

We looked at each other. We talked about work, his martial arts classes, my training. Then we started talking about our therapy. His and mine. Separate from each other. I took a deep breath. I supposed that if this was an old black and white movie, I might be smoking. Since I'm not a smoker, the glass in my hand would be my only prop. I smiled to myself thinking of how it would be better if this was a movie. Someone else would write the lines for me.

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

There's never a good time for this, what I was about to do. One can never prepare herself for a heartbreak. I've been on the receiving end before, once, when I was 15 and hopelessly in love with my first boyfriend. I remember asking all the questions for which he had no answer. I remember all the sound leaving the room as he talked. I remember the numbness that took over after the reality of the situation began to set in. I know that I owe the Mr. more than what my awkward first boyfriend couldn't give me, but I understood so well, right at this moment, how he felt trying to tell me the words that would break my heart. Suddenly I felt sympathy for that boy whom I haven't seen in 18 years.

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

I told him as plainly as I could with the halting, jarring words that I knew would break his heart. I told him all the things I never had the courage to say, before now. I told him that I have been avoiding this for so long because I didn't want to hurt him. It was trite. It was unfair. It was cruel. It was the second hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

He was hurt. That couldn't be avoided. I cried more than I thought I would. Even though I don't love him anymore I would give anything to spare him this pain. To spare me the act of causing it. To spare us both from the process that is to come. Honestly, what I'm about to do scares me to death. I work part time. I go to an expensive school. I'm 34 years old and have never lived alone, never taken care of myself before. I go forward anyway because more than anything, I know that this is what I must do.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
(T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men, 1925)