No. I did not shell out thousands of my Hiatus dollars for the chance to see up the Material Girl’s flimsy costume material. Instead, I was lucky enough to be born as the daughter of a decadent mother who bought four primo tickets the day they came out, and then decided a European cruise was no competition for the catty pleasure of sighting a wrinkle on Madonna’s well-kempt face. So she sold two of the tickets and gave me the others, knowing that the only person in the world I would dream of taking would be the only person we both knew could truly appreciate it…

There are four things that make him the only person I would dream of taking:

1. Brandon has been my best friend since the 9th grade, and thus a close friend of the family (calls my parents “Mom” and “Dad” etc).
2. He’s as gay as the day is long and we know how much the gay’s love their Madonna!
3. He works in the music industry, currently producing music videos (he’s such a bad ass he’s been nominated for a Grammy and a CMA!)
4. He’s just too FABULOUS not to take to a Madonna concert!

So when Brandon heard the news, he was able to grace me with his presence for 17 hours – to fly into town, go to the concert, hit the dance floor at our favorite gay club, get three hours of sleep on my couch and then hop on a plane for a 10am meeting with a music artist (no, I’m not going to name them).

But it was well worth it.

Now I must preface this by saying that I’m not a huge Madonna fan. I think her music is good, but I mostly admire her for her business savvy and determination. But after going to the concert I have a new reason to admire The Bitch – her body is a awe inspiring. The Bitch (which I now feel the need to call her since I’m crazy jealous of her body) is in her fifties and has zero body fat, sculpted muscles (but not too body builder-like), a teeny tiny waist, glowing skin, and not a wrinkle in sight. She is the ultimate aesthetic example of what determination and science can achieve. Hopefully by the time I’m her age, science will catch up and it won’t take so much determination, cause I can tell you right now – I don’t got it!

So while Brandon was slack jawed at her iconic presence and complicated production details of her show, I just kept staring at her thighs. Yes, I was a waste of such a good ticket, but looking around us, so were many of the people we were sitting with. Before the show, one particularly annoying girl in front of us kept loudly reciting how much she paid for her ticket ($4000). It didn’t take long for Brandon to turn to me in a loud voice and repeatedly say “Oh my god, I hate her.” Instead of Brandon getting into a cat fight with her and her Gucci handbag, I encouraged him to use his super powers by capturing her on film and use it in his next video diatribe about Stupid People. When Brandon asked her to repeat herself for his camera she was more than willing to bat her eyelashes, purse her lips and repeat her mantra in her oh so charming valley-girl accent. After wards, I looked at her and said in a foreboding voice, “You have no idea where that might end up one day.” Eying me wearily, she bouncily turned around and kept to herself the rest of the show. Ahhhhh, life would be so boring without Stupid People.

I took these pictures with my iPhone so the quality isn’t great. But you get the idea.

Instead of checking every five minutes to see if I’ve released any new wisdom onto the world, just enter your email address into the field on the right side of this page and you’ll receive an email telling you when I’ve made a new post.

I have added a new page to this blog called – you guessed it – Books.

Since I’m spending a good portion of my Hiatus reading, I thought it would be easier to have an entire page dedicated to the words I so lovingly stuff into my head.

Just click on the “Books” page in the navigation bar at the top of this page. Or, for those slackers who are reading this directly from their email client or RSS feed (and can’t be bothered to actually visit the site) just click here.

Peace Out.

Read the next post, Madonna – 2nd Row!

I feel like the ground hog on Ground Hog Day. Peeking my furry little head out to see if I want to join the world again or scurry back into my hole where it’s warm and cozy and devoid of irritating shadows.

I wanted to take a few months of absolutely NO expectations. No waking up at a decent hour, no making sure I had plans to keep me busy, no feeling bad about not writing in my blog, – absolutely nothing! And it was wonderful. Kind of like wiping the slate clean or rebooting my system.

So what did I “do” for the past two months? Short answer, not much. I read a lot. We got cable for the first time in three years, so I spent a lot of time re-familiarizing myself with the world of TV (more on that later!). I did a lot of cooking, a little entertaining, and shocked myself by actually exercising a decent amount. Some days I wouldn’t get out of my PJs and other times I’d be going non-stop all week with errands. Some times I wouldn’t leave the house for days at a time; I think my record was four days. I intentionally wanted to make myself get bored, and eventually it worked. Not to the degree I thought it would, I never got to the point where I hated it, but it worked in that I eventually said “enough!” and saying it on my terms was key, instead of running out of time and having to go back to work after a vacation.

Like many things in life I can equate this experience to Cheetos. I looooove Cheetos. Given the opportunity I would eat Cheetos for every meal, savoring that orange powdery goodness and processed-corn crunch. They were such a staple in my junior high lunch that I developed my patented Fork Method. Created as a response to my vanity over perfectly manicured nails, I refined a technique of using a plastic fork to eat my Cheetos, thus avoiding the tell-tale sign of Cheetos addiction – the orange fingernails. My Fork Method earned me a reputation for being somewhat eccentric, and standing out at that age is not necessarily a good thing, but I honestly didn’t care. Nothing was going to come between me and my Cheetos.

But as much as I never thought I’d say this, you can have too many Cheetos. As an adult living on my own, I was able to experiment with this theory. Allowing myself unregulated access to my cheesy fixation. Even going so far as to pour extra cheese powder into the bag, thus coating every nubby piece with maximum flavor (a guilty pleasure I’m still known to indulge in). At first, it was everything I thought it would be, a whirlwind of decadence and satisfaction. And then of course it lost it’s luster. Its just another example of that age old adage, you can have too much of a good thing, or what I like to call, The Cheetos Conjecture.

With that said, I truly believe that my threshold for good things is probably higher than average. And while I could take full responsibility, I blame genetics. For anyone who knows my mother, you understand what I’m talking about! And for those who don’t know my mother, I’m sure she’ll inspire many more future blog posts, so stay tuned!

(Love you Mom!)

Read the next post, Books, Books, Books.

It’s been over a month and I have yet to tire of locking myself away from the world for days at at time. Part of me is starting to feel guilty, guilty of what I’m not sure. Well… maybe guilty isn’t the right word for it. I think aberrant best describes this feeling… hell, I don’t know if there is a right word for it. If you think of one, let me know.

Having this level of solitude and idleness feel so good is very antithetical to what is considered normal; at least in my small bubble of humanity. Not doing anything or socializing with anyone for days at a time is not considered normal or “right” in most circles in this culture. I almost feel like I should seek out a monastery or ashram or something, not because I’m trying to find spiritual enlightenment, but in hopes of having all this quite solitude feel more acceptable. Maybe surrounding myself with people who don’t really do anything either will make this aberrant feeling go away. Or maybe I’ll just stop worrying about what’s considered normal and save myself the planning of having to sneak my ipod and Kindle into a monastery (lying to monks probably isn’t smart karmic planning, I can just see some old wise monk praising my silent meditations when really I’m listening to my David Sedaris audio book collection under my burlap hood).

What little time spent out of my home/oasis is usually spent in the loving endeavor of consuming calories or the bitter endeavor of burning them. Here are a few highlights:

• Tenacity - Throw out your notions of restaurants or chefs tastings. This experience is something of it’s own. Chef Randy Rucker has worked in many of Houston’s finest dinning establishments and is currently… well, “doing his own thing”, is the best way I can describe it. Basically, he plans an exciting menu, posts it on the internet, and if you’re lucky enough to know about it you sign up before all the slots are full. He then emails you the location of the event (when we went, it was at his personal home). You show up with your own booze and mingle with the other dozen or so guests. It’s like a small dinner party with people you’ve never met but who share a love of and appreciation for adventurous fine dinning. Everything is very casual and unpretentious, I suspect even walking in with a box wine wouldn’t get you booed off stage. You then proceed to have your eight or so courses served and explained by chef Randy. Our courses included some items I’d never had before because they were recently legalized  in the US (mangosteen), some combinations I’d never thought could be so good (white chocolate and miso sauce), and some old favorites made to taste like new favorites (fried oysters). Eat new stuff, meet new people. It was a blast and we’re going back soon!
• Houston Restaurant Week – This is an annual event where many of Houston’s top restaurants plan a set menu for a set price and part of the proceeds go to help end hunger. We took advantage (oh yeah, and helped hungry people) by having three course meals at Voice and 17 for only $35. Voice was fantastic and we’re going back. 17 was a big disappointment again (this was our second unsuccessful trip to 17), we will not be going back. You can read more details about our experiences if Husband ever finishes his part of the Houston dinning website we’re starting.
• Private swim training – I could write a whole separate entry about how much I hate gyms and one day I might. But until then, let me just say this,  I HATE GYMS! And until recently I had taken pride in the fact that I’d never belonged to one. But since I decided to give swimming laps a try as a form of burning off all the wonderful eating I’ve been doing, I pretty much had no choice. And since I signed up at 24 Hour Fitness I’m not under contract so I decided to give it a good two or three month try, and I figure if I’m going to try I might as well really try. So I purchased five 30 minute personal training sessions. I’ve only had two so far and I’m not impressed. Although I must admit that it was going to be very hard to impress me to begin with. I think my trainer got an inkling of this when he asked me why I wanted to try swimming and this was my response, “Because I’ve tried everything else and hated it, so once I try swimming I’ll be able to honestly say that I’ve tried everything and I hate all of it.” Yeah, I think he knew he had his work cut out for him. Poor schmuck. -Scratch that-Poor perfectly sculpted schmuck.

Read the next post The Cheetos Conjecture

Here’s a recap of my indolence:

• I hid away in total solitude at my parents’ Galveston beach house for a couple of days and let me just say, solitude is highly under-rated. While I understand not seeing or speaking to anyone for three days isn’t for everyone, it has, and always will be, the most delightful and inexpensive pseudo vacation for me. While some people pay thousands of dollars to wait in line for hours with sticky, screaming children in Disneyland; I just close the door, turn off the cell phone, and enter the enchanting world of Simoneland. In Simoneland, you never have to wait in line (unless you count waiting for the Chinese food delivery guy), the only sticky, screaming children are those in my nightmares, and every day is a Magical Day when when you don’t answer your phone. It’s not that I don’t like seeing or speaking to my loved ones, but sometimes it’s good to just stick your head in the sand and pretend the world has gone away. This may also be an effect of my narcissism, because who would an egocentric narcissist rather spend time with than herself?!
• I hosted two small dinner parities. Which forced me to clean my house top to bottom – and it has miraculously stayed that way despite all efforts by two obsessive compulsive cats, a psycho puppy, and a husband whose laundry system consists of a dirty pile, a clean pile, and the oh so scary in-between pile!?! (Explain to me how a thirty year old married man outside of college still has an in-between pile!)
• I went to the grocery store on a Wednesday morning. – Now, this may not sound noteworthy to most, but  it was the highlight of my week. Let me explain. For someone who has spent the last eight years having a short window of time on the weekends be her only chance for running errands, being able to go to the grocery store at 11am on a Wednesday was hard to wrap my brain around. I kept turning to Husband with this wide eyed look on my face, hitting him in arm (as if I were trying to wake myself up, but why cause myself pain) and saying “This is sooo cool!” The place was practically empty. Husband and I didn’t even have to implement our strategic grocery shopping survival procedure (where one of us guards and steers the cart while the other moves nimbly through the horde to hunt and gather food).
• Surprisingly, I’ve also been spending my time working out. I’ve been averaging about five days a week which is impressive for someone who loathes it so much I can’t come up with a suitable analogy for my level of hate. We’ll see how long it lasts. The one thing I’ve got going for me is that it’s slightly easier to work out after having spent eight hours with your butt parked on the couch watching TV rather than having spent eight hours with your butt in a chair, wearing high heels, answering inane questions and staring at a computer screen until your eyes are so red and dry you look stoned. I think the other reason I may be working out more is that I read the book Spark. Basically it talks about how exercising not only improves the body, but it also improves the brain. The only reason I exercise is because I’m vain about looking close to our current cultural ideal, and if someone can show me scientific evidence that exercising can also improve the other area I’m vain about (my intelligence) then by god, that just might be an argument that can overcome my deep seated hate of treadmills. But odds are this new positive reinforcer will be as short lived as as an all bacon diet.

Until my next moment of productivity, over and out.

Read the next post Guilty? Aberrant? What’s the right word?

Tuesday after work, several co-workers and friends meet me out for happy hour to celebrate my “retirement”. Six vodka tonics later, most of my cohorts are ho-humming about needing to get home, bla bla bla, need to get up for work tomorrow, yadda yadda yadda. It’s only somewhere in the vicinity of 9pm at this point and I call them all out for being pansies (although 9pm is normally my bed time) to which I am met with litany of slings in the field of “well, some of us have JOBS” (note to self, find more jobless friends).

One trooper agrees that the night is too young, and joins Husband and me at our humble abode for a celebratory bottle of vino. We open up a bottle I’ve been saving for a special occasion, kick off our shoes, and hunker down on the couch. The next thing I know, it’s 3am and we’ve gone from Special Occasion wine, to Grocery Store wine, to Something I Got for Free Somewhere wine. We’ve also managed to solve all the world’s problems by debating the finer points of:

1. Darwinian Evolution — It’s a well known fact that mostly stupid people are breeding. Therefore, when we’re President of the World, we’re going to make people get a license before they’re allowed to procreate. This license would require, at minimum a high school education or equivalent GED, a minimum of only one tooth loss due to decay, and the ability to have successfully operated at least two forms of birth control at some point in your life (prayer doesn’t count!). With these measures in place, we should be able to avoid a future resembling the first five minutes of the movie Idiocracy.
2. Global Garment Standardization — We’re sick of being different sizes, in different brands, on different days of the week, in different countries. Everyone just needs to get on the same fucking page! As President of the World, we will no longer feel like a cow because the size X suddenly doesn’t fit. Yes, we’re smart, worldly women, and we know that sizes are going to be different depending on what store or brand you’re trying on. But it doesn’t matter. There will always be that primal cave women instinct buried deep in our medulla oblongata that’s going, “Damn it! A saber tooth dress isn’t normally this snug. I bet the entire tribe can see my cottage cheese butt cheeks through it now. I really need to lay off the mammoth milk for while. I wonder if Fred noticed and just didn’t say anything. What a jerk. This is all his fault! ‘FRED! Get your hairy ass in here! DO I LOOK FAT?!’ “

By bottle number three, this President of the World thing is sounding pretty good. We also decree that Kettle Corn goes great with cheap Chardonnay, my dog is the smartest, cutest, squishiest dog on the planet, and Husband needs to open up another bottle of grape juice.

Husband can see the writing on the wall, and if our excessive drinking and plans for world domination go any further, he’s never going to get any sleep. Somehow he uses his magical sober-person powers to persuade Friend to go home and me to go to bed.

And I will forever blame him for this.

If he hadn’t made me go to bed, the room would have never started spinning, the toilet bowl would have never been filled with before mentioned wine and pop corn, and 7am dog barking would have never felt like a Guantanamo Bay torture technique.

I did not feel human again until 12 hours later. And I did not feel 100% until 48 hours later. It undoubtedly qualified as one of my top three hangovers of all time. Basically, I felt like Death took a shit on me. And who knew such a scrawny creature could produce something so potent?!

Good thing I didn’t have to go to work the next day! hehehe