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On Friday, the receptionist walked into my office and handed me these:

My stomach sank as I read “From: You’ll never know.” I hate anonymous gifts almost as much as I hate no gifts at all. I ripped open the card and read further:

I see you everywhere. I’ve been watching you and reading everything you write for years. I love you! XOXOX, Your Secret Admirer

My stomach felt a little queasy and the following thoughts sped through my mind: What the fresh hell? Pretty flowers, though. Shit, how does this person know I love sunflowers and daisies? Ugg, what else do they know about me? Which brother should I ask to sleep on my couch tonight in case someone tries to murder me? Do I choose the brother I want to spend my last moments with, or do I choose the one with the most free time. Dammit! I wonder if I could find a Hello Kitty gun at a local gun shop. Wait, do Hello Kitty guns require regular bullets or cuter, more sparkly ones?

The receptionist watched me panic for a few minutes and then smiled knowingly as she handed me a second card:

Sarah, we love you and cherish the time we get to spend with you! Thanks for always being there for me, and loving me. Love, your brother Jeff

I love my brother, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to kick him in the face.

Dear Google,

While everyone is freaking out over your new privacy settings that go into effect today, I’m sitting back mildly amused. I work in advertising so, for me, the more targeting information the better I am at my job. I say, bring it!

That said, I do still have an issue with you. Let’s talk about your Groupon style program, Google Offers, shall we? With your advanced targeting capabilities and data collection you should have the ability to stop sending me such crap offers. Here’s the info you have on me:

From this it’s safe to assume I wouldn’t be interested in, well, ANY of the offers you’ve sent me. Let’s go through them one by one.

A meat offer? Really? When I’m in my gmail account you serve me ads pertaining to vegan and vegetarian lifestyles, which are relevant. Meat offers notsomuch. I do appreciate that the meat is all natural, but it’s still animal flesh. Yuck.

A couples getaway AND a couples massage? Google, you know I’m single. Do you really need to rub it in my face? Jackass.

And my favorite… gun offers. Oh Google, you’re so silly. I don’t own firearms, want to own firearms or need to own firearms. So firearm training? Not really my thing.

If I could go ahead and personally order my Google Offers here’s what I would be interested in:

• A couples massage WITH Anderson Cooper
• A couples getaway WITH Bon Jovi
• Wine, chocolate and/or coffee savings to enjoy while naked in bed with Anderson Cooper and/or Bon Jovi
• Dog kennel savings – I’m certainly not interested in taking Asshole Puppy on my lovecation with Anderson Cooper or Bon Jovi. That whore dog will steal all my snuggle time.

I think that provides you with sufficient information to suck me into your savings ploy.

Love,
Sarah

Friend: “What did Colin Firth win an Oscar for last year?”

Me: “For best supporting male in my pants.”

Friend: “OMG, I love you so hard!!!”

Me: “Funny, that’s exactly what I said to him.”

Remember that one time when I didn’t eat meat for, like, a zillion years and my cattle rancher family hated me?

Um, yeah.

And remember that time I was a vegan for a year and the economy went to shit because I wasn’t buying fancy cheese and Red Iguana’s cheese enchiladas?

Um, yeah.

Well, I’ve done it again. I stupidly decided to take it a step further and try a juice die. For the last week, I’m been juicing all this shit:

Sure the cabbage, apple and carrot juice is delicious, but it tastes nothing like red wine and peanut and butter sandwiches. If I don’t have perfect skin, lose 10 pounds and look five years younger, I’m gonna be forced to cut more than fruits and vegetables.

Last weekend I went to Austin. This text conversation with a friend pretty much sums up the entire trip.

“Getting Drunk in an airport bar is far more exciting in Texas. Everything really is bigger here. This includes the arm hair on the man sitting next to me. Seriously, I just had to ask him to remove his arm hair from my wine. It’s like they don’t even have Groupons for electrolysis here.”

“Sarah, what the hell are you doing in Texas?”

“I wanted a new pair of cowboy boots.”

“Did you find some?”

“Yes, see…

I also found tacos and a ring made from a bullet, so the trip was fantastic.”

“Awesome! And good luck on that whole arm hair situation.”

I’ve always prided myself in being the type of person who doesn’t give a shit about what people think of me. Recently I discovered that’s not exactly true anymore.

Case in point: my relationship with FSB(f).

It didn’t work out. Obviously.

Something, something… I was too mean and he was too crazy.

I stopped blogging because during a very heated argument he told me everyone in his life hated me. Umm, and I was the mean one? All snarky comments aside, the old Sarah would’ve said, “Like I give a shit what your friends and family think. It’s only important what MY friends and family think and guess what? They love me, so suck it.”

Sadly, that’s not what happened.

Instead I took it insanely personally and stopped writing altogether. Why? He said his family had taken the time to try to get to know me by reading this blog. Without getting to know me, in person, they decided I was a horrible person who was mean to their son and hated Mormons. Sigh…

Instead of dealing with things, I just stopped writing. It didn’t seem worth the drama at the time and I was hurt.

Well, I’ve moved on and accepted that not everyone will like me and that’s fine. I know I’m better off without his nutty, Mormon family in my life. There’s only room for one nutty, Mormon family in my life and I’m much rather have that family be my family. They’re far superior and their nutty is the good kind of nutty.

What I’m trying to say is I’m back.

I’ve never been a cat person. I’m allergic and my only cat experience resulted in tragedy. A high school crush gave me a kitten as a gift. I named him Christian Laettner-Slater Psychedelic Furry Cat. Not only was his name unfortunate, but so was his death. A week later, the poor kitty was crushed by our garage door. I cried a bit and immediately decided I was more of a dog person anyway.

Fast forward a few years. Fine. Fast forward a LOT of years.

What my new agency lacks in nerds, they make up for in cats. Yes, cats. There are at least four feral cats living in our parking lot. I ignore them, but everyone else has cat scratch fever– a rare and creepy condition contracted when visiting Ted Nugent’s website.

Where was I? Oh yes, the cat obsession. One of the partners placed a large dog house on our lawn, complete with a heating pad for the kitties. The following week I noticed the cat house had been decorated for the holidays with lights and tiny Hello Kitty stockings.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m jealous of a herd of feral cats. Those little bastards have more holiday cheer than I do…

I haven’t just been absent here.  I’ve also been absent from many areas of my life,  including my office as you can see.

Lately my office remains empty more often than not, while I attend meetings. My team finally replaced me, which is fine I suppose, just as long as they recognize I have better hair and much funnier ‘that’s what she said’ jokes.

Last week I was worried about presenting a media plan to a client’s board of directors. I’ve never been good at presenting and tend to stress out way more than I need to.

The night before my meeting, I explained to FSB(f) everything that could go wrong and how I would ultimately fail, lose the client, let down my agency, get fired and end up living on the streets. He rolled his eyes, but patiently listened because that’s what good boyfriends do when they want you to put out.

The next day I found this note in my laptop bag:

I was so busy worrying about why he thought I would lick a note, that I didn’t have time to obsess over possible failure. Needless to say, the presentation went okay and he got some.