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I have a month’s worth of vacation stored up. I’m using 2 days this week though. However, after 9 years at my company, I still feel the need for that stockpile of vacation hours. I don’t think I’m gonna get fired, even on my most frustrated days. Yet, I still need the security blanket those hours provide. So, no vacation for me.

This weekend will feel like a vacation for me. Four whole days that I don’t have to go to the office. Four whole days where I can maybe spend a little money. Four days where I will get to spend some time with people I enjoy. Maybe that’s the big draw to these 2 days that I took off. I can relax and look forward to meeting people who make me laugh, make me cry, and make me feel alive. If not for these people, I would spend those 4 days in my house, at my computer, writing. Not going out. Not seeing people. Not laughing or having fun.

I’m getting old. I need more fun. I need to feel that my life wasn’t spent worrying and stressing and being miserable. These four days will be a ray of sunshine in the bleakness I usually inhabit. I’m soooo looking forward to it. So maybe it’s not a vacation. Somehow, in my heart, it still feels like one.

If you get a chance, stop by my bitch Mary’s blog to say Happy Birthday. She has some facts on there related to the day she was born. I like the Led Zeppelin fact. Only Mary would be born on a day John Bonham was arrested for getting in a fight. HEH. Hope you have a great day, Mare!

Oh, and just because UMB said he liked me for being a dirty girl… Happy Dirty Girl love to you all! MUAH!

Andrei Andrei has been posting to his blog recently. If you don’t know the story, Andrei is the reason I started blogging. Well, Andrei and this idea his blog gave me for a short story about a woman blogger who falls for a male model because of his blog. I had no clue what blogging was about. I mean, I’ve been out here on the net a long ass time. I’ve had more incarnations of my website than I’ve had hair color. I’ve had message boards for years. Never once did I have the urge to blog.

Frankly, I didn’t really know what the whole blogging thing was about. I figured why blog when all my friends came to the message boards and chats to see what I had to say? Why should I bother with a blog? Well, I certainly learned that lesson in the last six months. The reasons for blogging are myriad, but the biggest one is the people.

When I created this blog (not Sunlight Sucks, but the original one on Blogger), I had a couple of people come by and comment. Some days, it’s still like that. I’m not that amusing. I don’t really have a schtick, other than the fact that I write fictional vampires, and I don’t always give you the deep details of my life and psyche, let alone cool cartoons with a monkey who picks his nose and eats urinal cakes. (Gawd, I love that cartoon!) I’m not sure why people keep coming back here except that in the cases of some, it’s because I read and comment on their blog.

The Blogger Circle of Life, as I explained to Motley when I created Socially Dead for her, is that you visit other blogs and comment. Then those people reciprocate. I told her, there are some people whose new blog posts you can’t wait for (ie Snackiepoo because you never know what facet of Hilly she will reveal today), and there are some that you love every day… except maybe one day a week (ie Avitable whose Lazy Sunday is all Greek to me because I’m a workaholic who writes all the time and never goes to movies or remembers crap from songs.) There are people whose blogs you love, even though they don’t read you, and there are those who are meticulous about always coming by and leaving thoughtful, inciteful comments. There are people who read you most of the time, but only comment once in awhile. When they do, they leave you laughing your ass off, or chuckling in your coffee at their pithyness, or snorting over their particular brand of commenting.

There are others who are always supportive of what you’re doing, even if they can’t get to your posts for a few days. Some do drivebys on you and say something short and to the point or especially perceptive. Others have become fans, because you’ve become fans of them. Some wish they could come by more, but always bring good wishes when they do. And there are always people who come by, because you have things in common with them, like writing in my case. Finally, there are people who visit your blog because they love you or have known you forever.

Not everyone posts comments every day. Not everyone reads you every day. But every day is a journey and sometimes the road takes you places you haven’t been before. Like the process of writing itself, some things are always in flux while other things are constants. The journeys I take each day through these places are all things that help make me a better writer, a better blogger, and maybe even a better person. It’s a path I’ve come to late, but like I usually do with things that are challenging and interesting, I’ve embraced it and immersed myself in the culture.

It’s a rich culture, too. Every sight (and site) and sound in 3D. These people… this culture… well, I’m not quite sure how it happened, but my journeys brought me to them, and now I find that no matter how painful the day may be (and lately they have been excruciatingly painful) I can’t get through the day very well without them via blog posts, Flickr pics, twats, or IMs.

The People’s Republic of Blogistan… long may it reign! And don’t forget to bring bacon and chocolate pudding along on your journeys through this country. The peasants might spork you to death if you don’t embrace the pudi-cake-a-cookie.

Saturday was the best day ever! Spending the day with Snackiepoo was awesome! Or maybe I should say amazing. Yanno, just in case we need a synonym so awesome isn’t said too much. HEH. Sorry. Inside joke there.  I received my prize of lunch with Hilly at the always yummy Claim Jumper. Then we stopped in at Avenue quickly because they were having a $10 sale. Four shirts and $32 later, we headed to Hilly’s nail salon. Holy crap does that place pamper you and fuss over you! Most places are just in a hurry to get you out! I now have… pink toes. Not my usual red or purple… they are distinctly pink now.

After the mani/pedi pampering… Hilly broke out the tiara for a ride through her neighborhood Starbucks. So while Dave was enjoying Daveattle, his tiara was having fun too. At the moment, the tiara is resting comfortably with Marcus and Alaric on my dresser. I believe you will see it again on Thursday at Socially Dead when Motley takes the tiara for a Half-Naked Thursday spin.

That’s it for me today. Don’t forget to listen to Snackie Radio today. It’s another episode of the Answer Bitches. Hop on over to Hilly’s site for details. Also, many many good wishes to Marty Mankins who got married yesterday in Lake Tahoe! A big MUAH! for you and your new wife, Marty! Everyone have a great Sunday and I’ll see you at the radio shows!

Yanno, I took Karl’s words to heart and I went back to my feed reader. Not just because Karl is the voice of sensibility on this issue, but because I’m really not up to clicking 60 freaking links all the time. Anyway, I’m finding that going back to the reader is annoying me. Well, really several things are annoying me. First of all, Feed Demon sucks at updating. I see a bunch of twats on Twitter with updates and I eagerly open Feed Demon. Nothing. I click on the manual refresh. Nothing. Two hours later, I see Karl’s newest post appear on Feed Demon… long after I’ve gone straight to Secondhand Tryptophan outside the reader. I check Newsgator too, which is synced with Feed Demon. Same thing. Lagging SOBs.

The other thing that gets me with using a feed reader isn’t really about the feed reader. It’s about the sites. Karl went into that stuff about feeds and RSS and feedburners. My annoyances are more specific. The big one is comments. Dave2 and Avitable do comments perfectly. Although, Avitable’s “Subscribe to the comments of this muthafucka” isn’t how everyone should offer this service, it IS the right thing to do. Dave2 has a link on his left sidebar for a comments feed. What’s so special about Dave and Adam, you ask (other than the obvious)? Their links are not comments for a specific post. It’s comments for ALL posts. ME LIKEY. This is so freaking easy a blog baby like me can do it!

Really the last thing that annoys me are all the authors out there who want you to READ them, but don’t supply you with a feed link. This is bad marketing. Some of us read A LOT OF BLOGS. A feed reader is a must when you get over a certain number. Everyone should offer a feed link. But most especially, authors should! I can’t believe how many author blogs and sites I’ve seen in the past 5 months who do not have feed or comment links. I WANT TO READ WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY! HELP ME HERE! I also wanna shoot off emails to all of them, telling them I’ll fix it for them! I would read many more author blogs, and read more frequently, if they all had links to their feeds and comments. It’s so sad that they are missing out on this awesome marketing tool. So those of you without those links, please think about putting them on your blog. I promise to read you more often if you do.

Alright, my little rant is done but the Feed Me part isn’t over with yet. You see, I listened to the New Improved Jester Show on Talk Shoe last night. I wasn’t crazy about the fancy pro app with the chat bubbles. Too busy for me. I went back to the web client and was quite happy. So happy, in fact, that I had the weirdest, most vivid dream about the show and the chat people and a couple of my friends. Here’s how it went:

Jester’s show turned into this big party in a huge mansion. Karl was giving out Secondhand Tryptophan buttons and explaining WJP. Jester was laughing a lot and UMB was making margys and threatening to run naked through the house. Everyone was telling him that wasn’t a threat at all. They wanted to see that! My friend Jen was there handing out chocolate pudding cups. Every time he got one, Dave would go back to the end of the line. (No surprise there!) He must have been worried though because he said he hoped he wasn’t allergic to chocolate pudding. He wasn’t sure he could stab himself with the epi pen…

My friend Greg, who is sorta seeing my friend Jen, showed up at the party then. He said margys were pussy drinks, to which Hilly told him, “Sweet sweet pussy…” In the kitchen, someone had set out a big pan of enchiladas which Greg liked. He told Jen to drink the margys and he’d eat the enchiladas. Dave told Greg, “No pudding for you!” and he took all the pudding cups from Jen. Greg ignored him and asked about the naked gay guy running around. That’s when I noticed UMB had decided he didn’t like his clothes anymore. Jen then told Greg that at least it wasn’t Darrie (who is 6′10″) from Zanctuary running around naked.

Howard was wondering if someone had a camera on UMB. Hellohahanarf was trying to explain to Othurme that she really did have TWO breasts. He didn’t seem to believe her because he kept asking for proof. Jester was so busy with a photo from TSMOregon that he missed UMB’s flashing. He was also praising Talk Shoe and trying to convert Karl and Hilly over to the “light side”. Someone said Mr. Drunkulous was on the phone. Someone was yelling about twats. Someone else was complaining about static and a hush fell over the room when a booming godlike voice said, “Macs are for sissies.” I thought Dave and Jester were going to have an apoplexy, but then Hilly said she found the tiara and I woke up.

I think I’ve been listening to too many Blog Talk Radio shows while talking to Jen in YIM. Have a freaky frakin Friday… TWKS!

Motley’s birthday is today. She is nineteen. If you go to her blog, you can see her boobs. Happy birthday, baby!

Since it’s Friday and I haven’t pimped anything in a long time, I decided I would pimp my friend Jen because she’s cool, and her rack is hot, and she’s single. So welcome to Big Pimpin’ Friday, Indiana style!

My friend Jen writes at the Bar. That’s where I met her. She’s a pretty cool lady. Very smart. Great with a snarky comeback. She lives and works in the Indianapolis area. She has a nice job, owns her own home, and has a dog… a boxer, not some pansy ass dog. There are things about Jen that no man can pass on, unless he’s gay. I mean, really, who can remain blase in the face of cheerleaders like these?

Yeah, she’s stacked pretty good. But the best part isn’t the fact that she’s got a rack that will render you mindless with lust. She’s very amusing. She makes me laugh all the time which means she ain’t boring. I, personally, do not feel that the creator of Alaric Kohl could ever be boring. However, Jen has what, to me, is a flaw. You men will not think this is a flaw. You will think she is a goddess. She likes basketball. *cringe*

Now, I played basketball in junior high and high school, but I never liked watching it. I was always more of a horse racing, auto racing, football kind of girl. Jen went to the Big Ten Tournament. On purpose. She took with her, a male friend of mine from the horse racing sim who is a Wisconsin fan. She spent four whole days living basketball, with only a short time out on Friday for her grandma’s funeral. She even turned on Sports Center when she got home! Now, that is a dedicated b-ball fan, my friends.

So now that you know that she’s into basketball, has a great rack, is smarter than a whip and can wield one on your ass with skill if that is what you like, you’re wondering what the catch is right? I think the catch is that she’s single. Men are afraid of single successful women these days. But I just don’t understand that. Someone needs to help me out here.

This woman has gone on a number of dates since I’ve known her. Men just fade away on her. They peter out and drift off like snowflakes in a high wind. Tell me what the hell this woman is missing? I mean, Hello! I don’t see anything wrong with this picture. If she sent you a pic like one of those up there, I know damn good and well, that you bloggers would have been twatting your fingers off about getting a boob shot. Wouldn’t you?

So, fill my comments with some luv, people. I wanna know why you think single, successful women with big boobs can’t find decent men. Are they all gay? Are they all chickenshit? Do they all want skinny, underfed, designer clothes wearing, air headed, calender girls? What is going on in the world today that a cute woman with a rack can’t find a relationship except with her vibrator?

Jen’s gonna kill me for pimpin’ her, but you know what? If someone can educate me regarding her - and other successful women in their 30’s - lack of male attention, then it will be worth it. Oh, and… *whispers in an aside* if you wanna talk to Jen, send me a twat or an email or YIM. I’ll set you up with her YIM. HEH. I’m just evil, aren’t I? But trust me on this, Jen sizzles. She is soooo not a prude! Okay, I better shut up now before I give her enough fuel to roast me with if she finds out I posted this. Shhhh. Don’t tell on me. She doesn’t read this blog.

Oh, yeah. She gives good presents too!

Now that my pimpin’ is done, I’m outtie. Have a great Friday, people! MUAH!