Please make the bleeding stop.

Not since Gwen Stefani drove me bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S) in the summer of 2005 with Hollaback Girl has a song irritated and angered me as much as Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love.

Bleeding Love is following me. It is ubiquitous. I cannot escape it. Wednesday morning I got into my car to go to work. I turned on the radio only to be greeted with:

But I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you.
They try to pull me away but they don't know the truth.

I changed the radio station, stat. And heard:

My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing.
You cut me open.

I turned off the radio and drove the rest of the way to work in silence.

After work, I drove home. I took a chance and flipped on the radio only to be bombarded with:

Keep bleeding
I keep, keep bleeding love.
Keep bleeding, keep keep bleeding love.
You cut me open.

I turned the radio off. I was stressed.

Great, I thought. I can totally see this playing out at work. My brain started spinning, and strange, twisted little daydreams floated into my consciousness. I could see myself going to lockup to do an arraignment and meet with a client accused of stabbing his girlfriend. "It's not my fault," he'd say to me. "I was just doing what she always sang to me. She wanted to bleed love. Keep bleeding, keep keep bleeding. You cut me open and I keep bleeding, keep keep bleeding love."

Oy vey. Something seriously wasn't right. The song was seriously stressing me out. I needed to relax. So I decided to head straight to my 6:15 yoga class.

Once there, things began to look up. No Leona Lewis. Nothing driving me bananas. No scary daydreams. Just soft music, toning, and stretching.

Then: Headstand time. Not the easiest of enterprises, but something challenging and worthwhile. While I was inverted, eyes closed, trying not to tip over, my yoga instructor urged me, "Keep bleeding."

My heart nearly stopped. Still upside, down, I asked: "What?!"

"Keep breathing."

Even when it's not really there, the bleeding won't stop following me.

Dear Deity, please make the bleeding stop.

I R Sexy.

Yeah baby, yeah.

Things that annoy me.

In no particular order.

1. People who don't use the Shift Key.
What I mean by this, specifically, is people who refuse to start sentences with capital letters. I realize that schools are no longer concerned with proper grammar or syntax. Apparently, it hinders creativity. But folks, seriously, you're not e.e. cummings. Drop the charade and muster up enough effort to place you finger on the damn Shift Key. Capitals and periods. It's pretty basic.

2. Ayn Rand.
Please, Ms. Rand, hit me with your 12-foot-long symbolism stick again. I'm not sure I caught it the first time. Just in case I may have missed something, please add a 50-page self-indulgent soliloquy into an already overly-verbose tome. Kill. Me. Now. Put me out of my misery. Ayn Rand is dated, useless drivel. If you were in college in the '60s and dig her, I'll grant concession. But if you're a 20-something self-described geek, dork, or literature maven, grow up. You are the equivalent of a trenchcoat-wearing poet. And those went out of style in the '90s when we were still teenagers.

3. Jewel.
'Nuff said.

4. Legislation mandating DNA samples upon arrest.
I have a better idea. Why not have everyone give a sample at birth? Especially the men. After all, every male is a potential rapist, right? Right? Apparently, the presumption of innocence no longer applies, so taking people's biological material is a-ok if we can justify the intrusion with the good ol' public safety rationale. Long live the Patriot Act. Huzzah.

To be continued...

Hitched.

You heard it here first. I totally got hitched today. My newly-appointed husband was wholly inappropriate and tried to make me laugh during the civil ceremony. And speaking of inappropriate...

The Town Clerk not only awards marriage licenses, but doles out hunting licenses. They had posted a flyer with drawings of different birds. The husband may have been inappropriate during the ceremony, but I was the one who laughed at at the bird name "woodcock."

I'm such a child. Thus, I find it amusing that people depend on me to get them outta The Pokey.

On marriage and health costs.

I have Intracranial Hypertension. So no private insurance company will underwrite me and cover this condition.

Currently, I work on a contract basis for the state (which, I hope, shall someday change). The only practical meaning of this is that I have to pay quarterly estimated tax (no biggie) and I don't get health benefits (biggie). I should note that I accepted this position when I was able to get health coverage out-of-pocket for $125 a month; my diagnosis came about a month after I accepted the position. Would it have changed my mind? Maybe. But this is the state in which I want to work, and hell, they pay a lot better than where I was regardless of the benefits situation, even if I don't see the extra I'm making because of medical costs. Which brings me to...

My COBRA payments are a little under $500 per month. I'm also out of network, so I gotta shell out $80 or so every time I have to see the neuro-opthamologist. The MRI and spinal tap? Yeah, it would have cost me thousands without insurance, but given the rising prices of gas (and hence everything else), times are tough, and the extra $800 in medical costs I had weren't just laying around.

Chris just landed a full-time gig. With benefits. They have a domestic partnership bit for health insurance, except that we'd be paying tax on both the employee AND the employer contributions (I think it's a 20/80 split on benefits). More anti-gay sentiment. Disgusting.

His insurance kicks in May 1. My last COBRA payment goes in the mail this morning. And on Monday, we go to Town Hall and get married. Thirteen months early. My mom wasn't thrilled. I told her she should be happy we're not living in sin. The scary part? No blood tests, no waiting period. Thirty bucks and a photo ID will get any schmuck married, so long as he or she is getting married to an opposite-gendered individual. This schmuck is spending an extra $10 for a certified copy of the marriage license.

The real wedding is on May 9, 2009. You're all invited.

My fiance is handicapable.

My fiance cannot feel his feet.

This, of course, has been a bone of contention, because when he says he cannot feel his feet, what he means is that he cannot feel his feet in space. He can, however, feel pain and temperature. How do I know this? He once kicked me under the table while we were sitting at the diner. When I told him he had kicked me, he shrugged it off, saying, "I can't feel my feet."

I contemplated this statement for a moment and got a brilliant idea. "Excellent. Then at the next poker night, you should light them on fire. Or throw swords through 'em. Awesome party tricks."

He sighed, and responded: "I can feel pain, you know."

A lie! "So you can feel your feet," I said. And that's what happens when you date a trial lawyer. But I digress....

In addition to not feeling his feet (thus making him handicapable), Chris is also a recovering alcoholic. These two things are his two best qualities. And why?

(1) I always have a designated driver when I go out.

(2) Not only do I have a designated driver, but we get a parking spot up front.

I love that my fiance is handicapable.

What do airplanes, ropes and Arabs have in common?

What do airplanes, ropes and Arabs have in common?

According to Oleta Adams, they're all ways to "get here."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at these horrid lyrics. Each verse just gets progressively worse than the one before it. Seriously.

You can reach me by railway, you can reach me by Trailway.
You can reach me on an airplane, you can reach me with your mind.
You can reach me by caravan, cross the desert like an Arab man.
I don't care how you get here, just get here if you can.

You can reach me by sail boat, climb a tree and swing rope to rope.
Take a sled and slide down the slope, into these arms of mine.
You can jump on a speedy colt, cross the border in a blaze of hope.
I don't care how you gt here, just get here if you can.

You can windsurf into my life, take me up on a carpet ride.
You can make it in a big balloon, but you better make it soon.
You can reach me by caravan, cross the desert like an Arab man.
I don't care how you get here, just get here if you can.

Come up with a moral lesson and win a prize!

Spoiler alert: I'm ruining the end of tonight's episode of Moment of Truth.

The premise of this television show: Contestants answer a series of questions while attached to a lie detector test. Then they go on the show and answer the questions on network prime-time television. The more questions the contestant answers "correctly," the more money she wins. The contestant may change her answer from what she answered while strapped to the lie detector machine (which is so accurate that it's inadmissible in court). If the contestant lies, all money is lost.

On tonight's episode, Contestant Laura won $100k. She decided to try for $200k because she'd already destroyed herself and her marriage. She had admitted to stealing money from an employer. She admitted to taking off her wedding ring when she went out with the girls. She admitted to believing that her ex-boyfriend is the man she should have married. She admitted to cheating on her husband of two years.

And then the question. You know. THE question. The question where she lost it all.

"Do you think you're a good person?"

She answered yes.

The lie detector determined that was a lie.

Oh, how The Saucy Vixen laughed and laughed.

The moral of the story? Hmmmm.... whoever comes up with the best Moral of the Story wins a prize, Saucy Vixen style!

On writing comfortably.

When I was in law school, a professor told my Constitutional Law class that Justice Holmes wrote his opinions on a writing desk that had no place to sit down. Indeed, it was a standing-up writing desk. I always pictured a black-robed, old white guy standing behind a lectern, penning old-school opinions; short and sweet opinions, opining, among other things, that three generations of imbeciles are enough. The standing-up desk was the reason why Justice Holmes's opinions tended to be short: it's no fun pontificating for pages when you gotta do it standing up.

Similarly, I generally write my blog entries while sitting on the futon I got for college graduation. While I do sit down, the futon is still not a comfortable place to write from. Which is why I'm so excited that I just purchased a recliner from the local Goodwill. It's blue and matches the carpeting in my office/den. I spent my afternoon today filing old utilities bills and pay stubs (in a filing cabinet; yes, I'm just that anal), and rearranging the room to fit my handy-dandy new recliner.

And now I am prone in my recliner, listening to Cyndi Lauper, and typing comfortably away.

Given this new development, I can only hope it leads to better bigger and better blog entries.

Look at my freakishly large hands.

In this photo, my freakishly small hands look freakishly large.

But for those who asked, it shows the engagement ring.