Open Letter of Friendship to John Mayer

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SEtHXu9tF_U/TCqfz_8YvwI/AAAAAAAAAXY/O7uN2D-mrzs/s1600/john-mayer_1.Jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 244px; height: 320px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SEtHXu9tF_U/TCqfz_8YvwI/AAAAAAAAAXY/O7uN2D-mrzs/s320/john-mayer_1.Jpg” border=”0″ alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5488374811591229186″ //abr /Dear John,divbr //divdivI think you and I should be friends. No, I don’t mean “friends” as a euphemism for “lovers” or “friends with benefits,” nor do I seek out your friendship for my own personal gain. What I’m proposing is friendship in its truest form, plain and simple. Here’s a rundown of the benefits you’d reap if you were my friend:/divdivbr //divdiv1. bAt the risk of sounding conceited, I’m a riot./b At least I think so. I mean, I’d be friends with me. I’m also pretty mellow, so if you’re having a day where you’re just on edge or wound up tighter than a tick, you’d end up relaxing after hanging out with me. (Aside: some of my friends have said that when they first met me they thought I was a recreational stoner, so they might try to make snide little comments about me smokin’ it up. Ignore them. They are full of crap.)/divdivbr //divdiv2. bI say stupid shit /biball the time/b/ib./b Look, I know you were probably at a different place in your life when you wrote “My Stupid Mouth,” but still. I’m no stranger to putting my foot in my mouth, so if you say something weird, there will be no judging from this girl. Also, and this has nothing to do with anything, but if you decide you wanna rock the Mark Anthony look and grow your hair out again, that’s okay too. No judging, remember?/divdivbr //divdiv3. bLocation, location, location./b John, I live in Tampa, Florida, which is a prime location. The beaches are like half an hour away, and bonus–the oil ihasn’t reached us yet! /iSo if you’ve been wanting a little beach time fun lately, you can still realize that summer dream! And I also know the best place to park so we wouldn’t have to pay! How great is that?! If you’re still not convinced, then maybe this little tidbit will sway you: I’m only about an hour or so away from Orlando, so if you want to get your Disney on, iwe can easily do that!/i But wait, there’s more! I’m only five hours from…drum roll, please…iMIAMI! /iCan you say road trip? Think of all the LOLs we’ll share, crusin’ down the highway, dreaming of getting our drink on in South Beach! Except I expect you to pay your share of tolls/gas money/parking money. Don’t be that guy, John. Nobody wants to be friends with that guy. /divdivbr //divdiv4. bI won’t constantly reference your songs or gush over your entire song catalog./b Don’t get me wrong, I love your music; it’s ushered me into adulthood. However, friendship is a different dynamic than that of musician/fan, which means statements like, “OMG I loved the version of ‘Your Body is a Wonderland’ on Any Given Thursday!” and, “Can you sign my CDs/picture/notebook/breasts?” are out of the question. I understand this./divdivbr //divdiv5. bYou’ve lived in New York. /bI’ve been there…once. But I enjoyed it. /divdivbr //divdiv6. bYou like Alicia Keys. /bI like Alicia Keys, too! We can listen to Alicia Keys records, chow down on some pizza and share some LOLs! /divdivbr //divdivJohn, I strongly urge you to consider being my friend. Please, be the Big to my Rob. Be the Annie Sullivan to my Helen Keller. Be the iDave Matthews/i to my iBand/i! (Well, not an actual band. It’s a…you know what, I’m sure you get it.) This could be the start of something good, you and I. We’ll get zany, make memories, all that good stuff. There’s an air mattress in Tampa with YOUR name on it, buddy. Will you be my friend? /div

Perfume Whores of the World, Unite!

div style=”text-align: left;”I’ll admit it: I’m a perfume whore. I own 19 full-sized bottles of scents, plus dozens more samples. What can I say? Fragrance has been good to me. My friend Jess and I initially bonded over our shared love of the stuff. It makes me feel good. It’s the perfect accessory to any outfit, and you can coordinate what scent you wear with what mood you’re in. Sure, some may consider my perfume collection the gateway drug to full-on hoarding, but I prefer to see it as an enthusiastic tribute to one of man’s most fabulous inventions. And with that said, I thought I’d share a few of my favorites here./divdivbr //divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bVictoria’s Secret Dream Angels Divine/b/divdivbspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “img src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SEtHXu9tF_U/TCP_f62nInI/AAAAAAAAAW4/fwHt_76DJYk/s320/dream-angels-divine-perfume-by-victorias-secret-4-2-oz-eau-de-parfum-spray-women.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5486509694906737266″ style=”text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px; ” //span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “br //span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “This was my very first perfume purchase, the fragrance that started it all. It was the Christmas after I graduated high school, and my friend Meagan got me a gift certificate to Victoria’s Secret as a present. I had never purchased anything from Vicki’s before, and I’m not sure why I decided on perfume. Maybe it was because I thought wearing fragrance was the height of sophistication; maybe it was because The Land of Scent was beckoning me like a good-smelling siren because it knew we were soul mates (FYI, I prefer to believe the latter), but when my nose got a whiff of this stuff, it was love at first smell. Tastes change, however, and while I now find this scent a little too sweet, I still break it out sometimes. It brings me back. /span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “br //span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “br //span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bRockin’ Rio by Escada/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bbr //b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “img src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SEtHXu9tF_U/TCQCgj2qNZI/AAAAAAAAAXA/KGGVYRYakBo/s320/rockinrio.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5486513004447675794″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 300px; ” //span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “Rockin Rio, my love, why oh why did you have to be discontinued? We were so good together! Was it something I said? Something I did? I swear, I’ll take it all back, just come back to me, PLEASE! Sigh…this perfume was such a sexy summer scent: warm and musky. It’s dearly missed./span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “br //span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “br //span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “Harajuku Lovers G/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “img src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SEtHXu9tF_U/TCQD1yGb61I/AAAAAAAAAXI/WJHV9nEIyWQ/s320/harajuku-lover-g.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5486514468560825170″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px; ” //span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “Although G doesn’t fully fill the void left in my heart by Rockin’ Rio, it does a pretty good job, and is my new favorite summer scent. Warm and coconut-y, it reminds me of every beach trip I’ve ever taken with friends and family: the smell of the suntan lotion, the smell of the salt in the air, the smell of newly sun-kissed skin. If I’m in a bad mood, I’m instantly perked up with just a whiff. /span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “br //span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “br //span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “Rock ‘n Rose Couture by Valentino/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “img src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SEtHXu9tF_U/TCQFXE4OI3I/AAAAAAAAAXQ/JFaMhLw1ZO4/s320/valenb.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5486516140048786290″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 208px; height: 320px; ” //span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “This scent pleasantly surprised me. For the longest time, I wanted so hard to like it (I mean, look at that bottle! It’s a work of art! Who wouldn’t want that on her dresser?), but every time I smelled it in a magazine, I recoiled in disgust. It was just…ew. Too vanilla-y and flowery. But then, on a trip to Macy’s, a very wise sales associate saw me eyeing the bottle, and the following conversation went a little something like this:/span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “br //span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “Her: span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal;”Isn’t that a great scent?/span/span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “Me: span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal;”I really want to like it, but I can’t. It’s too strong./span/span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “Her: span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal;”It’s actually a light scent. Here, let me show you…/span/span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal;”br //span/span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal;”She then grabbed my arm, spritzed a little on my wrist, and told me to walk around and let it set for a few minutes. And you know what? She was absolutely right. It actually is a light scent, but still sexy enough to wear on a night out or on a date (I actually wore it on the a href=”http://prettyandpoor.com/index.php?title=she_s_a_fiyah_womaaaaanamp;more=1amp;c=1amp;tb=1amp;pb=1″date/a I described on a href=”http://www.prettyandpoor.com/”Pretty and Poor/a, and later said to a friend, “The bastard didn’t deserve it.”). It’s the perfect balance of vanilla and rose. I never saw that wise sales associate again, which leads me to believe that she was my fairy godmother, sent over by The Land of Scent to get me back on the right track./span/span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal;”br //span/span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: left;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal;”br //span/span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: left;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal;”There you have it–my favorite scents (although I adore the other 15 I own as well). What are some of your favorites? /span/span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “br //span/span/span/b/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”br //divdiv style=”text-align: center;”bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “br //span/span/span/b/div

More Shameless Whoring

But it’s in a non-sexual way, so that makes it okay, right? Anyway, I had the pleasure of writing a guest post for one of my favorite blogs, Pretty amp; Poor. It’s about one of my favorite subjects: horrible dates. You can read it a href=”http://prettyandpoor.com/index.php?title=she_s_a_fiyah_womaaaaanamp;more=1amp;c=1amp;tb=1amp;pb=1″here/a. I also suggest you stay awhile and check out the rest of the blog. Emily, the author, is hilarious. And show some love by leaving her some comments.

Fireman Fiasco

I love firemen, and most of my girlfriends know this. So last week after happy hour when my friend A and I were walking her dog Turbo and came across a stray Rottweiler, she suggested we take it to the fire station down the road so I could get my fireman fix. I was game. divbr //divdivNow along with my love of firemen, I should also mention my crazy bad luck when it comes to men in general. I don’t know what it is, but between a href=”http://svb-thatswhatshesaid.blogspot.com/2009/10/friend-date.html”bad dates/a and the, “he’s just not that into you” scenarios I encounter, me + men is an equation that never seems to balance out (math analogy FTW!). So it really shouldn’t have been a surprise that her well-intentioned plan backfired, even though it was. A surprise, I mean. Nevertheless, what happened instead was still pretty funny, so I thought I would share it here. /divdivbr //divdivWhile A wrangled the Rot, I took Turbo back to her apartment and got a spare leash. The plan was to ask the firemen if they could call the police or animal control for us because we accidentally got “locked” out of her apartment. When we got to the station, we debated about where to enter. A suggested the garage where they keep the firetrucks since the door was open, but I thought it would be better to go around front to the office instead of just barging all up in their firehouse like we were their BFFs. So we walked around to the front and found the entrance to the office. A stayed outside with the Rot while I went in./divdivbr //divdivThere was no office. When I opened the door, I was greeted by a twin bed directly in front of me, a living area (with a ibangin’/i flat screen TV) to my left, and about six pairs of eyes staring at me over dinner at the kitchen table just beyond. I had just barged all up in their firehouse like I was their BFF. The following exchange went a little something like this:/divdivbr //divdivMe (trying to be cool-as-a-cucumber and failing miserably): “Hi…sorry to barge in here, but…my friend and I found a stray dog and we were wondering if you could call animal control or something since we’re locked out of her apartment…” /divdivbr //divdivThem: ::crickets chirping::/divdivbr //divdivAwkward, to be sure. I just knew they saw right through the whole, “we’re locked out of the apartment” lie, but after a few seconds (that felt like a few hours), the middle-aged white guy at the table nodded to a short, Hispanic kid who looked to be about sixteen (just my luck). The kid hopped up from the table, and I took care to hold the door open for him, like that simple act of courtesy would show that I was really a decent person, not some weird girl who went around to fire stations making up stories just so she could ogle the cute firemen. Which I was, but they didn’t need to know that. After about a minute or so of holding the door open, I was thinking that it was taking that kid quite along time to come out and get the show on the road, when he emerged–along with the other five guys who decided to abandon their dinner for the time being because this was the most action that sleepy fire station had seen all day (that was my theory, anyway). /divdivbr //divdivThe group of us walked over to A and the Rot, and a few of the guys commented on how the stray must have had a home because it had a collar and looked to be well taken care of. We explained we thought so too, but when we found it, we didn’t see anybody wandering around who might be looking for a lost dog. The Rot was by itself. After a few more seconds of chatting, one of the firemen who was inside on the phone with the police station (who was the captain, I later learned) asked for “one of the ladies” to come inside. Since A was with the Rot, I went inside. And this was where the plan backfired: A was outside, talking to the firemen, while I was inside with the middle-aged captain who was dialing numbers, trying to help us figure out what to do with the dog. The captain was nice, and I definitely appreciated him trying to help, but like I said, he was also middle-aged and not cute, so the wait for him to get off the phone with the verdict as to how to handle the situation was mind-numbingly boring for me. And when he idid/i tell me the verdict, it was more bad luck: since we couldn’t find the dog’s owner, one of us would have to take the dog and wait for animal control to call. It couldn’t stay at the fire station because if the guys got called out, it would be left alone. It couldn’t stay at A’s because she already had a dog, and although the Rot seemed friendly enough, she wasn’t sure how friendly it would be with her dog. That only left one other option: I would have to take the dog. /divdivbr //divdivSo to recap: I didn’t really get to talk with any of the firemen because I was inside with the captain, giving him as much information as I could so he could help us, iand/i it looked like I would be stuck having to take the stupid Rot home temporarily. Just. My. Luck. The captain gave animal control my phone number and sent A and I on our way with animal control’s after-hours number and good luck well-wishes. Then it was over. The firemen went back to their dinner, and A and I were alone with my new four-legged companion./divdivbr //divdivWe ended up finding the owner. He was walking around with a leash and a dog biscuit, and was very grateful that we found and returned Miles, his Rot. So while I didn’t end up having to take the dog home with me, and I didn’t get to talk to any firemen, A and I wound up with a good story to tell, which was better in the end. And hey–there’s a fire station in my neighborhood, so there’s always another opportunity for me to make up a story just to ogle some firemen.br /divbr //divdivbr //div/div

A Blast From the Past

div style=”text-align: left;”Last month, my friend Ali turned 25, and she thought it would be funny to celebrate by hosting a good old-fashioned skating party. Yes, you read that right. A skating party. At a skating rink. The kind we all used to frequent when we were thirteen. And since it’d been about that long since I stepped foot inside a rink, I thought it would be fun to relive this blast from the past and excitedly sent in my RSVP. Just the ithought/i of going skating again conjured up all sorts of memories: playing the hokey-pokey and hoping to win a rabbit’s foot key chain instead of the crappy plastic skate one that always seemed to break within five minutes of my touching it; hoping my crush would ask me to skate during the couples’ skate; agreeing to “go out” with a boy during a sixth-grade class field trip and then “dumping” him ten minutes later when I had a change of heart. As a fully-grown (well, almost) woman of 26, I wondered what the skating rink experience would be like now, and I was also curious to see if I would fall on my ass./divdivbr //divdivThe scene of the birthday festivities was a href=”http://www.usa-skating.com/dynamic.asp?schimg=feat_sch.gifamp;sel=5amp;LinkID=4″United Skates of America/a on Armenia Avenue, a rink, I was told by Ali’s father, that had been around since ihe/i was a kid. And lemme tell you: for a rink that old, it was ibangin’/i. Seriously! There’s no other word to describe it. The floor was polished wood, much like in a basketball court, and skating on it was like iflying/i. Honestly, I feel like I got gypped as a kid, because the rinks in Tallahassee and Perry were nowhere near as nice as that. In fact, they were the complete opposite: ghetto as ihell/i. The floors were made of this gross blue concrete mixture, and I know for a fact that the floor in the Perry skating rink had chunks missing. They weren’t huge chunks, but if a kid hit it just right, he’d be ass over heels in no time. And the skates you could rent at both places were a safety hazard in and of themselves: brakes missing, loose wheels, fraying shoelaces. But this place on Armenia? Skating paradise. /divdivbr //divdivspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “img src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SEtHXu9tF_U/TAhPFUTAafI/AAAAAAAAAVs/OkcLf4S8Duo/s320/IMG_2030.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478715899462576626″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 179px; ” //span/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-size:small;”Bangin’ skating rink/span/b/span/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “bbr //b/span/divdivHow nice the rink was caught me off-guard, but I ireally/i wasn’t prepared for how…asshole-ish (I’m going for it) some of the kids were. They had no skating etiquette whatsoever! Since it had been awhile since Ali and I had skated, it took us some time to re-master the basics, like slowing down, braking, and steering, and until we got completely comfortable, we looked like two hunchbacked old ladies who were about to fall at any moment, trying to warn people by flailing our arms. It was wonderfully moronic, and it was a shame that Ali’s mother didn’t capture it on video (yes, her parents, two nephews and grandmother were there as well, and her mom videotaped us like we were ten). Considering how inexperienced we had to have looked, it would stand to reason that if you were a child, or simply anybody who skated frequently, you would steer clear to avoid a collision, right? WRONG. In fact, I think our lack of skating talent served more as a magnet because those little bastards would decide to dart out in front of us at the last minute, and then skate a little too close for comfort around the turns. And one idgit who almost caused a collision decided that it was iour/i fault and declared war. After we all almost fell, he exclaimed, “Not cool!” and then would skate a ways, stop suddenly and turn around iright/i as we approached (almost causing another accident) and say things like, “I’m watching you!” People, I shit you not. He looked to be about all of seven, and I swear to God had it not been time for him and his little friends to eat their pizza lunch, I would have tripped him, feeling no remorse whatsoever. He pissed me off that much. While he was the only kid to declare war, he was not the only kid with poor skating etiquette. I felt like I was in a weird, real-life game of Minesweeper, having to avoid hitting the children lest I get asked to leave for “being a bully.” /divdivbr //divdivspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “img src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SEtHXu9tF_U/TAhSCMWyHmI/AAAAAAAAAV0/z0J5UVoH4_o/s320/IMG_2035.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478719144326209122″ style=”display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 179px; ” //span/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”span class=”Apple-style-span” style=”-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; “bspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-size:small;”Bangin’ skating rink after the asshole kids arrived/span/b/span/divdivbr //divdivBut despite the asshole kids, Ali and I had an absolute blast. Some things were still the same, like the games and prizes, the food (best nachos ever) and those one or two people who liked to show off their mad skating skillz and do little tricks to make the rest of us hate them. We killed it in the arcade room, winning enough tickets so that each of Ali’s two nephews could pick out a “good” prize (you know, the kind that takes hundreds of tickets to get). And, yeah–we fell on our asses. Hard. Then we just sat there on the skating rink floor for a minute or two, laughing them off, ianother/i moment that Ali’s mother forgot to videotape. And after we left the rink that afternoon, we headed over to Ali’s parents’ house, where we celebrated Ali’s birthday like actual grownups: with cocktails. /div

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