blaugra

I am

I am amused that Evan Handler has the "Which Sex & the City character are you?" application on his Facebook profile. 

I am bemused that after following professional hair expert's instructions on how to do a perfect blow-out on my type of hair, using the appropriate styling products, hair sectioning tools, hair brush and hair dryer movement and temperature methods for 10 minutes, that my hair looks the same as when I run out of the house with wet hair. 

I am distressed when I listen to the morning news while waking up, and although I moved my little radio/cd player into the bathroom to keep up with news of financial, natural and political disasters while obsessing with my hair, I am much happier when I play Madonna instead.

I am wishful of our 11.5-year-old television dying a quicker death so that we have no choice but to buy a new one that doesn't flicker its fuzzy picture at me during the upcoming Dancing With the Stars premiere.  Why prolong the agony and miss all those sequined details?

I am sorrowful that a man we know was killed last night and that we heard all the sirens and said to each other, "WTF?"  The man was usually drunk and annoying, but still, mortality rears its ugly head.

I am grateful most of the time. 

I am hopeful that I can be joyful in the near future.

random friday stuff because too many other things are happening at the same time and making me anxious.

I'm not sure how I feel about posting memes.  It's fun to read other bloggers', but doing one myself - meh.  I'd rather ramble.  I also think that somewhere out there marketers are collecting certain bits of definitive psychographic information from bloggers' memes.  Well, if they're smart, they are.

Today I just felt like filling up a page with this meme taken from Jane. 

It's supposed to have one-word answers.  I do like the rapid-fire 20 q&a which I actually do in regular conversation. 

1. Where is your mobile phone? Pocket
2. Describe your boyfriend/girlfriend?  Nice
3. Your hair? Messy
4. Your mother?  Busy
5. Your father?   Retired
6. Your favourite item?  Ring
7. Your dream last night? Otherwordly
8. Your favourite drink?  Vodka?
9. Your dream car?  Minicooper
10. The room you are in? Office
11. Your ex?  who?
12. Your fear?  Irrelevance
13. What do you want to be in 10 years?  Fun
14. Who did you hang out with last night?  SaltyD
15. What you’re not?  Relaxed
16. The last thing you did?  Drank
17. What are you wearing?  Boots
18. Your favourite book?  Rayuela
19. Last thing you ate?  Egg
20. Your life?  Fast
21. Your mood?  Pensive
22. Your friends?  Amazing
23. What are you thinking about right now?  Teeth
24. Your car?  Beige
25. What are you doing at the moment? Blogging (duh - oops more than one word)
26. Your summer?  Gone
27. Your relationship status? Relating
28. What is on your TV?  Snowglobe
29. When is the last time you laughed?  Yesterday
30. Last time you cried?   October

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Even though my day started with a 7:30 am breakfast meeting (please people - just say no) my Friday is pretty damn good. 

• I had lunch with my parents at a diner.  Good soup! 
• Mom gave me some homemade pierogies from the church sale, and a wreath she made with bittersweet that she stole from a city park (it must run in the family.) 
• Dad talked a blue streak, as usual.  We talked about computers and how they don't understand how they work and they have no desire to go to our new Apple store. 
• Tomorrow I am going to a high school football game.  I am not in high school, I don't really like football, and I don't know anyone playing.  But, it's my old school's team and the hometown rivalry game, and some friends want to go.  It doesn't hurt that I live a block from the stadium.  It will be fun to see the little face painters.
• Sunday I work at a coffee shop.  I can't say that it sucks because for one, my friends there are reading this, but also, it doesn't suck.  I'm not just a latte-maker, I'm also a regular customer.  And I actually get more shit done in my life on a Sunday by working all day outside the home.  If you're on Facebook, make friends with Deja Brew and you'll be transported into the shop through the magic of social networking. 
• I got a new coat on sale.  It's not black.
• We get an extra hour of sleep tomorrow nite.  Yay.

airball

When Salty D. starts complaining about "rivulets flowing down my backside" then you know it's really hazy hot and humid.   Let me just open my door, stick my hand outside and grab a handful of air to throw at you.  Doh!

I got nothing besides that.  The heat took all of my chutzpah from me.  yawn.

is it wrong...?

... to crave polska kielbasa and sauerkraut, so very much?

... to clearly remember the words to Jam On It but to clearly forget whether or not I ate breakfast?

... to want to bash my brother's head in with a snow-shovel even after 37 hours of psychotherapy?

... to still feel hungry after eating a Lean Cuisine and then fill the void with a cupcake?

... to first, wish I understood the secular sectarian (ha! stupid me!) violence in Iraq and then, just blow it off because I'm so freakin' sick of hearing about it and would rather sing along to Kelly Clarkson songs in the car?

... to plan my next leg hair removal to occur just before I fly to Jamaica - and not any sooner?

... to loooooove children but not really want to haaaaave children, thereby forever disappointing my parents and my in-laws?

... to not even bother applying makeup to go to work in an office (as opposed to working in a coal mine or at a chicken farm, jobs at which I would not expect to see makeup on women or men)

... to feel like going to sleep at 6:00 pm?

I ask you. 

summertime blues

Salty D. and I are afflicted with major summer blues right now.  The doldrums of August, after the birthday, and as all the kids are rushing around buying Trapper Keepers and dorm room beanbag chairs.   

I was hoping to do something super-fun this weekend, like go to the drive-in movies or something goofy and summery like that.  Or at least do a home project.   But mostly I was horizontal with the couch.  Or the floor.  Tired, anti-social and realllllly boring.  Blah blah blah.

I realized today that I just need to get outta town.  So it's a good thing that  I will have a day in the Big Apple with some of the Divas this week.  Whew!  Something to change my perspective.   

So today in an act of desperation I decided to go shopping with my 10%-off Target coupon, hoping some consumption of cheap goods and a visit to the shoe department would lift my spirits.  I was able to curb my desire for a new Isaac Mizrahi tote, a Queen t-shirt and Thomas O'Brien bedding on clearance, though - since I don't really NEED any of that.

But, I found a bicycle rack for my car so I can go ride the sweet non-auto-traffic trails.  There were some great umbrellas on clearance.  I'm not sure why, but I'm really into umbrellas now, so I had to get a black and blue snakeskin patterned one for six bucks.   And I also got some comfy fun knee socks.  I always feel much better after a Target spree, at least for an hour.   Aaah.  Life in America is good.

my husband is a lucky guy

This is me, asleep.  View from above.  I just recently took stock of my dramatic transformation from day to night and felt the need to illustrate.

 

Guinness for breakfast

Guinness for breakfast probably would have been better than a Hello Kitty Meow Berry Pop Tart. 

Since I'm low on the creativity scale this week, I borrowed this blogthing.   Find out your answer now!

How Irish Are You?

Me, I'm 45% Irish.   I am the one wearing a green shirt today that says "Everyone loves an Irish Girl"  so look for me and buy me a stout.

meetings suck, part dos

I'm the member of a board of directors for a couple of non-profits.  These are volunteer gigs where the active participants work hard and play hard together.  Dejalurker has reminded me of late that we do all this crap not only for altruistic reasons but also so we get some rewards in personal growth.  So I'm at this point where I'm trying to decide if I'm getting as much out as I'm putting in.  This is kind of a more serious post, but, I'll snap out of that shortly.

How 'bout a skit?  Yay!

So this was an awkward sucky meeting I attended last nite, and, keep in mind this is an (allegedly) fun volunteer gig.

Me:   let's get this party started.  (I didn't really say that.  But sometimes I do).  Now, who would like to take notes?

Them: Let's tape our meeting discussion!  [digital recorder turned on - meeting commences and stumbles along for about an hour - everyone is uncomfortable being recorded.  After we have discussed everything on the agenda and the table has simmered down...]

Me:  Sounds like we have resolved everything we came to resolve, agreed? 

Them:  [silent stares]

Me:  OK, then--we can wrap--

Them:  [interrupt with more questions and comments followed by dead silence]

Me:  Alrighty, let me recap before we close --

Them:  [interrupt with more questions and comments followed by dead silence and stares]

Me:  [quickly so that nobody can start talking again] Now, I think we can adjourn, but before we do, who would like to transcribe the notes from the recorder?   I cannot, as I have hours of notes to digest from our other meetings, so, somebody else needs to.

Them:  Not me.

Me:  Not me.

Them:  How about Betty? 

Me:  She's not even here.

Them:  All the better.

Me:  No, it needs to be one of you six people.

Them:  Not me.  We need an intern to type notes.

Me:  You just have to write the 4 conclusions we reached and the action plan.  And I'm too busy, I have to blog.

Them:  I wish we had a high school student working with us who would just type notes.

Me:  We need to decide this so we don't lose our decisions and then have to meet again.

Them:  Oooh, I know - we could email the digital audio file to EVERYONE.

Me:  No. We are not sending a digital audio file of our hour-long conversation about this one thing. 

Them:  I wish we had an intern to just type notes.

Me:  I will get you an intern if you work with me on setting up the curriculum and supervise the intern.

Them:  No that's too much work.

-End scene-

Thanks to Bill Damon for reminding me that meetings can suck the life out of anyone.  But perhaps if there were a meeting suck-off I could win something?  Never mind.  That sounds gross.

not funny.

Salty D. and I were catching up on our lives today and he said to me, "You're trying too hard to be funny on your blog."

What? I said, I'm not putting in any extra efforts for laughs.  I'm just being myself - a lazy underachiever.   But, I took that criticism to heart.  I will no longer try to be intentionally funny.  If something is funny here, it is only purely by chance that you find it funny.   

So, OK. It's really difficult to smell and breathe this winter.  I have never noticed this problem so much in previous years of my life.  I guess between the increasing particle air pollution and dryness of heated cars and wood stoves and all, my sinus cavities and my nostrils have filled with concrete.  I usually have a very keen sense of smell to the point of annoyance to friends - i.e. "I can't sleep here it smells like urine!" -  and these days - nothing!  I could fall asleep in a hot tub at a Super 8 Motel and I wouldn't pick up a scent.  I've even tried the Breathe-Right strips (um, yeah, only around the house, not at work or anything) thinking that if I just widened the nostrils, some kind of odor wave would hit my brain.  But alas, no - and I cleaned out the fridge today and found a leftover container of (formerly) delicious chicken-coconut-cashew soup I made 30 days ago.   I would have discovered it much sooner...

Of course this also effects the sense of taste so I'm gravitating toward really highly seasoned foods these days like extra ginger and wasabi and soy sauce on the spicy tuna sushi roll.  These things in the nose, they don't come out.  D. and I have started to call our nostrils boulder-holders.  I really can't think of anything less funny than a rock-filled nose.