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?