Hello Monday

Things I'm too lazy to do right now:

1. Go to the bathroom

2. Eat Lunch

3. Scratch that itch on my elbow

4. Pay bills

Why Koala Mama, WHY?!?!

Skip to 1:03





This ruined Koalas for me, so I guess I had to ruin them for you too.

Remember...........

If you were born in the 80s... these will make you feel nostalgic

Nnekay Goes to A Chocolate Festival

My boyfriend has one of those giant command center type office chairs perched at his giant command center desk. It black, has arm rests, and a wonderful padded high back. Not to mention it spins. Something you would expect some high executive to make power phone calls from. Or at least a super villain to recline in while petting the obligatory white poofy cat. Instead, the poor command chair is desecrated almost every Saturday morning as I flop my chonie covered butt in it to spin around, and fiddle on the internet.

During one of these occasions I stumbled upon one of those in vogue internet coupons for a Chocolate Festival. Normally, I usually scoff at the "saving" these coupons provide- oooo 2000 bucks for a island getaway. But this was a CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL.

ahem... CHOCOLATE.

I personally am not the biggest fan of chocolate, but when attached to FESTIVAL. My heart lights up. I imagine pin wheels of chocolate, chocolate dance parties, chocolate bumper cars, basically a chocolate-y good time of fun-o-rama. Not to mention my boyfriend shares my passion for sweets with a higher attention to chocolate than I do. So I declared we would go to said chocolate festival.

There were no chocolate dance parties, no chocolate bumper cars.... just pushy old ladies. Pushy old ladies demanding samples, in those annoying hot pink Drugstore reading glasses- cause you know they're so 'fun' and 'wacky'.

Sigh.

It was still a chocolate-y good time, though! The BF and I bounced from table to table sampling all the variety of random chocolates from all the various chocolatiers the Bay Area has to offer. Grunting hardly intelligible things to each other like: "yea I liked that one," "ew what was that?" and more often than not "I don't even know, anymore..."

The venders looked miserable.... peddling their wares for the massed of wacky bespectacled festival goers, us, and the random freaks that pop up at things like this (hmmm chocolate festival, I think I'll pull out my best Casual Leather Daddy Look for this event). Of course, there were the venders with some sort of cutesy shtick that almost out shined their chocolate. As we passed one table The BF, turned to me and said, "I didn't know the Four Non-Blondes made chocolate" I turned to my right and there standing behind a red velvet booth, was a elfish man with dreadlocks grassing his butthole, top hat, and goggles. His booth partner completed the look with a fur lined vest, guy-liner, and frosted tips. We decided not to try their gypsy carnival candy.

After about 40 minutes, I didn't have a clue what the hell I was tasting. It was definitely worth it, but I have no idea how Cathy does it.

Late night cute

Those Wacky Victorians...

There are various reasons why I dislike the turn of the century.

1. Freak Shows
2. Street Urchins/ dirty children (unless they are singing about Newspapers in a Disney movie)
3. Tuberculous
4. Coat Tails
5. Metal Wind Up Toys

I could go on and on to prove my point, but there is simply too much to define this creepy era. I know, all you Steampunks are screaming, "Screw you, Nnekay!!!" Well ya'll are creepy, too! With your fake bionic arms and top hats!

As a librarian, I of course, come across a bunch of weird old books. Today a pamphlet promoting good grammar flopped on my desk. What is so freaky-deaky about a book on proper punctuation? Well, dear readers let me demonstrate how being published in the late 1800s can make just about anything weirdly morbid.
This is the cover of the horror nightmare. A man made out of punctuations? Mr. Stops?! Give me a real author you creepy manifesto!

That... is Mr. Stops?! Stops, Mr. Stops! Leave us alone! Why does he have he one hand? OMG A DAGGER! Why would a man made out of commas need a dagger? Who is that lady-baby dressed like a soccer mom? So confused. So scared.

We get it... you don't like Napoleon- but putting political satire in a children book is weird. I'm looking at you Lewis Carrol...
Wanna start a complex? I got idea, let's portray the question mark (or interrogative point) as a leery hunch back dude asking inappropriate questions. Noooo that wont mess a kid up in the head at all.
Are those supposed to be boobies? And why is that guy so sad?!


So apparently this old time-y punctuation means, "watch where you're going!" which is what that lady is trying to say to Mr. Grabby McBoob hands. Sexual harassment jokes in a punctuation book is toootally fine for children.

Opium is a helluva drug.

I Can't Think of A Title For This Post

I don't understand the whole phenomena of calling your dude friend who happens to enjoy relationships with other men one of your "gays". Why am I'm one of the few who get irked by this... or at least vocally irked. Yeeeaaah, people say it's used in a silly, whatever way- and maybe I'm being a PC tight ass, but it sure does sound like extreme marginalization, with a light dash of creepy ownership.

Even huge LGBT activists have been know to use this term (Kathy Griffin, I'm looking at you). It makes it seem like gay dudes are just there to be collected like magical elf men who will give you a fab hair style and pick out a fierce outfit. Which can happen, but it can also not happen. I know plenty of gay people who suck at styling, and I know plenty of straight people who have a knack for it. Yet, the way the media portrays it, one would think that fashion expertise is a direct side effect from having man on man relations. By sectioning off your friends with such a wide stroke title, implies you view them differently then your other friends... which is... kinda homophobic.

I'm lucky enough to have friends across all gender, race, and sexual preference lines... but to me they're all the same... cause they're my friends plain and simple.

Thumb twiddler

I've just spent the last couple hours dicking around on the internet.

If this were 1982, would I have managed to put away my laundry instead of leaving neatly piled land bombs of t-shirts and chonies around my room? Or would I have ended up playing Atari...

If this were 1975, would I have washed my dishes, dried them, and place them in my olive green cabinet? Or would I have been distracted by some Donna Summer's record?

If this were 1947, would I have ironed my a-line skirt, and hung my stocking out to dry? Or perhaps, would I have been tempted by procrastination in the form radio surfing?

If this were 1835, would I have milked the cow, or prefer to waste my time playing with dirt (I dunno, times were rough...)

I like to believe procrastination has stayed the same, we've just found fancier ways to do it.

Progress?

My friend and awesome thinker Stephanie shared this with me:

Nnekay Goes to Kaiser

A few days ago I went to the hospital.

Not in a OMGYOUAREDYING sort of way, more like a "crap, I need to check this weirdness out".

Last week, I started getting pains under my left eyeball. I thought it was nothing, but during a dramatic after work ramble of exhaustion to my roommate, Heather, I flamboyantly mentioned the pains of my eyeball while theatrically covering it with my right hand. I expected her to calmly shrug off my pleas like she normally does to my insanities, but instead she looked tensely at me, and suggested that I at the least call a nurse for advice. Not expecting this reaction, I became a little more worried than dramatic and dialed the advice nurse. After 30 minutes of smooth jazz I found myself trying to explain my problems... which out loud sounded SO. LAME.

Me: um... under my left eye... it hurts.
Nurse: is it red?
Me: no.
Nurse: does it hurt when you move your eye around?
Me: yea... uhh... no.
Nurse: are there bumps on or around your eye?
Me: ew...no.
Nurse: is your sight tinted with red?
Me: no.
Nurse: swollen?
Me: no.
Nurse: Discharge?
Me: no.
Nurse: Vision worse?
Me: no.
Nurse: Yea, you should probably come in and see a doctor.
Me: What?!

She explained that eye pain around the muscle could be bad, so the next morning I made an appointment to have some random doctor poke around my face.

Kaiser is a large looming type of multi-building complex in the middle of Downtown Oakland. When I was circling the parking lot the large colored numbers representing each floor brought back floods of memories from when I was a sickly clumsy child. I had a folder the size of an dictionary due to my frequent falls and gangly limbs that were prone to breakage. As an adult, I suddenly realized how expensive I was as child.

When I initially called to schedule my appointment the receptionist who clearly hated life and all humanity, delicately placed the fear of God in me, when explaining that I could not be late:

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT BEING LATE, WE WILL GIVE YOUR APPOINTMENT TO SOMEONE ELSE AGHHHH!

As a result I was 45 minutes early.

Sitting in the waiting room, I thought to myself, "this will be fine- you brought a book and you have your fancy new iphone."

Twenty minutes into checking my Facebook News Feed for the 50th time, a mother and her two sons showed up. One kid was probably 11 or 12, still kinda dopey kid style, but starting to get that teenage grossness about him. The other was a bald little warrior of a three year old. He had on a rad sweatsuit and a wild flair in his eyes. The mother exhausted tried to wrangle the warrior, but he being the brute that he was, freed himself and went running wildly around a group of chairs. He kicked, screamed, jumped, swatted, and finally a full battle cry complete with two arms fisted into the air. Just looking at this kid my eye throbbed. He didn't stop for a full 20 minutes. Until the doctor, a mild mannered man with a gold pinkie ring emblazoned with peace signs poked his head out, looked directly at me and said, "I think... I'm looking for you." I sighed for once in my life I would love it if I actually got to experience a doctor or nurse come into the waiting room and say "Nnekay FitzClarke, please" instead of the:

"err... um... fitz...clarke...ah...um..."

I followed the gentleman into his exam room which was filled with so many gadgets I half expected a beaker with bubbling green fluid tucked in somewhere. I sat down on in the clinical exam chair, and after some mild chuckles he placed my face in a vice sort of thing and began to poke around my eyeballs with a long q-tip... oh excuse me cotton swab.

This started the water works.

As he poked around, my eyes began to pee all over my face- I kept apologizing,

"I'm so sorry... I dunno why my eyes are doing this... I'm so sorry.. oh my god... I'm so sorry."

Which I now believe is possibly one of the lowest moments of my adult life.

He paused and muttered, "Ooooo, I see some swollen glands chuckle chuckle chuckle. Let me get a squeeze. This might hurt."

It hurt like a bitch, which cause real tears... I guess... my eyes were a constant stream as soon as he started harassing them with that damn q-tip. "Yes," he continued to mutter, "There seems to be a waxy toothpaste-y type substance coming from your glands... you have an infection."

Yes, dear reader like you... I almost barfed.

He gave me a prescription for some meds and I fled, leaving Mr. Stabby and his pinkie ring behind.

The waiting room for drugs was drab... even though it was filled with windows. After going up to the counter a woman with a spiderwebby hairline informed me that it would be a 30 minute wait. She was definitely trying to convince me to leave, but I was tired and my eyes were pointing in different directions, so I figured a 30 minute wait would do me well.

Five minutes later my name was called.

I sighed and went to grab the small bottle. As I was walking away, some young baby of a man decided it would be an appropriate time to approach me... perhaps to invite me out to an elegant dinner,

"EH!! Lil' Miss, EHH! Lemme talk at ya for a minute."

I have to say, I've been approached in some random spots, but a hospital pharmacy has got to be the worst. I mean I could be picking up swabs for the exploding sores on my ass... we're all here cause something is wrong with us... call me picky but I probably wouldn't be looking for a future bedroom companion at this joint. So I continued on, he wasn't even worth the "I HAVE A MAN." defense.

As I descended down the spiraling stair case to freedom, I heard a faint, "shit, you ain't gotta be so rude..."

I laughed as I entered the warm sunlight.