Valley of the ...

I'm back, with a new zeal for the keyboard, thanks to an iMac which arrived today at around noon... but my instantaneous passionate love for this thing will be explored in great detail another day!

Before the old machine started to sputter out, exhausted after four years and some hard drive damage, I was thinking about costume jewelry designer Tarina Tarantino's new line of flesh tone (fleshtone? flesh-tone?) colored necklaces, hair bows, bracelets and other baubles. It's interesting. I'm fascinated with foundation makeup and I have several types, myself, ranging from lightweight coverage to really heavy-- a thick cream formula that completely covers the texture of your real skin and sort of puts on a whole new "skin". So the idea of extending the constructed skin to the adornments that traditionally offer color or contrast or metallic shine, and making the adornments tone-on-tone interests me, design-wise. Politically, it makes me think about all that "doll" imagery, language and conditioning that women grow up with (and continued to be rather innundated with throughout our daily lives). Like, who wants to be a doll? Like a Stepford wife? What the heck is that even about? I also feel that women celebrities are looking more and more doll-like all the time, and I wonder why that is.

It also made me think about RealDoll.--I've talked about RealDoll before, and RealDoll for some reason is often a point of reference for me!-- I could see a beautiful RealDoll dressed in all this Tarina Tarantino Doll Skin finery and how cool and eerie and so odd-yet-so appropriate that would be.

Is there an essay or a paper or thesis or book about the history of flesh tone? Like who was the first paint manufacturer or writer who used that phrase for that color? Outside of the United States is flesh tone not pinky peachy gray? Do you like clear Bandaids? I do!

Easy Halloween Costume: Sarah Palin

DD and I have been brainstorming our Halloween costumes since November 1, 2007.
I now think we should go as the Republican ticket. All I need to do is to get one of these Ken Paves/Jessica Simpson hairpieces and say things like:


"I am pro-life and I believe that marriage should only be between and man and a woman."

Mimobots

At work my coworkers and I have a Tuesday staff meeting. One of the many, MANY things said during the meeting today was something about "thumb drives" disappearing. My boss likes to say "thumb drive" for what I call a flash drive and what other people call a memory stick. Seriously, this thing has so many names it's kind of ridiculous.
Anyhow, apparently in classes, people are passing around various flash drives (I am not sure why) and they need to get back to the the instructor or the TA, and they disappear, not because anyone wants to steal them, but because they're little and they look like everyone else's flash drive.

I think we should get a whole bunch of different Mimobots. Mimoco has turned a dull little device into a little bit of adorable happiness, called a Mimobot! There are lots of different Mimobots available in varying storage capacities-- 1 gig, 2 gig, etc. And they're priced pretty much like a plan flash drive. I love Mimobots!

God Bless Facebook

I came late to Facebook... I already had a myspace and a friendster and a tribe and whatever the hell other social networking things there are out there. My late hamster Skeepants even had a Hamsterster account. Honestly I didn't really see the point of any of them...or the value or benefits. Except for the hamster thing... I did enjoy all the photos of everyone's cute hammies! Along came Facebook, and I came late to Facebook, and again I didn't see the POINT, until the other day, when into my Inbox landed a message from my best friend from elementary school, whom I haven't seen since then, when she moved from California to Georgia with her family. How crazy is that? Apparently this is a common Facebook phenomenon. In this case, I'm extremely happy to reconnect with her, but it's certainly something to think about in regards to privacy and anonymity, so I went through and found several exes and ex friends (this is commonly known as Facebook stalking, I think) and made a "block list" so they can't turn around and find me!

Fresh Scent. New Pants.

As regular as the turning of the earth and the return of high tide, my period comes each month on the same weekend as this "Executive Certificate Program" at my work. During "Executive Program Weekend" a bunch of executives have classes at a law firm downtown, and I am the official caterer, coffee bitch and dishwashing scullery maid.
I also work six days a week during Executive Program Weekend, and this Friday was a thirteen hour day for me. Saturday was a lot better... my day started at 7:00 am and ended at 5:45 pm! Lots of fun stuff happens during Program Weekend, such as pre-ordered bagel platters going "missing" from a bagel shop which shall remain unnmamed, even though I not only ordered the bagel platter from a girl with the same name as me, but I also called to double check and confirm my order the day before the event, and my caterer showing up at 12:20 for a 12:30 lunch.

But perhaps the BEST thing that happened was that my period started, and it wasn't like some courteous little trickle... it was like a scene from a horror movie, or from the latest novel in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, wherein a baby half vampire rips its mother apart when it's time to be born. I'll skip the gory details, but I had to walk down Market Street with a sweater tied around my waist and go and buy a new skirt to wear, and my pants had to be discarded. There is no saving them. That's how much of a bloody mess it all was.

Why did this happen? Well, yes, I knew my period was coming, and I did buy an anticipatory box of tampons a few days prior, however I accidentally bought "Fresh Scent" tampons, which I realized with horror at 6:00 am Friday morning. They smelled like Raid ant and roach killer. I cannot stick a Raid-scented tampon inside my body. I'm afraid I will get instant cervical cancer if I do. So I was relying on my last wimpy "regular absorbency" non-scented tampon to carry me through from the time I left my house at 6:35, went to the grocery store, shopped for last-minute food for the Executive breakfast (and more tampons) drove to the law firm, unloaded my carload of food, piled it onto a rolling delivery pallet, got my security badge, and finally took the freight elevator to the law office where I would hopefully get to the bathroom in time (at around 8:10 am) to insert a new tampon before bathing the entire city or just the crotch of my really nice pants in my menstrual blood. Yeah. Didn't happen. I ended up spending $98 on a skirt (couldn't get pants because I'm so short that all my pants have to be hemmed before I can wear them) and $18 on a new pair of panties. But hey, there is no time to shop for bargains when one has bloody pants and about 11 more hours of work. I just don't understand why some people's periods trickle out in a predictable, manageable way and mine is more like someone pouring out a glass of water for a day, and then it pretty much ends. I've been to the doctor and they say there is nothing wrong with me down there. Executive Program weekend is just not a good weekend for my gushing geyser period. It's really best to be close to home, or at least to the bathroom at work. One time I even dropped blood on the floor of Macy's downtown, and had to stand there squeezing my thighs together while my friend ran to the bathroom to get me a wad of toilet paper. Now that was really awful. That was probably the worst thing that ever happened with my weird explosive period.

And since a skirt is not really a replacement for a pair of work pants, I also bought a new pair of work pants this weekend, bringing the menstrual financial toll to about $220 this weekend!

Fashion Twins, Part XIVIXIIIXXX

My sister is visiting, and she's a 6 year old demon with boundless energy and a steady stream of conversation, so I have not been able to write. But I did manage to capture yet another pair of fashion twins. How cute; they both put on their jeans and light yellow tee shirts and then snapped the leash on their light yellow dog and went walking down the street! This is so unlike DD and me. If we both get dressed wearing the same color jacket or shirt or shoes one of us will usually go and change. It just feels so gag-inducing wearing the same things. I feel like couples have just been together too long when they start dressing like that!

The Poopetrator

My co-workers and I are going to a baseball game today. We're leaving in twenty minutes; those of us who even bothered to come into the office at all today. Most are "working from home" (cough cough) and will meet us there. Uh huh. My CEO is wearing crisp khakis and a bright orange polo-style shirt instead of his usual suit and tie and glossy shoes. I don't really know anything about baseball. I only know of Derek Jeter and A-Rod (whom I keep thinking is named "Axel" instead of "Alex") and I know the Giants aren't playing the Yankees today, so I won't even see Derek Jeter or A-Rod. And didn't Barry Bonds go to jail? Whatever. I have sunscreen, a big hat, Gucci sunglasses and a few trashy magazines; that ought to hold me. Anyhow, I'm not really writing about the baseball game outing, I'm justifying why I'm goofing off and writing my blog during the workday!

The wrong-est thing just happened. We work on the first floor of what looks like a big white house. There are two businesses upstairs. They get to their work by using stairs outside... it's not like they need to come down to the first floor for anything. I was in the bathroom (pee only) and someone came stomping into the bathroom. I saw boots under the stall door, which I thought odd since no one in my office wears those kind of boots. I thought maybe it was the letter carrier or DHL driver... Then I smelled poop! Then the person washed her hands (with our nice organic lavender soap!) and left. I ran out to see who it was, and saw someone going back upstairs. She works upstairs and came downstairs just to poop in our bathroom. Not only did she drop a turd in OUR bathroom, with its poop smell molecules, she used our fancy hand soap, that we take turns buying. We're a NONPROFIT, for God's sake; they're a FOR PROFIT. You go downstairs to the NONPROFIT to POOP, and use the soap provided for by the underpaid nonprofit employees. What a jerk! I really want to go up there and just walk into their office, see the woman and confront her... but MY coworkers think I'm nice, and we're supposed to be friendly with those people upstairs. There's a very nice transit center across the street with a very nice bathroom that's open to the public. She should really have some frickin decency and go poop over there! I try to do my business at home, personally. I don't feel my coworkers should have to be exposed to my solid waste. Coworkers have to deal with enough of each other as it is. The next time the Poopetrator comes downstairs, I will be waiting...

Modesty Panels, please.

It seems to be my lot in life to always work for "alternative" businesses. Start ups, dotcoms in their formative years (before they learn to conform to labor laws), non profits also in their early years, women owned cooperatives and vegetable companies run by a gaggle of people who have all been each other's lovers at various times in their histories... yet I've also worked for a monolithic school district, in which I was just a number (and hell, my number got transposed, resulting in my not having any reported income for a year), and for a huge cable company, but those were long ago. I say it's my lot in life, but of course, I've chosen to work where I have.

My latest gripe is that in my office (in its 6th year, and has only 12 full time staff), we work at weird, huge desks from a bygone era. Now I'm all for mid century modern antiques. These are not mid century modern antiques. They're ugly, huge, clunky veneer-covered desks like teachers or barristers or office people may have sat at in the early 80's. There are no height adjustments. There are no rounded corners. I don't have any drawers, for god's sake (no, I have a little Rubbermaid bin under my desk with all my office supplies in it). You can see our legs from the frontside, and if we were to let our legs fall slightly open, you could quite possibly see the crotches of our panties, in some cases, or just a fabric-covered crotch, in others. Either way-- CROTCH. There are no cozy little walls around us, no "modesty panels" as they are called in the office furniture industry, no surfaces to which you can tack or stick any of the papers you need to look at daily. One cannot slump, have any sort of a messy desk at all ("OH, WE NEED TO ZEN YOUR DESK!" bellowed by boss one day, pointing at my papers as if she were pointing at a pile of dog poop. As if "zen" is a verb for casual use in the Judeo Christian world... as if I am not the person in charge of reconciling our credit card bills and our petty cash, a task that involves the spreading out and deciphering and proper budgetary coding of many many receipts! As if I WANT to have a messy desk covered by everyone's receipts!)

To people who complain about working in cubicles, just know that there are office workers out here who are envious of your little cubicle, your modicum of privacy. There are workers who are envious of Dilbert, who long to be surrounded by some dull gray fabric, who long for a drawer in which to put their stuff, who long to chew their lunch without everyone else watching.

Supposedly, we are having some sort of office reorganization soon. I hope that involves a more ergonomic and productive set up, but I fear it simply means something like someone deciding to place all the printers and fax machines on my desk.

Happy Frickin' Thursday.

I have tomorrow off, as a comp day for my work weekend from Hell last weekend. Whee!

For today's blog post, I decided to show the most unflattering (and yet I find just it so funny) photo of me ever taken. This was a few years ago, and in my defense I will say that it was earlier than 7:00 am and I hadn't showered yet. Um, and feel free to donate to my haircut-and-styling products fund at any time!

The staff goes to a baseball game

Next Thursday, all my coworkers and I are going to a baseball game. We're not playing in the game, and no one we know is playing in the game... we're going to a professional baseball game. It's not that I don't like baseball... I like playing and I liked going to games when I was a high school teacher and the kids I actually knew were playing in the game, so I actually cared if they did well. I don't care about professional baseball and I haven't been to a professional baseball game since I was a child. My family used to go to Dodger games; the only things I remember are the name "Steve Garvey" and playing with a long red licorice rope the whole time, and being smeared with sunscreen by my mother at intermittent intervals.

Since I am fairly new on staff I don't know whether this decision to go on an outing was made before I landed there... I remember some discussion about what days were best for everyone. I'm a bit envious of my coworker who is off in Greece for a few weeks, not just because she's in Greece but because she gets to miss the game! Following the game is a barbeque at my boss' house. She has her good attributes, but she's a sarcastic, frequently high strung, more than occasionally micromanaging, self-described bitch. Yes, she's one of these people who revels in calling herself a bitch, and in embodying that state of being.

I could call in sick, but I've had a cold for a week and I called in sick last Tuesday and again this Monday, and another sick day would be excessive (and suspicious). I could also take a knitting project with me to the game, because everyone knows you can knit and watch TV or knit and talk, and presumably knit and watch a baseball game, but what about the barbeque? I could eat a hotdog early on in the day, not feel well, and leave with a stomachache (only to go to a nearby salon that I like a lot and get a manicure and pedicure!)... I'm a terrible actor and an unconvincing liar... just planning the ruse would give me a real stomachache. We're expected to RSVP for the barbeque today (she sent the invitation late yesterday)... what do I do?

Yummie Tummie vs. the muffin tops

I don't actually watch the Oprah Winfrey Show, because I don't actually own a television, but apparently She (Oprah) promoted a shapewear garment called Yummie Tummie on the show. I learned about Yummie Tummie while searching online for "long camisole" or "long tank"-- Yummie Tummie comes in regular length and long length, so my searching turned up this intriguing item. The basic idea is it's a tank top or camisole with regular cottony straps and about a three inch hem like any other cotton camisole or tank, but from right below your breasts to the cotton hem there's this thicker, opaque microfiber-and-lycra/spandex STUFF that holds in all your fat. It's main and most celebrated purpose is to squeeze the batter back into the muffin tops!
The muffin tops are the bulge of fat and skin that pop over the dent created by the waistband of low-rise, non-stretchy cotton denim jeans.

Of course I'd rather have my own built in yummy tummy made of muscle and sinew, but for now I figured I'd try a Tummie Tummie tank. I got mine in white, regular hip length. It's plenty long; I can't imagine needing the long length unless you have a really long torso or are very tall. It's hard to get into the thing, but once in, it feels pretty good. The best thing about it is it kind of helps you remember to stand straight and have good posture. It's also long enough to cover the muffin tops and allay any of the cool breezes around the middle that often result from jeans + average tight tee shirt or velour hoodie. (Not only did you bake up some muffin tops, but you also set them out on the windowsill to cool.) The downside is the top made me a little sweaty. It was kinda hot in there. I can also imagine it could be rather ungraceful trying to get out of that thing in semi-public in the locker room or in front of a lover. I still think I liked it enough to want a few more.

I got my Yummie Tummie from an online retailer of lingerie because the shipping was free, but in perusing Yummie Tummie's official site, I was struck by the similarily in the imagery, compared to that of Stila Cosmetics. Both use cute illustrations of women, of various hair and skin colors and hairstyles, but all with the same slim-curvy bodies and similar facial features. I think it's designed to say, "You women in our target market group come in different colors but you're all basically the same in that you're not as slim as these illustrations, but you COULD be, nor are you quite as pretty as the women in these illustrations, but you COULD be if you buy our products! And we're all just the same in that regard, which is why all these pictures actually look the same even though we've made a concerted effort to make them look sort of diverse!" Yay, and the whole marketing team does a toast with their Diet Cokes in hands. Well, it's better than nothing, nothing being the complete denial that people of color even exist, but it still just feels oh-so-chick-lit ish to me in a way that feels slightly over-played already.

I'm on hiatus while I'm working a hellish three day stint of 13 hour days! Update on Sunday!

Wall-E and Fat Equals

I saw the film Wall-E last night. The evening started out with a difficult telephone conversation with my father, in which I told him that I feel he and his parenting partner (don't know how else to describe the relationship. My sister's mother and my dad are not "together"--but they made a child and are raising her together) have consistently made it difficult for me to see my sister and to have a relationship with her.

The latest is she's in San Francisco for about five days. They didn't tell me this ahead of time (they never do), so whenever I DO find out she's here, I inevitably drop whatever plans I have and offer up my weekend in the hopes they can squeeze me into her schedule. I'm happy to, because I want to see her, it's just that they're so inconsiderate. I called her mother and asked if I could see her Saturday (tomorrow). She said something something about needed to get her back for the family dinner. What time? I asked. Five or six, she said. Okay, I can bring her back by five, I replied. What time can I pick her up? Her mother informs me that the child does not wake till 10:00 am. Okay, our visit is getting shorter and shorter by the minute. Oh, and I'm also informed that they don't have a car seat here. Mind you, my sister is SIX, and will be SEVEN in early October. The law says kids have to be in a car seat till they're six years old or sixty pounds. Never mind that the kid is so tall and lanky she's practically got a 30" inseam. Really? A car seat? Really?! Okay, I say to Baby Mama. I can come get her on the bus, or rent a car seat. But I'm just curious, how are you carting her around?
She laughs a little and replies that her sister has a car with a built in car seat. WTF?
The only thing that made the conversation even a little bit bearable was the fact that my sister got on the phone and asked if we could go to the beach by my house and whether I have any good sand toys. "We can go to the zoo, or the beach, or the TOY STORE," I say, slyly. "TOY STORE!" she screams, as I chuckle evilly and say goodbye.

Anyhow, I watched Wall-E wondering if it would be good to take my sister to see, too complicated, too violent, etc. In many ways it was a charming and wonderful film. In other ways-- not so much. The humans had ruined Earth and escaped on a luxury space cruise liner, and they floated around on comfortable seats; like hover-recliners. They didn't have to think about where they were going because they'd just get their seat onto a kind of speed track and everyone would speed along a path. They always had a big drink at hand, which looked like a Big Gulp or super-sized soda, with a big straw sticking out, which they'd suck on constantly. A holographic TV or computer screen floated in front of each person. Through this they could talk, watch news feeds, play virtual sports. They didn't walk, do any physical or mental work, and each person was fat. There were the usual fat-people pratfalls... falling over, can't get up. Huffing and puffing... out of breath. Trying to reach... can't quite reach... where a medium weight person would have been able to reach easily. It just seemed reductive and overly simplistic a vision to think that a whole society of people who are lazy, pampered, and not working would also be obese. They had all kinds of futuristic devices and ultra sophisticated robots, but no way to keep people or make people muscled, lean, etc? That's odd. I am not fat. It's not just fat people or fat activists who are bothered by this portrayal of fat characters. It made me feel uncomfortable and sort of embarrassed, as if I had a party and one of my guests said something rude to another guest. So my verdict is I wouldn't take my sister to see this movie. Maybe she'll catch the marketing fever and ask her parents if she can see it, but I'm certainly not going to suggest it. I love the sustainability piece of the film, but I wouldn't want my sister at such an impressionable age to think fat people are funny, to think lazy=fat, bored=fat, fat=hilarious. And one last bitch--the captain of the ship, while a cute character and one of the protagonists--was male and white. Hey, filmmakers. Way to push the envelope on that one. Pppffft.

Practical and Sturdy... kind of.

I need a new tote bag for work, one that is practical and sturdy (but, of course, also cute). My current tote bag is great, but it's natural-colored canvas, with leather trim and handles, which I associate with spring, and I've been carrying it since late March. Fortunately I've managed to keep the thing pretty clean, but I definitely need to put it away and rotate in something sturdier if I want to use this one again in subsequent springs.

Last weekend DD and I went shopping in Marin county, mostly because it was foggy all weekend here in San Francisco and I wanted to see the sun. I needed a demi cup bra for a new top I have, a very cute top but one which is cut lower than all my bras. Having acquired the bra, I was exiting the store when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw some leopard-ness with white leather trim. I came to a screeching halt and veered off toward the handbag department. (Of course they place the handbags and women's shoes near the doors.) All thoughts of a practical black, brown or cream leather tote bag flew out of my mind as I fell in love (in LOVE, I tell you) with the Dolce and Gabbana "Animalier" tote.

Thing is, I have a "thing" for leopard, a "thing" which has been suppressed for the past few years. For a while there, I had leopard everything and everywhere, even plastic pens, sticky notes, a cheapie wallet, several cheapie bags, shoes, socks, a lap blanket, a limited-edition Hello Kitty stuffed animal in a leopard suit (ok, I still have her and love her), a key, a hairdryer, and, at one point, before I lived with a man, my whole bedroom. I recognized the signs of addiction, or at least obsession. When you choose a leopard hairdryer that actually doesn't work as well as a regular black hairdryer simply because it's leopard... that's not the wisest choice. So I monastically scaled back my leopard purchases and when my leopard things wore out, didn't replace them with more leopard. My current leopard collection consists of underwear, one sweater, and the Hello Kitty in a leopard suit. I want the bag!!!
At $500 it's not outrageously expensive (not like I can get a $500 bag every week, but twice a year, maybe yes) but if I splurge on it, I still won't have a practical bag for work that goes with all my clothes. Pffffft.

Once Upon a Time

I thought I'd share this photo of me. It's VERY old. Ha ha. It's unusual because my mom usually had me dressed in girly clothes, although my hair was short as a boy's. To be fair to her, it was my preference to wear "girl" clothes, because I got mistaken for a boy if I was in jeans, cords and tee shirts. I'm pretty sure I'm wearing my friend Mason's hand-me-down shirt--he lived in the same apartment complex we lived in and was a few years older than me, and we would run around together because there weren't boys his age for him to play with.

Blind Packaging, Gambling, Rainbow Toys

I've been bitten by the bug that is blind packaging. It all started (for me) when DD started working with Be@rbricks at work, showing me how there are several different bears in a series, and they all come in the same box, and you don't know which bear you're getting till you actually buy it and open the box, at which point you're either thrilled because you got one of the ones you hoped you'd get, or slightly disappointed because you got one you already have.

The small thrill I get from opening the mysterious toys is similar to the small thrill I get, say, scratching a California Lotto scratcher with a coin, or pulling the handle on a slot machine. Yes, blind packaging taps into the parts of us that want to gamble all our money away in a windowless, smoky casino. It's a powerful urge. Combine that with cute colors and faces, limited runs, and I'm hooked like a largemouth bass.

In general, I try not to "collect" stuff. Keeping my apartment, closets and life clutter-free has been an ongoing project/goal for several years now. But the lure of these toys, called Wish Come True and made by Strangeco, is too powerful to resist! I now have three of them, and at odd times during the day and night I find myself thinking about all the remaining packages of them and what might be in them... it's not so much that I want the whole series, I just want a FEW more. Ha ha.

Miss Manners says: go directly to Hell (do not pass Go)

It was such a beautiful day, and DD and I had frozen yogurt with fruit for lunch, which isn't much of a lunch, so we decided to go to dinner right after work at a restaurant where there is an outdoor patio eating area. The thing with going out to dinner right after work is that there are always a lot of 1) old geezers and 2) couples with young children having dinner at this time. If you eat dinner early, you're with the geriatric and pediatric crowd. That's fine, it's just funny to hear the typical San Francisco middle aged parents ordering a fancy fuji apple and daikon sprout open-faced grilled cheese sandwich for their little daughter-- hold the sprouts, can we have the apple on the side, and "Don't worry honey, we can cut your sandwich and fold it so that it's a NORMAL grilled cheese sandwich." Did I ever eat at fancy fusion restaurants when I was six, with a yuppie mom and dad who catered to my every whim and ordered a whole young Thai coconut with a straw sticking out of it for me? Oh, hell no. My mom was a struggling, single, early twenties schoolteacher. I ate what I was given, we never ate at restaurants, and we only had fancy extras like cookies and string cheese when she got paid, which was once a month, and the fancy stuff lasted about three days. I'm not complaining, I'm just comparing and contrasting my experience with Little Miss Fuji Apple Grilled Cheese Sandwich's experience...

Yet I still think I had the better childhood, for I did not have a disgusting, horrid father who BLEW HIS NOSE REPEATEDLY at the dinner table, out in public. She does.
Why do men do this? And it's always men who do this, never women. Even with my tummy full of fried food and coconut ice cream and espresso, and the beautiful warm evening, I got FURIOUS when this man started, and continued his nose blowing. I wanted to tell him what a gross, nasty, entitled f*ck he was, but I didn't want to traumatize Little Miss Fuji Apple Designer Grilled Cheese Daikon Sprouts. Never thought I'd say it, but I'm kind of glad I grew up poor and grateful and eating foods that are considered "weird" or "exotic". And I'm glad my dad was clean and well mannered. Sheesh!

The Purgatory Bed

Back from a week in NYC (that warm, humid, exciting city) I was struck by a few realizations. One, there is no summer in San Francisco. I know, it doesn't snow, it doesn't freeze... but it's all cold, damp mist and mold about fifty weeks out of the year.

Two-- unlike the amazingly comfy bed they had at the hotel in which we stayed, so plush and amazing it's apparently trademarked the Heavenly Bed, our bed at home is not heavenly. (No, indeed. In comparison, our bed is hard and cold; spartan; monastic. We've nicknamed it "Purgatory".) The first thing I did upon waking up in the hotel room after our first night was to start peeling back the bedding, counting the comforters and looking for name brands on the sheets so that I could replicate this heavenliness at home. All in all, it was a mattress with a pillow top thing on top, a bottom sheet, a top sheet, a down "blanket" they call it (not as heavy and thick as a comforter) another sheet, a "hypo-allergenic" comforter with a duvet cover, two hypo-allergenic firm pillows and two down filled soft pillows. Three sheets-- it's like a club sandwich. They actually sell the bedding and the bed but it's very expensive, so I'm going to have to go about replicating the heavenly bed on a budget. I was actually relieved to discover that the thread count of the heavenly sheets wasn't so very high. Last night I went to a discount linens store and got a new duvet cover and two new pillows, went home, washed them and used them right away. The thing about discount stores is they don't usually have terrific colors and patterns, but if you don't mind off-white or white or pink or celery green you can find 400 thread count bedding for a dramatically reduced price. I would have been okay with off-white or white but luckily for me they had chocolate brown, which I much prefer. Little by little I plan to make our bed over so that it's no longer akin to purgatory.

In my recent bed research I also learned that there was once a size called an "Olympic Queen", made only by Simmons, which is six inches wider than a regular Queen. A Queen is 60 inches wide and 80 inches long. A Standard King, aka Eastern King, is 76 inches wide and 80 inches long, while a California King, aka Western King, is 72 inches wide and 84 inches long. Too bad the Olympic Queen didn't catch on--it seems it would be just right for me and DD!

Be back in a week!

I'm off to NYC early tomorrow morning!

Someone's Got Tarina Fever

Lily Allen (top photo) is adorable, and it's not like I'm a fan. I did try to listen to her album a few times but it just made me irritable. I just don't see how anyone can deny that she's adorable. Her face looks exactly like those plastic dolls from the craft store that my nana used to crochet outfits for. I liked my nana's crochet work a lot. For some reason all her stuff came out too small, even though she measured us carefully. She measured me and she measured my dad, but I ended up wearing the fisherman's sweater she made for him, and that's when I was in second grade. But getting back to the point, Lily Allen looks like an adorable little Kewpie doll.

She apparently went to some Glamour award thing the other evening with pink hair, a bruise on her arm, a white satin dress with a bleeding deer complete with splashes of blood print, and aqua satin sandals. Maybe she's been reading Francesca Lia Block novels lately; maybe she's inspired by jewelry designer Tarina Tarantino (bottom photo). I just think Lily Allen should be wearing a piece by Tarina Tarantino in homage; at least acknowledge the inspiration lest people miss the reference.

There's a pink-haired Tarina Tarantino Barbie coming out soon. I've always disliked Barbie, but I want one. I shouldn't say I always disliked Barbie. I did have several or a dozen at any given time during my childhood, and I liked to experiment with their joints, but that's another story for another day; maybe tomorrow.

More fun than a barrel of monkeys: Work!

Three weeks into my new job, and all the happy shiny newness has worn right the fuq off. These people don't even have a SERVER. They share documents on google docs. My docs don't sync with my boss's... we just keep e-mailing versions of docs round and round. We use gmail instead of Outlook, except the CEO and the IT manager, who "can't deal" with anything that's not Outlook. Okay, so what makes them think any of us can deal with not having Outlook, if they can't deal without Outlook? And I am producing a business plan with many colors and spreadsheets and bars and detail on a low-end home office printer.


Boss: Why did you change this double line to a single line?

Me: I didn't. It's a double line on the computer, but because this printer sucks, the two lines are bleeding together and making a single line.

Boss: Well, can't you DO something about it?


Okay, the something I would have done would have been to have finished it two days ago and sent it to a professional printer.

_______________

Later On...

Me: Hey, I have So-and-So Bigshot on the phone for you. Want to talk to her?

Boss: NO! She's a narcissist psycho! She's insane!

Me: uh, okay.

_______________


I could go on and on, but the point is, I realize I left Hell and simply entered another dimension of Hell. Not the same Hell, a different Hell. Old Hell had a nicer scanner. Sweet computers. A SERVER. A SHARED DIRECTORY. Microsoft Outlook. Jesus, look what they've reduced me to... I'm an evangelist for a Microsoft product. New Hell has nice, genuinely awesome co-workers. A nice CEO. (Is that an oxymoron? Nice CEO? But he really is.) Toilet seat protectors... ohhh yeah....sweet, paper-covered CIVILIZATION!
But everything's so fuqqing inefficient, and my boss... oh, wow.

What to do?

In general, I try to use the word "totally" very judiciously. (It's difficult. I, like, grew up in Southern California during that time.) So, I save the T word for when I really mean it. That said, I am SO TOTALLY going to see the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum next week!

It just so happened that I was in Los Angeles when the exhibit was at LA's Museum of Contemporary Art this past December (2007), so I got to see it there; however I didn't feel like I had as much time to look at everything as I would have liked. It will be so interesting to see some of the same pieces and how they look at the Brooklyn Museum; there were several HUGE sculptures; one of them ("Mr. Pointy") is 23 feet high. Someone told DD that there are only four museums in the world that can accomodate the @Murakami exhibit (we haven't confirmed the veracity of this yet), so I'm thrilled that I'll get to see it again!

@Murakami at the Brooklyn Museum, New York
Through July 13, 2008

The Price of Tea in China

So, gasoline is now around $4.27 a gallon in San Francisco. I know that Europeans pay a lot more for gasoline than US Americans do, and I know we've been getting gas at a low price for many years, but I'm still so glad and grateful that DD and I both work WALKING distance from home, and our car kind of can just sit in our carport most of the time. Sure, there's a dead, dessicated seagull blocking the forest path where I walk on my way to work, and it's not like I can go around, since the path is a foot wide and each side is WALLED with poison oak, but hey, walking to work makes me feel alert and cheery at work in the morning, not to mention it makes me hella smug.

I'm also seriously annoyed that gasoline prices are around $3.87 per gallon in Los Angeles. What the heck?


This article, which is a Q&A with an economist, explains the gas price thing succinctly, and even I could understand it easily, which is good because I'd generally rather be reading novels with pink covers.

Vegan Virgin Valentine

I read this novel over the past couple of days. It's good; it's about (spoilers alert) a high-achieving "good girl" named Mara Valentine and what happens when her bad-girl niece V comes to live with Mara and her parents for a school year. It's kind of a classic sisters story, where very different sisters who kind of hate each other realize that each person has good qualities and they actually do care about each other. Mara lets loose a bit and V cleans up her act a bit and everyone feels good.

The one thing I didn't understand was whether Mara and her boyfriend James ever actually ended up having sex. The description of that was odd. They were both fully dressed and dry humping and it seemed like an orgasm happened, but it was somewhat unclear. What a rip off. Wasn't Forever by Judy Blume controversial because it had sex and the Pill in it? Circa 1975. Surely today's readers of adolescent lit deserve a little more than dry humping, no?! No?

The movie was just...meh

After much anticipation, I saw Sex and the City, the movie, yesterday after work. I thought I was going to love it! I was prepared to love it, I expected to love it... I was kind of disappointed and it was really long...2 hours and 22 minutes.
The HBO episodes were a half hour each, so this was like watching almost five of them in a row. I have watched three of them in a row before, but never five, and I think it was just too much for me. It felt really long, the character of Samantha basically had only enough storyline for one of the 30 minute TV episodes, and Carrie's story dragged way beyond the point where I cared anymore. I enjoyed some moments, some jokes, Charlotte, and the fashion (a montage of Carrie trying on gowns and another of her trying on her old clothes are just awesome!) but not enough.

There were hordes of homogenous women at the theater (possibly because of the area we were in, in addition to the movie itself), and about three men. DD was one of them, which was pretty funny. The theater smelled like pancakes because they serve caramel popcorn there. At first I was annoyed that the screen and actual theater were so small, because that can be charming and you accept it at an older theater, like the Piedmont Theater in the East Bay, but this is a brand new theater, so it was actually recently designed like that.

M.E.H.

The Men of Sex and the City

Tomorrow I go to see Sex in the City, the movie. We already have tickets for a 7:00 showing, right after work, and we're going to a theater walking distance from our work, so nothing can possibly go wrong! (Knock on wood.) My three favorite men from Sex and the City were Smith Jarrod, because he was pretty much flawless in looks and in character, and because he was open to dating older women. Hey, I take that very seriously now that I'm friggin' thirty-five.
The deliciously bitchy stylist Anthony Marentino was definitely one of my favorites. Every time he was in an episode it was so good. He was the bitch I want to be in my next life (just as soon as I finish my tenure as POLLYANNA REINCARNATE); to just act out and say what I'm REALLY thinking at any given moment; to be mean 'cause it can feel good.

My number one favorite man from Sex in the City is Stanford Blatch. He was adorable and loyal and insecure, and just so cheerful and perky. I'm so excited to see the movie tomorrow!

Felt Sew Good

I love Etsy; an online marketplace for handmade things. I got two pretty little felt roses, one red and one purple, from Felt Sew Good at Etsy. They arrived beautifully wrapped in pretty tissue, and I've already worn them several times over the past few days!

Another novel I recently read, from the ever-increasing category "Chick Lit", was Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl by author Tracey Quan. It's entertaining. It's summer beach reading, but it goes into interesting issues of sexual politics, attitudes about sex, attitudes about feminity, fetishes and power more than you might expect it to. The basic premise is that protagonist Nancy is a highly paid prosititute living in New York City and juggling a fiance who thinks she's a part time copywriter. The protagonist is Chinese American, which is unusual, because the novel had mass appeal and did so well that it's becoming a film! Even more unusual--the protagonist's family is from Trinidad. Like that other beloved Manhattan girl, Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, Nancy can't save money, and though she earns plenty, she spends it all on shoes, purses and very expensive underwear. Also, like Carrie Bradshaw, the subplots involve a gaggle of archetypal women friends and archetypal men.

Several years old already, the book now has two sequels.

In a nutshell, I could have skipped it, but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Also, if you choose to read this novel, it will only take you a few days, max.

Daughters of the North by Sarah Hall

I read this novel a few days ago. It's a dystopian near-future story about a woman who escapes a society gone bad to live with an outlaw group of women who live "off the map" and who farm so well they're self-sustaining, even flourishing. Meanwhile everyone within the system is eating food out of cans and having their lives, work, and bodies carefully controlled and monitored. This is an awesome novel. It reminded me a little of The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. I'm going to read Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. The woman who did my tattoo recommended it to me years ago and I never read it, but always meant to!

Upcoming USPS Stamp: Bette Davis

The USPS is releasing a Bette Davis 42 cent stamp soon! YEAH! I love Bette Davis. The only thing better would be if they used a photo of her as Baby Jane for the stamp.

Other upcoming stamps that I'm excited about include
a sheet of Ray and Charles Eames stamps, and the holidays ones include a set of four scarrrry looking nutcrackers. They're nightmare nutcrackers. I love 'em!

The Metamorphosis: Chelsea Clinton

Until recently, I always thought of Chelsea Clinton as this horsey, kind of homely, probably really smart, nice girl. A lot of people considered Chelsea Clinton to be unattractive. I thought she was cute. She's not Barbie pretty but she was never ugly; I just never understood why people said so. She's a privileged girl, yes, but she seemed like she was a nice girl. A girl you would not mind having as your co-worker, sister-in-law, or as your young child's teacher. I always felt sorry for her because her parents are so much to live up to. It's like she would have to be super successful academically and professionally and marry someone very appropriate and live within a very narrow box of constrictions. People say her parents did a good job of keeping her from the public eye, and she certainly did keep a low profile. Till now!

All of a sudden, she's emerged, campaigning for Hillary Clinton and looking completely and FREAKISHLY different; she sounds like her mother and she looks like her, too. Chelsea is a little mini-mom! It looks to me like Hillary has had some procedures over the years, and now Chelsea appears to have had procedures, and her procedures look like they were designed to make her look like Hillary... post-procedures Hillary. Like the child is carved to match the carved parent, to further the illusion that the parent wasn't carved.

My mom had her eyes done about ten years ago. She had bags under her eyes and she wanted them gone. I didn't think they looked bad. They did the bags and the upper eyelids as well. Afterward, my mother didn't look "refreshed"-- she looked like a totally different person! She has those recognizable plastic surgery eyes. I'm all for plastic surgery if it enhances the you that's already there, or makes you look better but still like yourself. It all starts to freak me out when everyone's surgery just seems to make them look closer to a certain standard. I really think Nicole Kidman looks exactly like Naomi Watts looks like Sienna Miller looks like Kylie Minogue...

Behold Chelsea Clinton! I feel like they took the real Chelsea to the special hospital in Stepford and brought this... gynoid! It's upsetting. I don't know if any of these photos have been messed-with to enhance her weirdness... do a search for "Chelsea Clinton 2008" to see lots more.

Wildly Cherry M&M's

Back when I was a tiny tot, M&M's came in plain and peanut varieties, and their colored shells came in orange, yellow, dark brown, light brown, and green. There were hardly any green in each package, and green M&M's were rumored to make teenagers feel sexual.
(For some reason, I hate the word horny. It's almost as bad as "boobs". God, I hate the word "boobs". Boobs and horny are just two very ungraceful words.)

At the time, I was told that red dye was harmful and that's why there weren't red M&M's. I think a lot of people believed that. The truth, according to M&M's parent company, Mars, is that the candies never did contain the controversial red dye, but because of the controvery, they stopped making a red shelled candy and took it out of the color mix. In the late 80's, red was brought back due to overwhelming demand.

The newest M&M iteration is Wildly Cherry, a whole package of bright red and dark red M&M's that are subtly cherry flavored. They say these are limited edition. They taste kind of weird. If you're accustomed to eating really good chocolate, you'll probably think they taste really bad. At first, you get this little taste of cherry, and you think maybe it's going to turn into a medicinal cherry taste, like cough syrup. But then it doesn't turn medicinal. It certainly tastes artificial-cherry, though.

One Week Down!

Having completed one week at my new job, I'm feeling pretty good. The people are so nice! Maybe they just haven't had time to get annoyed with me yet...but I hope the honeymoon period lasts.

I miss several of the people at my old job, and I miss my old workstation, which was more ergonomic and private than my new work area. Other than that, the list of the "pros" of my new job is astouding. They have toilet seat covers! There are four toilets and about 12 people, and the bathrooms are clean! At my ex-company, there were four toilets for about sixty people. It's like peeing in Nordstrom's bathroom on a weekday versus peeing at the first Chevron on Highway 5 midway between Nowhere and Really Nowhere in the middle of summer while you're driving down to LA or San Diego from Northern California. I know I'm more than a little obsessed with the work bathroom issue, but if you worked at my old workplace, you'd understand. Not only was the old work bathroom gross, but I was also in charge of the company logo tee shirts, which were stored in a cabinet INSIDE the smelly bathroom. I had to stand in the smelly bathroom for long periods of time counting tee shirts.

I work less than 2 miles from my apartment now, and I work on the same block as DD. We had lunch together twice last week.

Best of all,Leggy doesn't work at my new workplace! OH MY GOD... I NEVER HAVE TO SEE HER AGAIN! And I'm finally free of the devil who wears fleece.

Work Drag

Each work situation requires a different wardrobe. Or maybe it's just that I've had such a hodgepodge of random disconnected jobs that it's been that way for me. A person's resume is supposed to look like that person has had increasing levels of responsibility all within the same or similar fields... I've been a high school teacher, a person who talks about sex and sex toys and dirty videos to customers on the telephone, a friggin' "headset specialist" (including headphones and conferencers! Must not forget those!), a receptionist, a writer... everything but a circus clown. A bad resume is kind of like bad credit. You're doomed, at least for the next several years.

As I recently mentioned, I managed to score a new job despite the resume that clearly says I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. My previous job involved a wet warehouse and frequent chores such as taking out a very heavy bucket of sludgy compost, cleaning catering trays of baked-on lasagna, frittata and/or polenta in a sink smaller than the trays themselves, the high probability of finding a dessicated mouse in a long-forgotten trap here and there. Even though I worked in the office, as opposed to in the warehouse, it was not a place for fancy clothes, although someone I worked with did come to work in ugly poly-blend suits that looked, from the span of the shoulder pads, like she must have acquired them in the 80's. She also wore pumps, which sounded like gunshots when she walked on the hard floors. My work clothes consisted of jeans, clean sneakers and Juicy Couture hoodies. If I had to do something dirty and wet I would take off my hoodie and sneakers and quickly change into the beat up fleece jacket and dirty sneakers I left there all the time.

When I was a teacher, I wore suits, because I was young and teaching high schoolers. I wore nothing that a nun wouldn't wear. I didn't even wear skirt suits. Only pant suits. My mom (also a teacher) was so thrilled that she bought me a bunch of nice clothes for work. I was also super skinny then, because being a new teacher was so stressful, and I think my mom was secretly thrilled about that, too, and enjoyed dressing me up like a doll.

At the sex toy company (after my teaching stint) we could wear whatever the hell we wanted. I favored short pleated skirts and an array of slutty, expensive shoes... the kind of shoes I always admired as works of art, but didn't buy many of because I could never wear them during the work week. I worked in a little office with only other women and gay men, so it felt very safe to dress however I wanted. It was for me, and not to impress or attract or make a statement to anyone else.

This has been my first week working in Business Casual drag. My bosses are more formal, but they have titles like CEO and Vice President of Business Development. The other women who have a title like mine ("Coordinator") dress "business casual". I don't want to spend a lot of money on clothes I wouldn't necessarily wear if I had my choice, so I bought a lot of them at discount stores like Nordstrom Rack. It's black slacks and little pink sweater one day. Gray pants and little baby blue sweater another day. Pinstriped pants and cream sweater Wednesday. To make it look like I have more clothes than I do, I plan to wear the same things next week, but add different scarves and necklaces! I think Fridays are "jeans day", because I was interviewed on a Friday and I do remember seeing more than one pair of jeans that day. So today I'm wearing my current favorite jeans, flats and a loose navy blue silk tunic thing that has cream, citron and gray chevron stripes. That said, it's time to get ready for work!

The Cheesecake Crust

I went to The Cheesecake Factory today for the first time in something like twelve years. Maybe ten years. I've only ever been to the one in Marina Del Rey, and the only thing I've ever had there was this pasta they used to have called Straw and Hay, and it was green spinach fettuccine and regular egg fettuccine with some kind of cream sauce and chicken sausage. I really liked it, and I didn't go to The Cheesecake Factory very often, so I would always get that. The last time I went to one of these restaurants, I was in my early 20's and with single girlfriends on Valentine's Day. What the hell were we thinking? Everyone else was coupled up in super straight pairings, and were acting sickly sweet, and although everyone had reservations for particular times, the wait was excruciatingly long. Especially watching the blowsy ex-frat boys try to cheer up the pissy, skinny ex-cheerleaders they were all with, as we all waited something like an hour and a half for tables. That was the end of me and The Cheesecake Factory, till today!


They no longer have the Straw and Hay, but I had some other equally rich pasta dish, and then DD and I shared a piece of strawberry cheesecake. I love cheesecake, and I remembered the Cheesecake Factory cheesecake fondly. Well, the weird thing about it was that the crust, although delicious-tasting, was oddly wet and glossy, and I think cheesecake crust should be crumbly and dry. The slices seem larger than they used to be, and they're now served with an enormous puff of real whipped cream. I fought off the desire to slap a spoon into the puff and watch the whipped cream hit the people I was dining with, but it kept entering my mind! I wonder who makes the best cheesecake in San Francisco? I've heard only good things about Zanze's Cheesecake, and now I can't wait to try it out! The quest for the most delicious cheesecake seems at odds with the quest to exercise more and eat better, doesn't it? That could be a problem.

A Sunny Week in San Francisco

My week was unusual in two ways. 1) I didn't work. All week! 2) It's warm and sunny in San Francisco this week.

I spent the week exercising outside, having lunch at the park with a new friend (got sunburned, which I'm mad at myself about, more about the strange shape of the burn from the sundress I was wearing than the fact that I'm burned and therefore speeding the process of premature skin aging), shopping for things to wear to my new job, making small home improvements, and going to the beach to read a novel. Jeez, life is so cushy when you're on vacation. Oh, I did make attempts to get a marketing reseach gig this week, but I disqualified myself when I stupidly said I don't have a GPS device in my car.

It's remarkable how quickly one can forget all about a job once you leave it. You can kind of forget it when you're on vacation, but you REALLY forget it fast when you leave it for good! Even just a few days later, you can think idly about two or three people, and even if it's the two or three most awful people there, who made your work life hell and routinely made your stomach hurt and your skin itch, it all just feels like the fuzzy memory of a vague dream or a movie you watched many years ago when you were taking cold medicine. That's what happened to me this week, and good riddance to it all.


Now it's Sunday night and I'm scared about starting a new job tomorrow. Bleh!

The Best Day Ever

I am unemployed for one week. I start my new job next Monday.

Besides some woman huffing and puffing and sighing passive-aggressively behind me at the Post Office because there was only one clerk and I was mailing a package to Ireland and I had to fill out a customs form (and she can just stop huffing and puffing, because I GOT THERE FIRST...her huffing and puffing only made me write slowly and carefully, adding a serif to every letter) my first day off was awesome. The weather is beautiful and cool and fresh, and a friend and I went for a super long walk-hike, part of it through a neighborhood and part of it out by the cliffs above the ocean. She saw a guy she used to date. Everywhere we go she sees a guy she used to date; it's pretty funny. She doesn't like her name used in public; she has a real thing about that, so now I just call her Killer. Killer has killered half the guys in this city. But she has lived here a long time.

I realized today that I never have to go back to my old job again. Oh my God, the bathrooms were really dirty, and, uh, not ventilated well. The linoleum was cracked and peeling up at the edges and blackened underneath. We didn't have toilet seat protectors, and there were 100 employees, and when some of us asked about toilet seat protectors, they acted like we were asking for a gold-plated bidet! I never have to deal with that again. Not only is there a nice clean bathroom at my new job, but right across the street is a restaurant with an amazing bathroom, and not only that, but I'm right by my boyfriend's work, too, which has about 1001 really clean bathrooms.
We try to keep our own bathroom at home really clean, too. My future is looking like 100% clean bathrooms 100% of the time!!! YES!

Eggettes

There are two Eggettes shops in San Francisco, where they make and sell these poufy waffle snack things. Instead of square waffle baffles, they're egg shaped. Eggettes are surprisingly unsweet and mild-tasting. They are pretty eggy inside... with a crispy outside. They just serve it in a paper bag, like this (you're looking down into the bag) without anything on it. I ate it by tearing off pieces and eating them, like tearing off pieces of bread. I was fascinated with the way they look, so I tried one. I still like the way they look, but they weren't so delicious that I'm dying to have them again!

Penta changed their logo design

Penta brand bottled water recently changed their logo design. The old bottle is the one on the right, with some kind of blue bubbles or water molecules, and the new bottle is the one on the left, with the diamond or crystal shape and more pink, and a more rounded typeface. I'm wondering if they're trying to make the bottle design more feminine, or something. I don't really think this design got better at all...

Bye, Bye, Bitches

I got a new job! It's closer to home (REALLY close to home!), more interesting, the office is nicer and cleaner, it pays more, and the people seem nice!

I gave two weeks' notice and at first felt on top of the world. I seriously felt like I was bouncing instead of walking. But then the owners are giving me the cold shoulder. These people are so weird. Instead of saying thanks for all your hard work, we're sorry to see you go, good luck, they are acting angry and hostile. I don't know why they have to take it so personally. The way they are behaving is so immature. Meanwhile, I'm plowing through tons of work to get them to a good place with all my stuff. I feel like I'm turning the other cheek, but getting beat up pretty badly...

Barack + Kiehl's 58B Lip balm

I'm not the first person to blog about Barack Obama, nor am I the first person to write about Kiehl's SPF 15 lip balm; however, I may be the first blogger to say I have found the perfect lip balm for Barack Obama!

The other day I was at the salon I go to, having my hair cut by my stylist, who is pretty quiet and reserved. The stylist in the chair right next to hers, though, is very bubbly, cute and talkative. So the woman who cuts my hair and I were more or less listening to the conversation the bubbly one was having with her own client. They were talking about how tired and drained Barack Obama has been looking, presumably due to the stress of the election. "I feel so badly for him!" she said, "I just want to send him a case of Chapstick!" We all about died laughing (not at Barack Obama, because from the sound of it, everyone in the conversation is an Obama supporter, but just because it was silly and unexpected).

I've long been looking for the perfect lip balm for DD. This is purely my own trip, since DD has several lip balms that he likes just fine. There are two events that jumpstarted my obsession with DD's lipbalm-- the first was that he used a lip balm he was apparently allergic to one night, and woke up the next morning with his lips swollen like balloons! It took about a week for them to go down all the way, and afterward, they were horribly dry and cracked. And for part of the recovery process, one SIDE of his mouth was a lot more swollen than the other side. It was kind of frightening. The second reason for my pursuit of the perfect lip balm is the fact that DD's lips literally turn blue if he's cold... and just lavender-gray if he's chilled.
Plus he has really big lips, so it's like these big blue lips... anyway, I've given him a lot of tinted lip balms, which he good-naturedly tries, but usually proclaims too greasy, too much like a lipstick, too waxy, or too shiny.

Enter Kiehl's Lip Balm 58B. 58B is the color, and it's a very slight brownish peach tint that doesn't really look like anything, but makes the lips look less dry. (They have one that's more red-pink, too.) The tube doesn't look like a lipstick tube, it has a slant-tip applicator (but I think it's better to squeeze it onto your figertip and rub it on) and it feels very soft and creamy. It's also not too glossy!
Might be the perfect thing for DD. And Barack Obama! And husbands and boyfriends everywhere.

Thirty Five is the New Twenty Seven

The problem with turning thirty-five years old is that it's the year everyone starts to say, "Ooh. Well, you don't LOOK THIRTY-FIVE" in this sort of patronizing, conciliatory way when they say "Happy birthday," and ask how old you are. Oh, man, I hate that. It's particularly annoying coming from twenty somethings. I just want to smack them. You know, the twenty somethings who are always saying things like, "I'm dating AN OLDER MAN," and you find out the guy is thirty-one and the twenty something is twenty-five.

They always use actors who are way older than thirty-five to play a thirty-five year old on TV, so people think that real people who are thirty-five look younger than thirty-five. Anyway, I'm healthy, I wear sunscreen, I exercise and I have melanin, so I'm hardly spackling my wrinkles with silicone line filler and hoisting my boobs off the ground. Actually, the only sign I've seen that I'm aging is that I have a few gray hairs. Now that's weird. My gray hairs are totally different from my regular dark brown hair... the brown hair is pliable and shiny and each strand is very fine, but the gray hairs are very thick and kind of wiry. It's pretty gross, actually. I went so far as to pull out the couple of gray hairs that lie along my part. The rest of them, I just leave alone.

All in all I'm dealing with the thirty-five thing pretty well, I think. So far.

I really think thirty-five is the new twenty-seven. I think I should put that on a tee shirt.

A Rose by any other name

Dannii Minogue is the younger sister of Kylie Minogue, lesser known to those of us in the United States, but apparently wildly famous in them there Australia, New Zealand, and Asia parts. Her full name is Danielle Jane Minogue.

Dannii is an interesting nickname for Danielle. My name is also Danielle, but I go by Dani, which seems woefully SHORT now that I know about Dannii. I mean, think of all the extra letters I could have had. And when you do a web search for "Dannii" you're pretty much only going to find Dannii Minogue, which speaks to the originality of the name with the additional letters.

I had a job a few years ago where there was a woman named Dennie. Our boss was British and maybe because of the way Dennie and Dani sounded to him, he thought the names were too similar. I told him he could call me Danielle, but there was a guy named Daniel, so he didn't want to call me Danielle either. I don't really know why it mattered, but maybe because it was a customer service type job where you have to giv your name out to customers all the time, he felt it was important that we all have a unique name. To me, since there was no Dani or Danny or Danielle, I didn't see why I had to be renamed, but I decided to be Elle; the second half of Danielle. Only I don't really like the sound of Elle, which sounds like El, as in "el", which is just the masculine "the" in Spanish, as in el perro or el insecto. So I made them pronounce it like "Ellie" but spell it "Elle". To me, this was funny, and kind of my way of getting back at everyone for making me change my damned name. It was weird. People would call my name at work "Elle. Elle. ELLE!" and I wouldn't respond... or I would go to sign a note or Post It and start to write "D-a-n" oops, try again.

There were three Mikes there at one point, with one Mike being the owner of the company. Since he didn't do customer service, another guy was also allowed to be Mike, but he was Big Mike. Then another Mike came and was faced with the same ultimatum I was faced with: we want to hire you, but... you'll need to choose a different name. He ended up using his surname; I can't remember what it was, but it sounded like a first name. Big Mike left, and another Mike was hired, and he decided to go by "Tony", which I think was his middle name.

The whole thing falls under the category of truly f-ing ridiculous things I have done for money, a category which is broad and vast indeed.

Now that my eyes have been opened to the existence of Kylie Minogue's sister, and the truly exotic spelling options available to those of us named Danielle, my nickname name looks like a dull and lusterless, straightforward, four letter word in comparison! And don't get me started on Anna Nicole Smith's daughter Dannielynn. My friend Ei is fond of calling me "Dani-Lynn!" in a high pitched, screechy voice with a poor imitation of a Southern accent (she's from New York). Perhaps it is time to re-invent myself!

Bros before Hos

At work I sit in what's called a "bullpen configuration" by the people at Herman Miller, designers and manufacturers of modern office spaces. There are four of us who sit in pretty close quarters. It's well-designed, if I must say so myself; but I was the project manager on this new office space, so I'm biased. At any rate, my task was to fit four people into a very small space, one person who is the IT manager, and she needs room for all her cables and computers and laptops and keyboards, and one is the CFO, and of course he needed quiet, privacy, and status. The third person is a trainer who trains new staff and teaches them how to drive a forklift, and warehouse safety, and what the differences are between four dozen varieties of tangerines, etc. Fitting him in was easy, because he had no say in the matter. He took his position just as the finishing touches were being put on the bullpen. The fourth person is me.

So, we sit in a bullpen. We have no privacy from each other, but no one else can see us unless they actually move our flexible wavy screen that blocks the opening aside and enter the bullpen. Most people, including our CEO, are rather polite about this. From the outside, people say, "Knock Knock" or "hi... can I come in?"

The only person who doesn't do this is Leggy, the boss of the trainer guy. She feels entitled to come barging right in, gangly arms and legs flying, talk to him in her loud screechy voice even though the other three of us are working in complete silence, and stand in the non-existent space between him and me so that I can't move my chair. She also feels entitled to tell him he looks tired, needs more rest, needs to shave, needs to get married, and "I thought you said you were going to cut your hair! You didn't cut your hair! You said you were going to! You didn't!" The guy is easygoing, really good-looking; he's Japanese-Irish, about six foot five, and has long black wavy hair which he keeps in a low ponytail. And unlike a lot of the people I work with, he doesn't smell. Leggy is homely, dresses like a fool, is really rude, and has wiry hair that's about 1/3 black and 2/3 iron gray, to her shoulders and with no particular style, and she has a mean-looking little mouth and silver braces. She also wears shorts to work. Not long shorts or pedal pushers or culottes or clamdiggers. Shortie shorts.
I really don't know where she gets off criticizing anyone's style or grooming.

So the other day she came barging in, and in the middle of berating him about one thing or another, she sees that he has this "Bros before Hos" thing on his desktop.
Now, the IT manager and I had seen it earlier, and we thought it was funny, first of all because it's satirical and it IS funny, and secondly because we both prefer Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton, and it seems most of our workplace is pro-Hillary, and damned vocal about it. Plus, there aren't any other people besides us who will see this guy's desktop, so we are pretty much the extent of who could possibly be offended. But Leggy immediately bellowed, "I FIND THAT OFFENSIVE. THAT IS SEXIST AND RACIST. TAKE IT DOWN. NOW." First of all, she should have told him that privately. Secondly, we're all people of color, and she's white. Thirdly, she's the most classist, offensive person I know, always on and on about fat people and fat children and fat America. (I think she has an eating disorder. She eats her lunch out of a Tupperware smaller than a deck of cards, and when we had a potluck, she asked the woman who made pigs in blankets if there was any nutritional value in them.)

The Bros before Hoes thing is actually a tee shirt design. Oh, how I would love to buy it, wear it, and get sent home on a beautiful sunny day soon! I could probably get the IT manager in on this with me.

My Avocation

In the novel I talked about below, in the afterlife, everyone does a job they love. Money isn't really an issue for the dead, and the main characters seem to always have as much money as they need. Everyone works, though; each person chooses an "avocation". The main character, Liz, works with dogs (she can understand their language), and John Lennon is a gardener. An avocation is whatever they will love doing.

I often wonder how many people are doing what they would most love doing. As for me, I'm not sure what I would most love doing for work. I've done work in the past that I loved. I loved talking to people about sex but heck, I was earning $11.82 an hour. At times, I loved teaching high school, but there were a lot of things about it that weren't right for me. I loved working in a bookstore in college.

I'm looking for a new job, not because I don't like mine; it's a fun job with a lot of autonomy and I get to write, research, and do some graphic design. Sometimes I love it, but I don't LOVE it. There's a glass ceiling and I've gone as high as I can go, and that's one issue, but also, I don't LOVE my job.

Once you start looking for a new job, it's easy to get "senioritis" -- really cranky and lazy and uninspired. To stay focused, I'm doing this Pollyanna-ish thing that really works amazingly well for me; saying "I'm going to do my best today" and really doing it! I don't have to do anything perfectly; just my best. Ironically, this goody-goody stuff makes me happier at work, and it's pretty much what got me through college and what keeps me exercising.