It's been brought to my attention by the ever so subtle commentary by Bry_M that I need to update.

I have to go to a wedding this weekend in West Virginia. The gas prices alone to make this drive are giving me hives.

Of course, at a wedding, this means that I will be dressing up. Yes, that's right. A dress. Most importantly, however, I need to discuss the implications of high heels and my lack of grace.

In a perfect world, I will glide smoothly into the wedding hall, sit down and be an amazing model of social decorum. I will sit in a demure fashion, hands folded in my lap and gazing in splendid awe at the beauty of the ceremony. At dinner, I will use all of the proper forks and knives while taking delicate and dainty bites.

In most people's world, I may wobble a bit on the heels or perhaps get a slight snag from the carpet, but will otherwise make it safely to my seat. I may fidget ever so slightly, but not enough to make anyone obviously aware of my discomfort in the crowded room. At dinner I may make a slight err in utensil, but only minor and will laugh it off with others and continue participating in a remotely entertaining conversation involving anecdotes about the bridal couple.

Now....

In my world...

I will take the first step into the wedding chapel whereupon my shoe will snag not only on the carpet, but also the floorboard beneath the carpet. The heel of my dress shoe will snap off and ricochet from the floor to the ceiling whereupon it will crash down on the head of the bride as she peeks out from her dressing room to giggle nervously. Concussed, she will attend the ceremony slightly cross-eyed and instead of saying merely "I do" at the appropriate moment will instead say "I do ..do dodo...Boop boop" and will leap into a horrifying rendition of Betty Boop all because of my clumsy damage to her cranium.

But that is only the beginning for there is also the dinner to consider at the reception.

As I sit down at the table, I will have a lapse of sanity and throw the utensils haphazardly over my shoulder. I'll grab my food in my hands and rip into it while making rabid animal noises. "Nom nom nom! Grrr!" Take that carrot! All my repressed carnivorous tendencies will erupt from my vegetarian diet restraints in a horrifying release of teeth and nails. The guests will be stunned. All the while the bride continues to dance and "boop boop" around them.

The utensils I threw over my shoulder without regard for the personal safety of others will have embedded themselves into the bridal cake figurines. The groom's miniature plastic voodoo cake man will be impaled by the bread knife in the groin. His real self will fall to the floor singing more beatifically than any choir boy this side of the Mason-Dixon.

I'm not quite sure if I should even begin to contemplate the possibilities of catastrophe if I get on the dance floor.

I love my pets.

We Interrupt This Broadcast For Important News

First, I want to say that you'll notice that sometimes I don't respond to comments and other times I will. The reason for that is simply the computer I'm using. When I use my mac laptop, for some strange reason, the response cc links in the comment section aren't available (even when using Firefox as opposed to the standard Safari browser that comes with the mac os). So, it's not that I'm being a douche, okay?

We Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Program

Now, pets.

My dog and cat are hilarious, comforting and downright adorable most days. They bring me laughs, love and, I'll admit it, tears of frustration too.

Every time I take a shower the dog, Sam, will pop his head through the curtain long enough to get drenched. His eyes will bug out and then he runs away. Repeat this about five more times during the course of my TEN MINUTE shower. He is perpetually surprised that the water continues to smack him in the head every time he puts his noggin' under the spray.

The cat, on the other hand, is wise enough to realize this. He either sits on the tile watching the dog with a mixture of amusement and smugness or stays out of the bathroom entirely. UNTIL I step out of the shower stall and then he comes skidding into the room to start licking my feet dry. It's cute, but painful. If I dance away, he pounces on my feet, grabs my toes with his claws and hangs on tight while he keeps licking.

I love to teach my pets new tricks. Sam knows a whole bunch - stay, sit, lay down, leave it, put it away (toys in his box), not to eat treats when I sit it on his toes, etc, etc.

Patchouli, the cat, only knows one really so far. Sit. But, that was until last night when I got in one of those moods where the rest of the world disappears and I find myself plopped back into a six year old mentality.

The cat is now learning how to lay down and stay. Stay is working best, but that's mainly because he's a cat...it's pretty much what he does. So, of course, I had to add something to the mixture that would make him go against his natural tendency to just gel on the carpet. Food.

Not satisfied with this, I demonstrated to my yawning cat a gazillion times the simple mechanics of opening and closing the dog's kennel. After a few demonstrations, he started perking up. Finally, he DID IT! And then was so proud of himself that he purred like a broken lawn mower and continued to open and close the little gate for about twenty minutes.

This perhaps was not the wisest trick to teach him. I realize that now in hindsight. Especially since he leaps on top of the wire cage when Sam is in his "place" and proceeds to stick his little arms through the wires and bat maniacally at Sam's big ole' German Shepherd ears.

Now he's going to start sitting there and taunting him with the gate. I just know it.

Hoookay, maybe I should post something, eh? It's been a few weeks. Sorry about that.

So, the party went really well. Despite Bry_M's dire predictions, I did not actually end up having some strange social faux pas nor did I break any gravity laws this time. Woot! Success!

I've been immersed in writing and schoolwork for the past few weeks. I've managed to crank out seven short stories and they have all been submitted to various places. Hopefully I will get one picked up for publication soon. Unfortunately, when trying to publish you end up having to contend with a ridiculous amount of rejection letters along the way. If you can't take the rejection, you can't make it.

At first, I used to be really offended by the rejection letters. They brought me down, made me feel bad and like a hack writer. But as time went on I realized they were actually boons. They helped me take a hard look at my story and re-write it when need be. Other times, they were just down right amusing. Like the rejection letter I got from an editor that was riddled with a few grammatical errors. THAT made me feel great and highly amused. I wouldn't want to be published by him anyway.

So, I'm sitting at Cup, a cafe, at the moment and about to collapse into a wheezing heap. You see, Cup is a coffee shop in the downtown area of Raleigh and it allows smoking inside. As such you have a gargantuan amount of smoke filtering around the building. NOT a good atmosphere after awhile. But, it's good to get out every once in awhile instead of holing myself up in the apartment like a hermit.

A friend of mine couldn't find the pesto sauce at the grocery store the other day so it was Nightbug to the rescue! Dun dun dun! I donned my cape and dashed out to the local Harris Teeter. I mocked him horribly along the way until I realized after the second trip through the store, that I couldn't find it either. Gah! Fate!

It was found eventually, but much too late to save face.