But really, I know these things about me, and you should know I know.

0. I look like that —-> Snark-faced most of the time, even if it’s only in my head.

1. I laugh loudly – I’m trying really hard to tone down my laughs, but when an 8 year old boy (I’m looking at you, @lski) makes comments that I laugh loudly, I realized it was a problem. I don’t think I talk too loud, but when I find something funny, even 1/2-way funny, I belt out the cackles. I’ll do my very best to keep it down around NYC so as to not draw more attention to myself.

2. I snore – Sorry to my roomies @poobou and @3princessmama, but when you have tonsils the size of golf balls like mine, you tend to snore like a drunk trucker. I’ll wear Breathe Right strips. Speaking of those Breathe Right strips, they need to incorporate the blackhead pore cleaners into those things.

3. My boobs are not as big as they appear – I stuff my bra with air pockets. They make for some good cleavage, but without those puppies, my saggy puppies are just sad.

4. I feel alone in a group – I may be a social butterfly, but when there are 10+ people standing or sitting around in a conversation, I feel lost. It’s probably my anxiety creeping up making me think everyone hates me, so I’m trying to do better. So, if you see me start to fidget and my eyes glaze over, reach over and punch me in the stomach. There’s enough padding there so you won’t hurt your hand. Also, I get mini anxiety attacks when I’m not being heard.

5. I want to hug you – Yes, I’m a hugger. Yes, I may want to kiss you, too. I’ve been told I’m good at both. I want you to come talk to me. No, I’m not saying I’m going to NOT come up to you, but if you see me, and I don’t see you, you MUST come up and talk to me. Please. Unless I’m taking a poo. Then please pretend you don’t know who I am and wait until I’m out of the potty.

Now that you know these things about me, whether we meet in NYC or some other time, please commit all of these things to memory. There may be a quiz.

If you already know me, what else do people need to know about me that I haven’t fully explained.

Go on, share with the people.

©2010 A Whole Lot of Nothing. All Rights Reserved. Steal my stuff, I breakayourface.

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These are (some of) the people of my internets. They are gorgeous, smart, hilarious, friendly, loved, creative, and lovely.

These ladies will be at BlogHer ’10. It will be epic.

Mishi, Lotus, Piper all making out together.

My Piper is going through a tough time. Still.

I, along with my people, are doing what we can to support Piper.

PLEASE go see how you can help, too.

Donate $10 to help Piper and enter to win something fabulous. You know, like an iPod Touch, pretty pictures, a personalized stamper. Cool stuff from cool people. There’s always the chance that you could win the opportunity to paint Avitable’s nut sack (not yet on the list of prizes, but for the right price, I’m sure it could be).

©2010 A Whole Lot of Nothing. All Rights Reserved. Steal my stuff, I breakayourface.

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I’ve said a few times that I frucked up my knee trying to start the Couch to 5K running/walking program, and now I’ve found out I have to have an MRI done on it to see if I need surgery.

Yeah.

Exercise is stupid. And painful. And I miss it. I miss the 4 times I got to walk/exercise in the morning where I felt confident in myself and my ability to actually accomplish a goal that I set out to achieve. After the 4 times of getting up and sweaty, I actually felt a difference in myself. After being pretty much inactive for the last 15 years, starting this was my time to get back into my fighting weight and bust some fat ass.

What I’m learning now as I sit on the recliner for the 12th hour of the day as Patrick finishes the dishes from the last 2 days, is that I should have started even easier into the program. Even with it starting as easy as it could have started (90 sec walk, 60 sec run, repeat for 20 min), I should have taken it even easier by just walking for the first week. You know, cause people who get to be my size and my lack of movement need even more limitations.

*le sigh*

So that’s what has put me where I am now: on the recliner, knee propped, icing 20 min an hour unable to be the wife, mother, and housekeeper I need to be.

The official instructions from the doc: “Act like you’re lazy” which, hello? is something I’ve wished to hear for the last 33 years of my life. But when it comes down to the actuality of the situation and all that it means, it completely blows.

It sucks that I can’t push a vacuum to clean my floors.

It sucks that I can’t stand at my kitchen sink and load or unload the dishwasher.

It sucks that I can’t carry loads of laundry, move them, then fold them.

It sucks that I can’t make it to the grocery store to buy food then fix it for my family.

I never ever NEVER thought I’d think these things would suck. Ever. Never.

The absolute worst thing about injuring my knee: I won’t be able to travel to Anissa’s house next week to help her and her family.

It KILLS me. I am wrecked, gutted, flat out sad that I can’t follow through on my promise to help my friend.

I know there’s nothing more I could have done.

Except for take care of my self for the last 15 years. If I had done that, I’d be driving to Atlanta on Sunday.

Instead, I’m waiting to hear from the MRI scheduler to find out when I’ll go in to be photographed from the inside out.

It will cost my family hundreds of dollars.

If I have to have surgery (which, if I have to have the MRI, it’s pretty much a given that I’ll have to have surgery), it will cost my family even more money, and time, and frustrations, and canceled plans.

I can’t compare my injury to anything anyone else has had to go through, but I still have guilt over my part in what is happening to everyone around me.

Anissa and Peter are amazing. Forgiving. Understanding. Loving.

Patrick is beyond loving. Beyond caring. Beyond understanding. He’s been a single parent and housewife when he gets home after work. He’s amazing.

Thank you.

And now, while I sit on the internet 12+ hours a day as rest my bum knee, I need to learn how to make latkes, blintzes, and knishes.

shit … the tears again …

©2010 A Whole Lot of Nothing. All Rights Reserved. Steal my stuff, I breakayourface.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing, 2010. | Permalink | 19 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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That whore-mouthed hooker and I are pretty much BFF now even though she doesn’t own a DVR. Well, we were before the cruise, but having only started chatting with her over IM in the last few months, I wasn’t sure if she was MY BFF material. You never know. She could have been a major craycray and annoying in person.

Sure she seems all normalish/crazy online. Sure she cusses me out and calls me names over IM. Sure we’d professed our loves for one another having never met in actual real life.

But in person? Would she be clingy? Have a wandering eye I couldn’t get past? Talk incessantly about her awesomeness? Insult my ability to eat 2 chili hot dogs in under 4 minutes?

Thank Goddess she did none of these things.

She and I, we’re like peas and bologna. We just go together.

Because we had the most awesomesauce time on the cruise together, we’re going again.

And EVERYONE is invited.

Yes, everyone.

Unless I hate you. And if I hate you, you already know it, so don’t even be worrying if it’s you, cause if you’re worrying if it’s you I hate, it’s not you. You’d know it. You wouldn’t wonder. Cause really, there’s only like 4 people in the whole world that I hate.

Start thinking ahead to March 2011.

Start thinking about Port Canaveral, 30 minutes from Orlando.

Start thinking about a cruising buddy.

Start thinking about putting down a measly $100 deposit for your place on the boat.

Start thinking about childcare (cause really, I don’t hate to say it, but we don’t really want your kids on our cruise. not even yours. not even mine. and i know for sure becky doesn’t want hers near her on the boat.)

Start thinking about cruising with me and Your Aunt Becky for less than the cost of any Blog/Social Media/New Media Conference to Learn New Stuffs to Make My Blawg Even Better Than Dooce’s Meetup.

Start thinking about matching t-shirts! and laying in the sun! and margaritas! and no kids! and feeling up Becky! and never-ending free room service!

Seriously.

More details will come when we quit yammering about Dexter, Glee, and whiney husbands children. Details will be here and on her blog sooner than later. I promise, you will have time to plan.

Aunt Becky’s Family Reunion.

Yes.

You’re coming.

Aren’t you?

At least thinking about it?

Say yes.

©2010 A Whole Lot of Nothing. All Rights Reserved. Steal my stuff, I breakayourface.

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He just made up for all of those yeas of weird-ass thoughtful gifts.

Yesterday for Mother’s Day, he surprised me with a brand new Nikon D5000 DSLR.

I KNOW.

I KNOW!

Like, he saved, researched, and put on his very own credit card, a fancy pants camera just for me that he’ll never lay a hand on.

*thud*

Being the mad woman I am, I took over 250 pictures yesterday.

I share with you the best with a few nuggets of Awesome at the end.

Anna reading

Claire & her daddy

The beauty, Claire

Anna jumping

Faiqa‘s tiny  man baby son, Yusef, showing me what’s what

Avitable diving into a tube, thus scarring all the children for life.

©2010 A Whole Lot of Nothing. All Rights Reserved. Steal my stuff, I breakayourface.

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The drama that lives in the little box is the same drama that lives in the houses in which they live.

same same

Something different, however, is the vast variety of people I’ve found here amongst the masses of lovelies. There really truly are bunches and loads of amazing people out in the world.

I know. I’ve met them.

I call them my friends.

I’m lucky enough to say this with so much conviction and honesty: Piper of Love is one of the dearest, most beautiful people I’ve ever met.

Truly.

She’s drop-dead gorgeous. She used to be a fatty like me, but she took control, lost weight, and is now (not that she wasn’t before) one of the great beauties of the world. I do not lie.

She has two beautiful boys from a rocky past relationship, and she’s been through hell finding the right job.

She’s dated a few mens, and if I weren’t married and if she was gay, I’d woo her to be my lady.

Several months ago (I think almost a year), she met an amazing man. He woo’d her. He made her laugh. He loved her boys.

He asked her to marry him.

Doves flew!
Bells rang!
Angels cried!

Truly, the internet collectively sighed in happiness for Piper.

The date: 10.10.10

Pretty AWESOME if you ask me.

Until last week.

He broke Piper’s heart.

He broke her boys’ hearts.

He broke my heart.

He broke her friend’s hearts.

He ended their fairytale romance with one phone call.

Since that day, her friends have rallied together to create a circle of love for Piper. We’ve emailed back and forth for days (though, I kind of think Piper would want to be included, but then, how could it be a surprise?) coming up with ways we could love on her from afar.

I think we’ve done a pretty damn good job of putting out our love and support energies to her. She’ll be receiving loves in her mailbox for weeks.

I hope she can feel it.

I hope she knows she is truly loved by me, by us.
With #2000MonkeyHumps we are Picking Up Piper #PuP.

Amy – Dooblevay
Diane – Momo Fali
Heather – Soft Skies
Jenny Grace – Miss Disgrace
Melisa – Suburban Scrawl
Melissa – Rock and Drool
Mishi – Secret Agent Mama
Miss – Just One Miss
Nic – Red Lotus Mama
Rachel – A Southern Fairytale
Sarah – Sarahndipitea
Tara – If Mom Says OK
Weaselmomma – World of Weasels

Photo courtesy: the fabulous Mishi
Video courtesy: the gorgeous Rachel & all of us

©2010 A Whole Lot of Nothing. All Rights Reserved. Steal my stuff, I breakayourface.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing, 2010. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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don’t leave!

OK, so I believe in aspects of The Secret.

I also believe in karma, meditation, following your own spirituality, and living positively with the help of medications.

I believe in putting out to the world what you want if you want it to come back to you.

Kind of like a figurative boomerang.

I believe that what you put in your body makes you a better-functioning human bean being. It’s too bad my willpower doesn’t abide by that belief, because really, look at me. bygones

When I find myself in a sour mood, I take a break, center myself, and pull out my happy happy. Or, take some Klonopin. When Patrick is on his period in a bad mood, I pull out all the stops to make him laugh, near to the point of annoyance.

I do not surround myself with negative people.

In both my online and offline lives, I have let people go out of my life who put out negative energy that was infecting my environment. I’ve found that I’ve not done it purposefully, but I do it subconsciously.

I sometimes later find out that those people ended up hurting others, destroying friendships.

I’ve learned that if I have a bad feeling about someone, I need to trust that instinct and keep a distance until and if that feeling proves to be wrong.

I don’t think that feeling has ever been wrong.

Lately, I’ve put out to the world that I do not lie.

I am not a person who lies.

I am a person who gives.

I am a person who puts out the LOLs.

I am a person who will succeed.

I am a girl who loves chocolate.

(This is the part where The Secret sends me a caseload of said chocolate.)

©2010 A Whole Lot of Nothing. All Rights Reserved. Steal my stuff, I breakayourface.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing, 2010. | Permalink | 39 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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You should be nodding in agreement because everything I do is in a good way, right?

I’m a little whiny because I’m a lot little jealous of other people’s talents cause I kind of don’t have any.

Unless you call being a professional eater and general slouch a talent, which, hello? it totally should be.

I want to be able to create incredible arts for stationery like this from Hello! Lucky:

_________  _________  _________

I want to be crafty like Brooke Hellewell Reynolds and her blog Inchmark:
(to her credit and mine, she used to work for Martha Stewart, so everyone should be jealous of her skillz)

_________  _________  _________

I want to have the insight and writing skills of Amy Turn Sharp, who I have met and am completely awe-inspired of (and I completely grammatically massacred that sentence).

“We have found this other place.
We have carved out rooms of our own here.
We are like tiny explorers of an expedition that is laying much of the groundwork for those who are coming next.
We are here now and this brave new world has saved me.
I have dipped myself in this river of expression and technology and I have found my place.
I am able to type these words across white space…” …read the rest…

_________  _________  _________

I want this hot bitch’s balls courage. I also wanna rub all up on my internet girlfriend’s sexy back:

_________  _________  _________

I want to have the politeness of Mandy who, I’m sure, really wanted to rail on trolls in general, and who didn’t just post this for the link bait:

“by blogging here, i am inviting you into my “home”. before you come over, i spruce it up a bit, hang pretty pictures for you to look at and open my door for you with a wide smile and open arms. if you enter, sit down and stay a while, you know, peruse the whole house and then tell me i’m ugly and dumb and my home sucks, then you’re gonna get the hell out of my house.” …read more…

_________  _________  _________

So, yeah, I’m jealous in a good way.

Now, I’m off to stuff my face hole with hot dogs and a glass of water.

Now I’m jealous of the two old-school bottles of Coke my husband drank in front of me but I’m still on the wagon so eff him.

©2010 A Whole Lot of Nothing. All Rights Reserved. Steal my stuff, I breakayourface.

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I committed to being a friend and being there for my friends in their time of need.

Not everyone can keep their friend commitments. I, even, have fallen in my commitments to people. To friends, to family, to former students, to my children.

I may not be committed to working out on a daily basis, but this time, I’m committed.

Committed to be a life-long friend to my friends.

My friends Heather and Anissa have suffered losses beyond what I can comprehend.

Today is the one year mark of Heather’s daughter, Maddie’s, death.

Incomprehensible.

Heather has told me that she wants to talk about Maddie. She wants to know people remember her sweet baby. Even though I never met Maddie, I have met her mama, and having met, laughed with, danced with, gossiped with, sat in silence with her mom, I know Maddie was a force in this universe. The day she passed, her energy did not continue. It changed.

It changed into a force for her mama to wrangle on the internet and throughout the world. Heather now has the opportunity to share the story of her daughter’s life to raise awareness for preemie babies and their families with Friends of Maddie and the March of Dimes.

It is not the opportunity she ever wished upon herself, nor anyone to wish it upon anyone else. But in the wake of her tragedy, Heather has helped so many other people in their time of tragedy.

I have not forgotten. I have committed to helping my friend, Heather.

I am committed to Anissa.

After Anissa’s strokes and while she was in a coma, I read a post about loss and the commitment to helping in the long term. I’ve thought about the post almost daily by Supa Dupa Fresh, a young widow who knows about surviving tragedy. Please read her post if you haven’t already.

I am committed to my friends. My family.

I will be at Anissa’s home for a week in June, committed to helping her and her family.

I will continue to talk about Maddie and donate to Friends of Maddie and the March of Dimes.

Will you?

©2010 A Whole Lot of Nothing. All Rights Reserved. Steal my stuff, I breakayourface.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing, 2010. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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But that’s not what this post is about.

so sorry. next time…

I’ve been around these parts since way back in 1994 when my 14.4 screeched its way onto AOL. I’ve been in social media since 2005 when MySpace was cool. I’ve been a worker since 2006 when I opened my store.

I’ve been finding my family since 2007 when I started my blog, came on to Twitter, Plurk, Cre8Buzz, Facebook, IM, Skype, etc.

Yes, there is drama in family.

Just ask my sister who can throw out an insult faster than I can get off my ass to smack her in the head.

Same as with my blood family, in my extended family (YOU GUYS), there is also drama.

But there is also love.

TRUE love.

I saw that this weekend when I was beyond BEYOND welcomed into Mishi‘s house and into her family. She opened her house to my family, rearranged furniture, cleaned bathrooms, vacuumed, cooked, baked (her daughter’s birthday cake was for me, I know it).

Mishi is my first internet friend. One of my BEST internet friends. She is my family.

She and I, we’re like gouda & crackers. We couldn’t have found one another without this here internet.

And then there’s Anissa.

THE Anissa.

The Anissa who forced the entire internet to come together to help her after she suffered 2 strokes in November.

I finally got to hug-up on her in person.

She is a force. She is strong. She is hilarious.

If you thought Anissa was funny pre-stroke, you should hear her now post-stroke with NO FILTER.

If she thinks it, she says it.

Anissa without an “appropriateness filter” makes for serious snort-laughing.

And totally not the pity-laughing.

Example:
“One of the good things about having a stroke: I don’t have to play Mouse Trap anymore. ‘Sorry kids, I had a stroke’ (as she held up her right arm -which, hilariously, they have named, Sheila- with her left hand).”

Real effing laughter.

Anissa is my family.

Without the internet and social media and “working” endless hours on my lappy and dealing with menial drama, I would not have Anissa and Mishi.

Yes, I do live much of my life online. Yes, I am proud to say that.

My life online has grown my family and my cold, black heart.

©2010 A Whole Lot of Nothing. All Rights Reserved. Steal my stuff, I breakayourface.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing, 2010. | Permalink | 43 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anissa, Family, Friends, mishi

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