2 Valium + 1 and 1/2 martinis =

Total loss of balance, apparently. And lots of vomiting. Now I understand what they mean about the pills intensifying the effects of alcohol. Usually when I'm that kind of drunk, there's a feeling of desperate urgency and pleading with the booze gods that I'll just make it through the night. Not this time. I didn't care, I knew I would be fine. Despite the inability to walk.

The good news is that you don't care that you're throwing up, you're not upset about it. It doesn't even taste bad, not that it taste great, but you're kind of like "whatever body, why do you always try to be so dramatic?"
The other upside is that there's no accompanying hangover, because you can't imbibe that much before you get to the point of no return. And I think I threw up all the booze.

BTW, all this took place at the fun Xmas party. And the real loss of balance didn't occur until I got home.

Quotes of the Day

Work related depression has been slightly alleviated thanks to my pills, junk food, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying quotes such as these beauties featured below.

"How to Choose the Right Company: before applying for a job, make sure the company is a large one. This is essential. It should be at least large enough so that nobody quite knows exactly what the other fellow is doing."

"If you have education, intelligence, and ability, so much the better. But, remember that thousands have reached the top without any of these qualities."

"[T]his is the time for maintaining a cool head, and following the one simple rule: put the blame on somebody else."

Work Christmas Party

It was actually fun-ish.  We were both very shocked by this.  

Celebration at the Indian place!

So last night M and I went out to our favortive Indian place, Gill's, to celebrate some positive feed back on my jewelry. Their website is currently down, but if you should ever get the chance, go there. But call ahead they have odd hours, their number is (213) 623-1050. I've also included their location at the bottom, bottom, bottom of this post.
Anyway the food was great, the ambience was just the way we like it, but the interesting part occurred after dinner. The manager, or owner, maybe, came to out table and started chatting with us, telling us how we "such beautiful ladies." He went on and on( and no, we didn't get a free meal, or a beautiful lady discount, although I should have asked about the latter). The interesting/odd thing is that we have been there many, many time before and this has never happened. We theorize this occurred because we had both just come from work, and the combination of our work personas and work clothes, that sent off the "Yes, we are employed and not just college students" signal. I think, to a practical sort of person, that's the most attractive quality in the world.

Things I will do in 09

I will install more memory on my computer. Myself. Which means I might wind up buying a new computer in the end...

I will organize my desk(the one at work), keep it that way, and acquire more chotchkeys to display.

I will take better care of the house plants and house pets. They'll go from well taken care of to ridiculously pampered. I wonder if I can carry my rabbit and peace lilly in my purse into the Rack, like those tiny dog girls do... and if I do, does it have to be a Juicy Couture bag?


I will discover someway for two people to continue to live a studio, as they have for the past three years, to find more space to store their stuff. And possibly find some room for a second bunny.

I will get a second bunny. They're so tiny, for a while anyway, and the one we have right now is lonesome. I will acquire this creature in 09, do you understand M? I promise to get a real smart one this time, that will fully understand the concept of the litter box.
Why look there's Baby New Year right there!  At the bottom of this post!

Fun with projectors

This is from the MuTate exhibition in London




They also have pole dancing robots. I find such great things at Sex and Blogs

M stole my book

So I was reading the Naked Civil Servant, but M stole it away from me.  She carries it around in her purse, reads the best quotes to me, and then reads silently to herself.  I've already renewed that damn thing twice, she's still not done, and I don't think I'll get to finish it unless I check it our a second time without telling her.  But she did get Peter Sagal's Book of Vice which I've been trying to get from the library for about two months now.  I just need to keep her greasy mitts off of it until I'm through with.  We both hate sloppy seconds.  

All I really want for Xmas...

is for M to help me reupholster the sofa and always mix resin and molding compound for me.  The other things she's given me so far are very nice, but the gift of service is always the most meaningful.  Willingness to dismantle a couch, hold fabric tight while I use a staple gun dangerously close to her tiny hands, and struggling to put the whole thing back together again just says "I love you more than my personal safety and emotional well-being."  The most beautiful eleven and a half words in the English language.

A not so Green Pre-Xmas

I live with a baby Bee. After much buzzing I gave in and we had a very exciting gift opening frenzy. I hate to do it but I felt I had no choice, she was looking at me with those sad but hopeful eyes and how could anyone say no to that? Easy for others I know, but nearly impossible for me. I told myself last year that I wouldn't let this happen again, but instead of sticking to my word, I ended up giving in even earlier than last year. We are 9 days away from Christmas, and though we don't celebrate Christmas in a traditional baby-jesus-birthday religion influenced way, I wanted to shock her by giving her as much as possible all at once. I was supposed to prove a point; I know her very well and am willing to show my love in products of large U.S. currency value. My love is not stingy and that's all I wanted to say but I wanted to say it in a more traditional way. I think I eventually did just that. Hope she likes the ones I saved up for Christmas day, that's right my baby bee, now you will have to wait for the 25th, no more smiling til you melt my heart and my firm parts.

Confession of a compulsive drinker

I drink compulsively.  Doesn't matter what it is, water, booze, tea, coffee, juice, soda, energy drinks, if it's around I will drink and then I will have another, and another, and another...  If I only have access to coffee, I'll 3-4 cups, regardless of how bad it taste.  Water?  Why I'm right next to water cooler, so as soon as the disposable cup gets halfway empty, it's time to freshen it up.  Energy drinks?  Despite no longer having need to stay up all night, in fact at this point in my life it's to my disadvantage, but I'll still drink 'em till I'm all jittery anyway.
This compulsion is only a problem because of alcohol, since I will drink that compulsively as well.  The good news is that tolerance is really high, but I'm sure ingesting so much poison is not good for my body.  One martini, try 4-6, all very strong, or a whole bottle of red wine, or 4 mojitos (which are about 1/2 rum when I make 'em and I always use tall glasses).  Thanks to my high tolerance, I'm a very productive drunk, household projects, crafts, elaborately organized underwear drawers  At first M and I both thought that my productive benders were just away to calm myself down, which they are of course, but not to the extent we thought.  It wasn't until I realized I drink this way all the time, albeit less harmful liquids.  So I've toned down the hard drinking a bit, no more weekday martinis and mojitos, only two glasses of wine instead of the whole bottle, because of M's concern for my health and because I'm taking 5-6 pills everyday, two of which are sedatives, so I shouldn't really be mixing all this stuff... anyway, this has really increased my soda and juice consumption.

Babycham Studies

I want it, I want it, I want it!

Here's an ad from the 80s, obviously;

How not to reupholster furniture

We did once, successfully.  We covered an Ikea storage bench with really cute, retro, mint green fabric.  It looks great.  The Ikea sofa I've tried to reupholster, not so great.  The fabric's cute, tan with a retro print(to hide stains), but there are two very different, very big, factors in this job, M didn't help and the shape is much for complicated than a rectangular bench.  I know what I have to do, I have to take the sofa apart ( which is actually easy, it's also from Ikea), staple on the fabric with M's help, make sure that it can still be put back together, and ta-da!  I vow t fix this couch before my X-mas party this weekend.  And I will photograph/film the process, so I can make others feel the tediousness.

Working with rubber and rabbits or DIY jewelry

I have rubber mold  making. It looks like it worked, but for some reason angered our rabbit. As we were carefully removing the item from the molding compound( which was so rubbery... like a dolphin) the wee beast started to stamp her feet, which means she's pissed. I think it's because M didn't say "good morning" to her when she entered the kitchen. M even gave her oatmeal to get back on her good side, but the rabbit refused to eat it, which is very unlike her. Anyway, the rabbit wasn't the point.

Here's the backing I use for most of my pendants....

and here's the rubber mold I cast from it...

I once I get a decent pic of the finish product, I'll post that too.  Hmmm.... maybe I should include the rubber making process (dull) and the pouring of the resin(which is as dull as watching resin dry).  But once I get a good image of the final product I will list the materials used.  Yay!

Maybe I could start drinking Babycham instead...

I mean just look at this ad, isn't great?  And it's only a hard cider....

The only catch is that it seems like it might be a bit hard to find state side.  But I will track it down one way or another.  I will drink this pear cider, damn it.  If any one finds this in LA county please let me know.  Maybe I should put wheat paste poster that read "missing, one deer, responds to the name Babycham."  Would that get people attention or would it just get me in trouble?  

I'm so outta of it right now

I thought that Xanax and Valium were supposed to be addictive, where one has to keep taking more and more to get the same effect.  I, however, seem to be going through the opposite effect.  I I get totally knocked out on when I take it, so much so, that I actually will fall asleep in the car (with M driving of course) which I've never been able to do in my entire life.   It's not calming me down anymore, it's knocking me the fuck out.  

Like today for example, I had my morning round of pills, and now I'm fantasying about using my sick time so I can go take a nap.   No, I'm not fantasying, I'm seriously considering it. 

X-mas party #1

Okay, this was the first Christmas party/dinners of the season, I only have 5 left;

1. My work X-mas party
2. The fun X-mas party
3. Our X-mas party/ gift exchange 
4. M's parents' X-mas eve party
5. Dinner with my parents 

I doubt any of these other parties are going to include full sized bottles of vodka and brandy.  Per table.  With about 7 people per table.  At about 20+ tables.  That's a lotta booze, even for me.  I've never seen anything like, it was like an open bar for lazy, hardcore alcoholics.   The party started at 6PM, no one really got there until, about 7 , by 8 everyone had that boozy walk, and by 9:30, the time we left, supervisors were giving slurred speeches to their underlings.  

After witnessing all this I had two revelations, 1) I don't ever want to work for the county(though I'm sure I will at some point, *sigh*), 2) I want to drink less.  I didn't get drunk, or suffer a hangover, or embarrass my self, but suddenly, somehow, drinking finally lost its glamour.  Kind of like finding out Santa's not real.  My ability to drink has become a party trick, I drink a lot to shock my friends by still being semi-coherent.  Well, I'm tried of being a one trick pony.  I need a new useless skill.  But one that makes me feel like a tough guy.  

And I hope this what my new found semi-sobriety looks like;