Random photo day...

This little bag.... ....was shipped to me in this big box.
All that was in the bag was a tube of mascara and a lipstick pencil thingy. I'm not sure the scale comes through properly here, but rest assured the box was far bigger than necessary. Hi, wasteful much? I love you, Sephora, but surely you have smaller shipping boxes?

This is me, before hula class. Note the smoothness of the bangs. (And no, I didn't cut all my hair off. It's up, to mitigate some of the sweating.)

This is me after. Shiny! I did manage to wipe away the sweaty streaks of mascara from my browbone before I snapped the photo. Oh, yeah... this was after I fell on the stairs, too. I've been trying to take a decent picture of the angry bruise on my leg, but they're too horrifying to post.
Me, "normal." Which is to say, blurry! Funny how these pictures look so much better on the viewfinder than they do once I upload them...

But I'm caught up in a whirlwind...

I love random musical encounters.

I was out shopping last weekend when one of my favorite-yet-forgotten songs from the 80's came on the store's sound system. It was a good thing I was carrying an armload of clothes to try on, because that's the only thing that stopped me from dancing.

HOW could I have forgotten about The Style Council?? I used to blast this tune from my car stereo while driving between my three jobs when I was 20.




And then I remembered this song...




Oh man. This SONG. Makes me SWOON. Still. SO many memories surround this one, and they all came flooding back while I listened after I got home. Bittersweet, to be sure. I found myself getting all teary-eyed, but not entirely in a bad way. I don't think it's a bad thing to remember feeling such a deep love for someone.

Even though that someone would go on to tear my heart out and stomp all over it, but that was years later. And the song comes from that time in my life when love was lovely.

Both songs are now on my iPod. I love how modern technology can take me back to my past...

The problem with all this working out...

...is that I'm FUCKING STARVING.

Okay, not really. I have plenty to burn. But I can tell my metabolism's in a higher gear these days because when I start to feel hungry, I am ravenous. RAVENOUS, I tell you. (Like I am right now, but I just had a manicure and if I try to plate my Burmese take-out dinner too soon, I'll mess up my nails. I guess you can see where my priorities are...)

This is the first week in a looooong time during which I actually managed to work out five days out of seven. I took long, vigorous walks on three days. I went to a hula practice gathering on Sunday, and that turned into a full-fledged class when one of the guys who runs the halau (school) showed up to play the ipu heke for us (double gourd... it's used in a drum-esque fashion) and ended up running our little casual practice and drilled us into pools of sweat. Then the actual hula class last night.

Yay, me. I can actually feel the difference. My quads and glutes are getting a hell of a workout, but I was definitely spent by the end of class last night.

Which is my excuse for tripping over my own feet and falling on the stairs in my apartment building when I came home after class.*

At least I fell going UP and not down...but I have a lovely bruise on my thigh in the spot where I landed on my "Prada" purse.

Dooooooooooork.

But hey, there's some new Celery! Check it out!


*yes, i can hear you laughing, rebecca, laura, and angela...

Hey!

Screamy kid outside my apartment building!

Stop screaming! I'm trying to nap in here!

That is all.

Thank you.

I love it when strangers patronize me...

Isn't that pretty? It's part of the bunch o'roses I bought the other night. They smell lovely too.

And when I bought them, the (older, male)cashier said he hated seeing "attractive women" buying their own flowers.

Okay. This comment came at the end of a long week (and after that long walk pictured in my last post) and I wasn't really thinking, so all I said was, "I'd rather buy them myself than not have them at all."

Which is true. But why did he assume I was buying them for myself? Perhaps I was buying them for someone else. Perhaps I get flowers all the time from other people, and this was a rare occurrence, me buying flowers.

Who the fuck cares whether anyone buys me flowers, anyway?? I don't. I LOVE getting flowers, but I don't base my self-worth on whether I buy them or someone else does.

I wish I'd thought of that at the time. Then again, I'm not really into confronting strangers who make stupid comments in the guise of a compliment. At least I think there was supposed to be a compliment in there, but since I was dressed for a workout and nothing else, I wasn't even considering that anyone would even pay one iota of attention to me.

On another subject: have you been wondering why I keep saying hula's so challenging? Take a gander at this. It's very much in the style of what we've been learning since last July, though we're not nearly this good or this fast, and our chanting SUUUUUCKS compared to what these women are doing. They're goooooood, at everything.

I was pleased to see them breathing heavily at the end of the second dance. Made me feel MUCH better.

I don't think I can adequately describe how hard some of those moves are. See how low they're dipping? Try that. No. LOWER. LOWER. It's never low enough. At the same time, make sure you're working your hips properly AND doing the right things with your arms. It's hard.

But in a good way. I'm so glad my friend Rebecca decided we should do this, even though she can't fit it into her life anymore. I had no idea I'd love me some hula.

I heart my City...

...a photo essay. (Also, proof that I went for a walk after work last evening!*)

The Ferry Building. Historic and beautiful, especially since it was refurbished a few years ago. Not sure who these girls are supposed to be -- maybe I should get closer and see if there's a plaque, duh -- but they sure look cool.
Not Hills Brothers anymore. Now houses offices and a very yuppified eatery. See that striped post on the left? Those are all over the Embarcadero, and have historical information and pictures on them.
Our fireboat. We didn't have one of these before the 1989 earthquake.
Bay Bridge. If you look closely enough, on the other side of the island, you can see the other, less picturesque half of the bridge, which is being replaced for seismic reasons.

Sidewalk poetry. Love it. (And only a few people looked at me like I was insane when I stopped to take pictures OF THE SIDEWALK.)

Cupid loves my city too. Not sure why I took this one, but I like it.
Yup, that's the Transamerica Pyramid.

Now you can see why I'm enjoying these walks so much.

*and when i got home, i actually cleaned house. yes, you read that right. i went for a long walk AND cleaned house... ON A FRIDAY. that's a first.

Spam spam spam spam....

I usually don't pay attention to the spam I get in my email. I just scan over the bulk mail to make sure nothing ended up there by mistake before deleting. But lately, I've noticed all sorts of wisdom in the subject lines. Here is a sample of a day's worth of such subject lines.

- is equivocal my chuckwalla

Where is my chuckwalla, anyway? Equivocal, indeed.

- be no micography

Good advice. Being micography is bad.

- her basilisk in whelp

I had to look up basilisk on dictionary.com, because I had never seen the word before:

1. Classical Mythology. a creature, variously described as a serpent, lizard, or dragon, said to kill by its breath or look.

So, there's a baby serpent somewhere? Cool!

- he an audacious

He audacious, yo.

- A so profundity

SO profound!

- dearth purr

At first, I thought this said "death purr," and I laughed my ass off. Then I realized the message was that there's a dearth of purring, and that made me sad. We need more purring.

- by pugnacious an prep

"A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts!"*

- Of in devonshire

Have another preposition.

- was eyesore an respite

I got nothin' for this one.

- Be circulant no preach

Yes, tis better to be circulant than to be a preach. I've heard that before.

- Of ventilate he rotunda

Please, ventilate the rotunda.

- Is ferrite he fiendish

Watch out for fiendish ferrous materials!

And my absolute favorite:

- Be evidential be cannonball

Excellent advice, that. Words to live by.


Speaking of subject lines, my pal Kim put together a most hilarious list of subject lines from a bunch of our email conversations. Okay, WE think it's hilarious. I'm not sure you will, but here it is:

bleah...
wow!!
oh FUCKING A
it's a good thing
mickey mouse
oops!
oh, funny
breathing?
knowing yourself
um...what??
:-)
hey mama...
Boytards
man...i needed that!
pecan pie
HAAAAA!!!
macaroni season
i'm off!
ok i'm blushing
awwwww :-)
eucalyptus?
croak
a problem with your sperm
tiny tim
unattached, thank you, and...


*you win my undying admiration if you can name the movie this line is from...

The felon in the family...

So, now my brother's a convicted felon.

Click here for the back story. It's not pretty.

At a pre-trial hearing last week, he finally entered a guilty plea. Good move, since he's on tape admitting he took the money. He's to be sentenced in June.

And my mom's asked me to help her write the victim's statement she's been asked to submit for the sentencing. I see this as the writing assignment of a lifetime, because it could tip the balance toward a stiffer sentence. I hope. He could just end up with supervision, which would suck big donkey balls. Probation would suck only a little less than that.

I want blood.

Figuratively. Of course.

Yeah. Um.

(Then again, if I were to ever see him again, it would be mighty difficult to keep my hands off his throat... )

I know. Terrible. Whatever. I'm not anywhere close to that forgiveness notion. Especially when my mother continues to blame herself for "raising him this way."

Fucking fucker. Rot in hell.


(yeah, I'm still a little hormonal...)

Most random...

How did it get to be Sunday night again already? Where do the weekends go? And equally as important -- what on earth had me so busy last week? Isn't it odd when you're going going going and at the end of it all, you don't really have much to say about all of it?

Here, then, are some random snippets from my brain.

• I did, indeed, get to meet Jon this week, while he was in the area on business. Yay! After I managed to get him slightly lost (he got himself a little more lost after that) with my overly-elaborate-yet-a-tad-unclear directions to one of my favorite bars, we had Sidecars and Indian food and then more cocktails and lots of laughs. I was having so much fun I didn't realize how late it was until I got home. Oopsie. At least I didn't get him lost on his way back to BART, since I walked with him over there.

• I was back at my alma mater this week to speak to some students who aspire to work in my field...and boy, did I feel old when I realized that in May, it will have been 20 years since I graduated from college. TWENTY. Since COLLEGE. Oh. My. GOD. And there's been enough new construction on campus in those two decades (!!) that I didn't recognize much about the area I was in. Wild, especially since I lived on that campus for four semesters. It was also interesting to hear these idealistic students talk about my industry. Ahh, yes... I remember thinking that way too...

• If you should come across a documentary about men in hula on public television ("Na Kamalei: Men of Hula"), I highly recommend watching it. I went to a packed screening Friday night, and it was really great. It features the teacher who taught my teacher, so my halau (hula school) made up a large part of the audience. It made me want to bust my ass even more so I can try to come somewhere close to making it look as easy as the guys in the film do.

• You know your hormones are wigging when you get teary-eyed at the end of an episode of MTV's "Made."

• Behold the replacement for the clock from hell. This one has a very dimly-lit face, so I don't have the urge to bury it (or toss it out the window) just so I can sleep. It also allows me to set the alarm for Monday through Friday, so I don't have to remember to disable it for the weekends! What will they think of next? I can even wake up to my iPod, if I so choose.

• Look at the size of this tag:
  

These are the washing instructions for a new sweater I bought this week. And it's the longest fucking tag I've ever seen. It's even longer than my longest finger, and I have long fingers. All it says, really, is to hand wash the thing, inside out, to dry it flat, and iron it inside out. In three languages. It's ridiculous. And now it's in the trash.

• This is my new favorite website. It is NOT SAFE FOR WORK. I can't emphasize that enough. Don't even think about it. But it is soooo funny, I find myself shying away from drinking anything while perusing the latest postings. Otherwise, I'd be spitting all over my monitor.

• I think I'm going back to the laundry service that comes to me. Taking my stuff over to the nearest wash-and-fold joint didn't really save me much money, since they charge more per pound. Might as well make this as convenient as possible...

• I'm still not used to the time change. I keep thinking it's earlier than it is, and that's only going to get me in trouble in managing my time...and getting to bed when I should.

Random enough for ya?

Outsourcing drudgery...

Yeah, it's another laundry post. But with a twist.

If you've been here before, you know how much I hate dealing with my laundry. HATE it. I've written about this a few times.... like here ... and here ... and oh yeah... here too. It's the most tedious task of my week, and a giant time suck, since I live in an apartment and we have no laundry room on site. And installing small machines in my apartment is out of the question.

Several months ago, after I got my new job, a colleague suggested I send my laundry out. To be washed, dried, and folded by others. I balked at first, because the washing instructions on some of my clothes (mainly, my favorite stuff) are too complicated. No, it's not that my clothes are so nice they require special handling; these items are cheaply made (yet overpriced), so I fear they might disintegrate if handled improperly.

But last week, I finally decided to send out the stuff that didn't need special handling. Here it is, all sorted and ready to go. I chose a service that even came to pick up the stuff for me!

Laundry pick-up guy showed up right on time (before 7 a.m., even), took my laundry AND my dry cleaning away, and promised to return the next day at the same time with clean stuff.

Here it is, all clean and folded. (They even washed those laundry bags!)

Cool, no? I still had to do some laundry myself, but having a service take care of my other stuff saved me TONS of time and trouble. A process that typically takes 2 hours or so, from the time I start sorting to the time I am done folding and putting away shrunk to about 30 minutes, if that.

My only complaint is that they used fabric softener on the towels, and I had asked them not to, but that's not a big deal. It cost about 18 bucks, the stuff I sent out, plus a $5 delivery fee (which they waive if you send out larger loads)... but when you add it all up, including the double-load I did myself, my laundry last week cost about $15 more than usual, give or take.

I think my time and trouble is worth 15 bucks. But I'm going to check with the dry cleaner nearest to my home, to see how much it would cost to bring my laundry in myself. If it's signifcantly cheaper, I'll do that, and not indulge in the luxury of having someone pick up and drop off. Or maybe I'll switch off, every other week. I'll have to see how this works out over the long term.

Since I released myself from this chore, I had to make a deal. With myself. To use the time I freed up productively, and not to sit on my ass, watching TV. So I worked out two more days last week than I typically do.

And I finally got it into my head that I could bring my workout duds to work, and go for a long walk at the end of the day, BEFORE running errands. I tend to run errands on my way home, then get home and decide I'm too tired to walk after that. Excuses, excuses. I'm good at that. And it's so easy to reverse that process, now that I get to drive to work.

I even took a long walk on Friday, which I never, ever do. I'm always pooped on Fridays. But I was in such a good mood after that walk along the Embarcadero Friday evening! It was a great way to start the weekend, on a total endorphin high. The slow browsers at Trader Joe's didn't even bug me as much as they usually do.

This week is a little more challenging, as I have some social engagements planned (for instance, I'm meeting Jon tomorrow!), but I'm fully committed to taking better care of myself. No, really. REALLY.

I even bought more workout clothes last weekend, instead of more going-out or work clothes. Now THAT'S a commitment, in this Dork's book.

I am such an idiot...

I thought my fridge was on the fritz today.

Here's what it looks like on the outside. You might say it's cluttered; I find it entertaining. There's loads of reading material here. And cool magnets from fun places I've been. And postcards showing places I like. And cool artwork on the right there from the Queen of Cheese, not to mention the fine works of some very young friends of mine.

• Anyway. I noticed that the water and OJ I poured for myself this morning was a bit on the tepid side, as was the milk for my cereal. I thought perhaps it just seemed warm because my whole apartment was warm. And I was warm.

• Remember how I was whining about how cold I was not long ago? Yeah, well, now I'm sweating my chi chi's off. These old buildings aren't very well insulated, and we're having a nice little warm spell. Which means my apartment becomes like a terrarium, and gets a little toastier than I'd like. It makes sleeping challenging. But I digress...
• 
  Then I started to worry that perhaps my fridge was actually dying. I could still hear the motor running, but it wasn't as loud as usual. I had no idea what to do about it, and I had to get to work, so I hoped for the best.
• I'm not sure what made me open my freezer this evening... Oh! Yes, I do. I was getting a couple of pieces of bread so I could make some toast for dinner (don't ask) and I noticed that some of the frozen fish I just bought was starting to thaw out.

• Here's the inside of the freezer. Yes, there's more vodka behind that nearly empty bottle on the left. Are you surprised?
  
• Quelle horreur! I just bought a bunch of fish and the last thing I needed was to have it all spoil on me now.
• Then I moved the fish in question and the freezer engine suddenly got much louder, and I felt a blast of cold air. Seems that when I went into the freezer last night, I cleverly rearranged things so that I blocked the vent or something along those lines.

Idiot....!

(say that in a Napoleon Dynamite voice)

• At least I didn't lose any fish. Whew.

• Hey, aren't these pretty?

It's the bouquet that's been brightening up my living room for the past few days. It's so pretty I just had to share.*

*yes, i bought it myself.

Challenge accepted!

This one's for you, Nomadshan...

Look how similar the poses are! (Mine and Shan's, I mean.) I also have a giant gap between my front teeth here, but you can't really see it.

I think I was about 6 years old. I was costumed to dance the part of a strawberry soda in my ballet school's recital.

How do sodas dance, exactly? I couldn't tell you. But that little girl in the picture could.

Of COURSE...

It's been a weird couple of days. Busy busy busy, with little to show for all that busy-ness. Had to go to a long meeting yesterday, which kept me from getting some things done. Woke up early today and couldn't get back to sleep, so I've been dragging all day.

But I got a couple of really great pieces of news late in the day, including a nod from a Very Important Person. Seems I've finally made a good impression on said VIP. And the other great piece of news pleased this person. Greatly*. So the day ended on a high note. Yay!

Then I get home and see that I had a small piece of spinach stuck in my teeth when I talked to said VIP.

Thanks a bunch**, universe...


*how many times can I use "great" in one post?
**just not a bunch of spinach, please.

Ummm...

• No. I do not want oversexed shoes.

• And I certainly don't want my feet having a better sex life than I do.

Worst... slogan... ever!

*umm.... i have two pairs of boots made by these people. i might not have purchased the second ones had i seen this slogan on the box the first ones came in...

Judgment day...

In hula class lately, as we've finished learning the dance we've been working on for a few months, Kumu (not his name; it means master, teacher. see, you get a language lesson here too!) has been splitting us up, directing half of us to dance while the other half watches. This can be unnerving, especially if you end up in the front row of your group, as I often do, simply by virtue of where you stand in class.

It's helpful to have danced on stage many times in the past. I've long known how to employ the technique of looking just over the heads of your "audience" so you don't get hung up in the "omigod, people are watching me, don't screw this up" thought pattern. You lose focus if you start watching people watch you. I do, anyway.

But I found myself doing something while I was watching the other group dance: judging. I was starting to feel pretty good about myself, realizing that I knew the steps better than many of my classmates, and noted that some of them were simply doing them wrong. I also realized why I feel like I'm getting such a great workout in this class, aside from my less-than-desirable fitness level: many of my classmates are not going all-out when they dance.

And then I felt terrible, when I realized what I was doing. This class is supposed to be for fun. We're all there for different reasons. It's not a competition. Why was I sitting there comparing myself to my classmates? Not only is it against the whole concept of Aloha Spirit and sister/brotherhood Kumu talks about, it's just petty.

Then it occurred to me that we do this in life all the time. We compare the way we live our lives with those around us, our appearance, our relationships, our possessions, our careers... everything.

It doesn't seem healthy to me. It leads to envy. Or smug superiority. Life's not a competition either (at least, it's not supposed to be), so why do we do this to ourselves? Why can't we just focus on our own stuff?

Or is this just natural? Is it something that's innate to the human condition and can't be helped?

I dunno. I'm gonna try, though.

Cool beans...

Cute, ain't it?

That is the fine work of my dear friend Kim. Aside from being one of the funniest people around, she's a talented artiste.

That design -- and many other cool designs -- are featured on mugs, magnets and tiles that YOU can own! Yes, YOU!

Click here to check out her work. And, perhaps, purchase something cool.

In case you can't tell, Kim's a coffee fiend, so the goodies there now are all coffee-themed, but there will be more to come very soon and I'll let you know when there's new stuff to enjoy.

Now I just need to figure out what I want first...