New LUSH Vaniila Range

LUSH Cosmetics recently came out with a vanilla range. As seems to be the case with all new LUSH launches, this product was available in the UK long before it was available in North America. I wanted it so badly that I kept looking on the LUSH UK site and calculating pounds to dollars and trying to figure out, if British Royal Mail is so inexpensive, what's the drawback to using it?

They finally sent this stuff across the pond to the shops in North America. The Vanilla Delite lotion is lightweight and sinks in quickly, much like the discontinued Skin Sin did. It has a powdery, jasmine-y vanilla fragrance (not like a cupcake or anything you'd want to eat). The Vanilla Puff powder has a similar fragrance but much more faint. It feels less dry than their Coconut powder but less moisturizing and cocoa-buttery than Silky Underwear. The Vanillary solid perfume smelled good (more "edible" vanilla than the other items) but I didn't get it or the massage bar because I always seem to waste those products when I do buy them.

Downstairs Neighbor UPDATE

My new downstairs neighbor is so far so much better than any and all of the previous ones! For one thing, her TV is pretty small, and she doesn't play it very loudly. For another, I noticed as I was walking back from taking out the recycling and trash that she had some friends over... I could see into her apartment because it's dark out and she had the lights blazing inside. As I walked toward our apartments, she came to the window and closed the blinds rather frantically. A second later as I passed her front door, I heard her coughing... and not sick coughing, but that weed coughing, while other people were giggling. She's a weed smoker! All the noise she will make will be some mellow random giggling and chuckling, with the occasional coughs thrown in there.

Bobbi Brown Packaging Change

Bobbi Brown blushes and eyeshadows have recently gone from round to square. The square ones are also made so that you can pop them out of their cases and add them to a palette with three or four or six squares in it. You can now get the discontinued round eyeshadows and blushes on eBay for a really discounted price! I don't know if they were slated for destruction and someone saved them, or if they fell off a truck or what, but I've been stocking up on the rounds for $9, $10 or $12 each. They retailed for $20 or so.

Wicked, the Musical - next month!

Around mid-May, I finally get to see Wicked, the musical. I loved the novel by Gregory Maguire, and I missed Wicked in San Francisco the first time around because I kept seeing the ads in the BART station but I was too clueless to figure out that it was a new musical and that I wanted to see it. It's easy to ignore advertising in the bowels of the BART system, expecially when most of what they advertise is banking services. For a while, this company called ING Direct paid your BART fare, but you were completely bombarded by these hire-a-marketers as soon as you exited the gates in the station. So while the Wicked posters were up, I saw them, but I kept my head down and moved fast to avoid any sales interactions. Then someone lent me the novel and I loved it and quickly read several other books by Gregory Maguire, such as Confessions of An Ugly Stepsister and Mirror, Mirror, which was my favorite. tried to see Wicked in New York City when I was there but couldn't get tickets.
So it's back in San Francisco, and I finally get to see it! This green rose hairpin thing is the first part of my Wicked outfit!

Ring Ding

I recently got this amazing vintage amethyst, pink sapphire and rose gold ring from an eBay auction, for less money than a pair of premium denim jeans. I really wish my hands weren't starting to look so old...

Life in the Dorm

One would think I'd have left the dorms a long time ago (seeing as I've seen age thirty come and go)... when I was in college lying perfectly still on my extra long twin bed (extra-long because I'm 5'0" tall. Oh, wait, extra-long because they are the same government-issue beds they use in prisons!) to fantasize about when I'd get out of college, get a nice job, no longer a minimum wage job at JC Penney or at SuperCrown books, and have my own apartment) but it turns out that apartments, at least ones with adjoining walls, and ones that I can afford, are always just an extension of dorm life with the usual LOVELY neighbors... screaming and yelling... drunken crying... cops are called... cops lead sobbing angry girl away... just a typical Friday early morning at, say, 3:00 am.

DD and I have lived in this apartment for three and a half years. In that time, the apartment downstairs has emptied and filled four times, if you count the person who just moved in today. Tonight. Or at least, she started at 11:00 pm and, well, since the people helping her move appear to be her parents, who are rather portly and slow-moving in their middle aged-ness, it's still going on.

The first couple was pretty noisy. They enjoyed chasing each other through the apartment and giggling, which is cute, I suppose, except that they were each over 250 lbs and their footfalls on the cheap hardwood floors and their bodies bumping against the walls had me in a perpetual state of fear that an earthquake was starting. (I lived in Northridge, California during the huge Northridge Earthquake. In fact, I lived in the dorms, most of which were damaged so badly that we had to double and triple up the next semester.) I had to draw the line when they got out of their huge SUV and hit my car door, denting it, then had the nerve to try to rub the mark away, leaving an oily circle AND a dent. We had a talk which resulted in CarolAnn making her passenger and the culprit apologize to me and then they gave me a bottle of wine.

The second girl was better because at least she lived alone. Very alone, with a very big TV with amazing sound, amazing bass. It would rattle my floor and windows. She favored loud movies. Always with the gun sounds. It couldn't be Memento, the movie about Chopin, for example, or, like, Rivers and Tides, that documentary about Andy Goldsworty. She rarely went out, and when she did she returned with huge cases of food from Costco. She liked Marie Callender's potpies.

When she moved out, another girl moved in. She moved in with a roommate. The roommate had a giant teddy bear that lived in the living room. It was always kind of funny to come home and see the giant teddy bear just kicking it on the couch. I didn't care much about the roommate, because her bedroom was under the small bedroom I use as my walk in closet. The main girl drove me crazy with her cough. She apparently had some kind of respiratory ailment that required her to use a drug called DuoNeb. I know this because she had a DuoNeb box in the window of her car. Maybe it was like a Medical Alert bracelet. Like if she got in a car accident, the first responders would see that box and know she was on DuoNeb. She coughed like crazy. It sounded like gunshots. It made me so nervous and self conscious, realizing I could hear her coughing so clearly, that when I had a cold and got a cough, I slept on my couch in the living room.
Anyway, she was weird...we rode the bus together sometimes... sometimes I would force conversation, but most of the time she just ingored me, as if we weren't living in this very close situation where I could hear her coughing like gunshots.

So, she's now moved out (her parents helped) and the new girl, who is basically a clone of her, is moving in. What's with women in their 20's having out of shape daddy and uncles in their late 50's moving at the speed of molasses as their movers? My dad has never had to lift a piece of my furniture or drive a U Haul for me... why should he? I'm an adult. And Lord knows I've never moved into an apartment in the dead of night. Hell, I'm an ADMINISTRATIVE PROFESSIONAL. I'm more prepared than that.

A lukerwarm welcome to Downstairs Neighbor #4. Can't wait to hear your sound system coming through the walls.

Excellence In Action: Or, the Day My Boss Ignored Administrative Professionals' Day

Administrative Professionals' Day came and went with nary a whisper at my workplace. It was last Wednesday. It was just another day; same as always, with people asking me for this, that, a favor, rescheduling, time on so and so's calendar, whether the temperature of the cool water that comes out of the filter could be turned up because the cold water is too cold but they want it cooler than room temperature, oh, and the plant service I ordered for the office came to deliver and everyone who didn't get a plant right next to them wanted to know how they could get a plant (consider that I had to practically BEG the Mister President & CEO to sign off on this service because it costs a whopping $150 a month. But why can't we buy plants and take care of them ourselves? He asked. Because no one but me will, and I don't have a green thumb, I replied. But why? He asked. Because our office looks stark and unprofessional, I replied. Of course, he ordered a 7 foot ficus tree for his office, but who's noticing the irony or hypocrisy of that?).

There were no cards, flowers, lunches, half days off or monogrammed plaques saying, "God Bless our EA." No "Happy Administrative Professionals' Day". Nothing. Zip. Shit.
I bemoaned this fact to our receptionist. However, I had told her boss the week before that the day was coming, so the receptionist got taken out to lunch. The next day she came in with a tulip plant for me yelling about Happy Belated Administrative Professionals' Day. My work area is in a hallway right outside my boss' office; well, one of my bosses, as I now support no less than FOUR, count them - FOUR executives.
Mister President & CEO overheard, wandered out of his office and offered to take me to lunch. I thought it would look like I was holding a grudge if I said no, so, three hours later there I was eating a sandwich and drinking a can of ginger ale while he talked about work and treated me to "some insight into my (sic) character" . HIS character.

Wowzers!

The theme of Administrative Professionals' week this year was "Excellence in Action".

It Wouldn't Be Spring Without CRACK

A few days of warm weather in San Francisco brought out all the cracks.

SweetSpot Labs

SweetSpot Labs is a much more sophisticated "feminine hygiene" product company than any that have ever been launched before. For one thing, they provide non-judgemental, non-marketing-ish education about the vulva right on their website. For another, their angle is different from others' (Summer's Eve, etc.) in that SweetSpot states there's nothing wrong with the vagina or vulva, and that odor down there is as natural as bad breath, smelly armpits or general sweat. They sell a line of wipes, washes, sprays and the like.

It's fascinating that good, solid, non-mysogynist information and chick lit color schemes and cute Stila-esque drawings are now merging in marketing and product development. I'll be watching this one with interest!

Good Morning, Gmail Autopilot!

I woke early this morning to the sounds of spring birdsong (it was still dark and the birds sounded like they were on crack, actually) and checked my personal email. Gmail had a red tab or link about a new feature called Autopilot, which uses some type of artificial intelligence to reply to emails, mimicking your writing style. The description said it needs more than 100 emails to be accurate, and that you and another person can reply to each other a few times before the quality of the email degrades.
I was astounded, and started thinking about all the delightful implications for my work, where we use Gmail instead of Outlook or another email service. Like, maybe I'll just enable it and go get a manicure this morning... or a Bloody Mary. I began clicking around the internet looking for more information about this and then realized the date - it's April 1st. DAMMIT!

Fantastic Cat by Takako Minekawa

This is a very cute song. I've been listening to it first thing in the morning after I drag myself reluctantly out of bed, and it's helping!
I can't believe that just a year ago I had a job where I started work, across town, at 7:00 am, and I was so accustomed to it that it didn't seem like any big deal. Now my start time is 9:00 and I have the hardest time getting up at 7:00!

Andy Goldsworthy - The Spire

I'm fortunate to have Andy Goldsworthy's sculpture, "The Spire" near my home. I went on a recent tour/hike to The Spire. They said that in time, the small cypress trees nearby will grow taller than the sculpture and obscure it, but unlike most of Andy Goldsworthy's ephemeral art, The Spire has structural engineering components holding it together on the inside; it's just not visible on the outside.
It's pretty cool and amazing. When you get up close to it you realize how tall it is. It's such a graceful object that from a distance it's very unimposing, and some may say unimpressive (someone at my work complained that it was just a pile of sticks that anyone could have put together). When you get close enough to be staring straight up at it, dwarfed by it, you get the full understanding of how beautiful and special it is. Here I am in shadows near The Spire. The tour group is around the base of the sculpture.

Kinokuniya

I got a handful of Easter-candy colored notebooks at Kinokuniya bookstore in Japantown...I like them because the paper is very smooth. I use them for writing my journal entries.

Balmshell Lipgloss

Well, enough ranting about my dumb day job. The only good thing about it is it pays a salary, and, I suppose, that for now it still exists, seeing as more and more people are being laid off. I could possibly make an offshoot blog and put all my work woes there, but that would be boring indeed.

Back to the Regularly Scheduled Programming...

Here's a very cool product; Balmshell lipgloss. ($20) Apparently they sell this item at Sephora, so it's hardly a newly-discovered secret, but I bought it online and I didn't see it in my local Sephora store. The fun thing about it is that the applicator end is one of those slidey-liquid things like those pens from the 70's. For some reason, when I was a kid I had one with a pinup girl on it, and when you turned the pen upside down, her bathing suit fell off.

They offer several colors, but the one I got is called "You Give Me Fever" and is described as a sheer rosy pink. The illustration features a blonde woman with peach cheeks... when you turn the applicator, a pink heart fills with color and slides over and fills her cheeks with pink. (Click the photo for a larger version.) Pretty cute, although it gets points deducted for not featuring some women of color. (Stila Cosmetics is now featuring illustrations of women of color.) The product comes with a little threaded keychain end cap, so you can take the cute part of the lipgloss off after you finish the gloss and make a keychain out of it. It combines "lipstick" with "toy". In addition to all this design cleverness, the gloss itself is pretty, non-sticky, and smells pleasant! I was pleasantly surprised.

Supposedly, when the economy goes south, lipstick sales remain strong or even increase. They say that a new lipstick is still an affordable luxury that women will treat themselves to while cutting back on other frivolities. So maybe Balmshell has a chance. I plan to get a few more.

International Postage - It Takes a Genius

One of the many stimulating and creative things I had to do today was address and stamp 28 envelopes and stick a self addressed, stamped envelope inside each one. One of my coworkers, who is someone I actually have hung out with outside of work and consider a friend (although today's events make me wonder) was given the task of taking the same address list and just plugging the address of each person into a form letter. I gave her this task when she started pestering me about her letters this morning, by messaging me to ask if there was anything she could do to "help" with the letters. When people say stuff like that at my workplace, it means "Can you hurry up with that thing you are supposed to do for me today?" So I hurried up, as I was passive-aggressively requested to do by this woman, and addressed and stamped her envelopes. There was one letter going to Australia and one to Switzerland, and I put the appropriate postage on them. Later this person instant messages me to say she noticed I put the appropriate postage on the two international-bound letters. She followed this up with a "You're awesome!" and a line or two telling me if it had been her she wouldn't have realized this till she was already at the Post Office.

Um. Can you say patronizing? I replied that I have several years of administrative work behind me and that my arms are an accurate postal scale and my eyes can penetrate a toner cartridge from across the room and know how much ink is inside. Is it because I wear lipstick and I refuse to wear shoes shaped like baked potatoes that she thinks I have no brain whatsoever? Like I wouldn't put the correct postage on a letter, so I need to be praised when I do?

I hate people.

What Kind of Monster Hates Babies?!

Bossman has finally done it - he's convinced me that he is indeed a monster, not a human at all. Today was the day that one of the staff, who has been on extended maternity leave since November 1 (she gave birth right around Thanksgiving) was going to come to work to visit and bring the baby. She announced she was three months pregnant at a meeting a few days after I'd started working there. She's in her early 40's and has only been married for two years... apparently it was kind of looking as though the husband and kid thing just wasn't going to happen for her... and then it happened, after some rounds of eHarmony. She's an attractive lady, and very sweet. She was one of my four bosses and I didn't enjoy her work style or enjoy working with her, but she was nice enough, and it was fun to see her pregnancy progress. We threw her a little work shower, and it's been fun to see the baby in photos. Anyhow, today was the first time she was going to visit the office and show us the baby.

Bossman, BossLady, the third person I support, whom I'll call The Nutty Professor, and one of my co-workers were in a meeting in the Bossman's office, which adjoins the main room of the "house" we work in. I work right outside Bossman's office. About 15 minutes before the new mom was to arrive, Bossman came out of the meeting and told me not to interrupt them for her; they didn't want to see her. Mind you, she's on the staff. We haven't seen her since October 31. She gave birth. We haven't seen the baby.
She CALLED ME AND ASKED ME WHAT THEIR CALENDARS LOOKED LIKE so she could be sure to see everybody! I was stunned by what he was saying, and asking me to do. I mean, as an Executive Assistant I have to be some kind of gatekeeper blocking solicitors from my executives like they're friggin Madonna or President Obama. I understand that; I have no qualms about it. But telling my co-worker that these people can't be bothered to see her after all these months, and meet her baby?! Or worse, pretending that they're not in there (when you can clearly hear them talking inside his office). That's over the top. My soul is worth more than my paycheck, and I did not intend to burn in Hell for doing something that mean and nasty. I finally decided to just avoid it altogether. I greeted the new mom when she arrived and saw the baby, who was just waking up and was totally adorable, and after we chatted I just walked outside and went down to a cafe for a beverage.

I later learned from my co-worker who was in the meeting that there was an actual discussion among those in the meeting about whether they would deign to come out of their meeting and meet the baby. BossLady stated that she hates babies, Bossman agreed (he has two adult sons), and my co-worker apparently turned red in the face because she too doesn't like babies, but didn't want to agree with BossLady. Bossman then told her she was red in the face, at which point she admitted she dislikes babies. The Nutty Professor, who has a three year old, said, "You guys..." but that was about it.

Okay, what kind of people don't like babies?! I can see not wanting to have one... I don't want to have one. I can see not wanting to have to take care of one for, say, eight hours. But seriously, who can possibly object to a quick three minute interaction with a baby, while the parent is present and if the baby poops their diaper or starts crying the parent will take care of it? I mean, that is just like taking a happy pill, right? Kittens, puppies, rainbows, flowers and babies are inarguably cute, happy, joyful things, right?! Honestly, Bossman and BossLady (hates babies and has a black cat: you do the math...) have convinced me once and for all that they are demon spawn.

God told Miley to Do It

Miley Cyrus (about the fact that people are upset that a photo of her pulling her eyes back and making "slant eyes" is circulating around the Internet):


“I’ve also been told there are some people upset about some pictures taken of me with friends making goofy faces! Well, I’m sorry if those people looked at those pics and took them wrong and out of context!

“In NO way was I making fun of any ethnicity! I was simply making a goofy face. When did that become newsworthy?

“It seems someone is trying to make something out of nothing to me. If that would of [sic] been anyone else, it would of been overlooked! I definitely feel like the press is trying to make me out as the new ‘BAD GIRL’!”

“I feel like now that Britney is back on top of her game again, they need someone to pick on! Lucky me! haha Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know what is on my heart. You guys know me and have been by my side every step of the way!

“You guys know my heart and know the most important things to me are my friends, family, fans, and GOD! In NO WAY do I want to disappoint any of you! But, when I have made mistakes in the past, I feel like I’ve owned up to them and apologized.”

“I really wish everyone would stop focusing on my personal life and get back to focusing on what I love! Music and Acting! Hopefully, I will be touring again this fall! Yayy! =] It will be a nice change to be back out on the road again!”

Lord. It's time for someone to go back into her Star Wagon, sit down with the tutor and crack open the history book. The exaggeration of Asian eye shape has long been used to demonize and dehumanize Asian people. It has a historic context, like the N word. Asian caricatures with small slanted eyes were circulated in American newspapers and helped establish Japanese Americans as "different" - different enough to round up and put into internment camps during WWII.
Get a clue!

20-25

Well, I went to my check up today and they say my vision is 20/25! Prior to my surgery it was 20/400. Definitely worth the money and the alien-abduction experience! I'm thrilled, so far.

Abducted by aliens.

An hour and a half ago I had Lasik eye surgery. I'm supposed to keep my eyes closed for 4-6 hours. My eyes are closed right now, actually. DD is typing for me as I dictate. This is awesome. I think I could probably finally write my novel if we did this all the time.
Before I had this procedure I talked to several people who had had the procedure before, as well as reading about it on the internet. Everybody says something different about what it's like. One person said, "It's no big deal. It's so easy!" One person said his brother said his eyes were numb the whole time -- he didn't feel anything. One person told me her eyes were in actual pain afterward for several hours. And one lady who actually works at the surgeon's office described the sensation as, "Having your eyeballs sucked." That was worrisome.
They offered me a Valium. At the time, I was feeling perfectly calm and declined. But an hour later, after lots of tests had been done and pictures of my eyeballs taken and I was led into a room and told to lie down on this inverted thing with a circle for my head I started getting nervous and wished I had taken the Valium. A few minutes later when they started TAPING MY EYELASHES TO MY EYELIDS I really wished I had taken the Valium. The next thing I knew they pivoted my head under this crazy, futuristic, space-age looking laser thing and I suddenly realized that it was exactly like this recurring dream I have in which I'm being abducted by aliens and the aliens are getting ready to do some examinations/experiments on my eyes. The doctor then inserted some things into my eyes to hold them open (I don't know what they were; I don't even want to know) and at some point he told me there would be some pressure on my eye and there was, which freaked me out so much I thought I was going to throw up. The next thing you know, everything went black, presumably when he was cutting a flap in my cornea sooooooo freaky. Then, I was instructed to look at this light while they lasered my eye. Then I started having a déjà vu which was really freaky and which probably indicates I was abducted by aliens at some point... I did grow up in the desert... it was very rural... there were many drunken, unaccounted for evenings spent with friends or staggering around under the influence of tequila. Next came the smell of my own burning eye-flesh which was disgusting and somewhat embarrassing much like a fart. At this point, I told the doctor, "I'm really sorry you have to smell my eye burning. That's really gross." He then told me that that's why he wears a mask and also that there is a suction thing near my eye sucking most of the smoke away. Sooooo gross.
This whole process was repeated on the other eye and it was just as gross. Now I'm home sitting here with my eyes closed. So this is what Lasik is really like, no Pollyanna bullshit... It's gross, you smell your own flesh burning, weird stuff is being done to your eye and you might flashback to the time you were abducted by aliens. All I have to say is: 1) I could've bought a lot of clothes for $4600.
2) I really hope that when I wake up tomorrow I'll be able to see perfectly, it will be like a miracle, and worth it.