Inappropriate? Or am I just being sensitive?

Maybe I'm just being bitchy, but weigh in and tell me if this is as weird as I think it is:

I'm sitting at the CC's on Magazine, doing some outlining for class. It's early-ish, so there aren't that many people here, and thus many open tables in the back room. I'm sitting in the corner, using one table for my laptop, and the table next to me for my books, since I've got a bunch of crap with me. So I'm chilling, doing my work, and this girl comes, sits down at the table that I have my books on, and just...sits there. She flips her phone open and closed, pressed some buttons on it, but otherwise...she's just sitting there. I thought at first she was waiting for the bathroom, but people are coming in and out and she never gets up and goes in. She just sits there, at my second table, which is really close to the one that I'm sitting at. So I give her a couple of "may I help you?" sort of looks, which do nothing. Eventually, after about 15 minutes of this uncomfortable closeness, I start flipping the pages of my book a lot, hoping that she'll get the hint that, yes, I'm using this table, and get up and leave. Which she finally does. But seriously, I feel like her actions were sort of freakish and inappropriate. There were plenty of open tables! It wasn't like I was taking up an inappropriate amount of space. We didn't know each other. And she wasn't doing anything! Weirdo.

So, tell me, am I being excessively protective of my personal space? Or is she a big weirdo for randomly chilling at my table, not knowing me at all, and fiddling with her phone for the better part of 20 minutes, despite my rather obvious discomfort with her presence?

Coyote Ugly - It Ain't Pretty

Last night a friend and I visited the New Orleans franchise of Coyote Ugly. Normally this isn't the type of bar that we'd set foot in, but she'd won two gift cards to the place and we decided that drinking for free was a good idea. Not so much. To demonstrate:

Decor: think sparsely decorated falling down warehouse. By "decorated," I mean that there are hundreds of bras hanging from barbed wire decorating the ceiling. Over the front door there are plastic flags donated by Jagermeister declaring "bikers welcome!" Good to know.

Drinks: "we don't really do fancy here." Nor do they stock fruit, apparently, so there will be no limes in our drinks. Okay, you're taking a stand, refusing to fancy up my drink for me. Oh, but you will dump some overly sweet fake lime juice in my drink? Interesting. Why bother with the lime juice if you refuse to stock the fruit? Now you're no longer taking a stand. Just buy some limes already.

Bartenders: pushy. One of them starts pressuring us to buy shots, despite the fact that we have just taken two all on our own. We concede, and she tells us that said shots are buy two, get one free. The third one being for her, of course. So we take the shots, get one for her, and she tells us that it will be $14. We tell her that we're paying with a gift card, and she tells us that in that case, the price will be $21. Note to bartender: this is not a good way to get your customers to buy you more shots. Just sayin'. We are also told that $15 is not a good enough tip for a $70 bar tab. Really, because that sounds like about 20% to me.

Music: bad. Really bad. We walked in to the sounds of "Pour Some Sugar on Me." Okay, I like that song as much as the next person who likes tacky music. We hear it again 15 minutes later. In between we are treated to music ranging from Metallica to Nelly Furtado's cover of "Man Eater." My friend tells me that she refuses to acknowledge that Nelly Furtado exists, much like she refuses to acknowledge that Chloe "I'm so Avant Garde" Sevigny exists. I start thinking that this is a good way to look at it. We are also told that some horrible Papa Roach song about emo kids wanting to kill themselves is the bartenders' "signature song." Ah, yes, because that screams sexy fun bar song to me too.

Clientele: Mostly tourists. One truly fine mullet. Business in the front, party in the back!

I'd say that about wraps it up. Go if you must, but bear in mind that this is not the Coyote Ugly of the movie. Piper Perabo will not be singing to you from the bar, and there will be no fruit in your drink. But you can have lime juice, should you so desire.

Shameful Confession Thursday, Part 2

I have a seeming inability to quit smoking. I'm really good at deciding to quit, and I'll be fine for a couple months, then have one at a party, smoke for a couple days, decide it's bad for me, and quit again. I've been doing this for about five years now. It's annoying.

The Fairer Sex

Traditional wisdom would have it that if my boyfriend and I got sick at the same time he, despite being a big, strong man, would act like a whiny little girl, laying about bemoaning his condition while making me fetch him things like chicken soup and cough drops while I would stoically bear my illness while going about my daily business, all the while managing to look pretty. Not so. While he doesn't exactly make a sinus infection look good, the boyfriend certainly managed to comport himself with more dignity than I have. In the simplest of terms, I got sick and promptly cried like a little girl. I whined that it wasn't fair, blamed him for infecting me, had him fetch me tea and tissues, and visited the health center a record 3 times in six days, begging for something that, if it wouldn't make me feel better, would at least let me slip peacefully into unconsciousness so that I wouldn't wake up every morning a bitchy, tired mess. I'm pretty sure that they hate me now and have probably posted my picture behind the front desk with the caption "Frequent Offender." As such, I have now amassed a pharmacy that would make even the neighborhood CVS jealous. I have acted like I have no shame whatsoever. I even pulled my trusty stuffed animal from the top of my wardrobe to keep me company while watching my 10th or so hour of Friday Night Lights. Boyfriend didn't even complain when the Sudafed that I kept forcing on him made him feel much worse.

Simply put, at least in my house when it comes to being sick, I am not of the "fairer sex." You'll find that that honor goes to the guy coughing next to me.

Shameful Confession Thursday

I have a shameful confession to make (only one of many, trust me): Even though I totally hate you on sight if you drive a Hummer (because honestly, who needs a suburban assault vehicle), I totally want a Range Rover. Not that I'd ever buy one, gas guzzling overpriced beasts that they are, but I just feel like I'd look totally pimpin' in a car like that.

Stay tuned for another shameful confession next Thursday. I figure since I'm boring now I might as well air all my dirty laundry for my loyal readers.

Liza + Floor Furnace = Disaster

I believe I've posted before about how floor furnaces look to be inherently dangerous. But then I was mostly talking about how a flame under my dusty, hundred-year-old hardwood floors just seemed like a bad idea. And I know I've posted numerous times about how damn clumsy I am, usually involving spilling some highly colored beverage all over a hard to clean area of my house. Well apparently, my clumsiness + the inherently dangerous floor furnace is a volatile combination. See, here we have said floor furnace:


See that metal rim all around it? Yep, I tripped over it. And fell, hard. And it got caught on my big toe and ripped most of the skin off of the bottom of it. Gross, right? Oh yes, yes it was. And I'm not even all that squeamish. Normal people probably would have walked right over it with no problem, but I ended up with this (don't worry, it's not gross):

How does one accomplish this? Well, if one happens to have the motor skills of a five-year-old, it's surprisingly easy. You just try to walk, and things get in your way. If my foot hadn't hurt so damn bad I probably would have kicked the hell out of my floor furnace, but knowing me that would have resulted in greater injury. The kicker is that I was having a really good day. I was a model of efficiency. And I'm now up to 2.5 miles a day, but I'm guessing that this is going to put a damper on that as well. Stupid shoddy heating devices. That settles it. As soon as my foot feels better I'm going to kick the furnace. Let's just hope I don't sprain my foot like that time I kicked the kitchen cabinet for hurting me.

Don't Let the Lights Go Out!

Okay people, here's the deal. Tonight is the last pre-strike episode of Friday Night Lights, and it may be their last ever. The show was originally supposed to have 22 full episodes this season, but it hasn't been decided whether it will come back after the strike ends, and the prognosis for a third season is even worse. When asked about the show's future, Ben Silverman, NBC's entertainment head, blatantly told his Radar magazine interviewer to start watching 30 Rock instead. 30 Rock is undoubtedly a great show, but FNL deserves another season! And I'll cry if I have to stop watching Tim Riggins waste his potential every week. Seriously, I will. So, here's what you should do. Watch the show tonight. It's on NBC (Channel 7 for Cox Cable NOLA), at 8:00 p.m. Also, sign the petition to keep it alive. It's what Riggins would do.