So you just got this *awesome* e-mail forward from your mom/sister/coworker/college friend you haven't seen in person for 15 years. Cool. But before you forward to your entire e-mail list, please consider the following:



1. Is it true? If you get an e-mail virus warning, an inspirational piece ostensibly penned by a celebrity (who presumably has nothing better to do) or a story about a $250 cookie recipe, it's probably bogus. Snopes.com is a helpful site for finding out what's true and what's not.



2. How well do you know the person you're forwarding it to? For example, you don't want to forward a piece about the quality of American public schools and find out the person you forwarded to is a teacher in a cash-strapped urban or rural school.



3. If you do know the person you're forwarding it to very well, are you sure they *want* to read an anti-Barack Obama/anti-John McCain screed, a series of ethnic or sexist jokes, or a monologue about the connection between illegal immigration and increased crime?



4. Is an e-mail forward a legitimate way to keep in touch? If someone is that important that they're in your address book, surely you can take a couple minutes to write a personal note, or better yet, give them a call or send a snail mail letter or card.



Finally, if you get one of these, remember, the "Reply All" option is not your friend.

Two of my friends recently broke up. I have known one of them longer than the other but they both are important to me. One of the two is probably hurt and feeling lousy at best. I don't know for sure because I've only had a short text conversation.

This all got me to thinking about relationships, break-ups and taking sides. I remember after my split with my former fiancee, I cut off all interaction with her and her family. Over the course of our relationship, I became very close to one side of her family. I hate still to this day that I can't see them or their children who really loved seeing me. To see them again though would bring up bitterness and scars I choose not to relieve. I can't believe it's been two years since I last saw them.

I hate that one of the two people in the aforementioned couple isn't communicating with anyone that I know right now. I understand where that person is coming from as they deal with the break-up but it's tough. You come to know people, get used to them in your life then when they aren't, you feel like a little part of your life has been taken away.

I know that person reads this blog so I'm hoping they'll see this post and know that people understand their feelings. I know first hand how tough break-ups are. I suffered, rebuilt my life slowly and now I can finally write about such things without feeling hurt. All of the cliches apply.

• Time heal old wounds (or takes the sting out of them)
• Live one day at a time
• Everything happens for a reason

I stumbled across this site a long time ago and it helps with coping with the loss. I just wonder if they have one for lost friends.

wednesday night some of my coworkers and i, (constance, misty and k$) all headed to progressive field for the indians game.

yes, they lost…

again. as you can tell from this pic to the right, i'm all sorts of distraught.

but i like to think of them in happier times, like last year.

it was a beautiful sunday-funday afternoon when the indians clinched the central division title in 2007. my friends and i were out in full force because not only was there an important indians game going on but it was the warehouse district street festival. (which is august 24^th this year if anyone is interested in going!)

after consuming several adult beverage throughout the day, my group had all congregated at the blind pig to watch the end of the indians game.

we all know what happened in the end, they won.

so during the post game interviews we hear ryan garko saying that he is heading to liquid for the “afterparty” – muffin and my ears immediately perk up because we are only two bars down from liquid.

we decided to move the party to the patio and see if any of the players walk by.

low and behold garko and josh barfield stroll down w 9^th and i obviously yell, “hi ryan garko!” he waves, blows me a kiss and tells me to call him. i may have made that last part up...

regardless we know that the player are in our neighborhood and we must find them.

without any hesitation muffin, court and i gather our things and head to liquid – too bad no one was at liquid. the players and their entourages were in a private section at fusion (it’s connected to liquid).

that’s fine, we can wait.

we belly up to the bar at liquid with about only 10 others. an adult beverage or two later the manager of the bar comes up muffin, court and I and let’s us know that they are going to open up ultra (the downstairs bar) for the indians players and their friends and if we were good and didn’t make a big scene we were invited to the party.

thankyouverymuchliquidmanagermanimgladallofthemoneyihavespentatyour
establishmenthasfinallypaidoffwepromisenottofreakoutandmakeasceneandask
forautographswewillplaycool – PROMISE

iwhip out the lip gloss and try to purty myself up for the players. i look in my compact and shutter, realizing that i have been drinking all day and it was now approaching 8pm. oh well – bartender!

we had to wait till all the players went downstairs before we could enter. ugh, do they not know who I am? Whatever.

so once we got down to ultra we boogie-oogie-oogied and i made some small talk with the players.

things i noticed:
--asdrubal cabrera is very nice but wouldn’t tell me why he never took his necklace off.

--CC sabathia is ridiculously tall yet the jersey he had on literally came to his knees, it was like a dress and it was weird – he also was spilling champagne all over the place

--kenny lofton was an ASSHOLE! so not cool he totally fell of the pedestal I had him on back in the 90’s

--casey blake is very very handsome

--ryan garko is someone would i would be friends with if he wasn't a pro baseball player, so normal and laid back - he bummed a cigarette from me

where was grady you may ask? well grady sizemore deserves a bit more than a bullet point. because well i did what i do best in front of him, i made an ass of myself.

grady was in a roped off area at ultra and of course court, muffin and i were dancing as close to him as possible. remember up there where i said CC was spilling champagne all the floor? well as i was busting out my best version of sexy time dancing, my feet came out from under me and i fell flat on my butt. hard.

like my skirt was soaking wet with CC’s champagne.

grady stopped his conversation with his cute blonde of the hour and literally pointed and laughed at me. is pointing and laughing code word for wanting to make out?

didn’t think so.

my indians party needed to end on that high note. i left ultra in a blaze of glory and with a brain swimming with memories.

this stuff only happens to me. can i get some video cameras to follow me around please?

When my friends Bethany and Lisa and I get together, we talk about anything and everything that’s going on in our lives. Family, marriages, kids, work, dream jobs, and daydreams. Sometimes the outing is planned in advance; on other occasions one of us calls an emergency meeting. We might be drinking martinis, coffee, or Diet Coke. There’s just one more thing we need on the table – a sampler.

What is a sampler? Ideally, it’s a plate holding a variety of delectable (mostly fried) appetizers in sharable quantities. For us, that means at least three of everything; spare us the appetizer fractions. Think mozzarella sticks, BBQ wings, chicken fingers, and so on. What could be better than a sampler among friends? (Fortunately, we’re not big on dieting.)

I think our sampler addiction began at Johnny Malloy’s on Coventry in Cleveland Heights. Johnny Malloy’s is in the old Centrum Theatre – now a sports bar with gigantic TVs to watch the big game. Not totally our speed for a girls’ night out, but an excellent sampler, just as you might expect. The Combo Platter includes plentiful quantities of wings, mozzarella sticks, BBQ ribs, potato skins, and chicken fingers. At $12.99 it’s more than enough for all three of us and the variety can’t be beat. Unfortunately, when the Ohio smoking ban went into effect, Johnny’s was – how shall I put this delicately – maybe less than fully compliant? Residually smoky? Whatever it was, the sampler was great, but the air quality was not. We had to move on.

Sports bars seem like the perfect sampler setting: lots of hungry sports fans looking for delicious fried goodness. Through a series of mishaps, our most recent meeting got bumped to the Tavern Company on Lee Road in Cleveland Heights. We had intended to sip margaritas at Lopez down the road, but this being Cleveland, Lopez was tightly shuttered by 9 p.m. on a school night. So we settled into a booth at TavCo and started looking for a sampler. Sad to say, there is no such thing on the menu. It’s always disappointing to find a sampler-worthy selection of appetizers, and yet, the powers-that-be have not seen fit to offer a sampler platter. What are they thinking? Do we have to do everything all the time? And didn’t we just leave our husbands and children for the evening to escape that very feeling?

We got to work creating our own. We ordered mozzarella sticks, hot wings, and, for a change of pace, crab cakes. We sipped our drinks and waited. Then the pseudo-sampler showed up. The crab cakes were underwhelming – a bit on the soggy side, and the whole shrimp embedded in the crab cakes were disconcerting, like something you’d expect in a Vietnamese dish, but not in your trusty sampler. And there were only two crab cakes on the plate (see appetizer fractions, above). The wings were passable. But most remarkable of all were the mozzarella sticks. Round 1: the mozzarella sticks arrived as hollow, empty shells. That’s right, no cheese inside. We peered through them at each other just to be certain, then called the waitress. She shared our horror and disbelief, and returned the crusty shells to the kitchen. Round 2: hot and cheesy, but still rather bizarre. The outer shell was a wide rectangular shape, not round, and too big for the amount of cheese inside. The cheese itself was unusually sticky, stubbornly clinging to lips and fingers. We looked like our little kids trying to eat something messy. The accompanying marinara (we think) was darkly colored like old ketchup, thick, and chunky. I don’t think anyone dared to dip. Overall, disappointing and overpriced. And we had to do all the work.

Which brings us to our best-kept sampler secret, discovered by Lisa, who is partial to getting together at home now that she has a nursing infant. Arby’s – yes Arby’s – offers all the makings of a first-class sampler at a fraction of the restaurant price, with most sampler fare on the Sides and Sidekickers menu. Drive through and order the mozzarella sticks, jalapeño bites, and perhaps the loaded potato bites, onion petals, or even popcorn chicken. Our favorites are the mozzarella sticks and jalapeño bites, which are always piping hot and delicious. Proceed to a friend’s couch and create your own ambience. After creating a tasty sampler, how hard can it be?

my dear friend beaver performing her kerri strugg olympic balance beam routine.

sans beam

enjoy.




USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

just got home from my weekly dinner with wonger and bird. tonight's choice, johnny mango's in ohio city - a pitcher of sangria and some happy beans later we were happily full and giddy.

bird had to go play volleyball (she's so involved) and wonger and i headed to our pseudo backyard the prosperity social club in tremont for another cocktail. i love that patio, seriously.

anyways sitting at these two establishments in the summer outside i couldn't help but notice all of the tattoo art around me. you'll find that in those neighborhoods and i can't help but stare/admire.

i love checking out tattoo's, i wish i could have a lot more than i do.

currently i have two, but i want twenty-two.

can someone please invent a tattoo ink that allows the tattoo to disappear in five years? cause that would make me really happy.

but i digress...

so my two tattoos.

my first one is pretty damn embarrassing.

i'm 19, and it's the summer in between my freshman and sophomore year of college. i'm at my best friend of the past 5 years swimming pool laying out.

well actually we were stoned* (sorry mom).

and during our baked stage we thought it would be a great idea to go get matching, wait for it.....friendship tattoos.

i know, i'm an idiot.

but my naive 19 year old stoned self thought it was a fabulous idea and we should walk to the tattoo parlor at that very moment. which we did.

we decided on a chinese symbol for friendship (looks like this) on our right hip. if we only knew how cliche we were being.

so after my friend and i got the tattoo we almost instantaneously stopped being friends - about two months after we got the tattoo. we got in a random fight, i went back to school and that was that. she's now married with children and when i do see her it is fine, we are adults now!

but with one dumb spur of the moment decision i have this thing permanently on my right hip.

i'll wait for you to stop laughing at my misery.

thankfully though the tattoo is more often that not always covered up.

except when... well you know.... when i'm you knowing**. (sorry again mom)

when a boy is lucky enough to actually see the "friendship" tattoo i have been known to make up different meanings for the tattoo. why? because i can.

possible meanings:
-keep going, you're almost there!
-jackpot!
-someone's getting lucky

at least i can laugh about it right?

now my second tattoo i LOVE. it is on my left wrist and 80% of it is covered by my watch daily. it's for me, not everyone else to see.

it's an exact drawing of the cross that my father wore around his neck everyday. it is a nice reminder of him.

first tattoo bad, second tattoo good - i always do end up learning from my mistakes.

so does anyone have any fun tattoo stories?

but please, PLEASE don't tell me you have a tasmanian devil or a tweety bird.


*jenna, i know you are reading this - just say no to drugs!!! unless you are with me
**jenna, boys have cooties, don't touch them until you are married. or until you perform the circle-circle-dot-dot cootie shot

i created a facebook account a mere four hours ago and im already sucked in. god help me.

anyway, i know it is monday night and i am just now posting about the rest of my weekend after the cradle robbing incident, but i've been busy ok?

pittsburgh on saturday for my bestie teen's birthday was well, AWESOME. it was way less drama filled then last years festivities, cough cough.

i have also realized that limo buses are waaaaaaaay cooler than a plain 'ol taxi and that p-burgh girls like to wear booty shorts.

booty booty booty rockin' everywhere!


what was also excellent about the p-burgh trip was that i got to see my bestie from high school, al-dog!! her and her husband mike just moved to the burgh from arlington, va and i love it because they are that much closer to well, ME!




so i woke my butt up semi early on sunday because i had to drive back to the cleve in time for the taste of tremont! diva, i'm sorry i didn't get to see your condo, that just means i have to come back and visit sooner!

so i WAS going to go to taste of tremont with court but she bailed on me, bad court, bad ; )

but not to fear bird, muffin, captain and i had more than enough fun with ourselves.

so because it was oh, 116 degrees out we headed over to the treehouse to sit inside and people watch.

we even came up with a great drinking game where every time we saw someone with a tattoo somewhere on their leg we had to drink.

if we saw a toddler with a tattoo on their leg we had to finish our beer.

no full beers were drank, thankfully.

but there was a huge vegan "chocolate" covered frozen banana eaten by yours truly. i wanted to take a picture but it would have looked a bit well, dirty - and this girl is an angel.

after dancing to a waaaaay fun band playing on treehouse's patio bird sulik and i stopped at southside for some hummus.

at this point it was sleepy time, just like it is now.

night kids xoxo

so i just walked in the door from the map room and i can honestly say that cleveland has officially been taken over by the ast dew tour that's in town this weekend.

talk about some skater hotties. day-um.

you will find me wandering around downtown this weekend looking for my sk8ter boi. oh wait, i'll be in p-burgh, guess i'll just have to go out again tomorrow night.

so the downtown cleveland crew is pretty standard on a wednesday - you know who the neighborhood people are. but tonight there were packs of vans wearing, flat hat sporting and tattoo rockin' boys out and about.

i was enthralled by an asian skater dude with no shirt on gliding down the middle of w 9th street over and over and over again. i thought it was cool, everyone else - not so much. damn my yuppie friends.

so the whole reason for going out tonight was that a lot of my med school friends are going or are already gone on away rotations for the summer and early fall. my neighbor and partner in crime georgia peach is even leaving!

what am i going to do? who am i going to hang out with? all my downtown friends are leaving!!

{tear}

but while the med school kids are only leaving temporarily my dear friend captain joe p tone is leaving indefinitely to take a position at an alt weekly in denver.

tuesday night we had a going away party for captain joe at prosperity social club in tremont. (btw, that place is friggin awesome! GREAT patio and it was surprisingly busy!)


it was sad saying bye to captain joe because we have all had so many good times together but i wish him nothing but luck and happiness!

of course bird and i got him a cleveland's a plum t-shirt as a going away present - he can't forget cleveland!!!!

but on a happy note we are getting a group together to go visit him in denver in december for his 30th birthday! which i am beyond excited for because i have never been there - awesomeness.

so even though a lot of my friends are going to be MIA for the next couple of months i'm lucky enough to have my weekends full of events and trips (p-burgh, aruba, chicago)

guess i'm just looking for week night friends ; )

what a great weekend, although i think it is going to be a bit hard to get up for work on monday.

friday night bird, misty and i headed to southside right after work. no changing, no thinking just going.

lots of white wine on the patio and a plate of hummus later i get a little text from my favorite cleveland male blogger narm of white-collar redneck. if you don't read him you're an idiot, he's hilarious.

so narm was at harbor inn talking about me with dan and wanted to see what i was up to for the evening.

really i think, he just wanted his prize t-shirt. but who cares what it wanted, yay for blogger meet ups!

we made plans to meet up in a couple of hours back at harbor inn because he had to go home and get pretty for me.

too bad i still looked like a scrub from work. enough wine makes you think you look fine though.

meanwhile bird, misty and i wandered around the tremont art hop where i bought a hot new pair of earrings by judy from banyan tree. i've had them on all weekend - love.

when it was time to head to harbor bird was my wingman, literally this time.

funny thing though. when bird and i walked into the bar it ended up not being a first meeting for bird and narm.

apparently bird had crashed on narm's couch with some friends awhile back. i'll leave it at that ; )

so random, yet it fit somehow.

once i give narm his awesome cleveland's a plum t-shirt he immediately puts it on. so proud he is.

i then decided that we needed to document his cleveland's a plum t-shirt wearing.

i present to you, the chronicles of NARMia......

after all the awesomeness that occurred when two of the hottest cleveland bloggers alive combined their powers i was tired. man it's hard to go out on a friday. oy. thanks for hanging out with me though narm, we must do it again.

saturday morning i got up and CHOPPED my hair off into a hot little bob. i'll post pics as soon as i take one a like : )

saturday night the family and i had a wedding in canton for my cousin mark [that's four thus far in 2008]. it was fun.

i loooooooooooooooooooove weddings.

if you don't sense the sarcasm in that last sentence you need to catch up.

today i also had a baby shower for a good family friend of the family. the shower was great, everything was so cute and totally babylicious. i want one.

after the baby shower i went and saw hancock with the fam. *crickets*

on a vegan note this weekend was my hardest yet as a 30 day vegan. all these events that i'm going to and not eating anything is tough. i think not eating meat puts me in a crabby mood.

but i'm not quitting! i'm sticking to it - i just miss the meat.

happy monday all, hope you had a great weekend too.

i should be out and about downtown tonight instead of sitting on my comfy red chair watching my life on the d-list, maybe i'll move to the deck.

it's a beautiful night in cleveland and literally ten feet outside my apartment door a fabulous downtown cleveland alliance event is going on - thursday night live has brought basketball courts, cornhole and badminton to w 9th. and the bars on my street are also having tons of drink and food specials.

while i was walking home from my parking lot i was looking around like wow, i live here?!?! this is so fun!

so instead of walking right into my apartment i looked for my friend who works for the dca and made him give me a sweet thursday night live t-shirt.

SCORE!

so now i'm home - one box of vegan mac and "cheese" and one free t-shirt later still very very tired.

what? what's that you say? why am i so tired?

ok, ok, i'll fill you in.

last night myself, georgia peach, wonger and murph headed to half price sushi night at sushi rock for 5:30 dinner reservations. i know 5:30 is early for dinner but we wanted to get moving, we are old.

after about 324 orders of tofu/avocado rolls and two bottles of wine later we headed to d'vine wine bar, picking up the giff and liz along the way. we scored a big circle patio table - cause that's how we roll.

d'vine is where the giff, georgia peach and i found our new favorite summer drink. the sparkling strawberry. um, yum. it's strawberry infused vodka topped with sparkling wine. to die for.

i want one everyday this summer. let's see if i can accomplish this.

[side note: im now sitting on my deck typing this post oh so very journalistic like in pajama pants and a t-shit when a bug landed on my arm. very dainty like i attempted to flick the little booger away. instead i ended up murdering the bug on my arm. ew bug guts. end side note]

when we were cut off decided to leave we knew that the night just couldn't end. where to next? map room (for the 1,239 time why doesn't map room have a website?!?!)

we met up with the usual boys, nameless husband, donkers and tj and we quickly became the official "welcome to the map room" welcoming party.

now murph doesn't hang out all that much with me and the downtown family so she hadn't met donkers yet. or so she thought.

upon meeting him she whispered to me, "i know where i know him from! he has hooked up with at least two of my friends"

of course he has.

obviously i couldn't keep this tidbit a secret so i clued donkers in on what we were giggling about.

he immediately blushes and asked what their names were.

murph: kate _____ and kelly______
donkers: *blank stare*

me: BUSTED
donkers: do you have any pictures of them?
murph: no, but maybe you have their phone number and you just forgot you did?

donkers: (going through his phone with the numbers murph gave him)
ok, i have 4 kate's and 5 kelly's but none of the numbers match with yours

me: you are such a player donkers! you get girls numbers for sport
murph: actually, he just points to his apartment across the street at 2:30am and the girls follow, i've seen it happen in real life.

me: (to donkers) murph already knows your game and she doesn't even know you!
murph: you're like the map room consolation prize, the parting gift.

at this point i think you could have heard me laughing on the east bank of the flats.

after we throughly called donks out on his shit he chugged a beer and got a new girls number put in his blackberry that he will never call.

for as much crap as i give donkers the dude does crack me up, and as he stated to me last night in a buzzed state, "you're my buddy alexa. like the type of buddy that if a guy was ever giving you a hard time at a bar i would totally kick his ass."

HA! gee thanks.

so i'm across the street from my apartment at this point in time one would think my night is over right?

wrong.

next stop my FAVORITE dive bar in cleveland - harbor inn. (btw, where were you narm??). wonger, murph and i met up with our SCENE writer friends. well mostly i just caught up with Dan at the bar.

getting second and third place on the erotic photo hunt megatouch was good enough for us and we headed home.

do you all now get why i'm tired today? oy.

lessons i learned
-tofu is good
-infused strawberry vodka is delicious
-so co and lime shots are horrible
-harbor inn has a sweet new patio
-motorcycles like to stop at talk to chicks in cars
-advil before bed really does work (thanks allison m)

friday morning i had the pleasure of having a couple of my favorite bloggers make a pit stop in cleveland to see little 'ol me on their way to chicago to see a heck of a lot more bloggers.

maxie and deutlich landed in cleveland around 9am and we headed to my favorite breakfast place in cleveland the west side market cafe.

in all of my excitement of showing them around i didn't notice a piece of wood laying on the sidewalk.

i bit it, HARD.

the sidewalk kicked my ass. the fall tore my brand new shoe and killed my knee, it swelled instantly. and not only did i fall and hurt myself but i fell with my blackberry in my left hand scratching it up badly. it works but my new baby looks like it got in a fight.

deutlich got a great photo on me lying on the sidewalk. i'll steal it from her if she posts it and show you wall what an idiot i looked like. talk about a great first impression!

the girls and i then went to the rock and roll hall of fame for some musical education. i think the girls were very excited about the museum and had a great time buying souvenirs and posing with the very large guitars...

all i can say that these two bloggers are not only awesome as hell they are genuine people. and to me that's tops. actually, as i type this they are about an hour away from cleveland on their way back home and are going to take a break in cleveland again. hip hop hooray!

now onto the rest of the weekend. friday night muffin and some friends and i headed to bar cento for dinner and drinks. as usual this place was excellent. with this whole vegan diet i'm on i couldn't really order much off the menu so i asked out server dana what i could get.

let's just say i got hooked up! chef sawyer sent me over a plate of wonderful vegetables - broccoli, asparagus, peas and roasted fennel bulbs, um yum. he even came over to say hello which is always appreciated. i'll say it again, if you haven't gone to bar cento yet - GO! what are you waiting for?

after our meal we headed next door to bier market for more drinks and shots. there was a really good crowd there, i have decided i need to go there more often, for real.

after bier market we wanted to go dancing. next stop ultra.

we were all ready to bust a move but the dj wasn't exactly helping in that department. misterbradleyp was at the tables and normally i love the dude but he was seriously out of his element. when i go to ultra i want top 40 hip hop and he was playing songs that he would play at bside. oh well, it is what it is and instead of dancing we just drank more.

saturday i felt like ass. mostly because i drank like i normally do but forgot about the fact that i have been eating rabbit food for a week. oops.

feeling like ass aside i rallied for mishler's bridal shower and bachlorette party in akron. all 30 of us showered her with nice gifts and then showered her with penis' and alcohol. classy.

the dirrrrrrrrty stuff didn't happen till after the moms left of course!

the party was so great and no one deserves happiness and fun more than my mishler! this girl has a great group of friends who helped her celebrate. there were tons of drunk mishler stories shared and there may or may not have been some turds involved ; )

the bridesmaids put a great spread together in the presidential sweet at the radisson hotel downtown but hands down the highlight of the spread was this cake. again, we are a classy group.


i had to duck out of the bachlorette party earlier than i would have liked but i needed to head back to cleveland and over to wonger's for a scene going away party. all i can say to that is boo. moving on.

the party at wonger's then moved to the best monthly in cleveland "i got 5 on it" (old school hip hop night), at touch. mick boogie wasn't in town but terry urban rocked it out HARD. he was on fire, the best i've seen him in the last few months. sucks it only happens once a month... but then again i don't really need to be dancing every saturday night till 3am.

so i *think* that's it, well not really because i'm waiting for maxie and duetlich to get here. good lord, i wonder if they are going to "make me" go out again.

twist my arm, thank god it's summer.

UPDATE :: so since i am sitting on my deck with deutlich and maxie, RIGHT NOW and have access to deutlich's pictures i have stolen the awesome photo of myself losing my battle to the sidewalk. crap spilled everywhere, yup that's me.

at least we are drinking a fabulous bottle of wine that they brought me from their road trip. talk about amazing girls they knew how to get to my heart - wine! i seriously love these girls.

Here's the deal. I know you're mad, and I can't say I blame you. Gas is $4 a gallon or higher (I spotted $4.09 on East 30th and Carnegie yesterday), groceries are getting more expensive as a result, and nothing else is getting cheaper either. The Presidential race has turned into a bunch of spoiled brats screaming at each other (politicians and pundits alike), our state and local governments are equally screwed up, and Paris Hilton is still allowed to roam freely in the streets.

And on top of these and the other myriad reasons that the state of the world is so depressing, our local and national media are bent on making it worse by reminding us of all the horror that's out there *every time we leave our homes*.

Sheesh. Almost makes you want to move to Walden Pond or in with that recently discovered tribe in Brazil.

But I'm going to challenge myself first, and then all of you. I'm only making one simple request: whatever's making you mad, please don't take it out on some innocent person. Not your spouse or partner. Not your kids. Not your parents. Not your buddies. Not your assistant or your boss. Not the police or fire department or EMS. Not your therapist, even if he/she does bill $105 an hour. Certainly not the poor hapless service professionals who get the same hourly wage regardless of how much gas or anything else costs. Not even Plain Dealer reporters or anonymous strangers on the 'Net.


So, you ask (as I often ask), "What do I do with my anger?" If you believe in God, pray. If you don't, find something or someone to believe in, and talk to him/her/it. Journal. If you work a 12-step program, get to a meeting. If you don't, consider whether you could benefit from one. Cry or scream into a pillow if you must. Do whatever it takes to take care of yourself.

Then, after you've done that, do something kind for someone else, but don't make a big production about it or get attached to the results. Do it just because you can and just because it's the right thing to do.

The world is cruel enough. Let's try to be kinder to each other, regardless of what we think of each other's opinions or lifestyles.

I ran into Jessica M., this very cool girl I know, on Saturday night, and I finally got the nerve to ask her to teach me to crochet. [Aside if my Oma is reading this: Oma, if I lived closer to you, I would ask you to work with me, but: 1) I know you're busy with the quilt (a beautiful but insanely complex pattern that will be finished by approximately 2012) and 2) I wouldn't want you to be offended by my language after Oliver and Rocky destroy 3 feet of perfect single crochet.]

I need some help with basic principles, though:

1) Is the term "fiber arts" a nifty little catch-all for knitting, crocheting, cross-stitch, etc.? Or does it just sound really pretentious?
2) How do I overcome my mental block about casting on?
3) How do I turn around at the end of a row so that I don't end up with 15 feet of single crochet (read: cat toy/recipe for mega-$ vet trip)?
4) Do I make my boyfriend sign a contract before making him a scarf? How about a hat?

I know Jessica's not the sort to laugh if I ask her these questions privately, but I thought I'd pitch them into the blogosphere, too and see what comes back.