Strainer on head, corn-chip baths, and new pants

Future me popped up today.

I really hate it when she does this.

Standing there with what looks like a strainer woven with pipe cleaners on her head, she puts her hands on her hips and clears her throat until I acknowledge her presence.

As if I’m not busy enough sorting out current self.  I’m expected to entertain future Ryan just because she falls in love with a mad-scientist sometime around 2019 and steals his time machine after she finds him in bed with her tailor?

Sigh.

She never has anything positive to say.  Just a whole lotta judgement about what 29 year old Zilla is doing with her life.  Well you know what?  We can’t all be mad-scientist muses.  It’s a select group lady, and clearly; I’m not there yet.

The first time she showed up she was 84 year old me.  She got all offended that I couldn’t recognize her.  Also, she smelled like Fritos so it’s good to know that they serve those in whichever asylum becomes my home in 2064.

Today was 53 year old Ryan.  Rocking stilettos and massive jewellery.  I couldn’t get her to tell me how she came to own such lovely possessions, which was annoying.  She smelled good though, so the descent into bathing in corn-chips clearly doesn’t happen until much, much later.

She told me to keep writing and to be more responsible.  I raised my eyebrow at her on the latter point, but she pretended like she didn’t notice.

No one wearing kitchen supplies as a helmet has the right to lecture me on responsibility.

She wouldn’t tell me winning lottery numbers (claims she wouldn’t remember them even if she tried-of all things, I find this most believable).  She wouldn’t tell me if she has children or if they drive her crazy.  Though the long sigh and nod of exhaustion indicate a daughter capable of my own antics in my future.

She laughs menacingly when I ask her how many times she’s been married.

Which of course I find comforting.

The only thing she’ll tell me is to keep writing.

Seems to have done her some good.  Her sense of humor still dominates her personality.  She deleted the first draft of this post.  Her expression while doing so indicated she thought that was downright hysterical and thus merited a victory dance.

53 year old Ryan dances no better than her younger version.

Then she popped out of the air while giggling.  The last I heard was a shout that sounded like:

‘stock up on tight pants in 2011.  You’re gonna need them!!”

So it’s really not my fault that I went shopping this afternoon.

Was just taking the advice of someone older, wiser, and more sophisticated.

I’m pretty sure that’s a universal law.  Just like gravity and (evidently down the road) time travel.

So that’s why I have new pants.

Who can blame me?

Bulldog+salami=gasmask

Indy has spent the majority of the morning trying to bite her own ass.

I blame the salami she managed to inhale in the two seconds it fell on the kitchen floor this morning.

Evidently, salami + Indy = flatulence.

I’ve been catching up on the blogs I read, and every few minutes I hear what sounds like a whoopie cushion, followed by a bark, and then a tasmanian-devil masquerading as my dog scurries across the floor in circles, trying to bite her own butt.  She is under the impression it is under attack.

Since it is distracting, I have attempted the following two methods to rid her of the gas so that I can continue about my day in relatively clean air:

1.  I tried squeezing her from either side.  This resulted in a pathetic glance and snort, followed by a long yawn.

2.  I tried squeezing her head backwards into her body, like an accordion.  This was in the hopes that all air would be pushed back and out.  Result: Slobbery hand.  Well that and she sat in the corner with her back to me for about five minutes, glancing over her shoulder every so often to make sure I noted her disapproval of my fart-free tactics.  She remained in that position until of course, she loudly tooted again.

So now she’s back to running around in circles, in what has got to be the most effort anything French has ever put up against an attack.

Seriously.

Freedom Fries my ass.

Well, her ass-as the case may be.

Who I am

I’m Ryan, some people call me Ry.  You can if you want to, if not-I have also been known to respond to Ryzilla, Zilla, Buttface, Menace, and Blondie.

I once spent a year referring to my brother as Mutant.  I now call him kid-Ginger.  He features in the blog sometimes.

I haven’t had a real address in two years.  I’ve been traveling and writing.  I am in love with Paris and I haven’t lived in the US since 2006.

I have an obsession with sandwiches.  Seriously.  Making them is an art form, and I’m all about it.  If you serve me a dry sandwich, I really don’t know if our friendship will survive.

I write stories about my life, but I try to keep love and dating out of it unless it just happens to be something so ridiculous I feel like sharing.

I was never a cheerleader because I have the coordination of an ox and lack the proper motivation for flipping around in a skirt with a bunch of girls who would kill me in their sleep if given the chance.

I was definitely a drama geek.  I’ve been known to dress up in costumes for no reason, and have an ability to convince others to join the festivities.  Nothing screams good-time like wandering a public park dressed as a giant foam condiment (ketchup, mustard, or mayo-foreign options also up for discussion).

People who bite their silverware should be shot.

That was a hoot.  Glad we talked.

Zilla’s life-plan

Garlic bread crumbs cover my shirt, my dog is asleep on my legs, and there’s a near-empty box of ibuprofen on the coffee table.  I’ve been contemplating making popcorn for the past hour, and so far today I’ve gone through two buckets of green tea and a considerable amount of chocolate chip cookies.  If procrastination of life-planning was an art, I’d have lost an ear by now.

So must get started.  Must tie on cape, inflate muscles, slap this curvy figure into a spandex super-hero costume, and figure out what to do with my life.  Here I go…

(insert blank stare, sigh, nose crinkle, sip of coffee, spill coffee on the part of cape hanging over shoulders, yawn, another sigh-and now we’ve returned to the blank stare)

Did I mention that my super-hero costume has spikes down the back?

Cause it does.

Maybe I should wear it to job interviews.  Talk about making a first impression, those folks won’t know what hit em.  It kind of reminds me of the inflatable dinosaur I used to keep in my car in high-school.  Except that was Spike, and he was red.  The costume is slightly different, because of course-it is Ryzilla.  Not a dino, but a distant cousin.  Who doesn’t want to hire the distant cousin of a dinosaur?

Course first I gotta figure out what jobs to apply for…..

Focus Zilla, focus.

(stifle yawn, tiny growl, shift dog off legs onto couch, sit up straight, one firm nod of the head-and presto-focused face on)

Well I have a double Bachelors degree and two Masters degrees so that should help-not as much as the costume, but good as a foundation of my qualifications.  A foundation of awesomeness, if you will.

Plus I like to write, take pictures AND make movies.  Insert the basement of my split-level home of qualifications.

Now how to get up the stairs….

(popcorn urge taking over, requiring giant glass of water, butter stains appearing on costume, eating faster as contemplation increases, brow-furrowed, feeling bloated, can’t stop-too tasty,  share some kernels with dog, get up to wash hands, return to computer, ready for it to reveal answers)

Computer screen still as blank as before….

Well, at least I’ve got the costume.

Any employment ideas for the well-educated, artistic, mildly-delusional distant-cousin of a dinosaur?

All suggestions to be taken into account.

The first of many T tales

My high school fire alarm once went off when my friend T and I were in the bathroom putting on fat-suits.  To clarify, fat-suit here means neon spandex unitards stuffed with pillows, topped off with side-ponytails, excessive amounts of make-up, and running shoes.

It was not a look we were particularly excited to share with the rest of the school.  Especially with the portion of the school populated by hot guys.

Nevertheless, there we stood in the bathroom (pillows down the suits over our asses and bellies-smaller pillows for tits), horrified to realize we were about to stand outside with everyone we went to school with, looking like two fat German women prepping for an aerobics course.

I’m not discriminating against the Germans here, so before anyone gets too excited, let me just state:  we were dressed up as fat German women doing aerobics because we had written a skit for our German class in which we depicted two schnitzel loving, bratwurst-gobbling women in need of a work-out.

The alarm went off, the school filed outside, and we had no time or choice but to follow suit.  In addition, it was hot outside so between the pillows, the spandex, the 80’s porn-hair, and the blushing-I’m pretty sure she and I have never looked hotter.

No wonder neither of us married anyone from high school.  Next time I’m in public and a fire-alarm goes off, I’d like to be in Victoria’s Secret after a strict six-month gym regime.  And I’d like the mall to be full of everyone who had to see me looking like an idiot that day oh so long ago.

Sigh.

Knowing my luck, the next time a fire-alarm going off has any impact on me at all, I’ll be attempting to convince myself in a TopShop dressing room that spandex really has come back in style.

gangster tour

My brother and I once got a midnight tour of Old San Juan from a Puerto Rican gangster.  He took a liking to us in a hole-in-the-wall bar off the beaten tourist track.  We probably should have noticed his status in the community by the way that the locals reacted to him as he sauntered into the dirty place and hung up his fedora.  However, in our typical sibling tradition-one of us had fallen for the bartender so we were well into shameless flirting and receiving free cocktails.  Hence-we were the two whitest, tipsiest patrons of the establishment.  I blame my bro; for it was he who had fallen for the woman who kept refilling our drinks after his red-headed brain told him ridiculous tipping was a fantastic idea.  But I digress, back to the gangster.

He walked in and a seat opened next to us as the previous tenant instantly vacated the stool in order to please our future tour guide.  My brother, well into his mode of mingling with locals, instantly patted him on the back and asked him how he was doing.  It was clear this guy was not used to such blatant idiocy flaunted in his face.  However, something about our moronic grins and chatty nature appealed to him, and soon the man was ordering rounds of shots and asking us about our travels.

Let’s call him Slick, shall we?  He was donning a fantastically tailored suit, full with suspenders, a cigar, and of course-the fedora.  So for the purpose of my story, lets agree that Slick is an appropriate title.

It just so happened that our parents had sent us out that evening in search of good tips for a traditional local restaurant for my fathers birthday.  They wanted something genuine, not too touristy, and of course-delicious.  When I mentioned this to Slick, his eyes instantly lit up.  Three shots of tequila were ordered, and Slick moved between my brother and I, arms over both of us, cigar dangling-and said:

‘why it just so happens I own the oldest restaurant in town’

Several cocktails and a headache later, my brother and I returned to the hotel.  We had been promised full-treatment for the whole family the next evening, and Slick went above and beyond in delivering his word.

The hostess was awaiting us at eight the next evening, with a special room prepared.  My parents were treated amazingly, with little stories about each of the dishes and the history of the restaurant.  After dinner, kid-ginger and I were invited out to drinks back at the same bar from the previous evening.  Two hours later, we returned to the now closed restaurant where my brother was given full reigns of the bar, and I watched in amazement as Slick pulled out a book that looked like it belonged on a pirate ship.  Inside it were the autographs of hundreds of celebrities, some of them old-glamour Hollywood who had frequented the establishment.

Slick handed us each a pen, had us sign it (which we both found insane as clearly we are all-but celebrity material), and then announced that if we wanted to see the real Old San Juan, he was the best tour-guide in town.

So it was that we walked until the sun came up through the cobblestone streets.  Slick pointed out various sites, and even got us into the front lawn a government residency after a small word with the police guards in front of it.  There were amazing gardens inside, and he insisted we wander through them.  Everywhere he took us, people moved aside for Slick.  We received drinks, stories, and a tremendous amount of laughter before the night was through.  Naturally, we applauded ourselves as we stumbled back to the hotel on the joys of mingling with the locals when traveling.

It was one of the greatest travel nights I’ve ever had.  Just goes to show what a smile, a bit of ignorance, and a gangster can get you in Puerto Rico.