A Messy French Affair

I'm not a nail painter. I don't really have to patience for the up keep nor the money for it to be done professionally but occasionally I'll catch a whim and paint them.

I did this recently with a fancy polish called "French Affair" and despite it's fancy name and pretty color it was a mess to get on, too thin and runny. After the third coat it looked fairly good with only a few fingerprints and small uncovered spaces.

What I find interesting is that my strangely pink nails received a lot of attention. I walked around with my heavy feeling fingertips receiving complements from strangers and friends alike. I have some trepidation about the whole praise thing, I've become rather insecure in my old age. So I'm walking around and people at random are telling me that they like my nails and I'm wondering if my nose is bleeding or if my hair is missing a large patch in the back or something.

By the time I removed the polish it was badly chipped and I had indeed suffered a few bloody noses (probably more to do with the try air at my jobs and a self-diagnosed sinus infection) but I was beginning to like the color and half expected to see it when I looked down at my hands.

So here's to taking complements for what they are and lamenting the only French affair I've ever had has been on my nails!

You're like a Pro!

Pro as in professional not pro as in prostitute but then again prostitute may be more flattering than suit fit pro. Now you may not understand the upset this causes but it makes me seem like a lifer. I don't want to be a lifer I find it so offensive and sad that that is the best that people can see in me, or worse that it's the best that I can do. I don't want to go to that dark place again but its looking like the next best thing to a happy place.

I may have four, count them four, pants fit certifications and for that I should hang myself. I know a little melodramatic, but kind of true. And I've taken it upon myself to train the new people at work since no one else has. I mean these girls can fold clothes and create holds for the fitting rooms but thats about it and with the DM looming no one is going to train them.

Wait! Why would I do that, I only make $8.10 an hour (that's right Ann Taylor, I just published you're hourly wage. Suck the big one.). I do this so that I'm not bored. What does that say about my work ethic? Why can't I get hired?

From now on I'm going to wear glasses to my interviews. Maybe tighter skirts or something. I thought looking cute was enough, professional cute. But here I am working two jobs, some days 12 hours (two days this week) and not making enough to pay my bills on time.

Tell me again that the economy is taking a turn for the better. Then take a look at my finances. Tell me that I've got everything to look forward to, I'm young and I'm unattached then spend a week-no a month- in my shoes and keep smiling.

So here's to Ann Taylor sucking the life out of me and killing me for being a good employee. Thank you for your financial support and care Ann. If you were a real person I'd consider arson or murder. But instead I challenge the top dogs, the cooperate honchos to live with the decisions they make me live with. Give up the savings and the cooperate perks, live with the wage and smile through your teeth as a third of the people you are forced to help treat you like dirt because they married men with bachelor's degrees who make an excess of $100,000 a year. If only I had obtained some type of degree, then I could go somewhere with my life.

Oh, wait I have one.

MetaDreaming... What's up with that?

I fell asleep when I got home from work today. I was in bed in my dress pants, sweater and knee highs face down dreaming about being in bed in my dress pants, sweater and knee highs. I managed to get my glasses off before I started dreaming so I knew I was dreaming by how well I was seeing in said dream but thats where it gets weird.

So clearly seeing the darkness behind my eyes and freaking out silently in my mind as I gaze into the darkness that is the space behind the eyelids because I'm paralyzed. I can't move and I know I can't move and I wouldn't  have been moving if I could have moved because I was asleep. But in my sleeping head I knew all this and was still screaming silently through my closed mouth.

The radio downstairs wakes me up at 5:07 PM and I'm not entirely sure where I am and I'm still not moving at the rate I feel I should be, it's exhausting and the cat keeps walking in circles around me while I stagger from place to place.

Then I woke up at 1:13 PM and still confused am now wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. It took a few hours of mind rest on the couch to get back to normal though I'm still afraid that my face is paralyzed or that I'm still sleeping. Though the radio is finally off so at least I don't have to listen to easy-listening any more.

What ever happened to good radio?

Waiting for "Next Monday"

Fortune cookies are the single most amusing bland dessert ever. They bring a bit of fun to the overstuffed and create a wonderful decoration for "my" work computer (which is not only not mine but I share it with plenty of people). Last week I was having a craving for gross-heavy eating so I went the Chinese route for lunch. My cookie had an oddly specific fortune: Opportunity awaits you next Monday.

So I waited. Yesterday, "next" Monday came and went and nothing special happened. I did take a class at the gym, a class that I've taken plenty of times before but this time with a new teacher, it was a small opportunity and today my shoulders and abs and hips and back are thanking and hating me. I helped win an electronic scrabble game but as it might have been an opportunity I don't know for what. I wrote a letter for my mom. Made a salad and ate the leaves (hate the leaves) but thats only an opportunity to eat more fiber.

So do I take it that the fortune has bad timing? No, I think my fortune cookie tricking me into laziness.

Spring is Springing

Not sprung just yet so hold on a bit longer. I did see some leaves today, little tiny green leaves all over a strange tree that was half hanging in the road where I was walking this morning.

The daffodil leaves are up but no yellow buds, the grass is greening up and the mud is out and about. All is well on this here first day of spring!

I'm Writing a Rash Post that Will Bring Out the Tree Hugger in Me

So I got a text message today. It's not a first but it was interesting. It asked if I had gotten the news, I replied that I hadn't because if I had I wouldn't have been utterly bewildered at what news it could be. Then I got a response to my reply, and I feel a bit bad about my reaction here guys, the text said "Max passed away, he was killed by a bear." In my head I'm like: who is this Max?? And after running though a list of people Max is not I realize a second before asking my sister, who seems upset, who he is it smacks me in the face (too soon?) Max is-was one of my father's cats. He was a 25 pound orange cat with paws the size of my palm and fur so long and soft.

And he's dead. Killed by a bear. This isn't surprising though, my dad lives in the mountains with black bears. He has, for as long as he's lived there, thought of them of giant wild pets, feeding them (illegal) and getting unreasonably close to them (stupid). Recently my dad decided that his four kitties were outside eligible, all of them were raised indoors (stupid) and two of them are declawed (inhumane). Mind you outside cats get fed outside. Bears have been counting on food from my dad's front porch for a few years now-- are you getting where this is going?

So now my dad has a permit to kill the bear and my sisters all we're going to make a rug out of you m***er-f***er (is there a hyphen in that?). So the bear will get it and all will rejoice.

Am I the only one seeing the injustice here? Animal cruelty perhaps? What I'm saying is that killing a wild animal for competing for its food (natural) seems rather unreasonable. Also putting cat food on the front porch might be good for the cats but in a place where you can't store trash outside or food wrappers in your car why would you leave food where the bears could compete for it? Why would you put inside cats outside? Why would you put pets where they could become prey for coyotes (they eat cats too) and bears (though he wasn't prey from what I understand, he was an obstetrical)?

So my friends, I'm thinking that given the amount of criticism I receive for ragging on the family I will not go too far with my judgement of my father. I will only say that occasionally one gets what is coming to him. And if there is a God then he will make a special case of reincarnation to the swell fella I call Dad.

Plight of the Feet

Here us now!

We are sore, and don't claim rest and recuperation! Get new shoes!


The feet are right. I need to get out of the habit of buying cheap shoes (which I spelled schools the first time I typed it, sup with that Freud?) and go back to buying shoes that are cute and well built. I have a bruise caused by my shoes, under my big toenail, you know the one toenail that you can't just cut off and be done with it.

My feet are especially angry after about an hour of numbness at the gym. They think that tennis shoes that fit my foot structure might be better than ones that my feet fit into and were on clearance at Ross. And though my feet know how I've been working this past year they've somehow neglected to consider the financial impact of all the work and all the bad shoes.

I wonder if I could find a podiatrist?

 Don't be silly feet, I'm too cheap to pay to see a doctor!

Sleep Deprived and Accident Prone

I shouldn't whine about working, as I continuously chant my mantra "Happy to have a job." But the news says things are turning around and all I'm seeing is more of the same thing. Also, working all the time has made me a bit short and craven of routine (I just wanted Monday to be like Monday, is that so hard to do?). My seven day a week schedule has me so messed up by 8:30 PM I'm staring waiting for the clock to strike an appropriate sleep hour.

Even with seven or so hours of sleep a night I've become accident prone. We have the previously discussed ankle/screw injury, yesterday a mysterious crescent shaped laceration appeared on my palm (today it is purple and really sore), and then this morning in the shower I discovered a long bloody gash down the back of my right arm. It had scabbed so it wasn't terribly fresh, but with the exception of the short time it took me to get into my pjs yesterday I had been in long sleeves for 24 plus hours.

I fear my car is next or I'll lose an eye. I've turned into a weepy mess any time I'm alone but I'm agitated when people are around. Every night I sit on the couch and turn on the tele thinking it's Thursday. No lie, Monday I even asked my younger sister why the normal Thursday programming wasn't on.

I now know why there are people who drink heavily everyday. I can't, my jeans are a large enough size as is, but the idea of continuing on like this is disheartening, the future is bleak. Basically I fear I've dug myself into a hole of resignation and will live there working two part-time jobs, living with my mother and lamenting both of these things for the rest of my life.

Some days this fear is motivation, some it is just the opposite but I need a change, if only to keep my mystery injuries at bay.

Spruced up the Resume Today

My new resume includes my other blog.. noboomerangleftbehind.blogspot.com and my four, count them four, pants fit certs.

So I Forgot.

You remember my little latex rant?

Yeah the whole reason I wrote it was in part due to a bandaid emergency at work. I had sprung a leak in my latex-free paster (which is much closer to the reality of my bandage than the typical bandaid) and needed a new one to keep my pantyhose from becoming soiled by goop. I went to put the fresh one one, I'm talking bathroom one leg out of my pantyhose (work required folks, so not a personal choice here) ripping the packing open only too wonder if the lovely thing was latex-fee. It wasn't, to be sure. And on top of it there was the handy dandy warning against reaction.

Though no one saw me, I was thoroughly embarrassed by the whole episode (which is why I'm writing it in a conspicuous place like the internet) but survived.

So tell me big world, why is latex still infesting everything when it is a common enough allergy that it has it's own warning label?

Yeah, that's what I thought, makes no sense. Neither does having to remind the dentist that not changing gloves could kill me.

My Curse to Carry

The embarrassment of having to explain the severity of my allergy and blushing while people, oblivious to how impossibly prude I really am, make less than awesome references to dirty, dirty sex. It's hard to explain why, at 23, when I say "No, I was blowing up balloons for my roommates' (that apostrophe  is correct.) boyfriend's roommate's birthday," I blush. I'm not lying, though it wasn't my first reaction to latex, it was the the reaction that cemented in my mind the source of my allergy.

(My first, if you much know, was in my AP Bio class during our two plus week fetal pig dissection. Those things are swimming in formalin and filled with latex...tasty. )

I, though it is easier said than done, must rise above my embarrassment and be the voice of the anti-latex movement. So here goes.

Restaurants, stores, birthday parties, pens we need to talk. Balloons kill. And I'm not just talking about grown-up baby cancer patients, dolphins and penguins. I'm talking about eating, shopping, aging, writing human beings without an over exposure problem. Please cruel world, help us. Stop poisoning the air with your gaiety. 

Slips of the Tongue or The Beauty of English as a Second Language

Back story: Yesterday I was pulling a rack of clothing behind me at work, restocking the holes that had formed in the course of the week, when I ran the rack into my ankle. This happens often enough, but instead of just a super painful bruise from the bar, a screw tore a chunk of flesh from the back of my ankle. I bled, a lot. And six bandaids, a wad of gauze and a ruined show I pulled it together with three butterflies and went about the next five or so hours as best I could. I found those special blister bandaids and have used those to seal the mess.

Today I was working my job and at this job I have to wear pantyhose. Halfway through the day my ankle is leaking through its seal so I tell one of the ladies I work with. I tell her the back story and she says

What, were you trying to screw yourself?

I'm always afraid hablar Español  because I have horrid slip ups. Admittedly, I cannot put enough words together to form anything as funny as this slip up.  But my Indian coworker has been in the US for ten or so years and her English is nearly impeccable. But the slang things they're always harder. So I had a bit of a giggle at her expense. She was kind enough to laugh along with me recognizing her blunder.

I'm jealous of her ability to speak fluently in more than one language. But I was not, as she said, trying to screw myself. I was merely trying to get my job done so I could go home. And I got a seepy wound. Seepy is  gross, grosser than everything else except for seepy green. We haven't gotten to green seepy yet. Though if we do I'll take a picture and share it with you.
 

 

International Viewers

Last night China entered my audience. Already my Chinese readership has surpassed all other nations, except Canada (love you Canada) in their interest in my blog, I'm not sure if I should be ecstatic or worried. I don't think I know anyone in China who could be leading this rush.

Anyways, hello China!

Stateriotism

My sister is a stateriot (think patriot). She even has pictures of the state flag on her return address labels.

Robert Duvall is also a stateriot. He told Esquire that VA was the the next best thing to heaven. He used to live in the same town as me. Heaven? Maybe not but his current farm appears to be pretty awesome.

This term "stateriot" came to me today when I saw the address label (also why does my 21 year-old sister have return address labels?). I feel as if a real word for the love of one's state should exist. I am consulting Google as I speak...fruitless.

My attempts were feeble but if you Google stateriotism you'll get results. Also if you know what the real word for loving your state is let me know.

The Trifecta

New gang in town ya'll. (And we may have stolen someone else's' gang name and I mean no disrespect.) We are the Trifecta and we have a handshake.

It involves a three-way super-white fist bump.

This fist bump was conceived over Italian Wedding Soup as my mother ran off to take a call from a man she met on the internet (really? yes, I don't fib about said things).

So respect to the Trifecta.

Respect.

The Old Mind is a Slippin'

So I'm not old. But my mind is just plain exhausted (I need to learn to spell that word, and experience [which is just spelled right on my own for the first time, ever]). I'm having bizarre nightmares. Like my unborn child (in the dream) burned my hair off my head and I had to get the rest of it cut off. For those of you who don't know I'm going through a balding period. I was wearing my bangs straight down, I was deciding if I needed a haircut the other day and was messing with my bangs, I can't wear them straight down any longer because I have two major holes in my hairline. Balding periods suck, and apparently I'm having anxiety of this one.

Anyhow, my anxious mind thought of two very clever things in the course of the day for me to write to you about. I have since forgotten. I just remember thinking that you would have enjoyed them.

Also, I have a brain tumor, self-diagnosed. I keep having strange tingling on my scalp and shoulder. Same two places, so I know it must be corresponding places in my brain. I thought about plotting  my symptoms into WebMD but come on, I wanted to be a doctor at one point, I know what I'm talking about: Something clever.

Goat Cheese: So Good, So Bad

As a cheese person in a cheese family I've always been a bit underwhelmed by the household cheese variety. Part of it is financial and part of it fear so when I branched out to goat cheese it didn't surprise me that the $7 log turned moldy before I could finish it. No one else will venture to its wonderful tangy smoothness.

Tonight though I was making butternut squash and tortellini soup. It's alright, my mom is a huge fan. Anyhow, I'm cooking the tortellini separately so that it is fully cooked come the final product. I pop one of those bad boys in my mouth and then it happened:

Goat cheese napalm plastered the roof of my mouth, sizzling as the skin festered and bubbled. No amount of panicked gnashing helped. My teeth and tongue fought tirelessly in vain.

The worst part, no one made me a milkshake for dinner. I had to eat the soup stuff with my mouth all raw. I guess the moral of the story is not to eat hot goat cheese. It's good but deadly.

"Tonight, Pinky, We Take Over the World!"

It's a cartoon reference to mice. It's ok if you don't get it.

I'm just writing to thank all you international folk who have stumbled upon this here blog for reading. I would like to thank my continual support from Canada and the UK but must add that I'm thoroughly enjoying the Colombian and Iranian readership. And Croatia, thank you Croatia for you're views!

Though the people who read this blog and tell me they read this blog say I'm amusing I have received some criticism from my mother that I am not positive enough. Let's consider this a step in the right direction.

A Note on How Prude I Really Am

Cover thy self!

I'm all about being comfy with your body, hell, clothes are something of an option...while in your own home. The gym locker room is not, however, clothing optional. I know that at some point in changing or showering you have to strip down. I do it too. But at no point is it alright to stand stark naked with your wet hair wrapped in a towel and chat with someone across the room. Not a single instance. Save the nudey talk for the bedroom or even your kitchen, as long as I'm not standing in it.

I'm working on the assumption that these middle aged women who prance around in public spaces in their birthday suits are missing something at home. I missed my chance to take human sexuality classes in college but working on the basic understand that at some level all people need some type of physical love in order to keep them in a good head space otherwise people end up flashing cars as they drive down the highway or something. I don't want to see your naughty bits, please have a bit of shame and cover up (especially if you are using the locker next to mine and as you approach said locker I am bent rummaging for something in my bag which I have placed on the floor. I don't need a face full of your naked nethers.)

Please undersexed mid-lifers for my give up the sin verguenza for me.

What it Means to be American

We like to pretend to be Canadians when we're abroad in hopes of catching less flack being of los Estados Unidos. And I say we because it's a pretty common thing though I've never attempted it. I believe my volume and girth (which is not to say that I weigh some ungodly 400 lbs but I am thick and thick stands out in a lot of places) give me away.

I never did understand why flag waving patriots who cackle at Canadian accents (have you ever heard the accent of the American Southeast? Seriously its both endearing and grating, talking that slow makes you sound "slow" and yet hot!) buy Canadian flag patches for their jackets and backpacks (and readers of Canada raise your hand if you have your country's flag sewn onto any if not all of your personal belongings). The rest of the world sees right through you for the following reasons:

1. You are loud, covered it, I know but one day you'll be abroad and in a quite moment happen upon other Americans and you'll see what I mean.

2. You are overweight. There are fatties in other countries but not like there are here, I'm not judging, I'm just saying.

3. You are dressed too casually, I once read a piece by Amy Tan that described how her Chinese mother seemed to not be able to put outfits together in any sort of subtle color scheme and as Tan was Chinese-American she was embarrassed by it. Americans we do that, in a way. And while not everyone wears athletic shoes, t-shirts, jeans and baseball caps at the same time, these items of clothing in any combination will make you stick out.

4. You are prude. Or I am prude. Really, we are prude. I'm so prude I don't understand how prude I am. Causal extramarital affair, though widely practiced, it is super-un-American in that it is shameful. I hear that this is the case in some other places, but still casual sex makes your mother wince and I think that by the time you become your mother you'll wince too. Also, I hear you have the clap.

5. You can't spell in English, your native tongue, which you believe everyone should speak fluently. I lumped a few things in here but you understand it I hope. I hate having to speak Spanish because as it is my second "language" I can't for comfortable sentences without first having my inhibitions wiped away with a bit of booze. I had to yesterday, the person I was talking to didn't understand a bit of English and I can't blame him this language is a bit of a challenge. But he was making me uncomfortable with my Spanish because he wasn't reacting like he recognized the words that I was saying. So I don't expect everyone to speak English. I can't spell though. I have the handy-dandy spell check on the computer but anyone who has ever received a text message from me knows that letters don't make sense to me. Also I often am told that my misspellings are forgivable because I am American and don't know any better! I am both comforted and offended.

So my loud, fat, sloppy, prude monolingual friends stop pretending to be Canadian. Be as American as you can because you'll either be helping America's reputation or hurting it but there is no need to be hurting (or helping?) Canada's reputation (sorry Canada).