Clareified

This year has been amazing.

I’m not going to lie, with emergency surgery, during a blizzard, in the second week of January and another Patriots “one and done” in the playoffs, my hopes for the year were low. And yet, I survived the surgery (and the weeks of recovery in the ECB), was given the welcome “it wasn’t cancer,” diagnosis AND my BFF on alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays hooked me up with one of the most permanent jobs I’ve had in three years.

By February, 2011 was sunshine and lollipops — like the good kind: sour apple with gum inside.

My little sister Smokey got married in the Zona, so I got to enjoy 90 degree days in the middle of East Coast winter. Pearatty treated me to the fancy spa treatment and even though Wygant stole my nose and REFUSES to give it back, he was a joy to watch running around trying to mop.

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Kaz and Tito tied the knot a month later and I had a mini law school reunion with some of my favoritest people on the planet. I even got my windows washed by a shirtless F-train wearing frayed acid wash jean shorts! Both weddings were amazing (Smokey totally handled an improbable flood, in Phoenix, of her garden wedding like a BOSS, while Kaz laughed in the face of Eygptian mummy curses at her cool museum wedding). I felt privileged to have been on hand for both.

I was sad that I wouldn’t be able to see my Riots play football live this year, first, because of the NFL lock-out and then because of the poverty, but after I entered AND won a fitness contest this fall, I had a surprise cash windfall! I took the money from that victory and saw Taylor Swift in concert, the Patriots notch their tenth regular season win AND paid for a trip out to Vegas where I came in fourth in a poker tournament! I also got glasses this year and although @petitedov HATES them and says they make me look stupid, I LOVE them and practice dramatically putting them on and taking them off in front of the mirror all day long. OMG, this whole post sounds like an end of the year newsletter now. Okay, back on track, sooooo…

I got to hang out with my DC niece and nephew, and those people they live with

– who very nicely let me take part in their Christmas tradition of hunting and killing a tree! Princess Leia declared “Auntie Dawn picks THE WORST trees!” Well, I NEVER. (Also, I said to her “when I was your age, Pluto was a planet.” She shakes her head slowly and offers to teach the planets to me — when she gets a chance (she was wrapping a present for a classmate’s birthday party.)

And little Emil decided he would rather use the ropes to make me his prisoner and take me to “the dungeon,” than tie the tree to the car.

Shoutout to all the cool people I met this year, but none can yet replace my redheaded New York crew…of two. Yo, how come Mary didn’t take any plane trips with me this year… if she’s flying around with a new black friend… *shakes fist*

And I think I’ve worn my Christmas present from Alceste/Dawn 2 every day since I opened it!

Thanks to Pi for hosting my whole birthday party at her house, Amanda for baking a cake:

Petitedov, @Starfishncoffee, Ugarles, Sidney, Mary, Pretty Numbers and the Cider Fraud for coming. And of course, props to Kaz and Tito for my birthday part Part Deux and hilarious t-shirt!

OH MY GOSH! In the new International Clareified Persons of the year category, @Astinto and M totally win for most awesome chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream caramel cake WITH A MINI DAWN TOPPER EVER MADE!! SO SO SO VERY COOL!

LIKE WOW!! How’d she DO THAT??

I’m totally spending the entire weekend in Toronto next year so I can eat my whole cake all by myself. Um… yeah, I just invited myself over to a party in Toronto that you guys are throwing… you’re welcome?!

Person of the year was a no brainer, but I did want to write about the co runners up.

I know lots of great, generous people — seriously, most days, I’m like why on earth do you people even talk to me, I’m THE WORST! There is no one that inspires that thought more frequently than my BFF on Mondays, Tuesdays and Sundays: This Is Not April.

Who really is… Spoiler Alert: Totally April!

DUDE! SHE IS SOOOOO NICE!! I mean seriously. Like even when discussing the most wretched horrible annoying people in the world (NOT ME, YOU JERKS) she has nothing but nice things to say AND she totally makes with the giving of the benefit of the doubt. JUST GIVES IT AWAY! She almost makes me feel guilty about the terrible things I text her on a near weekly basis. Almost. Maybe if I lived closer, her goodness would rub off. #noporno. Her birthday gift of Patriots’ jewelry has been flashed in the face of poker dealers who trash talk Tom Brady and waved at obnoxious Giants fans after they crapped the bed against Washington the very week New England clinched a playoff spot. I never take the earrings off! Tee hee.

I’m so excited to be part of her wedding to @jnassi, even if I will be all sleeveless. I did get a dress with pockets though, which will be stuffed with snacks as I’m taking my job as Vice President in Charge of Bride Feeding very seriously. Like, it’s on my resume and I’ll be asking for references later, seriously. (Oh, did I mention making her wake up at the crack of Dawn on a Vegas Friday to go dress shopping with me because I wanted to see the Pinball museum?! And instead of telling me to go kick rocks, SHE DID IT!)

Also, April is my mom’s favorite person who she’s never met because I’m like “April’s wedding in April” and my mom completely cracks up. Every. Time. Yes, that’s where I get it from.

Second runner up was also Clareified’s 2007 person of the year, Fisch. When not seen wearing a blanket, like a superhero cape, and throwing trash bags of soiled diapers into the street, The artist now known as Fuelsellage, is all running around around being mister guy. When I got back from Arizona, there were randomly all these packages waiting for me. I assumed, obviously, that they were explosives. But no! They were “no reason whatsoever” presents from Fisch! (My doorman, who spent all February telling me that if I *had* gotten a package, he would have *given* me said package, was very happy for me. Jerkface.) Then, this summer, Fuelsellage did one of the nicest things EVER AND he didn’t even tell me about it till months afterward!

I always bug him with mine (and my mother’s) computer problems, and even though he was all suffering from pneumonia, he let me bring my crapbox Dell over to try to see if he could make it work less badly. And when he couldn’t save it, he PAID someone to fix it for me. Just all around totally sweet and makes me feel fortunate to know him. Plus, now I know that when young 18-year-old Maximus has to call home for his dad to pick him up from Tropicana’s security office, after being caught playing high stakes hold ‘em with a fake ID, he will be in good hands. Though, young 15-year-old Maximus should probably call his fake Aunt Dawn to pick him up from Borgata’s security when *he’s* caught. Oh, I should probably also take this opportunity to confess to cheating in a good 80% of our Words with Friends games. As penance, I will let you beat me the next time we play face to face Scrabble. *whistles*

But now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…. Clareified’s 2011 Person of the Year IISSSSS….

My Chinese Nephew Alexander! “Nobody can get mad at you for picking a baby” – Pearatty

How cute is his witty bitty Chinese eyes! Honestly, this kid’s face is so cute I could just keep it in a jar on my coffee table. Except that would be weird… and probably illegal…

Alex was bornded in 2011, so that totally makes it his year AND he’s the youngest person I ever met and I met him in 2011.

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After a rocky start where he would scream bloody murder whenever I got within two inches of him, we have developed quite the bond.

I taught him how to wave when he was four weeks, and I taught him how to walk at two months and now we have highly competitive “peekaboo” matches. I have a 3-1 lead in the series. But he plays me tough. I love how he laughs and laughs and then that makes his mom laugh and within minutes the whole room is just giggling. Good times, indeed.

To all my readers, commenters, lurkers, to everyone who checked up on me after the earthquake and hurricane (THE HELL, NEW YORK? WHY SO SERIOUS?!), my twitter followers and twitter followed, I hope this year treated you well and hope next year treats you better and you catch ten times more touchdown passes in the next two months -okay, that last part is a tad specific.

To those I don’t see or talk to as much as I used to: “Hope it’s nice where you are. And I hope the sun shines and it’s a beautiful day and something reminds you…”

Here’s to 2012 and may it bring more laughter and love for all! (And of course, the epic end to my friendship with F-train. N.B. Anyone who sides with him over me is racist! Though, I suppose anyone who sides with me over him hates the gays? This’ll be tough for the liberals, but I predict I get all the Republicans!)

Peace ‘n’ Chickengrease

Tee hee.

At As-tin-toe  got it for me for my bithday.

A couple of years ago, I was eating pancakes with Alceste and Mary at the awesome pancake spot in Jersey City. We were on our way to read books to blind children in the Air Conditioned City. About 40 minutes into the drive, I noticed I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. The car was drifting and there was no awesome Poddy playlist or gossipy topic of conversation that could help. I pulled over and asked Alceste to drive.

I didn’t think anything of it, until it happened again. And then again. Anytime I’d eat anything sweet and delicious foodstuffs, I’d just about pass out thirty minutes later. I cured my insomnia with a bag of cookies every night.

About a year after that, a new symptom emerged. Tingling in my fingers and toes — this worried me. My grandmother had diabetes and my mother is pre diabetic (whatever that means) tingly toes SO sounded like the yellow brick road to foot removal. And then I googled it.

Sad panda.

Now, of course, the prudent thing would have been to go see a “doctor.” Instead, I decided that since google said it was *probably* diabetes, I would just go with that. Shut it.

So, what did your brilliant, double Ivy-League degree having hero do with this self diagnosis from Google M.D.?

Did she start eating vegetables and exercising? Oh no, of course not. THAT might have made sense. *YOUR* hero, on the other hand, decided that she would eat ALL the sugary, baked and frosted goods that she could BEFORE she eventually went to a doctor and got an official diagnosis. *AT WHICH POINT* she would start eating healthy and exercising… but UNTIL then, she would “enjoy” life. I stuffed my face with junk food, suffered painful extremities, and food comas for like a year and a half.

I got into a groove of living slightly better this year and finally went to see an actual doctor in November. And, seriously, I don’t know how people who smoke handle going to the doctor because OH MY GAWD the judgy looks you get when the doctor is all “and how long has this been going on” and you’re all “um…two years…give or take.”

O_o

I could NOT handle whatever looks they must give smokers.

So, I do the diabetes tests and it turns out that I don’t have diabetes, but I have a severe B12 deficiency which was causing pretty much ALL of my health maladies during the last few years from the tingling fingers to the insomnia! Dude. Seriously, I would have just died on the spot if I were born in the middle ages. Or in China. What with my allergies and asthma and vitamin deficiencies.

Oh, but my point… and I did have one… just go to the damn doctor, people.

My mother accused me of losing my mind
But I swore I was fine

You paint me a blue sky
And go back and turn it to rain
And I lived in your chess game
But you changed the rules everyday
Wonderin’ which version of you I might get on the phone, tonight
Well I stopped pickin’ up and this song is to let you know why

Dear John, I see it all now that you’re gone
Don’t you think I was too young?
To be messed with
The girl in the dress?
Cried the whole way home, I should’ve known.

Well maybe it’s me
And my blind optimism to blame
Or maybe it’s you and your sick need
To give love and take it away

And you’ll add my name to your long list of traitors who don’t understand
And I’ll look back in regret how I ignored when they said
‘Run as fast as you can’

Hope you all have a happy, healthy and safe one!

UPDATE:

Thanks to Alceste (and Dawn 2) and the Jakes for their AWESOME presents! Another year of one Dawn J. Summers slipping through that “naughty/nice” checklist system!

Alternate title: “Selfish woman puts toddler son at risk”

I mean, HONESTLY?! Who leaves their mom’s house to move into a *SHELTER*??? WHO QUITS THEIR JOB?! UGH

but my mom was totally right. I never bothered to reschedule my appointment and that doctor totally turned out to be every bit the incompetent cunt whore bitch my mother warned me she’d be. Le Sigh.

The reading this Sunday was a passage from the Olden Times Bible, the wrathy fire and brimstone part. David is chillin in his palace and he’s all victorious in battles and being fed grapes by wenches and he thinks to himself, you know, I should build a temple or something for God, you know, a little shout out for all he’s done for me. And he tells one of his henchmen to write that down and make it happen. Upon seeing David’s to-do list, God — in his wrathy and fire brimstony way — is all “fuck yo, couch, David! Like I need your ole shepard ass to build ME a house! I BUILD THE HOUSES! Your WHOLE LIFE IS MY HOUSE, NEGRO!”

Why is this post shaping up to be Dawn’s Hip Hop Bible Study… anyhoo.

The priest’s homily focused on how we shouldn’t be carving out spaces for God in our lives. It should all be integrated. God should be where we are. Naturally, as it was Sunday afternoon, this got me thinking about Tim Tebow.

I can say this now, because one Thomas Edward Patrick Jr, has vanguished the Broncos and won yet another AFC East championship title, but I like Tim Tebow. He seems, by all accounts, to be a genuinely humble kid of faith. He embraces abstinence and praises Jesus during every interview — not amorphous “God,” but Jesus Jesus. He seems to truly view his whole life — from couldve been aborted fetus to Heismann winner to NFL starting quarterback as a blessing. His on field praying has become a nationwide sensation known as “Tebowing.” And somehow, someway this scrappy Christian boy has taken his team from the cellar of their division to the cusp of a division title. Naturally, the backlash has been swift and harsh.

And I get the hate — Tebow supporters have gone a tad batty with their “GOD FAVORS THE BRONCOS” – As if… every kid knows that pets don’t go to heaven because God hates animals. And I swear, I might punch Skip Bayless in the face if he does one more “I can’t explain Tim Tebow’s awesome” screed and then looks skyward. Douche.

But, on the surface of it, I think Tim Tebow is a positive. He hasn’t become a story because of a sextape, he isn’t a showy athlete all pretending to put on a boxing championship belt for every stupid good play like a stupid moron inferior loser quarterback who gets concussed putting on his helmet. I wish him well and hope he has a great game this sunday. And not just because I’m picking his Broncos in my football pool. Cause that would be gambling and gambling is wrong.

*Whistles*

*Tebows*

In the past two days I have attempted to plug my cellphone chargers into the headphone port on my ipod and put the headphone tip in my ear as an earbud.

#DawnFail