this weekend was city stages’ 20th anniversary and while the line-up was quite impressive i quickly realized why i do not go every year. hot, sticky frat boys. and not hot as in “hawt”, rather hot as in “would you please get the hell off me, you’re ax body spray deodorant stopped working nine hours ago”. (more…)

with all this blogging i’m doing (read:none at all) i wanted to give a new look and feel for all four of you reading. i added a Currently Reading list on the sidebar and am working on listing my musical tastes. there are not a whole lot of code writers out there for wordpress and frankly it makes me sad. i’m sure sarah could whip up something awesome but i think her version would involve a “Currently Addicted To” and have a bunch of allan rickman/tudyk links.

also, i am looking for a calendar organizer. this position entails tearing off my daily far side calendar on my desk at home. compensation will be in the form of stinky kisses from three dogs and a plethora of shells and cheese.

any takers?

when we last left our heroine she was busy bitching about the greyhound group she belong to and its self-nominated (and much unwanted) leader. seriously, i have sat down to write about fifty different things but nothing comes of it. i’ll stop mid-post and think to myself “this is the dumbest piece of garbage that i have ever typed”. and then said post will end up in the draft pile awaiting it’s finish. sadly, there will be no finish.

this blog has become a thorn in my side. i don’t know how some people can sit down and post witty, interesting posts everyday. i can barely type out two sentances without throwing my hands up and saying “fuck this!”. my friends berate me on a regular basis (although lovingly) about posting. maybe i am uninspired. that is the result of being happy. i have nothing to bitch about ergo nothing fun and exciting to you to read.

i will be taking a leave of absense. i have no idea when or if i will return. but i do want to thank you (all 5 of you. hi mom!) for keeping up with me. this has been fun and i have enjoyed making friends and enemies. i’ve learned so much about myself and the world around me.

i hope to return very soon and not hating this.

love to you all!
liesl

i found this little gem on wikihow:

How To Dissuade Yourself From Becoming A Blogger:
1. Find five completely random blogs, and read them daily for a month. After thirty days, you will absolutely dread your self-imposed requirement to read all that dreck. Any blog you create will most likely be on par with what you’ve been reading. Don’t put anyone through that.
2. Consider that your voice, even if it is truly a good one, is a tiny peep against the massive wave of tripe out there. The odds of anyone you don’t already know finding your blog are low.
3. Write on a regular basis in Wordpad instead. If that doesn’t satisfy your urge, and you feel that you must post your blog online, then you might just be craving attention and validation–which you’ll never truly find in a blog. If you give up on your Wordpad journal after about three days, you’ll do the same with a blog that just takes up server space.
4. Ask yourself if you really have the time to commit to a blog. What about that treehouse you wanted to build? Or the book you wanted to write? Or the car you wanted to fix up? Or the restaurant you wanted to take your significant other to? Or the new career you wanted to pursue? Instead of writing about pretty much nothing, or whining about all the things you wish you were doing instead, start doing something that’d actually be worth writing about. And if it’s really worth writing about, you’ll be having too much fun doing it to tear yourself away from it.

apparently the person who wrote this was either a. seriously burned by a blogger on the internet and thusly wrote a seething How To on said internet, or b. attempted to write a blog but was disappointed with the lack of traffic which only confirmed his loser status.

photos from the Birmingham Blogger meeting are up. check them out. if you dare.

i enjoyed meeting all of you. especially dre, skillzy, matt, curtis, and chez who have probably read the inane shit i put on here but have never actually met my stupid ass.

this morning i was approached by a dear fellow blogger regarding a news story that ended up on the front page of The Birmingham News. this article was simply titled Hail To The Queen. go on and read it…i’ll wait right here.

the first thing to come to mind was “how fantastic! a birmingham blogger is being recognized nationally”. this excitement was only dashed by the realization that this article was written by a birmingham native, for birmingham natives to read. and the rub? the rub is that not another single birmingham blogger was mentioned. just this one lady. who happens to have been born and raised in mountain brook.
now i’m not one to be a conspiracy theorist but doesn’t it just seem too convenient that this woman, who has more money than jesus, just happens to have a story written about her little blog? don’t get me wrong, i find her stories funny and quite amusing. however, there are bloggers out there who are actually trying to make birmingham a better place to live. take dre for instance: here is a guy who has dedicated his entire website to informing the general public about cool happenings in birmingham. or wade, who as a former editor for the Post Herald keeps us completely in the know in the way of city council beatdowns and budgetary snafus.

in summation i’ve seen dog turds with better reason for a front page news story. do your research. don’t stop at just one person, because i can guarantee that there are four thousand people better than her.

i am a lurker. that is, i visit many websites during the course of the day and most of them i do not comment on. this is annoying and quite hypocritical as i expect people to leave comments on the random, inane shit i post. i have come to the conclusion that the reason i lurk are a.) i think what you wrote was crap, b.) i have no idea what you are talking about c.) you bore me to tears and gracing you with my commenting presence would be an abomination. really, “c” is a very rare case and if you really do bore me to tears then i stop reading your blog.

another very annoying habit i have is reading blogs to get writing ideas for my own blog. in college i think this would be called “plagiarism”. i don’t really steal other’s ideas, i simply read their post and pull things out that interest me. it’s like a displaced stream of consciousness.

there. i feel cleaner now.

oh, and i poked a badger with a spoon.

my glasses are in dire need of repair. i cannot tell you how many times i have stepped on them, the dog has chewed them, i’ve been punched in the face thus sending them flying across a crowded bar or have lost them only to find them sitting in between the paws of a cat who like really shiny things. because of all reasons i went on a mission to find the coolest pair of eye glasses evah!

yesterday i went to vic’s employ because she is the eye glasses queen. seriously, have you guys seen her glasses? no? well take my word for it, they’re cool. while browsing the limited selection that her company has i came upon my first celebrity moment and oh my gawd i was so giddy. apparently one of vic’s co-workers is an avid reader of yours truly and introduced herself. she admitted that she was more excited about meeting me than she was Rick Journey from Fox 6 News. oh my jesus on a stick! she also said that she is often disappointed when i don’t have anything new posted but i explained to her that it is hard being witty and charming and delectably adorable all the time. i mean, COME ON! she was so cool though and i just wanted to put her in my pocket and take her home so she could tell me all the time how funny and awesome i am.

when i got home i told kev about my “fan” and how awesome it was that someone other than family and other birmingham bloggers were reading my oh so exciting life. he just looked at me and laughed. thanks fucker. he’s just mad because he’ll never get to sleep with a celebrity again.

rush over at the outernet interviewed me last week for his website. oh how i feel so famous! here is the interview:

Okay, maybe she’s not as famous as my last interviewee, but she’s my friend and she’s punkrock, so I thought this time I’d interview elizabeth of Pretty Helmet.

RM : How are you this afternoon?

LF : Feeling well. The “insert animal name here” flu passed our house this year.

RM : Tell me a little about yourself.

LF : I am a 27 year old wannabe rock star. I’m married to my best friend and we have two dogs and three cats. It is a typical zoo at our house.

RM : Do you have anything special going on in your life right now?

LF : My husband and I just found a house and will be moving soon. Once you get married you realize that the “exciting” things in your life just aren’t what they used to be. I remember getting all giddy about going to rock shows and now it’s like hell yeah! We’re getting a new handle for the toilet.

RM : Are you currently involved in any artistic endeavors?

LF : My cousin (who is stationed in Italy) and I are in the process of making a website for our grandma. She’s all kick ass and spends most of her days on the golf course so it is only suitable that she have a blog. We’re just hoping she won’t post those naked pictures of us in the bathtub.

RM : What do you do for a living?

LF : I am in real estate managing one of the tallest buildings in downtown Birmingham. Its not as glamorous as say a hooker but a girl can dream.

RM : If you weren’t doing that, what would you want to be doing?

LF : Besides hooking? Probably graphic design. I went to school for Visual Communications but when I got out there was nothing in the field. I really didn’t have the ability to start my own business so I went into real estate.

RM : Do you have any hobbies that you really enjoy?

LF : I love my cameras like they are my children. In fact, if I had kids I’d be all “no little billy, you can’t have a cookie because mommy is cleaning her lomos”. I also love blogging. It is a very self absorbed hobby and i looooove talking about myself.

RM : Are there any artists you admire who do the same things you like to do?

LF : I admire my dad’s photography skills. While I was growing up he always had a camera attached to his face. I really didn’t know what he looked like until I was around 8 years old.

RM : Do you like children and do you want to have some any time?

LF : Kids are great as long as I can give them back. I would love to have children one day. It will be nice to screw up someone else’s life for a change.

RM : Do you have any big plans for the future you’d like to share?

LF : Other than being the best wife, friend, daughter that I can be, not really. I’ve given up on winning the Nobel Peace Prize and am now aspiring to win Best Bathroom Dancer.

RM : Can I borrow $10 until next payday?

LF : Yes, but there is a five thousand percent interest. Good luck, buster.

this is my obligatory new years post five days too late. why? you may ask. because, i’m a lazy sickly bitch who doesn’t want to do anything but curl up in her promethazine induced haze and watch Scrubs season two on dvd and lots and lots of law and order: criminal intent. so there.

i do, however want to share with you the highs and lows of 2005 that i experienced/learned from/won’t ever do again/would trade my dog to do all over. some things might make you laugh, some things might make you cry and some things might make you want to tackle me in a parking lot and drag me off to Bryce:

• re-discovered my love: yes, kev and i had trouble, most of you know this, however most of the trouble was me. i got scared and wanted to do what is so fucking natural to me and that is to bolt. was it not for the comforting arms of two of my favorite people on the planet, one shitty blues song played by an ex-hippie and the ambrosia of my life that is cheesey-bacon potatoes au gratin i probably would not have realized how childish i was being. i finally came to my senses, put my shit back together and worked my ass off to make my marriage work. i have always said i won’t get the “Wife Of The Year Award” but at this point i’ll be happy with the “Hey, Your Husband Worships The Ground You Walk On, You Stupid Witch, Get Your Shit Together Award”.
• lost: there is a time when you have to evaluate the people in your life. there is only so much that you can put up with until you decide “how is this person making me better? what do they bring to the table?”. for a couple of friends of mine, sadly i had to discontinue my relationships with them. it is not important who these people are or why i did it, the important thing is that i learned and respect myself much more having cut the ties with these people.
• & found: 2005 was filled to the brim with shitty friends but it was so much sweeter with the new friends i made. jennybean and i joke that even though her and kenn broke up she got kick ass friends like me and EJ out of it. if it wasn’t for jennybean i probably would not be as well adjusted as i am now. she has a unique way of telling you to get off your ass and do something about your life. also, she has an even more unique way of making you feel super-duper special even though you’ve just been fired from your job for the second time in six months by taking you to a bar and getting you drizunk.
  also, i met the coolest group of chicks since high school. dmoney, kelly, ashley, anita, amanda, randi and several others have made my hatred of the female species dwindle to almost nill. way to go girls!
• the sweetest thing: is the love of a houseful of animals. it is true that i will probably end up that crazy lady at the end of the block with all those dogs and cats, but who cares? if i can feed them, love them, and make them happy who am i to deny them? plus, its reeeeeeeeally awesome to have a big greyhound put her head on you chest and just sigh because she loves you so much. really it is.

there you have it. well, the most important stuff anyway.
i want to thank the following bloggers for making this all worthwhile:
rush - keeping it real in an uber geeky way. and for making an awesome “i don’t want to be at work” chat buddy.
ben - making me laugh and always showing up to blogger functions.
sarah - reminding me its okay to be smart, beautiful and extremely funny all in the same package. oh, and harry potter.
chris - giving me someone to make fun of for not staying out past 10:30 and just being the great guy you are.
vic - though you blog as rarely as a dormant herpes virus rears its ugly head i’m always interested in what you have to say especially when it comes to “the group” or noodle spiller. cause lets face it: he’s reeeeeally funny.
irish - see “vic”.
kenn - without you i would have never met kev and for that i am eternally grateful.
wade - your insights on the ‘ham have made me appreciate being a southern girl.
fatback - another reason to be happy to be southern, smart, snarky, sassy and sexy. gawd, look at all thos s’s.

happy new year everyone! love to you all!