Boston, Chicago, Colorado, L.A., San Diego, Texas, Washington State, North Carolina, all over Canada, Saratoga Springs, New York City, the UK, China, Indonesia, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Baltimore, Pennsylvania, Jersey, Cleveland, Detroit, Vegas, Egypt, New England, South Dakota… the list goes on and on.

The list of people that I adore, that is… and the glaring fact that they are so very, very too far away from me.

These people that I interact with almost every day, they get engaged. They have birthdays (tomorrow!) and bring home new puppies and get knocked up and they do it all. without. me!

Now, look. I completely recognize that DC is a *unique* crew in that A) there are a lot of us and B) we hang out more often than any strange group of people who met each other off the internet rightfully should… and sure, it’s always a good time. We do it right. (Like we will this Friday.)

But every time we do, I feel like a few dozen (hundred) people are missing.

It’s 2000 TEN, after all! How do we not have teleportation yet?! (Because you know it’s #1 use would be to bring bloggers together…)

So yes, Internet, I am hereby dubbing you A Tease. You e-introduce me to all these great people from all over, and then never let me tenderly hold them in my arms and stroke their hair give them a bear hug when they graduate from college? When they stand up to their bosses and demand to be placed in D.C. (yes I’m biased)? When Lady Gaga almost steals their boyfriends?

I call bullshit, Interwebs.

Bull.

Shit.

Mama said share.

SO, I know I said I was going to hold off on the “Post Secret Style” TMI Thursdays for a while, but I’ve received a bunch this week and they’re burning a hole in my e-pocket. They must be shared!

I need just a few more for a full set, so let me encourage you to send one in… I know you have more dirty underwear secrets you want to share with our little bloggy community.

Oh-so-simple instructions:

“You can use the top secret anonymous email account to send it in (Gmail, username tmithursday, password tmit1234), and send them to me at heylivitluvit at gmail dot com. I suggest the free photo editing website Fotoflexer to make it super duper easy.” (Click here for past examples if you have no idea what I’m talking about.)

Go! Do it! The power of Chuck Norris compels you!

images via the lovely google

Hell in a handbasket, my friends.

Mama said share.

We all know how this game goes… basically, whenever my friends get so offensive it shocks even me, I save it in my cute little “Shiz” gmail folder to share with you at a later date, entirely at their expense.

Love it.

Past “Shiz My Friends Say” here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lexa was less than thrilled when she saw this picture of me from my Costa Rica album… and it wasn’t because of my massive sunburn.

New comment on your post

Author : lemmonex

Comment:  Please tell me you did not PET those mongrels. 

I responded by chat…

Me: there were multiple times we were sitting at dinner and i had feral cats SNUGGLED in my lap
Lexa: OMG
Me: hahaha
Lexa: i am sorry but that is really gross
Me: i know
Lexa: no hugs for you
Me: i washed my hands!
Lexa: those scabies burrow
Me: i’ll let you know if it starts itching
Lexa: gross
Me: they wanted pets!
  who am i to deny them pets!
Lexa: uh huh
  when all your hair starts falling out
  and you start frothing at the vagina
  those pets will not be cute
Me: FROTHING AT THE VAGINA
  hahahahahahaha
Lexa: ha
   thats for shiz your friends say material there
Me: oh i already flagged it

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You should know that my friends Katie and brad have a good-sized mutt that everyone in their “up and coming” DC neighborhood refers to as a “WOLF DOG!!!” whenever they take him for a walk.

Me: okay 
  you will appreciate this 
  i was just walking through my hood
Katie: uh huh
Me: girl sitting outside at a coffee shop has a huge dog with her 
  boxer or something
  the halfway house is next door 
  one of the guys leans over the fence 
  and yells at her
  “i thought they outlawed ponies in this neighborhood!!!!”
Katie: HAHAHAHA!
  that absolutely beats wolfdog
Me: i mean he was being playful 
  but i just died 
  and all I could think was WOLF DOG
Katie: hahaha
   i get it EVERY time we walk
  either directly or i can hear it being whispered
Me: hahaha
Katie: where are all these people seeing actual wolf dogs???
  we live in DC
  i should just start saying yes
  and that he hunts babies at night for his dinner
Me: hahaha please do

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I spent a lovely Saturday morning catching up on my guilty pleasure TV…

Me: OMG
Maxie: what???
Me: THE MAYOR IS A CHILD MOLESTER
Maxie: who the dc mayor?
Me: THE KIDS IN THE BUS WERE ON HIS LITTLE LEAGUE TEAM
  no
  veronica mars
  duh
Maxie: OH HAHAHA
  for a second i was concerned that you cared about politics
  it was rocking my world and not in a good way
Me: hahahahahhaha

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Lexa told me about the St. Bernard her family had growing up…

Lexa: the st bernard was actually a good dog
Me: they’re so sweet looking
  big teddy bears
Lexa: right
  she was actually very gentle
  only dog we ever had that i fucking liked
Me: hahahaha
Lexa: best part
  i dont know if i told you this
  my mom has a big RAINBOW STICKER on our car
  for the dog
  ie
  my mom drove us around in a big gay car
  in small town RI
Me: hahahahahahahhahahaahaha
  in the 90s
  before it was cool to be gay
Lexa: right
  my mom was a visionary
  i call her the harvey milk of north smithfield
Me: hahahaha!
  thank god she’s better looking

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Life is good when you surround yourself with entertaining people.

Happy Monday Wednesday!!! Hooray short week!

Mama said share.

Update: Looking for the results? Check em out!

A few weeks ago, you may recall that I held a giveaway for a bottle of Firefly Sweet Tea vodka in return for some sweet ass Halloween costume ideas. And, that I said a lil somethin’ somethin’ was in the works to hopefully make that a recurring thing here on the ole blog.

Well, it turns out that, after some consideration, it was just a little too illegal for Firefly to jump on board with. Hey, I get it. We can’t all be such rebels.

So imagine my surprise when, last week, an enormous box stamped with their logo showed up at my apartment. B and I tore into it like children on Christmas morning to find a plethora of pitchers, swizzle sticks, cups, stickers, and T SHIRTS galore.

And that is where you come in, my friends. I have two dude shirts and three cute girly “ringer” tees to send your way (click for pics), so that five lucky boys and girls may proudly boast their love for the Southern nectar of the gods, in style.

I’m like the Willy (Wilma?) Wonka of vodka up in here.

ANYHOO, so now the only question is, what you gotta do to win one?

All right, lessee. I was looking through the Post Secrets and thought about how a lot of them are kind of like 2 second TMI Thursdays. And THEN I was thinking about how a lot of you always say you’d love to write one, but blah blah your mother in law/grandfather/principal reads your blog, and you’re just not quite comfortable putting that shiz out there, yanno, with your e-name on it and all.

SO. How cool would it be if you guys maybe made one? A quickie TMI picture with a caption, I mean? For example, look at this Post Secret from yesterday…

Perfection, right? TMI in seven tiny little words. Or 1,007, if you’re counting the pickle. (NOTE: It can be whatever you want, however many words. I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s a picture that tells your TMI nugget you want to share. There are NO RULES.)

So, all you need to do to be entered is create your own little TMI picture. You can draw it, e-draw it, steal it from Google, I don’t care! If you don’t use photoshop or Power Point, the website Fotoflexer is free and works just as well- you can add text on the site, and then just save it to your computer. If you don’t want to get fancy with text editing, you can just email me the picture and the caption you want, and I’ll do it for you.

Now, as for the anonymity question. If you send it to me from your email, I promise it is super top secret and confidential and I’ll never tell a soul. After all, I’ve shared plenty in the blog’s lifetime to make us even, doncha think?

BUT if you’re truly digging deep for this TMI and you don’t want even me to know who it is, you can log in to a gmail I created just for this purpose and email it to me from there.

Log in at Gmail with the username: tmithursday

Password: tmit1234

And just email it to me, top secretly, at my email:

heylivitluvit at gmail dot com.

The first five submissions I get will win the T shirts! (Second Note: But I will post ALL of the submissions, anonymously, of course.) So if you send it to me from the anonymous gmail account, make sure to attach a pen name or something so I can ask you all to email me once I get the winners, who will be notified on Thursday morning as the TMI pictures go up!

And, yes, I will have a couple in there myself… you’ll have to guess which ones.

You’ve got til midnight-ish tomorrow (Wednesday), so send ‘em in now!!!

GO!

Mama said share.

I can’t tell you how many times I looked around at the people surrounding me this weekend and thought, “I am the luckiest person in the whole world.”

And I meant it.

Pictures and videos to come, (coughcough hint to everyone who hasn’t sent me theirs yet) but for right now, I just want to say thanks.

Thanks to everyone who traveled, thanks to B for being a helluva sport, thanks to my lovely wife Maxie for being her awesome self, thanks to everyone who helped keep me sane, thanks to everyone who let someone crash on their couch…

Thanks to everyone for making this weekend so unbelievably perfect that I can’t imagine it being even an iota better than it already was, in any way.

I’ll see you all next year for pbandtuna 2010.

Xoxo,

LiLu

P.S. For risk of leaving someone out, please enter yourself in the Mr. Linky below if you were there on Saturday, so everyone knows how awesome you are for coming out. SMOOCHES!!!

Mama said share.

So, my darling Kim from A Perfectly Cursed Life tagged me in a meme. In general, I kind of hate memes (but love you, Kim!) so I basically never do them, but I saw potential in this one. Look at me being all willy-nilly changing my mind and shit whenever I want (I AM NOT A ROBOT!!!),

Here we go… (oh, also? I changed pretty much everything from five to four. Cause I’m lazy. And I can. WIN.)

Four people I hope are eaten by a rabid pack of Velociraptors – a type of dinosaur that should not to be confused with chiropractors unless they also happen to have cannibalistic tendencies:

• The guy from work I irrationally hate and wish would be sporked to death, even though he’s never been anything but nice to me.
• Anyone who uses the word “whom”, correctly or otherwise.
• People who use Disqus for their comments and automatically subscribe you to all follow up comments. (I still love you, jenniferalaine, BUT A LITTLE BIT LESS.) (Just kidding. You’re too damn cute to stay mad at.)
• Blogs with auto-music. We’ve talked about this. NOT OKAY.

Four drinks I love:

• Chocolate milk with a curly straw and bubbles.
• Cafe Rica from Costa Rica… if only we’d brought back 4,000 bottles instead of three last year.
• Houston’s spinach dip (it totally counts if I pick up the bowl and drink from it, right?)
• Anything while celebrating- it just tastes better. Plus, someone probably just got out jail, so, yanno… that’s awesome.

Four favourite quotes:

• “Cuz this life is too short to live it just for you
  But when you feel so powerless
  What are you gonna do
  So say what you want” ~Nelly Furtado
• “FRICK!!!” Elliot, and me
• “I got my purple shoes on!!!” ~Me, cavy, Maxie, and Lex
• “I don’t believe in marriage. No, I really don’t. Let me be clear about that. I think at worst it’s a hostile political act, a way for small-minded men to keep women in the house and out of the way, wrapped up in the guise of tradition and conservative religious nonsense. At best, it’s a happy delusion – these two people who truly love each other and have no idea how truly miserable they’re about to make each other. But, but, when two people know that, and they decide with eyes wide open to face each other and get married anyway, then I don’t think it’s conservative or delusional. I think it’s radical and courageous and very romantic. To Diego and Frida.” ~Tina Modotti, Frida

Five things to do before I die:

• Drink something liquid without spilling it on myself.
• Meet a real live hooker and tell her that I respect her so much that I’ve been using the word “hooker” as a term of endearment for years (I’m pretty sure we’ll bond over that).
• Never ever watch the movies Dancing With Wolves or The English Patient, because I get a kick out of people’s reactions when I tell them.
• Find out what it was that Meatloaf wouldn’t do.
• Have a drink with every awesome blogger in the universe.

Four bloggers I am stalking *ahem* have a crush on (and therefore are tagged to also complete this meme): (this is other than the usual suspects, who I of course want to e-motorboat until the cows come home. And even after then, but that’s rude and we wouldn’t do it in front of the cows.)

• Jenn from Ex Hot Girl
• Liz from It’s Unbeweavable
• Jill Pilgrim from The Pilgrim Congress
• Amy from Just a Titch
• My dear Moog from Mental Poo

Five famous women I’d also like to do naughty things to:

• Salma Hayek five times. I’m a one woman kind of girl. Also, with those tit-ays, who could ever need anything more??
• Okay, well, if I was going to cheat on Salma (WHICH I WOULD NEVER EVER DO)… Joan from Mad Men. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Woot! There we have it, folks. I DID A GODDAMN MEME. Are you happy now!?

Ahem. Also, teeny bit of housekeeping. I mentioned last week that I’ve started taking sponsorship from a few people and places that I love (hi, Tonic!), so I just wanted to give a shout out to the following lovely, lovely ladies…

• Jess of Jess LC  makes some of the classiest and coolest handmade jewelry to come out of the Windy City. B, are you listening? I’m sure I have a birthday/anniversary/”please screw up so you can buy my this” coming up…
• It’s Fall, y’all, and you know that means CUTE ACCESSORIES FTW. Retro Repro Handmade makes some of the most adoramable hats I’ve ever seen. Keep those ears warm…
• Finally, if you’re looking for something with a little more edge, dryan327 of Purple Toes Jewelry makes all sorts of vintage charms, pendants, lockets & steampunk. (Kbo, I think you especially might LURVE this stuff.)

So check them out!

Aaaaaaaaaaand finally, I’ve received some kickass awards recently and I’m usually a total asshat about thanking people, so I’m gonna try and win back some karma right here…

Big money no whammies big money no whammies GO!!!

Mucho thanks and a big, wet, sloppy e-kiss to: Little Ms Blogger, Nikolett, Daffy, Miss Nobody, JM, Big Mama Cass, Taylor, Crit, Jeff, Little Ms Blogger again (love your face!), and Sarah – The New Girl. If I missed you, we can have a Slap Bet and you get one free slap to my face as hard as you can, to be used any time for the rest of eternity. Or, just let me know and I will fix it immediately and, a bonus to you, feel absolutely terrible about it.

Happy Tuesday, aka ten days to my birthday! But who’s counting…

(ALL OF YOU.)

Mama said share.

Hey y’all, it’s 20SB Blog Swap Day! Which means you can read me over at Liz’s place, where I regale you with a tale of B’s and my sex life. So, yeah, it’s just like any other day, except you have to CLICK HERE to read my funny. And don’t forget to read Liz’s below! Thanks for being my special buddy, chica! (Don’t worry, she’ll still be callling y’all hookers, so it’s kind of like I never left.)

Mama said share.

I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but I’m a little bit of a dork.

No no, really! I know it seems farfetched, and I come across as super suave and insurmountably cool ALL THE TIME, but I’m actually not!

My name is LiLu, and I am a dork.

Hi, LiLu!

I’m a lovable dork… but a dork nonetheless. And I? Am totally okay with that.

I haven’t always been this way. There was a time when I was the most popular girl in school. So what if it was fourth grade? I OWNED that elementary school. I could do no wrong. I had the hand-holding privileges to any ten year old boy that I wanted, the girls wore what I wore and said what I said, and the teachers were wrapped around my adorable little finger. Life was good.

Then suddenly, it was the first day of fifth grade… in MIDDLE SCHOOL. Suddenly, my banana pants didn’t seem so cool. That orange and purple vest I sewed myself with my gramma wasn’t doing me any favors. I quickly tried to conform to the requisite BUM Equipment oversized t-shirts with my hot pink stirrup pants tucked into my tube socks, but the damage was done. I was relegated to the “middle of the pack”, the nobodies, the (perhaps blessedly) invisibles.

My hair was curly and unmanageable, and the rubber bands on my braces gave me a slight lisp. Between my bony knees and elbows, I had more corners going on than an octagon. Still, I did all right. I had a good core group of friends, but unfortunately, tween depression took ahold of me, as it does so many young girls waiting for puberty to hit… and I began to push them away. “But are you SURE you want to be my friend?” I’d ask. “You’re only my friend because you feel bad for me. You don’t have to be, I’ll be okay,” I’d say, over and over, until finally my friends who HAD been real couldn’t handle me anymore. I’d lock myself in closets, I’d go missing just to see if anyone would notice. It was pathetic.

I had a complex of the worst order; I could not, for the life of me, figure out what made me special. All of my friends were funny, or smart, or witty, or had a trampoline. They had passions and identifying characteristics, whereas I was nothing. I wasn’t funny. I was smart, but I wasn’t a genius. I wanted, above all else, to be INTERESTING. To be someone people wanted to be around. To be adored.

In high school, I finally got my head (somewhat) out of my ass. I became “edgy” and peripheral. The kids I hung out with were older and sketchy, albeit harmless. Life was a rollercoaster, but I thrived on the drama, as 18 year old girls are wont to do.

After a bust freshman year of college, I was starving for change. I picked up and transferred to North Carolina… and was COMPLETELY lost again. Through years of restaurant jobs, I discovered the worst and most fascinating parts of myself. I cultivated the dark and twisted corners of my personality. A damn Yankee in the dirty South, I thrived on pushing people’s buttons, and ‘crossing the line’. Working in bars, I found a group of comrades who taught me about worlds where said ‘lines’ didn’t exist; where sarcasm literally couldn’t go too far. The name of the game was to Try and Shock Each Other, and it didn’t happen very often.

I now know why I was so afraid to leave bartending, to leave restaurants all together. Sure, the money was nice, but it wasn’t the reason I stayed for so long, pulling 60 hour weeks just to keep a foot in Bartending World.

It was because of the complete and utter acceptance one finds behind the scenes in a restaurant. Because there, you can say ANYTHING, and your coworkers not only won’t judge you, they’ll most likely agree with you… hell, they’ll one-up you. It is a land where no joke is too fucked, where stereotypes are truth, where the sick and twisted are revered.

Restaurants cultivated the Me that I love. The Me who isn’t embarrassed or ashamed of anything I do or say. The Me who believes that I am worth something, that I am funny, that I am sexy, that I am interesting. This Me was completely accepted by the network of people around me, and THAT is what I was so afraid of losing.

But you know what? I haven’t missed it. Not for one second. And I finally figured out why.

Because THIS world, the blogosphere, has offered me that same feeling, that same attitude and camaraderie that I was so sure I would miss. In our corners of the interwebs, I have found a network of people who are just as deliciously twisted as I am; who let me be my dorky and ridiculous self… and love it.

And to steal a phrase from Colin Firth a la Bridget Jones, I love you too…

Just as you are.

Mama said share.

First of all, can I just comment on the fact that John Stewart’s moment of zen last night was, ever so aptly, Bush’s plane flying off into the far, far distance? WOOT.

Ahem.

Also, before I go any further, I would also like to announce that tomorrow’s TMI Thursday will be brought to you by a very, VERY special guest blogger. (No, I’m not just getting lazy. It’s GOOD, and in light of last week’s, very appropriate…)

Sunday night, Katertot of Who Invented Roses, Restaurant Refugee and I were lucky enough to host the smashingly successful Bloggerational Ball. Seriously, to everyone who made it out on one of the District’s craziest weekends of all time… can’t thank you enough, and SO GLAD that you did. It was such an honor to meet every single one of you- there were a ton of people I’ve never met before, which was so freaking cool- and we definitely need to do it again soon.

I was fortunate enough to have the lovely Fearless in Toronto staying with me for the long weekend, and we promptly popped the champagne when she and Refugee arrived at the abode at, oh, 1400 hours. Moments thereafter I was informed that while the delightful 16 Paws had made it to DC all the way from Illinois… her bag had not. Her dress, her shoes, her womanly supplies… the airline had no idea where they were, nor when they would turn up.

She was instructed to come over immediately. Thankfully we are the same size, and though the items weren’t her own, we suitably fashioned for her the Little Black Dress, the Killer Heels, and a bathroom full of Womanly Supplies. (That sounds like a bad name for a feminine product, no? Trust, I mean like… a curling iron and some mascara. As far as YOU know.)

Though it was the Sunday before Inauguration, we managed to quickly snag the ever-fashionable Minivan Cab and rolled up to the Reef in style.

Mama said share.

So, LA Cocharan’s weekend post has inspired me to discuss a topic that’s been on my mind for, well, actually, for years.

Don’t get excited. Put your pants back on, at least. It ain’t that big a deal.

Here’s the thing, though. Everyone, at some point in their life, hears: “Oh my god, has anyone ever told you how much you look like X, Y or Z famous celebrity?!?!?!?!?”

Yeah. The thing about that, though, is that when someone says it, they’re generally referring to some incredibly hot celebrity with 4,000 make-up artists who looks like, you know, a MOVIE STAR every goddamn day. So basically, when someone says, “Oh, you totally look like xxxxx!!!” what I hear is, “You totally look like a way less hot version of xxxxx!”

Which, you know, is probably still some kind of ass backwards compliment. But let’s be honest. It’s still a shot to the left nut, no matter how you look at it.

Here’s a list of the celebs I’ve been told I somehow resemble over the past few years…

A young Kelly Lebrock.

Nope. Trust me, not even a little bit. She is flawless and lovely. I am, um, NOT. Next!

Erica Durance, from Smallville when it first came on…

I mean, holy jeebus, I would do naughty things to this girl. And I LOVE the cawk. She is beautiful. I do not, I repeat, I do NOT, look like this woman.

And finally, I’ve heard this one a million times, and it breaks my heart every time…

Natalie Portman.

Listen, you arseholes. I do not even BEGIN to do Natalie Portman justice. She is breathtaking. She is talented beyond belief. She is GAW-JUS. I am dog poop next to her. Especially after her performance in Léon, aka The Professional, one of my favorite movies of all time.

So, asshats, STOP telling people they “remind” you of someone who is famous for being attractive. It only hurts, you jagoffs, because what you are basically saying is, “Wow, you kinda look like this person, except they’re WAY hotter than you!” ENOUGH, jerkfaces. Enough.

Um. Yeah. Also… Happy Monday! Love yous!

Mama said share.