Blog: Part Deux

2012-01-24T23:48:00.000-08:00

also, a necklace, which i adore.

2012-01-22T19:35:00.000-08:00

when the going gets tough, the tough get crafting. i made myself some earrings tonight. they're simple, but they're awesome and, although you can't see it so clearly in the super high-res photobooth picture above, they are turquoise, so i am, of course, in love.

(also, this is a pretty excellent photo of the damage the animals have done to our living room blinds.)

sad face.

2012-01-22T14:41:00.000-08:00

i'm about to begin the third week of winter quarter, so i'm having to work even harder at staying positive and present. the past year and a half has taught me that the least healthy thing i can be doing right now is try to see into the future, because that makes me panic about where i'll work, how i'll make this worth it, when i'll finally be able to contribute financially to our lives, when we'll be able to buy a house, etc. etc. etc. obsessing over this makes me feel guilty about going back to school, because i feel like it put our lives on hold and incurred new debt for essentially no reason. i have to remind myself that i'm only 25 and, regardless of how horrible this limbo period feels, it's completely acceptable for me to still be working on my life. still, though, bllllargh. i'm over it.

luke and i have spent the weekend lazing around, mostly. i caught up on all the reading i've been avoiding for a while and luke is currently still trying to jam all our hundreds of dvds into genre-coordinated cases. i've been in a bit of a fog for the last few days - just really not feeling up to being a big ball of sunshine. nothing is particularly miserable. i'm just ready for the next phase, i guess, and hopeful that this glorious next phase will include some clarity and a paycheck.

photo phun.

2012-01-05T20:58:00.000-08:00

because i am always about two to three years behind technologically, i got my first smartphone just last december (as in, 2010), which means i've been taking photos with my cell phone for about a year. i've decided that another good way of focusing on the positive would be to catalog all the good stuff associated with last year through pictures i took on my fancy mobile device.*

things i love (and therefore photograph):

a) the husband.

b) the dog.

c) huck.

d) abe.

e) siblings.

f) my parents (i had no cell phone photos of them, so i cheated. they had to make the list!)

g) my grandparents, these gorgeous people.

h) this place.

i) babies.

j) backyards.

k) california.

l) this.

m) mariachis.

n) fun times.

this is by no means an exhaustive list, obviously. however, it does make me realize i am a pretty lucky duck.

*there was probably a much better, more eloquent way to phrase those two sentences, but i'm tired and fighting a migraine and that'll do pig.

daily affirmations.

2012-01-03T15:37:00.000-08:00

things to keep in mind:

a) you are almost finished.
b) you are so close.
c) the people who count will help you.
d) you are not alone.
e) you will make it worth it.
f) you are almost finished.

think i can keep this up for six more months?

good times.

2011-12-31T12:51:00.000-08:00

in lieu of making useless resolutions* i won't hold to (such as the ones i've made previously about cutting out sugar or sarcasm, which were obvious failures), i've decided to cull through the dizzying amount of bad news 2011 brought with it to build a list of all the things that happened this year that i am grateful for, because if i've learned nothing else recently, i've come to understand that life is a process, a journey you might say, and i can't make myself a happier camper by hating on my life or by faking the resolve to change everything overnight. thus, the list of bright lights in 2011:

1) luke landed a dream job at an incredible private school and also made his book club business official. while the year started off rocky for us financially, it most definitely shaped up to be a time of fantastic opportunity for him, which is of course amazing.

2) my brother sam graduated from college and moved home, and as sickeningly sweet as this is going to sound, i have truly loved the chance to get to know him again now that we're both grown ups and are less angsty (well, he is at least).

3) i reconnected with some great people from my hometown and have had the pleasure of hanging out with their adorable babies.

4) this year alone, i've been employed as an osteologist/archaeologist excavating a cemetery, landed an internship analyzing unknown skeletal remains at the coroner's office and have worked/attended meetings with some pretty remarkable people from the city attorney's office. it's difficult to see it while i'm in it, but this year i've literally fulfilled dreams, doing things i'd only ever read about and been fascinated by. totally worth it.

5) i still have a 4.0 in school. i'm only acknowledging this because this list is pathetically short and it's technically a good thing, yes? however, during this year of insanity, i've realized that my decade-old love affair with using grades as a barometer for my life success is over. doing well makes all the craziness worth it, i suppose, but i'm definitely ready for a grade point average to stop ruling my life.

ok, so that was sad - for 365 days of happenings, it's a relatively short list of good things. however, while the bad was pretty bad, the good was exceptionally good. also, this year served as an opportunity to prove to everyone that odd numbered years really are worse than even numbered years. it's not just because i'm a nut, guys! it's true! here's to 2012!

*i'm notoriously not a person of extremes, so making huge blanket statements about how i'm going to CHANGE EVERYTHING usually don't work out for me.

christmas vacation!

2011-12-29T21:03:00.000-08:00

i was a little nervous about the holiday season this year, as 2011 has left a pretty sour taste in my mouth and i assumed this trend would continue with glee until 11:59 pm on december 31st. in addition, luke had a raging cold/flu monster for thanksgiving, which was supremely sad, so i had reason to believe things were right on track to be disastrous the whole way through. however, the christmas/hanukkah season literally could not have been better. my mom hosted a fab hanukkah party, complete with a white elephant game in which my grandparents pointedly cheated to allow me to keep a $30 trader joe's gift card, and we ate chinese food like the good jews* we are at a second family party a few days later. the photos** from these events are currently locked in the fort knox that is my mom's digital camera, where pictures enter and yet never leave, so i'll have to wait to post them. suffice to say, though, that they were amazing good times.

enter: christmas. luke and i offered to host a christmas day brunch this year, in an effort to a) be grown ups and b) establish some traditions of our own, and while it seemed like an excellent idea in theory, as the day approached, i started to panic a little about having lots of people in our two-bedroom bungalow house, as the only thing that differentiates it from a tiny apartment is that it is free standing and has a backyard. i was a little frantic about having to corral all my family into our living room for hours on end. luckily, christmas day was about 80 degrees in the valley, so we were able to utilize our fabulous patio deck and no one had to sit on anyone else's lap. yay! seating crisis averted, it really was one of the best christmases on record, if i may say so myself. luke made an amazing brunch (...i can take zero credit, as he is the chef of the family), presents were fantastic, and grandparents and aunts stayed for hours and hours. it was super fun and i hope we get to host again next year. loved it.

i present to you our 6.5 foot tall, 21 inch (at the base) fake christmas tree. we waited until the last minute to get a tree this year, and so i couldn't justify getting a real one, not even for the delicious smell. on friday the 23rd, i went to three different targets and found this gem at the last one. it was so close to christmas, the holiday decor was already on sale, so i scored this bad boy for $25. it's a little silly, a lot adorable and suits our small couch corner just fine. yet another thing about the holidays that actually worked out. imagine that! (this is a horrible photo, and i acknowledge it. my android phone only takes decent pictures if i'm outside and the sun is shining. sad face.)

luke's mom stayed with us for the long christmas weekend and i slipped out on christmas eve for a few hours to visit my dad's side of the family for their first christmas without my grandpa. tradition calls for us to go to knott's berry farm, where i went on exactly one ride. and i didn't sway my log.

when i got home on christmas eve, luke gave his mom and i pairs of bear paw slippers. i am such a craze that i wore them for our entire brunch and called myself "santa paws" as i headed out gifts. obviously, luke knows me well.

here i am absolutely destroying luke in a maze solving contest. i am, as everyone in my grad program can attest, perhaps one of the least competitive people in the world. luke, however, is perhaps one of the most competitive people and makes most (all) things into competitions. therefore, despite the fact that none of you care that i demolished him in this race (he'd been working on it for two minutes before i even opened the box and removed my maze), i'm proud enough of it to post it. can't you just feel his desperation?

the fam.

the food (note the lox and bagels).

the patio working it's delicious summertime magic.

gingerdead men part 1.

gingerdead men part 2.***

all in all, the holidays were such a success. i am eternally grateful for my incredible extended family. always.

*hilariously, luke, his mom and my dad were the only people at the christmas brunch who never celebrated hanukkah as kids.

**in addition to ramping up the positivity in this here blog, i am trying to amp up the photos. hopefully it will inspire me to take more.

***these cookies were really adorable, but so, so difficult to execute (haha!). they're the product of a stamp/cookie cutter luke found online, and the idea is to imprint the dough with the bone shapes, bake the them and then flood the bones with royal icing. and it worked...with these four. i'll need to practice.

2011-12-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

i spent some time this past weekend re-reading some previous entries on this blog, as you do, and i was struck by how funny i used to be (and so modest, too). this was once an outlet for all the ridiculous nonsense i witness with abject horror/gratefulness on a daily basis, and this year, i've turned it into a spinning vortex of pity and sadness. i am now vowing to reverse this trend. it's time to refocus this lens on the positive in life, and if that means making fun of people i see on the freeway, then so be it. i can work on being a better person tomorrow.

in other news, having just come off of the worst quarter of grad school thus far*, i am delighting in the days when i can literally do nothing. in my life, "doing nothing" still amounts to cutting hundreds of little foot bone shapes out of white felt to construct skeleton christmas stockings to benefit our poor, asbestos-ridden anthropology lab while watching "i survived" and working on christmas gifts, but STILL. i am quasi-relaxed and for the two more weeks i have nowhere to be and nothing of any real importance to do, i am planning on taking full advantage.**

*this is the truth and therefore, despite it being negative, i will let it stay. this grad school thing has thrown me for a major loop. there's nothing like being a stable, independent adult and going from steady, paid employment to student loan hell to really make a girl reevaluate her priorities. turns out mine are getting out of school and back into the workforce as. soon. as. possible.

**and by this i mean: eating tons of candy and wearing my pajamas all day long.

2011-11-28T16:35:00.000-08:00

i haven't posted in a long time mostly because i think i've been too miserable to articulate what my deal is. and, just like that, my point is proven: ending that sentence with "what my deal is" is pretty much the ultimate cop-out and the best explanation for my blog disappearance.

on august 12, my grandpa hank died. he'd been diagnosed with lung cancer (and copd) and had had ups and downs for the last five years, but when you're from a family where people live into their 90s as a matter of course and when the only deaths you've had to weather were those of great-grandparents, the thought that your father's father could die at 81 after being relatively stable for a long time just never really computes. in fact, even now, i still haven't quite come to terms with it. part of my issue is that while my relationships with my mom's parents and my maternal great-aunts have grown and flourished as i've become an adult, i didn't really known my paternal grandfather as anything more than the quintessential grandpa, who had unruly curly white hair, wore suspenders, loved antiques and christmas, and smoked a pipe as he rocked in his favorite chair. he was so loving and kind to me and i have that to cherish, but ultimately, i feel like i knew my dad's dad like people know caricatures and it hurts me so deeply that i'll regret that for the rest of my life. my great-grandmother edna, who lived until she was 97 in 2009, was one of the most hilarious, generous, outspoken and wonderful people i have ever known. i miss her constantly and wish she was still here. however, i knew her and therefore, don't regret wasting the time i could have had with her. i didn't know my own grandfather and that's harder for me that i thought it would be.

in addition, this quarter has been particularly rough at school. there are many facets to the problem, including that i'm taking solely required classes that have little to do with my degree, but i think the greatest issue is that i have officially stopped measuring my success in the world with how well i do in school/the fact that i'm graduate school/how many internships i've got. suddenly, it all seems to mean less to me. the reason for this is that i'm ready to be a functioning adult. i'm ready to have the glorious stability that comes with having a secure job that pays me money. the idea of pursuing a doctorate degree and incurring more debt makes me insane, so i think i'll be a terminal master's student (as if i'm surprised). people like to tell me that at 25, i'm still too young to worry about money and that i should enjoy being in school. however, the reality of being a relatively unemployed student living in los angeles is miserable. i scramble every single month and despite making it a year and a half in grad school without asking my parents for much help, i am gladly accepting funds from them. i'm full aware that i'm making it more miserable by not taking out yearly-salary type loans, but i almost feel like maybe all this craziness will be worth it in a year's time, when i don't have $80,000 in student loans to pay off when the program should have only cost $20,000. ugh. to just graduate already...

abscessing

2011-08-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

first of all, it's august. how the hell did that happen?

secondly, it's been on or around ten thousand degrees around these parts recently; so hot in fact that it's blazing in the house even with the air conditioning on. we've gone from freezing ice box in the winter to raging microwave in the summer, all while living in relatively temperate southern california, so i'm definitely of the opinion that there is no insulation in this house. joy.

thirdly, dess. her abscess surgery was on a wednesday and by saturday, she'd managed to get her paw around the plastic cone and rip out the drain and all her stitches. i rushed her to the emergency vet, where for $100 they told me that it was fine, she'd fine, drains coming out after three days are fine. obviously, the extra expense was nasty, considering i'm unemployed and currently living the lifestyle of an employed person, but i'm happy to report that by tearing out her drain, dess probably did us all a favor. by the following tuesday, less than a week after her surgery, her head looked like this:

amazing. here she is today, officially two weeks from her surgery:

color me glad that she's better and all healed up and growing back fur. i even sorta appreciate her pawing out her drain, because we'd still be in full cone/drain mode at this point if she hadn't. her only problem now is hating me for being boring all day long. it's too hot to go for a walk until the evening and i'm hesitant to run around with her in the backyard now that i'm personally convinced that the diving around in the mulch-y yard is what caused her eye/head infections. thus, i bore her.

"it smells like trash in here."*

2011-07-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

it's been nearly two full days since dess's abscess surgery and she is, for the most part, back to normal (or as normal as she can be with a drain stitched into her head and a plastic cone around her neck). she's learned how to jump onto the bed and the couch (which took a lot of coaxing because the cone impairs her peripheral vision and balance). also, she's eating normally, is fever-free and is generally in a decent mood.

i, however, spent the entire day yesterday alternating between rolling around in bed moaning like bertha rochester and taking several baths, all in hopes of breaking my intense fever. between tuesday evening at 6 pm and wednesday morning at 1 am, the sniffles and tickly throat i laughed about in my last post exploded into a horrible cold. i seem to always be stunned by how quickly sickness creeps up on me (and my animals), so maybe i should just come to expect going from zero to hero when i'm getting sick. instead, every time i feel diseased, i can't believe it. "i just had a little sore throat. how did this happen to me???" as it is, the fever did break last night and today i am in full drying out mode (occasional deep, "working" chest cough, and sinuses clearing up). we are a motley crew over here right now.

*according to luke, the only creature in this house who can currently both use his nose and also vocalize his thoughts in english, the house smells disgusting. luckily, i can't smell anything at the moment, so i'm spared the awful task of trying to figure out whether it's the dog's weeping head wound or my trash bags of used kleenex that are stinking up the joint. yum.

one sick puppy

2011-07-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

quick life updates:

1) my computer is still broken. i don't see anything forcing me to address that issue until school starts in september. i'm happy to loll around in my laziness at the moment.

2) i spent monday and tuesday subbing at the preschool where i once taught. i didn't even consider the possibility of getting a cold until i got there and remembered there is no escape. i have worked a total of ten hours there thus far this week and it is only wednesday and KABAM, i already have a sore throat and sniffles. seriously, the military should check out the bioweapons lurking in preschools. i'm sure it would save zillions in medical research.

3) i applied to a production company to be cast on a paranormal activity investigation reality show over the weekend and scored an on-camera interview yesterday. as hilarious as it was and as pleased as i am to have yet another crazy thing to tell a story about, i absolutely will not be chosen for the position, perhaps mostly because (as my mother told me after i discussed my interview outfit) i fall more into the "scientist" category than the "sexy" category, and sex sells, darling.

ok, quick updates are finished. here we are at the grand finale: we may have found the source of our adorable dog's nearly year-long battle with terrible health. on sunday, we visited my grandparents, and in the car on the way there, dess looked like this,

which is to say: normal. on the way out of the car, she hopped from the back seat into the front of the car and smacked her head into the center console. she takes after me in that she's an epic klutz and is used to minor injurious encounters with inanimate objects, so she was totally unfazed by this and we all spent the beautiful day in/by the pool.

at the end of the day, my brother clay noticed that her head was swollen just above her right eye, but it was relatively minor and we all attributed it to her small accident in the car. imagine our surprise then, when by last night (tuesday), the bump was even bigger and she seemed to be running a fever. i woke up around 4 am to find her curled up in what i can only assume is the canine fetal position on the couch, with a scorching fever and zero energy. by 8:30 this morning, we were at the vet, where i guess i assumed he would tell us she had a bee sting or an allergic reaction, hand us medication and let us take her home. instead, he immediately diagnosed her with a massive abscess and told us to pick her up in the afternoon after her surgery. i can proudly say i waited until we got to the car until i dissolved into hysterics.

luke went to work, promising to come home early to help me bring her home, and i spent the day cleaning, sweeping and folding laundry to try to distract myself from feeling like a horrible mother.

i don't have a photo of her head lump pre-surgery mostly because i was content to think it was just a knot resulting from her bumping her noggin. however, you can pretty much assume that whatever she looked like when we dropped her off, it was overwhelmingly horrific to pick her up looking like this:

her abscess lanced, draining tube in place, with blood and pus running down the right side of her face. it is horrific in every sense of the word. the vet pulled us aside before he gave her back to us and told us it was one of the worst infections he'd ever seen. apparently, it had been festering long enough to dissolve some of the bone of her skull, so much so that he even found pus in her sinuses. a closer look:

the first thing we did when we got home, after feeding her several treats and making sure she could still drink out of her bowl with that cone around her neck, was to sit next to her with paper towels and a bowl of warm water and wash the dried fluid off her fur. as unbelievably terrible as it looks, the swelling is enormously improved and her fever is gone, so i guess she's on the road to recovery. still, the idea that this shy, adorable, cuddly mutt, who is our first child in many ways, has an open, draining, odorous* wound on her face is heartbreaking.

the worst part of all of this is that this dog has had a raging infection in her skull for probably the entire time she's been with us (since we picked her up from the rescue last november) and we had no idea. luke and i are trying to be positive and focus on the fact that we have maybe at last hit upon the root cause of all her other, less traumatic medical problems. this centralized condition could have been the source of all her previous ear infections and recent eye problems. by addressing this larger issue, we're hoping we'll remedy her problematic health.

i'm still completely blown away that a) she had such an ugly infection and no one knew and b) that the abscess went from nothing to full-blown baseball size in three days. i'm crossing my fingers and my toes that once she heals up from this, she can enjoy many, many years of health. right now, though, i'm just hoping for rest and a speedy recovery.

*i've smelled a lot of unpleasant things in the last year, but i can solemnly swear that nothing has smelled as bad as the weeping wound above dess's eye. it smells like sickness and i think that makes it worse.

needling

2011-07-07T09:28:00.000-07:00

i'm going to get a hepatitis shot in an hour and i'm about one hundred percent sure i'm going to cry like a baby. a) i have a pretty intense hatred of needles and b) hepatitis shots are given in your non-dominant arm for a reason (namely, that they hurt like a biatch and prevent you from doing any real work with your arm for a few days). side note: i love that i'm discussing these vaccinations as if i'm the only person in the universe who has ever had to suffer through one and as though not every college student in the country has had to get the shots.

anyway, i'm not pleased. however, doing the work that i'm doing (which may or may not include handling many strange dead things from unknown locations) has prompted me to try to overcome my fear of long, sharp metal objects entering my skin and just get the damn vaccination already (well, if we're being honest, i should say "again," as i had to have it to start my undergrad career seven years ago). also, i scratched myself through a glove yesterday (meaning the glove did not tear, but i still got a small, hopefully protected, poke) and now i'm freaking out. regardless of whether or not the glove broke (and it didn't, which to my mind bears repeating) and regardless of whether or not i bled (i didn't, as the scratch was perhaps as superficial as one can be while still be considering a scratch), the fact that i was messy with foulness and got a small scrape is really upsetting. sometimes, as i macerate things and get disgusting and smelly, i take a step back and think to myself, "how did the vegetarian child of an enormous hypochondriac find herself working elbow-deep in forensics?" it is an interesting life path for anyone, but for me, as i still carry around my mom's extreme health mania and tendency for exaggeration and hysteria, it's even more surprising. i love it in practice for all the reasons i always thought i'd love it in theory, because we really are helping to build back identities and i think that's fascinating and noble. however, i can love it and appreciate my opportunities and still not jump for joy about exposing myself to disease by slicing myself.

thus, doctor's office, here i come! yay.

whirlwind of craze

2011-07-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

i've been blogless for a literal age and that upsets me. it's not intentional and is certainly not due to our lives being stable and boring lately. sadly, on or around the last day i posted, my computer stopped recognizing the internet. this should probably concern me more than it does, but surprisingly, i don't really care. or, rather, i don't care enough to take the laptop to an apple store or call time warner. it's been over a month now and i've cracked my laptop open a grand total of two times, each time hoping that it had miraculously healed itself as spontaneously as it broke. nope. however, i'm kinda enjoying it. i'm using my phone for the basics, like email and facebook, and am stealing luke's computer for bigger projects (such as watching "extreme makeover: weight loss edition" while stuffing my face full of cupcakes). reasons for my lack of interest in computer problems: in addition to my being hugely lazy now that the school year is over, i also kinda love not staring at my computer screen all the time. gone are the days of checking facebook and watching tv and talking to luke at the same time. honestly, no one needs that much stimulation. i'll probably need to figure out the computer situation by the time school rolls around again, but in the meantime, i'll survive.

recent happenings:

1) i finished my first year of grad school with a 4.0. yipee! this last quarter was one for the record books, in terms of all-consuming stress and anxiety. i have never in my life felt anything like it before and i have never been so grateful to leave a quarter behind (especially because it might as well have been ten years long, rather than ten weeks. so. horribly. long.). apparently, the first year is the worst. here's hoping!

2) i had planned to have a low key summer of odor patrolling and reading cool books i'd ignored throughout the school year. this was going pretty well until about a week ago and a half ago, when i bounced back into the landfill's office on a friday morning after work and was casually told that my full-time job was essentially deleted. cue a tailspin into crazytown that took me through the weekend and halfway through the following week. i cannot believe how difficult it has been for me to just hold down an effing job for two seconds while in school. however, there was a major silver lining to my four days of abject panic, because while scouring craigslist for some leads for myself, i came upon a fantastic librarian opportunity for luke and forwarded the link to him, thinking we could both just through caution to the internet job application wind. as it turns out,

3) luke applied last tuesday, immediately heard back about the resume he'd submitted and swiftly climbed the interview ladder (totally three or four interviews in all). by friday, we'd had a hugely nerve wrecking week, staying up most of thursday night due to nervous anticipation, the likes of which don't come around unless it's christmas morning. this position was pretty much a dream come true for luke, and waiting to find out if he got the job was. so. hard. it was all insanely worth it though, because HE DID! he got the job and i am so proud of him and so excited for him. it's definitely a career-making move and i'm thrilled that he finally has the security he deserves.

4) luke getting this fantastic position helped to chill me out, so i've stopped sending out mass responses to internet postings for administrative assistant jobs. tomorrow, i'm going to head over to the local school district classified employment office to hand in a resume and perhaps charm some people in person, because i've decided that it's damn near impossible to stand out and be selected, even just for an interview, when you're competing on the interwebs with ten bazillion other faceless people who also swear that it's been their lifelong dream to file papers at some undisclosed corporate office.

5) i spent today cleaning up after our impromptu mini fourth of july barbeque, catching up on crappy tv and reading a book. after having what may have been some of the most emotional weeks in recent memory, things are looking up.

barn owl csi

2011-05-20T18:39:00.000-07:00

i worked this morning, but since getting home at 10:45 am, i have done nothing. true, i've thrown some laundry in the washing machine and i just got home from some light marketing (i needed veggie refried beans and an avocado for a mexican feast i'm eating solely to justify the margarita i wanted*), but other than that, i have done absolutely nothing at all. i read about two hundred pages of a terribly awesome mass market paperback true crime book i borrowed from lab, took a nap, caught up on tv, and lounged. i'm currently watching dvr'd episodes of tosh.o and drinking the margarita i've longed for all day. luke had a book club and then a dinner with friends tonight, so i'm by myself with the animals (hence the need to justify the margarita).

yesterday, i worked in the morning and went immediately to campus to work on mr. artemis hoot. i did his torso. i'm leaving his little head for next week because i'm terrified that his beak will go the way of the talons - namely, dissolve into nothing in the simmering water. i had a much better day with him. nothing was particularly broken or destroyed and everything came clean pretty easily, meaning it was way less stressful than last week. also, i found a mouse skull in his abdomen, which, being the weirdo that i am, i found pretty effing amazing. i felt like i was on barn owl csi.

tomorrow morning, i'm walking with some friends in a march of dimes five-mile walk. i'm really excited about seeing my friends and all the babies and, for once, walking for miles early in the morning with people to keep me company (my only complaint about odor patrolling at this point is that it gets a little boring alone). what i'm not looking forward to tomorrow is the hours i'll be spending in the lab organizing for "lab clean-up day." yipee! however, by tomorrow afternoon, all three previous pirates movies luke and i ordered should arrive and we're marathoning them with his brother. i suppose i can handle a few hours of craziness in the middle of an otherwise fabulous day. you'll hear about it, i'm sure.

*i ended frying up two corn tortillas into taco shells (like my mommy used to). couple those shells with the marg, rice, beans and my couch, and i'm practically on vacation. the only thing missing is luke. :(

it was a hoot

2011-05-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

as it turns out, the barn owl (who i've creatively named hoot) was dead and tagged and shoved into a plastic bag in catalogue room in 1984, making it a mummy for longer than i've been alive. it's entire left side was crushed (skull, pelvis, wing, etc) so now i get to obsess about how i'll probably fail my project on the (incorrect) grounds that i snapped all his bones while cleaning them. awesome. also, apparently bird talons don't hold up well while being simmered in baking soda and meat tenderizer. just fyi.

suffice to say, i did legs and wings and stopped because the whole enterprise was stressing me out. this means i have to dedicate another full day to the boiling and stripping of an ancient animal carcass, but until that day comes, i've decided not to think about it.

i am not a freak. i am a scientist.

2011-05-11T14:55:00.000-07:00

interestingly enough, today is wednesday and i actually have an answer to the full-time work question. (things rarely work out as i envision them, obviously.) that answer is i'm full-time again, which is super awesome. i'm a little sad that the sleeping in i'd envisioned for tomorrow morning and friday won't be happening, but honestly, getting up at 5 am is far less brutal than wondering how i'm gonna pay the bills, so i'll handle it.

tomorrow, i'm starting my "maceration project" in advanced osteology, which means i will essentially be cutting apart a mummified barn owl and boiling its bones in baking soda until they sparkle. that makes me sound like a psychopath, i understand, but it's actually the merging of two very important parts of my life; namely, learning how to process skeletons and doing things for the tar pits, as the animals we're working on are going to be part of the page museum's comparative collection. see? museums do this stuff all the time, guys, so i'm not a freak. i'm a scientist.

2011-05-10T08:04:00.000-07:00

a friend of mine just had an adorable baby girl, so there has been much baby-crafting going on around here lately (and by "much" i mean "when i find the time" - it's taken me two and a half weeks to applique three burp cloths, which is not only shameful but also very sad). there has also been much talk about not sleeping at night. my friend doesn't sleep at night because she has a human baby. i don't sleep at night because i have a dog that snores and a gluttonous cat (i say this with love) who can no longer wait for dawn to get his breakfast and instead spends the hours of 4 am and 5 am swatting me in the face until i throw him off the bed in a rage, feed him and then feel guilty about my said rage for the entire day.

also, as luke and i were eating breakfast this morning, we were talking about countering bethenny frankel's "skinnygirl" empire with something called "fattygirl," which would promote eating what you want and not obsessing about being a shadowy stick figure when all you really want is a margarita. then, luke said, "and you could be the spokesperson."

i nearly choked to death on my poorly microwaved oatmeal.

ocho de mayo

2011-05-07T22:21:00.000-07:00

i guess i'm feeling better than i have been. i guess. there are some irons in the job fire, but i think that until i can land a stable adult job after graduation (read: probably in 2013), i won't be totally ok with how my financial life is playing out. i should know by the beginning of next week whether or not i can work full-time again, so i will either be in a super fab mood come next wednesday or a super horrible one - which i suppose is sorta the story of this blog recently, right?

on thursday night, luke and i hosted a cinco de mayo pot luck at the house for my forensic peeps, in an effort to help us all blow off steam by chugging margaritas and punching pinatas (and yes, pinatas were punched). it was a really fun time and even i approved, which is rare because i almost always feel like i could have done something better or been a better hostess or handled things less awkwardly. all the significant others got along, there was much tequila and i wore a sombrero fascinator that i made with my mom, so pretty much everything was right up my alley.

tomorrow is our first wedding anniversary, which is blowing my mind. a) i can't possibly be old enough to be married in the first place and b) it's already been a year?!? i can't believe it! well, actually, i can. this year has definitely been a doozy, what with the moving and the starting school and the business starting and the no stable jobs for either of us and the dog and OMG NO STABLE JOBS FOR EITHER OF US. i think, as cheesy and horrible as this sounds, all the insanity of the past year has truly brought luke and i closer together. we lived together for years without making significant progress on how to reliably split up housework or accurately manage our time together and now, in the span of about nine months, we have legitimately worked through most of our b.s. and actually grown. as people and as a couple. granted, i could have lived with reaching this point without freaking out constantly about having zero dollars for practically my entire first year of grad school, but honestly, i'm very, very happy that this maturity hit us, however it happened.

2011-05-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

i've had a fabulous weekend thus far, full of studying and family and friends and parks and foods and royal weddings. things have been good.

another thing this weekend has been full of thus far is job applications. full to the brim. and this leads me to part two of "why i've been a (more) miserable bitch for two weeks." drumroll please: my odor patrolling hours were cut from full-time to two days a week. this was due to no fault of my own (i assume), because they hired several more people despite only opening up six more shifts per week and in order to accommodate all the new peeps, my schedule needed to be pruned. got it. my issue is this: i am really, really tired of looking for stable work. i mean, at this point, i'm obviously willing to do anything (as i was getting up at 5 am monday through friday to walk six miles through neighborhoods trying to catch smells). and even that apparently isn't enough dedication to secure me more than two months of reasonable paychecks.

it has been outrageously stressful to be riding a seemingly never-ending wave of excitement about new jobs followed by horror and despair when they are either eliminated or downsized or otherwise rendered moot. it has made me sick (as in, actually). compound my consta-anxiety with the collective delusion of the entire world that my "being in school" somehow serves as a barrier against needing to work to finance my life and you have me not wanting to go anywhere or see anyone or do anything that is not explicitly required of me either in my current job description or my master's program. (this delusion is perhaps perpetuated by the lucky few who get stipends when attending graduate school. suffice to say, i'm not at one of those schools. if we use lab disposables, we need to replace them personally.)

i'm so frustrated by how difficult it has been for me to find a job i can rely on and even more so by the fact that i always seem to be just on the verge of getting on top of things (such as paying off credit cards, planning trips/events/backyard makeovers, etc) when i suddenly find myself without funds. blarg. for realz.

wowzers

2011-04-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

i haven't posted in a while almost entirely because i've been a little miserable lately and despite trying to convey that in several entries over the last two weeks, i just couldn't feel good about blasting the internet with all the venom and crazy i've been feeling lately. i'm not as much of a sadcloud now, having spent the last few mornings potting plants like a zen master and hanging a hammock in the backyard with luke and plotting out my summer vegetable garden/backyard bench plan.

here's the issue: i feel like i've been very selfish lately. i used to be someone who did and did and did for other people, usually at my own expense. it never mattered because i had the time and the energy and the general get-up-and-go to be for other people what i never could for myself; namely, a support system, a beaming, bouncing enthusiastic crazy who showed up to every event, dried every tear and was forever willing to go out of my way for my friends. in the last year or so (possibly more), i've had to shut a lot of that part of me down. i don't like it and i'm not excited about it, but i think i needed it. thus, i have mixed feelings. i've been passive about friendships and people i adore and have made a genuine second career out of bailing on plans and this makes me feel horrible, considering how much i love the people in my life and how terrible i know i've been to them. on the flip side, since last year, i've gotten married, moved into a house (in an area that effectively puts me millions of miles away from any group of friends i've got), gotten a puppy (holy cannoli, if i'd only known...), been unable to find anyone willing to hire me, and, most insane of all, started grad school, which has kicked my ass all over town since september. all these things have been a drain on my physical ability to do other things, as i'm always in my car driving the length of the city or at school studying and getting my ass handed to me by anatomy tests or at home eating milk chocolate and almond candy bars trying not to die from stress. my inability to handle any more than what's on my plate at the moment is a bad thing. i don't like being so consumed with things outside myself that i can't be a functioning member of my own life.

however, the last year has been incredible for me as a person. i feel like i am more unapologetically myself than i ever have been. for better or worse, i can now say whatever the hell is on my mind and if people think i'm out of my gourd, so be it. i realized at a family party recently that there are units of my own extended family who have no idea what to make of me, and that's totally fine. i rarely feel uncomfortable in my own skin these days and that is remarkable in itself considering i spent most of my formative years feeling like a hideous mutant that belonged up in a bell tower.

therefore, as insane as this year has been, as horrible as i've been at making plans and sticking to them, i know that ultimately, this is all good. i have had time to do things for myself (although not necessarily by myself) and have had experiences that challenged me in ways i've never been challenged before. i've learned to stick up for myself and my beliefs and i know now that regardless of any outside influence, i know who i am and what i stand for and i would gladly do this whole breathless, crazy year over again if it meant getting this much clarity about my life.

to sum: i apologize to everyone i haven't seen in ages. just know that while i've been an absentee friend, i've also been a whirling dervish.

b of s

2011-04-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

i'm currently on hold with bank of america, practically holding my breath to keep from screaming.

as kids, my grandparents would buy us stock for our birthdays (among other things, obviously). when i turned 18, my grandpa gave me the choice to keep the money in the market or remove it, and since i'm too much of a money grubber to be a gambler, i opted to take it all out of the stock market and place it in a countrywide savings account. i promptly forgot about it for years and years while in college, until bank of america bought out countrywide and i started getting statements detailing crazy monthly maintenance fees being removed from my account. i don't bank with b of a and taking care of it wasn't a super high priority for me, until last november, when i realized a) i could actually use the money and b) i didn't want to come back to the account in 2012 to find it had all been eaten by fees (as i wasn't putting any money into it).

so, i walked into a branch, closed the account and ran off with my monies.

cut to: last week, when my mother started getting calls from collections agencies in my name. turns out that despite my physically closing the account (and withdrawing all the funds), the account had been reopened without my knowledge due to a few cents interest that had accrued before i shut it down. because the account had been conveniently reopened, the bank could continue charging me maintenance fees and because there was no money in the account and i assumed (incorrectly, i guess) that i was done with bank of america, eventually the unpaid, delinquent fees had been sent to collections.

um, what? it was only $57 and i could have easily just paid it to the collections agency or to the bank and gotten it taken care of, but i am my mother's daughter and am very concerned with "the principle of the thing," so i'm on the phone with a third person from the bank, who just told me that i'd have to handle it with the collections agency, despite the fact that i've already talked to them and they referred me to the bank.

i hate the world.

good news, though. apparently, she took care of it. in fact, she was so eager to get me off the phone, this is how the conversation went:

her: "ok, i'm gonna let you hang up now."
me: "sooooo, has there been resolution?"
her: "yes."
me: "ok, can you tell me how? did you send an electronic message to the collections agency? are you going to mail it?"
her: "it's on the computer."
me: "right. so if i call the agency tomorrow, it should all be worked out?"
her: "yes."

the end. i'm tired of this for right now, so i'm going to trust her, but i have a feeling i'll be doing all this shit again tomorrow.

say no to drugs

2011-04-10T20:26:00.000-07:00

i spent today doing exactly what i did yesterday; namely, blowing my nose, watching tv and wallowing in my misery. i am by far the worst sick person/patient in the universe (and am at my all-time most obnoxious when i'm getting my teeth cleaned, as my grandpa is my dentist and i therefore have zero annoyance filter. all of his assistants probably despise me). this is how horrible i am at being under the weather: as a kid and a teenager, i only had a few recurrent dreams and the one that was the most devastating was also the one that from the outside appears to be the most innocuous. each and every time i was sick, for every single night of said illness, i would dream that my mom had come into my room to put a giant glass of water on my nightstand. then, i would wake up in the middle of the night, parched and dying of thirst, and so thrilled that i had water waiting for me. it was only then that i realized, every time, that the water wasn't there. it was always a crushing blow. and yes, this happened every time and no, i never thought ahead and got water before i went to sleep, and yes, i slept downstairs in a room right off the kitchen and was perfectly capable of getting a glass when i woke up panic-stricken in the middle of the night. i offer no explanations - only the truth. it was terrible.

as an adult, i haven't gotten any better. as i've mentioned, luke had this first and while he was at his sickest, he steam-cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen and took the dog for walks and dressed himself like a normal human being.* i, on the other hand, completely dropped off the face of the earth this weekend and did nothing but fantasize about the food i was eating and wished i could taste. i am insufferable.

so, all day, i have been bonded to the couch, water glass at hand!, wearing the same pajamas i've been wearing since friday night (pajamas i took off yesterday to shower and then put right back on - i am not ashamed), watching countless hours of the tube and trying to get through "the girl who kicked the hornet's nest" on netflix. (for some reason, despite reading all the books and loving the first two swedish films, i just cannot get into this third one, even now, when i have no energy for doing anything but getting into movies.) and, because i haven't exerted myself at all, i'm starting to feel better. however, i'm still so congested i feel like i've been punched in the face and i'm still pretty into mouth-breathing. in fact, i called out of work tomorrow (despite feeling ok and wanting to get the hell out of the house already), because the crux of my job is detecting smells and that is just not happening right now. i just ate leftover indian food with luke, and while he was having his mouth blown off by spiciness, i was chowing down, tasting nothing. i'm sure my tongue is really pleased about that.

side note: my aunt and uncle run a surplus warehouse that handles lots of household products and occasionally, they'll give luke and i a huge box full of paper towels, toilet paper and kleenex. the most recent gift was so enormous, i had no idea when we were going to get through all of it. mystery solved! in two days, i've gone through two and a half rectangular boxes of kleenex. i'm on my last box and i'm scared.

*granted, luke and i handle sickness differently. he loads up on dayquil and nyquil and is essentially medicated the entire time. if i can handle it, like this weekend, when i didn't have work or school, i stay far away from meds because i was told in my tenth grade biology class that those medications, in lowering fevers and slowing down mucus, actually lengthen your illness, as they slow your body's defense. saying no to drugs works for me in two ways: 1) it makes me think i'll get better faster and 2) it legitimizes my whining, as i really do feel horrible. i'd say that's a win win.

sad day.

2011-04-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

i am les mis. overnight, the cold traveled from my broken throat and settled squarely in the middle of my face - but, really, who didn't see that coming after i so recklessly proclaimed to the universe yesterday that i was gonna get away with just a sore throat. curse you, jinx!

i'm sneezy and disgusting and i'm going through tissues like they're tater tots or m&ms, but at least i'm not achey anymore! thank god for small miracles, i guess.

also, paranormal activity 2 did not come in the mail from netflix today and that is very upsetting.

nanny mcfree

2011-04-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

this cold has stayed mainly in my throat and has done so much damage, it literally pains me to talk to anyone. this is traumatic, considering my favorite thing of all is gabbing to any and all who will listen/are within ear shot and without escape routes. therefore, expect many blog entries until this thing clears up, as i couldn't possibly keep all of this contained.

on monday night, i filled in as a last minute babysitter for a family i used to nanny for, way back in 2009. i left the job in june of that year to start working at the preschool and hadn't seen the kids since (which is pretty reprehensible, because we all live in the same city and i absolutely loved them). being a nanny is an interesting gig, because while working with children is by far one of the most rewarding things i've ever done, working with children in their homes on a regular basis tends to get a little out of my comfort zone. eventually, the job becomes less about picking the kids up from school and entertaining them with my boundless enthusiasm and more about picking up dry cleaning and doing emergency grocery shopping. there is no judgement in that statement, only regret, as i have learned both times i've nanny'd that managing my own life is difficult enough - i can't handle the responsibility of managing someone else's (especially when that someone else has two children and a massive house and a crazy schedule). it becomes too much for me, until after a week of being too busy to buy groceries for my own house, i find myself at a restaurant supply store with a housekeeper who speaks only spanish, desperately trying to pantomime all the things on someone else's shopping list (do you have any idea how difficult it is to try to act out clorox bleach?). those are the times i ask myself, "what is my life?" i've been a nanny for two different families, and had two distinctly different experiences, and left those positions both times knowing it wasn't for me (at least not while in school/working a second job).

babysitting, though, is something else entirely. i love babysitting. i was blessed with a built-in charge when i was nine, in the form of my youngest brother, who i began watching by myself when i was about 11 or 12. then, i ran my own very successful babysitters club all through high school (which is why i didn't get a legitimate paycheck cut in my name until i was almost 19 and already in college). i've found that babysitting has become more fun as i've gotten older, perhaps because i'm more completely my own person and get to feel like the funky, weird older sibling/aunt. also, kids have by the far the best senses of humor, and being as hilarious as i am, i enjoy that very much.

so, anyway, back to monday. the son in this family is around eight (being just about six the last time i saw him, which was so long ago, i still can't believe it) and i spent most of the afternoon watching him as he attempted to do four underwater front flips in a row in the backyard pool ("sarah, i need bigger lungs," was his conclusion, when he absolutely could not break three in a row). it was during this pool time that he told me all about the ghosts that he sees around the house. he told really detailed stories about when they show up and what they look like and how no one in his family believes that he actually sees them. then, he started to tell me about a magical pair of dice he has, dice that always roll the number he needs, as long as he wishes for it. he said they were his grandpa's dice, and thinking that with all the talk of ghosts and magic and the unexplained, he might enjoy a little whimsy, i said, "well, maybe it's your grandpa rolling the dice, to help you out."

to which he replied, "sarah, i don't think so. my grandpa's dead."

amazing.

whiny pants*

2011-04-07T22:11:00.000-07:00

i have a cold. this is annoying, but also helpful in explaining why i've been exhausted, sore, achey and miserable this week (school/life anxiety notwithstanding, of course). luke got sick on monday, but because i was a whirling dervish of craze, i didn't really even think about dousing myself in hand sanitizer and overdosing on vitamin c and zinc, which is usually standard protocol for me if someone close to me (read: the husband) is even suspected of being ill. in my overwhelmed delirium, i didn't even think about it and here i am, suffering while he gets better. i'm mostly just super achey and have a crazy sore throat, so i think i'll live. also, because i've worked all week and then gone to lab to study every day, i've given myself tonight and all day tomorrow to break from studying/stressing, so that i'll have some time to recoup before starting the shit storm again on monday. it is what i call a "mental health break," which i suppose is a nicer, more polite way of saying, "i will lose my shit entirely if i don't have a day to laze around and run errands (such as getting a new pair of cheap sears optical glasses, as the puppy has successfully gnawed the stems off of both my current pairs. i've been wearing wonky glasses for week)."

i have tomorrow morning off as well (and it's supposed to rain), so here's to sleeping in and drinking tea!

*at 5:45am monday through friday, i have a cup of coffee with the landfill's lead mechanic. this in and of itself is supremely bizarre, because while everyone i know is still asleep, i'm becoming best friends with a man who has a daughter my age (or older? i've never asked). anyway, the point is that i've been a miserable mess this week and pre-6 am is probably when i'm at my worst. therefore, while i apologize that i've briefly turned this blog into a weep-a-thon, begging for you all to play your tiny violins for me, you should probably just thank your lucky stars you don't have to share that first cup of coffee with me.

panic attack

2011-04-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

lately, i've been really good at making plans and cancelling them. i've been feeling pretty terrible about it, considering there are people i adore who i haven't seen in actual months and that's totally unacceptable. however, it is now only wednesday and this week has kicked my ass so hard that i'm amazed i'm still showing up to work and school. between working every weekday morning, filling as a babysitter monday night, having class tuesday and wednesday nights and the promise of full days in lab on thursdays, every second of every day is either already accounted for or becomes incredibly important spare time for sleeping or talking to luke for five seconds. i don't think it would be as torturous if i didn't live so far from school, but as it is, even leaving my house at noon means contending with at least 45 minutes in traffic to get to campus.

i get that everyone is busy, so i also understand that perhaps my own personal busy-ness isn't impressive enough to be a valid excuse for why i'm mia while in school. however, even if the plan was to go eat cupcakes with jude law in spain i'd probably be too exhausted to leave the couch (which is not to say, of course, that cupcakes and celebrities are more important than the real people in my life).

a lot of the anxiety that keeps me glued to my house is probably caused by the recent realization that i'm most likely repeating the same mistake i made as an undergraduate: namely, i'm getting a degree in something super obscure, therefore dooming myself to the same post-graduation misery i experienced after college, only times ten thousand because i'll be five years older and even less employable. why didn't i just go to business school? at least then, after completing my imprisonment, i'd be able to secure a job as the chief operating officer of coordinating bullshit job titles i'm 24 and don't understand. i'm considering getting a simultaneous second master's degree in psychology so that i have some hope and when i tell people that they say, "oh, you career student!" which instantly makes me hate them. i'm not a career student. i'm just an idiot who didn't realize the only people who get employed with BAs are communications or economics majors.

i read yesterday that bristol palin got paid over $250,000 to pose with her son in some candies brand advertisements all about what a mistake teen pregnancy is. if only i'd known at 17 that all i needed to make it in the world was to get john mccain to fall in lecherous love with my mother, i'd have done things differently.

even just typing that sentence, as a joke, pisses me off. sarah palin's daughter made more money in a day than i'll make in the next five years by nationally flaunting proof that her mother's abstinence-only views are huge fails. lovely.

lady sarah

2011-04-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

i don't want to say something silly like, "i'm going to post something new every day," a) because i've said that many times before and b) it's always been a lie. as difficult as it is to believe, there are some days in my life when there are no deep thoughts or ridiculous mishaps and therefore, i can never hold to my "posting every day" resolutions without feeling like i am faking it or forcing something. however, i've been pa-ritty damn good about posting regularly and i'm kinda excited about that.

so, why today's post? last night, luke and i went to my parents' house for dinner, as promised. after only having been there for two minutes, i realized i am my mother. this is by no means a bad thing. i love my mom. she's hilarious and snarky and probably a little bit evil, just like me. also, she's a genius and an artist and super entertaining. i don't mind the thought of becoming her. however, when it's thrown in your face by something like this, it's a little intense:

that's a photo of my mom and i wearing the exact same nail polish. college friends, remember that time in school when i couldn't wear something if it wasn't turquoise? see! it wasn't my fault. i am genetically predisposed to bright (blue/green) colors!

also, i realize this picture is super small (it's a cell phone photo), but if you look closely, you'll see my mom's craft table in the background. she constantly thinks up new, insane projects, just like me. her current brainchild?

the royal wedding invitation:

she found an image of the invitation in a magazine, made tons of copies and is currently in the process of addressing them (in calligraphy), mounting them to glittery backgrounds (as glitter is her drug of choice: she was wearing glitter eyeshadow last night) and then sealing them WITH WAX in a massive envelope. she's inviting all the women in the family to watch the wedding at her house and everyone is thrilled.

i absolutely love this. i'm not particularly enthralled with the royal wedding and could probably live out the rest of my life never watching it/thinking about it again. after all, what does the royal family do anymore, besides sit for portraits to be engraved on commemorative coins and turn up at polo matches? (it may be, though, that i'm still a little bitter about not being the one marrying prince william. you know, because every female born between 1982 and 1988 totally had a chance.) however, now that "lady sarah" has been so formally invited to my mother's viewing party, with the promise of tea and biscuits, i'm all over it. wills and kate, please!

soft pretzels and hand cramps*

2011-04-02T14:56:00.000-07:00

my inability to commit to a blog format is probably HUGELY indicative of how much trouble i'm having making decisions these days. why oh why do i have so many choices? this is definitely a "my diamond shoes are too tight" problem, but it's an issue nevertheless.

i chose this background almost entirely because luke deemed it "too insane." i figured that suited me. also, it's a picture of gigantic salted soft pretzels, which are essentially the stuff of my life.

aside from pondering the existential questions raised by my blog background unrest, i've spent most of the day writing out flash cards on muscles and their origins and insertions for my advanced osteology class. i told myself that today, i would just make them and that the studying would begin in earnest perhaps tomorrow or next week (as we're not being tested on muscular anatomy for a few weeks anyway). however, this afternoon was proof that there is absolutely no way to stare down the barrel of a gun (or, in this case, twenty pages of muscles and their functions, origins, insertions and innervations) without wanting to crap your pants. thank god i'd already given myself clearance not to do anything but make the cards today. i'd feel really bad about myself if i'd been rendered immobile by the insane amount of information i'm expected to know on a day when i was supposed to be actively learning it.

not happening right now. instead, i'm finishing the cards and then going with luke and the dog to have din din with my parents and clay. this is a very, very welcome distraction.

*upon review, that sounds pretty disgusting. however, it's still a pretty valid description of my life at the moment, so i say, it stays!

dodger bluez

2011-04-01T18:22:00.000-07:00

as much as i love tina fey and as much as i believe i am liz lemon, 30 rock has been a little hit or miss these days. having worked on a comedy paper for two years, i definitely understand the tendency for inside jokes to creep into the script, but we were writing mostly for our own amusement and 30 rock is broadcast nationally. therefore, i've been a smidge disappointed lately, because most of the shows now play like they're transcribed from a delirious conversation the crew had when they were up too late. however, a few weeks ago, "tgs hates women" premiered and it was by far one of the best episodes i've seen in a long time. briefest possible summary: liz contends with a female guest writer who acts like a baby hooker. baby voice, short shorts, cleavage explosion, the works. here they are juxtaposed:

on the left, you have me ALL THE TIME. on the right, you have the sum total of all the girls sitting behind us at the dodger game last night.

oh, the dodger game. it began as a way for my dad, luke and i to make use of some extra tickets to opening day and ended with the bottom of my bag covered in spilled beer and peanut shells kicked over by some girls in stiletto boots and my father getting drunken, uninvited back rubs from the shit-faced blondes who were probably far too old to be giving strangers giggly massages in public places.

i have been called a prude for thinking this way, but honestly, i think it's just really, really pathetically sad to be an adult woman prancing around like a breathing sex toy. (in addition, it's also insanely uncomfortable to watch your dad try to fend off the clawing acrylic nails of a woman whose guy friends make jokes about her making your dad's night.) i'm sure that sounds super judgmental and i apologize, but i can't handle it.

i feel the same way about the link between girls and pink. is there no other way to define yourself as a person/woman than to bleach your hair, get weekly spray tans, upspeak like a moron and teach your daughters that they can't possibly play soccer if the ball isn't pink? (seriously. why is a pink soccer ball necessary?) a mother in the row in front of us bought each of her two kids a foam dodgers bat (something that, if given to my brother sam and i as children, would have been used to beat the crap out of siblings and friends). for her son, she bought a blue and white bat. for her daughter, a pink and white one. the dodger team colors are blue and white and yet for some reason, it was more important for the girl identify with something pink than with something legitimately associated with the team.

i'm terrified of having girls.

ta-da!

2011-03-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

i know the changes are the insane, but i've been feeling for a while that the old layout was a little too doom and gloom, even for me. and, as i am a person of extremes, i figured i should go as whimsical-crazy-person as possible. this may also be the product of my actually getting enough sleep for the past two days. i'm in a great mood! i'm going to drink tea and read jane eyre and sit practically inside the space heater all day. so excited.

a few days ago, i got my nose re-pierced, which i suppose is pretty useless to talk about here, considering everyone who reads this a) was there when it happened or b) is party to my facebook page and has probably already seen all the photos i'm about to share. however, this blog, in addition to being a hilarious part of seven followers' day, is my sad attempt at a journal, so i figure i should include any facial piercings (because they're kinda a big deal).

i first got my nose pierced in september of 2007, as a 21st birthday gift to myself. the whole event was tainted with craziness (such as: i wound up at a tattoo shop with a coworker i barely knew after carpooling with her to a football game we were working together, and the piercer used the wrong stud, so i ended up with a piercing the size of a gigantic metal bb), so i probably shouldn't have expected greatness. as it turned out, after weeks of zero healing and one horrible minute in the bathroom mirror, ripping the piercing from my nose, i allowed hole to close up, leaving me with a giant-bb-sized blue tattoo on my face where my skin had eaten off all the nickel coating* from the crappy jewelry. yay! i wore makeup over it for approximately forever and when i didn't, it was pretty obvious. one day, after killing time at a mall while waiting for someone, i stumbled upon "skin gems" at claire's and starting wearing glittery stickers intended for ten-year-olds over my nostril scar. it was then that i realized i really loved the look of the piercing and wanted to do it again, the right way.

cut to: thursday, when five of us forensic anthropology creeps found ourselves in a tattoo parlor. i am a notorious baby when it comes to pain, so despite pretending to be a super badass, i was practically peeing my pants at the thought of shoving a needle through my face (and this time, through scar tissue). here i am contemplating my fate:

and then crying:

and then being extremely pleased that it was over with and my horrible face tattoo was gone forever:

i'm doing everything completely differently than i was advised the first time. i'm not turning the piercing, not cleaning it with peroxide, not really even acknowledging that it exists, except to spray it a few times a day with a sodium chloride mixture conveniently sold at the shop. it's not sore, it's not disgusting and it's surgical steel, so hopefully no more nightmarish allergic reaction!**

*/**i've been blessed with a pretty vicious allergy to plated metals (in addition to all the other various skin ailments i've been dealt). when i was a baby, i used to get little circular raised rashes all down my chest where the snaps on my onesies would lay against my skin.*** i'm allergic to all jewelry in my price range and even get nasty blisters on my ring finger if i wear my circa 1910 white-gold engagement ring for more than 10 hours at a time (as white-gold used to be cut with nickel in order to appear white). it's never really been a huge inconvenience, except when there was a plated metal stud hanging out in an open wound on my face for two months. that didn't really end well.

***for those who weren't aware, i truly am one of the most difficult people in the universe.

sucks.

2011-03-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

my life is full of things i like to say "make good stories." these are usually things that are totally disastrous or horrible at the time, but i can brush off eventually as the hilarious hijinks of my youth. this list includes the time a fly ball hit me in the face at dodger stadium, the two years a homeless man had my cell phone number and would call me every few weeks from different area codes around the country (which is obviously the reason i don't answer calls from unknown numbers) and the october i thought it would be a good idea to drop out of my life and bottle-feed kittens.

i'd had some pretty intense things make the list. however, this morning something happened that has blown them all out of the water. this morning, i secured what i hope is number one on the list of "things i could never, ever have anticipated" for a long time to come. it all started when:

my phone died on saturday night. i don't know exactly what happened to it, considering it was three months old and i had surprisingly not yet dropped it, lost it or accidentally stepped on it. it was in pristine condition one second and then had the black screen of death the next. i had planned on going to a verizon store to get it sorted out yesterday, but then the storm of the century hit southern california and we had torrential rains all day. so, instead of hitting the stores, i hit the hot cocoa container and dvd cabinet pretty hard. i figured i could just go get the phone thing worked out today after work, as i use a landfill cell phone while i odor patrol and wouldn't really need my own phone until this afternoon.

so, i'm phoneless. and i'm driving up the winding roads to the landfill, roads that freak me out even when it's beautiful outside because they aren't marked with lanes and have tricky speed bumps and are just generally totally menacing. there was crap (read: giant rocks and a blue recycling bin) in the road from the storm and as i approached a familiar low spot in the road, one that always fills with water, i just knew that the free car wash i got from the rainstorm was going to get totally effed up by a huge puddle. annnnnnd that's when my crappy rented chevy impala, which weighs about ten gazillion tons and has a frame that practically drags on the ground, got stuck in a thick, lovely layer of mud from an apparent mudslide. i was there so early this morning that it hadn't yet been cleared and there i was, wheels a foot deep in sucking mud (i know it was a foot deep because i stepped out into it and lost my entire boot. on a positive note, i'd decided to wear my hunter rain boots, which in retrospect was a really good idea. thank god for small miracles.)

as i said, i also didn't have a cell phone. i wandered around the impala helplessly, after having put the car in neutral and trying to push it out (didn't work, obviously). i waited and waited until a truck came up the road behind me, at which point i played damsel in distress to a guy in a hard hat, who eventually sent a front loader and some dudes with shovels to come save me. as insane as it was, i was fully aware the entire time of how i was living a five-year-old boy's dream. the mud around the car was scraped away carefully by a giant construction vehicle and all i could think of (aside from what a dumbass i am) was the classroom full of boys at the preschool last year, who could really think of nothing else but front loaders. god, they would have been so jealous. when the scraping finished, they cut my tires a path with a shovel and i was free.

i was an hour late to work, despite being at the landfill on time. so close, and yet so far.

they live!

2011-03-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

i have a thing for succulents. i tend to attribute this to growing up in the southern california with a father who, being obsessed with history in general and california history specifically, took us to every white-stucco-walled, brown-wooden-beamed, cacti-laden historic mission museum in the state. the yard in front of the house i grew up in is pretty much an impenetrable fortress of overgrown, alien agaves. and, for most of my formative years, i lived within a five minute walk of the santa monica mountains. i live succulents.

so, when it was time to chose a color scheme and flowers for our outdoor, santa monica mountain wedding, i naturally (see what i did there? naturally?) decided on purples, sages and whites, to reflect the real landscape of this area. for reference, here are some photos of our wedding favors and my bouquet (and luke's back):

this photo also highlights a spiderweb on this aloe. apparently it spent too much time outside pre-wedding. also, this proves how much i didn't care about the details by d-day. there really is only some much discussion about colors and tablecloths and lighting one can take before it's TOO MUCH ALREADY.

i was in love with this favor idea. obviously, i was convinced i was the first person in the history of weddings to come up with it. however, i haven't seen it anywhere else and until i do, i'm claiming all credit.

the bouquet. it was insane and wonderful and created by a genius florist who took my "um, succulents and white flowers?" and ran into the best possible direction.

anyway, my point is that i am deep in the throes of a love affair with succulents, with their waxy, smooth surfaces and near-indestructibility. they are the plants for me.

this brings me to now. we are about two months from our one year anniversary and i have managed to keep alive all of the leftover wedding favors and two of the giant succulents from my bouquet. for some reason, this amazes me. i can't get over the fact that some of the floral stuff from that day still lives - and thrives actually (for the most part). sadly, though, the favors are still in their dorky little terra cotta pots and are obviously desperate for some more space/better potting soil. i've been meaning to put them all in a giant terra cotta bowl for approximately all of the months since the wedding and now i've finally purchased all that i need to make this dream a reality. i'm gonna wait until tomorrow, though, despite having had the time to make the transfer tonight, because buying the supplies was my productive task of today and planting them will be the one productive thing (aside from working before dawn - literally) that i do tomorrow. see how i think ahead?

here's the station:

i think this is too tinytown, so click on it if you're so inclined. the plants in the orange and yellow ramekins (from crate and barrel, created for baking creme brulees, one of my other favorite things in the world) are the succulents from the bouquet. so big and green and alive!

loud mouth.

2011-03-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

backstory: if you've been paying attention, you already know that my mother's side of the family is bizarrely close. i love this. in fact, i may or may not be a tiny bit obsessed with the fact that at family parties, i add extra vodka to my mixed drinks at the behest of my great-aunts. that is amazing. another, perhaps less fun fun, consequence of having a close-knit family is that everyone always knows everyone else's business. growing up, my grandfather knew about all my medical issues and boy problems (mostly because my mom has a giant mouth).

current story: this is why i'm shocked, literally shocked, that no one has mentioned the car accident to me. i wrecked the car on thursday and friday night, my aunt hosted a shabbat dinner (that was less about shabbat and more about wine and challah, as usual. my cousin and i "blessed" the candles and the bread by reciting a prayer ending in "neir shel chanukah," which is really only funny because it's the chanukah prayer, guys! not the blessing over the shabbat candle!* come on! god, we're hilarious). anyway, on friday, i knew my entire family knew about the accident because my mom obviously could not keep it a secret from me that she had not kept it a secret from them. therefore, imagine my surprise when not a one uttered anything remotely suggesting i'd just been an in accident. not even my grandfather, who has called me frantic over much lesser crises (such as what brand my birth control was - yes, seriously. although in his defense, i was using it as an acne medication and having struggled with it himself, at a time when dermatologists locked patients in lead rooms for hours with UV rays bouncing around,** he was concerned with helping cure me). i still can't believe he didn't say anything over dinner and am especially blown away that when he called me today to talk about getting together for lunch tomorrow (see. close family. can't help it. same dna. i was born this way) he talked to me for five minutes without mentioning it AT ALL. it's actually freaking me out. what are they planning? probably a huge driving school intervention. typical.

*for the uninitiated among us, like those who cannot claim that they dropped of out hebrew school after four months at age 12 (like me) or that they occasionally stock their cabinets/fridges with matzo and kedem grape juice as soon as the passover aisles go up in the supermarkets (also like me), many hebrew celebration prayers begin with the same few lines (the appealing to god parts), and only differ in their references to whatever individual celebration/food the prayer is meant to be blessing. we use the chanukah prayer eight times a year, in rapid succession, and for those of us who only have the supposedly weekly shabbat dinners once a year with our family when we've already had several (very alcoholic) mojitos, its repeated use makes the chanukah prayer much easier to remember.

**my grandpa recalls this time in his life fondly. in winter in berkeley in the fifties, he had a better tan than anyone he knew. perhaps the best one of all. (although, it's maybe more important to note that he didn't get some form of horrible skin cancer from the lead rooms/UV ray double whammy.)

the final stretch

2011-03-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

last night, i bailed on something i was really looking forward to because i became a nauseous mess after discovering the dog has fleas. for some reason, this relatively minor (and totally fixable) issue triggered a full-blown freak out. i'd been feeling sick with anxiety on and off all the day, but i managed to go meet people for a fabulous breakfast, clean up the house and study for a final before hitting a wall and absolutely losing it. the fleas were the straw that broke the camel's back, i suppose. not only because this week has been one insane disaster after another, but also because it is the second doggie health problem we've faced in seven days. this week, she was diagnosed with spay incontinence, which means her hormone levels are so out of whack that she can't control her abdominal muscles (and was thus peeing everywhere she happened to fall asleep - like all over the couch, for instance). she'll have to take regulatory pills for the rest of her life. since late november when we adopted her, she has had ear infections in both ears, mange (requiring weekly injections at the vet's office), this permanent incontinence (which was at first diagnosed as a bladder infection, for which she has already taken weeks of pills) and now fleas. she also came to us with crippling social anxiety, something we're just now starting to see improve. so, add the whole slew of dog problems (and how much they impact luke) to my own wonderful medical experience, the accident that totaled my car, and the fact that i haven't been sleeping at all, and you have me worked up into such a state that finding fleas on our dog is the most devastating thing. could we not have some new issue arise every day? could i just have a weekend to sleep in and finish my work for this quarter? what the hell. i went to sleep at 8:45 pm last night, curled into a ball with mascara smeared across my face.

usually, i have an impervious hard candy coating that allows me to handle things rationally and quickly. i'm all about solutions. i tend not to wallow or be crazy or completely spin out. occasionally, though, the world will get to me. so, congratulations, universe. well-played.

i'm gonna try to use today to complete the last two theory papers i need to write and then all i have to think about tomorrow is finishing up studying for a multiple choice exam. i could be done with finals by tuesday! perhaps the feeling of accomplishment will help level out this week from hell.

i don't think you're ready for this jelly

2011-03-11T05:16:00.000-08:00

yesterday afternoon, on my way to class after a horrible day, i completely flattened the front my car into a giant jeep grand cherokee on the freeway. i have never before been the cause of an accident and this one was a doozy. pieces of my poor little scion box were littered over the freeway, so much so that people behind us had to swerve around them. i don't think i was going super fast, because it was stop and go traffic and despite my high hopes for getting to class on time, one cannot go 65 mph on the 101 at 4:45 pm. that being said, traffic was breaking up and i was distracted and when the guy in front of me had to slam on his brakes, i was screwed. the worst part about this huge mess is that i'd already had an epically disastrous day and had actually been thinking/crying/obsessing about it when i lost focus for a second and caused the accident.

right before the accident, i had to go to cvs to pick up a prescription, where the pharmacy tech actually heckled me for picking up medication for something she thought was "so gross." i was publicly shamed by a medical professional, which of course made me insane. and then i got in my car. probably not a good idea. but, before i left the store and just after my upsetting encounter with the pharmacy counter biatch, i discovered that, lucky me!, it's almost easter and there was a toooooon of delicious easter candy out on display. i bought a gigantic bag of jelly beans and ripped it open in the parking lot, calming my nerves with sugar.

the most upsetting part of the car accident? that giant, open bag of jelly beans, the stuff of my life, whiplashed around until all the beans were scattered around the floor of the passenger side. it really was a terribly sad microcosm of what was happening in my life.

jelly beans all over the floor. so depressing.

blistering heat

2011-03-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

continuing in this week's tradition of posting upsetting, vomitous photos, i present, the blister of doom:

wait. i think we need a different perspective:

the thing is so bulbous, it hangs. i can't even believe it. it's not particularly large per se (especially now that i've just googled "giant blister." the internet puts the surface area of this bad boy to shame.). however, it stands a good centimeter and a half above the surface of my skin, which is fascinating to me. the best part is that i walked around with this all day before noticing it at like 4 pm. obviously, i knew i had a blister (one cannot possibly miss something this massive), but i had no idea it would be this impressive.

i have to walk the rounds again tomorrow, and therefore, the question is: to lance or not to lance?

odor patrol

2011-03-09T12:42:00.000-08:00

this is my first full week of odor patroling and it is wednesday and i am exhausted. oh, not from getting up at 4:50 am every morning. that's actually been good. i feel like i've done so much today and it's only 12:30 in the afternoon, so the early morning call time ain't the problem. it's the walking. i essentially walk up and down hills for four hours every morning and for this sack of laziness, that's a pretty tall order. despite the fact that i was on track teams for seven years sprinting my little heart out, i am by nature incredibly lazy. i became a hurdler simply because hurdle practice followed general conditioning on mondays and was conveniently at the same time as the intense sprint workouts. i was able to sprint and hurdle at meets and i also dodged the deadly bullet of endless repeats on mondays on our shitty, gravelly track. yes, i am that devious. (for the record, though, i was actually decent at hurdles and really enjoyed them. i just came to them in a sneaky way.)

annnnnyway, so the walking is killing me. i will get used to it, i'm sure, but as of right now, even my shoulders are sore and i can assure you i haven't been doing my rounds carrying extra weights.

silver lining to the misery of my feet, legs and back? i picked up a paycheck today (aka i should shut my mouth about being sore). i haven't had a check cut in my name for what seems like decades and there are things that must be handled, so things are on the up and up. yipee!

the greater and more terrible unveiling.

2011-03-06T08:06:00.000-08:00

apparently, i lied in the last post about my skin evolution. i've been thinking about it a lot lately and just yesterday, after scouring computers, found this:

the non-existent chest shot exists! this was actually taken in that same hotel room by that same miserable 19-year-old. god, what a nightmare. but, in the interest of full disclosure, here it is. again, i feel the need to justify how bad it was, because for some reason, i feel like this photo doesn't convey it. maybe that's just a hold over from having to be such an apologist for my feelings. i know how damaging this was for me, but i also know some people have it much worse. however, on a scale of "normal person" to "bad news," i still believe this falls into the "bad news" category. (interestingly, though, i have a bathing suit tan, meaning that dying of humidity on a road trip through the south in august trumps feeling like a disgusting mutant. who knew?)

i know for certain now that no pictures of my back survived, as i would have had to ask someone else to take them and that sure as hell wasn't going to happen. i'm disappointed now, though, at the other end of the journey, because i would love to have a series of comparison photos from the start of the medication to the end of it. accutane, despite its bad rap, saved my life in a lot of ways and i wish i had a better record of just how it did it.

but, for the sake of some comparison, this is me now:

i'm covered in little white scars and my skin here reacts a little differently than the unblemished stuff, but for the most part, it could have been much worse and i've been normalized since early 2007. (is it coincidence that i met luke just after finishing my last dose of the giant orange twice-a-day? or is it possible that i finally had the confidence that no one would be embarrassed about being with me or take advantage of my obviously less-than-prime self-esteem? that's so sick and sad and horrible.)

the difference between these two photos is perhaps way i sometimes get chastised for wearing shirts that are "too low-cut." that's the point, guys! i spent five years in t-shirts. let wear my v-necks and tank tops without shame.

always be prepared

2011-03-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

as much as this goes against my feminist leanings, i think there's always something about a girl's mother that she associates with being a woman/adult. for most kids, it's probably dressing up in their mom's jewelry, clomping around in her high heels and spreading her lipstick all over their faces. they prance around, everyone loves it and ta-da, you've got a lady in the making. however, my mother wasn't into jewels or makeup or five-inch heels. she was a painter, a cake maker, a writer, a brilliant student. instead of carefully putting on eyeliner, she was constantly analyzing, assessing and was preparing. therefore, our house was almost always stocked with goodies, as my mom has this really awesome ability to think ahead. i could decide on a whim that i wanted to make cookies or cakes or a complicated dinner and she would always, without fail, produce everything i needed. it was the same with medicines (which i'm sure had a little bit to do with all the hypochondria spinning around our house). i could have any symptom in the book and she would have on hand in the house the exact remedy i needed. i loved that about her. in my eyes, my mom was so on top of things, she was a superhuman. i associated being grown up, being a woman, with always thinking two steps ahead. plus, there was also the very reassuring feeling that we always had whatever we needed, and that we could count on our parents to provide it for us. and now, that i'm a grown-up and trying to sort out my own household, my mother is who i aspire to be. this is why, for the past several months, since we moved into this house, i've had a box full of medical supplies (every over the counter drug possible, band-aids, ankle wraps, face masks, etc.) sitting in the hallway near the bathroom, as there is absolutely no room for all of it in the bathroom.

luke thinks this is insane. he's wanted me to throw it all away for months. he doesn't think there will ever come a time we'll need meat tenderizer for mosquito bites or special anti-fungal creams. and, if we did, he figures we'd just go to the store to get them. unfortunately for him, what he doesn't realize is that going to the store is akin to failure. in order to be the master of your supplies, you must have already have them all, so that when someone asks for something obscure and you produce it for them instantly, they think you are magical (which is all i really want anyway).

so, this brings us to today, when my grandpa delivered to us the extra medicine cabinet he made for us. yes, an extra one. don't you people know you need one for things you use all the time and one for just-in-case supplies? he installed it in the bathroom and it's beautious and i can't wait for tomorrow when i can start stuffing all my drug store purchases into it.

while the grandparents were here, we met up with one of the great-aunts and we all went to a deli, where we were surrounded by little old ladies playing pan at their tables, some of whom recognized my grandparents (and one of whom was the mother of my second cousin's ex-husband). apparently, the valley's older jewish scene is quite a small world. i absolutely love my grandparents and the aunts and the lunch was hilarious, adorable and probably incredibly annoying for our waitress, which is pretty much how we roll.

each and every time i see them, i realize how very, very lucky i am to have grandparents who not only love me but also craft me magnificent cabinets and shoot me knowing looks when we're confronted by crazy people in restaurants. the snark is genetic and there is nothing better in the world than being a sarcastic diva with your grandfather.

the great and terrible unveiling.

2011-03-04T12:37:00.000-08:00

last night, in my anthropology theory class, i was out of control insane. it probably had something to do with the fact that i was operating on zero sleep and the room was about ten bajillion degrees and we spent about ten hours trying to understand how to play a trivia game, but it was also because i am insane. that's me. i tell crazy, snarky jokes and laugh hysterically and am just generally capable of acting like drunk when i'm perfectly sober. as many people have heard (because i am a loud story-repeater), when i was two and a half my parents were so concerned about my energy levels they had me evaluated. as in, taken to a child psychologist/behavioral therapist/guru for examination. i recently found a copy of this evaluation in my long-lost baby book and all the doctor's observations are pretty much still 1000% accurate. he used many fancy medical terms to describe me, all of which boiled down to: high energy, super friendly, easy wound up, sensitive, crazed. that's who i was when my brother sam and i forced our grandparents to watch us perform selections from "the phantom of the opera" over and over again in their front room, and when i chased my friends around with the corpses of my freshly dead pet fish (which i did all the time, traumatizing melissa for the rest of her life and perhaps illuminating why i shouldn't have fish as pets), and when i dated the boy next door in ninth grade. i plastered my room with "i love me" stickers (plastered it, guys), created dance routines for school talent shows and was a sprinter. when i was 15, all that changed. whereas before i would do anything to claw my way into the spotlight, as a teenager i did everything within my power to avoid attention from anyone. i became the girl who didn't dance at gatherings, refused to sing karaoke or been seen in a bathing suit. i stopped voicing opinions, stopped going to the beach, started genuinely hating who i was. i suppose maybe that happens to a lot of people in their awkward youth. however, for me, my perhaps requisite teenage self-hate was compounded by this:

this is me. august 2006. in a south carolina hotel bathroom after i'd just privately washed all the caked concealer off my face and had a major breakdown about how horrible i felt i looked and how equally horrible being in the muggy south in the dead of summer was making me feel about the situation. you can't seen in this shot, but my chest and back are also tragic (no pictures of those parts of my body from this time of my life exist, which really isn't too surprising. i pretty much pretended the parts themselves didn't exist and therefore never thought to photograph them.). i was a month shy of 20 and going on my fifth year of uncontrollable acne. i'd done countless rounds of useless antibiotics, slathered my face in acids, spent sunny days desperately trying to sunburn, hoping the uv radiation would kill the pimples. i'd stopped all treatment and washed my face with only water. i'd changed my eating habits and stopped touching my face. i saw several dermatologists and started the same treatment programs over and over again. salicylic acid, antibiotics, salicylic acid. by the time i was actually effectively prescribed accutane, i'd attempted to get it from two other doctors who couldn't figure out the paperwork necessary to obtain the medication. (accutane, being one intense chemical cocktail, is probably more difficult to catch than a unicorn is. the prescription came with a three-ring binder full of warnings and rules. seriously.)

it's difficult for even me to see the extent of the damage in here, because the picture's so tiny in this blog form, but what still absolutely kills me is the look on my face. that devastation is what i felt every time i saw my reflection as a teenager and that's why i stopped being a bubbly pixie from the land of absurdity. i was miserable.

the few people who i allowed to see me without makeup (which essentially did nothing but make me feel like i had some small control over what i looked like) tended to tell me i was lucky that the acne wasn't cystic or that i was vain for letting my skin issues take over my life or that it wasn't "that bad" or that i should get over myself or something equally as hurtful or insensitive. (it was "that bad" for me, assholes.) as i was figuring out how to deal with something that effected me so negatively, i was also constantly apologizing to other people because they thought i was being ridiculous. thus, the way i know i am unequivocally over that part of my life is that now, i don't give two shits what anyone else thinks. if an opinion is negative or insensitive or uninformed, i simply do not take it in. i've lost friends, made bad choices, dated terrible people, missed out on countless opportunities and wasted enormous amounts of time feeling bad about myself and now, finally, i'm feeling very nearly over it. i'm learning to sing to the radio when luke's in the car, dance around the house, be silly with the dog, wear bathing suits, and to basically fulfill the maniacal destiny laid out for me by my evaluator long ago. i'm feeling ok with being the focus again because i deserve it. i'm funny, i'm smart, i'm interesting. i'm done with thinking i'm not worth it.

i've debated posting this photo/tony robbins lecture for literally about two years, because now, at this point in my life, i have a very different relationship with it than i used to and i feel like the transition from that girl to this one is one of the more hugely important chapters of my life. the only reason i never put it up is that the picture existed only in digital form (obviously it didn't make it into any college albums) in a hidden folder on my parents' computer and it was never really a priority to get it back. now, though, it seems appropriate to, because this year, i am feeling more like myself than i have in a long time. also, as ludicrous as this sounds, i was seated next to a woman on the flight home from chicago who on her fourth glass of wine told me i was incredibly, profoundly mature for a twenty-four-year-old and asked me to share my secret. here it is. this is my secret. this is what made me the stunning person who blogs before you today (i have always preferred "stunning" to "mature"). i hated myself deeply for six years and had to slowly creep my way back to normalcy, and while i can't pretend that getting rid of the acne didn't massively kick-start the process, there was definitely enough of an emotional shitstorm left over after accutane to make me feel accomplished for having surmounted it.

...it just took four years.

a job for the jobless.

2011-03-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

very soon, as in tomorrow morning, i will be starting a new job as a member of the "odor patrol" and my resume will get that much more interesting (as if a cv claiming cemetery excavator, preschool teacher, fossil preparer, editorial assistant and nanny could get any more variety). a friend of mine got me a job testing air quality near a landfill, which is actually super exciting, as the hours are wonderful, the pay is nice and i'll finally be working again (perhaps the best perk of all). anyway, i have to get to work at 5:45 am, which means i was really looking forward to sleeping in this morning and squeezing out the very last drops of mid-week laziness that have made up my life for the past seven weeks. sadly, the dog became obsessed with hassling the cats and the dream of lounging in bed all day became the reality of a morning of moderating various stand offs between the animals: the cats who could not care less and the puppy who is desperate for some playmates. it's sad, really.

thus, no sleeping in. this turned out to be beneficial, though, as i have already finishing all the reading i missed/refused to do during the jaunt to chicago and have written the paper summary of them that's due tomorrow. now, i have a full day of vacuuming, straightening up, tv watching, onesie making and general coziness ahead of me. while vacuuming isn't exactly a mind-blowing way to spend a free day, it promises freedom from being covered head to toe in dog fur all the time, so that's pretty good news.

also, i just unpacked my chicago suitcase. just now. i actually think this is something of a record because i hate unpacking so much i usually continue to live out of the suitcase until everything's been cleared out simply by virtue of making it to the laundry room.

neutral

2011-02-28T16:02:00.000-08:00

apology: i had no intention in turning this blog into the type of thing the crazy old lady down the street would write as she sat rocking back and forth on her rickety porch. i realize the crazy old lady in this scenario is me, and for that, i am sorry. however, i do, on occasion, have deep thoughts and i like to share.

so, to the past week. i flew to and returned from the forensic science conference in chicago. it was amazing for me to see the extreme diversity of studies presented, because i have lots and lots of ideas and was thinking i had very few options for synthesizing them. now, though, i'm feeling much better about my future thesis, which is not to say that i know exactly what's going on, but i'm feeling less pressure/insanity about it.

additionally, i learned that i have effectively pulled most of the joy out of my wardrobe, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. i've mentioned before that in college, i had jessica simpson syndrome and essentially just had a horrible wardrobe. recently, i found proof:

ok, first of all, ignore what's going on with my face. second, what the hell i am i wearing on my body? third, check out that closet shot. you can see fragments of about ten items and it's already obvious that nothing goes together and it's all insane. as a child, i was convinced that if you wore blocks of colors, your outfit was inherently put together. um, no, but unfortunately, this philosophy carried me until i was 21. i've since stopped shopping the clearance racks at ridiculous stores and have only purchased things in about four colors: white, black/grey, dark blue and purple/bright pink (because i love me some salmon t-shirts). thus, in most of the photos from the conference, i am in neutral head to toe. it's ok, though, because most of the time, i matched.

as a side note, i never, ever wore the horrible beige gauzy skirt visible hanging in that college apartment closet. it hung there because it was $5 at urban. i seriously had a problem.

mad libs!

2011-02-19T13:14:00.000-08:00

i advise you all to check this link: mad libs. a) because it's hilarious and b) because it concerns something really very serious.

as a person who happens to be a genetic mutt with an open mind, it astounds me when people have hard-wired prejudices or intense misconceptions are people who are of the "other," especially because these prejudices are often so deeply rooted in present-day social problems that they are glaringly obvious reactions to subconscious fears. those who carry prejudices, fearing for the future propagation of the world as they knew it (regardless of whether or not it was a good, progressive, enlightened world), rail against any and all fellow human beings who do not fit neatly into the small cube of existence that they have carved out for themselves. and to these fear-mongers, i say, "fuck you." (but nicely, of course, because that's my m.o.) i'm enraged daily by the sheer ignorance and hate that gets vomited into the public discourse every day by talking heads, politicians and their supporters (this goes for both side of the aisle, for the record), who say harmful, hateful, despicable things about living, breathing, beautiful people who just happen to be different.

there is absolutely no justification, moral, religious, cultural or otherwise, for the systematic removal of the rights and status of people simply due to their otherness and those who encourage this are imbeciles. strong language, right? totally. because it's true. to subscribe to that view is simply to expose your fundamental misunderstanding of history and about what it means to be a human being. there hasn't been a time in the last several thousand years that any one group of people was any more pure or good or righteous than another. to vilify a group in the present is to forget our collective pasts, which included such horrific events as the crusades and the holocaust, neither of which were spearheaded by today's villians de jour, homosexuals or those who practice islam. no, the crusades and the holocaust were christian, white enterprises, but they were long enough ago that we're able to forgot about the terrible havoc our ancestors wrecked on the world and focus instead on attempting to subjugate everyone else under our very special, puritanical world views.

it's time to step down from our 21st century straight, white, middle class pedestals and start taking effective, realistic and humble action in our world. however, as a student of history, it's not difficult for me to see why when our country is failing at pretty much everything, the first reaction is not to help solve legitimate problems, but instead is to point the finger at the supposed social monstrosities that are to blame (in 2011, those would be abortion, gay people and muslims, to name a few). that's what fearful people have done in hard times of change all throughout history.

like, when the crusaders torched europe or when hitler killed my great-great grandparents.

glass house, stones, people. shut the hell up about what defines rape or who gets an abortion and fix the broken american educational system, crack down on mortgage lenders and make sure we can all get the healthcare we need. poverty, obesity and prejudice will take us down long before gay marriage. trust.

you've just won...the chance to open a misleading email!

2011-02-18T15:14:00.000-08:00

about a month and a half ago, i thought i'd won $100,000. long story. another time. but since that didn't really go so well and still needing the thousands and thousands of dollars, i entered my information at publisher's clearing house, thinking it's free and exciting and who cares. and, in the weeks since, it has been just that. it's also got the added bonus of being totally ridiculous, which of course i love. i keep getting emails with really intense subject lines, that are a little psychologically abusive, saying things like, "you've just WON...an entry into a contest with 1:160,000,000,000 odds!" and "reply here to claim your...entry into a contest with 1:160,000,000,000 odds!"

if i were the kind of person who trusted publisher's clearing house and who thought that i legitimately had a chance of winning a million dollars a year for the rest of my life, i'd be a total wreck because i'd be getting daily emails that inflated my poor, hopeless hopes.

it's really mean, actually. shame on you, pch.com. obviously, we're all gonna enter every day like morons - that's why we signed up in the first place. there's no need to make it so torturously deceiving.

a storm's a-comin'

2011-02-16T10:59:00.000-08:00

next week, i'm going to chicago for a conference for school with a bunch of forensic peeps and despite weeks and weeks of fearing i would freeze to death (as living in southern california one's whole life doesn't necessary prepare one for the snowpocalypse), i am now pissed that weather forecasts call for sunny days. sunny days, chicago? don't you know i bought amazing super tall rubber rain boots that are styled to look like real leather boots and zip up the back? don't you know i was stoked to wear them through the horrible storms, so as to protect my feet from moisture and also look super cool? sunny days totally cramp my style.

granted, it's still supposed be only 28*, so i'll be able to bust out my new coats.

in other news, i still haven't been back to the traffic school website because i can't be bothered. i didn't mention this before because it seemed like small potatoes compared to the minimum time requirements, but it's now a large part of why i'm dreading beginning again, so i should explain. this online traffic school course, which is super cheap and ok'd by the court (aka fine by me), spends the entire first unit explaining that speeders and road ragers are people who are immature, crazy imbeciles who are so broken from reality that they take everything in life too seriously. it practically insists that i, the traffic violator, need to take a quaalude* just to function in day to day life. listen, traffic school, i'm offended. i got my ticket for speeding and i'll admit, i sometimes get a little upset when drivers around me do stupid things. however, this is not because i have some unresolved daddy issues or because i have an anger management problem. it's because driving in los angeles is not like meditation (which, i shit you not, was a comparison made on page 4. believe me. i stared at it for 12 minutes). driving in los angeles is like throwing your car down a plinko board and hoping it lands on $100,000, or in this case, "not death." people here are idiots. they drive like assholes and i am astounded by the rampant idiocy that confronts me each and every time i get into my car. so, no, i'm not taking it personally when a mercedes suv nearly runs me off the road. i am not a paranoid schizophrenic (although, btw, if i was, i wouldn't want to be called out over internet traffic school). what i am is not interested to dealing with bullshit and that's pretty inescapable around these parts, if your routes contain the 101, 405 or 10.

i need to finish the program before this weekend, so hello, friday morning! can't wait to fill you with hours of tedium and prejudice.

*two As! who knew?

vd in review

2011-02-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

valentine's day breakdown:

what we didn't do: eat leftovers or watch our shitty favorite shows.

what we did do: wash a ton of laundry and clean up the back patio so that it is now functional* and not embarrassing, make pasta and homemade garlic bread, eat by really dark candlelight (damn no-dimmer lights!), snack on the peanut butter cookies i made (which are luke's favorite and were by far the best i've ever had - recipe: bookmarked), and then watched when harry met sally, which is still one of my favorite movies, despite the fact that i've watched probably ten zillion times. it was a very relaxed, very productive day. go us. (also, we spent zero dollars, as everything we ate and entertained ourselves with was already here. oh, the glory of being cheap bastards.)

oh, this is old news by now, as it was established on sunday, but i've roped luke and anya, one of my favorite people in the universe, into starting a crafting company with me. ok, company might be a little extreme. business perhaps. i figure if i'm sitting around here all day anyway, i might as well attempt to throw my (knit) hat into the online crafting ring. i was inspired by my baby shower gift creations. i happen to think they were pretty amazing. and as i was throwing this idea around in my braincase, anya came to visit, bearing this book as a gift for me:

what are the chances? obviously, anya and i are not only soul mates, but are also destined to rule the world of little baby clothing.

*when we lived in our apartment, our kitchen had a really odd empty space right by the oven, which provided the distant, depressing promise that either a dishwasher or more counter space had once existed there. so sad. instead, we stuck a really amazing stainless steel chef's table into the hole and it worked perfectly for us for two years. in this house, however, there is no gaping hole in the kitchen (as they completed it before renting it to us - imagine that!) and so our awesome table hung out for about three months propped against the back of the house, just waiting for a new job. yesterday, luke repurposed it as a gardening/potting station, and we arranged all of the potted succulents on it (succulents from my bouquet and from our party favors, which still live and give me much joy). we also have another area set up for barbeque'ing, which will have to wait patiently until we have enough money for a BBQ. :(

vd

2011-02-14T11:53:00.000-08:00

it's valentine's day! yay. if my last post was any indication, i'm obviously not super into participating in events that foster unreal expectations (and therefore almost always come with disappointment). i don't like getting so totally carried away with how television tells me things ought to be that i can't enjoy things are they are. things that often get corrupted by media: christmas, thanksgiving, birthdays, new year's eve, valentine's day. that's not to say i don't love holidays. i am my mother's child. i could decorate you all under the table. i am a sucker for party stores and i am obsessed with making things memorable. i just don't think memorable often syncs with traditional (in the box of chocolates, bouquet of flowers sense). i will love luke regardless of whether or not he buys me a diamond necklace because no, not every kiss begins with kay. (i also kinda take offense to the idea that the purest way to prove to a woman that you love her is to buy her diamonds and chocolates once a year.)

so anyway, what are luke and i doing for valentine's day? i'm scouring the interwebs for jobs that aren't scams/panicking about how i haven't made any money in four weeks and luke's doing graphic design work for a local bookstore. tonight, we'll probably eat leftovers and maybe i'll make some cookies/brownies. we'll also watch some really embarrassing tv shows that i'm not even going to name (let's just say they're on abc family).

vedding

2011-02-13T13:00:00.000-08:00

five days ago, luke and i celebrated our nine month anniversary. and by celebrated, i mean i remembered in class on tuesday night that it was the 8th, and that that meant we'd been married for nine months and then i told luke when i got home and he was unimpressed. that's all important because i don't want you all to think we're the kind of people who celebrate month-by-month anniversaries. we aren't. it's kinda frightening, though, to realize that the wedding was almost a year ago. that's craziness. also, i feel very ashamed of myself for never recording the wedding blitz in blog form, and what better time than the present?

here goes:

when most little girls were feeding baby dolls, i was also forcing a bottle into the mouth of my favorite toy ever. however, mine was a little plush dog that peed in very timely increments after being fed, which i found hilarious. when most little girls were brushing their hair 100 times each night, i was engaging in world wars with the neighbors' kids, helping my brother hurl lemons over the backyard fence. and when most little girls were dreaming of their perfect weddings, i was watching horror movies with my brother, trying to decide if we could do the same special events with ketchup and oatmeal. this is why i was engaged for two years, although this maybe also was due to the fact that i got engaged when i was 21. i'll rephrase: the long engagement was mostly because the idea of this tomboy crazy person planning a wedding was a) completely foreign and b) totally terrifying.

i've never understood pomp and circumstance and traditions and social demands. so the thought of bridal showers, bachelorette parties, dress fittings, cake testings, interviewing vendors, party games, rehearsal dinners and of course the main event itself was overwhelming, to say the least. my family really rallied, throwing me showers and helping with the vendors and coordinating the dinners, which was fabulous especially near d-day because i was so extremely exhausted and crazed. as it was, though, even with all the participation of everyone i loved, i couldn't help feeling like a bit of a schmuck, just marching through these bizarre highly pressurized, institutionalized rites of passage. that's probably because bridal showers and hair and makeup are so obviously not my thing and i was just sure that the woman fitting my dress was going to look up at me with her finger pointed and out me as an impostor in this world of sugar and spice and everything nice. "you haven't dreamt of this your whole life! you can barely do your own hair! you can't be a bride!" yes. these were my fears.

terror aside, i think luke and i did a fantastic job making the wedding itself as reflective of us as possible. i'm really proud of that, especially because the wedding machine (the vendors, the magazines, the advice books, everything) is structured to make you feel like an extra $2000 for embossed invitations is entirely in the realm of normal. we didn't have a bridesmaids or groomsmen, because the idea of enslaving my friends to plan parties for us and organize shit seemed a little vicious.* we spent a reasonable amount on each one of the party parts (food, music, site) and really only splurged on this amazing hoopa the florist made, which i was ok with because it featured one of my great-grandma edna's tablecloths and she'd died a few months before, after having been so excited to come.

we also trapped our two friends, cory and joel, who were instrumental to introducing us, into performing the ceremony and marrying us. they went to an orientation, signed all the proper paperwork and worked for months on the most wonderful ceremony. they did a magnificent job and i really couldn't think of any other people we would have shared that moment with.

here's the hoopa (and us, i guess), just after the ceremony:

all in all, after all the planning and stress and fights with the site coordinator about bistro lighting and agonizing over being the center of attention in such a huge way for an entire night and nights wondering, "why in the hell am i doing all this?" (most especially after we got our marriage license for $75 and realized we could then get married for practically nothing), the wedding was perfect. i know, i know. "the perfect day" is a horrible way to look at your wedding, because inevitably it won't be. ours wasn't either, at least not by the standard definition. initially, as i languished in hair and makeup, all the ceremony chairs were set up directly facing the sun, and luke and joel and cory had to move them themselves twenty minutes before the show started. i had a nervous stomachache the entire night and didn't even get to eat any of the delicious foods or cake or drink any of the vodka lemonades, which were apparently amazing. we found out at 9:50 pm, with the party still raging, that our contract with the caterers (who also provided the tables and chairs) was over at 10 pm (how that got lost in translation in the planning phase still beats me). however, in the face of all that horrible adversity (sarcasm, yes?), it was one of the best nights ever. i've subsequently had other amazing days, days i would say are some of the best days of my life, but that night, we were enveloped in love, for each other and for our family and friends and i have truly never felt anything like that before. it wasn't the cake or the dress or the venue: it was the knowledge that everyone we loved was in the same place at the same time, celebrating and loving.

if you can achieve that, you've got the perfect wedding, wherever you are and whatever it costs.

*my friends, the bridesmaids of my heart (too much?), actually did come to my rescue and do a few jobs the day of the wedding, even though i'd tried to spare them. despite having chosen a makeup artist and done a trial run, it never occurred to me that i would be locked up in a secret room "getting ready" for three hours before the ceremony, and therefore, i never delegated any day-of tasks to anyone because i figured i'd just do them all. i mean, the ceremony wasn't until 4:30 (control freak much?). thus, there it was, may 8th, and i'm sitting in the hair chair thinking, "holy shit, there is no one to do a, b, c." cue my amazing, glorious friends, who showed up just to say hi before it all began and were instead enlisted in hanging up place cards and arranging the candy table. i cannot believe how much i relied on people at the last minute to make everything work out, and how they all managed it perfectly. thanks, loves!

meats

2011-02-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

first things first: at the risk of sounding like a fuddy duddy old lady, i despise loud motorcycles. there is absolutely no acceptable reason for me to feel like an asteroid is on a collision course with my house when you feel like driving down the street. it's obnoxious and gross.

second things second: luke and i are having some peeps over for dinner tonight and i think his plan is to roast a chicken. this wouldn't be a problem to most people, but i'm having a hard time reconciling with luke's abandoned vegetarianism. as i've ranted about before, i stopped eating meat when i was 8. and, when i met luke, he'd been a vegetarian independently for a few years. recently, though, he decided he wanted to start eating meat again and i became cool with that. my only rule was that he couldn't cook it in the house. (i realize that sounds extreme, but as someone who has spent the last 16 years studying the meat industry in the united states and growing intensely uncomfortable with the whole scene, i'd like to keep the corpses out of my kitchen and away from my utensils.)

now he's going to roast a chicken and i'll probably go cry about how horrific roasting and then sawing apart the flesh of a dead animal is.*

*incidentally, this is why i can't do a decomposition study for my thesis in my master's program. i think everyone i've told this to just wants me to grow a pair and stop acting like a baby, but there is something deeply disturbing to me about being responsible, in whatever way, for the death of any other living thing. people are big fans of telling me that meat in a store is already dead and would have been killed anyway, so it makes no sense to boycott it or refuse to purchase it. my response is that each person who buys the meat produced by factory farming is contributing to a market for shit like that. so, if you consume it, you are responsible. and, in the case of a possible decomp thesis, in california, studies of that kind must be done on animals (namely, pigs as they are incredibly similar to humans). therefore, in order to run as precise a study as possible, one must go to a butcher shop, select one's pigs and have them killed at the appointed hour so that one knows time of death. i know i wouldn't be ok with that, because it doesn't matter to me whether or not ten minutes later someone would have killed the pig for a luau. what matters to me is how i deal with the choices i make and i would probably be haunted by the dead pigs for the rest of my life.

maximum sentences

2011-02-11T11:35:00.000-08:00

long, long ago, i got a speeding ticket. i was in my second year of college, so that was four years ago. i did an online traffic school, which was awesome because i was able to fly through the webpages, take the quizzes and i finished the entire course in like two hours.

fast forward to today, when i signed on for my second online traffic school. i got a speeding ticket in november for going 80 mph on the freeway at 9 pm. let me repeat that: 80 mph on the freeway at 9 pm. now, my father the lawyer would say i still broke the law, which i suppose is true. however, i believe i was going slower than most people around me, so how i won the lottery, i will never know. maybe it was my flashy car, with its rear-ended bumper and two missing hubcaps that made the officer think i had the money to burn on a traffic ticket. blarg.

so, two hours ago, i started traffic school. and guess what? this is truly horrifying so prepare yourselves. apparently, online traffic schools are now mandated by the courts to enforce time minimums for each page of instruction. for example, if i finish reading a page in 3 minutes (which happens on or around 100% of the time because i'm a crazy fast reader), i can't advance to the next page until the 12 minute clock has rundown.

are. we. serious. doing traffic school this way will probably be more painful than if i had just gone to the comedy school in person for eight hours (my grandpa scored a ticket around the same time i did* and suggested we go together, but i scoffed at the idea of spending all day on it when i could just do it at my own chosen speed online. little did i know.).

so, i got through 6 webpages in an hour and had to take a break. just even saying "six webpages equals one hour" is so mind-numbing, i can't even believe it. go read a full page of text on the internet somewhere, time yourself and multiply it by 6. i will guarantee that even if you read it in your fourth language, your time will be remarkably less than 60 minutes.

how am i going to handle this?

*obviously, i come from a long line of badass speeders. although, to his credit, my grandpa was speeding on his way to get the giant MRSA infection on his leg taken care of, so i guess he had someplace pretty important to get to.

funfetti

2011-02-10T09:09:00.000-08:00

i am obsessed with this cat:

huck is by far the most loving animal i've ever had (and i grew up in a menagerie). it's been a little crazy since we got the dog, but now, a few months later, things have normalized and huck's back to sleeping curled up with me at night and following luke and i around the house. i am in love and i'm not ashamed of it. i woke up this morning to his little russian blue face and it was glorious.

recently, abe has also gotten brave enough to come through the berlin wall* to visit us in the living room. mostly, he does a lot of this:

he's figured out how to open all the drawers and cabinets in the house (including the closet in our room), so he spends his days either curled up on the hand towels at the top of the hall closet or up in my clothes, eating holes in all my soft sweaters.** he's super cozy and vocal, so it's like having a stuffed animal you can talk to. that's kinda awesome.

in other news, i have to present my evolution vs. creationism powerpoint tonight. i think it'll be fine. especially because my master plan is to come bearing funfetti cupcakes, which are amazing and should win me good reviews from my fellow grad students. also, i really want to eat one, so it's mostly for me.

*when we first got dess, the cats were terrified and she loved to sprint after them as they slid around on the wood floors trying to escape her. luke bought a baby gate and cut out a small portion at the bottom of one of the barrier poles, therefore allowing the cats to come and go as they pleased but barring the dog from following them. in first few weeks, there was a lot of a mournful crying and wistful staring coming from the bedroom side of the baby gate (thus, the berlin wall reference). now, though, the cats realize they could claw out dess's eyes and therefore hold all the power. also, dess can now leap over the gate from a sitting position, so keeping it up is more of a formality at this point. maybe i'm just waiting for ronald reagan to tell me to take it down.

**having pets is like having children who never grow up and stop destroying things. abe has had a form of pica that requires him to eat all the nicest fabrics in my closet since he was able to eat solid food. i figured he'd grow out of it, but to this day, i'll pull something off a hanger only to realize there's a giant, cat-mouth-sized hole in the sleeve, or the hem looks like it's been eaten by a giant caterpillar. the other day, dess ate through one of my beloved peace sign sandals, which i loved mostly because i always got compliments on them (as in, every single time i wore them, which was a lot). and huck can sniff out any and all sugary treats i have in my bag and steal them. the only time in two and half years he has ever hissed at me is when i was trying to snatch back a package of graham crackers he'd taken from my purse and dragged back to his lair behind the treadmill.

creating problems

2011-02-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

i spent approximately 4 hours this morning on a powerpoint presentation about creationism and intelligent design for my physical anthropology seminar on thursday and by the end of it, i was having trouble being neutral. obviously, being the tree hugging, bleeding heart, hippie liberal that i am, i don't care what anyone else believes. more power to you, scientologists! to each his own. however, i get really riled about religious notions in politics and schools, mostly because most proponents of religious notions in politics and schools aren't like me. they don't subscribe to the "to each his own" mentality. they aren't foaming at the mouth to let people practice whatever the hell they want. instead, often, they want to mandate certain religious leanings be foisted upon all people, regardless of what those people personally believe. i don't believe in prayer in public schools or that creationism should be taught in science class. this is not because i'm not religious (although that is true), but instead because not everyone who is religious is christian. not everyone who prays prays the same way. not everyone who has questions about evolution is looking for a christian alternative. therefore, it's not reasonable, responsible, or even basically fair to attempt to force your personal beliefs upon groups as multidenominational as, say, the entire american public school system or the government of the united states of america. our forefathers may have come from christian backgrounds, but that only serves as proof that they were more open-minded in the 1700s than we are now. it's true. read the constitution and try to find some overt, you-must-be-like-me literature. it's not there.

we are not all the same. i love that. that's why i'm in graduate school studying anthropology, for pete's sake. what i can't tolerate, though, is the blatant disregard some people have for this diversity.

do your own thing and let everyone else do theirs, unless of course people try to get in the way of your doing your own thing, in which case you post something on your blog that no one reads.

sugarfree

2011-02-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

on january 5th, i decided to take a month off sugar. why, you ask? oh, mostly because i gained ten pounds over the holidays. seriously. ten pounds. obviously, i could tell i'd been a horrible glutton, because it's hard to forgot literally stuffing your face with your mother's delicious gingerbread men, but i only discovered the extent of my gluttony when i was weighed at a doctor's appointment and the nurse recorded the terrible number for posterity in my medical records. thus, i gave up sugar. the timing was perfect, too, because a month later i'd being going to the baby shower of a dear friend of mine and presumably be able to eat delicious cake to celebrate one month sugarfree.

cut to: the shower, which was adorable and also crazy. i cannot believe that someone i was 14 with is now weeks away from being a mother. this happens to me a lot. i'll flip (stalk) through facebook, hyperventilating about all my childhood friends who have gotten married or had children, denying to myself that we're old enough for any of that, until i realize that i've contributed to this by also being married. this terrifies me because it illustrates that no one ever feels like they're older, ever. my 96-year-old great-grandmother wasn't from another planet, where old people are a different species who have forgotten what it's like to have their own personality. oh, no. she felt 16. so essentially we're all doomed to feel young and carefree while having to get older and weighed down with responsibility. (i'm a downer.)

anyway. the shower was fabulous and so was the highly anticipated cake. however, what i didn't expect, what i could never have expected, was that as i was gleefully licking the buttercream frosting off my fork, i realized i didn't need it. i didn't feel like i was satiating an intense longing for sugary goodness because i didn't have an intense longing for sugary goodness. i've taken up to six months off processed sugar before and each time i stop the fast, i fall off the wagon hard. this time, the cake didn't make me want to fly to the nearest 7-11 and drink a massive slurpee while eating a snickers and shoving fun dips in my bag for ten minutes later. as someone who has spent literally her entire life with sugar as a food group, this was surprising.

maybe i'm becoming less disgusting in my old (married) age.

onesie...twosie???

2011-02-05T11:36:00.000-08:00

baby outfit numero dos:

aaaaaadorable, if i may say so myself.

onesie.

2011-02-04T21:33:00.000-08:00

i lazed today, which makes this friday, um, exactly like every other day since the excavation ended. i read a tad for class, perhaps finalized a group meeting for a class project, and finally made it to a fabric store, where i got some supplies to finish off my crafting bonanza for the baby shower tomorrow. let me just say, despite the fact that having a child right now would be a horrible idea, baby accoutrements are adorable and i can't wait until i can craft them for myself (my kids. i meant my kids.).

this here was part of today's project:

apparently, i am the mayor of horrible photo town. a close-up:

i'm a little bit in love with this, especially because i only really planned for the tiny, solid circle to look like an eye and instead, the pattern worked as the trunk and the ear as well, which i think is totally super awesome. i also want to make myself something with this little elephant* on it. tote bag? kitchen towel? patch over the hole in the seat of my most favorite jeans ever that i can no longer wear without feeling like a prostitute? or, maybe i could just make another onesie and hoard it until i have children light years from now. that wouldn't be weird, right? that's like a completely normal human thing to do, i'm sure.

*just for the record, i obviously didn't draw this elephant. i can barely hold a pencil. luke sketched it out for me, and it was perfect the first time and i was really jealous and sad. however, he doesn't know how to make baby cocoons or use fabric transfer paper**, so i win.

**i will feel really silly about declaring this if everyone in the world thinks my crafting looks like a five-year-old did it with their non-dominant hand, but i like to think of myself as a professional layman. what i mean by this is that i am not particularly good at any arts and/or crafts, but what i am good at is figuring out how to make something decent and moderately attractive with my limited skill set (namely, being able to cut out traced objects and knit and purl on a loom. yes. a loom. it has come to that.) i'm very proud of that. those who can't do...spend hours on the internet searching for ways to make people think that they can.

it's not only reasonable, it's essential.

2011-02-03T15:22:00.000-08:00

if it wasn't glaringly obvious from the sheer terror in my blog voice for the last few weeks, i am hating figuring out my life. i'm over my mid-twenties. give me my settled thirties, please! i would like to be, as jenna rink dreams in 13 going on 30, "30, flirty and thriving."

i've been bitching and moaning about this all over the 101 freeway. my parents, my aunts, my grandparents, all of you people. everyone knows. i've made it clear. and, despite the fact that no one has offered me millions of dollars, which is obviously why i'm talking about this all the time guys (it's getting embarrassing. someone just read between the lines and hand over some cash), it's been nice to know that i'm not alone.

for instance, my dad is a pretty intense dude. he's hilarious and loves fantastically horrible movies (the ringer starring johnny knoxville is a family fav), but in terms of what he has accomplished in his career, holy canoli he scares the bejesus out of me. i think it really is just mostly that he's a trial lawyer and for some reason, that reads to me that he is made of steel. i'd probably crap my pants if i had to cross-examine someone. he's also been on tv (check it out. i love how the tie matches his eyes. so proud.). i mean, wowzers.

ok, so the point: my dad, who my entire life has had all his shit together, told me a story recently about how my parents discovered they only had 44 cents in the bank one day when they were trying to buy diapers for my little brother and me. granted, he was a lawyer by then and probably remedied that situation as soon as his next paycheck came in, but it was nice to know that even my very established parents had times of insanity (and they had kids! at least i don't have kids!). perhaps it's normal. i guess it is normal. why is it normal that your early adulthood has to blow so hard?

and, on the flip side of loving that apparently everyone stutter-starts their lives, i'm reading the life histories of several world-famous turn of the century scientists for class and this book exalts these people, especially the ones with "no university degrees," for managing to rise into the ranks of respected academics by the time they were 24 (or, as i interpret it, my age. it's all about me.). you know how these brilliant minds were able to achieve so much with such ease? it was 1926. and approximately all their parents knew the head of the smithsonian. that's how. stop making me feel bad, ann gibbons. it was a different time!

cocoon!

2011-02-03T12:11:00.000-08:00

this morning, i was up at 6:30, despite not having anything scheduled until class tonight. this annoyed me, until i was able to catch up on three tv shows, finish a paper due tonight and complete my baby cocoon/hat combo for a friend's baby shower on saturday. so, it's noon and i've done literal hours of work. love it.

here's my cocoon. forgive the bear. it's not like i have a bunch of model babies hanging around here.

not being an expert by any means, i chose a pattern that doesn't read as well with this chunky yarn as it did with the lighter weight yarn suggested for it. whatevs. i think it's adorable. and rustic and cozy, which is exactly what i wanted.

i want a grown-up cocoon.

how convenient!

2011-02-01T16:27:00.000-08:00

i just experienced what is perhaps the most fortuitous event ever: my grandpa called me this afternoon, offering his dentisting services tomorrow morning. he didn't know about my cursed gums before he called, because i'd made a point of not telling anyone, so that was a wonderous coincidence. tomorrow, i will be cured. but, of course, this still requires a visit to a medical professional, making it doctor visit number fifty thousand and one.

i am not an animal! i am a human being!

2011-02-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

disclaimer: i'm about to release a laundry list of my current and previous medical oddities into the universe. if you're not into that or don't want to see me in a different light (i.e. that of a terrible freak monster), then go procrastinate being checking out jezebel.com or gofugyourself.com.

if you're still here, i'm just gonna assume you're a glutton for punishment or unable to overcome your intense voyeurism. that's ok. i forgive you.

here goes: i have had exactly two "real" medical emergencies in my life. at two years old, i was hospitalized for ten days with periorbital cellulitus and when i was six, i was hit by a bike (as in bicycle - i wasn't run down by a hell's angel, although that would make a better story) and needed many stitches to sew up the gaping knee hole i got when a tire bolt ripped through my leg.

despite only truly needing medical intervention as a child, i've been to the doctor approximately fifty thousand times in my young life. just so we're clear: two legitimate medical problems, fifty thousand doctor visits. why the huge discrepancy, you ask? it's the one-two punch of being raised by a hypochondriac mother* and imagining the worst all the time, while having a very real tendency to actually contract some of the most bizarre and irritating bodily issues in history.

as an adult, i have: been diagnosed with a hernia on my calf from sprinting for seven years, found a benign cyst on the sternal end of my clavicle, gotten pink eye (twice), suffered through styes, broken out in ringworm (on my neck, which is probably the most disgusting place), had three ingrown toe nails, had such terrible skin i needed to take accutane, grew a subcutaneous cyst that hung around for like three months, and had a miserable reaction to a nose piercing that resulted in a permanent round little nostril tattoo. i'm still the proud owner of the hernia, the clavicle cyst and the nostril tattoo, and have sort of just accepted that i am predisposed to vomitous, if not life threatening, skin/eye problems.

why does this matter? why would i chose to discuss this on a public forum? who would care? well, i'm guessing the answer to that last question would be, "no one." i'm cool with that. however, i felt that the above exposition was necessary to fully explain how peeved i am about a certain new development: namely, the inflammation of my gums that's going on three days now. WHY GUMS? can't we just get along? why can't i have normal gums like all my friends? are you really going to stick around just long enough for me to worry an infection is eating my canine tooth out of my skull, forcing me to the dentist just so my grandpa (the dentist) can tell me i'm disgusting and just need to floss more regularly? is that what this is about? is this YOU, grandpa?

see. every time effing time one of these seemingly minor, inconsequential issues arises, i am driven insane with panic, until i start every conversation with luke with, "so, you're sure you've had this before and it was normal? you're positive?" and then he never wants to speak to me again. so i call my mom (which is a major no-no), who then calls my grandpa (who as the dentist is the go-to medical expert for any problem) and pretty soon i have my entire family up in arms about how i'm about to die a miserable, agonizing death due to mutant fatal ringworm. or, in this case, gum inflammation.

*my mother, who i adore, is one of the most intense hypochondriacs i think has ever walked the earth. as an infant, i don't think my precious skin ever once came in contact with dirt (you think i kid, but seriously, no one was allowed to put me on the ground). also, i was forced to wear water booties into the ocean (lest i cut my feets open on unseen glass or needles in the sand) until i was 14 and decided enough was enough. also also, it was my mother who pointed out my clavicle cyst and calf hernia, which means she was (is) more obsessive about my nasty afflictions than i was (am).

ten points if you can find the clavicle cyst!

homebody

2011-01-31T21:50:00.000-08:00

after graduating from college in 2008, i didn't really work for about four months. i putzed around, feeling like a total loser, working at a dead-end, although pretty awesome, editorial internship, and eventually "landing" (as if it were a huge coup) a job at a high-end baby boutique (where i learned all about $80 cashmere onesies and culver city douche bags). after about two months of selling little giraffe blankets to tori spelling and mark wahlberg, i took a leave of absence to raise kittens, thinking it would pull me out of my misery. in actuality, it simply made me more insane.

so, my unemployment/dissatisfied employment track record is pretty grim. as lazy and contrary as i am, i really do function best when i'm crazy busy. i whined a lot when i was working 10 hour days at the dig and going to school and taking osteology and omg i wanted to die, but secretly, inside, i was functioning at prime levels. i'm notorious for packing my schedule so full i double book and loving it. (don't try to make plans with me. ever.) thus, only having the commitment of night classes twice a week is freaking me out.

granted, i love having time at home. luke's not working regular hours at the moment, so he's home with me, which is amazing. we've been making dinners, keeping the house together, having movie marathons and trying to get the cats to love us again, despite the fact that they want to resent us for the rest of their lives for bringing a dog into the house (i've been baiting them with lots of delicious people foods, which appears to be working). i've also been getting ahead in my reading for school and dreaming up lots of crafting empire plans that will never be realized because i'll never have the money to invest in them. and, i've sworn not to lose my gourd and adopt any more animals. really. i got an email two days ago about a beautiful homeless orange tabby and i ignored it. i'm getting stronger.

still, all in all, i would trade the endless summer for a moderately fulfilling job that at least made me feel like wasting hours doing bullshit was worth something (even if it's only $10 an hour).

camera phone photos of disposable camera pictures (or, "my aunt laurie is going to kill me")

2011-01-30T14:19:00.000-08:00

a couple months ago, i posted a little something about how my mother (for the approximately ten zillionth time in my life) talked me into going to a crazy event with her. (it can be found here.) this time, it wasn't a bahai'i feast or a bunco tournament or a politician's brunch. this time, it was a ladies tea, sponsored by a women's charity no one in my family has anything to do with. anyway, luke and i went home last night and i was able to take some super terrible photos on my phone of the photos my mom had taken with a disposable camera (despite the fact that she has a perfectly fine digital camera she can't figure out how to use).

so, drumroll please, here they are. i'm mostly just posting them so you fools will believe i truly met kathryn joosten, because i know you didn't think it was possible.

here's us at our table, decorated in pink fabric roses. apparently last year, my mom went all out for her table, creating a day of the dead spectacular that didn't win any prizes. she was very upset about this all year and decided to do the absolute bare minimum this year (as evidenced above). because my entire family is made up of sarcastic, evil demons, when it came time to "vote" (with dollars) for the best table, my grandma, my aunt and i scraped together $17 and our table won third place. my mom got a ribbon. this is partly why that day was so amazing.

this is me with kathryn joosten. suck it, haters.

this is why my aunt laurie might kill me. it's also a good depiction of the early morning mimosas we all threw back and the hours we spent hovering around the silent auction table, preventing anyone from outbidding us.

which leads me to this:

look at all the stuff i won! it's not pictured, sadly, but i also won, in a raffle, an awesome turquoise pendant that apparently was "very old" and "storied," according to the random stranger who stopped me in the banquet hall lobby to discuss it with me. also not pictured is all the loot the rest of my family won. just trust me. we were all winners.

all in all, i think the bunch of us made out pretty well, considering we didn't know a single person in the room and were there simply in support of my mother, who was there simply because she can't say no to anyone who asks her to take their place doing something insane.

at least we all know where i get it from.

2011-01-30T12:29:00.000-08:00

when i was in college, i didn't have a lot of money. and, i lived off campus and walked by an urban outfitters every day on my way to class. thus, most of my wardrobe consisted of items purchased off the clearance rack at urban. this was bad because the stuff on super sale at that store is on or around 100% more insane than the already insane full priced items. therefore, i was stuck with a bunch of ill-fitting patterned crap that makes me feel like i pulled a jessica simpson all four years of school. i just looked through my old albums and it's true. i was jessica, blissfully unaware of how horribly unflattering all my clothing was until photos were taken and it was too late.

(by the by, one can only get away with wearing what is essentially a glorified bag on the top half of one's body if one has 0% body fat or if one is male. otherwise, it's just cruel.)

the jig is up

2011-01-29T08:51:00.000-08:00

taking the cats to the vet was even more traumatic than i imagined, so that was great. i successfully forced abe into his carrier, but then huck knew the jig was up and spent the next five minutes hiding under furniture and hissing at us furiously when we tried to pry him out. we ended up taking the two of them separately, tacking huck's appointment onto the dog's weekly mange shot (did i mention here that the puppy had mange? if not, i just did. i loved finding that out because mange is just the dog form of scabies, which is disgusting. it's gone, now, thank god).

i've been sending out my resume (mostly to administrative jobs, hoping that i won't have to resort to retail) full-force this week and have gotten two responses. one in broken english asking me to set up a money transfer before i start running errands (which, btw, was not the job description that got me to apply) and the other demanded i send in a full credit report before they scheduled an interview. so, i guess i've essentially gotten no responses. the worst part of the job search is knowing that i'm qualified to do practically anything short of brain surgery. i have tons of varied experiences, two degrees from UCLA and am working on a master's. i can file papers, guys. really, i can.

ulcers. everywhere.

2011-01-26T08:15:00.000-08:00

current status: i am no longer content to wallow in my jobless misery because holy hell, bills are due next week and i haven't worked in two weeks. granted, luke and i have a savings account and i suppose your savings are allowed to bail you out when you get kicked in the ass by the unforeseen, but i really hate using that money for general life nonsense. ideally, it would remain untouched until it was time for us to buy a house or something.

i've said it seventeen million times and i'll say it again: why didn't i just major in business or communications at ucla? i love what i'm studying in grad school, but i'm really, really, really tired of trying to make things work monetarily while slowly clawing my way to my future career.

in other news, i have to take the cats in to get their vaccinations updated today and since making the appointment two days ago, i think i've grown an ulcer about it. perhaps this is the source of all my stress (as evidenced above). the last time i took the cats to the vet was march 2009, when they were babies, and it was traumatic enough that i just keep them inside for two years so that i wouldn't have to worry about taking them back. then, in trying to transport them from the apartment to this house, i learned that there is practically no way to get them safely and calmly into their carrier, so i'm super excited to attempt that again in an hour. they desperately need to go, though, because we're the proud new owners of a window-insert cat door and i suppose i'd rather have this one morning of insanity than let them both get rabies from a squirrel.

bridalplasty!

2011-01-24T11:47:00.000-08:00

oh, bridalplasty. of all the tragic crap on tv, this show represents best of all why the united states is behind essentially the entire world in math and science. obviously, we're all idiots.

at first, i swore i wouldn't watch it. i would never do such a thing. i'm in grad school. i'm too well-read. then, in a terrible confluence of convenience* and genetics**, i did it. i watched. and i can safely say that there is nothing redeeming about it. there are many shows on tv that serve to humiliate their protagonists (i used to be fat, losing it with jillian michaels, supernanny and every episode of i didn't know i was pregnant, to name a few), but at least you get the sense that there is an actual, albeit thinly veiled, moral to those stories (even if it's something like "letting your children play with machetes is a no-no" or "your back pain may be a baby"). bridalplasty is simply 45 minutes of hideous female stereotyping, beauty standard perpetuation and general idiocy. the women have decided to sacrifice their physical health (and ultimately, their pride) to act like catty bitches for an entire season in order to win a plastic surgery makeover and a "dream wedding."

having just planned a wedding, i can understand the allure of having someone pay for that shit for you. i can even understand the desire to look your best. what i don't get is showcasing on tv twenty-something women who are so riddled with self-esteem issues and self-hate that they're willing to offer their bodies up to the creepiest plastic surgeon in reality tv history after they win inane contests. any show that provides weekly nose jobs to engaged women who are convinced they aren't attractive enough (despite the fact that they have, by definition, found men who love them as they are) and then has them prance back to the mansion after their surgeries to stay in the twee-ly decorated "recovery" room is seriously, seriously unfortunate.

the best (worst?) part, however, is that the host is shanna moakler, best known for her marriage to travis barker of blink 182. a marriage that ended. so, the person at the helm of this shipwreck, the spokesperson for being "the perfect bride," is someone whose dream wedding ended in a failed marriage. ouchies.

*we're paying for dvr now, and somehow, it seems less disgusting to watch something whenever you want than to wait to watch it live.

**my mother, who is one of the smartest people i know, is obsessed with tabloids. obsessed. it's in my blood. this is my excuse.

no money, mo' problems

2011-01-18T11:20:00.001-08:00

the plague has lifted! i still have what medical websites call a "productive cough," which is the polite way of saying i'm hacking up mucus, but other than that, i'm cured. luke's actually 100% better, which is good i guess, but also frustrating, because why me with the cough? anyway, things have gone back to normal. in fact, things are better than normal, considering luke and i cleaned the house yesterday and have managed to keep it spotless for an entire 24 hours, despite the fact that we made a huge dinner last night. get this: i did the dishes right after they were used, so no epic mess to follow me around for three days. yipee!

also, my job is over. the excavation was unceremoniously halted last friday, due to complications associated with something i like to call "shit storm." apparently, the movers and shakers are making a decision today as to whether we can continue, but right now, i'd just like to sit in my misery and complain about how sad it is that the first time in my life i landed a job that is actually vital experience for my future career, it has vanished into bureaucratic thin air. blarg.

also also, the unseasonably warm weather (despite our perma-sun here in southern california, 90* in january can still be termed "unseasonable") has made me desperate for a charcoal grill and patio furniture. i need summertime gatherings and grilled veggies. is that too much to ask? apparently, yes, as my job is MIA and luke just started the business and things here are riding the poverty line here at the moment. :(

the plague!

2011-01-12T15:30:00.001-08:00

on friday, i was heading home from a week of excavating when i coughed a tiny cough. very, very tiny and seemingly innocuous. i thought to myself that perhaps i'd inhaled some dirt. no big deal.

um, no. it turned out to be a pretty big fricking deal. by saturday morning, i had a raging fever and couldn't move. by saturday night, i was delirious and singing nursery rhymes in my sleep (yes, luke heard me, and no, i don't know how he didn't smother me in horror). by monday, i was still so achey that i couldn't walk around and was taking approximately three to four hot baths a day. it is now wednesday and it's safe to say this is the first day i feel legitimately better. granted, i still have my hacking cough and running nose, but aside from those comparatively minor symptoms, i've normalized. unfortunately, i infected luke, who is now in the "monday" stage of the disease, meaning he's where i was two days ago: fever-y, achey, miserable and totally cognizant of the fact that he's already been all those things for longer than he'd like to have been.

whatever this was was a doozy and i can say that safely now because i've seen luke sick with it. i am a notoriously horrible sick person - i whine and complain and even once in COLLEGE called my mommy crying because my fever of 104* hurt so badly. luke, on the other hand, cleaned out the garage on his first day of this illness, so he's kinda a badass. now, seeing how laid out he is, i know this thing means business. and that's why i don't feel bad about essentially hiding in the house for five days. if nothing else, i'm not infecting anyone else, and i feel ok about that.

one one one one!

2011-01-01T09:09:00.001-08:00

the holidays were surprisingly fabulous, considering they completely snuck up on us and we weren't able to do any of the wonderful party planning we'd dreamed about. we spent christmas eve with my jewish grandparents (complete with chinese food) and christmas day with my fam. i got a new phone to replace the one the dog destroyed and i can now access the internet from anywhere, which is exciting but probably not good. luke is still massively in love with the puppy (as am i) and now that things have calmed down around here, we're considering adopting her sister, who is still at the rescue. everyone thinks we're insane, and rightly so i'm sure, but stirring up craziness just when things are looking stable and routine is kinda our m.o. so just get used to it, people. finally, last night was a gorge-fest at our friends' massive duplex near echo park. i think from 7 pm to 2 am i had two beers, three glasses of wine, a bottle of sparkling water, two slices of cake, some pure butter scottish shortbread cookies, two brownies and about my weight in butternut squash risotto and homemade bread. i purposely listed all that out in an attempt to shame myself into being less disgusting from here on out. new year's resolution! at the party, i also totally sucked at charades and forced everyone to watch "kittens inspired by kittens," which of course was the highlight.

in other news, it's been really freezy here lately. granted, a temperature hovering around 40 degrees isn't cold for people who live in places with legitimate seasons, but for this california girl, holy canoli. the worst part of this cold snap is that i'm out at 6:30 in the morning every day excavating in a muddy trench.* meaning: after bailing rain water out of holes for a frigid hour each morning, i'm surprised i'm still in moderately good health.

*just fyi: last night was the first time in the history of my interest in forensic anthropology that my work was actually a welcome topic over a dinner table. exciting!

this is too gross.

2010-12-20T15:10:00.000-08:00

people are insane.

when i was assisting in a kindergarten classroom, back when i was prepping for a master's degree in education, i became the makeup police. i was so known for confiscating lipstick and eyeshadows from five-year-olds that they would literally apologize when they had to use chapstick. i was fine with that. more than fine with that. no girl in kindergarten should sneak into the class bathroom (complete with tiny lowered mirrors) to apply mascara at snack time. it's insane. it's sad.

i'll acknowledge that i'm coming from the complete opposite of the glamour spectrum, having been raised by a mother who only wore makeup to parties (if at all) and never insisted i needed anything else to be amazing. also: i got my first manicure at 18, when my shameful secret about my virgin nails was discovered by a horrified new college friend, i did my own nails for my wedding, and i don't get people with good skin wearing foundation.

that being said: being a kid is awesome. i desperately miss running around outside like a hellion and not giving two shits what my hair looked like. therefore, i still hold very firmly to my belief that children should be protected from feeling that they need something outside themselves to be accepted. kids have their teenage years to feel like they'll never be good enough - they should at least be carefree when they are legitimately children.

i've gone with kids to get manicures and have no problem with occasional silly pampering. however, instilling in your children when they are practically infants that their appearance is the most important thing about them is pretty disturbing. i've got my fair share of self-esteem issues (thanks, acne!), but i've tried to prevent them in the children i've taught, not perpetuate them.

i can't wait to be the BEST PARENT EVER. haha.

free bird!

2010-12-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

finals are over and i'm only working monday-friday (only - with hours like 6:30 am to 5 pm, only is a bit of an understatement), so this means i have a wide-open, stress-free weekend for the first time in three months. this is very exciting. luke and i have plans to hang up all the framed photos that have been kicking around the house since we moved in and to decorate for christmas. due to the dog, and lack of space in our new living room, we've decided to buy a small, potted fir tree, which will be laden with ornaments and placed on the dining table. then, we can plant it in the backyard after the holidays. i used to scoff at my parents when we had our "potted oak tree" christmas trees, and yet here i am, becoming them. it's frightening.

since getting off work at 5, i've eaten my weight in baja with luke, cuddled with the cats, laid on the couch with the dog and caught up on all my websites - essentially, i'm already making the most of my weekend.

shovels, finals, puppies

2010-12-07T11:39:00.000-08:00

i am exhausted. like, bone tired. i've been working 10 hour days at the excavation and have developed a new diet craze that will soon take the place of south beach and weight watchers. it is called "dig a hole" and is really fairly simple. just grab a shovel and start digging a massive trench. it's awesome for your shoulders, back, arms and abs. especially when you do it for many hours.

also, tonight i have my osteology final, which will officially herald the end of this quarter. this, of course, no longer means i'll have three weeks to unwind and eat cookies, as i'll be working at the excavation until the end of time, BUT it does mean that i will be done with insane practical exams and gut-wrenching panic attacks at least until w

inter quarter starts.

also also, because luke and i are the king and queen of horrible timing, last weekend we decided to adopt a dog. granted, i am absolutely in love with her and she's amazing, but getting a puppy right before finals and just as i started working a lot and right before luke starts working entirely for himself is a little crazed. it would be safe to say that we're feeling the burn at the moment.

here she is, miss america :)

soooo adorable. and hopefully she'll forgive us for being so crazy all the time.

love you.

2010-12-01T07:26:00.000-08:00

one year ago today, i was still engaged, working at a preschool, taking night classes a local community college to get some early childhood education classes and completely directionless. i was also the great-granddaughter of an incredibly amazing woman whose life history would probably read like a fabulous novel. my grandmother was a spectacular example of what one person can accomplish given any odds. also, she was one of the most hysterical people i've ever met and gave me the best gift possible: a close, loving family that gets together not because we have to but because we really want to.

my grandma edna died one year ago today, and it was reflecting on her life and her immense passion for learning and growing and family this past year that inspired me to get my act together and start pursuing the things i truly love in life. so, even though she's gone, she's still making me a better person. thanks, grandma. i love you.

blitz'd

2010-11-25T22:24:00.000-08:00

sooo, eventful week!

1) i participated in a project at the coroner's office on sunday, the details of which need not be discussed here for fear my three readers will be horrified and i'll lose my fan base.

2) i've spent the last week working as an excavator at a mortuary excavation, which has been fascinating, exhausting and ultimately, excellent forensic/osteological experience. i've put in at least 7 hours there each day and then had class at night, so this week has been a little bit of a physical assault. however, i'd keep this schedule for months if it meant i was able to continue doing this work. it's amazing.

3) we just got home from thanksgiving at the aunts' house and i have recovered from my primary vomitus gorge stage and am now pleasantly full. i'm also near-sick with exhaustion, so i am going to sleep.

end recap. more tomorrow night after i excavate.

i'm her mom! no...she's not.

2010-11-20T21:54:00.000-08:00

when my brother sam and i were kids, we went on countless road trips with our grandparents, and listened to hours upon hours of stephen king books on tape and old radio broadcasts of "the shadow" (who knows, by the way). this early exposure to recorded audio inspired us to tape our own shows, stories and ridiculous news programs. we came up with my absolute favorite in the months before our younger brother clay was born: having just watched an episode of "the magic school bus" in which the bus and everyone in it shrinks to the size of a red blood cell so that they can learn about the human body, we developed a story about how we traveled deep into our pregnant, ravenous mother to find all the things she'd eaten recently (which included, as we discovered in our journey, the hind legs of our family dog). we were insane as children and i love that we have it preserved for eternity on tape.

as technology progressed, and our little brother, now born, started to grow up, we began using our parents' video camera to film our characters, the best of which was the one we created for clay. her name was mrs. marmalade, and she was an elderly british woman who walked with a cane and wore the old, handmade cardigans we inherited from our great-grandparents. after outfitting him with the cardigans and big, floppy hats, we forced our three year old brother to act out story lines like "mrs. marmalade goes to the market," in which she putz'd around for fifteen minutes to find enough coins to buy her butter, mumbling to herself (side note: there is nothing like a tiny boy trying to do an old lady english accent). again, we were insane as children.

all of this would have been perfect fodder for a youtube channel. if i may say so myself, we were hysterical, crazy little performers. we could have been contenders!

but, because we came of age a decade too soon, none of our creative genius exists for the universe to access. that's why i think i love this so much: kittens. i know i just railed against exploiting children on national stages, but i don't think this is exploitative. i would have absolutely loved posting something like this as a kid. so much attention!

that's macerating.

2010-11-19T15:57:00.000-08:00

i have officially been a vegetarian since i was 8 years old. i say officially because i'd always hated eating meat, i just wasn't autonomous enough to stop having silent standoffs with my dad over in 'n out burgers until i was in third grade. i also stopped consuming milk, eggs and cheese around the same time, and cultivated a really impressive, robust lie about my lactose-intolerance, which explained why i pulled the cheese off of pizza slices in bowling alleys at birthday parties.

as a kid, i didn't like the taste or texture of most animal products and that's why i hated eating them. i have never claimed to have been so worldly at 7 that it was the eating of animals themselves that skeeved me out (however, as an adult i can say that it was the "muscle-y" texture of meat that was gross, so maybe the animals-as-food issue was subconscious but there nevertheless). that being said, having read many, many books about vegetarianism and the factory farms of today, i can say that i'm very proud of my decision to stop eating meat, regardless of how i came to make it.

so, having been a life-long animal lover and hider of fish sticks (almost always halfway in the kitchen trash, so that no one would be the wiser), i have recently had to make a few sad choices. i'm currently a first-year in a forensic anthropology program, because in college and at the tar pits, i fell in love with the idea of building up the stories of people long dead from what they leave behind (namely, their bones). it's like my own personal religion. it's comforting to know that even if you've been dead for thousands of years, if someone so chooses, they can figure out really detailed facts about your life, such as if you were right or left handed or what foods you ate as you were growing up. afterlife or not, your story never really disappears on earth, and i like that very much.

the sad choices: macerating animals. meaning: helping remove the flesh so that the bones can be cleaned and catalogued and used for comparison, etc. yesterday, i helped* macerate a rabbit, which was both absolutely horrifying and legitimately not as disgusting as one might think it would be, which i realize is a complete contradiction. explanation: it probably wasn't more foul than anything someone might make for dinner - tonight, even. however, for me, as someone who get teary eyed walking by all the animal parts in the meat section of the grocery store, it carried with it a lot of intensity.

i'm not planning on making the deconstruction of animal bodies a hobby. however, i'm glad i did it, simply because i'm gonna see a lot of really upsetting things in the next three years and i'm celebrating any little step to getting over my shock and awe.

*by "helped" i mean that i used a scalpel for approximately six minutes, after which i figured i'd had enough of the "experience" and was done.

"heaven is for realz"*

2010-11-18T20:09:00.001-08:00

ok, so i'm no theologist, nor am i particularly political anymore (one election night crying tears of doom in my dorm room because bush won + another crying tears of joy because obama won, which both resulted in approximately the exact same crap politically = a touch of apathy for me), but this story is so blatantly out of control, i must discuss it.

fox news recently interviewed a now seven-year-old boy who claims to have visited heaven when he was four and in the hospital with a five-day-old burst appendix. now, i know full grown adults who have been rendered insane by the pain/medication associated with an un-burst appendix, so forgive me if i don't fully trust the validity of this story. also, i've known lots of kids, and their wily, intuitive natures are often completely underestimated. they are crazy little sponges, topped with an insatiable need to please their grown ups. so, it's this next part that really gets me: when asked what jesus looks like by the fox news correspondent, who is left breathless after the boy says god is so big he can hold the world in his hands (revelation!), this child says jesus had "a rough but kind face and sea-blue eyes and a smile that lit up the heavens." and, i repeat, this kid is seven, relating an event that happened to him when he was four.

i've heard kids say a lot of really precocious, adult things, like "i wanted to play, not have a conversation" and "man, that never gets old." where do these bursts of articulation come from? not out of body experiences or visits to other worlds, but instead from someplace decidedly less extraordinary - their parents. and unless this kid's been reading nicholas sparks, i think i know where he got this idea.

*for the record, i don't know if heaven is for realz. i don't. and i have zero issue with people who feel that they do. however, i have millions of issues with people exploiting little kids on national tv.

also, this:

2010-11-18T19:32:00.001-08:00

i know i'm way behind on this one, but i'm in love: those who can't sing, sing talk.

2010-11-17T09:21:00.000-08:00

lately, i've become fixated on all the lines on my face, primarily because this house actually gets natural light and in the bathroom mirror i can see my face clearly for the first time since i was 21. i'm obsessed with the lines. the squint line, the laugh line, the forehead "what?" lines. i used to hate people who talked about this like it was an actual travesty and so i realize this is obnoxious and i apologize, but it's still true. cut to:

on sunday, i went with my mom to a "ladies' tea" in my hometown, thrown for and by a women's charity group that my mom isn't linked to at all, save for the fact that one of her friends had invited her to go. her friend was suddenly unable to go and my mother volunteered to set up our table's decorations and tea set (it truly was as weird as it sounds). my grandma, aunt and i all rallied and went to this tea, to help my mom fill up the three empty seats at the tea table that was now her responsibility. when we finally rolled in, we discovered there was a silent auction, a raffle and a guest speaker. the guest speaker was a woman named kathryn joosten, who plays karen mcclusky on desperate housewives. i know who she is because i have, on occasion, watched that show. i've thought she was just fine and having heard her speak at the tea, i think she's funny and interesting. however, i probably could have done without having my mom corner her, tell her i'm her biggest fan and force me to take a picture with her. (if you ever have the time, read all my blog posts and count the number of times my very own mother has thrown me under the bus and into an extremely uncomfortable encounter with a stranger at crazy events i've attended just because she asked me to.)

annnyway, to the point: kathryn joosten gave me advice about something, prefaced by "when you get to college, you'll..." and of course, i didn't even hear the end of it because i was SO PLEASED that she thought i was young enough that i hadn't even been to college. despite how awkward the entire thing was, and how desperately i wanted to attack my mother, this woman thought i was still 17. this is good news on the wrinkle front. totally awesome.

in other news...

2010-11-15T22:50:00.000-08:00

i initially began this post on campus, where suddenly my computer decided not to connect to the campus wireless. this was a total non-issue, as i had no work to do online and i just really wanted to pass the two hours until class answering emails and checking facebook, but for some reason, this really enraged me. this kind of rage appears only occasionally, only when technology that has always been reliable suddenly fails. for example: suddenly my cable box doesn't communicate with my tv? suddenly my computer doesn't recognize the campus internet i've been accessing with no problem for two months? gah. most of the frustration comes from not understanding how to fix it, i suppose. whatever, i still technically blogged, though, so screw you, internet connection.

let's see, so much to discuss. as they say, perhaps i should begin at the beginning. unfortunately, the preschool situation wasn't nearly as sweet and adorable as it promised to be. i don't want to get into the particulars on the interwebs, but suffice to say that it was a terrible environment, both personally and professionally, and it consumed my life and made me sick. this past winter, i decided not to apply to education master's programs, and to instead focus my attention back on the forensic anthropology program i didn't get into last year. i had a much clearer idea of why i wanted to be part of the program and i had a hell of a lot more motivation (i.e. i needed an escape hatch out of the preschool nosedive). anyway, at the end of it all, i'm right where i always should have been: back in school, pursuing something i absolutely love, (mostly) drama free. it feels good. i feel like a grown-up (almost).

a few days after i posted that ridiculous bitchy rant about the wedding and the 60th anniversary party perhaps being on the same day, we found out my grandpa has lung cancer. this, of course, made any sort of issue i had about the party seem completely disgusting. i'm keeping the post up, even though it's a little bit shameful and humiliating, because i think it's important for me to remember what is actually important; namely, that i HAVE grandparents who made it to their 60th wedding anniversary and who i love dearly.

i'm working on trying to be content where i am, which i believe is a resolution i have made approximately 10,000 times since i was old enough to have such deep, intelligent ponderings of the universe. as old as it is, though, it's still important and definitely worth attempting. at some point, while desperately clawing up the rungs of the success ladder, you come to realize that there is no ultimate, no point at which you'll decide, hey this is the best and i'll never want for more. everyone has goals, EVEN after they've reached previous goals. therefore, constantly pining over what you haven't achieved yet is just destining yourself to a life of never being happy or grateful or fulfilled by your current situation. that sucks. i've been living in that dark place of jealousy and crazy for a few years now, as i've watched some people get married or into school (before i did those things) or buy houses or have babies or just generally "have lives." suddenly, i realized that i myself having been "having a life" all this time too. that's not at all to say that i won't keep striving for more, because there are definitely things i want to accomplish and attain that i don't have at the moment (like, say, enough money to pay off my credit cards or buy my own car). however, i'm just gonna stop bitching so much and just BE HAPPY. i can't even believe that has to be a life philosophy - why can't that just happen?

also, i've started walking dogs. for moderate profit. it's a super bizarre thing to say that you do and an even weirder thing to actually do, considering it requires that you access strangers' keys, enter strangers' houses and hang out with their animals. someone in my grad program referred me to the company and i got hired in about three seconds. my first assignment was to take a rottweiler up in the mountains and hike with her for an hour and a half, which of course made me want to pass out and throw up at the same time. it was more exercise than i'd gotten in about a year. so sad and yet so very true.

i think perhaps this is due to my brand new outlook on life, but i'm really truly happy right now. i was never outright miserable, but i wasn't enjoying my life and the people in it like i should have been. now, i'm genuinely loving every thing i do: every family get together i attend, every movie i watch with luke, and i'm even loving hiking up giant mountains with fierce canines. i could seriously get used to this.

oh, hellllllo!

2010-11-15T08:14:00.001-08:00

so, apparently, this bloggy brainchild of mine, designed to help me work out all the insanity of my life, is the first thing to get completely ignored when times get tough. that's a little sad. i'm a fairweather blogger, i guess.

the updates that are necessary are a little bit staggering, but i'll try (however, people are only routed here through facebook, if at all, so all you peeps have seen this already and therefore cannot be upset with me for lagging on the blog):

a) we got married! the wedding was absolutely amazing, and that's coming from a girl who spent her childhood tying firecrackers to g.i. joes, not fantasizing about the perfect ball gown and wedding cake. it was so perfect for us: small ranch house, santa monica mountains, friends, family, good food, awesome music, fab photographer, etc. it was an incredible day and i'm so lucky to have had that.

b) i got into grad school! i rode high on my acceptance all through the summer, bought all my books, and then...actually started school, which kicked my ass. i'm still incredibly grateful to have gotten in (just two other people were accepted into my year) and am really loving what i'm studying. i'm just crazy overwhelmed with finding a feasible job, figuring out what is expected of me in this program (undergrad it ain't) and trying to get settled into....

c) the house we're renting. we found a tiny little two bedroom in the valley and i'm loving it. hardwood floors, dishwasher and washing machine FINALLY, giant backyard for cats to chase birds around - it's great. the only issue is that luke and i are almost never here and when we are, we're too lazy/exhausted to try to put it together. thankfully, we are no longer living out of boxes. thank god for small miracles.

d) luke's starting his own business! i'm so excited for him. i'm not allowed to advertise at all until he gets everything exactly as he wants it, but you can believe that once it's together, i'm gonna be screaming it from the mountain tops.

it's been months and i have much more to say, but i must run (literally: i've started walking dogs because nothing else fits my school schedule as well and i've got to do something about how disgusting and sedentary i've become). more and detailed and hilarious updates shortly. i pinky promise.

drool, man

2010-01-18T17:38:00.000-08:00

well, so much for posting every. single. day. like i swore up and down i'd do at the beginning of the month.

this is huck:

this is actually a very unfortunate, hilarious picture of my little huckleberry, because he really never looks like the chesire cat except for in this picture. regardless, this is him. he's adorable and friendly and curls up with me in bed, which is essentially all i need to be head over heels in love. however, recently, huck has developed the very interesting habit of drooling all over the place when he finds himself having a good time. he drools on the blankets when he's cozy, he drools on our hands when we pet him and, recently, he drooled all over the warm wireless internet router as he was laying on top of it, effectively destroying our internet access and preventing me from being able to blog (among other things, like research wedding vendors). i'm currently on luke's computer, stealing internet from one of our neighbors.

life without the internet is a tragic, tragic thing and i'm hoping to remedy it as soon as i can call verizon tomorrow morning.

yoga-cize

2010-01-05T21:40:00.000-08:00

hello! i am so tired. it's a combination of not sleeping for like 23 hours a day, as i grew accustomed to doing during the break from school, and the fact that i'm actually really working during the day. i'm struggling with being exhausted and still wanting to have my life, watch tv, make dinner and clean up after myself. however, i've managed two full days of it, and am very proud of myself.

this afternoon, i went to a new yoga class with a friend of mine from work and it seriously kicked my ass. it was so incredibly difficult - i ran track for seven years and never sweat as much during a workout as i did today in that class. i felt like i was running an impossible race, possibly because the instructor was calling out poses like this: "warrior pose, inhale, plank pose, exhale, upward facing dog, inhale, downward facing dog." read that sentence and then imagine doing all those things as quickly as you read it. exactly. i feel awesome now, though, and the class had the added benefit of being filled to capacity with beautiful people with amazing bodies (including diane lane!*), which was, surprisingly, more motivating than it was depressing. i just hope i can move tomorrow.

*i think it's totally bizarre that i could just walk into a yoga class diane lane was taking. i don't really know why i feel like that's so bizarre, but i guess when someone is a bazillionaire famous person, you might expect they wouldn't dane to sweat it out in a public class.

surprise!

2010-01-04T18:26:00.001-08:00

work was remarkably less tragic than i thought it would be last night, as i lay in bed replaying all the horrors of the last few days before winter break, trying to imagine what i was in for today. it was, all and all, much nicer than it could have been, so i have my lucky stars to thank for that. having dreaded it for the past two days has done wonders for my skin, though - i've already started to break out again and it's only day one.

this afternoon, my christmas present came in the mail, which made luke very happy, as it had been lost in the bermuda triangle of christmas packages for the past two weeks. he got me a delightfully hilarious charm bracelet - he wrapped up each charm individually and hung the little packages from boughs of our christmas tree (which, yes, is still up and decorated and is giving off the most wonderful holiday smell as it decays front and center in our apartment). it was adorable, and actually pretty hysterical, because he'd found the following charms: a loaf of bread, a mammoth, a can of diet coke, a squirrel, a bachelor's degree, and, among others, a potato. a potato! anyone who has known me for more than two minutes could attest that my entire life's work can be summarized by the charm bracelet i've got now. it was a very, very cute idea.

<3.

(money) launderer

2010-01-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

so, we buckled. instead of carting all our clothing to a laundromat, we packed it all into the car and carted it 3o minutes to my parents' house! what we lost in transit we made up for in free laundering and dinner with my family, which is always wonderous. i would honestly rather drive up here all the time to wash my clothes comfortably than pay $5.00-a-load at our apartment complex. we're currently waiting for the umpteenth load to dry and could quite possibly be here all night.

i am so not pleased about starting work again tomorrow. after all the total insanity that was this fall, and after the relatively low-key holiday season (during which i did nothing and slept in until 11 am nearly every day), i can't really fathom having to start it all again. blarg.

in other news, i worked in the lab at the museum today and finally asked the director for a letter of recommendation for grad school applications (oh, yeah, i'm doing those again - i'm a glutton for punishment, i guess) - this is a big deal because i've been too intimidated to ask her about writing one for approximately one full year now. yipee!

how do you get that shirt so clean, mate?

2010-01-02T22:18:00.000-08:00

today, luke and i cleaned the whole apartment, went shopping for necessary goods, hung a picture that we had framed like seven months ago and made dinner for friends. all in all, it was an epically productive day, and means that two days into 2010, we're still keeping our joint resolution of being just as productive and successful at home as we are at work. that was our major problem last year (most especially in the fall, when stress was at its peak) and we have vowed to be better about it this year. we are living a totally crazy modern life, with insane work hours and many, many hours per week spent in a car and are without wonderful conveniences like a dishwasher and a washer and dryer, which makes cooking at home and doing laundry just that much more obnoxious. i know that sounds really lazy, but when you've spent your entire day running around like an banshee, the last thing you want to do is haul all your crap to a laundromat or make dinner with the promise of doing all the dishes afterward.

god, how did humans do it for thousands of years before dishwashers and washers and dryers?

luke and i are trying desperately to find out how those ancient peoples handled all their many, back-breaking responsibilities without going absolutely nuts. perhaps it was because they didn't have the knowledge of these wonderful machines that could do all the work for you, if only you'd have the foresight to rent an apartment that provided them.

2010-01-01T17:58:00.000-08:00

happy new year! i'm very excited for all the things to come, and my excitement has led me to this: i've decided that i'm going to post something every day this year. 2010 promises to be a year full of changes, of new experiences and will definitely force me to do things outside my comfort zone. in short, i'm planning on being a much bigger grown up exactly one year from today. and, much like people who keep a food journal to monitor what they eat, i want to use this blog as both a motivator and a memory-keeper, so that when i feel like not doing something i absolutely need to, i can feel responsible, at least in some very minor way, to what i've written here. and, as an added bonus, when this year is over and all the monumentous things i'm looking forward to are over, i can have a record of all the thoughts and feelings i thought were soooo important at the time.

win, win.

up, down and around

2009-12-26T15:28:00.000-08:00

oh, what a month it's been. beginning with thanksgiving and moving forward through my grandma's death, hanukkah, my cousin's bat mitzvah, more hanukkah, christmas eve and christmas, it's been a roller coaster of emotion for the family. my cousin said it best when he said it's been a month of "let's party! let's cry!" we've all been so busy with the celebrations of the season that we really haven't had a chance to process how we all collectively feel about my grandmother. so, while we were bat-mitzvahing or eating latkes or simply hanging out, just the mention of my grandma sent everyone into tears. there's been this almost terminal lack of enthusiasm for all these things we've been doing, all the things we were expected to do, and that's really, really out of character for us. totally and completely awful. i'm definitely looking forward to some time this coming week to remember her and perhaps handle some of this sadness.

aside from boomerang-ing from one extreme emotion to another for six weeks, the holidays were nice. it's always fabulous to see my family and, for better or worse, we did see a lot of each other this season. like i said, there wasn't very much bubbly silliness this year, but it was nice regardless. (see? i love me some adjectives, and the best i can do right now is "nice." that's how bad it is.)

in completely unrelated news, i've gotten pretty obsessed with childbirth lately, which is strange for a few reasons, not the least of which being that 1) i'm not pregnant and 2) i'm not planning on it any time soon. i'm just very interested in how medicalized the whole thing has become. my obsession was born (pun intended!) after i got a very suspiciously vague mole biopsy result and after a friend of mine had a horrific birth experience at the end of her perfectly normal pregnancy. in short, at the moment, i'm very wary of the medical profession and more specifically, how it sometimes scares people into unnecessary medical procedures. for example, i had a totally normal mole biopsy'd recently, just because i was nervous about it, and the result was more or less normal. however, no one would say that to me - i guess because they don't want me to sue them - so instead my doctor sat me down for what was the longest twenty seconds of my life to "talk about the results" and despite my repeated questions about what the actual outcome was, she could only say that the recommendation was for me to get yet another incision and biopsy. and, my friend, who went into normal labor, was given pitocin at the hospital, immediately given an epideral and then had terrible complications as she pushed laying on her back for two hours. i'm by no means saying that i want to go live in the woods somewhere without advil or antibiotics, but i'm starting to see now that there can be huge health implications with all this unnecessary surgery/intervention flying around. and, of all the unforeseen future health problems i may have, childbirth would appear to be the most probable - hence, my obsession.

any thoughts?

to everything...

2009-12-05T20:24:00.001-08:00

on tuesday, my great-grandma edna died in her sleep at 96 years old. this should, in theory, be the beginning of a glorious celebratory post about how, after living such a long, wonderful life, she left us in most peaceful way possible. we should all be thankful to have known her as long as we all did. we should be at peace with the fact that she's gone.

the truth is, though, the entire family is pretty devastated by her death. in this family of women and the men who love them, she was the matriarch. she was the unspoken head of everything, the queen. she infused all the people i love with the kindness and genuine goodness i associate with my family. she's the reason my great-aunts are two of my closest friends, the reason my grandparents talk to me like we're peers, and most of all, she's why we all put up with each other - we're family. she was responsible for this life i've been so lucky to live and now she's gone and i'm not entirely sure how to handle it.

we went to the funeral yesterday morning early, so we could gather around with my grandparents, my great-aunts, my aunts and uncles and cousins to see my grandma before the service started and, having only seen one other dead body in person before in my life, i can safely say it's the most bizarre, terrible thing to see a person you love that way. she was wearing her favorite sweater and a pearl pin, the same outfit i discovered today as i went through old pictures she wore to my brother's bar mitzvah last year (a discovery which of course made me hysterical). her makeup was done, her nails had been painted since the last time i saw her alive last week. still, though, it wasn't her. her force, her personality, was gone and i don't know how to reconcile that. maybe if i were religious i wouldn't feel so lost about this. as it is, though, my grandma truly was larger than life, so to think that that energy isn't here anymore is insanely difficult.

the last time i saw her healthy, we talked about how much she'd done, how many stories she had to tell, and how she wanted so desperately to tell them. i said, "well, grandma, i'll be back. and i'll bring a pen." to which she replied, hilariously, "is that a threat?"

it was a promise. i'm sorry we didn't have time. i love you.

no rest for the weary

2009-10-20T23:49:00.001-07:00

i should totally be asleep now, knowing as i do that i have to get up in approximately six hours to get ready for work. however, i'm suffering from an ailment i've always had; namely, that when i've spent an entire day actively participating in things, i must spent at least two hours consciously doing nothing in order to decompress. so, i worked all day at the preschool, went to yoga, went directly to a night class (a development i will discuss further in another post) and then came home at 9:45 pm. days like this make me feel accomplished and exhausted all at the same time.

blarg.

money pit

2009-08-20T22:15:00.001-07:00

so, i had a nightmare the other night.

(my friend josh, my sole blog reader, informed me recently that all my posts are sadtown complain-y diatribes and this makes me sound like a whiner. i'm not offended by this for several reasons: 1) this is sadtown self-involved therapy - it's a blog; 2) i am a whiner; 3) josh is a very jealous person.)

so, anyway, i had this nightmare the other night: i realized, at about 3 pm one saturday afternoon, that it was the day of my wedding. i hadn't done any preparation beyond what i've actually done in real life - i had a location, a photographer, a caterer, but had no music, no hair and makeup, no decorations. and, i'd invited 100 people (which is also something i haven't done yet). in this dream, i was frantic because i wasn't prepared at all for this day to be the magical fairyland it was supposed to be. i literally thought, in this moment of REM genius, "i actually have to do my own hair?" as if that was the biggest travesty ever visited upon a person in the history of the human race. in this dream, i tried to coordinate a wedding in two hours (while getting ready to do my own makeup, i suppose *gasp*).

all joking aside, this dream was terrible. it was awful. i woke up stressed to my core, so much so that now i have this crazy palsy in my hands that makes me unwittingly clench my fingers into fists, even when i'm doing seemingly safe things like watching TV or driving my car. and, i don't think it was the horror of doing my own hair that sent me over the edge in this nightmare. it was the shock of having all these wedding details, which are stressing me out in reality nine months out from the date itself, all crushed into a two-hour time frame.

still, i know you're tsk-tsking to yourself about sarah the bridezilla having nightmares about the wedding. if you're doing that, you sure as hell haven't gotten your feet wet planning an event like this. my freak out is not, i assure you, an "oh my god, this embossed green invitation doesn't exactly match the embroidered overlay on my eighteen twenty-person dining tables in the mint ballroom" type of freak out. my panic is more of a "how in the world am i going to justify the $10,000 this very modest ceremony is going to cost?" type of panic. i was very cool about the whole thing until recently, when we realized we'd have to hire a caterer after our plans to keep the food and rentals in the family proved to be a little too naive. this caterer is perfectly nice and helpful and charges a totally reasonable fee for providing all the tables, chairs, linens, silverware, plates and food for 100 people. however, now that we've got most of the vendors, adding everything up is possible. hence, the freak out.

surprisingly, though, i'm the only one in panic mode. my mom actually thinks i'm worrying too much about money and am therefore somehow slighting myself (i guess because i got a pretty inexpensive dress). it's just a very rude awakening. i was (and am, to a certain degree) extremely casual about all of this and i still haven't been sucked into any of the wedding insanity that is rampant in the marriage business, but at this point, i feel like if i see another bridal magazine extolling the virtues of designer flower girl dresses or $2,000 (per 100) wedding invitations, i might lose my mind.

my issue is simple: i wanted to be married to luke. i don't have some delusional fantasy about being married, i don't want a picture-perfect wedding day, i haven't dreamed about this since i was 7. i've found the person i want to spend my life with and we think it would be amazing to celebrate that with our family and friends. that is why we decided to have a wedding. i'm excited about the day itself. way excited. it's just that wading through all the wedding mania and propaganda makes me insane.

end rant.

tantrum

2009-07-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

i am having a tantrum. a full-on two-year-old's tantrum, stemmed from the totally improbable crushing (for the third time in two weeks!) of my broken pinky toe. i broke the toe a few weeks ago after slamming my foot into a phone jack mounted on the living room wall. it hurt very badly. then, after keeping it tightly wrapped with waterproof tape for a week and carefully nursing it back to health, i knocked it into a table leg, which again, hurt very badly. and tonight, just two days after i stopped wearing the first aid tape because the toe was starting to heal, i dared to wander through a particularly dimly lit hallway in the apartment, at which point i accidentally kicked my foot into a cat - a cat that then completely freaked out and sliced me good. thus, not only have i screwed my toe pretty outrageously for the third time, i now have long, bloody claw marks running on top of the bruises i'd be trying to heal. does this insanity happen to anyone else? who re-snaps their toe bones on the sweet, fluffy fur of a cat (aside from me, obviously)?

so, i'm sitting in bed, in the dark, listening to luke's newly minted sleepy time tooth-gnashing habit, silently fuming about my toe. tantruming, at 22.

positively lovely

2009-06-27T21:28:00.001-07:00

the past few days have been relatively blissful. luke's off (school) work for the summer and so we've both had time to sleep in, watch tv, make coffee in our new coffee maker (of which we are so proud), run errands, clean up the place and just generally not be racing all over the city. i'm going in to nanny/personal assist in the afternoons, because i felt so guilty about bailing on the rest of the summer that i didn't want to leave until they found a replacement, but even having that 2 pm commitment isn't bringing me down - i feel like i'm genuinely taking time for myself, so that's been lovely.

the other day, as i was dropping off the boy i look after at one of his post-camp activities, i ran into a little girl from my kindergarten class, who froze when she saw me and then screamed my name and hugged me. we made a huge scene in the office of this post-camp activity and she started to cry. she was so excited to see me, it was incredibly adorable. i think i'd have a hard time explaining this to anyone except another person who'd worked in an intense classroom setting, but i feel like i really bonded with the kids (most of them, anyway) and it was very, very sad for me to say goodbye to them, knowing like i did that i won't be coming back to work at their school next year. thus, it was fabulous to see her and i was very pleased she was as excited to see me.

last night, josh and i went to see aretha franklin perform at the hollywood bowl, something i read today online she hasn't done in 35 years. it was a pretty spectacular show, except for the fact that it ran long and i'm no longer the incredible night owl i once was. i've known for a long time that i can get pretty damn near drunk on sleepiness, and as i drove my car back from josh's house near the beach where it was parked, i had to force myself to focus on the road. and i spent all of today recovering from my super rebellious concert experience, during which i sat smack in the middle of tons of baby boomers who were actually getting drunk. anyway, long story short, the concert was great, i'm just prematurely boring.

also also, i'm scheduled to meet on monday with the woman i'll be co-teaching with at the preschool over the summer and through the school year and i'm so excited. thrilled, to be exact. i've moved on to my "phase 2" baby hats and can now weave color patterns into the fabric - i am very proud of this accomplishment. and, luke and i have some appointments to check out wedding locations in the mountains, so i feel like i'm making serious wedding progress too. yipee!

life's shaping up very nicely at the moment.

developments, developments!

2009-06-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

sooo, this week has been eventful, to say the least. let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

on monday, i received the dreaded thin envelope* from the forensics program and therefore, i knew right away that i didn't get in. then, i had luke open the letter and it was official: i was totally rejected from my forensic anthropology dreams. this would have been devastating, completely and totally devastating, had i not been working at the school all this time. i've really discovered a surprisingly untapped passion for being in a classroom - frankly, i'm embarrassed i didn't figure it out sooner, because i've always loved kids and they've always loved me. so, with this newfound passion for teaching, i think i actually appreciate not getting into grad school (at least for right now). the universe has narrowed the field for me and focused my direction, which i absolutely needed (as if my recent experiments in retail, literary agencies, journalism internships, paleontology and nannying weren't indications that i have too many interests).

so, after hearing about grad school, i decided to bend to the will of the universe and drop my resume off at a preschool that was hiring new teachers. when i dropped by there on tuesday, they interviewed me on the spot. i adored the school and the other teachers and was thrilled to hear all about what the job entailed. it's the end of the school year in the kindergarten class and that's been insanely hectic and so when the preschool told me to expect a call next week, i quickly moved on to all the other craziness that is my life. i sorta figure that everyone in the world functions at the same level of busy insanity as i do, so when the preschool called on wednesday, i was completely sure they were going to tell me they'd given the position to someone else - the turn-around time was simply too fast. i was certainly not expecting them to offer it to me, especially considering my luck with applications lately. however, they did offer me the position, and very, very soon i will be working in a preschool! i am so excited. so excited. i'll have my very first salaried position, doing something i absolutely love. it's incredibly fantastic.

sadly, though, this new job means a) i won't be back at the elementary school next year and b) i also had to quit my nanny job today, because the preschool runs a summer program and i needed to be free to do it. both the kindergarten job and the nanny gig were my serious lifelines recently - the things that provided me not just with money in such a shiesty economy but also with the satisfaction of knowing i was productive and learning - and to let both of those positions go on the same day was a little torturous for me. leaving the school was particularly horrible, because all the little girls cried when we said goodbye - and there's nothing like a weeping six-year-old, using a tissue to dab away her tears, to really get you going.

it's all definitely for the best - i can't wait to start this new job with all the grand opportunities and education i'm sure i'll come across. it's just very, very strange to turn my whole life on a dime. in the span of a week, five days really, i've gone from anticipating forensic grad school and another year of public school assist work to knowing i'll be working full-time in a preschool. and, what's craziest, is that i'm completely and utterly content with and excited about this entirely new direction.

*the legal-sized envelope is a pretty solid indication of rejection, as someone who got into a program would get a huge manila envelope full of registration information and other success-related paperwork.

baby hats!

2009-06-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

i've become obsessed with knitting hats - specifically, baby hats. i can understand that translating as a little odd, as i have no babies and don't really even know any tiny babies anymore. however, i've been making them like crazy (the hats, not the babies) and i loooove it. there was a period of time, around march, when i was way into making adult knit hats and even forced one on luke's dad the first time i met him - he ended up walking around palm springs in spring wearing a double-knit fisherman's hat all weekend (...he's a very kind man). it wasn't long after that that i realized adults aren't really ever as jazzed about wearing hats as i am about making them. i suppose it was only a matter of time before i set my sights on the newborns - after all, they don't care at all about what's on their heads and they tend to be cold. plus, tiny things are adorable and i think you have more freedom making things for kids - anything is flattering or cute on a baby.

because i'm super obsessed, i needed to get some pictures up here immediately and could not wait to figure out the tech problem with my actual camera. thus, i've used photobooth and the pictures are borderline awful, but hopefully you get the idea. i gotta admit, they're way cute in person (and in better pictures).

if you know any babies, let me know. i've got a drawer full of tons of different hats and they need homes!

(the tassel on the gray one is a personal favorite)

brief horror update

2009-06-11T21:33:00.000-07:00

still no word from school. still. so that's giving me an ulcer.

plus, i had an encounter with a notoriously terribly behaved kid in my class that ended with me saying, "do. you. understand. me?" in a very scary voice, so the kids are giving me ulcers too.

i have six days of school left until summer, when i can hopefully have more time/sanity (and grad school resolution!) to figure out what's next.

maniac

2009-06-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

i'm feeling very blah right now. it's part exhaustion, part nerves, part total uncertainty about my life. i'm wiped from working two jobs, freaking out about waiting to hear about forensics grad school and am just generally completely over having to figure all this crap out. i wish i was an adult already, dammit. or at least on the road to becoming an adult.

i almost feel like i can't even get the apartment straightened up (let alone my life) because i'm so busy trying to keep afloat. sometimes i think that moving out of los angeles is the answer - in fact, at this point i'm almost certain that that is the answer. life moves too fast here and there really is never enough time or money to enjoy anything. that makes me sound like a complete whiny baby, especially considering that, all told, luke and i are living pretty well here (albeit not in a gigantic mansion by the beach). however, the driving, the cost of living, the people whose values are like the diametric opposite of ours are all slowly sucking the life-force out of me...not to be too dramatic, of course.

i feel like for the past year i've been frantically looking for something, reaching out like a maniac for these ideals that maybe belong to someone else. there's huge pressure here in los angeles to be a great financial success, which can be incredibly exhausting when none of your passions are all that lucrative (teachers and forensic anthropologists aren't exactly known for their wealth). i've been working insanely hard lately just to essentially break even, which is killing me. that's not to say i wouldn't have to work equally hard somewhere else, but i think, strangely enough, there would be more opportunities for me to achieve the things i want in a smaller city.

i want to move somewhere else and have an opportunity to actually live my life. i don't want a house right now, but it would be nice to be able to entertain the idea someday. (i'd have to live about three thousand years making what i make to buy a house here.) i'd like to be able to raise my own children and wash my own car and have a garden. i want to come home from work and not be so tired from traffic or long hours that i can't even do the dishes (although, in this dream world, i'd have a dishwasher).

i guess my point is that i miss being an active participant in my own life. i'm too busy. and, the worst part is that i don't think i can be any less busy, if i'm going to continue living in l.a. it's too expensive for me not to work and even if it wasn't, it's too soul-killing for me to stay home all day in this apartment in the middle of the urban sprawl. i can't get anything done when i'm free at home because i want to claw at the walls i hate being so close to other apartments so much. i loved being being at home when i lived in the 'burbs - perhaps because i could look out the window and see trees.

i'm making my life sound like a hellhole, and believe me, i understand it could be much worse. i'm just slowly formulating an l.a. escape plan and i wanted to share some of the reasoning behind it.

disneyland and wedding plans

2009-05-27T21:24:00.001-07:00

on saturday, luke and i journeyed to disneyland with my mom and dad and sam and clay, which is really something considering luke's dislike of disneyland and my dislike of huge, mobbing crowds. and it was memorial day weekend, so it was even more mobby than usual. that said, we had an amazingly fun time. we stayed together as a family unit for the entire day (as in, no one got frustrated and stormed off, with the exception of the 20 minutes sam spent at a shooting gallery in lieu of accompanying us on the pinocchio ride). we all just genuinely enjoyed spending time together so that was fab. we're also all very snarky and evil and spent most of the time we weren't picking on each other picking on the other people around us.

plus, i got to experience the tiki room for the first time in all my disneyland years.

here's one of the instant classics:

i'll upload more later when i'm 1) not so tired and 2) likely to have more patience (working with kids is exhausting).

in other news, i'm in full wedding planning mode. we spent memorial day at home with my family and my grandparents and it was then that i learned that my grandpa doesn't want any fool pool-covering company coming near his pool with plexi-glass and steel-reinforcements. and, that major blow to the wedding-in-the-grandparents'-backyard plan notwithstanding, i think it's a little too much responsibility and pressure to bestow upon close family just before i get married. thus, i'm in the market for a wide open meadow-y locale in which to host the wedding. i would be supremely stressed about the destruction of our location plans were it not for the very pleasant fact that i've found our photographer. since pretty much the very day i listed myself as "engaged" on facebook, little advertisements about photographers have danced around the right side of my profile and once, a few months back, i was tempted into clicking on one. as it turns out, i found marianne, whose photos are gorgeous and who, i learned after meeting with her today, is definitely someone i'd definitely feel comfortable hamming it up in front of.* she hasn't even taken any pictures of me and i'm already singing her praises.

see? it's not all about sarcasm with me.

*i am also quite comfortable ending sentences with prepositions.

delightfully wacky

2009-05-14T21:26:00.001-07:00

recently, i've discovered some very interesting and hilarious websites that are my smart-ass replacements for all the total shit celebrity trash i was feeding myself for months and months back when i was a card-carrying member of the "perez hilton train wreck" club. the new websites are: passiveagressivenotes.com, which i love, of course, because it's packed with snarky, evil messages people have left for all those who have done them wrong (i'm learning lots and will use it all to my advantage when i finally find the time to write my parking ticket complaint letter); and cakewrecks.blogspot.com, which isn't as snarky but is often hilarious; and postsecret.com, which isn't exactly new to my rotation, but fits nicely into the above category. this websites, along with the copy of "mortified" i just got in the mail, have planted a seed in my brain: i need to think up a new blog that would allow me to collect fabulous, creative, hysterical information from around the world and share it with people. i absolutely adore the idea of setting up a theme, collecting photos or quotes and displaying them. maybe it taps directly into my intense need to be a voyeur (which, incidentally, is why i loved paparazzi photos for such a long time). whatever the reason for my desire to do this, i suddenly feel that i must. sadly, though, my only idea as of right now is to start a collection of "vacation photos from afar,"* which i tend to think only i consider hilarious.

i'll have to keep working on it.

*my love for the insanity that is the widescreen tourist photo was born after my family's trip to chicago and springfield, missouri last summer, when my mother handed me a gigantic stack of pictures she'd taken with disposable cameras and had developed in doubles so that i could have copies. nearly half of the hundreds of pictures she took were, i kid you not, of me or my brother or my dad from what appears to be two miles away, as we inspect lincoln's outhouse or pose in front of chicago's field museum. these photos, and how delightfully bizarre they are, struck a cord with me. obviously. (just try to find me in the big picture up there that you thought was all tree and shanty house.)

sloooobs

2009-05-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

as much as i enjoy having a blog on which to rant about all the supposed insanity and injustice i experience in my life, i'm not actually a giant demon. i think i roll with the punches much, much better than some people i know. so, when i do get really aggravated, like truly enraged, i feel like it must really be justified (because i am the personification of justice itself, apparently). anyway, today i'm riding the aggravation train because i got a parking ticket this afternoon and something about set me off. to wit:

i deserved the ticket. i didn't properly read the signs and i parked in a permit-only zone on my way to take the little boy i babysit to see his allergist. so, my fault. however, when i opened up the ticket's envelope, i was met with smears of tomato sauce and pieces of burnt cheese, not unlike the stuff someone would leave behind when eating a slice of pizza. therefore, unless someone walking down a fully residential street in santa monica, eating a mid-day slice of pizza, saw the ticket on my windshield and decided to open it up and eat over it, only to replace it perfectly under my wiper, the guy who issued me the ticket was the one eating and unwittingly left me some scraps. this really, really upsets me for two reasons: 1) as i've mentioned many times, i'm a hypochondriac, raised by the best, and have absolutely no desire to have to handle someone's leftover food (food that, for all i know, could have actually fallen out of said person's mouth), and 2) my number one pet peeve could be called "failure to realize that there are other people in the universe who do not want to be involved in your personal business."* number 2 is perhaps very much related to number 1.

so, i've decided to take a page out of my great-aunt carole's handbook and write a letter to the city. i know, i know, this seems insane. and maybe it is, but i'm enjoying the prospect too much to stop now. thus far in my note, i've described the situation and mentioned that i'm usually too easy-going to write a complaint, blah, blah, blah. the ending is my favorite and i wanted to share it here:

"i have brothers and i work with kids, so i'm not easy to shock. that said, when i receive paperwork from the city, i expect, at the very least, that it will be sanitary. i feel so strongly that official paperwork should arrive in good condition that despite being very hungry, i'm waiting to eat with my hands until after i postmark this letter."

zing!

*this pet peeve can be extended to include: flipping one's hair onto surrounding strangers in lecture halls or public transportation, having loud cell phone conversations, playing your terrible music way too loud (thank you, girl upstairs!), spitting on the sidewalk, coughing/sneezing without covering your face, smacking your food/gum and now, eating like a slob whilst you issue a government form.