ta-da!

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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

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?