Happy Halloween!!! I had every intention of going…

Happy Halloween!!!

I had every intention of going to costume parties this weekend, and didn’t go to a single one. Doesn’t that suck? I love dressing up, and was looking forward to getting into something sexy/spooky. I wasn’t compelled, however. None of the parties were enticing enough. These days, I take issue with being charged in excess of $30 to attend a party that isn’t completely promising.

I also have nothing for trick-or-treaters. I never do. I feel kind of bad, but the neighborhood kids are generally bad-asses, and I’m really not excited about the prospect of opening my door to them. I’ve only participated one year that I’ve been in my current home, and only because there were other people over at the house.

This weekend, I had one of my book club meetings. We read Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee, and agreed that we liked it. The rest of the weekend was a bit of a wash. I procrastinated a lot, and met the new boyfriend of a friend.

It was interesting to meet her new man. She likes older men, and this one is about 18 years older. He was a very nice man — youthful for his age (except for the gray hair), and we had a good time. The only thing was that he spent a lot of time talking about how he wanted to fix me up with his friend, which wasn’t much fun for me.

Here’s where my friend and I differ: First, I hate being fixed up. If someone wants to put me in the vicinity of a hopeful prospect, fine, but the intentional, forced fixup is a harrowing experience for me, because most people don’t take my taste into consideration.

Which segues nicely into my second point, which is that I don’t do well with men who are that much older than me. I’m not the sedate, settle-down-able woman that some of my friends tend to be. I’m still the wild, youthful (juvenile), girl that loves excitement. Older men can rarely keep up, and I don’t know that I want them to try.

That said, I tried to keep my friend’s beau from getting too overzealous about the fix-up that’ll never happen. My friend, to her credit, stressed to him that I’m not happy about being set up. Fortunately he didn’t have his cell phone with him, otherwise he would have called his buddy on the spot. The planets were aligned in my favor, apparently.

Tomorrow’s Column For Chicagoans who are interest…

Tomorrow’s Column

For Chicagoans who are interested, the new column, The Gina Spot, comes out in Red Eye tomorrow, and is all about being wary of the Halloween Hookup. If you think of it, grab a copy of Red Eye tomorrow. It’s free!

Sox Win! Who am I kidding? I don’t even like bas…

Sox Win!

Who am I kidding? I don’t even like baseball. But I am happy that the World Series is over. Now everyone can focus on basketball, my preferred sport.

A lot has happened over the last few days . . . news about Janet Jackson’s secret child was revealed, which she immediately denied. I don’t know about all of you, but I’m old enough to remember the rumors of a) Janet being married, and b) Janet having a child. They didn’t want to taint her youthful image and damage her career by admitting to either(“They” being the Jackson machine).

Aunt Bea withdrew her Supreme Court nomination. That was interesting.

Here’s shocking news — Sheryl Swoopes admits that she’s gay. Could never have seen that coming.

This is scary Thesetwins, are actually building a…

This is scary

Thesetwins, are actually building a career singing about racist hate.

I don’t want to annotate it too much because I don’t want the google trail weird comments that are sure to follow.

I wonder if the Olsen twins will sign them to Dualstar.

Reading the article makes me want to take them to NY and abandon them in Harlem with no shoes or money.

Forgot to mention . . . . . . that I saw Capote …

Forgot to mention . . .

. . . that I saw Capote this weekend. Philip Seymour Hoffman will likely get nominated for his performance. It was a great film, but it made him (Truman Capote) look bad, leaving me to wonder if he was really like that, or if it was just a Hollywood dramatization.

I’m sure the film will propel the sales of all of his books, including “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and especially “In Cold Blood,” the investigation of which is the basis of the film.

Interesting weekend Went our for sushi with Hilar…

Interesting weekend

Went our for sushi with Hilary, and later to a club (Sonotheque) on Friday night. Except for a few bizarre encounters, it was a fun time.

Jason (father of my Godson) and I hung out, which is a rare occasion. I think we were responsible for someone’s embarassing moment of the weekend. We found a parking spot, and when we parked, Jason saw the woman parked in front of us with her pants down to her knees, trying to discreetly relieve herself on the side of her car. All discretion was lost as she was exposed by our headlights. Jason was laughing so hard that he couldn’t turn the car off, which meant that the headlights were on way longer than normal. She tried to quickly pull her pants up, and save face by waving at us. It’s a good thing I don’t wear mascara. It would have been ruined by the tears streaming down my face.

The party was good. The music was good. I ran into a few people that I could have done without seeing, but all in all it was okay. An overly-energetic friend of J. and her friend joined us for a late night munchie fest, and I didn’t return home until after 4.

The next morning, a mere 4 hours later, I was on kid duty. Oddly enough Jason got to go home and sleep in, while I promised the mother of his kids that I would be a surrogate soccer mom while she went to a meeting.

I learned that my 5-year-old godson has a new favorite word. He adores the word ’shit,’ and can even use it in context. He couldn’t fold the chair out correctly, so he screamed: “Oh shit!” He got frustrated when his toy wasn’t working correctly. Again, “Oh shit!” The worst was when he was on the soccer field and missed the ball and exclaimed his new favorite phrase right in front of the referee. Not cute.

All of the preppy soccer parents were looking at me like I was crazy. As I snatched him by the arm to reprimand him, embarassed, I was quick to point out that I’m not the mother of the potty mouth. Although I can be a bit of a potty mouth myself. It was everything I could do to avoid saying: “You say that shit again, and I’ll give you the spanking of a lifetime.”

As you can imagine, I’m not mentally equipped for this activity. I love those kids dearly, but after we’re done, I always make sure I stop off at the drug store in search of new and innovative varieties of birth control.

UGH!!!! One of my friends just completely pissed …

UGH!!!!

One of my friends just completely pissed me off, so I must vent.

I always complain about people with kids thinking they’re the center of the universe. This rant is no different.

She always accuses me of not calling her and not making plans with her since she had the kid. The issue is that hers and my schedule never jive. I’m a night person, and she can’t be. She USED to be a night person, but I think she forgets that sometimes. In the spirit of being a good friend, I’m trying.

I don’t call her at night, because she’s probably doing baby stuff. I rarely call her during the day because she’s working. I hardly call her on the weekend, because she’s doing kid stuff.

Anyhoo . . . I called her a few minutes ago (about 4:15 in the afternoon), and she answered the phone with a sour voice. I called her at home because she works from home on Friday since having the kid. Before I could even really say hello, she told me that I should probably have e-mailed her because she’s on deadline (which I can understand), and the baby is sleeping (which has nothing to do with me). Then she adds “If the baby wakes up . . . ” — hinting that it would be my fault if the baby wakes up.

Not only do I take no ownership of that child waking up, I have a few comments for her:
A. It’s 4:20 in the freakin’ afternoon!
B. Put the kid in a room where there isn’t a telephone!
C. Teach the kid to sleep through noise.
D. Don’t chastise a caller for calling to deliver a friendly hello, just because it’s an inconvenient time for you. If it’s that serious, don’t answer the f*cking phone.

One of the best things that my father ever taught me was not to answer the phone if I don’t think that I will be able to be pleasant. I wish more fathers had taught the same lesson.

Won’t be calling her for a while. Of course she’ll bitch at me at some later date for never calling her. Can’t win for losing.

Rant over. Thanks for listening.

New column today If you’re in Chicago, the new Re…

New column today

If you’re in Chicago, the new Red Eye column is all about revenge. It’s got a bright yellow cover (that I haven’t yet copied down), so check it out!

Went to check on Bailey in “his” room, and it seems that he’s managed to remove one of the floor registers in that room too, and when I went to replace it, I looked down and found his toy ball. I’m really going to kill him one of these days — either that or he’ll kill himself.

Bailey’s Big Adventure My cat, Bailey — the one …

Bailey’s Big Adventure

My cat, Bailey — the one I took in about 6 months ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long!) was doing his usual romp around the house, which always involves him getting into things he shouldn’t. Tonight he was especially excited about the floor registers. He’s always drawn to them, and has even learned to remove them. This is where the problem starts.

I was sitting downstairs, and I heard a lot of noise, so I went upstairs to find Bailey. No Bailey. Then I heard a faint meow, when I realized that Bailey had removed a floor register, and was running around in the air ducts. I started to mildly freak out, wondering if he could get his fat ass out. Cats are known for cramming themselves into little nooks and crannies, and being unable to free themselves. That said, I started to wonder if he was going to be able to get out on his own. Then I began to think I’d need help, but then couldn’t figure out who I would call if I needed help. The fire department? The police?

Before I completely freaked out, I decided to get Bailey out on my own, so I called him, and I heard him walking toward me (underneath me), but he wasn’t making his move to get out. So I grabbed a bell toy and dangled it in the hole. Finally he walked toward it. I was SO happy to see him finagle his way out.

He was freaked out when he emerged — panting, less rambunctious. I was doing the same.

Let’s just say that Bailey is spending quality time in the guest room for a while. Both of us can use a break.

Home improvement My recent home improvement effor…

Home improvement

My recent home improvement efforts have been nearly comedic as I face the single girl’s problem of self-installation. I have an unreliable handyman. He’s like an extended family member, and he treats me like family. Everyone has that cousin or brother who’s good with his hands but somewhat flaky about time. That would be this guy.

He did part of a job the other day, and had to leave, so he agreed to come over on Sunday night to finish. I made sure that my dinner plans were early, and prepared for him to be around during Desperate Housewives. After DH ended, it occured to me that I still hadn’t heard from him. Grey’s Anatomy ended, and I STILL hadn’t heard from him. I called and left a message on his machine. He finally called me back at 11:00 pm and apologized, saying that he got in late from Bible study. WTF???

I’m not a religious girl, so I was amazed at the idea of being in church for 8+ hours. My retort: “So . . .you’ve been at church ALL day, and you didn’t get out of Bible study until after 10:00? P.M?” I’m guessing he never needs to go to another Bible study again in his life. It seems like he covered both the Old and New Testaments in one sitting.

Of course, I was reminded by one of my married friends that home improvement projects are reasons why one has a man. At this point, I’d rather just throw money at the problem.

Speaking of money and problems, Home Depot, which I normally love, wins the doesn’t-make-sense-award of the week. I was planning to order a door, and I called to ask their delivery policy. The helpful Home Depot customer service associate quoted a price for the door, and said that delivery costs in the neighborhood of $59. Then he added that the delivery is curbside only. The rest of conversation went something like this:

Gina: Curbside? You mean you won’t bring it into my house?
Home Depot Man: No m’am.
G: Why not?
H: Because it’s against our policy?
G: So . . . you normally delivery extremely heavy objects and won’t bring them inside?
H: Our insurance doesn’t cover it.
G: Okay, so let me understand this. You’re going to deliver a 150 lb. door to my house, dump it on my curb, and I’m supposed to figure out how to get it inside?
H: Ummmmmm . . . I guess so?
G: Do you realize that the door weighs more than I do?
H: Umm, I wouldn’t know that, m’am.
G: Never mind. You realize that’s dumb, right?
H: I’m sorry. That’s our policy.
G: But you realize it’s dumb, right?
H: Yes m’am, I suppose when you say it that way, it is kinda dumb, yes.

I called Menard’s, and got the same door for about $10 less (proof that you really can save big money at Menards!). They have similar issues with insurance, but for an additional $20, they’ll actually bring it in your house. I immediately snapped up that option.

Why is everything so damned hard, anyway?