Posts (page 2)

The day. 

Oh.

The DAY I had today. 

I overslept, I didn't have time to shower (ew), something in my eye blew up overnight and I have a red spot in it that can rival Jupiter's storm, work was hectic and crazy. 

Traffic coming home was wretched.

I walked into my bedroom to change into sweats and caught a look at myself in the mirror.  Oy vey.

Hair - not pretty

Make up - melted off my face

Eye - still disgusting

Overall look - tired and generally disheveled.

And all I could think to myself was "Man, that sweater makes your boobs look AWESOME!"

Whew!  Seattle almost got blown off the friggin map!   This was a seriously scary storm.  The wake you up in the middle of the night wondering if that window was going to keep the shrieking banshee out kind of storm.

I was one of the lucky non-million+ that kept their power.  People are still without, and these are getting to be the seriously stinky fridge days.  My work's power just came back today, apparently.  Insane

When I was growing up we lived on an island in the middle of the woods (we were in the woods... not the island.  It was in the Puget Sound.  Well, *is* in the Puget Sound.  The island, that is.  It's not like it sank or anything.  Although I do like to picture all islands being connected to the seabed by stalks in a mushroom like configuration.  I think I find the idea that a big wave could come and just snap that sucker off and relocate the whole community to another area completely intriging.  I also wonder if you would keep the same zip and area code if that happened.. but now, like my meandering island, I've completely digressed from my original position. Where was I...)

Oh yeah.  Growing up on the island we used to lose power in every large storm (or medium storm or small storm - I swear we sometimes lost a madrona tree if we sneezed).  It wasn't until I was well out of the house (hello, CPS!) that my parents got a generator.  We had heat and warm food thanks to a woodburning stove, but obviously no lights.  And only the water in the pipes.  Think about that for a minute.  No water. 

No shower.  No flushing the toilet (if it's yellow, let it mellow).  No water to drink.  Because our magnificant, you could bottle this stuff and and sell it to the tourists water was from a well and, contrary to old westerns, our well was not a hole in the ground with a bucket but a truly modern contraption involving an electric pump.  Oooooh.. progress!

Now I live in the city.  The power rarely goes out at my apartment as I am on the same grid as a school and a firestation.  But when I do lose power I am always pleased by the fact that I can shower (until the hot water is gone) and can flush!   Flush all I want to!  FREEDOM!

Of course, now my parents can too.  And I wonder if they ever think back to the dark days of Spaghetti-os on the stove and the small collections of bodily waste and miss it even a little.

Nah.  We were never *that* country.

"Thanks for stopping by!  I'm sure that if you try you can remain penis free the rest of the year... it's only 3 weeks."

"Totally!  Have fun with the cannibals!"

Yep.  That's typical.

new sheets. 

Which are partially made of bamboo (which they tell me is eco friendly but I'm wondering how cotton isn't so I'll have to look that up) and are both crisp and super soft.

I need the eco-karma as I was too grossed out to rinse out and recycle the yucky bottles in my fridge when I cleaned it out the other day.  I just chucked them.

I promise to plant a tree.  Or at least hug one.

(in a completely unrelated note I just TOTALLY spaced out on the blinking lights from my cable modem, wireless router and VOIP router for about 5 minutes. Literally, 5 minutes.  I think I need to cut back on the cold meds.)

Hello.  Have I abandoned you like so many other things in my life?  Is this a fear of commitment thing or a just too busy?

Just too busy, really.   I still love you.. really.  You're the only blog for me.  It's not you.. it's me.  Blah blah blah.

It's almost Christmas!  Which is really great... now.  I have to share that I'm a bit weird about the holidays.  Just like I don't like my food to touch on my plate, I don't like my holidays to overlap.  Hearing Christmas songs before Thanksgiving and seeing Christmas displays before Halloween just bugs me.  I think that I feel that it gets very commercial and I rebel against it.  But, I've finally got into a BIT of the holiday spirit and that's pretty awesome for me.

HOWEVER, in the "not overly commercial" category, I've decided that I'm making many presents this year for friends.  Now, I'm not an artsy/craftsy kind of girl...  I have ideas in my head that I can't make in real life.  I know this about myself but does that stop me?  Ha.  I'm the girl who wanted to make my mother carved soap one year so I spent my money on bars of Dove and found a knife.  My mom ended up getting hard as rocks soap balls... I discovered that I can't carve anything and the best I could do was mush all the scraps together.  She was a trooper and set them out and they lasted 10 years at least.

So, friends, beware of my grand ideas and my lackluster results.  Know that I did the best that I could and I really was thinking of you when I did it.  And I promise to always call before I come over so that you can take whatever monstrosity I proudly present you with out of the closet to display.  :)

My gift to you today are some really cool links.  Have I told you about my iPod addiction?  With addiction becomes the need for a fix and I'm constantly on the look out for cool crap to fill that 80 gigs of space.  I've found a really great site for getting serialized audiobooks that come as podcasts.  It's like an addiction WITHIN an addiction... you get your weekly delivery and are left wanting more.  Love it.  ;)

Check out Podiobooks.com for some really neat stuff.  I have to tell you what I'm listening to from there and am LOVING:

JC Hutchins 7th Son: Book 1- Descent and 7th Son: Book 2 - Deceit.  I am completely digging this story.  Enough that I totally fangirled OUT and sent him an email to tell him so.  It's a really great trilogy (we're halfway through book 2 now) about cloning and goodness and badness and the ness that is in between.  Start with book 1 and listen there first.. you really do need that background.  This is a straight book feed.. if you want the commentary and additional podcast hoohaas, then you should go directly to JC's site and get the feed from there.  I get them both..  yes.  I'm a complete dork.  :)

I'm also really getting at kick out of Mur Lafferty's Heaven series.  Season 1 is complete and Season 2: Hell has just started.  Ever wonder if Heaven is all it's cracked up to be and if, honestly, living in complete bliss might get a little boring? I know I have. 

I've also listening to this and really liked this.  I've got 5 or 6 feeds going from Podiobooks all in all and think it's a great place to check out some new fiction.  

In nonPodibooks.com feeds, I'm really into The Rookie by Scott Sigler.   It's football, yes, but like you've never seen it before.  I don't even LIKE football per se, but I was enough into this book that when he announced they were doing a "press conference" in Second Life with the titular character Quintin Barnes, I signed up for SL and went.  (the whole Second Life thing will have to be another post!)

So check these out.  It's my little bit of love for you. 

Puppies and kittens and no-fingered mittens... or whatever the Julie Andrews sings.

It's link-o-rama time!

Boing Boing   Let's face it, you gotta have balls to call your site "a directory of wonderful things" and have it live up to the hype.

dooce.com  I don't have kids.  I don't want them.  But I read this one all the time... there's a really cute dog.  :)

Project Runway on Bravo  THIS is the entire reason I don't answer my phone between 10 and 11 pm on Wednesday nights.  Unless you're Nicole or Maggie.  Bonus points if you tell me how much you're also in love with Rucker and his blog. 

WOOT!  One day, one deal.  Be there are 10 pm Pacific and hope beyond hope that it's a Bag of Crap.  Make sure you get 3.. you gotta get 3 craps.  Seriously.

Go Fug Yourself  You know all those things that you THINK about how celebrities dress?  Yep, these chicks SAY it.  You want snark?  We got snark!

Yeah.. that's enough to keep you busy for a bit.  :)

It's 10 pm.  On Wednesday. 

You know where I am.  And how not to reach me. 

~C

Okay, who was supposed to tell me that last night was "be a complete loud asshat" night in my neighborhood?  C'mon.. someone was supposed to clue me in as some sort of public service or something, I'm sure.

Let's break down the asshats in my neighborhood last night.  It's sort of like a perverted version of that Seasme Street song (Who are the asshats in your neighborhood... in your neighborhood.. in your neiggghborrhoooood)

Asshat 1:  The creepy across the alleyway neighbor.  This dude is already weird.  Seriously - he's like a hermit crab because he ducks into his little house when he catches a glimpse of anyone - except when he gets drunk and then he will randomly talk to you.  He's this skinny guy with buggy eyes and greasy hair and yes, I'm exagerating a bit but not much.  I think he has a girlfriend now.  And they like to sit outside his little alley house and drink beer and talk at 11:00 at night. I can hear them through my closed slider door.  You can only imagine what it sounds like then I leave the door open because it's 150 degrees in here at night. So, they were Part Of The Problem #1.

Asshats 2 and 3:  My upstairs neighbors. Now, I know that apartment life can be loud.  It didn't used to be this loud.  I miss the little old lady who used to live there.  And no, she didn't die, she retired and moved to Federal Way.  There's a young couple that live above me now.  Who, apparently had quite the fight last night.  I say apparently because I couldn't hear actual words, but tones tell a lot.  And before you think I was sitting and listening, I wasn't.  I was playing a computer game and had the TV on and they were still audible.   But don't worry about them too much, later they had makeup sex and then talked talked talked into the wee hours of the night.  How do I know?  They are high volume people all the way.  Part Of The Problem #2 and #3.

Asshats # 4, 5 and 6:  the asshats that stand outside the steps of the apartment building and have long, loud conversations.  Here's what gets me about this... all the apartments in the building have pretty much the same floor plans.  My bedroom on the ground floor is the bottom of a stack of 4 bedrooms all on top of each other.  And those are mirrored by bedrooms on the other side of the building.  So everyone should be aware that you are yapping away right outside a stack of people trying to sleep.  At 12:30 am.  Sorry to get in the way of your socializing.. yeah, that chick was totally hot but based on your voice I think she's out of your league.

Asshats #7-??  The people who drive up the cobblestone road outside my building at 55 mph.  I can hear your muffler hitting the road, dude.. slow the fuck down.  

All asshats were in full regalia and REPRESENTING PLAYA last night.  Leaving me with very little sleep this morning.  And my armpit hurts.  I'm not really sure that it's related, but I'm going to blame them anyway.

Asshats.

Today we had an at home spa party for a friend who is getting married in a week.  Ooodles of fun.  Something I needed, but don't typically do for myself.  But as everyone was sitting and talking about pedicures, it made me think about being a girl, and most specifically, being a girly girl.

For the most part, I am not a girly girl.  Sure, I like wearing makeup and I get my hair done regularly, but I'm not a lace chick.  I'm a jeans and t-shirt kinda gal.  Although I do like to wear them with heels.

I have all the trappings of girly... I have hundreds of dollars of cosmetics, hair products, face creams.  I want to look younger than my 34 years and I watch for gray hairs with a certain amount of trepidation.  I search my face for wrinkles that aren't there.  I want to dress cute and hip.  But I don't really follow through with the whole thing.  Given the opporunity I'll throw on a quick layer of mascara and face powder and head out the door.  All those products, all that goop and mess and I leave it behind most days.

I'm not sure why... I don't know if it's a lazy thing (I would rather sleep than put on eyeshadow in the morning) or it's a "why bother it's not helping" thing or that it just doesn't occur to me.  Maybe there is part of me that thinks I am SUPPOSED to be a girly girl.  A shoe hog, a clothes horse.  But I don't associate that with myself.

Then I look at the pairs of shoes littering my entryway and rethink.  I look at the clothes upon clothes with tags still on them and rethink.  I see the 3 types of shampoos and 2 types of body scrubs and loofas and sponges that are filling my bathtub and rethink.

I think that when I hear "girly girl" I think of those girls that don't want to get dirty, that wear pink all the time, that wear lacy tops and follow the latest fashion.  I think of the girls who bring makeup to work and put on lipstick after eating a meal.  And that's not me.  But maybe a girly girl is also someone who enjoys being able to spend a day with mushed up papaya and pumpkin on her face with her feet in a foot bath.  Someone who doesn't stress about every stray eyebrow hair but recognizes when things have gone ape shit up there.  Someone who knows how to wear exactly enough perfume to leave an impression but not kick allergies into gear.

So, I think that I am a girly girl.  But the kind of girly girl who currently has roots and dirt under her fingernails.  And I'm okay with that.  Especially since I have a hair appointment on Wednesday.

~C

I could just write here that there is an importance to allowing yourself to be random and leave it at that, but I feel like that may be a slight cop out. 

So, why be random?

First, I think that being random lets you be who you really are.  If you pigeonhole yourself into a category (hipster, ultra-serious, class clown) and limit yourself to following the "rules of the role" then you are denying part of who you are.  Let's face it, even the most stoic of folks think that someone tripping and falling into a mud puddle is funny.  Free yourself to laugh.

Second, it keeps you semi-fearless.  I'm not talking about the put-your-head-in-a-lions-maw type of fearless, I'm talking freedom from fearing what other people think of you.  I don't care that I am a dork.  I will talk like a pirate if I want to.  Arrrrr.

Third, it makes your life slightly more surreal and unpredicatable.  That in itself is a just reward.

So, embrace the random, embrase the chaos, embrace the ramblings.  Let's face it, I'm just putting on (virtual) paper those things that we all have pop into our brains but don't let out.

~C