Well, I give you permission to give them a sneak peek into a typical week in the real world, and how it sometimes is the total opposite of awesome.

Sunday
- Use garbage disposal for its intended purpose.
- Watch sink back up and disperse clog to parts unknown.
- Spend majority of evening plunging sink. Fail to fix.

Monday
- Get up early to fix sink. Fail.
- Drive to work. Discover car has a flat tire.
- Have work project completely blow up (deadline is shortened but information needed to complete project is AWOL).
- Receive phone call from mechanic saying tire is not repairable.
- Pay $250 for two new tires.

Tuesday
- Get up early to use newly purchased drain auger to fix sink. Fail.
- Get call from vet about ancient kitty’s weekend test results. Need to bring still-angry kitty back for further testing.
- Pay plumber $280 to spend nearly three hours cabling drain line before finally clearing out clog.
- Due to extended plumber visit, eat dinner at 9 p.m., like New Yorkers. (Only, as husband points out, “Most New Yorkers probably don’t have to get up at 4 a.m. to go to work.”)

Wednesday
- Give work client email ultimatum: Send needed information or deadline won’t be met. Get ignored.
- Find out running route assumed to be 3.1 miles is actually only 2.8 miles, making running time officially pathetic.

Thursday
- Drop off grudge-holding kitty at vet for additional test.
- Accompany city assessor around house, presumably so she can lower property value to the point it needs a minus sign in front of it.
- Work from home. Get last-minute request that completely derails other last-minute request.
- Pick up demise-plotting cat from vet with instructions to redo all testing in six months ($250).
- Squeeze massive amounts of productivity in between 3,047 interruptions.
- Go to dentist. (Sadly, this will be the highlight of the week.)

Friday
- Completely erase all memories of week using a combination of pet therapy, cribbage, and grilled meats.

I don’t know if I want to continue writing here. It started out as a fun little hobby where I vented about everything and anything (and I mean anything), but now I’m in a place in my life where things are really good. And nobody wants to read about things being really good. It’s human nature. Besides, I write for 8 hours a day at work and the last thing I want to do once I’m home is go on the computer. (I have my Kindle to snuggle with, anyway.)

It’s not like I still don’t have things to write/complain about, because I do (like how nearly $1,000 floated out of our bank account in the span of 48 hours when Jason’s vehicle needed repairs and we needed a brand-new garage door opener after our existing one startled me out of my morning meandering by dying a bandsaw-sounding death after opening 1/8 of the way).

And it’s not that I no longer have deep thoughts to share; I do (very rarely, I assure you). It’s just that I want to experience these thoughts as they are: fluttering, beautiful butterflies to be enjoyed. I don’t have the desire to chase them around with a net to be pinned unceremoniously to this blog.

I’m not quite sure what my point is anymore. Just thinking out loud, I guess. If I had the inclination, I’d shut off comments because I’m not looking for people to tell me to keep writing (or, on the contrary, to do everyone a favor and STOP writing).

So.

It’s not due to it fitting terribly either. Believe me, I have plenty of too-tight pants or too-short shirts that jump at the opportunity to slide raucously across the xylophone of my self-esteem, thank you. This sweater fits fine. It just…affects my mood negatively.

That sounds crazy, right? I mean, I buy into the whole thought process of certain clothing making you feel great about yourself, so why can’t I entertain the idea of clothing doing the opposite?

For example, whenever I wear my favorite dress with my red shoes, I feel fantastic. I get compliments, which make me feel even more fantastic, which further fuels this happy cycle of looking great and feeling great. (In fact, when Shorty jumped up and ripped the dress, I went out and bought an exact replica.)

I also have a “lucky” black blazer. It pains me to admit this, but this blazer is from at least 1995 (complete with shoulder pads!), but it still looks fashionable and nice on me, and I wear it whenever I need to perform well, such as for job interviews or public speaking engagements. It boosts my confidence for some reason, and I don’t question it.

But…this sweater. I don’t know what to think. It’s a pretty pale yellow sweater from Ann Taylor, and I get compliments on it, but every time I wear it, I just feel…off. Blah. Down. Annoyed ever-so-much at Everything. It doesn’t matter that I have super-cute jewelry to wear with it, or that it’s my favorite color of buttery yellow. It just doesn’t make me feel right, you know?

Am I nuts? Do you think cute, well-fitting clothing can affect your mood negatively? Did I inherit the previous owner’s bad karma? I thought about wearing my lucky blazer over it to see if the “good” overcomes the “bad,” but that would look stupid, making me feel even worse and defeating the whole purpose.

What do you think? Should I get rid of the sweater?

Last night was my first experience with work-sponsored Gun Club. (It’s officially called “Shooting Club,” but “Gun Club” sounds better. Not as good as “Bullet Club,” mind you, but I’m keeping it classy here.)

I parked in the range’s underground parking lot and immediately heard muffled THUMPS, WHUMPS, BANGS and POPS. When I entered the lobby, I couldn’t believe how loud it was, even though the range was on the other side of probably a foot of concrete. A row of men stood shooting all kind of guns: pistols, rifles, and other guns I couldn’t identify. As I stood staring, another gun erupted with a tremendous WHOOMP! and I thought, “Jesus! Can they shoot cannons in here?!?” A guy standing next to me remarked, “Whoo! That’s like a dollar a shot right there.” I nodded like I knew what he was talking about and made my way into the classroom.

Our meeting included five men (including the instructor, a dead ringer for Dave Foley) and six women. All of the men brought their own guns, while I was only one of two people who had never shot before.

We sat through a mandated safety class, learning the parts of the gun we’d be shooting (9mm), how to grip it, basic shooting stances, breathing tips, how to determine our dominant eye, and range safety tips. The instructor passed around his unloaded pistol and made each of us release the clip, replace it and rack the slide (it took more force than I anticipated). Then we went and watched the range-mandated safety video, which featured an extra straight out of Jersey Shore performing dozens of bone-headed moves like propping his loaded gun against the wall, leaving his gun unattended, not wearing proper hearing and eye protection, not keeping the barrel of the loaded gun pointing down range at all times, and shooting at handmade targets.

Finally it was time to put on our earmuffs and glasses and choose a gun. I had no clue what to choose, so I went with the range guy’s recommendation of a Glock 19. Another girl standing next to me looked as clueless as I felt, so I asked her to be my range partner. (I was originally supposed to partner with one of the guys, but I didn’t want to feel intimidated as he blasted the target while I fumbled just trying to load the bullets.)

Our club leader is some kind of crack sharpshooter, and he stayed with us the entire time, thank God. I didn’t even know how to load the bullets. Then, my first shot resulted in the casing pinging me directly in my face, which scared the hell out of me. “That’s rare,” said the instructor, which did nothing to help my anxiety. Then, the next bullet jammed. “Ooh, that’s also rare. I’ll show you how to fix it,” he said. Then the bullet after that also jammed. “Yeah…you’ve got a defective gun,” he assured me, as I convinced myself I was too stupid to shoot. Finally, I had a gun that worked. I loaded 10 bullets, clapped in the clip (and felt like a bad-ass cop in a TV show), racked the slide, took my stance, took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.

I hit the target, much to my relief. In fact, my aim wasn’t bad. I was surprised at the amount of pressure needed to actually pull the trigger, though. Because of that, I tended to anticipate the recoil, and shot a bit high. Which was funny, because my range partner tended to shoot low, so between the two of us, we decimated our target. I got the target mostly in the upper chest and neck, including one in the eye and finally, one directly in the heart. Take that, criminal paper target dude!

We were shooting pretty close (15 feet), so the instructor grabbed a much smaller target and moved it out to 20 feet. Then he told us to fire five shots slowly and then five in a row without hesitating: bam-bam-bam-bam-bam. I was still shooting high, but dead-center, so I ended up actually aiming below the target completely. And that’s when I got three bullseyes. The instructor said, “Great job!” but I want to learn how to shoot and aim so I hit what I’m aiming at, and not have to compensate, you know? Anyway, a few others were shooting a .22 and the recoil was much less than the 9mm, so I’m going to try that next time.

All in all, it was a blast (no pun intended). My right ear is still ringing a little bit today, which I contribute to the fact that I lifted my earmuff for a brief second to rearrange some hair that was in my face. Rule #2: Don’t do that.

Next time, Jason is coming with me, and I’m so excited for him to learn how to shoot, too. (I’m also excited to try shooting at the zombie targets, which don’t have bullseyes, which is why I skipped them this time.) It was kind of a surreal experience, because everything felt so much heavier — and real — than I’d imagined, and as I looked down at the casings littering the floor I thought, “I can’t believe I’m doing this. And enjoying it.”

Bullets for all!

This is taped outside my cube. “Oh, you have a last-minute project? Are you sure about that?”

Last weekend, Jason and I took our annual trip to a casino in Wisconsin, which is the nearest place we can play roulette. We took Friday off and boarded Shorty (the lady there felt so sorry for my teary-eyed goodbye to him that she hunted me down in the dog food aisle just so she could give me a hug). Then we ran a few errands and came home to pack. The whole time we talked about how much fun this was going to be, how relaxing, how bad Jason was going to feel about losing at cribbage all weekend, etc., etc.

Then we drove to our destination, checked into our hotel, set down our bags in our room and immediately realized we forgot to bring our cribbage board. And our dice. And our cards. And basically everything else we needed to relax.

That was a crappy moment, especially since we realized we had stopped at a grocery store on our way that was conveniently located right next to a Wal-Mart.

So we backtracked 24 miles to that Wal-Mart, found our gaming supplies and ended up having a wonderful dinner at a supper club we always wanted to visit, so it all worked out in the end. (Not so much for Jason, who is currently losing this year’s cribbage tournament by 18 games already.)

For once, this year we both did well at roulette. I came home with the same amount of money I planned on losing, and Jason won $175. Since I forgot to ask his methods (I know he plays 13 and 31 every single time but can’t remember how he selects his other numbers), here’s my system for playing roulette for 3½ hours without losing any money:

1. Sit down at the roulette table five minutes before it is expected to open.

2. Choose the chair nearest to the wheel so you can implement your highly scientific method of picking numbers.

3. Exchange the $100 you brought (all from the spare change jar) for chips.

4. Promptly lose most of your chips in less than an hour.

5. Panic.

6. Cash in your emergency $40 you brought just for this scenario.

7. Decide that your highly scientific method of playing the numbers near the last number called and directly across from the last number called is not working.

8. Tell this to your husband, who is $90 ahead but does not want you to call attention to this fact because he is highly superstitious.

9. Listen as husband explains that he only plays numbers that are black.

10. Try this intriguing tactic.

11. Win.

12. Win again.

13. Win a third time in a row. (All on number 17.)

14. Feel vaguely like you’re cheating since it seems like there’s fewer numbers to worry about now.

15. Continue to bet on the black numbers nearest to the last winning number, as well as one or two black numbers directly across the wheel from the last winning number.

16. Win some more. This is fun!

17. Look meaningfully at husband’s growing stack of chips, while he begs you with his eyes not to jinx him, for the love of God!

18. Win some more.

19. Realize you’re both hungry and it’s a good time to quit.

20. Cash out with $140 while your husband cashes out with $275.

21. Celebrate by overindulging at the buffet.

22. Work off those extra calories by sitting in the hot tub.