Just Pink Fluff

Opi Hong Kong Collection 2010

2010-02-20T18:08:00.000-08:00

This is a cool new nailpolish color from Opi's Hong Kong 2010 collection. The color is called "Jade is the New Black". I had a pedicure the other day and really wanted to try this color. I love it!

CARGO Cosmetics 50% Off at Sephora Now!

2010-01-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

I think Sephora is discontinuing http://www.sephora.com/browse/brand_hierarchy.jhtml?brandId=CARGO. Last month I took my friend Holly to Sephora to help her pick out a lipgloss. She dislikes sticky lipgloss, so I suggested Cargo, because theirs is soft and moist and feels more like lip balm than a traditionally sticky gloss. Cargo lipgloss used to come in the big round tin with two colors side-by-side, which was all the rage a few years ago, but they changed to a regular tube-and-wand style packaging not so long ago. I complained that I thought $22 was high for a tube of lipgloss, compared to the old round tins... and compared to a brand like MAC, whose lipglosses are around $14 each. While griping about the price, I still think Cargo's gloss is one of the best, so she got one.

Suddenly these glosses are $11 each on Sephora's website, and all the other Cargo products are half off as well! I was wondering if it was some kind of error that by some miracle no one had caught, because it wasn't marked 50% off or "sale". I got excited. Before placing a web order, DD suggested I go to a Sephora location to see if that pricing was the same at the store, so we did, and it is!

I made out like a bandit and got 2 lipsticks, 1 lip brush (and Cargo's wide, stiff, flat lip brush is my favorite lip brush of all time. I already had one... now I have two!), the giant "Big Bronzer" which is the size of a salad plate, a "Suedeblush", 1 lipgloss (has no fragrance), and one Blu Ray lipgloss, which is minty... for just under $100 total.

Double Rainbow Amazement

2009-12-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

It truly is Oz-like in San Rafael. It's so beautiful, even when it's raining. Where else can you look over your fence and be greeted with a double rainbow?! No wonder people in Marin are so smug...

Thanks, Apple

2009-11-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

Shockingly (oh, how naive!), we've been out of a computer, off and on, for just about two months now. A one-year old Apple iMac whatever (early 2008 20" iMac), purchased September of 2008, crashed suddenly. Good thing we had purchased the extended warranty Apple Care whatever, allowing us to take the machine to the Apple Genius Bar (rather than being shit-out-of-luck, as we would have been had we not purchased the extended warranty Apple Care) and be told the hard drive was dead, likely due to a manufacturing error. They replaced the hard drive (took seven days) and then we got it back and it still didn't work. Back and forth to the Genius Bar we go... now it's the logic board... wait, no it's not... repeat three times. Finally a traveling Genius (Mac Medic) comes to our house... opens the machine, tells us that the in-store Genius ruined a cable (the cable looks like a Listerine breath strip) with a tweezer, and he's going to suggest we be sent a replacement machine.

Apparently the FOURTH REPAIR is the ticket: if your machine needs a fourth repair they will replace your machine.

The new machine was released November 1st, but we didn't get it till November 12th, because of course it came from China and then went to Alaska and finally came to California.

Whew! The moral of the story is... I'm not sure what the moral of the story is! Apple could take a lesson from Zappos!

Shadow Fun

2009-11-25T18:08:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite shadows to make is the vulgar penis shadow. You do this by clasping your hands together, bending your knees a bit, and holding your combined hands between your legs so your shadow looks like you have a giant penis. We used to do this in middle school and for some reason I STILL think it's hilarious and usually can crack myself up by doing it over and over again.

Protea Bouquet

2009-11-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

They were selling these interesting, sci-fi-looking bouquets at the Marin Farmers' Market today. The pinkish flower is called protea, and the yellow phallic-looking one... I'm not sure. It's one of the strangest plants I've ever seen!

Office Space

2009-10-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

Due to a new crop of employees coming in all at once, our office has lost any etiquette we ever followed. For example, we have three bathrooms - a unisex, single stall bathroom upstairs, and a women's bathroom downstairs with two stalls, and a men's bathroom downstairs with one stall and one urinal. We have only four men in the office and about 15 women, so traditionally, the men have left the single stall upstairs for the women uptairs (and visitors) and have gone downstairs to the men's bathroom. Not so any longer.
Now the upstairs bathroom frequently has pee splattered on the floor and the seat is left up. We have a nice Method air freshener in the upstairs bathroom, which actually smells really good (it's the vanilla-apple scented one, but it smells like pineapple), and someone actually carried it over to the toilet and perched it right on the edge, as if they thought they were going to take a really smelly poop and it would help to move it closer. Finally, I found that someone had pried open the tampon dispenser.

At one point, long ago, we even used to go across the street to a private (public) bathroom that is very nice and clean and seldomly used if we had to do a #2. Just like animals in the wild, we'd rather others not know. Judging by the odor in the bathroom now, someone is "dropping a deuce"-- as my coworker H. puts it-- frequently... the "across the street" convention has died. The whole bathroom situation has me frequently looking longingly out at the trees outside my work when nature calls. I'd love to pee out there on one of them than encounter whatever is happening in our bathrooms.

People are leaving their dirty dishes in the sink instead of rinsing and putting them in the dishwasher, much to the chagrin of the receptionist, whom I supervise. What's more, people are leaving dirty dishes crusting at their desks with food still in/on them, causing a shortage of forks. People are putting empty peanut butter jars back into the cabinets. (See photo.)

The latest is that I have a very loud, shrill new co-worker. She only speaks at one volume, and it's extreme. The entire floor is treated to her conversations, whether she's speaking to you or not, but what's more, she overshares. Yesterday she ran around telling everyone that she and her husband have sold their condominium for the asking price. She was THRILLED, RELIEVED, HAPPY, AMAZED and "IN SHOOOOOCKKKK!!!" In the morning she ran around telling everyone she GOT AN OFFER ON THE CONDO! By afternoon she had SOLD THE CONDO!!! She told her peers, she told her boss, and she bypassed me, perhaps because she can tell I try to avoid contact with her, and charged right into the CEO's office to tell him.

Our office used to be tiny; manageable. When I started, there were a mere 9-10 full time employees and a few contractors that came to the office part time. At 20 we're still considered small for a lot of legal purposes, but things have gotten out of hand, and it's become a huge mess. As the CEO's assistant, and without an office manager, I'm the default office manager, something I am way too uptight to be. I mean, my face gets hot and I get angry when I see a spoon in the fork part of the utensil divider... imagine what the rest of this is doing to me.

2009-09-20T21:53:00.001-07:00

Figs are almost ready!

2009-09-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

A few of the figs on our fig tree suddenly fattened up, turned a brighter, more yellow shade of green, and got softer to the touch. I sacrificed one to see how they are tasting... the inside was pinkish violet and tasted pretty sweet, but had not gone fully ripe or fully sugared yet. It was definitely almost there. Now I am watching the four or five that are in a similar state to see when they will ripen. The rest of the figs (hundreds) are still fairly small and green. I think these are Kadota figs... but I'm not sure.

Lizards

2009-09-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

There are lots of little tiny lizards where I live now. They're so small and fast that you can miss them easily.

California Modern

2009-08-24T21:21:00.000-07:00

These are two of the houses in our neighborhood. I love these two. I've really never thought much about owning a house... I sort of assumed I want to, one day, or it's the "right thing to do", or the grown up thing to do, or the thing Suze Orman said is really financially important to do... I think I have Peter Pan syndrome. I don't want to grow up.

It wasn't until I moved to this neighborhood recently that I started to think I really want to own a house; one of these houses! They were built in the late 50's and early 60's, during the height of the California Modern period. They are designed to be low and softly colored, and not overshadow the landscape. Most of them have an atrium inside!

Tomatoes.

2009-08-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's funny when fruits and vegetables grow these little appendages. Appendages is probably not the right word... we got these delicious dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes at the farmers' marketing today.

Tillandsia, or "Airplant"

2009-08-16T21:16:00.000-07:00

On a lunch break one day about a month ago, a co-worker and I stopped by the local garden store. There we saw these tiny little cactus-looking plants that were light as feathers, seemed pretty dry, and were not potted in soil, but instead attached to driftwood, wired to a gazebo, or just set into little pots with nothing holding them in.

My co-worker bought one for me and one for herself... they were tiny ones, less than three inches tall. We learned that they are called "air plants", "airplants", or Tillandsia, and they don't need soil. They will flower once in a while, and they just need a misting of water or a weekly drench to stay alive and thrive. Someone told me they grow all over Florida, but to me, they are pretty exotic.

I started reading about Tillandsia on the internet, and eventually I went back to the garden store and got a few more small specimens in the $2 - $5 range. At work, my friend Ashley admired the ones I had brought back to the office, so I gave her one. I then ordered a specimen online... it's a huge ball bigger than a big grapefruit, and it has a thin wire attached for hanging. My intention was to hang it, but after reading the instructions, I realized the most suitable place in the apartment was on an open shelf under a frosted skylight, so I placed it there. Not since carnivorous plants when I was a child and orchids for the last several years have I been so fascinated and enamored of a plant. Much like when you're infatuated with a new lover, I think about Tillandsia about fifty times an hour.

Iitala Kartio Glassware

2009-08-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered iitala's Kartio glasses and pitcher. To say I discovered them is silly - they were designed in the late 1950's and have been around ever since. I've wanted these drinking glasses for a while, and they're not terribly expensive, but since I had plenty of generic, works-fine-but-not-inspiring clear drinking glasses from places like IKEA and Crate & Barrel, I never got them. Moving to a 557.5 square foot miniature house with the help of professional movers who charge by the hour seemed a good reason to give a dozen old drinking glasses away before the move and purchase six iitala glasses instead and have them shipped to my new place. Okay, I also got the set of 4 mixed color small glasses (good for juice, cocktails, a small serving of ice cream or yogurt) and a carafe/pitcher in "blueberry blue", a discontinued color. These glasses are a dream to hold, and the glass is so beautiful and so clear. It's amazing how different a drinking glass can be... apparently designer Kaj Franck was obsessed with this simple object - the drinking glass!

Wild Blackberries!

2009-08-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a very dry climate; the desert. Now, here at my new home, I was shocked to see wild blackberries growing throughout the neighborhoods and along the side of the road. They are plentiful, and they are ripe! We got a handful this morning and we washed them well and had them with yogurt from the Farmers' Market...

18 Miles Away

2009-08-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

After several years of living in the coldest, foggiest part of San Francisco, and escalating unhappiness with my neighborhood and my downstairs neighbor (downstairs neighbor number 4, she was), DD and I were ready to move. As most people do when they are looking for an apartment, we had a "wish list" of qualities we were looking for in a new apartment. There's always the Dream List and then as you start looking for apartments you have to give on certain items on the Dream List, because you're really not going to find a place with updated kitchen appliances, a washer-dryer or washer-dryer hook ups, a parking space, an energy-efficient heater (or hell, just a heater, period), decent neighbors, a view of something interesting or pretty, or just not dumpsters or chain link fence or better yet, a wall...carpeting or floors that don't have bodily fluids in them. A sink without a chip. Caulking without mildew. Toilet without stains. Stuff like that.

One thing on our Dream List was outdoor space. Just a little wee balcony or something like that... a few feet of cement outside the door, even. A little place to put a potted plant and two chairs, a place where, hopefully, the sun's rays might hit a few days out of the summer. We weren't too hopeful about this. It was just an item on the Dream List.

Well, we found it! Our new apartment is a dream come true. It has every item on the Dream List and then some. We have a yard! And a round stone patio right outside our door, under the shade of a beautiful bay tree. We have a fig tree full of baby figs! And pink lilies, purple agapanthus, deadly nightshade and a tiny orange tree. Bees and hummingbirds. All the power lines are under the ground in our new neighborhood! The sky is beautiful at night and there are no neighbors above us or below us. Our landlords are real people, nice people, not a "property management company". I would so much rather give these people my rent money... they take care of their property and beautifully remodeled our apartment a few years ago, with quartz floors, wood beams, new cabinets, double paned windows, and skylights. I've never lived in a more beautiful space! It is truly amazing...

Poppy King's Lipstick Queen Lipstick

2009-07-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

This is the packaging for Lipstick Queen. It's very romantic, fun and colorful. I ordered them sight unseen, as I was too lazy to go to Barney's downtown (all of four miles away), and got the Sinner lipstick in "Pink" and the Saint sheer lipstick in "Pink", as well as "Medieval" lip tint. I love all three! The cases close nicely and feel kind of rubbery even though I think they're metal. So nice!

A Neighborhood Jewel

2009-07-29T21:35:00.000-07:00

Oh my God.
This is GORGEOUS. I love living in this neighborhood. Living in an ex-military complex that is run by the federal gov't is JUST LIKE living at Disneyland, I'll bet. Soooo pretty. This curb is better than animal-shaped topiary.

Pocky Bookmarks

2009-07-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

These are my Pocky bookmarks, which I made by cutting the image with special crafting scissors and punching a hole at the top of the bookmark for a ribbon.

Crack and Bleach

2009-07-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

My neighbor was washing her blinds on the asphalt while exposing her ass crack.
But everyone's ass crack is almost always showing these days, so what does it matter?
Maybe I should be more concerned about the neon-pink dish soap (organic? I think not) and straight-up Safeway brand bleach she's pouring all over them... and letting run into the storm drains. We live less than a thousand feet from the Pacific Ocean, so close that there's a little illustration of a crab painted on the drains in this area.
I kind of hope she's pregnant and she decides to go down to the beach today...

Water Mosaic

2009-07-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

Went for a walk and saw this cool thing in the neighborhood the other day. From a distance it looked like water pouring from the vessel, especially the way the light was glimmering off the "water". Upon closer inspection, we saw that it was tile...

Georgia Was Here

2009-07-07T07:31:00.000-07:00

For 4th of July DD and I went to his company picnic, which was on a ranch in Marin County. There was a lake, grapevines, a herd of cattle, a friendly miniature donkey, chinchillas and, as if that weren't enough, this beautiful skull! When we left San Francisco that day, it was cold and foggy, and when we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge it magically became hot and sunny. Of course, this is not actually magic, but a phenomena of landscape and hills and wind and whatnot. All I know is that I live in the coldest part of SF (cold = affordable) and 10 minutes away it's hot. This led me to consider moving 18 miles from work, to San Rafael. (I currently live walking distance from work.) I grew up in the desert, and while I have no desire to live in a climate that extreme again, I do object to wearing my coat in July, as I do here. As DD pointed out the other day, we have six dresser drawers and one is devoted entirely to knits - knit caps, scarves, and mittens.

So, it remains to be seen what will happen, but we are now trying to move! The great thing is that prices have come down a lot all over San Francisco, even the desirable sunny parts, and DD and I are still employed, so we're checking it out.

The Great Latisse Experiment

2009-06-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

Eyelash extensions don't come off. They just don't come off. You can't take them off. They stay attached to your natural eyelashes until your eyelashes fall out naturally, or UNNATURALLY, like when you're gently drying your face with a towel after your shower and a loop of terry cloth catches the unnaturally thick fake eyelash and RIPS IT OUT BY THE ROOT.

Yes, I am yet again relegated to fashion and beauty industry victim status, as three weeks later I have half long (really really long now that my own eyelashes have grown and pushed the fake lashes out even more), thick, eyelash extensions and half my own soft, short, wispy eyelashes, combined with more than a few gaps from a few of these towel incidents. The only way to hide this disaster is to wear a really solid layer of matte, dark brown eyeshadow every day and skip my usual bang trim, so that's what's currently happening... my eyelashes are a disaster but it doesn't matter because my bangs are covering them and I have spackled them with dark brown eyeshadow.

I also started using Latisse, which is the eyelash growth drug (prescription only) that Brooke Shields is hawking. It takes about 12 weeks to see noticeable results, and by then my lashes would likely have repaired themselves anyway, but Latisse works by lengthening the natural growth cycle of each eyelash, so this should speed up the process. I love that Latisse is prescribed for the condition "hypotrichosis" - "not enough or inadequate hair". Apparently sparse eyelashes are a medical condition. Will keep you posted.

Tried Lash Extensions...

2009-06-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

I recently tried eyelash extensions for the first time. Eyelash extensions look like traditional false eyelashes but without the strip. Instead, it's individual hairs that are glued with some super-strength glue one-by-one to each of your own individual eyelashes (rather than being attached to the skin, like strip lashes). Because there is no strip, and that's the part that looks fake, they look more "real" than strip lashes. The application process is time-consuming (when I got it done it was only an hour and a half, but that's a long time to sit with your eyes closed while someone is gently touching your eyelashes over and over again and while you have a piece of tape taping your lower eyelashes down), can take up to three hours, and is pretty expensive. I went to a local place that had a lot of good reviews and the application was only $100, but from what I understand it more commonly costs $250 or $300.

When they showed me my new eyelashes I was pretty amazed! For one thing, they asked me if I wanted the lashes to look "natural" or "dramatic" and I chose "natural".
(I mean, how natural can fake eyelashes look, and what does "natural" mean to someone who is having such a thing done, right?) Well, the resulting eyelashes are long and curled and pretty much look like something a Vegas showgirl would wear. I wonder what "dramatic" would look like!

Vegas is why I got them done - I was going to Las Vegas for a few days and didn't want to deal with mascara or curling my eyelashes or applying false eyelashes. The eyelash extensions make the eyes look "done" without any makeup.

I got them done exactly a week ago. They're holding up pretty well. They stay attached with the super strong glue forever, or until your real eyelash falls out naturally.
So, you lose a few a day. People usually need to get a touch up after two or three weeks, depending how careful they are. I am being pretty careful and am not wearing mascara on them, so a week later they still look full. Here's what they look like from above. I don't have any makeup on.

New LUSH Vaniila Range

2009-05-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-04-27T07:00:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-04-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

Ring Ding

2009-04-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-22T23:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-21T22:57:00.000-07:00

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

SweetSpot Labs

2009-04-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-04-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-26T22:37:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-04T07:28:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-02T18:36:00.000-08:00

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?!

2009-02-24T20:35:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-23T07:41:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-02-12T17:02:00.000-08:00

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.

Mom Jeans

2009-02-10T07:30:00.000-08:00

My friend Katty recently got a pair of "Not Your Daughter's Jeans" brand jeans. She purchased them at Nordstrom. I'm a fan of Paige Premium Denim, and was explaining to her that Paige Premium Denim comes in "plus" sizes at Nordstrom, so she went over there, but instead of getting the Paige jeans, she got these Not Your Daughter's Jeans.
For one thing, they're about half as expensive. For another, they have some kind of "tummy tuck" technology built in, and thirdly, they have a 9 inch rise! Katty, whom I consider rather fashion-challenged (and she knows this about herself and she knows I agree with her), then went home, looked up the jeans online and realized they are indeed "mom jeans", and heavily marketed that way. (Above is some of Not Your Daughter's Jeans' imagery.) Duh! They're not called "Not Your Daughter's" for no reason.
She then freaked out and wrote me a hilarious email. There's no turning back, though... she's already having them hemmed.

I can't wait to see them, actually. I've never seen Katty in well-fitted, good-quality denim and I'm rather excited. I now also want to try on the Mom Jeans just for fun. At my height and with my proportions, the 9" rise will probably come up to my armpits.

Ella Moss Outlines Your Ta-tas

2009-02-08T08:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday while at an unglamorous work event my coworker Krystal and I saw some signs announcing "Huge Sample Sale". We hightailed it over there. Inside, they were selling Ella Moss, BCBG and Splendid. Krystal had never been to a sample sale before.

I love Ella Moss, but on my non-profit admin salary and at at least $100 a top, I usually only get one Ella Moss top per season. Here, they were selling samples for $35 - $39 each. I only found two tops I wanted to try on, though, and although I loved one of them, it was open all the way down the back, therefore has to be worn without a bra, which rules out wearing it to work or in any temperatures below, say, 72 degrees. (Unless one was to wear some kind of pasties or those nipple covers they sell that are called "Lowbeams".

I saw this top at the sample sale. This looks like someone took a black Sharpie and literally drew around the breasts. "LOOK, here are my BREASTS!" it seems to scream.
I thought this top was bizarre.

What was also bizarre was the dressing area of the sample sale. Now, sample sales are pretty basic affairs. They have great stuff but it's all just on those basic metal rolling garment racks and usually in some empty rented space. It's certainly no department store or boutique experience. There's not always a dressing area, although they often set one up with mobile screens, mirrors, etc. This sample sale was particularly haphazard, with cheap full=length mirrors propped here and there that still had their price stickers and some cardboard descriptor on them "FULL LENGTH MIRROR $12.99" and such. One end of the dressing area was visible from the street.
There were women prancing about in their raggedy, unmatching underthings with ill- fitting thongs burrowing up their butts. Krystal and I, being a bit more modest, kept to our own side of the dressing area and kept our pants on while trying on dresses.
I nodded toward the other women and told Krytal that's why I always tell her to wear nude thong panties under boyshorts and a nude camisole when going shopping. You never know when you're going to need to avoid the dressing rooms, or not find dressing rooms, and want to try things on semi-publicly!

We ended up buying nothing. Such is the way of sample sales: they're hit-or-miss. We certainly both passed on the Boob Outline top, despite the nice price.

The Candy Dish

2009-02-04T07:03:00.000-08:00

There's nothing more amusing at a dull job than setting out a candy dish and watching ones coworkers. It's way more fun than trying to keep a desk plant healthy in the artificial office light, more fun than killing a betta or goldfish softly in some inadequate office fishbowl. When I worked at a dot.com a few years ago, I sat next to the candy dish person, who actually was on Weight Watchers, was overweight, and who seemed to derive great pleasure from watching people come to her candy dish. Actually, it was a whole candy drawer. There was a drugstore across the street, and she would go and buy several bags of fun-sized candy bars and dump them with pleasure into her file drawer. It was fun to see the dieters come to the drawer and apologize or make excuses for taking candy, to which Ms. Weight Watchers would reply in this smug, purring voice, "That's what it's there for... enjoy..."

At my previous workplace, I started the candy experiment, but it didn't last long. For one thing, I had to buy organic chocolate, because we were selling organic vegetables and that was our mission. I bought a display box of these mini chocolate squares, which was something like $25. The CEO, whose office was closest to my workspace, wiped the whole thing out within a few days. The funny thing was that she wouldn't talk to me, make eye contact, or anything. She would just glower, come over, snatch some squares and storm away. No exaggeration - I quickly realized that not only could I not afford to keep this woman-beast in chocolate, no one else was getting any of it. I abandoned the candy experiment.

When I started my current job, I started the candy dish again. I started with spicy, chewy ginger candies from GingerPeople, because I like those and they kind of serve the same purpose after lunch as a breath mint. Interestingly, one of the women there, whom I considered a borderline anorexic, liked the ginger candies. She would come by, give me a small smile and sometimes a sad little shrug, and take a candy. She would always dig around a little in the dish before selecting one, which was interesting, because they were all the same.

I started giving other candy to see what else she would eat. Turns out she would eat Starbursts and other sour, fruity candy, but not the cheap chocolate. However, my boss LOVES cheap chocolate, and when I first offered mini Twix she said, "Oh my God. I LOVE TWIX. LOVE THEM," in the same tone one might use when saying, "Oh my God. I love Cristal. Love it". I mean, wow. It's just a Twix.

I love the people who have to tell me a little story or a reason when they take candy.
"For the ride home," or "I just need a little something" are both common. People have a lot of food issues. The normal people come by maybe once every few days and take a piece without comment and just go away and eat it. These normal people are also the same ones who occasionally contribute a bag of candy themselves to the dish. The freakish people are the ones who eat candy all day, or the one who complains bitterly about her weight, makes self-deprecating comments about her body at awkward moments (such as in an all-staff meeting), berates one of the thin girls for working out several times a week (every night she tries to talk this girl out of going to her "outdoor boot camp"), and eats tiny frozen South Beach Diet or Lean Cuisine meals.
She comes to my candy dish and inevitably says something strange like, "I really hate you" while taking candy. It's all very fascinating.

When Bra Straps Fail

2009-01-22T07:28:00.000-08:00

Every so often, it's good to go and be "properly fitted" for a bra. Personally, I like the women who work at Nordstrom. In my experience, they're no-nonsense and they don't sugarcoat anything. As much as it hurts, it was important for me to hear that I'm an A cup, shattering my delusions of B-cup grandeur. This was proclaimed as a salesperson cocked her head to the side and said, "See that gap between the bra and your skin? That's because the CUPS ARE TOO BIG and that means you're not getting the right support." She proceeded to pack me into smaller and smaller bras till we settled on one with SUPPORT and PADDING. Meanwhile, in the dressing room next to me, another customer was whining, "But this feels really tight..." as she tried on a new bra, to which her salesperson replied, "That's because your old bra is all stretched out, so it feels really comfortable to you, but it's not really giving you the right support." Snap. I learned a lot of things in the Nordstrom lingerie dressing room: that if your straps fall down, you're not getting the right support and the band that goes around your back is doing all the work... that lace is pretty and all but ultimately you need some smooth bras or it will look like you have a rash when you wear tee shirts... that you have to try every bra on because one manufacturer's sizing is different from another's.

My current favorite everyday bra is the push up iBra by Wacoal. As much as I hate this name (at first I thought it was a bra with some kind of special pocket for your iPod), I love the bra. It's smooth, padded, tagless ("tagless" is another lingerie salesperson word that means there are no itchy tags inside the bra), comfortable and gives an awesome silhouette.

Home Sweet Home

2009-01-14T09:03:00.000-08:00

For a while now, my coworker has been buying a house. She's a single (divorced) woman in her late-late 40's and she's a director at a non-profit. We have a staff of about 15 and four of them are directors. I actually think our organization is extremely top-heavy, leaving just four of us to support all these executives who don't know how to use their phones and who think the garbage disposal is a trash compactor. I am now Executive Assistant to THREE people, in addition to doing all the shmutz that the Marketing Director was doing before she left to have a baby, being the benefits administrator, and answering endless questions from a receptionist whom we hired because... well, she's never been a receptionist before, and the other day asked me, "What are binder clips?" so I'm still pondering why we hired her. I like her, though. She's cheerful and nice, and has taken several crap-tastic duties from me, such as "reconciling the petty cash" and "going to the bank to make the deposit." Things are going smoothly so I don't have any real complaints right now. It's just that working 8:00 ish - 5:30 in a small office just sometimes feels like a movie or TV show ABOUT an office, where the thing that makes the show funny is that it's the characters on the show that are experiencing the ridiculous situations, not you, the viewer. Well, it's like I'm IN one of those shows, and the show doesn't end in an hour or half an hour, and the joke, or the frustration, or the ridiculousness is on me.

But I digress. This woman has been buying a house (and we know allll about it because we've heard allllll about it, every step of the way, no details spared). I'm happy for her... I just wish she's buy it and have a housewarming party already so I can enjoy her success and you know, have a drink. So yesterday she comes to the front office area where I work and announced to those of us who work there (none of us there own a house) that she's now officially a homeowner. My coworker Krystal, who was grumpy, had not eaten and who had just taken six straight hours of notes in a meeting looked up, smiled weakly and said, "That's great... congratulations!" and I screeched, "YAYYYY!!!! and threw my paper napkin up in the air. I told her had I known it was going to be official that day I would have gotten shreds ready to toss all over her.

Sometimes I look at her and wonder what she'd look like with a nose job, and I also wonder why, if she can afford a house, why she's not already gotten a nose job. And I'm not just being sour, shallow and bitchy, although I acknowledge that I am in part being sour, shallow and bitchy. I realize this is why she owns a house and I throw my money away on rent... because my priorities are screwed and because I'd rather get a nose job than save for a house.

Well: home sweet home.

Homage to Flylady

2009-01-05T18:54:00.000-08:00

For two and a half years I have been following the advice of Flylady, an online organization coach whose system helps you get your shit together, like get your house super clean and organized and even eat better and have more money. The system is free; you just join a mailing list and receive several instructional emails daily.

It's rather difficult to explain, but a lot of people are really into it; it has a cult following! The Flylady is the very encouraging, kind woman who lives in the South; she's in her 50's (I think this because her husband is retired), and she's just this very sweet, unassuming woman who tells you to take "baby steps" and she has a lot of cute phrases like, "Purple Puddles" and "reboot your laundry". She also calls exercise "loving movement" and tells people to get 15 minutes of Loving Movement per day.

DD and I have been following the Flylady off and on (I'd say more on than off) since sometime in 2006, and I daresay her system works! My apartment is pretty much always presentable, our laundry is never overwhelming, and my closet is color coded. I paid off a large debt and am getting laser eye surgery without having gotten a raise. It's kind of amazing, actually, because it all happens through a series of what she calls "baby steps" so you never really know the point at which your life changed, you just look up two years later and it's changed! So, I owe a big thanks to Flylady!

The latest is I finally got a pair of sneakers to wear inside the house only. This may sound crazy, like why not just wear your shoes inside and out, or why not just take off your shoes and go around in your socks if you want your floors to stay really clean? The idea is that you should do housework wearing clothes and shoes so you don't hurt yourself and so your body is supported and energized. But you might not want to wear your outdoor shoes inside, since you're keeping your house really clean, so you need a good pair of shoes that you only wear inside. I've always thought this was one of Flylady's stranger ideas, but since all her other ideas have worked so well for us, I finally got DD and me both the indoor sneakers. So far, it's just kind of funny wearing them, and feels a little silly, but I think I'll like it soon!

The Party's Over

2009-01-05T18:52:00.000-08:00

I returned to work today. I survived, but by 10:00 am I had a headache running down the center and back of my head like a Mohawk hairstyle.

The 12 Days of Christmas

2009-01-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

For the first holiday season in YEARS, years I tell you, I had Time Off. Paid Time Off! Some years ago I worked at a school and therefore had time off for winter break, but I had to do lesson planning and paper grading and all of that. Then I had some jobs involving selling things online at companies whose names ended in dotcom, so of course Christmas was the busiest time and we got Christmas day off but were selling stuff up till the 24th (and having to tell people, "NO, if you order today on December 24th and pay for overnight shipping, we can't actually get this item to you TOMORROW... why? Because it's Christmas... yes, I've heard of Zappos... yes... I know they get your shoes to you in one day... but I guarantee your shoes are not coming on Christmas day... fine, well, just call them and try to get a dildo from Zappos... thanks, goodbye, Merry Christmas to you, too."

Then I went to work for a vegetable company for about two years. People don't stop eating on holidays; in fact, people eat MORE, and need lots of sweet potatoes and russet potatoes and yellow onions other things that come in 50-pound boxes, and everyone needs to Pitch In to Keep Our Company Running during the holiday food-fest.

In 2008 I started working at a school, and not as a teacher, but as an Admin. The school's "admin offices" shut down between December 24th and Jan 4th. I had 12 whole days off, with pay! Even though I've had a cold for a full two weeks, it's been HEAVEN. I organized my closets, went to the library and read some novels, threw a small New Year's Eve party during which 8 people consumed 7 bottles of champagne, watched every episode of "Heroes" that has been released to Netflix so far, went for some walks, had a few shopping adventures, and did not much else.

I return to work tomorrow... the realization of which I'm not dealing with very well!

Merry Hot Aloholic Beverages

2008-12-24T15:55:00.001-08:00

At our last session of calligraphy for the year, my teachers served coffee and apple cider, as they often do, but this time it was served with a bottle of Tuaca and a bottle of someone's homemade slivovitz, which is apparently a type of plum brandy. Very exciting, and very funny, since calligraphy demands a rather concentrated eye and a steady hand. I'd never had Tuaca before, which is an Italian brandy with vanilla and orange flavors, and I loved it. I loved it so much that I had it in hot chocolate during my lunch break at the bar across the street from my work, and I also had a shot of it alongside a cup of black tea at brunch the other day.

Here's my calligraphy teacher's apple cider mixture:

Add a shot of Tuaca to a mug of hot apple cider. Garnish with a cinnamon stick. Top with a generous glob of real whipped cream.

It's delicious, and tastes like apple pie with ice cream.
Happy, merry holidays!

"Belinas" by Kate Spade. Don't tell Bolinas.

2008-12-14T16:37:00.000-08:00

Kate Spade has a new bag style called "Bellinas" which at first didn't register with me, till I started reading the blurb that describes the bag on the Kate Spade website.
It begins,"Just outside of San Francisco, rickety farm stands and bucolic woodlands have made Belinas a sought-after small-town sanctuary for haute ex-hippies and the eco-minded affluent." That was unintentionally hilarious and somewhat apt, for one thing, and the cherry on top of the sundae of weirdness is that they mispelled "Bolinas." What the hell?

New Yorkers.

text of ad

Fun with the Enneagram at Work

2008-12-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

We have a new Staff Development "expert" at work. She is apparently supposed to develop us, the staff, and I'm told she has a ton of
soft skills, whatever soft skills are. I'm not sure what she's doing. First, I had a meeting with her during which we talked about my job and how I'd also absorbed a part-time job that was posted plus half of another woman's job when she went on maternity leave, leaving me with my first full time job and two part time jobs, meaning I am essentially doing two full time jobs. As always, when dealing with work discussions that are framed like "friendly, open conversations", I was cautious and guarded, while at the same time smiling and nodding my head a lot. I'm no fool. There is no free therapy with no strings attached at work.

That was my only interaction with her until she informed me that she would be taking over the explanation of benefits, which is my part of the orientation process for new staff, as I am the benefits administrator. We hired someone new (that's another post entirely) and Mrs. Soft Skills did her thing. The next day, she came to me and told me she tried to explain the benefits to this new person and realized she didn't know what she was talking about. I wanted to laugh and say, "Ya think?!" but instead I made what I think was an empathetic face and said, "No problem... I'll go over the benefits with her today."

The third thing she, um, accomplished was having everyone on staff take an Enneagram test, which is a personality test by which you find out which of nine personality types you are. This is supposed to help you work better with others, and it might, if anyone had actually revealed their type. Everyone was acting as though this was highly confidential information and was going to reveal some sort of personal secrets about them. (No, really? You're a perfectionist and you make everyone miserable in your quest for what you think is perfection? No!!! We never would have guessed!) So when the enneagram expert got to his discussion of Type 8 and revealed that this is his type, I also revealed that this is my type. I explained to my coworkers that I got into fistfights as a child (okay, I left out the fistfights I've gotten into since turning old enough to vote) and saw Mrs. Soft Skills staring at me literally with her mouth hanging open, which was kind of funny.

There are many enneagram sites, and usually you have to pay to take the full test, but this one has a short version of the test which will tell you your type.

White Elephants II

2008-12-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

I think White Elephant gifts are lame. I'm just so tired of the whole Dilbert-like life I'm leading at work. I refuse to play the game again this year. I'm not going out and thinking about my coworkers and trying to pick a gift they could all like, or even trying to pick a gift with one person in mind and manipulating the game so that that special person takes my gift. Or worse... trying to be the person who brings the most CLEVER gift. White elephant gift exchanges are only fun if they people at the party are fun and quirky, or ironic, or silly. And I'm just not, and they are even less so than I!

The most effort I'm willing to put into this is looking around my house for all the new, unopened items that could be given as my White Elephant gift contribution and assessing them, and that's what I did tonight.

1) a package of three pairs of little girls underpants from GAP Kids which were supposed to be for my 7 year old sister to wear after she got wet at the beach but that our father objected to because they had the word "hipster" on the package

2) a pair of yellow Hue brand tights still in their packaging that I can't even remember buying

3) 2 pairs of Wally's Ear Candles

4) an unopened giant roll of Contact Paper brand shelf liner (DD dares me to do it, is offering me $100 cash if I wrap that up and use it as my white elephant gift. He does not think I have the balls.

5) a huge, unopened bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, that states "Best Before 09.08."

White Elephant Time

2008-12-08T19:27:00.000-08:00

It's White Elephant Gift time of year. 2006 department party--we had a supposed $20 upper limit. One of my coworkers arrived with a really nice cutting board, which was valued at much more than $20, but she'd gotten it on sale and double-marked-down or whatever, and got it for $20. The strange thing was, she really wanted to win it herself, or manipulate the game so that she ended up taking the same thing home that she'd brought. That was totally weird... my boss' gift was a bottle of Veuve Cliquot ($49) which made the rest of us look like crappy cheap bitches. Somehow I ended up with the "Summer Cocktails Recipes" book. Um, no.

(Cut back to 2005... my gift was three pairs of those crazy fuzzy chenille socks from Nordstrom, two cute colors, like pink and blue, and one black pair. I forgot there was one guy on the team, a part timer. He got my gift, unfortunately, although the socks were obviously not exactly unisex in design. In fact I think there was a cartoon of some girl on the label. Cut to drunken coworkers suggesting he wear the socks on his penis.)

2007- Again with the Veuve Cliquot... only this time, I actually won it. Nevermind that it was wrapped furoshiki style in someone's rather gross old white shawl. Of course, the champagne was taken from me, leaving me with a thing that props a bottle of red wine up to breathe. Goddamn.

Morgan Bag by Monica Botkier

2008-12-06T22:27:00.001-08:00

While walking out of Nordstrom the other day (I really was trying to walk OUT) time stood still and music swelled as I spotted this bag. Closer inspection revealed that this thing is made of super soft, crackly leather and feels nice to hold. I put it back, albeit reluctantly, and managed to back away, but there's always the Botkier website.

When the Internet Goes Awry

2008-12-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

Someone told me that someone else invited them to yet another social networking website, only this one requires affluence.

Their stance line is,
"Make Life Better
The exclusive oragnaization of the world's wealthiest people."

Yes, they really did spell "organization" that way!

The Devil Wears Gray Cashmere Part II

2008-12-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

For whatever reason, boss-lady (I have two bosses - boss-man and boss-lady) received this fancy Barbie doll as a gift the other day. I assume it's from a business partner who deals with the doll. It was strange to see it propped up in her rather stark, undecorated office. She's a battle axe who wears only gray and black and who disdains such things as rainbows, cupcakes, the color pink and ice skating. She's so vehement in her disdain for all things fun, fluffy, feminine and girly that I can only think she 1) was denied them as a child and is pretending to herself that she doesn't care 2)stopped maturing in middle school and is stuck in a pre-teen rebellion forever or 3) is just plain evil. It's fine to not like those things; it's another to profess it so passionately. It's like she's working very hard at carving out her identity as this elegant, steely, heart-of-darkness person, and working at it at every opportunity.

I could tell she liked the Barbie, and whenever I catch her liking something she's not supposed to like, I rub it in, with salt. Like the time it was her birthday and she told me "no cupcakes and shit", but when I caught her eating a mini cupcake at someone else's work birthday thing I screamed, "A MINI cupcake!? How CUTE!" So I gushed over the Barbie doll and then told her, "But of course, you're going to give it away... you hate that stuff." She then admitted that she liked Barbie as a child. Then she said she wished it wasn't blonde. The way she said blonde, you'd expect her to be a woman of color, or at least a dark white lady. No, she's a pale white lady with light brown hair and hazel eyes... not exactly even a brunette.

70's Imagery - Tarina Tarantino Peace Love and Sparkle

2008-12-02T19:09:00.000-08:00

Sometimes jewelry designer Tarina Tarantino uses licensed images, for example her "Pink Head" Hello Kitty, Kid Robot, Fiorucci and Barbie (and those are in descending order of how much I liked each). Her newest collection is "Peace, Love and Sparkle" (so awesome; I love the name of the collection so much I could cry!) and features a cartoon-y peace sign, and these lips and teeth with a blue rose, and these two guys, which the website calls "teletrippers". Although the images look familiar in their psychedlic, bright 70's way, I don't know if these are licensed images. I don't even know if they were common 70's images (as Britney Spears once said, when asked about the Beatles, "I'm sorry. I'm very young..."). I did a few searches, stringing some keywords together (tried "lips teeth blue rose 70's imagery Tarina Tarantino" in varius permutations, but came up empty.

Hosting Woes.

2008-12-02T07:08:00.000-08:00

There's a scene in the film Slums of Beverly Hills where Vivian Abramowitz (played by Natasha Lyonne) inadvertently leaks menstrual blood on a hand-embroidered fancy seat cushion at the home of her father's rich girlfriend. Vivian ducks under the tablecloth to discuss the matter with her cousin, decides to just cover the stain with her napkin and carry on. When the woman discovers the stain, there's a shriek of horror, followed by the whole family being marched out of the house, ending their evening early.

This scene, while hilarious in the movie, was MUCH less funny when it played itself out in my apartment the day after Thanksgiving. The day after anything one hosts is always sort of a nightmare... you think you cleaned everything the night before, only to realize in the light of day that everything is sticky and there are spills and stains everywhere, and you're going to basically have to do the same thorough apartment cleaning that you did in preparation for this get together now that it's over. I accept all that... what I wasn't prepared for was finding a quarter-sized circle of what looked like watery blood on the seat of two chairs and a couch! The location of these marks (on seats) is what makes me suspect it was menstrual. The two chair cushions, which were brand new but from IKEA, I tossed into the recycling without even attempting to clean them; obviously the couch stain had to be worked on. There's something just not right about having to clean someone else's menstrual blood. And I'm thinking about the guests, all of whom are nice people and good friends, and wondering which person would not just ask me for a tampon or a pad? Who was drunk enough to not realize she was --errrm-- leaking? (No one seemed that drunk!)

I ponder this while sitting on my hard wooden chair, sans seat cushion.

Hard Boiled Eggs, An Unmatched Desk, and a Black Sweater

2008-11-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

I've recently begun working at a new organization; new for me. I think I've been there five months now-- certainly not long enough to understand anyone there and why the organization does the things it does.

We recently attempted to hire a receptionist. There was a very nice, very qualified woman who came to interview twice. Usually I'd assume that's a good sign. They decided not to hire her because she supposedly wasn't well-dressed enough and therefore doesn't have the right marketing and branding and messaging (words we use A LOT around there). She was a rotund little lady, and not young, and I wonder how much of not "looking right for the part" can be attributed to ageism and an intolerance for body diversity. It makes me feel weird and itchy thinking about this. At any rate, I got a good look at her-- she was wearing black pants, a white cotton shirt or blouse and a black sort of long cardigan. On any given day at our office you will see someone wearing the exact same thing. You will also see, or rather SMELL, someone eating a hard boiled egg that makes the whole front office smell like farts, the exposed side of someone's hideous pigsty of a desk, and soon, the new receptionist desk, which was purchased secondhand for $150 and which is made of some kind of fake mahogany veneer. The other three desks in the area are not mahogany colored-- they are sort of a honey pine color. We also have threadbare fake Persian rugs throughout the office, all of which have bare spots in them. When I look at the whole, the whole experience of what our office looks like and what I imagine would be someone's first impression, I think it's completely bizarre that they didn't hire that woman because her "style" didn't have the right messaging and branding. In all my years of working at offices, I've never felt more like I was in a television show about an office and all the nonsensical decisions and things that happen in them.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

My hamster Nougat, with a mini pumpkin.

2008-10-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

I have acquired a beautiful pair of vintage eyeglasses for less than $11! Unfortunately, they have someone else's very strong prescription lenses in them, so I got in instant headache the minute I tried them on and couldn't see how they looked on me. So I put them on with my eyes closed and DD took a photo of me so I could even see how they look. I'm having them made with my own prescription. These things are BIG, which should be good as far as peripheral vision goes, and someone is making a custom eyeglass chain with Swarovski crystals for me to attach to the glasses. I'm very excited!

A bathrobe and an itchy wig

2008-10-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

For DD's company Halloween party, we were two of the four Golden Girls. Of course I was made Sophia, because I'm the shortest. I wore a bathrobe lent to me by my friend Killer. Killer's mom is in her late 70's and apparently gave her the robe thinking she'd enjoy wearing it. It's baby blue flannel and buttons up to the neck. I also wore a curly gray wig and a wig cap. I was overheated the entire night, and after a short while, the wig felt like someone was poking twigs into my scalp! It was a good quality wig, too... a "real" wig, not a costume wig. Looking at some of the women in sexy, skimpy costumes shivering while I was practically making my own sauna inside the robe made me think that next year I'm going for a happy medium costume as far as coverage and comfort go!

For about the fifth year in a row, we didn't win the costume contest, although we try in earnest each year. This year, we did make it past the first round and got to walk across the stage, though!

Faux Fur Rules!

2008-10-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

When I was a child, my grandmother lives next door to a man who was a retired furrier. I'm not sure if that's the correct word--he designed and made garments from fur. For some reason, my dad had some rabbit pelts that had been given to him by the furrier, and he was always saying he was going to have a jacket made for me. This totally horrified me, considering I actually had a (live) pet rabbit and several hamsters... not to mention being a big fan of guinea pigs. While I appreciate fur, I'd rather appreciate it on the live animal.

I love faux fur, though. I've been looking to get a fake fur jacket for this winter season, and I recently got this gray faux chinchilla jacket with gray satin lining. I love this thing, and it's pretty soft, too!

Playing with Knives and Running with Scissors

2008-10-11T05:53:00.001-07:00

There are three tools about which I am passionate-- pens, knives and scissors. You need good ones many times in a single day, especially if you cook, or even if you just cut a sandwich in half sometimes (that's the knife part, not the pen!)

I have a pair of really good knives. One is a slightly smaller version of the other. The make is Henckles. They were a gift from my mother, but I don't think good knives are necessarily so expensive that most people couldn't buy one for themselves. They came with a sharpener, and I sharpen them before each use. They're so much fun to use. I cut things into paper thin slices all the time just because I can, and they cut through tough stuff like pineapple rind like it's butter. But yesterday I did a work event where we were preparing food, and cutting lemons with knives my coworker brought to the event was like torture. I felt like I was cutting through my leg with a butter knife. Her knives kept winging off in all directions, turning my lemon slices into bits of lemon splooge. I hated this task so much that I came home and told my knives how much I love them and how I'll never take them for granted again. They told me that they want to have a baby, and I agreed that's a fantastic idea!

Food Issues.

2008-10-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

I work with some people who have some major food issues. At a previous job, I worked with a woman who went into angry hysterics because we made microwave popcorn, which we couldn't understand, till later our boss alluded to "food issues". After I saw the woman putting five tiny tupperware containers each the size of a softball, and each filled with what appeared to be lettuce or spinach leaves, which she proceeded to eat for lunch every day during the workweek, it started to make sense. At my last job, I worked with a woman who was tall, thin, and who also had food issues. She would heat up a little tiny container of stinky casserole and eat outside most days. She liked to preach to others about how if we rode our bikes more, we could eat more ice cream. She also went crazy one night and stole someone's ice cream right out of the freezer, which was labeled with the owner's name, and ate it all. What a freak... maybe if she ate a normal-sized lunch, she wouldn't have whacked out and gorged herself on pilfered ice cream!

Now I work with more than one person with "food issues". And you know, I hate to gender stereotype, but they're always women. The other day when we had bagels with all the fixings, one of our Ladies with Food Issues stood there eating a slice of cucumber. And she's pregnant. If you can't eat a bagel when you're pregnant, then when? Today there was a macaroon in the office. Yes, a macaroon. Instead of someone eating a whole cookie, or even half a cookie, I watched the one macaroon get cut "in half" about seventeen times throughout the afternoon. By the end of the day, there was this paper wrapper with a tiny sliver of macaroon attached, with a butter knife sticking to it. It's kind of like when someone drinks almost all the milk and leaves the container in the refrigerator for someone else to deal with, only it's the Office Version, which inevitably involves thin women with Food Issues cutting pastries, cookies, cupcakes and the like into smaller and smaller pieces, and leaving the crumbs, mess, oil and knives for someone else to deal with. If I see one more BROKEN COOKIE, ripped bagel, gutted cinnamon roll, or dissected croissant, I think I am seriously going to SCREAM.

Where Else Can You Walk Around Half Naked?

2008-09-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

Here I am at the Folsom Street Fair last Sunday. On the bottom I'm wearing black lace tights and turquoise underpants; hee hee. I didn't go all-out, because last year I was essentially topless and I felt too exposed, but at least I wasn't walking around in GAP khakis like so many of the tourists and lookie loos at Folsom this year. It seems like every year there are fewer participants and more cameras and more people who are just going to see the freak show, and it's sort of annoying, but to me, it still feels safe and I enjoy walking around half naked in heels in public, with cops around who are actually facilitating it all! I still love the Folsom Street Fair, and love San Francisco for having it every year!

The Most Fun Laptop Pillow Yet

2008-09-29T16:08:00.000-07:00

I recently spent a day at West Coast Green, a green building trade show in San Jose California, "boothing" for the organization I work for. Aside: I love that "boothing" is a verb in trade show speak. You're not just "working at your booth" or "representing the organization" you work for. You're BOOTHING.

Anyhow, although there was no end to the parade of cool, sustainable products for building the Platinum LEED-certified, low-carbon footprint house of your dreams, complete with succulent-planted roof and radiant-heat flooring, I currently rent an apartment which was originally built by... the US military. Yeah.

That said, the item highest on my "most likely to buy" list was this awesome laptop pillow by Intelligent Forms:

Intelligent Forms' laptop pillow

The Intelligent Forms BOOTHERS settled me into a chair with the laptop pillow atop my knees and a cute little Macbook nestled into the pillow. The pillow is comfortable and flexible, and filled with buckwheat hulls, which make a pleasant sound and a nice weight. They had one made of brown fabric, which really looked like logs. Each round end bit of fabric was a different pattern, and the pillow held the laptop securely. What's more, because the contraption hugged the computer, I was able to move my legs around and shift my weight without fearing that the computer would slide off. I have to say I liked this thing so much more than the iLap, by Rain Designs, which is what I've used most recently.

Captcha Woes

2008-09-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

I must be a bot, because more often than not, I honestly can't read these CAPTCHAs, that are designed to tell humans from machines. I get my vision examined frequently, I wear contact lenses, that THING that happens to people in their 40's where they can't read anymore and have to hold papers further from their eyes has not happened to me, my lenses are the right prescription, and supposedly with them inserted, I can see 20-20. CAPTCHAs have gotten more difficult...

Orchidfest 2008

2008-09-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm awfully late posting this. I went to Orchidfest 2008 last weekend, at the Hall of Flowers at the edge of Golden Gate Park. I actually enjoyed Orchidfest so much more than The Pacific Orchid Expo, which was held at Fort Mason in February. I know it's comparing apples and oranges, because the Pacific Orchid Expo was HUUUGE. It's like of like comparing New York City with San Francisco, which, for some reason, people in San Francisco do ALL THE TIME... you just can't compare, because New York City is just its own huge, stunning, incomparable thing that I can't even really wrap my mind around.

But I digress.

Orchidfest was great because it was intimate and had a friendly feel. The orchid sellers weren't mobbed, so they were super friendly, patient and very open to sharing their knowledge and lore. DD and I bought 6 raffle tickets for $5, but we didn't win the raffle... it seemed like our chances were good, because there weren't many people there yet, and there were going to be several plants given away. It looked like lot of the volunteers won. I watched one guy choose the plant I would have chosen had I won, and I congratulated him (while suppressing the desire to knock him down and take his plant) while he gloated. I think DD felt a little sorry for me at that point, because he kindly bought me everything I wanted!

Two very sweet men showed me that these "Twinkle" oncidiums (bottom) smell like chocolate. They had red, yellow and pink, and they said the red smells like milk chocolate and the yellow and pink smell like white chocolate and they smell heavenly when placed together. They only emit their fragrance during the warmer part of the day; the growers told me they start around 11 am and intensify as the afternoon wears on, and then they "turn off" as it becomes evening. I took a red and a yellow. The individual flowers are each so tiny; smaller than a person's pinkie nail.

The other plant I got was this very trippy orchid called a "coelogyne". It only blooms upside down like this (1st photo), so you have to get underneath the plant to see it full-on (2nd photo). It only makes one flower at a time, and then a new one forms and the old one falls off. The plant keeps doing this, and the stalk gets longer and longer and forms a zigzag pattern. It was definitely not the flashiest, most colorful orchid there, not by a long shot. But I loved its quiet weirdness, and so, I took it home.

What to Be for Halloween?

2008-09-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

DD's work has a spectacular Halloween party every year. A lot of the people who work there are artists, and as a result, the costume contest is legendary! After attending this thing for a few years now, I've realized that the only way we can hope to win is by getting together a large group of people who form a sort of collective costume. For example, last year there was a very impressive group who went as the movie "Office Space". Someone was a red stapler... another year there was a group of transformers who transformed into IKEA furniture. I sort of didn't get it, but they won big time.
And each year there seem to be a few cohorts of the Fandango brown bag people, each more spectacular than the last.

One year DD and I went as John Lennon and Yoko Ono during the bed-in. I figured, might as well exploit the ethnic similarity and poke fun at it. My wig made my head itchy and hot, our MAKE PEACE and HAIR PEACE signs that I'd carefully lettered and painted were freaking heavy, and walking around attached to DD by sheets and comforters was annoying. The only gratifying part was that everyone middle aged took our picture. Last year we went as Netflix envelopes-- again, a lot of artwork and production, but the costumes were easy to move around in, and when we took them off we just had comfortable black clothes underneath. Again, a lot of people liked our costumes, which made it fun! We didn't win anything, though.

This year I wanted to be Three's Company with several of DD's coworkers. One of them is a tall blonde woman-- she was slated to be Crissy Snow. Being short, brunette, and having a very layered shaggy haircut, I was to be Janet Woods. We were all going to roller skate...I'm a good roller skater!... but then the company said one of the rules is no wheels. We didn't think the costume would be as good without skates. Another idea was carnival people... one woman has two babies and we thought they could be little animals, and all I really wanted was to be a bearded lady. No one liked that idea, though.

My next idea was to be Rubik's Cubes that really work. It's not like I am super handy, but I'm resourceful and crafty, and no stranger to the drill. A quick internet search revealed a step-by-step guide to how this man created his amazing Rubik's Cube costume. Check it out! He even put some clear contact paper over all his colorful squares for authentic texture... this guy's precision and attention to detail is wonderful! Anything I could do would be a poor imitation, so I'm still brainstorming my costume!

Lars and the (RealDoll) Real Girl

2008-09-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

How I never saw this movie when it first came out is beyond me, considering my fascination with RealDoll. I finally saw this movie last night--it's about a guy (Lars) whose mother died apparently while giving birth to him and whose father was emotionally shut down after that, leaving Lars sort of shut down and introverted. One day at work (it's not clear what he does, but he has a "cubicle" job) Lars' coworker shows him the website of RealDoll, saying how much he'd love to have one. Lars doesn't seem particularly interested, but he ends up getting one and naming her Bianca. At first, his brother and sister in law are freaked out, but eventually the entire community comes to accept Bianca. It's zany and sweet! And even though Bianca is a RealDoll, there's nothing particularly sexual about the film at all, which makes it even more unpredicatble and interesting.

Lars and the Real Girl website

Nougat

2008-09-15T18:23:00.000-07:00

It can take several days to tame a new hamster. Today is Day 2 of trying to handle the new hammie, named Nougat. He's way faster than the late Skeepants! This taming session ended with Nougat giving me a handful of warm hamster pee. Ugh! Still, I remain optimistic.

Low Commitment.

2008-09-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

Having been pet-less for about half a year following the death of my solitary goldfish, DD and I recently pondered what sort of pet to get... if any. I visited the SPCA adoption center and found a wonderful cat that I really liked... but they were kicking people out because it was close to closing time and I was under too much pressure to decide. Plus, they had a $20 adoption special that weekend only, and after I finally decided it would have been $80 to adopt her. Plus, you know, she has claws and glands and a butt, I have a white sofa, which, by the way is not particularly comfortable, and oh, that fabric that's supposedly treated, probably with some kind of horrible chemical, to release stains easily? It doesn't release red wine. Not that I'd expect it to.

I still like cats, so I became enamored of these miniature Persians that people are breeding nowadays. They're beautiful, and so, so tiny! They're very expensive, too, like a few thousand dollars. Which is okay when you're talking about car repairs or needing a new computer but seems kind of a bit rich for my blood, considering I'm unfortunately the type of person who lets her bank account get down into the double digits plenty often. So I started thinking along the SPCA lines again, when my little sister, age 6, announced to me that she's deathly allergic to cats, although she likes them and has a few cat stuffed animals.
Although I don't see her very often, she does come over and I want her to be able to come over and hang out, and even spend the night, once she gets a little older and her parents release their death grip of overprotectiveness on her. (I mean, really. I'm thirty-five, not fifteen... I drive a safe four-door sedan, I have a dull 9-5:30 job at a nice non-profit. I don't quite get why we only get to have supervised visits... sometimes I think my father is in a time warp and to him, I'm still a 16 year old who ditched school, snuck around, wrecked a car and spilled red nail polish all over the carpet in my bedroom and hid it till I went to college by rearranging my room.)

The other week I walked into the post office by my work to be greeted by two of the sweetest little puppy heads you ever saw peeking out of a doggie carrier. I dropped to the floor, stunned by their adorable-ness. In some kind of crazed moment, I even asked their owner for breeder information. Apparently these are champion chihuahuas, and the proud new owner flew all the way to Michigan to get them and bring them back to California. After about half an hour of petting these little puppies while their owner taped up some packages she was sending out, I returned to work, happily announcing to my coworkers that I fell in love with chihuahuas and planned to get one.

After a few hours, rationality set in. For one thing, I've never had a dog and don't know the first thing about them, nor has DD ever owned a dog. For another, we rent, and we're technically not supposed to own a dog (though plenty of neighbors do, because the management used to allow dogs, and they changed the rule but had to grandfather in anyone who already had a dog). Finally, I realized I don't really want a dog. They have to go to the bathroom and you have to take them out before the sun rises and stand there and shiver while they do their business, and then you have to pick their business up while it's still fresh and steaming.

So, I'm the proud owner of an adorable hamster, which DD purchased for me yesterday! Hamsters are great. They require only about $100 for their whole set up-- nice cage, ASPCA-approved exercise Wodent Wheel, food, and bedding. You clean their cage once a week and play with them daily (but if you don't play with them daily, they don't care. In fact, they're so indifferent that I don't think it matters to them at all if you skip a day). They're fun to watch. They live about 2.5 years. My little guy is about 5 weeks old... so we should have plenty of time together. Photos to follow!

Valley of the ...

2008-09-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-29T21:39:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-08-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-07-22T07:45:00.001-07:00

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.

2008-07-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-07-11T20:32:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-04T06:55:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-07-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-25T07:46:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-22T07:35:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-06-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

I'm off to NYC early tomorrow morning!

Someone's Got Tarina Fever

2008-06-05T21:31:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-06-02T19:22:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

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.